Photo Blog

Members of the Holy Cross and local community gather in the Loyola Ballroom for an art bazaar fundraising event benefiting the conservation of the Jenne Magafan Murals at Worcester East Middle School. The event, hosted by the Student Art Society, featured a silent auction of original works—including paintings, drawings and sculptures—donated by students and faculty members to support the fundraising efforts.

Photography by Liz Baker ’16

From left to right, students Yvesh’a Bellevue ’16, Diana Hurtado ’17, Tanusha Yarlagadda ’18, Rebekah Dowdell ’16, Jazmin Lopez ’16, and Ja-Lene Scott-Dottin ’16 performed poet, author, and playwright Ntozake Shange’s, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” during Holy Cross’ annual Family Weekend. The performance, was the capstone project of Dowdell, a theatre major at the College.

The performance, combined the imagery of dance, the sounds of music and a series of poetic monologues to create a “choreopoem” to tell the stories of women who have suffered from oppression in a racist and sexist society. In the performance the cast the of women are nameless, identified only by the colors of the rainbow they are assigned.

Photos provided by Rebekah Dowdell ‘16

Students and faculty from Holy Cross’ CreateLab course partake in a “flash swarm” in the Swords Atrium of the Integrated Science Complex. Alongside visiting artists-in-residence, Troika Ranch, an internationally renowned ensemble that fuses dance, theatre and technology, the Holy Cross community is exploring the relationship between Gravity and Grace: The Intersection of Art and Science, this year’s Arts Transcending Borders theme. Collaborating with theatre, CreateLab classes and the Arts Transcending Borders initiative, Troika Ranch will integrate live performance with cutting edge interactive technology at Holy Cross throughout the year.

Photo by Tom Rettig

Brazilian percussionist Marcus Santos leads CreateLab students in an Afro-Brazilian drumming circle on the Hogan Courtyard. This innovative drumming project promotes music as an educational resource, entertainment and as a catalyst for social change targeting global diversity awareness.

Photo by Tom Rettig

Caitlin Cantor ’15 installs her work “Pine Box” in the Cantor Art Gallery as part of the Holy Cross Senior Concentration Seminar Art Exhibition  titled “X”. Cantor describes her work as “a spiritual piece dealing with nature and the human connection.”  The annual exhibition features the artwork of graduating seniors who have participated in the Senior Concentration Seminar.

Photo by Rob Carlin

Kim Tu Dam ‘15 poses with her Isolation Series during the opening reception of “X.” The exhibition will be open to the public through May 22.

The College Choir and Chamber Singers perform “Libertad,” a concert that takes audiences on a tour to Argentina. The concert program incorporates the diversity that comes along with choral music from different parts of the world. Featuring music of the Western Hemisphere, primarily focusing on music of the United States and Argentina, the concert centers around the theme of freedom.

Photo by Dan Vaillancourt

Boston Musica Viva and soloists of the Silk Road Ensemble perform “Kala Chakra,” a new work composed by Shirish Korde, distinguished professor of humanities in the College’s music department. Korde’s work is based on folk music from diverse cultures including Armenia, China, India, the Czech Republic, Romania, and the U.S. In this composition, texts and musical structures are interwoven to create a new work that not only explores common features among world folk traditions that are the focus of “Kala Chakra,” but also juxtaposes conflicting notions of time, color, melody, and harmony into a new sonic world, reflective of the inter-connected world we live in today.

In a review following the world premiere just a few days earlier in Cambridge, Boston Classical Review said the concert was “so rhythmically infectious that, if the tiny hall had any aisles to speak of, one could imagine the patrons dancing in them. As it was, they had to content themselves with applauding vigorously and bounding to their feet at the close of Kala Chakra, Shirish Korde’s new nine-movement work for three soloists and chamber ensemble.”

Photography by Matthew Atanian

Jimena Bermejo-Black, visiting lecturer of theatre, center, leads students from modern dance classes to develop a one minute interpretation of displayed art from “Pulse: New Work by Faculty Artists” the exhibit currently on display in the Cantor Art Gallery.

Photo by Tom Rettig

Boston-based artist Georgie Friedman  premiers her site-specific video installation designed for Holy Cross with an artist’s reception in the Spillane Pavilion of the Integrated Science Complex. The video installation, “Under the Icy Sky,” re-contextualizes natural elements in relationship to the architecture of the science complex.

In an interview with Boston’s NPR news station WBUR, Friedman said that Worcester’s record snowfall enhanced the effect of her installation. “Overall, I want viewers, especially people on the campus who frequent this area everyday, to gain a new perspective of a familiar space, a new awareness of their everyday surroundings — and, ideally, to contemplate their relationships to the natural, built and technology-created environments.”
Photography by Caroline Cormier ’16

Arts Transcending Borders  2014 artist-in-residence Cristina Pato returned to the College to present a new work-in-progress inspired by the Camino de Santiago and her Galician roots in the Mary Chapel.

Guests arrived early to explore an exhibit of photography from the Camino by Virginia and Michel Raguin in the gathering space outside Mary Chapel. Here, Professor of Art History, Virginia speaks to a guest about the photography.

Since the Middle Ages, pilgrims across Europe have undertaken an arduous journey along several routes, which, like the grooves on the scallop shells carried by the pilgrims, culminate in the town of Santiago de Compostela, the site of St. James’ tomb. Today, El Camino, or The Way of St. James, invites people from all walks of life, who often embark on the journey to mark moments of transition. “Making The Way” brought together the College Choir, theatre department faculty and students, and the Cantor Art Gallery in an exploration of the Camino in words, images and music, from medieval chant recorded in Codex Calixtinus, a 12th century illuminated transcript, to the tender aria “Lúa Descolorida” by Osvaldo Golijov, Loyola Professor of Music at Holy Cross. Drawn from the stories of local pilgrims, moments of hardship, resolve, camaraderie and mirth coalesce into a timeless narrative that invited participants on a spiritual journey along the Camino.