Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Arts

Arts Photo of a group of musicians rehearsing.

New Latin American Ensemble diversifies musical offerings at Illinois

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new ensemble is helping to diversify the repertoire of music that is performed by the School of Music at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Latin American Ensemble plays a broad range of Latin American music from Mexico and throughout Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The ensemble was started […]

Arts Photo of a group of dancers on stage in colorful clothing.

Illinois performing arts programs taking the stage downtown

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Dance and Lyric Theatre students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will have a change of scenery when they perform for the first time at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign. The two programs usually stage performances at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, but they’ll move to the downtown venue for […]

Arts Photo of a Japanese black ink painting showing waves crashing and a tree on the coast thrashing in the wind.

Krannert Art Museum exhibition explores suibokuga and watercolor paintings by Shozo Sato

 CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A Krannert Art Museum exhibition features paintings by Shozo Sato, the founder of Japan House and an emeritus professor of theatre and of art at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, that explore landscapes of the United States, floral motifs and memories of postwar Japan. In examining 20th and 21st century work by […]

Arts Triptych of images, including a painting with bright Northwest Coast graphics, a hanging scuplture made of suspended rice paper kites and a triptych of images in the colors of stoplights.

Krannert Art Museum exhibition examines how pattern helps make sense of the world

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Pattern can both direct our actions and help us interpret our experiences. A new exhibition at Krannert Art Museum, “Pattern and Process,” asks viewers to consider how artists use pattern to understand the world. “The exhibition includes a broad range of works by artists using pattern in very different ways, but I […]

Arts Diptych image of two paintings of brilliantly colored cranes, one in a green landscape with pastel mushrooms and the other in a grey, devastated landscape of rubble.

Exhibition of art professor’s work examines human impulses, culture and the environment

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The mockup of an exaggeratedly feminine bedroom, with its pink walls and fuzzy pink comforter, appears to be a cozy space for a pre-teen girl. But a look inside the open drawer of the nightstand reveals a small diorama of a polluted brownfield site. And the monster under the bed is in […]

Expert viewpoints Headshot of Abbas Aminmansour

Why are so many tall and supertall buildings being built?

Tall, supertall (heights of 300 meters or 984 feet or taller) and even megatall (at least 600 meters or 1,968 feet) buildings are being added to city skylines around the world. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign architecture professor Abbas Aminmansour specializes in the design of steel and reinforced concrete structures and of tall buildings. He is […]

Arts Photo of a Black man with a graying goatee dancing with outstretched arms, while several female dancers with raised arms dance in the background.

Four women choreographers to present at Studiodance 2023

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Four women choreographers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign dance department will present work at Studiodance 2023 examining toxic environments, biases and assumptions, new motherhood and the resilience of women. Studiodance 2023 is Jan. 26-28 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. A livestreamed performance of an invited dress rehearsal is available […]

Arts Photo of a life-sized cast of a man's body, standing against the sheared-off side of a large vase and decorated with various patterns and colors.

Reinvented decorative arts gallery at Krannert Art Museum tells diverse stories

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Krannert Art Museum has completed a transformation of its Moore Gallery of Decorative Arts that highlights several new acquisitions and the diverse stories of art-making they tell, while examining histories of decorative arts collecting by museum donors and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The centerpiece of “Well-designed Beauty: Trade, Technology, and Decorative […]

Arts Headshot of Paul Hardin Kapp

Architecture professor’s book examines cultural tourism that began in Depression-era Mississippi

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Seeking to support their city’s economy during the Great Depression, the women of Natchez, Mississippi, developed one of the first cultural tourism sites in the U.S., centered around the city’s antebellum architecture. In doing so, they created an image of the Old South as grand mansions and gracious living. Paul Hardin Kapp, […]

Arts Photo of Zakir Hussain and Niladri Kumar, both dressed in white robes, sitting onstage. Hussain is playing the tabla and Kumar is holding a sitar.

Tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, renowned sitar player Niladri Kumar performing at Krannert Center

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Zakir Hussain, known as the preeminent tabla musician currently playing the Indian hand drums, will perform with revolutionary sitar player Niladri Kumar at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. While the two esteemed musicians have played together many times, this is the first time they’ve toured as a duo. Hussain and Kumar […]

Arts Photo of Rochelle Sennet

Pianist Rochelle Sennet, Sinfonia da Camera to perform work by Pulitzer Prize-winning Black composer

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Pianist Rochelle Sennet and Sinfonia da Camera will perform a work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker that has not been played live in concert since the 1970s. Sennet and Sinfonia conductor Ian Hobson chose Walker’s “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra” to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Walker’s birth. The Walker piece […]

Arts Photo of dancers on a stage, two seen from the front and two from the back, wearing khaki pants and t-shirts or tank tops. They have both feet off the ground and their arms outstretched along their sides.

October Dance features premieres of dances from diverse perspectives

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — October Dance will feature the premieres of dances choreographed by three new faculty members, a graduate student and the head of the dance department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The performances will be Oct. 13-15 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, with a livestreamed performance available online Oct. 12. The […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010