Tag archives: UCSB

A week after California finally emerged from a series of threatening atmospheric river rainstorms, award-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato is bringing her new passion project to town. EDEN is a timely theatrical experience co-commissioned by UCSB Arts & Lectures that explores our connection to nature and its impact on our world adding movement and theater to […]

In her new book How to Stand Up to a Dictator, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa expresses the fear that the world is “in the last two minutes of democracy” and wonders if we’re at the tipping point for democracy, or fascism. Ressa discusses the story of how democracy dies by a thousand […]

Born and raised in Bakersfield, Jimmy Cuéllar has never lived a day of his life in Mexico, but it’s safe to say that mariachi music is in his blood. Both of his parents migrated to the United States with their parents when they were kids, his father brought here in his pre-teens to work the […]

Santa Barbara Dance Theater, which in its association with the UCSB Department of Theater/Dance is the only professional dance company that is in residence in the entire UC system, presents its 2023 season, Intimacy & Autonomy, next week at the Hatlen Theater on campus. The second season under new artistic director Brandon Whited, who is […]

The arts and entertainment scene in Santa Barbara stays particularly fallow in the current year-spanning four-week period, as none of the major producing organizations in town are staging events between mid-December and mid-January, save for the Santa Barbara Symphony’s annual New Year’s Eve concert. The Lobero is the first downtown to spring back into action, […]

The Arlington Theatre, our town’s largest indoor venue, hosts Santa Barbara’s first-ever Mariachi holiday concert produced by a local organization, in this case UCSB Arts & Lectures. The incomparable José Hernández will lead Mariachi Sol de México in a festive musical tribute to Mexico’s Christmas traditions, offering holiday favorites in a December 7 performance that […]

Increasingly, the idea of intersectionality is finding its way into our everyday conversations. This is a topic we explored in this column when talking to the Westmont Feminist Society, who hold up a mission to promote diversity and education. This week we’re talking to Anusikha Halder, the head of the Trans & Queer Commission at […]

Exuberance and energy were the order of the night when the 20-year-old three-time Grammy-winning Soweto Gospel Choir sang at a concert at UCSB’s Campbell Hall, part of the popular Arts & Lectures program. The singers, long associated with late South African president Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, impressed with a variety of South African […]

Jumping from high school to college, and from a harrowing drama to an absurdist comedy, there’s also UCSB Theater’s offering of a long weekend of The Government Inspector at the Hatlen Theater on campus November 16-20. UCSB faculty member Michael Bernard, whose tenure in town following 10 years as Associate Artistic Director of the 52nd […]

At my core I’m an optimist. Not to be confused with a Pollyanna. I try to stay open to ideas and sources of inspiration and innovation that could lead us to a better place – no easy feat.  Which is why I enjoyed (or more accurately, had the enriching experience of) reading Ian Bremmer’s book, […]

UCSB’s Computational Mate Choice Lab Head Dan Conroy-Beam PhD presented his research on mating choices and their success rate on Wednesday, October 19, at M. Special Brewing Company on State Street. The sold-out event was the official in-person restart to the monthly UCSB Alumni Department’s Profs at the Pub series, and was the perfect topic […]

Violist Heiichiro Ohyama led the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra for 35 years, shepherding its growth as a training ground for classical musicians while serving as one of the finest ensembles in town that was also willing to make forays into new territories. Faced with financial challenges, the SBCO closed operations in late 2017, so Ohyama […]

I attended the opening of Ishi Glinsky’s solo exhibit titled Upon a Jagged Maze at the Art, Design & Architecture (ADA) Museum at UC Santa Barbara, sponsored by the ADA Museum’s Council. The exhibit is on view through January 22, 2023.  The 25 works from 2009 to 2022 were selected by museum Director Gabriel Ritter, […]

There are a number of reading programs for students in Santa Barbara, including several administered by nonprofits. Tina Hansen McEnroe is absolutely clear about what makes the McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic at the Gevirtz School at the University of California, Santa Barbara, stand out from all the rest.  “How are we different? It’s […]

As an advisor to four U.S. Presidents, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, David Gergen had a front row seat to the highest levels of power and leadership in this country. As an editor for U.S. News and World Report, and a commentator on PBS and CNN, Mr. Gergen became a steady and rational voice on […]

UCSB Arts & Lectures caps off the opening week of its new season in a culturally significant and community-oriented way, hosting a Ukraine Fest in front of the Granada before Kyiv-based band DakhaBrakha takes the stage inside for its Santa Barbara debut on Thursday, October 6. The free festival, which takes place during the monthly […]

With students about to swarm back to the seaside campus, UCSB’s Art, Design & Architecture Museum is opening its fall-winter exhibition, “Ishi Glinsky: Upon a Jagged Maze.” The show is the first solo museum exhibition of L.A.-based Glinsky, an early career survey of 25 works made over the past decade including painting, works on paper, […]

The remains of Jack Cantin, the teenager who went missing during the 2018 debris flow, had reportedly been found in the summer of last year by former University of California, Santa Barbara anthropology professor Danielle Kurin and her undergraduate students. While many news and media outlets (including the MJ…) announced Kurin’s claims, the Sheriff’s Department […]

UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Hot Fun in the Summertime free film screening series presents The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the 1994 Australian road comedy that became a certified cult classic about two drag queens and a transgender woman (Terence Stamp!) journeying across the Australian Outback in an old tour bus. Showtime is […]

The summer reading series from UCSB’s laudable Launch Pad program – which pairs playwrights’ new or underproduced works with professional directors and student performers – is an enviable experiential environment for professionals and students to participate in the creative process as it takes shape. In addition to acting, students get to explore stage management and […]