Arts & Culture

“Retina Burn” is an annual concert designed to showcase the skills that student lighting designers have learned during their studies in the Performing Arts Department. This year’s event will return April 25 to Edison Theatre.

The Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present “Cry It Out,” Molly Smith Metzler’s darkly comic exploration of class, friendship and motherhood, April 18-21 in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.

Parkorn Wangpaiboonkit, an assistant professor of music in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won a 2024 fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.

The Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences will present both a performance and a two-day gathering on artistic research at WashU’s Tyson Research Center. Organized by postdoctoral researcher Anya Yermakova, the events build on her scholarship, her creative work and her current seminar, “Topics in Embodied Communication: Listening.”

Internationally renowned soprano Christine Goerke, known for her “blazing tone” (New York Times) and “voice of molten gold” (Toronto Star), will present “A Celebration of the American Diva” April 28 as part of the Great Artists Series, sponsored by WashU’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences.

The Washington University Dance Collective, the resident dance company of the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, will present “Glimmers,” an evening of new and original choreography, April 5 and 6 in Edison Theatre.

New works by choreographers Carol Bertho, Emily Ehling and the late Amarnath Ghosh, who died Feb. 27, will debut in Edison Theatre March 22 and 23 as part of this year’s MFA Student Dance Concert, presented by the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences.

The 18th annual African Film Festival returns to Washington University in St. Louis March 22-24. Highlights include screenings of “Omen,” an award-winning drama from the Democratic Republic of Congo; “Banel and Adama,” a love story from Senegal; and the youth matinee featuring five short films including the Annie Award-winning animated short “Enkai.”

Joyce Yang plays with “agility, balance and velocity” (Washington Post), combining “exuberant flights” with a sly “improvisatory bounce” (Chicago Tribune). On March 24, the Grammy-nominated pianist will perform the music of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Bach, Kernis and Stravinsky as part of WashU’s Great Artists Series.

Tafelmusik, “one of the world’s top Baroque orchestras” (Gramophone magazine), and “perpetually fabulous” (Boston Globe) violinist Aisslinn Nosky, will present “Passions Revealed,” a program exploring Baroque music’s potential to stir the soul, March 3 as part of the Great Artists Series at Washington University in St. Louis.