It’s a Sunday afternoon in October. I’m sitting on my couch underneath my new plush blanket covered in cartoons of ghosts and of the word “boo.” There’s a candle burning on my desk. Outside, the leaves are swirling down from the trees, like a typical Maine autumn day.
The Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) must abide by the College’s color-coded campus status levels. Currently, at “yellow” status, first-year writing seminar students and their accompanying faculty members can enter the BCMA for a class visit; at “orange” status, only faculty and staff may enter; at “red” status, only essential staff members may enter the building.
Since the College announced that nearly all courses will be online for the Fall 2020 semester, faculty and students have been approaching academics at Bowdoin in new ways. As students anticipate browsing course offerings, which will be released on Classfinder today, professors have been preparing for the fall by rethinking course material and modes of teaching.
Many of the seniors working on performing arts projects set to debut in the spring are crushed by the fact that they won’t see their capstone projects performed during their last year at the College. Sebastian Hernandez ’20 has a slightly different perspective.
Chase Tomberlin ’20 took inspiration from the Frank Sinatra song “A Man Alone” for the title of his one-man senior studio show. Little did he know, this title would find new meaning in a world of social distancing and remote learning.
For Tori Clarke ’20 and Caroline Farber ’20, a lunchtime conversation in the Moulton Union lightroom became the inspiration for their co-written senior project, “Honey, I’m Home.”
The play, which the two have been working on since September, explores the break up of friendships in a theater space.
Before spring break, Lucia Gagliardone ’20 put up posters for her Senior Studio performance, “Like Water.” The first dance major at Bowdoin, she wanted the performance to serve as the culmination of her years-long study at Bowdoin, as in any other department.
This weekend, over 75 students will take the stage to present the fourth annual production of RISE: Untold Stories of Bowdoin Women. With 49 stories, 31 of which are new, the performance will feature a wide range of emotions as the production’s organizers work to highlight joy as well as women’s stories of difficulty and violence.
On Tuesday night, local musicians and music lovers gathered at Frontier to hear a medley of songs and vocals in the cozy theatre tucked into the old mill at the end of Maine Street.
Michael Gilroy opened Frontier in Fort Andross in 2006, with a mission to “connect the world through food, arts and culture.” The business strives to do this through its restaurant, coffee bar, event spaces and theater, used for a variety of community gatherings.
Literature, Peruvian art and dance: an unlikely combination unlike most artists typically hosted at Bowdoin. On Tuesday night, Vannia Ibarguen brought these disciplines together in her performance “Retablo Peruano” in Kresge Auditorium.
“Retablo Peruano” translates roughly to “Peruvian altarpiece.” A retablo is a sculptural work created by indigenous Peruvian artists, depicting scenes of daily life or exceptional historical events.
At the Bedford Park Boulevard-Lehman College subway station in the Bronx, a stunning glass mosaic mural covers the entire mezzanine wall. Entitled “Community Garden,” it depicts large, colorful fruit, insects, flowers and animals. For this work, Andrea Dezsö was awarded the best American Public Art Prize in 2007.
In 1860, Bowdoin Medical School alumnus Henry Byron Haskell facilitated the shipment of five Assyrian reliefs from the site of Nimrud, in modern-day Iraq, to Brunswick, Maine. These large stone pieces from the Northwest Palace of King Ashurnasirpal II, built in 879 BCE, traveled on camelback and steamship to arrive where they are now.
In 1909, Robert Peary, Class of 1877, led his famous expedition to the North Pole. But many do not realize that it was, in fact, an African-American man, Peary’s companion Matthew Alexander Henson, and not Peary himself, who first stood on the pole.