presents SPRING 2020 SEASON
Most events take place on the Scripps College campus and are free and open to the public. Tickets are required. For tickets, information, and directions, visit scrippscollege.edu/scrippspresents or call (909) 607-8508. This spring we’re rethinking our world—from the body to the body politic. Cecile Richards will share perspectives from more than 12 years as president of Planned Parenthood and gives us insight into her new initiative, Supermajority, which focuses on women’s activism. Choreographer Alice Sheppard will challenge our assumptions about which bodies can dance and how. And social justice activist Sonya Renee Taylor will educate us on her groundbreaking The Body Is Not an Apology movement. Women who are defining the musical and literary canon for the 21st century will also take center stage.
THE VENUES
Balch Auditorium 1030 N. Columbia Avenue Claremont
Garrison Theater 241 E. Tenth Street Claremont
Hampton Room,
Indie rock icons Liz Phair and Ani DiFranco will talk gender in the music industry, and Gaby Moreno will help Scripps celebrate the 50th anniversary of Chicano Latino Student Affairs with a special concert in Garrison Theater.
Malott Commons 1030 N. Columbia Ave. Claremont
New Yorker essayist Jia Tolentino will discuss her acclaimed collection with the novelist and Mary Routt Chair in Creative Writing R.O. Kwon; National Book Award-winner Sarah M. Broom and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey will reflect on their shared literary preoccupation with New Orleans; and Susan Orlean will read and discuss her latest, The Library Book.
251 E. 11th Street Claremont
Join us to celebrate the bold and inspiring voices of our time!
Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery
Stomping Grounds L.A. 5453 Alhambra Avenue Los Angeles
SPRING SEASON AT-A-GLANCE JANUARY 1/21–2/28 From Screen to Studio: Crafting Persona Through Portraits 1/25–4/5 76th Ceramic Annual: Duality and Context 26 Beyoncé Mass 30 Roxanne Wilson Leader-in-Residence: Cecile Richards in Conversation FEBRUARY 2 Bessie Bartlett Frankel Chamber Music Festival: Aperture Duo 6 Where Good Souls Fear: Alice Sheppard 8–9 Haiti Earthquake 10th Anniversary Symposium 11 National Book Foundation Presents: Family Matters 13 Gaby Moreno in Concert 15 R.O. Kwon and Maureen Corrigan in Conversation 18 @Noon: Art Conservation with Ariana Makau 18 The Paris Review’s Emily Nemens in Conversation 20 @Noon: Poetry Reading with Billy-Ray Belcourt 22 True Witness: A Civil Rights Cantata 24 The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino in Conversation MARCH 3/2–4/4 A ltered States: Painting Myanmar in a Time of Transition and The Ideal Woman: Capturing the Transformation of Myanmar’s Feminine Identity 6 The Body is Not An Apology: Sonya Renee Taylor 7–8 Claremont Concert Orchestra: Saint-Saëns, Manuel de Falla, Arturo Márquez 10 @Noon: April Dávila 12 A Discussion with Jasbir Paur 24 Susan Orlean in Conversation 26 @Noon: Ifeona Fulani 26 Liz Phair and Ani DiFranco in Conversation APRIL 2–4 Safe and Sound 5 Con Gioia Early Music Ensemble 4/8–5/15 A Good Book Engages All the Senses: The Legacy of Judy Harvey Sahak and Denison Library 11 Lois Lowry in Conversation 17–18 Scripps Dances 2020 MAY 2–3
Claremont Concert Choir and Treble Singers and Claremont Concert Orchestra
Transform: Revolutionizing Worship with Beyoncé Mass DATE: Sunday, January 26 TIME: 10am VENUE: Garrison Theater This program celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and work and the 50th anniversary of the Office of Black Student Affairs and is supported in part by Scripps Presents, the Marian and Charles Holmes Performing Arts Endowment, and The Claremont Colleges.
