Grab your blanket or lawn chair—and your family and friends—and join us for a pop-up concert in Hancher's back yard! Hancher favorites Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience spread joy wherever they play—and they are eager to spread that joy once again in Iowa City.
Past Season Events
It’s an after-work office party. It’s also a dance show. Dancers Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass (last seen in Iowa City with Ira Glass in Hancher’s presentation of Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host) crash a party that the whole audience is invited to.
KJ Sanchez and her company, American Records, create documentary plays about key issues, seeking to build connections between people. Her lecture will focus on her work concerning the concussion crisis in American football and issues of immigrants and resettlement in the United States.
Lecture
Cokie Roberts – POSTPONED (Now 9/12/18)
An Insider's View of Washington, D.C.
The 2017 Levitt Lecture
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Lecture
Cokie Roberts – POSTPONED (Now 9/12/18)
An Insider's View of Washington, D.C.
The 2017 Levitt Lecture
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Renowned journalist Cokie Roberts, named a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress (2008), is one of the most esteemed and brilliant broadcast journalists of our time. In her presentation, Roberts will offer her unique perspective on the goings-on in the nation’s capital.
A gala event! Black tie optional. Longtime Hancher favorites, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis will make its debut in the new Hancher Auditorium. Wynton and the band will transform Hancher into the house of swing.
Your family will want to catch Flip FabriQue, a circus company committed to joy, playfulness, and friendship. Catch Me! is a gravity defying spectacle featuring acrobatics, a trampo-wall, and amazing feats of agility and skill performed by a company of true friends.
The Fourth Light Project is a multimedia experience, combining live music and sacred dance (a dervish) with advanced projection techniques. The Fourth Light Project focuses on the life and work of Rabia al-Basri, an eighth-century Muslim saint and the first female Sufi mystic.
Leslie Odom Jr., whose portrayal of Aaron Burr—“the damn fool who shot him”—in Hamilton shot him to fame, returns for a free outdoor concert to follow-up his rapturously received lecture at Hancher last season.
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Hancher's Culinary Arts Experience
Hancher's Culinary Arts Experience
Northside Bistro
Hancher Culinary Arts Experience
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Northside Bistro supports community and makes the best of what’s available locally, working toward offering 80% local products while committing 100% to Iowa farmers.
La Santa Cecilia, named for the patron saint of musicians, was blessed with the Grammy for Best Latin Rock Album in 2014. Drawing inspiration from around the world, the L.A.-based band creates a hybrid of cumbia, bossa nova, rumba, bolero, tango, jazz, rock, and klezmer.
In fiction, nonfiction, and comics, G. Willow Wilson has distinguished herself as a writer of remarkable originality and insight. In her lecture, Wilson uses the challenges Ms. Marvel—a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager—faces as a parallel for the challenges of a misunderstood generation.
Two worlds collide in the Lincoln Center Theater production of this “breathtaking and exquisite” (New York Times) musical. One of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s finest works, The King and I boasts a score of beloved classics.
“Joshua Bell doesn’t stand in anyone’s shadow.” So declares the New York Times, and when Bell steps into the light on the Hancher stage with his 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin, he’ll demonstrate why.
Established in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and arts aficionado Lincoln Kirstein, New York City Ballet is one of the foremost dance companies in the world. The program will include choreography by Christopher Wheeldon, Justin Peck, and Jerome Robbins.
Ethan Lipton is rumpled, self-deprecating, and brilliant. The Outer Space is a bittersweet, off-kilter tale of a couple headed for space—but the interstellar sailing isn’t always smooth.
Ethan Lipton is rumpled, self-deprecating, and brilliant. No Place to Go is a story of work, outsourcing, and identity—and a potential career move to Mars.
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Hancher's Culinary Arts Experience
Hancher's Culinary Arts Experience
Baroncini Ristorante
Hancher Culinary Arts Experience
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Baroncini Ristorante is an authentic Italian restaurant emphasizing classic techniques and the use of fresh Iowa ingredients combined with Italian produce.
The Blue Hour is a new work created collaboratively by five female composers—Caroline Shaw, Shara Nova, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Angélica Negrón, and Rachel Grimes. Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist Luciana Souza joins A Far Cry in performance of The Blue Hour.
Trumpeter Terence Blanchard is a musical force, equally respected as a jazzman and as a composer and performer of music for film. Blanchard will lead The E-Collective in a night of fusion and R&B flavored music drawn from their record Breathless, the title track of which is a call for social justice.
Ten guys. No instruments. One unmistakable sound. A cappella powerhouse Straight No Chaser is bringing the holiday cheer to Hancher Auditorium.
It truly is a family affair when Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy bring their Celtic—by way of Cape Breton, Canada—music to the stage for a holiday party.
Camille A. Brown's new work, ink, seeks to reclaim African American narratives and culture from appropriation and silence. The third work in a trilogy about identity, ink is an amalgamation of African dance, African American social dance, tap, jazz, modern, and hip-hop.
Pianist and composer Billy Childs joined the Ying Quartet for a classical concert last season at Hancher. This season, the four-time Grammy winner returns for a run of Club Hancher performances with his jazz quartet.
