UC Davis dancers explore new choreographies at Mondavi Center next week; get tickets now
Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, Nov. 19,20,21; 7 p.m.; Nov. 22, 2 p.m.
The UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance fall dance concert, Control/Shift, explores dance as it intersects with technologies of control and for connection. This workshop-style performance takes place on Nov. 19, 20 and 21 at 7 p.m. and Nov. 22 at 2 p.m. in the intimate Vanderhoef Studio at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis.
See a video below
Featuring a small ensemble of select dancers, the program is curated by Doria E. Charlson, visiting assistant professor of Theatre and Dance. Control/Shift showcases new works-in-progress developed and performed by undergraduate students. Doria Charlson will create a new piece for the company as will guest choreographer Meredith J. Charlson.
A highlight of the performance will be a post-show event providing insight into the creative process behind the choreographies and how they developed.
“This project is a broad inquiry regarding how movement and technology interact,” said Doria Charlson. “The students are exploring how technology functions both to connect and alienate. The works-in-progress consider how our movement impacted by the tools around us; how are we tethered together by our devices? What technologies of control exist within our society? Movement provides a critical mode of inquiry to investigate these questions. We are excited to invite you into our process and research.”
Doria Charlson’s research and scholarship is deeply informed by her decades of praxis as a dancer. She has trained with ODC/Dance, Mark Morris Dance Group, the Alvin Ailey School, the Joffrey Ballet School, L’École superieuse de danse Rosella Hightower, and at Stanford University (Diane Frank, Robert Moses, and Aleta Hayes). Her writing and scholarship can be found in TDR: The Drama Review, Women & Performance, and Dance Research Journal, as well as in African American Arts: Activism, Aesthetics, and Futurity (Rutgers UP 2019).
Meredith J. Charlson, a director/choreographer based in San Francisco, has extensive theater credits including Carrie: The Musical at the American Conservatory Theater’s Young Conservatory, Alice By Heart at Hillbarn Theatre, Bright Star at Palo Alto Players, Into the Woods at the American Conservatory Theater’s Young Conservatory, Tinderella: The modern musical at Custom Made Theater Co. and FaultLine Theater and the world premiere of A Walk on the Moon at the American Conservatory Theater mainstage. She was a trainee for Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Northern Israel and is an associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC).
Tickets are $15.50 for adults, $11 faculty/staff, $8.50 children (under 18) and $5 for UC Davis students and seniors. Seating is unassigned. Tickets can be acquired via the Mondavi Center Ticket Office at tickets.mondaviarts.org or by calling 530-754-2787
The Department of Theatre and Dance is part of the UC Davis College of Letters and Science. For information about other department productions, visit theatredance.ucdavis.edu
In Memoriam: Sandra Shannonhouse
Sandra Riddell Shannonhouse — an artist and University of California, Davis, alum whose generous contributions and advocacy for public art and historic preservation helped shape vibrant art communities — has died. Known as Sandy to friends and family, she was instrumental in sustaining the legacy of her late husband, the artist and professor Robert Arneson. She died Oct. 30 in Benicia, California. She will be missed by her campus community as a frequent visitor to campus. Read the full UC Davis story.
Manetti Shrem Museum: Don’t miss final days of fall exhibitions
Make plans to visit these dynamic fall exhibitions before they close. Find out why Hyperallergic, the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, Sactown Magazine, Sacramento News & Review and 7x7 all consider these “must-see” exhibitions.
The Manetti Shrem Museum is open from 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Wednesday–Saturday. The museum be closed on Thanksgiving Day, but open Nov. 28 and 29.
Breath(e) public program: meditation is next Tuesday
Breath, Soil, Water, Life: witness live meditation
Tuesday, Nov. 18, Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, 3–4 p.m.
Audiences are invited to witness a live meditation on breath, identity, resistance and the power of listening in this culminating performance by UC Davis students in African American Studies 152: Major Voices in Black World Literature. The course is being taught at the museum by Professor Margaret Kemp during the spring and fall 2025 quarters. Students respond to artist LaToya Ruby Frazier’s Flint is Family in Three Acts, on view in the exhibition Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice, and engage themes of climate and social justice through poetry, gesture and voice to weave personal narrative with collective memory.
Ongoing art this fall
For ongoing art exhibitions at campus museums, read this story
For ongoing art exhibitions at campus museums, read this story
Malala Yousafzai will speak to capacity crowd
For his first colloquium of the academic year, Chancellor Gary S. May will share the stage with education activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who is set to release a new memoir this fall. The event is in high demand, but check back close to the Tuesday event as availability may have changed.
Yousafzai and May’s conversation is set for Nov. 18 in the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts’ Jackson Hall as part of the Chancellor’s Colloquium Distinguished Speaker Series.
Malala began her activism at age 11, blogging about life under Taliban rule in Pakistan. Her early activism drew international attention. At age 15 it nearly cost her life when she was shot in the head by the Taliban for speaking out.
Since then, she has founded the Malala Fund, published three bestselling books, and earned a degree from Oxford University. Her upcoming book, Finding My Way is a deeply personal testament to the strength it takes to be unapologetically yourself.
