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Feature Stories

During his recent tenure as Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor at McMaster University this academic year, Raoul Birnbaum was able to share a lifetime's research discoveries with students and scholars at one of the finest Buddhist studies programs in North... [more]

Renewing the connection from campus to professional life, a high profile group of UCSC Arts alums working in the entertainment and film industry gathered last month at West Hollywood's Soho House.

This year's UCSC holiday production, It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, offers audiences something deliciously different.

Growing up in Dearborn, Michigan, Professor of Theater Arts Kate Edmunds thrived in her Art Department education at Wayne State University.

A member of the Arts Dean's Leadership Advisory Board, Jock Reynolds was honored on October 18 with the 2013 UCSC Alumni Achievement Award for outstanding personal achievement in the arts and lasting contributions to his field.

Music major Shane Liliedahl had himself one busy senior year.

Award-winning video game designer Robin Hunicke visited Arts and Computer Science colleagues this week at the invitation of Arts Dean David Yager.

In a rare pause from fieldwork in remote Central Asia, counseling doctoral students, and performing dutor folk music, music professor Tanya Merchant reflected on an emerging career filled with lucky encounters.

Theater Arts professor Ted Warburton has been working on the kinetic connections between intelligence and dance for the past decade.  Exploring "the major intellecual and artistic decisions behind dance," he seeks paths to outwit the tired cliché that "dancers don't think, they... [more]

Choreographer and UCSC alumnus David Herrera joins guest and faculty choreographers exploring interactions among people, communities and nature in Blueprints, the spring faculty dance concert running Friday, May 24 — Sunday, June 2.

 

Some composers had a special flair for probing the human comedy with crowd-pleasing appeal. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was certainly one of the late 18th century geniuses whose music continues to charm and inspire.

In what turned out to be a lively brainstorming session Arts Dean David Yager and new Director John Weber [pictured] facilitated a day-long brainstorming session to help shape the new Institute of the Arts and Sciences on the UCSC campus.

Creating a digital footprint that spans the globe, game designer Will Wright launched a way of conceptualizing the cultural landscape that continues to exert playful influence.

Documenting untold stories in bold, and accessible animated imagery is the driving passion of Social Documentation professor John Jota Leaños.

Jazz has been in Karlton Hester's blood since he took up the piano at the age of four. As a lifelong composer and improvisationalist, Hester is currently jamming with colleagues in far-flung disciplines.

Feasting on films since childhood, Film & Digital Media senior Spencer Koobatian quickly realized that his central cinematic passion was film editing.  As a student at the Idyllwild Arts Academy's Moving Pictures Department, Koobatian was soon immersed in... [more]

Art Professor Beth Stephens and her partner Annie Sprinkle have married the snow. They've married the sea, the sky, the redwood forest, and the earth. These large-scale, highly collaborative and 100% performative events are not merely symbolic rituals, although they are certainly that.

Documentary ambitions and unstoppable curiosity have given student filmmaker Shawheen Keyani a head start in capturing his subjects.

It wouldn't be a stretch to call Patty Gallagher a one-woman show of dramatic scholarship, innovative teaching, and cross-cultural performance practice. In short, a hard act to follow.

Painting on digitally-printed canvas, painter Frank Galuszka is currently embarked on a multi-generational series of works that reflect both his seasoned on-site painting techniques and experimental digital technology.

Congratulations to Hollywood art director Rick Carter, who just won an Academy Award for his haunting production design for Spielberg's critically acclaimed cinematic masterwork, Lincoln. Carter's student days at UCSC were spent painting, something he... [more]

On the road, seeking sonic inspiration for his upcoming CD News from Afar, David Evan Jones trekked through three continents, ten and a half months, and a kaleidoscope of traditional music, contemporary performers, and spoken words. 

 

A theorist and writer who explores the social implications of emerging technologies, Kate O'Riordan joined the Art Department faculty this fall.

"To understand me, you must understand Norway." Henrik Ibsen's famous observation about his own work was taken to heart by a team of researchers from the Arts this summer.

 

A graduate of UC Santa Cruz, Noxon currently lives in Hollywood with her two children and continues to be an outspoken philanthropic supporter of the Arts Division at UC Santa Cruz, personally supporting the Arts Fund for Excellence.

 

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