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'62 Center at Williams College

The 2022-2023 Season

By: - Sep 12, 2022

The ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance unveiled its live, in-person performances celebrating diverse and challenging theatre, music, and dance programming for the Williams College community and beyond.

COVID-19 is still a present and evolving public health issue. As such, Williams College and the ’62 Center are keeping a close eye on the latest state and federal recommendations. We hope to welcome community members to all our performances; however, the College's policies, based on a preponderance of caution for the health and safety of our students, faculty, staff, artists, and community members, might require us to change on short notice. For current policies being enforced, please visit the ’62 Center’s website.

We will also articulate the current health and safety guidelines in our newsletter and pre-show emails. Please look out for these updates. Thank you for your patience and support.

We are excited to recommit to our mission to connect a global community of performing artists with the curriculum of Williams. We are excited by the leadership of artists, both faculty and visiting artists, to challenge traditional forms, engage in the larger political dialogue, and allow students and community members to explore diverse modes of expression.  Not content to merely present popular work, the professional performances, workshops, and student productions are designed to invite the entire Berkshires community to engage, debate, and celebrate the experience of both witnessing and creating live art.

 

The visiting artist CenterSeries has four productions this season. On September 30th and October 1st, Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral will perform Andares. Woven from ancestral myths and traditional music,  Andares shines a light on a range of realities - land usurpation, widespread violence, community resistance - which indigenous people continue to face at the crossroads of old and new ways of life.

Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral is a theatre ensemble dedicated to creating original works about the narratives and theatricalities of Mexico’s indigenous people, touching with keen, artistic sensibility themes of great social, cultural, and human value. Makuyeika was formed after an extensive search across the country’s indigenous communities by director Héctor Flores Komatsu, an inaugural recipient of The Julie Taymor World Theatre Fellowship. A trailer can be viewed here. Tickets can be purchased here.

“An affecting exploration of the mythic past and fraught present of Indigenous peoples in Mexico” —The New York Times

On October 15, Reggie Wilson and the Fist and Heel Performance Group bring POWER back to the Berkshires. Choreographer and "kinesthetic anthropologist" Reggie Wilson conjures the secret histories of 1800s Black Shaker communities, many led by women. Limited documentation exists on specific Black Shaker practices, but Wilson’s choreographic research gives form to beliefs shared by Shakers and African diasporic belief systems in a dual-Godhead, racial and gender equality, fractal movement patterns, and advancements in technology as acts of worship. Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group is a Brooklyn-based dance company that investigates the intersections of cultural anthropology and movement practices and believes in the potential of the body as a valid means for knowing.

“Wilson’s variation on the theme is fueled by his discovery that there were black Shakers once upon a time” —Boston Globe

A new installation work by Andrew Schneider kicks off the Spring semester. NOWISWHENWEARE (The Stars) is an immersive, interactive, light and sound installation guiding each visitor through an internal monologue about grief, community, and the one-way-ness of time. It is ultimately a story about you.

It is first a guided narrative, then an interactive exploration.

Visitors are invited to explore a warehouse-sized room that will eventually be filled with over 10,000 individually controlled points of light. Using the 3D sound-spatializing technology Wave Field Synthesis and a room-sized tracking system, the technology behind this project allows us to pinpoint the precise location of every star and place a voice, a memory, a fleeting whisper at each - heard only there and nowhere else. The memories are community members’ stories, memories, thoughts, and recollections - recorded where the project is currently housed. 

 

The experience will last 25 - 35 minutes. Ticket information can be found here.

“An electrifying mission into the distant galaxies of the self. ?????”  —TimeOut Melbourne

Soloedad Barrio & Noce Flamenca rounds out the visiting artists series with a special preview performance of Goya on April 8th. In collaboration with WCMA, the '62 Center is supporting the development of a new project by the acclaimed dance company Noche Flamenca. Through flamenco, they are xamining the many ways in which the prolific Spanish artist responded to the turbulent social and political changes occurring in the world around him. Goya will ultimately be an evening-length work of approximately 10-12 vignettes, integrating live performance, video projection, and possibly puppetry and masks, created respectively by designer S. Benjamin Farrar, videographer Jesse Rodkin, artist/sculptor Mary Frank, and puppeteer, Basil Twist. Noche Flamenca, led by Soledad Barrio, will first come to campus in October for guided study with works from WCMA's collection. A sample of Noche Flamenca's work can be seen here. Ticket information can be found here.