Music professor receives award
UC Davis Department of Music Professor Juan Diego Díaz has been awarded the Helen Roberts Prize by the Society of Ethnomusicology for the most significant article in the field of ethnomusicology published in the previous year. Diaz received his prize for his article “From Claves Ethnotheory to Clave Theories: A Path Toward Decolonizing Music Analysis,” which was published in the journal Ethnomusicology, the flagship journal in Ethnomusicology.
The prize recognizes the most significant article in ethnomusicology written by members of the Society for Ethnomusicology after the first 10 years of their scholarly career. The article must have been published during the previous year in Ethnomusicology, another journal, or an edited collection.
The University of Illinois Press has made the article “From Clave Ethnotheory to Clave Theories: A Path toward Decolonizing Musical Analysis” open access from Nov 1, 2025, until January 31, 2026, as part of their AMS/SMT virtual exhibit. Here’s the link for free download.
Coming up
Disney’s Moana to be screened at Mondavi
Friday, Nov. 21, 7:30 p.m., Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis
Experience the magic of Disney’s Moana like never before. See a full-length screening of the heartwarming film capturing the spirited adventure of a young girl on a mission to save her island.
With live music from Hollywood musicians and Polynesian rhythm masters and vocalists, you’ll be transported straight to the heart of the Pacific Islands. Featuring beloved songs such as “How Far I’ll Go” and “You’re Welcome,” join us in celebrating the music and songs of this award-winning Walt Disney Animation Studios’ classic.
Get ticket’s here.
Woodland Opera House presents ‘A Christmas Carol’
Nov. 21 – Dec. 7, The Historic Woodland Opera House, 340 Second Street, Woodland
The Woodland Opera House invites audiences to step into the warmth and wonder of the holiday season with A Christmas Carol The Musical, opening November 21 and running through December 7, 2026. Based on Charles Dickens’ beloved work and featuring music by Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid) and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime), this vibrant adaptation brings new life to the classic story of Ebenezer Scrooge and his journey toward redemption.
Under the direction of Steve Mackay, with choreography by Staci Arriaga and musical direction by Amanda Bistolfo, this production combines powerful performances, festive choreography, and dazzling design elements that capture both the magic and meaning of the season. The show features a talented cast of local performers, from seasoned veterans to rising young stars, supported by a creative team dedicated to bringing 19th century London to life with stunning costumes, lighting, and set design.
Filled with familiar carols, original songs, and plenty of holiday cheer, A Christmas Carol: The Musical is a family-friendly experience sure to delight audiences of all ages. More information on times and ticket prices on the website.
UC Davis Symphony Concert features Brahms, Dvořák Nov. 23
The UC Davis Symphony Orchestra’s November concert features classics by Brahms and Dvořák. Conducted by Matilda Hofman, faculty member, conductor-in-residence for the Empyrean Ensemble at UC Davis and artistic director of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the concert is Nov. 23 at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and begins at 7 p.m.
The evening begins with Johannes Brahms’ Concerto for Violin and Cello (“Double Concerto”) with Chen Zhao, violin, and Sébastien Gingras, cello, both active members of the San Francisco Symphony. Composed in 1887 as his last work for orchestra, Brahms wrote it for the cellist Robert Hausmann, a frequent chamber music collaborator, and his old but estranged friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim. The concerto was, in part, a gesture of reconciliation towards Joachim, after their long friendship had ruptured.
Violinist Chen Zhao joined the San Francisco Symphony in 2000. At ten, he entered the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and in 1987 he moved to the US with his parents to study at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica, studying with Heiichiro Ohyama. He went on to study with Felix Galimir at the Curtis Institute of Music and with Camilla Wicks at the SF Conservatory. In 1999 he joined the New World Symphony in Miami. Currently, Zhao is a violin professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Cellist Sébastien Gingras joined the San Francisco Symphony in 2010 and was previously a member of the New World Symphony and the Saint Louis Symphony. Gingras grew up in Chicoutimi, Québec, where he was educated at the Conservatoire de Musique. After graduating, he moved to Boston to study at New England Conservatory, where he received his master’s degree in 2005. He has participated in the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute and Yellow Barn.
The concert concludes with Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s beloved Symphony No. 9 in E Minor (“From the New World”). Premiered in Carnegie Hall in only its second season (1893), the work includes themes and an orchestral fabric the composer thought could be an American sound. Composed while Dvořák was living in Manhattan, the first movement uses elements of the spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and the second movement was later used by Dvorak’s student William Arms Fisher in 1922 for the song “Goin’ Home,” which was later recorded and made famous by basso profundo Paul Robeson in Carnegie Hall in 1958.
Tickets are $12 UC Davis students; $15.50 children (under 18), $24 faculty/staff $27.50 and regular (reserved seating). Tickets are available at the Mondavi Center Ticket Office in person or by calling 530-754-2787 between noon and 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. Tickets are also available online at Tickets.MondaviArts.org.
For more information about the Department of Music in the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, visit here.
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Arts Blog Editor: Karen Nikos-Rose, kmnikos@ucdavis.edu