Arts

Arts

Center Stage: Jumbo Drag Collective

By Nate Hall | February 12

One of the newest performance groups on campus, the Jumbo Drag Collective, began as a senior capstone project in theWomen’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department in 2022. Initially, the club was mostly made up of students from Critical Drag — a Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies course offered by Professor Kareem Khubchandani in fall 2022. After a successful end-of-semester showcase for their class, the students channeled their passion for drag performance into a new on-campus club.

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Columns

Confessions of a College Shopaholic: Why I never give in to shoe trends

By Ryan Fairfield | February 12

In the world of fashion, it seems there’s constantly a new ‘hot’ shoe or a new article explaining the up-and-coming shoe trends. We had theAdidas Samba,ballet flats, cowboy boots, mules, chunky sneakers and way too many more to count. Despite loving any excuse to purchase a new article of clothing, shoe trends are something I will never get behind and never adhere to.

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Arts

The best of Grammy-winning songwriter Amy Allen

By Ryan Fairfield | February 11

At the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, songwriter Amy Allen became the first woman to win the award for “Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical.” While she had her breakout as one of the most recognized songwriters just this year, primarily for her work on Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” album where she helped write hits like “Please Please Please” and “Espresso,” this marked Allen’s second Grammy win and added to her total of eight nominations — Allen previously won as a co-writer for Harry Styles on his album “Harry’s House.” Even if one may not have been familiar with her name prior to this year, many have likely heard at least one song she has written. Now seems like a great time to take a look back at Allen’s career and some of her best work.

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Columns

Adventures of an A-Lister: What if Cupid was a killer?

By Odessa Gaines | February 11

What happens when you blend a romantic meet cute, a murder mystery and a killer of love into one 90-minute film? You get “Heart Eyes,” a new romantic-comedy/slasher starring Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding. From the producers of the Scream franchise, “Heart Eyes” is a campy ride, with a few interesting plot twists.

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Arts

‘I’m Still Here’ is an understated yet devastating look at a nation in peril

By Noah Goldstein | February 7

On Nov. 21, 2024, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was accused by the nation’s federal police of conspiring to launch a coup in 2022 after being defeated by current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. For certain Brazilians of advanced age and strong memory, it was déjà vu all over again.

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Columns

Coffee with Creatives: Mofe Akinyanmi takes control of her sound

By Ava Dettling | February 7

Have you ever been to the sweaty basement of a house show, a chic gallery opening or a movie screening packed with film bros and been too intimidated to speak to the artist themselves? If so, then welcome to Coffee with Creatives, a column dedicated to exploring the on-campus and local arts scene, all while platforming the artists’ voices.

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Arts

Move over brat summer, it’s time for ‘EUSEXUA’ winter

By Ife Adebanjo | February 7

In August 2024, FKA twigs announced her next album was slated to release in January. For this six-month waiting period, she intermittently fed her fanbase, affectionately named “twiglets,” with singles, snippets and music videos all aimed at expanding the experience of Eusexua. According to FKA twigs, “Eusexua is a practice. Eusexua is a state of being. Eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience.”

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Arts

How lucky are the Irish?

By Noah Goldstein | February 6

Now that Ireland is moving forward in the social and cultural collective, how does it reconcile a past marred with strife and conflict?

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Arts

What’s new in television today?

By Odessa Gaines | February 5

Season 1 of “School Spirits” ended how every great first season does: with a massive plot twist. Almost two years ago,we discovered that protagonist Maddie Nears (Peyton List) wasn’t truly dead as established in the pilot episode. Instead, she’s been ‘body jacked,’ with her spirit forced to reside in Split River High School while the spirit of 1950s student Janet (Jess Gabor) takes over her body.

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Arts

Center Stage: Local Bard’s Players

By Nate Hall | February 5

The Local Bard’s Players are not your average theater group. With a shared love of performance and arts education, its members adapt and perform abbreviated versions of Shakespeare’s most famous plays for students in the Boston area. Since the group’s founding in 2014, LBP has expanded, with a larger membership and a greater repertoire of plays, but its mission has remained the same: to make Shakespeare’s beloved plays fun and accessible for young audiences.