The Roxanne Wilson Leader-in-Residence:
Cecile Richards in Conversation Twice listed in TIME magazine’s list of 100 Most Influential People in the World, Cecile Richards is a national leader for women’s rights and social and economic justice. As president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund for more than a decade, Richards worked to increase affordable access to reproductive health services. In 2019, Richards co-founded Supermajority, a political action group working to mobilize women voters.
DATE: Thursday, January 30 TIME: 7pm VENUE: Garrison Theater The Roxanne Wilson Leader-in-Residence brings to Scripps’ campus a woman who demonstrates leadership in both her professional life and service to her community and beyond. The endowment was established to recognize the significant contributions of Roxanne Wilson ’76 upon her retirement as chair of the Scripps College Board of Trustees.
Beyoncé Mass is a Christian worship service that uses the music and personal life of Beyoncé as a tool to foster an empowering conversation about Black women—their lives, their bodies, and their voices. This groundbreaking spiritual service, based on the scholarship of Rev. Yolanda Norton, the H. Eugene Farlough Chair of Black Church Studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary, connects multiple communities to inclusive spiritual traditions and broadens conceptions of faith and justice.
Photo credit Mengwen Cao
Photo credit Beverlie Lord
Where Good Souls Fear: Alice Sheppard DATE: Thursday, February 6 TIME: 7pm VENUE: Garrison Theater
“I was not supposed to be a dancer,” writes choreographer Alice Sheppard in the New York Times. But when disabled dancer Homer Avila dared her to take a dance class, she accepted his challenge. Now, the former medieval scholar is a preeminent voice at the intersection of disability, gender, and race. Her latest performance, Where Good Souls Fear, is an investigation of excess and minimalism, provoking questions about who or what is “too much.” Ranging from lyrical floorwork to an explosion of furious movement, Sheppard challenges what we think we know of propriety for Black women. Presented in partnership with: Good Trouble Makers + Downtown Dance & Movement, the Scripps College Humanities Institute, the Department of Dance, and supported by the Alexa Fullerton Hampton ’42 Fund
Photo credit Matt Valentine
Photo credit Adam Shemper
NBF Presents: Family Matters DATE: Tuesday, February 11 TIME: 6pm VENUE: Balch Auditorium
The National Book Foundation, Scripps Presents, and the Los Angeles Library Foundation jointly celebrate 2019 National Book Award winner Sarah M. Broom (The Yellow House) and former U.S. Poet Laureate and National Book Award longlister Natasha Trethewey (Monument) on their documentation of the stories, pain, and resilience of families in the American South. Moderated by Lisa Lucas, executive director of the National Book Foundation. Presented in partnership with: the National Book Foundation’s national event series, NBF Presents, the Los Angeles Public Library Foundation’s ALOUD Series, and supported by the Alexa Fullerton Hampton ’42 Fund
Gaby Moreno in Concert DATE: Thursday, February 13 TIME: 7pm VENUE: Garrison Theater
Novelist R.O. Kwon, author of the Los Angeles Times First Book Prize finalist The Incendiaries and 2020 Mary Routt Chair in Writing, joins Fresh Air’s book critic Maureen Corrigan for a conversation about dual literary loves: reading and writing.
TIME: 3:30pm VENUE: Balch Auditorium .
Photo credit Matt Valentine
Presented in partnership with: the Mary Routt Chair in Creative Writing and Scripps Office of Parent Engagement and Philanthropy and supported by the Alexa Fullerton Hampton ’42 Fund
DATE: Saturday, February 15
This program is presented in partnership with Claremont Graduate University’s LatinX Graduate Student Union and helps to commemorate the 50th anniversary of The Claremont College’s Chicano Latino Student Affairs.
Photo credit Smeeta Mahanti
R.O. Kwon and Maureen Corrigan in Conversation
Guatemala-born singersongwriter-producer and Grammy Award-winner Gaby Moreno brings her not-to-be missed, genredefying “Spanish folk-soul” to Scripps.
