Faculty News

Learning the Steps

Young alumni are prepared to thrive in their professional dance careers By Christine Byrd Lauren Gresens’ final performance as a student was a solo in North Star, a piece by acclaimed modern dance choreographer and UCI professor Lar Lubovitch. When she graduated a few months later, in June...

12 Must-See U.S. Art Museum Shows in 2022

Excerpt from Artnet News, January 13, 2022: 12 Must-See U.S. Art Museum Shows in 2022, From Philip Guston’s Scandal-Stalked Survey to Faith Ringgold’s Big New York Moment Plus, a full-scale Cézanne survey for a new generation, and Ulysses Jenkins gets the retrospective treatment in L.A....

TOP TEN: Sky Hopinka’s highlights of 2021

#10 ULYSSES JENKINS (ICA PHILADELPHIA; CURATED BY MEG ONLI AND ERIN CHRISTOVALE) The work of Ulysses Jenkins was a revelation. Across the videos and performances featured in this career retrospective—among them Two-Zone Transfer, 1979, and Inconsequential Doggerel, 1981—one found a...

New Book on Clara Schumann Published for the Cambridge University Press Composer Studies Series

The Department of Music is pleased to announce the publication of Clara Schumann Studies edited by Dr. Joe Davies and featuring a chapter by Professor Nicole Grimes. The volume is dedicated to the late Nancy B. Reich as a tribute to her pioneering scholarship on Clara Schumann. Since the 1980s,...

Bringing to Life Madame Modjeska’s Fairytale

By Mia Hammett   Living, breathing on-screen animation. A kaleidoscopic patchwork of actors awhirl. Engaging sonic and visual experimentalism. This is Madame Modjeska’s Fairytale, the latest film production from Annie Loui, Claire Trevor School of the Arts professor of acting and...

UCI Department of Music recognized as a thriving hub for Clara Schumann research and performance

The article “Wieck Spot” in VAN Magazine by Sarah Fritz pays tribute to the pioneering research and performance on Clara Schumann that is being carried out by UCI faculty at the Department of Music including Joe Davies, Lorna Griffitt, Nicole Grimes, and Nina Scolnik. It highlights the prominence...

UCI Drama Faculty and Students Produce Multimedia Dance Theater About Madame Marie Curie

Chancellor's and Claire Trevor Professor Bryan Reynolds in the Department of Drama leads a thrilling collaboration of theater focused on the life and work of Madame Marie Skłodowska Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. The partnership is between Transversal Theater Company and Laurie...

UCI Art Professor Hosts International Symposium Focused on Industrial Crafts Research

The Industrial Crafts Research Network (ICRN), co-directed by Department of Art Professor Simon Penny and Professor Tom Fisher (Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom), will host the inaugural symposium, Exhibiting Skill: Understanding, Documenting, and Communicating Skilled Practices of...

Meet Antoinette LaFarge: Co-Founder of UCI’s Electronic Art & Design Program

In celebration of Antoinette LaFarge's new book, Sting in the Tale, Irvine Community News & Views wrote a feature about her and the many contributions she has made to UCI's Department of Art. Read more about LaFage here. Attend LaFarge's upcoming talk through UCI Illuminations on Tuesday...

Mari Kimura Explores Music’s Intersections with Technology and Science

By Richard Chang Mari Kimura, a professor of music at UCI’s Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology program, is connecting students, disciplines and departments with her groundbreaking work. She’s fostering collaboration and interaction during times when the coronavirus pandemic has...

Ulysses Jenkins retrospective opens in Philadelphia on Sept. 17

Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation is the first major retrospective on the work of groundbreaking video/performance artist Ulysses Jenkins, on view at ICA this fall, September 17–December 30, 2021. The exhibition is co-curated by Meg Onli, ICA Andrea B. Laporte Associate Curator and...

Dr. Rajna Swaminathan joins the UCI Music faculty

The Department of Music is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Rajna Swaminathan as Assistant Professor of Music. Professor Swaminathan holds a Ph.D. in Music from Harvard University’s Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry program and is an improviser, composer, and scholar. Her...

Ariyan Johnson Brings Innovation and Passion to UCI Dance

By Jezebel Ramirez-Robles and Lauren Knight   Professor Ariyan Johnson is a multidisciplinary artist with a rich background in dancing, choreographing, acting, producing, and directing, the list continues with each new project she takes on. At a young age, Johnson’s mother -- a dancer...

Survey: Simon Leung

e-flux Education | July 27, 2021 Simon Leung is an artist who lives in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. He has taught at the University of California, Los Angeles; California Institute of the Arts; Rhode Island School of Design; New York University; and Skowhegan, in addition to the University of...

Prof. Monica Majoli wins a prestigious Hammer Museum award

Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times by Deborah Vankin July 15, 2021 "The Hammer Museum announced Thursday that L.A. artist Kandis Williams, co-founder of Cassandra Press and a visiting faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts, will receive the museum’s $100,000 Mohn Award for...

Coup de Comedy Festival brings a global community together

  By Lauren Knight When founding UCI’s student improv team, Improv Revolution (iRev), with his fellow students in 2011, Joel Veenstra had no idea that UCI’s student improv group would grow into what it is today. Now, Veenstra serves as the group’s faculty mentor, and produced an event...

Raising Community Voices

Director and playwright Juliette Carrillo helps bring hidden stories to the stage By Christine Byrd When Juliette Carrillo's play Plumas Negras was performed in 2013 in the East Salinas, Calif., community where it was set, some audience members were brought to tears. Not only had Carrillo...

21C Supports Faculty and Graduate Student Creative Research in the Arts

  Since its founding in 2017, the Institute for 21st Century Creativity (21C) has sought to cultivate experimental and arts-based research to innovate and challenge creativity for this century and beyond. With support from the UCI Office of Research, Dean Stephen Barker founded the...