Events

Leah Glenn Dance Theatre Presents, Nine: A Tribute to the Little Rock Nine

A commemorative multi-media performance piece featuring the choreography of Artistic Director Leah Glenn, in collaboration with Steve Prince (visual artist), Dr. Hermine Pinson (poet), Dr. Stephen Hayes (composer), and Mary Jo O'Shaughnessy (costumes). The work seamlessly interweaves the vocabularies of dance, visual arts, poetry, and music into a narrative that celebrates the bravery and fortitude of the Little Rock Nine, the African American teenagers who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.

Leah Glenn Dance Theatre is a modern dance company dedicated to cultivating a greater understanding of the world in which we live through thought-provoking works of art that entertain, inspire, and challenge its audiences.

Ferguson Center for the Arts | Diamonstein Concert Hall

Prefaces 2025 Awards Ceremony and Reception

Join us for the awards ceremony honoring talented local high school students with work in the annual Prefaces exhibition. Awards will be presented by Prefaces 2025 judge Truly Matthews, Deputy Director and Director of Education & Engagement at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. The Awards ceremony begins at 2:30 p.m. in the Torggler Lecture Hall.

Broken Vessels, Restored Souls: Ceramics in Jewish Mysticism and Art | A Public Lecture by Joanna Homrighausen

In Judaism’s mystical traditions, the myth of the ‘breaking of the vessels’ imagines vessels of divine essence shattered at creation, left for humans to find and repair the world. Join CNU’s Jewish Studies program for a talk exploring Jewish mysticism and the art inspired by it. This lecture will begin with Jewish art from past centuries that engages mystical themes, from ritual implements to calligraphed manuscripts, then turn to more recent Jewish artists who have played with Jewish mystical texts, themes, and symbols.

Joanna Homrighausen (PhD, Religion, Duke University) teaches in Judaic Studies at William & Mary, and writes and teaches on sacred words, sacred texts, and how individuals and communities reproduce, ritualize, and revere them through lettering arts and scribal crafts. She has recently published on Hebrew calligrapher Gabriel Wolff’s tattoo designs, word and image in illustrated scrolls of the Book of Esther, and the Zen influences on Jewish lettering artist Izzy Pludwinski. She is currently in the early stages of a book on the Hebrew lettering of Jewish-American artist Ben Shahn, and speaks on Jewish art for Jewish Art Education.

Presented in collaboration with CNU’s Department of Philosophy and Religion and sponsored by the Bertram and Gladys Aaron Endowed Professorship in Jewish Studies.

Reception | 12:30 p.m.

Lecture | 1:30 p.m.