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The Paris Review’s Emily Nemens in Conversation DATE: Tuesday, February 18 TIME: 4:30pm VENUE: Hampton Room, Malott Commons Photo credit James Emmerman
The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino in Conversation Acclaimed as “the best young essayist at work in the U.S.,” it seems that there is no topic Jia Tolentino can’t cover. The New Yorker staffer tackles vaping, Shen Yun, the economy of marriage, and other vexing questions in her acclaimed essay collection Trick Mirror. Mary Routt Chair in Creative Writing R.O. Kwon joins her for a conversation. Presented in partnership with: the Mary Routt Chair in Creative Writing and supported by the Alexa Fullerton Hampton ’42 Fund
DATE: Monday, February 24 TIME: 7pm VENUE: Balch Auditorium
When she was appointed editor of the Paris Review, Emily Nemens stepped into one of the most luminous positions in American letters, editing today’s most talented writers. What the public may not have known is the wildly original literary voice she is in her own right. Join Nemens and Scripps Associate Professor of English Aaron Matz for a conversation about her highly anticipated new novel, The Cactus League, and the balance between the life of a writer and the demands of editing America’s paramount English-language literary magazine.
The Body Is Not an Apology: Sonya Renee Taylor DATE: Friday, March 6 TIME: 6pm VENUE: Balch Auditorium
Writer, spoken-word artist, social justice activist, and founder of The Body Is Not an Apology movement Sonya Renee Taylor dismantles some of our longest-held—and most insidious—body preoccupations, embracing instead a paradigm of “radical self-love for everybody and every body.” Presented in partnership with: Scripps Eating Disorder Alliance (SEDA), the Tiernan Field House, Scripps Communities of Resources and Empowerment (SCORE), and the Office of Student Engagement and supported by the Alexa Fullerton Hampton ’42 Fund
Susan Orlean in Conversation DATE: Tuesday, March 24 TIME: 7pm VENUE: Garrison Theater
Photo credit Noah Fecks
Susan Orlean is a consummate storyteller. From The Orchid Thief, her spellbinding examination of the esoteric world of flower selling in Florida, to Rin Tin Tin, a powerful account of the iconic Hollywood canine, Orlean has a knack for finding the most unusual characters. Her latest project has a beloved institution as its protagonist: the Los Angeles Public Library. The Library Book is a riveting investigation of the mysterious 1986 fire that nearly consumed the building and an impassioned reflection on the future of libraries in America. Presented in partnership with: Friends of the Claremont Library and supported in part by the Alexa Fullerton Hampton ’42 Fund
Safe and Sound Safe and Sound is a danced meditation on self-preservation and queer solidarity from Scripps Assistant Professor of Dance Kevin Williamson. In this timely blend of dance, film, music, and narration, four dancers resist aural acts of violence, seeking pleasure through grief and community in their frustration. As they morph through emotional states, plunging into abandon and sensuality, they generate erotic countermemories with the audience and each other. Presented in partnership with New Neighborhood
DATES: Thursday, April 2– Saturday, April 4 TIME: 8pm VENUE: Stomping Grounds L.A. TICKETS: $20 Available at Safeandsound dance.com Use discount code: scrippspresents
Lois Lowry in Conversation DATE: Saturday, April 11
Photo credit Rania Matar
Lois Lowry is the godmother of dystopian fiction. Before Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games and Veronica Roth’s TIME: Divergent series, Lowry’s The 3pm Giver was captivating readers. Winner of the 1994 Newbery VENUE: Medal, the book has sold Balch Auditorium more than 10 million copies worldwide. Now, Lowry is back with On the Horizon, a haunting, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting story of the people whose lives were lost or forever altered by Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. Join this living legend for a reading and conversation.