“The best part of Noche Flamenca’s flamenco musical Antigona—and it is full of astonishing parts—is the way that it tosses you between states of delight.” —TimeOut New York 

The CenterSeries performances are made possible by the W. Ford Schumann ’50 Endowment for the Arts and the Lipp Family Fund for Performing Artists.

Critical to the ’62 Center’s mission of bringing academic context to our productions is Integrated Programming.  Each CenterSeries production will feature panels, movies, lectures, workshops, and master classes. All of these events are free and open to the public. Please see our website for the latest details. http://62center.williams.edu

All the world is a stage for the Williams College Theatre Department. The Department continues to engage its students and audiences by offering a spectrum of productions, continually exploring the boundaries of performance. Besides lectures and workshops, the Department will focus on two main productions and Honors Thesis performances. Kara Hadden '23 begins the season, October 28 & 29, with a new musical still in creation. Hadden is creating a dragged-up musical-in-progress about devotion, brokenness, and who we see as humans. November 17 to 20, guest director Emmanuelle Delpech will present Theatre: A Love Story by Caridad Svich.

Delpech and Svich will invite audiences and the actors to reflect, question, and embrace the beauty and horror of our world. What was once theater’s impact on our humanity? What have we done to destroy the simple ways of telling stories? Why would we rather embrace the clean, odorless, shiny, sticky bodiless ghost of capitalism? This play is not a play. It is a journey of which we are all a part to dismantle our hypocrisy and celebrate our desire for love. In the Spring, May 4-6, Williams' Assistant Professor of Theatre, Shanti Pillai will direct in collaboration Williams' Professor of Theatre, Amy Holzapfel, as Dramturg will bring to life the Shakuntala Project. The Recognition of Shakuntala is a poetic masterpiece by Kalidasa, written in the golden age of Sanskrit theatre, sometime around the 4th century CE, and based on a tale from the epic, the Mahabharata. In this contemporary adaptation, we invite our audiences into an immersive experience as we explore themes of love, memory, betrayal, and forgiveness.

The Williams College Dance Department will devote its performances this season to ensemble work. In a gathering of the Department's ensembles, they will present new choreography-based collaborative work across the Department. Artistic Directors Sandra L. Burton, Erica Dankmeyer, Tendai Muparutsa, and Janine Parker, along with Sankofa Presidents Nathan Hu '23 and Obi Nwako '24, and Drill Sergeants Rachel Jiang '23 and Ryan Joseph '23, present their annual performance titled Pachedu, December 8th & 9th. They will build off their work in the fall with a spring Pachedu performance on May 11th and 12th. Rounding out the dance performance season is the always-sold-out Zambezi Dance Party, on February  17th and 18th, directed by Tendai Muparutsa.

This is just a taste of what to expect this season as we thr
ow our arms wide open to the arts on campus and the Berkshires community.  A complete calendar follows, and for tickets, prices, and additional information, please call (413) 597-2425 (Tuesday through Saturday 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm) or visit http://62center.williams.edu/

 

September

  • Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral, Andares.
    • September 30th, CenterStage, 8 PM, $10/$3 (students)

October

  • Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral, Andares.
    • October 1st, CenterStage, 8 PM, $10/$3 (students)
  • Reggie Wilson, POWER
    • October 15th, MainStage, 8 PM, $10/$3 (students)
  • Theatre Honors performance: Kara Hadden '23
    • October 28th & 29th, 7:30 PM, Directing Studio, Free

November

  • THEATRE: A LOVE STORY, by Caridad Svich
    • November 17th-19th, 7:30 PM, Adams Memorial Theatre, $3
    • November 20th, 2:00 PM, Adams Memorial Theatre, $3

December

  • Dance performance: PACHEDU, (F)ALL Ensembles
    • December  8th & 9th, 7:00 PM, Mainstage, $3

February

April

  • Visiting Artist: Soloedad Barrio & Noce Flamenca, Goya
    • April 8th, 8:00 PM, Mainstage, $10/$3 (students)

May

  • Theatre performance: The Shakuntala Project
    • May 4th-6th, 7:30 PM, Centerstage, $3
  • Dance performance: PACHEDU, Spring All Ensembles
    • May  11th & 12th, 7:00 PM, Mainstage, $3

 



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