Upcoming Workshops and Talks at Eugene Lang College

Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts has announced the choreographer, dancer and arts advocate Blondell Cummings as its Fall 2008 Visiting Artist. Blondell Cummings will lead a three-week workshop series, '30/30 Meditations on the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights,' which will conclude with a site specific performance/installation on October 7 at 5:00 p.m. Lang will also celebrate the second year of the public program series, ART WORK, which features experimental performance and new media artists. This includes the dramatist Charles L. Mee on October 10 and the director and playwright Pavol Liska and Kelly Cooper on November 6. For more information on these events, the public can visit www.newschool.edu/events.

As visiting artist, Cummings will focus on The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in a series of interdisciplinary workshops with New School students. Using observation and research materials from personal, local and global perspectives, human rights issues will be explored through traditional and non-traditional approaches, partnerships and collaborations. The three-week series will conclude with a final site specific performance/installation on October 7 in the Skybridge Art Space (66 West 12th Street, Third Floor) that is open to public.

"Throughout her career, Cummings has pushed the boundaries to shed light on the commonalities that bring us together as artists and as people," said Neil Gordon, the dean of Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts. "Now in its third year, our visiting artists program has enabled our students to see firsthand how artists can work collaboratively to address important issues through their work. This is at the core of our arts curriculum."

The Lang College curriculum integrates the arts disciplines of theater, dance, music, and visual arts into a single course of study that provides students with maximum exposure to different kinds of art, and gives a social and intellectual context to the art they are studying and the role collaboration plays in its creation. Each semester, a distinguished artist is invited to join the Lang community by leading public programs, workshop series, performances, and master classes. Previous visiting artists include Ralph Lemon, Martha Rosler, Marni Nixon, and John Jesurun.

"Eugene Lang College takes a truly innovative approach to teaching the arts, and I am looking forward to working with the students," said Blondell. "The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights provides a wealth of issues that we can explore in what I hope will be an enlightening experience for the students and for myself as an artist and advocate."

In 1978, Cummings formed the Cycle Arts Foundation, a multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural arts collaborative that focus on contemporary issues-social, political and personal-to bring the artist and audience to the poetics of the human condition and build community. Her work is universal as she explores differences and similarities in the lives of diverse peoples. Cummings' choreography clearly expresses her experiences as an African-American woman, encompassing a worldview in which African-American cultural practices are simply one kind of the many that make up the world.

In addition to the workshop series with Cummings, Lang College also presents a public program series, ART WORK, which brings to the school artists working in experimental performance and new media. Bonnie Marranca, a professor of theater at Lang College, curates the series.

On October 10, 2008 at 6:00p.m. Charles L. Mee will speak at The New School (Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor).  Charles L. Mee is a distinguished contemporary historian and dramatist. He is celebrated for his radical "re-makings" of the Greek classics in a contemporary idiom. His plays include 'bobrauschenbergamerica,' directed by Anne Bogart for the BAM Next Wave Festival, 'Iphigenia 2.0,' part of the recent signature season, and 'Vienna: Lusthaus,' directed by Martha Clarke at the New York Theatre Workshop. Mee has also written several books, including 'Meeting at Postdam,' 'The Genius of the People,' 'The History Plays,' and 'A Nearly Normal Life.'

On November 6, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. Pavol Liska and Kelly Cooper will speak at The New School (Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor).  Director, Pavol Liska and playwright, Kelly Cooper are two of the founders of the exciting new experimental company, the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, which won the Obie Award for its highly-successful and very original production of the four-hour long 'No Dice.' The company is known for its highly eccentric performances styles and new forms of writing. Both Pavol Liska and Kelly Cooper are admired for his unconventional and original work on classic texts.