DATE: Thursday, March 26 TIME: 7pm VENUE: Garrison Theater Supported by the Alexa Fullerton Hampton ’42 Fund
Photo credit GMDThree
Widely considered a feminist icon, Grammy winner Ani DiFranco is the mother of the DIY movement, being one of the first artists to create her own record label, Righteous Babe Records. Indie rocker, Liz Phair, whose Exile in Guyville has been hailed as a landmark, is one of the few women ranked on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The two talk gender, the music industry, their recently released memoirs, and how songwriting evolves over time with music journalist Margaret Wappler.
Photo credit Elizabeth Weinberg
Liz Phair and Ani DiFranco in Conversation
HUMANITIES INSTITUTE: WORLD/WOUNDS: (DE)CENTERING THE This spring, the Humanities Institute will examine the nature of well-documented disasters—genocide, earthquakes, hurricanes, climate change—and how they are being negotiated in the present day. For a full listing of programs, visit scrippscollege.edu/hi.
Poetry Reading with Billy-Ray Belcourt Indigenous Canadian poet Billy-Ray Belcourt reads from his award-winning debut work, This Wound Is a World, and his forthcoming work, NDN Coping TIME: Mechanisms: Notes from the Field. A 12:15pm member of the Driftpile Cree Nation, VENUE: Belcourt grapples with the political demands Hampton Room, Malott Commons of queerness, mainstream portrayals of Indigenous life, love and its discontents, and the limits and uses of poetry as a vehicle for Indigenous liberation. DATE: Thursday, February 20
A Discussion with Jasbir Paur DATE: Thursday, March 12 TIME: 6pm
Jasbir Paur
Billy-Ray Belcourt
VENUE: Balch Auditorium
The professor and graduate director of gender studies at Rutgers University, author of The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, discusses her work in a keynote address to campus.
WORLD/(RE)CENTERING WOUNDS
©2011, MJA Chancy
Haiti Earthquake 10th Anniversary Symposium DATES: Saturday, February 8–Sunday, February 9 VENUE: Boone Recital Hall
Ten years after the Haiti earthquake and three years after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, the Humanities Institute convenes academics, artists, engineers, journalists, novelists, poets, policy experts, and scientists to share their perspectives on the origins and impacts of those events. For a listing of all symposium events, visit scrippscollege.edu/haitisymposium. ©2011, MJA Chancy
Presented in partnership with the Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies and the Claremont Graduate University Cultural Studies Department
AROUND Scripps College’s academic programs produce dozens of dynamic performances and exhibitions each year. For a full listing of public events, visit scrippscollege.edu/ events.
DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC Bessie Bartlett Frankel Chamber Music Festival
Aperture Duo
Adrianne Pope, violin Linnea Powell, viola Aperture Duo curates fearless programs that explore new sounds, voices, and techniques through the lens of violin and viola chamber music. Equally at home performing old and new music, Aperture Duo actively commissions diverse new works to expand the violin and viola duo repertoire. This concert includes such diverse styles as classical, jazz, gospel, bluegrass, and experimental music.
