Faculty News

Faculty Research: Lighting and Sound Labs Enhance the Drama

When the lights fade and the music builds, an audience of theater-goers can feel transported—before the action even starts. That’s why drama faculty in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts focus on creating high-tech sound and lighting labs that help students produce top-quality shows and then...

The Dance Scientist

View the full pictorial in CONNECT, the quarterly magazine for UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts Dr. Kelli Sharp is not your typical dance professor. She spends her days collecting and analyzing motion-capture data to investigate movement patterns, responses to stimuli, and the acceleration...

11 Jazz Songs That Spoke Truth To Power In 2019

Mark Dresser Seven "Let Them Eat Paper Towels" Remember the paper towel incident? Two years ago, in Puerto Rico, during the grave aftermath of Hurricane Maria? It may have been many news cycles and nearly as many scandals ago, but bassist and composer Mark Dresser hasn't forgotten the raw anger...

Vitor Luiz guest stars in Festival Ballet's production of "The Nutcracker" at the Irvine Barclay Theatre

Festival Ballet Theatre’s family-friendly breathtaking production features superb colorful scenery and dazzling costumes, which make this age-old tradition sparkle like new. Be swept away by Tchaikovsky’s iconic score as the Sugar Plum Fairy, our heroine Clara, and a cast of hundreds take you on a...

Project Orthogonal: UCI’s Professor Simon Penny

In hopes of promoting a more efficient and sustainable future in seaward exploration and travel, UCI Department of Art’s Simon Penny is developing a contemporary model of a proa —  a Micronesian, multi-hull sailcraft used for both short and long-distance expeditions. Penny first began...

Welcome new ballet faculty, Vitor Luiz!

The UCI Department of Dance announces the hiring of Vitor Luiz as a new ballet faculty. Vitor is an international dancer, choreographer and ballet master. Since 2009 he has been a principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet. He has also performed with the Ballet of Rio de Janeiro, English National...

Art of Social Change

Two more UCI faculty and alumni receive Guggenheim Fellowships When a shiny sculpture of a rabbit by the most commercially successful living artist sold for a record-breaking $91 million at auction earlier this year, UCI art professor Daniel Joseph Martinez shrugged. “We don’t remember the...

Dr. Stephen Tucker: UCI Chair of Music & Conductor of the UCI Symphony Orchestra

By Terry Schilling | September 19, 2019 Over the past several years, the UCI Symphony Orchestra has delighted me with many exhilarating performances. Maestro Dr. Stephen Tucker is the newly appointed chair of the music department at UCI (Marjorie Rawlins Chair of Music).  This comes on...

Paul Taylor American Dance Company Pays Special Tribute to Donald McKayle

As a tribute to the passing of world-renowned choreographer and former UCI Dance Faculty Member, Donald McKayle, Paul Taylor American Dance Company (PTDC) will include three of McKayle’s most notable choreographic works in their fall season at the Lincoln Center: Crossing the Rubicon (2017),...

Summer Dance ‘Intensive’ Embodies Improvisation

S. Ama Wray, Ph.D., associate professor of dance, was featured in the El Paso Herald-Post for her work conducting an Embodiology workshop at The University of Texas at El Paso's Fox Fine Arts Center. "A half dozen or so pairs of bodies set in a circle moved in tandem though almost never in sync...

Choreographers Get Lab Time to Experiment Without Restrictions

Professor Molly Lynch, chair for the Department of Dance, is featured in "Voice of OC" for her upcoming National Choreographers Initiative 2019 showcase. By Kaitlin Wright "Molly Lynch, professor and chair of UC Irvine’s Department of Dance, has over 35 years experience creating, producing, and...

Dr. S. Ama Wray is Making New Global Strides

In May 2019, Associate Professor of Dance at UC Irvine, Dr. Ama Wray, was invited to the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Good-Global Summit at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. This Summit aims to amalgamate the work of both scientific and artistic innovators in hopes of utilizing AI in...

Tony DeLap, pioneering West Coast figure in abstract art, dies at 91

Via Los Angeles Time, June 1, 2019 "Tony DeLap, the Orange County artist who helped to define West Coast minimalism through his meticulous exploration of the intersection of sculpture and painting, has died. He was 91. DeLap died Wednesday at his home in Corona del Mar, said his studio...

UCI Faculty Member Jason Harnell Released Solo Album “Total Harnage”

On Sunday, May 12th,there was a release party at The Baked Potato --- a jazz club housing talented, upcoming musical artists since 1970 (thebakedpotato.com) --- for UCI Music Department Faculty Member Jason Harnell who debuted his first solo album entitled “TOTAL HARNAGE.”  Harnell is a world-...

Why Arts Administration Matters: An Interview with UCI's Molly Lynch

Dance Plug, Interview by Keira Whitaker - 20 February 2019 "As I pulled into the University of California, Irvine to park my car I couldn’t help but be transported back in time. I graduated from UCl in 2016, and poured all of myself into four years of dancing, reading, and writing. My degree was...

What They Found: Our Contributors Share Their 2018 Discoveries

"Ashley Clark, film programmer and critic In March, acting on a recommendation from the website Screen Slate—an increasingly essential resource in this rep coverage–starved age—I took myself to Manhattan’s Electronic Arts Intermix to see a shorts program by a grandly named video and performance...

Assistant professor of drama wins NEH grant

Tara Rodman, UCI assistant professor of drama, has won a 2018 Fellowship for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The $60,000 grant will enable her to research and write a book about the international career of Japanese dancer and choreographer...

All Hands on Deck for Boat Building

by Gustavo Arellano, Alta With his proto-Fu Manchu mustache, bright eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, sporty brown vest and Australian accent, Simon Penny seems like he should be a BBC documentarian. But he’s actually a UC Irvine professor. And a boatbuilder. And the boat he’s building is not just...