Like the first signs of spring, this month’s arts opportunities are full of purpose, breaking through in new and unexpected ways. From a fresh take on Shakespeare’s The Tempest to the immersive dance and visual art experience of hogtied, these five things in arts are not to be missed.
Debra Yepa-Pappan: Pueblo Futurist
Photo from the Krannert Art Museum website.
In conjuction with the recently opened To Know the Fire: Pueblo Women Potters and the Shaping of History exhibition, KAM is hosting an artist talk with Chigao-based multi-disciplinary artist Debra Yepa-Pappan. A community engagement professional, and the co-founder of the Center for Native Futures, Yepa-Pappan, “is committed to changing inaccurate representations of Native people, and advocates for the inclusion of Native first voice and perspectives.”
Debra Yepa-Pappan: Pueblo Futurist
March 10th, 5:30 p.m.
Krannert Art Museum
Lower level auditorium, KAM 62
500 E Peabody, Champaign
The Tempest
Photo from the Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company Facebook page.
Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company’s fresh take on Shakespeare’s tale of magic and manipulation promises a evening of comedy and contemplation. The Tempest traffics in themes of betrayal and revenge and has been directed to center issues of colonization and famly values. Under the co-direction of Latrelle Bright and Misty Martin, this production promises to be a signification one. Plus, you’ll see CUTC President John Tilford return to the stage as Gonzalo.
The Tempest
March 10th-12th, 7 p.m.
March 12-13th, 2 p.m.
Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company
Parkland’s Second Stage
2400 W Bradley Ave., Champaign
Get ticket online
Public Conversations: Printmaking in Public
Image (cropped) by William Estrada. From the University YMCA website.
With C-U’s vibrant printmaking scene, this exhibition of hand screen printed and mixed media posters is a particularly welcome one. William Estrada, a Chicago-based “arts educator and multidisciplinary artist, critically re-examines public and private spaces,” with the goal of engaging in radical imagination.” Here, Estrada invites participants to “explore how contemporary art practices can engage research and activism to plan, develop, and design artwork that’s meant to inform and mobilize communities.”
William Estrada
Public Conversations: Printmaking in Public
January 27th-March 25th
Art at the Y
Murphy Gallery
University YMCA
1001 S Wright St., Champaign
The Allure of Light and Shadow
Image from the Springer Cultural Center website.
In his artist statement David Michael Smith writes:
“I have been around the world, and everywhere I have found inspiration for painting My friends and extended family provide me with wonderful beaches, fabulous gardens, and views both urban and rural.”
Through this lens, the online exhibition and accompanying artist talk can be seen as a visual travel log, filled with memories and moods. However, for me, the exhibit also functions as a masterclass in capturing light and shadow, and all that they can embody.
The Allure of Light and Shadow
February 26th – March 26th
Hosted by the Springer Cultural Center
Free to view online
hog ranch, hogwash, or putting lipstick on a pig
Photo from the Krannert Art Museum website.
This writer loves a good interdisciplinary collab, and this immersive dance and art experience promises to be a great one. Dance at Illinois’ Kayt MacMaster, along with dramaturg Sarah Marks Mininsohn, composer Ken Beck, and director Rachel Rizzuto “unearths and exalts the feminine and the unruly, the combination of which will be situated bawdily inside the museum.”
Inspired by the “lives and legends of cowgirls and showgirls on the American frontier, ” hogtied “explores unbelievalbe exaggeration, solo travel, and self-legendizing as feminist acts of resistance.”
Employing scavenger hunts, museum audio tours and burlesque historical reinactments, MacMaster “transofrms a maze of galleries into a trail that follows the ever-sprawling mythological and geographical borderline of the American west.”
hog ranch, hogwash, or putting lipstick on a pig
March 24th, + March 31st, 6:30 p.m.
March 26th + April 2nd, 2 p.m.
Krannert Art Museum
500 S E Peabody Dr., Urbana
Tickets are free, register here