DATE: Sunday, February 2 TIME: 3pm VENUE: Garrison Theater
Con Gioia Early Music Ensemble Preethi de Silva professor emerita of music, artistic director, and fortepianist Janelle DeStefano, John Buffet, and Nate Widelitz, vocal artists Roswitha Burwick professor emerita of German, narrator Inspired by Goethe, a concert of German Lieder honoring the late professor emerita of German, Edith Potter, on the 100th anniversary of her birth. Co-sponsored by the Harper Lectureship Fund
True Witness
DATE: Sunday, April 5 TIME: 3pm VENUE: Balch Auditorium
SCRIPPS JOINT MUSIC PROGRAM True Witness: A Civil Rights Cantata by Jodi Goble and other works DATE: Saturday, February 22 PRE-CONCERT LECTURE: 7pm CONCERT: 8pm, followed by discussion with composer and artists VENUE: Garrison Theater
Charles W. Kamm (Joint Music), conductor Melissa Givens (Pomona College), soprano Emery Stephens (St. Olaf College), baritone John Gilmour (staff accompanist), piano Jodi Goble (Iowa State University), piano Claremont Concert Choir and Treble Singers Chaffey College Concert Choir (David Rentz, choral preparation) Holy Family Glendale Children’s Choirs (Adan Fernandez, choral preparation) Inside-Out Crossroads Choir (Anne Harley, choral preparation) True Witness, a 30-minute choral cantata, sets to music the letters, speeches, and poems of African American female poets, activists, and civil rights leaders and recognizes the notable contributions of African American women who helped steer the course of this nation’s civil rights movement. Through the interpretation of their words, this project will urge audiences to consider their historical significance in the struggle for civil rights. Project originally conceived by Associate Professor of Music Anne Harley. Co-sponsored by the O’Brien Distinguished Professorship and the Marian and Charles Holmes Performing Arts Endowment
Claremont Concert Orchestra DATES AND TIMES: Saturday, March 7 at 8pm and Sunday, March 8 at 2pm VENUE: Garrison Theater
Saint-Saëns, Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra Manuel de Falla, Danza ritual del fuego Arturo Márquez, Danzón No. 2 David Cubek, director
Claremont Concert Choir and Treble Singers and Claremont Concert Orchestra DATES AND TIMES: Saturday, May 2 at 8pm and Sunday, May 3 at 2pm VENUE: Garrison Theater
Beethoven, Mass in C Claremont Concert Choir and Treble Singers Charles W. Kamm, director Chaffey College Chamber Choir David Rentz, director Claremont Concert Orchestra David Cubek, director
AROUND CLARK HUMANITIES MUSEUM The Clark Humanities Museum provides students with the opportunity to engage directly with original works of art and other artifacts of material culture related to their courses and plays host to a number of exhibitions curated by students, faculty, and staff throughout the academic year. TIMES FOR ALL EXHIBITIONS AT THE CLARK: Monday through Friday, 9am–12:30pm and 1:30–5pm
Crystal Morey Lush Anthesis: Mule Deer, 2018 Hand sculpted porcelain 13 x 9 x 8 in. Photo credit: Crystal Morey
From Screen to Studio: Crafting Persona Through Portraits DATES: Tuesday, January 21–Friday, February 28
Curated by Scripps Wilson Intern Lauren Koenig ’20
Altered States: Painting Myanmar in a Time of Transition The Ideal Woman: Capturing the Transformation of Myanmar’s Feminine Identity DATES: Monday, March 2–Saturday, April 4
Organized by Associate Professor of Music Anne Harley in conjunction with Envirolab Asia (The Luce Foundation) and the Laspa Center for Leadership, including photographs by Allison Joseph ’20
Department of Dance
A Good Book Engages All the Senses: The Legacy of Judy Harvey Sahak and Denison Library DATES: Wednesday, April 8–Friday, May 15
Curated by staff and past and present student workers of Denison Library in coordination with Reunion Weekend 2020
SCRIPPS RUTH CHANDLER WILLIAMSON GALLERY 76th Ceramic Annual: Duality and Context DATES: Saturday, January 25–Sunday, April 5 TIMES: Wednesday through Sunday, 12–5pm VENUE: Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, January 25, 7pm
The College’s Ceramic Annual is the longestrunning exhibition of contemporary ceramics in the nation. This year, the gallery is highlighting work that explores connections and conflicts in art and nature, with inventive and interactive pieces that stand on their own, hang from the ceiling, or protrude from the walls, curated by Joanne Hayakawa.
