The Wexner Center is closed November 23.
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Tue, Jan 30, 2024
The Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University has updated and expanded its dynamic program of performing arts events for the first half of 2024.
Although a presentation of Tall Order’s Those With Two Clocks, originally scheduled for March 21–23, has been canceled due to unforeseen circumstances, a multimedia work by Jean Laurenz, Maria Finkelmeier, and Greg Jukes has been added for the same timeframe. And two new concerts are in the lineup, each a part of the suite of events surrounding the spring exhibition Sarah Maldoror: Tricontinental Cinema.
Current season information is below. In addition to standard ticketing, low-cost tickets are available for any performing arts event for $6, as are sponsor tickets to support access to the center’s performances. More details and tickets are available on the Performing Arts page at wexarts.org.
Art Ensemble of Chicago, photo: Ben Houdijk
Art Ensemble of Chicago Sat, Feb 3 | 8 PM
Formed in 1965 and kept fresh through several changes in membership, the legendary ensemble combines elements of jazz, European art music, and African folk styles for original compositions and multi-instrument group improvisations. A range of instruments—traditional, homemade, and found—are part of their shows, along with elaborate costumes, theater, poetry, dance, and more.
Among the dozens of works created by the ensemble over the decades is the soundtrack for Sarah Maldoror's 1968 debut film Monangambeee, which was commissioned by the filmmaker after she saw the group perform in Paris.
Art Ensemble of Chicago is presented in partnership with The Ohio State University Office of Academic Affairs.
Aya Ogawa, The Nosebleed Thu-Sat, Feb 8–10 | 8 PM Ohio Premiere
The Nosebleed is an intimate autobiography that explores playwright-director Aya Ogawa’s fractured relationship with their long-deceased father. Offering a series of turbulent, absurd, and poignantly comic vignettes, four actors play "Aya" while the playwright themself plays their 5-year-old son and father. As the play explores the gap between Aya and their father, it considers the topic of failure and how we as a culture don't create space for it.
Ain Gordon & Josh Quillen, Relics and Their Humans Thu-Sat, Feb 22–24 | 8 PM Ohio Premiere
Writer, director, and performer Ain Gordon and composer-performer Josh Quillen performatively reimagine a three-year odyssey following Josh’s father’s 2006 ALS diagnosis. Fusing journal entries, a podcast interview, a high stakes dinner menu, and a very surprising playlist, Gordon and Quillen conjure an intimate sonic portrait.
Jean Laurenz , Maria Finkelmeier, & Greg Jukes, Descended Sat, March 23 | 2 & 8 PM Ohio Premiere
Part chamber music, part film and theater, this shape-shifting work explores the ghost stories of 19th-century writer Lafcadio Hearn. His great, great grandniece, Jean Laurenz, a vocalist and trumpet player, and multimedia sound artist Maria Finkelmeier, explore the turbulent undertones and uncanny narratives of his celebrated macabre stories. Finkelmeier and Laurenz weave together sound and story to explore memory, ancestry, and the supernatural. An artist conversation will follow the performances.
Anonymous Ensemble, Llontop Thu-Sat, Apr 4–6 | 7 PM Ohio Premiere
Llontop celebrates and honors Indigenous Andean culture and language through the song-poems of Quechua poet Irma Alvarez-Ccoscco. An interactive, community-building installation of Peruvian objects with a live film performance, the work invites audience members to use their phones to “see” cultural artifacts. This act unleashes sound clips that create an individualized audio experience for each.
Nathalie Joachim Sat, Apr 13 | 8 PM
Making her Columbus debut, the Haitian-American vocalist, flautist, and composer possesses a unique, genre-expanding style that has earned her international acclaim and a 2020 Grammy nomination. This performance will showcase music from Joachim’s highly anticipated sophomore effort, Ki moun ou ye, an intimate examination of ancestral connection and self. This new album will be coreleased by Nonesuch Records and New Amsterdam Records on February 16.
Joachim’s performance is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Sarah Maldoror: Tricontinental Cinema.
Dana Michel, MIKE Fri–Sat, May 3–4 | 4 PM Midwest Premiere
Following a previous world premiere video installation at the Wex in 2022 and a presentation of sculptural works in the Summer 2022 exhibition Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage, Michel returns to the Wex galleries for a durational dance performance that reflects the conflict between feeling safe in public spaces and revealing one’s inner self, and the impossibility of attaining these goals without trust in oneself.
The Wexner Center for the Arts is located at 1871 N. High St. (at 15th Avenue) on the campus of The Ohio State University in Columbus. Info on campus COVID-19 safety guidelines, bus routes, parking, and more, as well as advance tickets, are available at wexarts.org/plan-your-visit or at (614) 292-3535.
Performing Arts programs made possible by the Doris Duke Foundation.
