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In a ceremony on Saturday, the University inducted 92 students to the Mu Massachusetts chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Family and friends celebrated with the inductees at the event in Spingold Theater.
For the first time in my four years at Brandeis, Springfest actually felt like spring! On Sunday, April 22, Brandeis students had more to celebrate than just the end of the school year. Students flooded the Foster Mods and Chapels Field to soak up one of the first warm and sunny day of the semester. This year’s headliner was A$AP Ferg, first known for his song “Plain Jane,” which is frequently played at campus parties. Brandeisians who knew of A$AP Ferg before Springfest and liked his music “rode with the mob” and had a fantastic time in the mosh pit in front of the stage. Those who wanted to be a part of the action by indulging in the food trucks and free pizza or by taking advantage of the other giveaways parked themselves on the other side of Chapel’s Field opposite the stage, where they could get a good view even if they didn’t want to be part of the action.
This past Saturday afternoon, on-campus folk a cappella group Too Cheap For Instruments held their annual Folk Fest on the Great Lawn. With the sun shining brightly, many attendees spread out blankets on the grass and held picnics to enjoy the long-awaited spring weather and the tinkling folk tunes. Too Cheap For Instruments organized five sets to play throughout the afternoon, in addition to a set of their own. These musicians included Molly Pinto Madigan, Lauren Pratt, Crowes Pasture, Walter and the Night Owls and headliner crowd favorite Cold Weather Company.
The Great Lawn hosted a large birthday party on Thursday evening to commemorate Leonard Bernstein’s lasting impact on both the Brandeis community and the arts at large. Various festivities, including a slideshow presentation of photos from past Leonard Bernstein Festivals, took place throughout the night. The slideshow clearly conveyed the importance and excitement of the festival for anyone studying music. Complementing the slideshow were performances from Prof. Eric Chasalow (MUS) and a student-led band. The performances were so passionate and polished — a display well befitting Bernstein’s birthday celebration. Prof. Mark Berger (MUS) also gave a talk about the lasting legacy Bernstein left at Brandeis, demonstrating how truly loved and appreciated Bernstein is by Brandeis students and faculty. Inside the tent, cookies and a birthday cake helped partygoers celebrate Bernstein’s 100th. Arts lovers came together to mingle and collect their Leonard Bernstein bookmarks and literature packets. The party was a great way to begin the end of the festival, and also a great way to be involved with and learn more about the arts, especially music, on campus. Although Bernstein passed many years ago, his influence on the arts at Brandeis is evident.
On Saturday, I had the privilege of seeing one of the most impressive displays of talent I have witnessed in my time at Brandeis: Culture X. This is an annual event co-sponsored by the Brandeis Intercultural Center and the Gender & Sexuality Center, and it highlights a range of artistic talents from a variety of different countries. There were opportunities for both individual performances and for student-led groups to showcase their talents. This year’s show, titled “One Love: Between the Crossroads,” was coordinated by six students: Janis Li ’21, Cassidy Van Cooten ’20, Kwesi Jones ’21 (who also served as the emcee for the show), Anwesha Ghosh ’18, Winnie Zhao ’20 and Siyu Liang ’18. Many of the performances were dances, and it was astonishing to see the number of different dance styles and the many cultures represented.
Maya Zanger-Nadis, Justice Editor
Student coordinators of the Brandeis #NeverAgain movement held a rally for gun control legislation at the Light of Reason on Friday.
JustArts: What goes into a student’s decision to do a senior thesis?
During this round of Student Union elections, 19 candidates faced off for 14 open seats in the Senate and Judiciary. This week, some of the candidates spoke to the Justice about their aspirations and the issues they consider most important.
TEDxBrandeisUniversity hosted its second annual conference on Saturday, titled “Illuminations Within.” Facilitated by master of ceremonies Karthik Rangan ’18, this year’s talks centered around the importance of self and historical reflection as a means of solving current global issues, especially those pertaining to navigating discussions of community, social interactions and mental health.
In a unanimous vote last Thursday, Justice staff and editors elected Avraham Penso ’20 as the editor in chief for the 2018-2019 academic year.
“It’s a really nice thing to learn and develop something. It doesn’t have to be boxing; it just turned out that way,” said Brandeis Boxing Club president, Sonor Sereeter ’19, in an interview with the Justice. Sereeter is not the only Brandeis student for whom the boxing club plays an important role. Throughout the years, the club has found a special place in the hearts of many Brandeis students.
There was plenty of charm to be found in Friday’s showcase, “Brandeis by Night: Timeless Charm,” put on by the Brandeis Vietnamese Student Association. The night was full of color and booming music, both traditional and modern. It was also wonderful to see the fruits of all the hard work VSA put into entertaining us and opening our minds to the cultural beauty (and delicious foods) of Vietnam. I knew the moment I saw Levin Ballroom that this would not be a typical performance; the room was set up with many colorful circular tables covered in paper flowers and Vietnamese snacks.
If you want a movie that makes you feel “all the feels,” go see “Love, Simon.”
This weekend, Brandeis’ Undergraduate Theater Collective presented the classic Disney musical “Beauty and the Beast,” directed by Maia Cataldo ’20. The show was a faithful production of the Alan Menken musical adapted from the 1991 animated film of the same name. The fantasy romance is based on the French fairy tale by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont and tells the story of Belle, a girl who is ostracized for her academic inclinations. She runs off into the woods to look for her father, who is imprisoned in a cursed castle. All of the castle’s inhabitants have been turned into household objects, unable to assume their human forms until their master, who has been transformed into a beast, finds true love.
“You think the glass ceiling is shattered only to realize it’s just been cracked,” said musicologist Liane Curtis in her presentation “Why Amy Beach Matters” last Thursday, in the Women’s Studies Research Center. Amy Beach (1867-1947) was an American composer and pianist. Curtis, who earned her doctorate in musicology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is a resident scholar at the WSRC.
The Connecticut legislature held a March 8 hearing on Senate Bill 359, an act that called for banning ethnic subgroup data disaggregation in the Connecticut education system. As a Ph.D. candidate in Social Policy who studies mental health and trauma, I was invited by the bill’s supporters to testify on the damage a potential data collection program would impose on students, parents and teachers.
In today’s Student Union election, 13 candidates compete for seven open seats on the Student Union Executive Board. This is the first of two rounds of spring elections, with students competing to fill the positions of Union president, vice president, secretary and treasurer, as well as representatives to the Board of Trustees, the Brandeis Sustainability Fund and the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. The candidates spoke to the Justice about their prior experiences and the goals they would pursue if elected.
It is difficult to take an established, award-winning musical and present it with fresh vision. As such, on Friday evening, I took my seat with a fair amount of doubt. However, within the first 10 minutes of the opening, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the Brandeis Theater Company’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.”