Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts

05/22/2026

05/08/2026

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

04/27/2026

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

04/16/2026

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

04/14/2026

Guitarist Tony Lombardozzi, pianist Noah Baerman, drummer Pheeroan akLaff, bassist Roy Wiseman, and vocalist Giacomo Gates rehearse "A Felicidade" by Antônio Carlos Jobim, Baerman's new tune "Cardinal Wisdom," and "Four" by Miles Davis for the Wesleyan Jazz Faculty Concert. These musicians and teachers from Wesleyan University’s Music Department will be joined by their colleagues Eric Charry on guitar, Alcee Chriss on piano and organ, Jay Hoggard on vibraphone, and Darius Jones on alto saxophone to perform together for the first time in various combinations as the featured artists of the 23rd annual Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra Weekend on Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 7pm in Crowell Concert Hall. The concert will open with a 45-minute set performed by members of the Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra, directed by Hoggard. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3QkIAkq


Noah Baerman Music
Giacomo Gates
Antonio Carlos Jobim - Verve Records
Miles Davis
Darius Jones

04/13/2026

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

03/27/2026

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.

03/18/2026

The Center for the Arts launched a new collaborative development residency program, “In Process,” which invites visiting artists to create and test new works. The series began with the first public showing of an excerpt from a new performance from choreographer Anh Vo. Learn more in the Wesleyan University Connection: https://bit.ly/4rHCHem


Wesleyan University Alumni
Perceptions Photography - Sandy Aldieri
Merce Cunningham
Gertrude Stein
Roulette
PARTICIPANT INC

02/27/2026

Now through Sunday, March 1, 2026 is the final weekend to view the pairing of Robert Lostutter’s paintings and drawings from the late 1960s onward with Kristi Cavataro’s recent stained-glass sculptures, including this new piece created for the Wesleyan University exhibition in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4cSr00r Photo by Dario Lasagni.


Wesleyan University Alumni

02/18/2026

Via The Boston Globe: Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond

"dArK oXyGen"

This immersive sonic dance installation and performance is being developed as part of an artist residency at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts. The breath-centered work is created by mayfield brooks, self-described as a “movement-based performance artist, vocalist, urban farmer, writer, and wanderer,” and the title refers to the process of oxygen production in the deepest ocean where no sunlight can reach. It taps brooks’ memories of a childhood singing Black gospel music and using the breath to move the body and voice. Feb. 20-21. $8. Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts Theater, Middletown, Conn.

Looking for something to do this weekend? Here are a few recommendations from Globe writers and critics, covering music, theater, comedy, museums, family events, and more.