Dating back to the mid-1900s, step dancing — or stepping — and strolling have become an integral part of Black fraternities and sororities across the United States. This is no exception in the Iota Beta chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., the members of which see the unique art form as a way to bond and assert their identity within their community.
For many students pursuing degrees in the arts, graduation demands an answer to the age-old question begged by parents, grandparents and uncles — “What can you even do with that degree?” For Class of 2022 alumna Karen Zipor, the answer is easy.
A senior curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art has been selected as the new director of the University of Virginia’s Fralin Museum of Art.
The University announced the selection of Karen Elizabeth Milbourne as the new J. Sanford Miller Family Director of The Fralin Museum of Art. Milbourne comes to UVA from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, where she currently serves as senior curator and acting head of knowledge production. She will assume her new role on January 29, 2024.
A book is not inert, at least not to Kalela Williams — writer, arts administrator and director of Virginia Center for the Book. She believes humanity is found in both our ability and our drive to produce these artistic objects. “We need books, maybe more than we ever have,” Williams said.
Dimly lit gray walls enclose “Radioactive Inactives,” a striking photography exhibit currently displayed at The Fralin Museum of Art. The series of photos was originally created by artists Patrick Nagatani and Andrée Tracey from 1987 to 1988, as they meshed their artistic talent to reveal poignant messages about the darker realities of the modern world.
In a self-titled “journey through books,” writer Jesse Ball treated listeners to some of his most beloved original and non-original pieces in an event hosted by the University’s Creative Writing Program.
Parlophone released the first Beatles single, “Love Me Do,” in October 1962 on a 45 rpm vinyl record. Their last song was released Thursday, with a little help from AI.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, the walls of Newcomb’s board room hear a blended melody of voices or a chorus of laughter as Ektaal a capella practices. Established in 1999, Ektaal is the University’s first and only South Asian a cappella group. The group performs at gigs around the University with compositions of fusion South Asian and Western music.
Hilma af Klint’s 1915 oil painting “The Swan, No.1” captures imagery of two swans on two separate sides of the same canvas. Few would mention, let alone accept the idea of math being applicable to something as renowned as this work of art. However, Dr. Jiajun Yan — professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University — argues that Klint’s entire piece is executed on the principle of mathematics.
In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black and towering. It stirred not, but gathered up in the gloom like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler.”
In June 1844, landscape painter Russell Smith traveled for hours from Philadelphia to Virginia on a hot, dusty train to meet up with geologist William Barton Rogers, a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Virginia.
