Artspeaks

“A.S. Byatt is a storyteller who could keep a sultan on the edge of his throne for a thousand and one nights.” —The New York Times Book Review

Booker Prize winner Dame A.S. Byatt presents “Soul, Body, and Psyche” a lecture about the changing forms of construction of ‘characters’ in fiction — how characters are made up and how they relate to the beliefs of the world they find themselves in. The lecture is followed by a moderated conversation with Maud Ellmann, the Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Professor in the Development of the Novel in English. More Information

“In addition to being a composer-trombonist of exceptional ability, technique, style, and inspiration, Lewis has become an artist whose paintbrush is software, but whose medium is a relatively unfamiliar one, that of computer-human interaction in improvisation.” — David L. Wessel, Director, Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT), University of California at Berkeley

Composer, trombonist, and Columbia University scholar George Lewis returns home to Chicago for an evening of music and conversation that explores the relationship between humans and machines, musicians and their instruments, improvisation, social responsibility, and agency with the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble, premier European free jazz pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and Arnold I. Davidson, the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. More Information

“Mark Morris is a dancemaker and a spellbinder. That is enough to make him transparently a symbol of his times.” —Arlene Croce, The New Yorker

Director/choreographer Mark Morris engages in conversation with Princeton musicologist Simon Morrison about “Modernism in Music and Dance,” their collaboration on Prokofiev’s original 1935 version of Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare, Morris’ residency with students at the University of Chicago, and the Mark Morris Dance Group’s upcoming performances at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, February 25-27, 2011. More Information

“Mr. Hwang’s imagination [is] one of the most striking to emerge in the American theater in this decade” —Frank Rich, The New York Times

Writer/producer David Henry Hwang and Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater in New York, engage in a conversation about their craft, including the creative development of Hwang’s upcoming production of Chinglish at the Goodman Theatre. More Information