With Rooted, Ayodel Casel, tap dancer and choreographer traces the roots of her artform, building on a rich history while forging the future. We'll sum up with the Times' assessment of Casel: "She's astonishing."
Lecture
Lecture
Alan Page
First African American Supreme Court Justice of Minnesota
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Alan page became the first African American on the court and one of the few associate justices to ever join the court initially through election, rather than appointment by governor. In 2018, Alan Page was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Telling the story of two men finding themselves and falling in love in a gay dance club, Heart of Brick is a theatrical dance and music performance that celebrates the multi-generational spirit of the Black queer community.
Free
Infinite Dream | Lecture
RECONSTRUCTING: Who & How Are We Together?
A Conversation on Process with Jillian Walker and Emma Orme
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Infinite Dream | Lecture
RECONSTRUCTING: Who & How Are We Together?
A Conversation on Process with Jillian Walker and Emma Orme
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Orme and TEAM writer/artist Jillian Walker will discuss their creative process, the thrills and challenges of making theater in the current landscape, and their new, work-in-progress Reconstructing (Still Working but the Devil Might Be Inside).
The Sphinx Virtuosi is a dynamic self-conducted chamber orchestra comprised of eighteen accomplished Black and Latinx artists aiming to evolve and shape the face of classical music through artistic excellence, pioneering programming, and impassioned community engagement.
Free
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Herein Lies the Truth: A Work-In-Progress Conversation
Aaron Pang, Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, Tisa Bryant, and Adam Knight
Thursday, October 12, 2023
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Herein Lies the Truth: A Work-In-Progress Conversation
Aaron Pang, Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, Tisa Bryant, and Adam Knight
Thursday, October 12, 2023
The conversation will include a short presentation of work-in-progress as well as a conversation with faculty members from Pang’s thesis committee—Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, Tisa Bryant, and Adam Knight.
Love In Exile is the daring new collaboration from Grammy Award-winning singer Arooj Aftab, Shahzad Ismaily, and Vijay Iyer. In These Times is a masterwork album from Chicago-based percussionist, composer, and producer Makaya McCraven.
Free
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Regarding The Continuum: An Exploration of Dreams Fulfilled
Featuring LaTasha Barnes and Rebekah Kowal (moderator)
Friday, October 13, 2023
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Regarding The Continuum: An Exploration of Dreams Fulfilled
Featuring LaTasha Barnes and Rebekah Kowal (moderator)
Friday, October 13, 2023
LaTasha Barnes is an internationally awarded and critically-acclaimed dance artist, choreographer, educator will discuss her creative process and new projects in development alongside University of Iowa Department of Dance faculty member Rebekah Kowal.
Infinite Dream | Literature
Infinite Dream | Literature
John Irving
in conversation with Lan Samantha Chang
Friday, October 13, 2023
A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Irving returns to our campus and community to discuss his life and creative process alongside Iowa Writers’ Workshop director Lan Samantha Chang.
Dogsbody, the debut album by Brooklyn-based Model/Actriz, is a coming-of-age album set between the hours of dusk and dawn. It is as much an exploration of love and loss as it is a sharp, piercing, and violent ode to the explosive joy of being alive.
Free
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Storytelling Across the Arts: A Conversation with Lonnie Holley & Kurt Vile
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Storytelling Across the Arts: A Conversation with Lonnie Holley & Kurt Vile
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Lonnie Holley and Kurt Vile discuss their creative process.
Free
Infinite Dream | Dance
Uncharted Myths: Reckonings, Reflections, and Riffs on American Stories
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Infinite Dream | Dance
Uncharted Myths: Reckonings, Reflections, and Riffs on American Stories
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Writers from the annual International Writing Program (IWP) fall residency will provide written texts as inspiration for University of Iowa dance students to choreograph new work, resulting in a performance at Infinite Dream.
Infinite Dream | Music
Kurt Vile and The Violators
with special guest Lonnie Holley and Mourning [A] BLKstar
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Infinite Dream | Music
Kurt Vile and The Violators
with special guest Lonnie Holley and Mourning [A] BLKstar
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Kurt Vile is an essential American psych-pop songwriter and guitarist. His music, veering between flashes of lightning and hazes of dense fog, captures our emotional and collective landscape like few other artists in the modern era.
Legendary film director Werner Herzog will receive FilmScene’s Cinema Savant award and appear in conversation to discuss his life in film as part of a five-city US book tour.
