Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts

Wesleyan University has named its black box theater in the new Fries Arts Building the Lin-Manuel Miranda Theater, in honor of Lin-Manuel Miranda '02, Hon. '15. https://bit.ly/4wuur50

inDANCE performed the world premiere of the work "ROWDIES IN LOVE" by award-winning choreographer Hari Krishnan, Professor of Dance and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Co-Chair and Professor of Global South Asian Studies, at Wesleyan University in December 2024.

The company returns to the Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob's Pillow in Becket, Massachusetts this weekend (Friday, May 1 through Sunday, May 3, 2026), where the work was first incubated.

Performers include Visiting Professor of Dance Eury German ’16 and Spenser Stroud ’22, with Lighting Design by Assistant Professor of the Practice in Dance Chelsie McPhilimy.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/3OwHu4k


Wesleyan University Alumni
Indance

The 23rd annual Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra Weekend will feature the first-ever joint faculty concert with nine musicians and teachers from the Music Department on Saturday, April 25, 2026.

Two of the artists—drummer Pheeroan akLaff and guitarist Tony Lombardozzi—are retiring from teaching private lessons this academic year after several decades at Wesleyan University.

“Everybody [in the concert] is a jazz musician, and focuses on teaching that aspect of African American-derived music at Wesleyan,” said vibraphonist and Professor of Music and African American Studies Jay Hoggard ’76, MA ’91.

Performers include Noah Baerman on piano, Giacomo Gates on vocals, Roy Wiseman on bass, Darius Jones on alto saxophone, Eric Charry on guitar, and Alcee Chriss on piano and organ.

Read more in the Wesleyan Connection: https://bit.ly/4868QVW


Wesleyan University Alumni
National Museum of American History
Mary Halvorson
MGMT
Noah Baerman Music
CT State Housatonic
The New School

A Letter from Kiara Benn '20, Assistant Director for Programming and Assistant Curator for Performing Arts, Center for the Arts

Last year, artist Jonathan González sent me their new book, "Ways to Move: Black Insurgent Grammars," asking me to sit with it and notice what surfaced. As I sat with the text, which depicted assemblages drawn from González’s life, histories of placemaking through methods of refusal, and future imaginings of convening, I found myself returning again and again to González’s attention to land and water as sites of history, rupture, and possibility.

Those feelings will shape a day of gathering, listening, and movement on Friday, April 24, 2026. Rather than situating the program in a “room,” we chose to situate ourselves on a piece of land with a history of resistance, and to sit with our surroundings and the echoes of those who have cultivated Black spaces, allowing place itself to become an active collaborator.

At the Cross Street Dance Studio and within the Beman Triangle, you are invited to consider how histories of Black placemaking, both intentional and improvised, continue to resonate. These sites hold layered narratives of community and care, reminding us that land is not fixed, but alive with memory and ongoing transformation. In this way, the day rejects singularity. It asks us to shift away from binaries and toward multiplicity: to notice what happens when we gather across time, space, and discipline.

The progression of the day is an attempt to construct place together, and propose a map towards resistance. Each event is a step toward placemaking together with the hope that when we leave the place we’ve created together, that it continues on with each of us. These include a reading and performance workshop led by González that invites attendees to engage with the land through the lens of his book and embodied reflective prompts, and a conversation between González and Darius Jones, Assistant Professor of Music, as they think through their respective practices as insurgent propositions.

I hope you will join us for this unfolding, a convergence where the act of coming together becomes, itself, a form of possibility: https://bit.ly/4cohJLG

Each spring, Wesleyan University's Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery features work by the graduating class of seniors in the Art Studio Program of the Department of Art and Art History. Works on view and exhibited artists change on a weekly basis. Senior Thesis Exhibitions Week One features works by Matt Aljian, Quinn Frankel, Vansh Kapoor, Lukas Shvetsov, and Tita, on display through Sunday, March 29, 2026.