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Fall arts at Ohio State

September 18, 2013

From Shakespeare to Sun Ra, there's something for every taste this fall at Ohio State. Local and international musicians, actors, dancers and visual artists visit the campus to share the arts with the Columbus community.

Want to engage your artsy side this fall? Ohio State has plenty of opportunities, on campus and around Columbus.

At the Wexner Center, check out the fall exhibition Blues for Smoke to see how blues music resonates through contemporary art. Blues for Smoke features more than 40 artists with works dating from the 1950s, along with listening areas to immerse yourself in blues music.

The exhibition is the centerpiece for a full slate of related events around Columbus. Make your own instruments and paint what music sounds like at Super Sunday, in partnership with Columbus’ Jazz Arts Group. Take an informal tour of the exhibition during See It My Way with WCBE’s Jazz Sunday cohost Jack Marchbanks. And explore blues roots with trumpeter Byron Stripling, artistic director of the Columbus Jazz Orchestra.

Cartoon time: The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, in its new home on the first floor of Sullivant Hall, officially opens during the Festival of Cartoon Art, Nov. 14-17. It's the world's largest academic facility dedicated to cartoon art with a vast collection of more than 300,000 original cartoons and 2.5 million comic strip clippings and newspaper pages. And it's part of a plan to form a vibrant gateway to the Ohio State arts scene.

Students are the stars: Ohio State's student musicians present a Contemporary Music Festival and the ever-popular annual Music Celebration, featuring alum guest composer Stephen Montague. Catch the world premiere of Montague's Invictus, commissioned in part by Ohio State and performed by the Columbus Symphony Orchestra as the festival continues downtown. On campus, grad students get a rare opportunity to work with Royal Shakespeare Company guest director Cressida Brown to produce The Tempest. Then it's "girl loves ghoul" as students perform the off-Broadway rock-n-roll musical Zombie Prom.

Art meets academics: Distinguished Professor of Dance and alumna Bebe Miller reprises her 1991 work The Hendrix Project during Dance Downtown. Does a state law banning public nudity violate First Amendment rights? That’s the setting for Arguendo. Moritz College of Law professors discuss the case following each performance.