News

Recent IAS news

  • Ancient Greeks - Modern Lives
  • IAS is happy to be one of the sponsors of this exciting poetry/drama dialogue taking place in Fall 2012. Learn more about the different events here.
  • IAS Season IV artists review
  • Target Margin Theater, part of IAS season IV, will bring their works The Argument and Dinner Party to Lincoln in Spring 2013. Read a review in the New York Times of their most recent work here.

Mission

The mission of the IAS is:

  • To place the performing arts in a broader, more meaningful context, providing historical and critical background to enhance enjoyment and understanding
  • To draw diverse audiences to UNL productions
  • To cultivate a wider audience for the performing arts in Lincoln
  • To bring world-class performance and scholarship to UNL and Lincoln

Format

IAS is made up of six components:

  • Public performance series arranged around each year's theme
  • Public lecture series, complementing the season's performances
  • Hixson-Lied seminar course for UNL students, cross-listed in English, Art, Music, Theater, Dance departments, and devoted to in-depth, scholarly exploration of the season's theme. Artists and speakers serve as guest professors.
  • Visiting artist residencies, with workshops and master-classes for UNL students
  • Community outreach, which includes holding workshops, presenting at local schools, incorporating community members into performances
  • IAS book series, published by the University of Nebraska Press

Themes

The over arching theme for all IAS seasons is "Performing the Human Signature". How do the performing arts help us understand what makes us human? How are identities created on stage? Each season also has its own subtheme, exploring different aspects of the main theme.

  • 2012-13 Season: Ancient World through Modern Eyes.

  • Modern performing arts have returned consistently to classical antiquity and ancient mythologies to make sense of the contemporary. Join us for world-class drama, ballet, modern dance, philosophy, and poetry, as we consider how performance renews itself through consideration of its ancestry.

  • 2011-12 Season: Immigration, Migration, and Transplantation in Performance.
    This season explores the theme of transforming, transferring, or hybridizing cultural identity, and its expression in drama, music, and dance. We will look particularly at how immigrants to the United States use performance to tell their stories.
  • 2010-11 Season: Technology, Prosthetics, and the Body in Performance.
    This season showcased artists who stretch, alter, or question the limits of the physical body through technology - including electronics, cinema, surgery, prosthetic limbs, biogenetics, digital photography, and even haute couture.
  • 2009-10 Season: 'Race,' American History, and Performance.
    This season looked particularly at African-American contributions to the performing arts, and examined how racial and ethnic identity can be explored through performance.

The Interdisciplinary Arts Symposium is sponsored by the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, presented, in part, by the Lied Center for Performing Arts, and funded, in part, by the Hixson-Lied Endowment.