SPRING 2009

This spring, in addition to hosting artists in residence for the development and creation of exciting new works, EMPAC presents a bustling performance schedule, including the presentation of several commissioned pieces. Rensselaer Student Life events also will take place, including performances by RPI’s student musicians and artists, and concerts by world-renowned musicians. » Read More

The events and performances we have planned include performers from the seemingly disparate worlds of punk rock and academia, works that are intensely personal and works that are acutely global in their focus, themes from the bridging of the physical and the digital to the conceptual linkage between Western scientific thought and Buddhism. It encompasses DIY technology and dance, the latest innovations in the creation of the moving image, self-taught animation, the aesthetics of arena athletics, and more.

It all begins with Filmmaker Brent Green’s stop-motion explorations of a dark and idiosyncratic inner–or other–world, to the live accompaniment of music by Brendan Canty (Fugazi), Howe Gelb (Giant Sand) and Jim Becker (Califone). Composer- interdisciplinary artist Sean Griffin follows with an evening of “percussion theater” in the delightfully titled “Hitting Things, Saying Things.” Then early-music ensemble Quicksilver performs a concert highlighting the innovative, experimental aspects of the “nouve musiche” –the new music–of 17th-century Italy; celebrated musician-vocalist-composer-iconoclast Bobby McFerrin performs a solo show; Cathy Weis premiers dance works in which performers pair with technology, playfully testing the boundaries of the human and the electronic, the real and the imaginary; the film “Zidane” offers a poetic examination of professional sport as performance with a surround soundtrack by post-rock legends Mogwai. Courtesy of Student Life and the Office of the Provost, Bela Fleck will perform music with some of Africa’s most famous performers. In April, theorist and author Stephen Connor delivers “The Chronographer”, his EMPAC-commissioned text about time and the voice; and onedotzero’s “Adventures in the Moving Image” festival will fill our studios, theater and public spaces with moving images and sound in a weekend-long celebration of visual innovation and experimentation” ... and, believe it or not, that’s not all!

It’s a full spring with much to explore. We hope you will join us!

Johannes Goebel — Director, EMPAC



SPRING 2009 Calendar:

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Introducing Two New Series:

a glass hour

A lecture series devoted to exploring the topic of time from the diverse perspectives of media theorists, scientists, artists, historians, journalists and others. Taking a broadly interdisciplinary approach to this singular subject, the series will point to the elasticity of this pervasive topic.

01.22 — Georges Dreyfus

02.17 — Johannes Goebel

04.02 — Steven Connor

Unfiction

Unfiction is a film series presenting documentaries that exist beyond the boundaries between the genres of nonfiction and narrative film.

02.10 — Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse

02.27 — Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

03.19 — Unfiction on Safari

Student Life @ EMPAC:

Student Life

03.28 — Bela Fleck and the Africa Project

04.07 — Rensselaer Symphony Orchestra

04.18 — Rensselaer Music Association