text: Hopkins Center Opens The Summer With SHIFT | Here in Hanover
  Hopkins Center Opens The Summer With SHIFT
  Jun 20, 2018 02:07PM ● By Linda Ditch
  If you're looking for a lively and vibrant way to start the summer, head to Dartmouth College's Hopkins Center for the Arts from June 22 to 30 for their opening series SHIFT. You can enjoy an array of live arts, both free and ticketed, bringing together diverse art forms and recalling the creative disruption of the 1960s.
  "The Upper Valley is a vibrant destination year-round, but summer, with its long days and incredible weather, is an especially good time to explore our creative community," says Hop Director Mary Lou Aleskie. "At Dartmouth, we have this dynamic mix of students, faculty, alumni, artists, engineers, entrepreneurs who all take part in making ideas come to life. SHIFT showcases their creativity alongside some of the most interesting artistic work happening on the international stage. It's a chance to both celebrate our community and connect it to the world."
  The week brings together students, faculty, alumni and visiting artists; diverse art forms; and different parts of the campus—and the events link powerfully to particular Dartmouth courses as well as to current issues of justice, tradition, and identity. Two cornerstones are Compagnia de' Colombari's groundbreaking international production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, staged at Dartmouth's BEMA Outdoor Amphitheater, and a Hop co-commissioned new work by the Mark Morris Dance Group that celebrates the anarchic, eclectic spirit of the Beatles' 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
  These performances are complemented by a two-day festival of new digital arts by Dartmouth students that includes a free concert by electronic music legend Morton Subotnick, new theater by Dartmouth alumni artists, and powerful visual and performance art by Native American artist Gina Adams. In addition, the Hop will screen three classic 1960s films: A Hard Day's Night, Sunday, June 24, 7 pm; Night of the Living Dead, Friday, June 29, 9 pm; and Blow-Up, Saturday, June 30, 5 pm. All films will be shown at the Loew Auditorium.
  In addition, VoxFest 2018, an annual week of theatrical works-in-progress by Dartmouth alumni, students, and faculty, takes place Saturday, June 23 through Sunday, July 1. The schedule, which will be announced through the Dartmouth Department of Theater, will include readings and semi-staged productions, and is part of the Department of Theater's course entitled "Plays in Performance: Perception and Analysis." This year's festival includes a reading of the winner of the first-annual Neukom Literary Prize for best play exploring the meaning of humanity in a digitized world.
  "Pulling these events and exhibits into a single week offers a rich opportunity for people from the campus and beyond to see relationships between diverse art forms and dig into meaningful topics through the impactful perspectives offered by live arts," says Mary Lou. "There's an energy that comes from having people and events and themes overlap in this way that's greater than the sum of the parts. That happens all the time at the Hop, but SHIFT turns it up a few levels."