Arts & Entertainment

Arts & Entertainment

Reading Back the Semester

May 13, 2012

Creative Writing MFA faculty take the spotlight David M. Deleon Contributing Writer n Monday, April 23, the Hunter English department held a reading for the Creative Writing MFA program’s Distinguished Writers Series, honoring faculty members who had recently published books. The reading featured executive director of the MFA program Peter Carey, along with program director Tom Sleigh, and faculty members Nathan Englander and Kathryn Harrison. The event took over the 8th floor faculty lounge with food, wine and the...

Read more »

Funny, Then Serious, Then Funny Again

May 13, 2012
Funny, Then Serious, Then Funny Again

Nathan Englander’s glorious return to the short story Christian Davies Staff Writer On the surface, Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is a collection of eight short stories about religion. But what truly distinguishes Mr. Englander’s writing, and what makes this collection of stories so effective, is his wizard-like ability to weave seriousness into absurdity, humor into tragedy, and to surround some of the most dire human atrocities imaginable with laugh-out-loud moments. His collection...

Read more »

Alcestis in Baghdad and Cardinia’s Calling

May 13, 2012

Hunter playwrights festival kicks off with two strong outings Amal Abbass Staff Writer “We are making a bit of history here,” said Mark Bly, the production manager of the Hunter Playwrights Festival, to an audience right before the Friday night staging of Alcestis in Baghdad. Bly was referring to the inauguration of the Playwrights Festival, a culmination of two years of study for Hunter’s Playwriting MFA students. The Playwrights Festival is sponsored by the Rita and Burton Goldberg Fund,...

Read more »

A Familial Collection

May 13, 2012
A Familial Collection

The Stein family’s art collection is displayed at the MET Julian Cosma Staff Writer Any undergrad who has taken a course in Modernism is probably aware of the name Gertrude Stein, at least peripherally. In the literary realm, her writing is more known than read and it usually takes a backseat to the works of Joyce, Hemingway, Woolf, and Eliot. However remembering Stein solely on the basis of her writing is akin to writing a biography of Warhol that...

Read more »

Underground Creative Minds Find Home

May 13, 2012

The burgeoning scene in the Paint & Poetry movement Peter Dunifon Associate Arts & Entertainment Editor If the warm winds weren’t enough to cheer the wintertime funk, attention all fledging poets, painters and creative thinkers: there is hope. Paint & Poetry, a monthly event for creative souls, is making waves for positive expression and progression in the monsoon of New York City. Paint & Poetry celebrated its fourth month on April 28, the last Saturday of National Poetry Month....

Read more »

Itching for The Hives

May 13, 2012
Itching for The Hives

Band plays secret show at Webster Hall Alden Burke Contributing Writer For the first time in five years, The Hives are back on the map with their fifth studio album, Lex Hives, which is expected for release on June 4. However, the Swedish garage-rock band’s upcoming tour to support their release seemed to fly right over New York City. What many did not know, though, was that The Hives did touch down here. They played a secret show at...

Read more »

Mobb Deep’s The Infamous

May 13, 2012
Mobb Deep’s The Infamous

Classic album spotlight Julian Rivas Arts and Entertainment Editor Released in 1995, Mobb Deep’s The Infamous is one of the more haunting rap albums that follow in the glorious tradition of hardcore 90’s New York rap. Mobb Deep, like most rappers of that era, focused on portraying the decayed state of New York City that they had grown up in. But whereas an album like Nas’ Illmatic carries a distanced and thoughtful view of his Queensbridge projects, Prodigy and...

Read more »

Media Professor Karen Hunter Soon to Publish Upcoming Book

May 3, 2012

A sneak peak into An Angry-Ass Black Woman Rita Calviello Hunter College media professor Karen Hunter will publish an upcoming book under her publishing company, Karen Hunter Books. An Angry-Ass Black Woman, scheduled for release on October 2nd was written by NAACP Literary Award Nominee and one of Essence magazine’s best- selling authors, Karen E. Quinones Miller. Through a fictionalized encapsulation of Miller’s life growing up in a poverty-stricken and often thought of hopeless Harlem, comes a story of...

Read more »

Art in the Thomas Hunter Basement

April 25, 2012
Art in the Thomas Hunter Basement

Thomas Hunter Projects displays student artworks Peter Dunifon Associate Arts and Entertainment Editor Currently on display for the Thomas Hunter Projects is the work of students in an advanced ceramics class. Two of six students in the class, Emily Miller and Shelly Richards, prepared thematically- connected pieces of their work and set them up for display on April 16. The four other students in their class will also put their work on display in the coming weeks. For Emily...

Read more »

A Talk with Téa Obreht

April 25, 2012

The rising star reads at Hunter Amal Abbass Contributing Writer When Téa Obreht stepped to the podium of the English Department’s packed faculty dining room on April 4, she looked and sounded as if she would blend right in at Hunter’s halls. As the third author of the 2012 Distinguished Writers Series, presented by Hunter’s MFA Creative Writing Program, Obreht came to Hunter to read from her award-winning debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife, and talk about her experience as...

Read more »

Hunter Dance Program’s Spring Concert

April 25, 2012

Dance department showcases at the Kaye Playhouse Melissa Julien Contributing Writer On March 29, the Hunter College Dance Program showcased a series of innovative student choreography work from the first half of this semester’s Spring Concert. The Spring Concert, which took place at the Kaye Playhouse, featured three days of new student work and repertory pieces. For the Hunter College Dance Program, a small but close-knit community based on the sixth floor of Thomas Hunter Hall, it was a...

Read more »

The Community at the Olivetree Review

April 25, 2012

A look at Hunter’s literary and art magazine Andrew Rice Contributing Writer Additional reporting by Alexandra Heidler Staff Writer There are sounds of a party emanating from Thomas Hunter 212. There is laughter, music, and the bump and tussle of what can only be dancing. The “Olivetree Review” is celebrating not only the realization that the room is indeed theirs, but the release of their 50th issue. Established in 1983, the student-run magazine is Hunter College’s literary and art...

Read more »

Album Review on Mr. Impossible

April 25, 2012
Album Review on Mr. Impossible

Black Dice makes slight changes for their latest release Julian Rivas Arts and Entertainment As their wacky brand of noise music has fallen into normality over recent years, Black Dice manage to shake things up again with their latest album, “Mr. Impossible.” In this, their sixth LP over the last ten years, the band finds themselves engaging with the pop and dance enamored music world of today. The results make for a tighter, more digestible album that still keeps the...

Read more »

Super Fly

April 25, 2012
Super Fly

Classic album spotlight Andrew Rice Contributing Writer Curtis Mayfield’s “Super Fly” was originally penned as the accompanying soundtrack to the 1972 blaxploitation film of the same name. The film followed the trials and tribulations of coke dealers trying to leave the business in our very own New York City. Often considered one of the seminal R&B soul albums of the ‘60s and ‘70s, it is rivaled only by Marvin Gaye’s landmark “What’s Going On?” in influence. “Super Fly” soon...

Read more »

“Rembrandt and Degas” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

April 25, 2012
“Rembrandt and Degas” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Exhibit at the MET highlights the similarities between the two artists Ignacio-Alexander Pintor Staff Writer By the time Edgar Degas rejected the label of Impressionism and opted for Realist art, Rembrandt van Rijn had long been gone for more than a hundred years. While Rembrandt had a large influence on Degas’ work, the two had differences in their technique did not even work during the same era. Yet, from now until May 20, the work of these two artists...

Read more »