The University of Michigan continues its Bicentennial celebrations over Homecoming weekend with the UMich200 Fall Festival, taking place Thursday, October 26 through Saturday, October 28. The focus will be on the next 100 years and what the University of Michigan will be as it moves forward.
SMTD will again play a major role in the festivities, presenting a number of unique events and culminating with “A-maize-ing SMTD,” a 90-minute concert featuring an array of brilliant student soloists, dancers, actors, and chamber ensembles. The free concert takes place on Friday, October 27 from 6-7:30 pm at Hill Auditorium and attendees are free to come and go between performances.
The concert is part of the Third Century Expo, a public fair of U-M projects and initiatives as represented by schools, colleges, and organizations from the Ann Arbor, Flint, and Dearborn campuses. Designed in the spirit of a world’s fair, the expo unfolds on the U-M Diag and Ingalls Mall with cutting-edge exhibits, technology demonstrations, books, music, live performances, food samples, and more.
Immediately following the concert, from 7:30—9 pm, SMTD will honor its 2017 Alumni Award recipients: Gerald Cleaver, Marianne Ploger, Shannon McGinnis, Darren Criss, Ali Woerner, Thayer Jonutz, Jennifer Harge, and Christopher Koelsch. The ceremony and reception take place in the Hill Auditorium Mezzanine Lobby; registration is required.
On the evening October 27, the University will also bring its year-long bicentennial celebration to a heart-pounding conclusion with HAILstorm!, a light and sound show projected onto the facade of the Rackham Building. There will be four showings at 8 pm, 9 pm, 10 pm 10:45 pm.
OTHER EVENTS
On Thursday, October 26, the Presidential Bicentennial Colloquium Campus of the Future Showcase takes place from 9 am to 3pm in the Duderstadt Center Atrium. The showcase features the winners of the Campus of the Future competition, a bicentennial program challenging U-M students to reimagine methods and spaces for teaching and learning in the 21st century. Among the 30 projects selected for the showcase was the Maestro Multidisciplinary Design Project, in which SMTD students are developing a virtual conducting system to allow for the refinement of kinesthetic skills that are essential to creating subtle gestures improving conductor performance and confidence on the podium. The competition finale takes place at the Power Center at 4:30 pm, where a panel of nationally recognized thought leaders will reflect upon the projects and award $25,000 to the best entries.
On Friday, October 27, a processional performance titled “The River in Our City, the River in Our Veins” will set off from the pond at the Earl V. Moore Building at 12 noon, ending at the Gerstacker Grove, where a tree-planting ceremony will take place at 12:45 pm. The processional features large processional puppets created by students of composition, electronic chamber music, and puppetry using fabrics created by students in the Stamps School of Art & Design and inspired by the Huron River.
Following the tree-planting, SMTD alumni will be welcomed back for Homecoming with tours of the renovated and expanded Moore Building. Several of SMTD’s performance ensembles will open their rehearsals to guests and a reception for all alumni will take place in the Soderquist Atrium. Student-led tours of the building will be offered at 1:30 pm and 2:30 pm. The tours are free, but registration is required.
Throughout the weekend (October 26-28 from 10 am to 7 pm each day), visitors are also welcome to attend the Pop-Up Projection Pavilion (PUPP), a 5-screen projection system for multi-layered video works, which will be open to the public at the Alumni Center Founders Room (200 Fletcher Street). The PUPP provides a unique platform for works by finalists and prize-winners of the Third Century Screens (3CS) Competition. Three prizes of $3,000 each will be awarded to a U-M student, alumnus/a and faculty member for works created specifically for the PUPP.