BmoreArt’s Picks: September 17-23
This Week: A Fall Mixer of Dance at Baltimore Theatre Project, Symphony in the City at Morgan, Levester Williams opening reception at UMBC, three exhibitions opening at Goucher, High Zero Festival, ‘Openings’ at SNF Parkway, Suchitra Mattai exhibition opens at NMWA, fiber colloquium at the Lewis Museum, Ada Pinkston opening reception + meet the artist at Transformer DC, Tea with Myrtis featuring Monica Ikegwu at Galerie Myrtis, Mount Vernon Plein Air show, and Preoccupied free community day at the BMA — PLUS Open Works EnterpRISE 2024 applications and more featured opportunities!
BmoreArt’s Picks presents the best weekly art openings, events, and performances happening in Baltimore and surrounding areas. For a more comprehensive perspective, check the BmoreArt Calendar page, which includes ongoing exhibits and performances, and is updated on a daily basis.
To submit your calendar event, email us at events@bmoreart.com!
A Fall Mixer of Dance
Tuesday, September 17 :: 7pm
@ Baltimore Theatre Project
Baltimore Theatre Project presents PDCM – A FALL MIXER OF DANCE!
Featuring five of Maryland’s professional dance companies together on one stage in an exciting evening of dance art.
Join us and experience the magic of dance coming together in a one night spectacular event!
The Professional Dance Collaborative of Maryland (PDCM), featuring:
BAD Ballet
Ballet Theatre of Maryland
Dance & Bmore
Full Circle Dance Company
VTDance
Symphony in the City
Wednesday, September 18 :: 7:30pm
@ Morgan State University Murphy Fine Arts Center
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra proudly announces the return of its free, three-concert community series, Symphony in the City on Wednesday, September 18, at 7:30 pm at Morgan State University.
Held at the Gilliam Concert Hall in the Murphy Fine Arts Center, the first Symphony in the City concert of the season is led by BSO Music Director Jonathon Heyward and features selections from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, “Pastorale,” known for its vivid depiction of nature and rural scenes. In conversation with Beethoven’s timeless work, the concert will also showcase compositions by James Lee III, whose works are infused with vibrant narratives and deep cultural resonance.
The Symphony in the City series will continue with performances across Baltimore, including a tribute to Veterans on November 20 at War Memorial and a celebration of Black History Month on February 7 at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum.
SYMPHONY IN THE CITY: MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
Wednesday, September 18, at 7:30 PM
Murphy Fine Arts Center
Morgan State University
2201 Argonne Dr.
Baltimore, MD 21218
Jonathon Heyward, conductor
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral” I. Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside
JAMES LEE III Amer’ican
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral” II. Scene by the brook
JAMES LEE III Captivating Personas III. Bored Comfort
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral” IV. Thunderstorm
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral” V. Shepherd’s song. Cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm
Levester Williams, all matters aside | Opening Reception
Thursday, September 19 :: 5-7pm
@ UMBC Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture presents the early-career survey Levester Williams: all matters aside, an exhibition curated by Lisa D. Freiman, professor of art history at Virginia Commonwealth University, on view at the CADVC gallery from September 20 through December 14.
Levester Williams: all matters aside presents a selection of the Philadelphia-based conceptual sculptor’s work from the past decade including sculpture, video, sound art, and installation. Williams’s research-based practice, which includes explorations of diverse archives, studies of materials, and explorations of the charged sites of public spaces, is vitally linked to an art practice that sees the world as a nuanced spectrum of human identities and experiences entangled in designations of race, gender, sexuality, and aesthetics.
Levester Williams’s artworks are steeped in the significance of their constitutive materials and their layered connections to specific sites. When he uses specific media, such as Maryland’s Cockeysville marble, or found objects, such as used penitentiary bedsheets from a Virginia detention center, he channels their layered associations with Black experience, history, and memory into new contexts and forms.
On display in all matters aside are new works with origins in Williams’s 2015-initiated project of a beyond, where he began to examine the connections among blues singer Billie Holiday, Cockeysville marble, and Baltimore’s built environments. During an artist residency at CADVC, Williams continued this research into the histories and mythologies of Cockeysville marble, a material used in both the Washington Monument in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood and the iconic exterior steps of local rowhomes.
The exhibition will be accompanied by the first in CADVC’s public art projection series with a new video art gallery set into the open amphitheater of the UMBC Fine Arts Building. New single-channel videos commissioned by the Center result from research and movement workshops that included UMBC students and other Baltimore residents. The commissions were part of the Center’s Exploratory Research Residency Program, launched in 2022 and sponsored by the “Big Ideas” initiative of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) Dean’s office. Artist Nia Hampton, a current UMBC Intermedia + Digital Arts (IMDA) graduate student, and her mother, artist and arts advocate Sheila Gaskins, both Baltimore natives, are featured performers in this series of works. The filmic work was assisted by IMDA graduate student Bao Nguyen and artist Savannah Knoop, who served as an intimacy coordinator and facilitator. According to Williams, the project underscores the “intertwined history of African-Americans’ plight to self-determined agency and full citizenship, with a rather benign stone.”
The projection project was seeded by a public art planning grant through the Maryland State Arts Council, with artist Kelley Bell and art historian Kathy O’Dell serving as advisors, and artist Rahne Alexander convening a series of public programs that developed this planning effort. The construction of this public projection space was supported by the CAHSS Dean’s office and the Division of Research and Creative Achievement at UMBC.
Opening Reception
The exhibition will open on September 19 from 5 to 7 p.m. with public programming featuring Levester Williams, Michelle D. Wright, and Lisa Freiman. Please visit here for additional information.
Read more of this week’s picks at BmoreArt.