Free
Infinite Dream | Lecture
N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars): A Creative Matters conversation with Andrew Schneider and Jecca Barry
Featuring Daniel Fine (moderator)
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Infinite Dream | Lecture
N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars): A Creative Matters conversation with Andrew Schneider and Jecca Barry
Featuring Daniel Fine (moderator)
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Theater, video, and arts technologist Andrew Schneider and creative producer Jecca Barry will discuss the process of building and performing N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars), Schneider’s new performance installation work.
Free
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Reflecting the Infinite Dream: Visions of the American Story
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Reflecting the Infinite Dream: Visions of the American Story
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
A selection of writers from University of Iowa's cohort of esteemed writers from around the world for the International Writing Program's fall residency will share poetry, prose, and other creative expressions in conversation with the ideas and questions of the Infinite Dream festival.
Sold Out
Infinite Dream | Visual Art
N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars)
by Andrew Schneider | Guided
Wednesday–Saturday, October 18–21, 2023
Infinite Dream | Visual Art
N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars)
by Andrew Schneider | Guided
Wednesday–Saturday, October 18–21, 2023
N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars) is a remarkable immersive installation work by theater, video, and arts technologist Andrew Schneider. You will walk through a room, secluded in total darkness punctuated by 4,000 reactive points of light and 496-channel sound design.
Infinite Dream | Visual Art
N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars)
by Andrew Schneider | Open Universe
Wednesday–Saturday, October 18–21, 2023
Infinite Dream | Visual Art
N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars)
by Andrew Schneider | Open Universe
Wednesday–Saturday, October 18–21, 2023
N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars) is a remarkable immersive installation work by theater, video, and arts technologist Andrew Schneider. You will walk through a room, secluded in total darkness punctuated by 4,000 reactive points of light and 496-channel sound design.
Free
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Mobilizing Dancers for War in Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army
A Presentation and Discussion by Professor Rebekah Kowal
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Infinite Dream | Lecture
Mobilizing Dancers for War in Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army
A Presentation and Discussion by Professor Rebekah Kowal
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Rebekah Kowal's talk examines the role of dance in the movie and the ways it mobilized civilian troops and the American public at a pivotal moment in the war effort.
Samara Joy's "buttery vocals melt across the warm grooves of whatever songs she's singing, conjuring the greats of yore while simultaneously forging her own effervescent stye" (The Old Grey Cat blog).
Film | Music
Disney/Pixar's COCO live-to-film concert
Score performed live by Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México
Friday, October 27, 2023
Film | Music
Disney/Pixar's COCO live-to-film concert
Score performed live by Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México
Friday, October 27, 2023
Coco takes 12-year-old Miguel to the Land of the Dead as he implores his great-great-grandfather to help him reverse his family's ban on music. The full movie will be presented on the big screen at Hancher while the score is performed live by Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México.
Iowa City's Mic Check Poetry Fest is a much-loved two-day celebration of spoken word poetry. Hancher is proud to host the opening showcase featuring teen poets from IC Speaks and headliners Danez Smith and Denice Frohman.
Sun Ra Arkestra has been at the forefront of exploring new horizons in creative music and inspiring the ever-evolving tenets of Afrofuturism. Opening act Theon Cross has reinvented the tuba as the low-voiced leader of innovative and explosive—and hard to define—ensembles.
The Takács Quartet garnered international attention by winning first prize and the critics' prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Takács is renowned for "marrying aristocratic elegance and red-blooded energy to everything they play."
Dance Gala 2023 celebrates its return to the Hancher stage with new and restaged works by faculty members and creative collaborators as well as a work by distinguished guest choreographer Aaron Samuel Davis.
Midori, recognized as one of the most outstanding violinists of our time, will play alongside the 39 piece Swiss chamber orchestra, Festival Strings Lucerne.
Roomful of Teeth—self-described as a "vocal band"—is dedicated to creating and performing meaningful and adventurous music that amplifies voices old and new. Gabriel Kahane, composer and singer-songwriter, will join Roomful of Teeth for the performance of his In the Garden of the Gift.
Mavis Staples is an R&B singer, a soul singer, a gospel singer, and the very definition of a legend. Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter—the husband-and-wife duo known as The War And Treaty—were named by 2022 Duo/Group of the Year by the Americana Music Association.
The JACK Quartet is the perfect ensemble to engage with Zorn's music. San Francisco Classical Voice says, "It's hard to think of another string quartet that plays ... ferociously contemporary repertoire with their impeccable precision."
Two of today’s hottest comedy talents take to Hancher’s Hadley Stage for a hilarious double-bill! Aparna Nancherla is an established comedian, actor, and writer who performs all over the world. Atsuko Okatsuka was named one of Variety's "10 Comics to Watch for in 2022."
