“Farragut North,” loosely based on Howard Dean’s 2004 Democratic primary campaign, opened this past weekend at the Weitz Center for Creativity. Directed by associate professor of theater David Wiles, the play is billed as “a classic tale of hubris set against a contemporary landscape—about the lust for power and the costs one will endure to achieve it.” Presented by the Carleton Players, a video trailer of the production is available. Tickets for the performance, which continues February 24-25, are available online.

The Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater (SPDT) performed at Carleton on Friday, Jan. 6, kicking off the winter term programming in the Weitz Center for Creativity. Dan McAlister ’13 interviewed Stuart Pimsler, who also talked about the collaborative class he taught at Carleton during the winter term, which brought politics and dance together in a unique but interesting cross-disciplinary way, and showed footage of the company’s performance in the Weitz Center Theater. The performance was supported by funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Legacy Amendment.

Dan McAlister ’13 checks in with the Carleton Student Experimental Theater Board and their 24-Hour Show project. The team of students writes, casts, rehearses and performs a series of plays in a 24-hour time period, making for some interesting, creative work and a sleep-deprived group of Carls.

The Jan. 20, 2012, broadcast of KYMN (1080 AM) Radio’s “Art Zany! Radio for the Imagination” featured special guest Laurel Bradley, Director and Curator of the Perlman Teaching Museum 
and Senior Lecturer in Art and Art History, talking about the current art exhibit “A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art.” Bradley was joined by Martin Rosenberg, co-curator of the exhibition and Professor of Art History at Rutgers University. On display, through March 11, 2012, “A Complex Weave” reveals the ongoing vitality of the Feminist artist movement with works by contemporary women artists of varied backgrounds exploring aspects of identity through painting, drawing, needlework, photography and other media.

The 1/25/12 edition of “All Things Considered” on Minnesota Public Radio includes a feature story on the current Perlman Teaching Museum exhibit, “Running the Numbers,” on display through March 11 in the Kaemmer Family Gallery in the Weitz Center for Creativity. “Running the Numbers: Portraits of Mass Consumption” is the work of Seattle artist Chris Jordan, who presents huge color photographs — assembled from thousands of smaller photographs — based on statistical facts about American consumer culture. The story on Minnesota Public Radio features Laurel Bradley, director and curator of the Perlman Teaching Museum, and Neil Lutsky, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology, who first encountered Jordan’s artwork in 2010, and was impressed by the way in which it found creative ways to present quantitative data.

The Jan. 24 edition of the Northfield News covered a neat collaboration between William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology Neil Lutsky’s class and Northfield Middle School students around the new Perlman Teaching Museum’s exhibit, “Running the Numbers” by photographer Chris Jordan. “What they did was, they sat with their Carleton student and brainstormed about big numbers that had some relevance to their lives,” said John Bade, NMS art teacher. Bade had about 65 students participate in the art project, divided into 17 groups with one Carleton student assigned to each group. Lutsky’s students were responsible for trying to find a way to represent the large statistics they had found. “They liked having that college student in the classroom,” Bade said. “And the kids Neil (Lutsky) brought over were very engaging.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Scott Carlson wrote a feature titled “In an Old School Building, Carleton College and Its Community Enjoy New Lessons” for the publication’s Jan. 21 edition. Carlson tells the history of the building, how the College purchased and planned the renovation, shows how many of the old spaces morphed into the new and how Carleton used many of the old parts of the building in interesting and creative ways. The article includes an online slide show as well.

Laurel Bradley, director and curator in the Perlman Teaching Museum and senior lecturer in art and art History, gives us a tour of the Weitz Center for Creativity’s museum space. She talks about exactly what it means for Carleton to have such a facility and gives us a sneak preview of the two winter term exhibits. “A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art” is on display in the museum’s Braucher Gallery through March 11, while the Kaemmer Family Gallery hosts “Running the Numbers: Portraits of Mass Consumption” at the same time.

This past Friday, Carleton presented the Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater performance as 2012’s first event in the Weitz Center for Creativity.

Aparna Ramaswamy, Carleton Class of 1997, and her mother, Ranee Ramaswamy, have been named the 2011 Artist of the Year by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The mother and daughter are the artistic directors, choreographers, and principal dancers of the internationally renowned Ragamala Dance Company and School. The 1/1/12 edition of the Star Tribune honors “Ragamala artistic directors Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy in a year that included the creation of substantial new work, national touring, a showcase at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and rave reviews from all over.”

“The artistic directors of Ragamala Dance use their art form as a prism to refract both the ancient and the modern,” writes reporter Caroline Palmer. “The choreographers, ages 59 and 35, continued to advance their dance form into the 21st century, winning kudos for a vibrant modern-day vision born out of ancient Indian tradition. This is why the Star Tribune has selected these impressive women as Artists of the Year.” The complete article can be found here.

Aparna Ramaswamy is a 1997 graduate of Carleton College, where she earned a BA in international relations and political economy.