During the last bleak week of February, Brandeis welcomed a fresh new voice. The Aga Khan Music Initiative and MusicUnitesUS, which brought "Silk and Bamboo: Music From China," last November, presented a more effusive group from Africa this semester, Trio da Kali.
When I heard Mates of State and Timeflies were coming to Brandeis for the annual fall concert, I hoped their music would be as catchy as their inner-rhyming names.
I always thought I went to a bagel-and-lox type of school largely inhabited by a quirky mix of awkward dorks. So far, I have defined dancing in college as a less-sober version of my bar mitzvah year, choking on a cloud of body heat and alcohol sweat.
I am drifting on a dhow, an Arab sailing vessel, down some exotic Middle Eastern river; it could be the Tigris or the Euphrates or the Nile, but what I do know is the wind guiding me: "New Sounds from the Arab Lands," a musical performance that enchanted a crowd ranging from students to curious off-campus patrons on Thursday night in the Slosberg Recital Hall. The Music Unites Us series presented five musicians from Syria, Lebanon and Tunisia in collaboration with the Aga Khan Music Initiative, a program of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.
On Friday afternoon, Mandel classroom G03 was filled with the simmer of nearly 60 people whispering, anticipating Janine Antoni's Artist Talk, part of the new Art in Dialogue series sponsored by the Brandeis Arts Council.
A man, a stage, a drum pad. The setup was minimal but the sounds created by Brian Erlichman '15 at his coffeehouse performance in Cholmondeley's last Wednesday night were deep and complex.
The 79-year-old woman who can barely see over the podium was haunted by her work. "Surrealist art is about being haunted by something.
When I saw that Brandeis was hosting Etty, a one-woman play based on the life of a female Holocaust victim from Amsterdam, I was shocked that another diary had been discovered in addition to Anne Frank's.
"Everything sucks in my books," joked national award-winning satirical author, Gary Shteyngart at his book talk in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall on Monday, Nov.
* I did it with 25 other people in the middle of Central Park.
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