A trumpeter, santur player, vocalist, and composer, ElSaffar is steeped in classical and jazz traditions while also bringing the microtones and ornaments idiomatic to Arabic music into play. His band, Rivers of Sound, features 17 musicians who blend eastern and western music.
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Hancher's Culinary Arts Experience
Hancher's Culinary Arts Experience
Orchard Green Restaurant and Lounge
Hancher Culinary Arts Experience
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Orchard Green Restaurant and Lounge features gourmet classics and innovative American-Mediterranean cuisine artistically prepared with fresh, seasonal ingredients.
Dance
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan
Formosa, Concept/Choreography by Lin Hwai-min
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Dance
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan
Formosa, Concept/Choreography by Lin Hwai-min
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Lin Hwai-min is the founder and artistic director of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. He is also a University of Iowa graduate, earning his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1971. After studying at the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, he founded Cloud Gate in 1973.
Motown The Musical is the true American dream story of Motown founder Berry Gordy’s journey from featherweight boxer to the heavyweight music mogul who launched the careers of Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson, and many more.
A longstanding Hancher tradition continues with The Hancher Guild Youth Art Show! The opening reception for this celebration of the young artists in our community will include light refreshments, a performance by K2A3 Brass Trio, and the announcement of award winners.
Music
Elias String Quartet
A collaboration with the UI String Quartet Residency Program
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Music
Elias String Quartet
A collaboration with the UI String Quartet Residency Program
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
There are plenty of top tier string quartets in the world. Even so, the Elias String Quartet stands out among its peers. As the Philadelphia Enquirer put it, “Few quartets at any stage of their evolution have this much personality.”
Hancher has enjoyed a long and creatively fruitful relationship with both the Kronos Quartet and Rinde Eckert. For My Lai, the string quartet and the vocalist come together with multi-instrumentalist Vân Ánh Vanessa Võ to lay bare the tragedy of the 1968 massacre at My Lai.
Free
Lecture
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
From Kareem to Kaepernick: A History of Political Activism in Sports
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Lecture
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
From Kareem to Kaepernick: A History of Political Activism in Sports
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and a six-time NBA champion. After 50 years as an athlete, activist, and New York Times best-selling author, he offers his perspectives as a nationally recognized speaker who regularly appears on the lecture circuit.
Music
Music
Brian Stokes Mitchell
with the University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
“The last leading man” comes to Hancher Auditorium to perform with University of Iowa student musicians under the baton of Dr. William LaRue Jones. Brian Stokes Mitchell and his trio will join the UI Symphony Orchestra, which will provide a lush setting for Stokes’s luscious voice.
Created by Hamid Rahmanian, a Guggenheim fellowship-winning filmmaker and visual artist, Feathers of Fire is an ambitious shadow play recounting the fates of star-crossed lovers.
Bassem Youssef hosted the satirical news program Al-Bernameg in Egypt, earning a reputation as that country’s Jon Stewart. Named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2013, Youssef continues to shine a light on global issues with thoughtful, hilarious commentary.
Kinky Boots is Broadway’s huge-hearted, high-heeled hit! With songs by Grammy and Tony winning pop icon Cyndi Lauper, this joyous musical celebration is about the friendships we discover and the belief that you can change the world when you change your mind.
The band’s name means “give-take.” The band’s members call the mix of influences “ethno-chaos.” The band’s voice is singular. Built on a base of Ukrainian folk music, the sound of DakhaBraka is equal parts old and new—a punk take on established traditions stirred together with a world of grooves.
Inspired by Machine Dazzle’s work on Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, area artists take over the windows of an array of downtown businesses in a celebration of radical viewpoints and untold stories in local history.
Hancher was a proud commissioner and presenter of Taylor Mac’s 1846–1856 Whitman vs. Foster: Songs Popular Near the Breaking Point, a portion of the artist’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music. Now, Mac returns with a condensed version of this magnum opus.
Hancher's Culinary Arts Experience
Hancher's Culinary Arts Experience
Trumpet Blossom Cafe
Hancher Culinary Arts Experience
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Trumpet Blossom Cafe creates plant-based comfort food that reflects the season, respects the land, and is truly sustainable using organic ingredients and making dishes from scratch.
Music
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti, Zell Music Director
Semyon Bychkov, conductor
Katia & Marielle Labèque, piano
Sunday, May 6, 2018
Music
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti, Zell Music Director
Semyon Bychkov, conductor
Katia & Marielle Labèque, piano
Sunday, May 6, 2018
Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently recognized as one of the great orchestras in the world.
Free
Music
Music
Zeshan B and the Transistors
Friday Night Concert Series in Downtown Iowa City
Friday, May 25, 2018
Born in Chicago to Indian Muslim immigrants, Zeshan B's musical identity was formed at the harmonious intersection of two worlds. His parent’s love of their native Indo-Pakistani music collided with the sounds of his father’s extensive blues, soul, and R&B collection.
Born in Chicago to Indian Muslim immigrants, Zeshan Bagewadi’s musical identity was formed at the harmonious intersection of two worlds. His parent’s love of their native Indo-Pakistani music collided with the sounds of his father’s extensive blues, soul, and R&B collection.