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Columns

Adventures of an A-Lister: ‘Love Me’ hits the big screen

By Odessa Gaines | February 4

On Mar. 27, 2027 the human race ended. Or at least it did according to Andrew and Sam Zuchero, the writing-directing pair behind the Sundance awardee “Love Me” (2024).

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Columns

Confessions of a College Shopaholic: An introduction

By Ryan Fairfield | February 3

Despite priding myself on having seen every popular early 2000s rom-com, I only got around to watching “Confessions of a Shopaholic” (2009) for the first time last October. For those who have not seen the film, the movie follows the “shopaholic” Rebecca Bloomwood who finds herself writing ...

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Arts

Grammys 2025: Who will — and should — win gold on Sunday

By Liam Chalfonte | January 30

The 67th annual Grammy Awards are airing on Sunday, which means it’s time for a rundown of our predictions and our wishes for music’s biggest night. We’ll start by saying that — sorry, boys — 2024 was undoubtedly another year of girl pop, which means that Grammy hopefuls like Benson Boone and André 3000 likely will not be going home with gold in any of the top categories. Also, be on the lookout for mentions of disaster relief efforts as the broadcast airs from wildfire-stricken Los Angeles.

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Arts

Catharsis in troubled times: “Tosca” at the Metropolitan Opera

By Matthew Winkler | January 30

 A violent and crass triple stab of brass killed the gaiety. A man in black marched through the pews. As light licked his jowls, the police chief Scarpia, played by Bryn Terfel, revealed himself to the choristers and audience.

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Columns

Read, Write and Be Merry: ‘The Crazed’ by Ha Jin

By Merry Jiao | January 30

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for “The Crazed” by Ha Jin. Sometimes, I read books that I just don’t get. Something about the prose or the author’s voice, maybe, makes me feel disconnected from the plot and the characters. This book was one of those instances. When I initially picked ...

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Arts

A Tuesday evening in Comedy Hell

By Spring LaRose | January 28

“This is kind of where it starts,” Jack Hall says, “This is the first rung of the ladder.” He is seated on an inflatable couch, in a bright little room that contrasts starkly with the loud, dim comedy club on the other side of the door. Time is occupying that liminal, anticipatory space it so often does before a show begins.

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Columns

Adventures of an A-Lister: What I did during winter break

By Odessa Gaines | January 28

Over the winter break, I spent far more hours than I care to admit on my couch, starting up a borrowed home projector to watch film after film. Some of what I watched were recent winners at the Golden Globes, some were childhood favorites, some were classics I had still not seen. 

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Arts

TikTok’s future remains uncertain as legal battle continues

By Annika Pillai | January 24

If you tried to open TikTok late on Saturday night, chances are you were blocked from your typical never-ending doom scroll. At around 10:30 p.m. — just hours before the impending ban — the app went completely dark for users, only displaying a brief message: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Stay tuned!”

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Arts

Bloodshed, beauty: A review of 'Nosferatu'

By Erin Zhu | January 24

Many recent vampire films have followed the trend of adapting other vampire films rather monotonously, but Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” (2024) has evaded this trap, celebrating its predecessors while standing its ground as one of the director’s greatest artistic accomplishments.

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Arts

‘Ain’t No Mo’’ takes flight at the Calderwood Pavilion

By Nate Hall and Odessa Gaines | January 24

“Ain’t No Mo’,” a biting political satire that premiered at Boston’s Calderwood Pavilion on Jan. 10, begins with a startling premise. What if, to solve the problem of racism, the U.S. government gave every Black citizen a one-way ticket to Africa? From this absurd premise, playwright Jordan Cooper has conjured up a no less absurd play, made up of a series of vignettes in which African Americans are forced to reckon with their histories and decide whether to stay or go.

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