DEPARTMENT OF DANCE Scripps Dances 2020 DATES AND TIMES: Friday, April 17, 8pm and Saturday, April 18, 2pm and 8pm VENUE: Garrison Theater TICKETS: Admission: $10 general, $5 faculty, staff, students, seniors. Reservations not required. Tickets available at the Garrison Box Office from 7pm on performance evenings and 1pm on Saturday. INFORMATION: (909) 607-2934
Reflecting a variety of contemporary dance styles with influences from ballet folklorico, musical theatre, modern dance, and hiphop, Scripps Dances 2020 is the Dance Department’s annual spring concert of original works choreographed by students, faculty, and guests. The program also includes the premiere of Professor Suchi Branfman’s So Glad, a dance inspired by letters Moreese “Pops” Bickham wrote to his family while confined in Louisiana’s harrowing Angola prison before his release in 1996. A sound score by Bickham’s nephew, renowned Bentonia blues guitarist Jimmy Holmes, augments this work, which explores survival on the inside and on the outside of one of the United States’ most brutal prisons.
@N @Noon is Scripps Presents’ midday lecture and conversation series.
Art Conservation with Ariana Makau
Photocredit Greg Tuzin
“During my junior year abroad in Paris, I took my first class in stained glass . . . and was certain that my future lay in that art form,” said Ariana Makau. An art conservator for TIME: over 20 years, with a resume that includes 12:15pm the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Victoria VENUE: and Albert Museum, and the Metropolitan Hampton Room, Malott Commons Museum of Art, Makau returns to Scripps to offer a window into her career as founder of Nzilani Glass Conservation, the role of the conservator, and the revival of a forgotten form. DATE: Tuesday, February 18
Presented in partnership with the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery
Ariana Makau
Poetry Reading with Billy-Ray Belcourt Indigenous Canadian poet Billy-Ray Belcourt reads from his award-winning debut work, This Wound Is a World, and his forthcoming work, NDN Coping TIME: Mechanisms: Notes from the Field. A 12:15pm member of the Driftpile Cree Nation, VENUE: Belcourt grapples with the political demands Hampton Room, Malott Commons of queerness, mainstream portrayals of Indigenous life, love and its discontents, and the limits and uses of poetry as a vehicle for Indigenous liberation. DATE: Thursday, February 20
Billy-Ray Belcourt
Presented in partnership with the Scripps College Humanities Institute
NOON
April Dávila
Ifeona Fulani
DATE: Tuesday, March 10
DATE: Thursday, March 26
TIME: 12:15pm
TIME: 12:15pm
VENUE: Hampton Room, Malott Commons
VENUE: Hampton Room, Malott Commons
April Collier Dávila ’99 fell in love with the desert as an ecology major at Scripps and, a tumultuous decade later, decided to write a novel about it, setting her coffee machine to start brewing at 4:50am so she could get in some creative writing before beginning her day as a copywriter and mother of two. In 2017, her blog was listed by Writer’s Digest as one of the Best 101 Websites for Writers; in 2018, she sold her first full-length manuscript, and last year, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She returns to Scripps to share her writer’s journey and to discuss her debut novel, 142 Ostriches.
In 1865, hundreds of peasants marched to the courthouse in Morant Bay, Jamaica, to protest the slave-like conditions, disease, and hunger brought on by a prolonged drought. Ifeona Fulani, clinical professor in the Global Liberal Studies program at New York University, reads from her workin-progress, The First Stone, and shows how that natural disaster over 150 years ago reveals contemporary questions of precarity. Presented in partnership with the Hartley Burr Alexander Chair Annual Lecture and the Scripps College Humanities Institute
SPRING 2020 SEASON
For tickets and information, visit scrippscollege.edu/scrippspresents or call (909) 607-8508.
Join Scripps College as we present eye-opening, mind-bending, genredefying tête-à-têtes with the thinkers and doers, writers and performers, whose passions and perspectives are changing the way we see the world.
Scripps Presents is an electrifying mix of storytellers and artists, policymakers and musicians—and everything in between.
Office of Public Events and Community Programs Scripps College 1030 Columbia Avenue Claremont, CA 91711
presents