The Durham Fair Sept. 25, 26 & 27

thumbnailCA1QQUSWCheck out the LARGEST volunteer fair in North America and the LARGEST agricultural fair  inConnecticut this weekend.  The Durham Fair, right next door to Middletown, offers amazing rides, awesome fair food, live entertainment, and all the other exhibits found at your county and state aggie fairs.  It is an experience you don’t want to miss.

The fair is about 6.5 miles from campus.  Go down High St. until it turns into Rte. 17 and continue until you get to the fairgrounds.  Got to http://www.durhamfair.com/ for more information and directions.

 Blake Shelton, Animals, Shopping, Fair Food, Penning & Pulling, Tractors, The Guess Who, Giant Pumpkins, Shows, Demos, Bands, Kids Games, Midway, Competitive Exhibits, Farm Museum and more!

FYM: Stephen Petronio Dance Group

Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts Presents In conjunction with First Year Matters
Feet to the Fire:  H2O, Seeking Solutions

Stephen Petronio Dance Group
I Drink the Air Before Me

Petronios Dancers

“…an instantly recognizable style…fresh and unpredictable…infused with emotional texture and wit…”
–New York Times on the Stephen Petronio Dance Group

Student Tickets $8
When: Friday & Saturday, September 25 & 26, 8pm
Where: CFA Theater, Wesleyan University

 What: Wesleyan’s Breaking Ground Dance Series opens its 10th Anniversary Season with the Stephen Petronio Dance Group, which is celebrating its 25th Anniversary Season. I Drink the Air Before Me is a sweeping evening-length work inspired by storms, both atmospheric and internal, and the power of extreme weather in all its awesome transience. The production features costumes by Cindy Sherman and Adam Kimmel and a commissioned score by Nico Muhly with cameo appearances by the Middletown High School Chamber Choir. The dancers’ movements are signature Petronio: daring and virtuosic, inspired, in his words, by “the whirling, unpredictable, threatening, and thrilling forces of nature that overwhelm us.”

To see video of the group, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32E11kJbAZM
For more information & tickets, visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa or call 860-685-3355

Wes Creative Writing Faculty: Reading from their Work

Lisa Cohen, Deb Olin Unferth, and Elizabeth Willis

Wesleyan Creative Writing Faculty       Reading from their Work    

Wednesday, September 23    Russell House    Prose/Poetry 8 p.m.

L.CohenLISA COHEN’s biography of three neglected twentieth century figures — the eccentric scholar Esther Murphy, the fan and collector Mercedes de Acosta, and the fashion writer and icon Madge Garland — will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.  Her essays have appeared in journals including Ploughshares, Fashion Theory, Bookforum, The Village Voice, GLQ, and The Boston Review.

D. UnferthDEB OLIN UNFERTH is the author of a collection of stories, Minor Robberies, and a novel, Vacation, both published by McSweeney’s.  Her work has appeared in Harpers, 3rd Bed Fence, and other publications.  She has received a Pushcart Prize, a Creative Capital Grant from the Warhol Foundation, and in 2009 the Cabell First Novelist Award. She joins Wesleyan’s English department this year.

E. WillisELIZABETH WILLIS is the Shapiro-Silverberg Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan. She is the author of four books of poetry: Second Law, The Human Abstract, Turneresque, and Meteoric Flowers.  Her work has been selected for the National Poetry Series. Awards for her poetry include the Boston Review Prize and fellowships from the Howard Foundation, the Walter N. Thayer Foundation for the Arts, and the California Arts Council. 

A reception will follow.   Sponsored by the English  Department, the Shapiro Creative Writing Center, and the Wesleyan Writing Programs.

Exhibition: Emergency Response Studio — Opening today!

 

Wesleyan’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery Presents
the Opening Reception for

Paul Villinski: Emergency Response Studio

Friday, September 11, 5–7pm
Exhibition Runs September 12–November 8

When: Friday, September 11, 5–7pm; Artist Talk at 5:30pm

Where: Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University (283 Washington Terrace in Middletown)

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About the Performance:
Emergency Response Studio was inspired by artist Villinski’s visit to post-Katrina New Orleans in August 2006. He wished he could transport his studio from New York to the Lower Ninth Ward to create work in response to the conditions he found. Instead he created Emergency Response Studio by playfully rethinking and transforming a 30-foot Gulfstream Cavalier trailer–virtually identical to the 50,000 trailers built by Gulfstream for FEMA–into a rolling, off-the-grid live/work space that can house displaced artists or allow visiting artists to “embed” in post-disaster settings. It will be installed on the Center for the Arts’ green and accompanied by an installation in Zilkha Gallery detailing Villinski’s construction process and featuring additional information on movable housing as well as green technology and building materials. Born in York, Maine in 1960, Villinski received a BFA with honors from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York in 1984.

Free Admission| Refreshments will be served.   For more information on the exhibition: call the Wesleyan Box Office at 860-685-3355 or visit www.wesleyan.edu/zilkha    For more information on Paul Villinski, visit:  http://www.paulvillinski.com