The King's Singers return to Hancher to help you and your family celebrate the holidays! Undoubtedly the gold standard in a cappella singing, the ensemble will share a program filled with sounds of the season and other family favorites.
Broadway
To Kill a Mockingbird
Written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Bartlett Sher
Friday–Sunday, January 19–21, 2024
Broadway
To Kill a Mockingbird
Written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Bartlett Sher
Friday–Sunday, January 19–21, 2024
Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork To Kill a Mockingbird.
Music
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko, music director and Isata Kanneh-Mason, pianist
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Music
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko, music director and Isata Kanneh-Mason, pianist
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London, U.K.) is uncompromising in its pursuit of excellence and inclusive in its appeal to music lovers of all stripes. Embracing a broad repertoire has allowed the orchestra to build a diverse live and online audience of more than 60 million people.
Jeff Parker is recognized as one of the contemporary music's most versatile and innovative electric guitarists and composers. His electric ensemble The New Breed plays "grooves that ooze and wend, sounding like a broken trance, or like experimental hip-hop as science fiction."
Elias String Quartet are "simply astounding, in the freshness, intensity, assurance, and seeming spontaneity of their playing." Hancher will welcome back one of our favorite ensembles to introduce a new chamber music experience at Hancher.
The Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group's body of work draws from the spiritual and earth-bound traditions of Africa and its diaspora. Wilson's most recent work, POWER, considers how the Black Shaker communities in the early 1800s might have lived and worshipped.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo—the world's foremost all-male ballet comic ballet company—offers both homage and parody performed en travesti. The program will include works from across the company's 50 years.
Folk singer/songwriter and guitarist Haley Heynderickx's introspective songs are infused by her religious Filipino-American upbringing and call to mind the folk music of the 1960s and 1970s mixed with a love of jazz radio.
Broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff is the senior correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, after serving for 11 years as its anchor and managing editor. She has covered politics and other news for more than four decades at CNN, NBC, and PBS.
World Café says Luz Elena Mandoza Ramos, lead vocalist and producer of Y La Bamba, "[Her] inimitable songwriting is propelled by and earth-shaking voice and incisive lyrics that speak towards the duality of hurt and healing."
Music
Music
Sō Percussion and Caroline Shaw
Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part
Monday–Tuesday, March 25–26, 2024
Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion composed Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, a journey across the soul's landscape through distinctly contemporary songs. The concert will open with Go Placidly in Haste, a new work composed by Jason Treuting performed with Iowa Percussion from the UI School of Music.
Martha Graham radically expanded the dance vocabulary, and her work has captivated audiences worldwide while influencing generations of artists. The program will open with Graham's Panorama, performed by more than 20 student dancers from the University of Iowa Dance Department.
Oumou Sangaré is an icon whose powerful musci and fierce feminism have inspired artist from Alicia Keys to Aya Nakamura to Beyoncé. Her most recent record, Timbuktu, blends the sounds of traditional West African instruments with those instruments most associated with the blues.
Yaite Ramos Rodriguez, the singer, flautist, and percussionist—who performs as La Dame Blanche—blends the Cuban music of her childhood with the sounds of hip-hop, dancehall, and cumbia, and plenty more.
Fierce follows four teenage girls finding identity and purpose in the world as they write their college essays in a high school writers’ workshop featuring an ensemble of University of Iowa singers, musicians, and dancers with production support from the Performing Arts Production Unit and Hancher Auditorium.
On 9/11, the world stopped. On 9/12, their stories moved us all. Broadway's COME FROM AWAY is a Best Musical winner all across North America.
Past Season Events
Free
Music
Music
Fall Welcome Concert
Brittany Howard, Dawn Richard, and Elizabeth Moen
Friday, August 25, 2023
Hancher welcomes back our entire community for a music festival-style event on our front lawn. The event opens with big city rocker Elizabeth Moen and closes with the electronic/R&B dance party of Dawn Richard. Songwriter and vocalist Brittany Howard will headline this show.
Hancher is for Hawkeyes sale offers our students $5 tickets to many amazing performances and 50% off Broadway single tickets.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit come to Hancher in support of Weathervanes, a new record that carries that same revelatory power—power that will even more palpable in live performance. Wednesday will open for Isbell.
Jazz legend Herbie Hancock has been an integral part of every popular music movement since the 1960s—making his music and career exceptionally influential across many genres.
Giddens’ lifelong mission is to lift up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been erased, and to work toward a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins. Pitchfork has said of her work, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration.”
The members of the acclaimed Attacca Quartet are passionate advocates of contemporary repertoire and new work. The quartet and Shaw will perform music from their 2022 album Evergreen.