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College celebrates Lowe's Calyx Krater with events on ancient Greek culture
To celebrate the recent acquisition of the Greek Calyx Krater, the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum along with the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Theatre Arts and the Department of Classics will present a series of special events centered on ancient Greek culture.
The Lowe Art Museum will host a reception at the Museum on Friday, February 17 from 5:45 to 8:00 pm,immediately following the performance of The Bacchae. Light fare will be available in the Museum’s Tobin Galleries as part of the Museum’s reception activities.
The Department of Classics will host its second annual Classics Symposium on February 17, with sessions in the morning and afternoon. Both sessions are free and open to the public, and will be held in the University's CAS Gallery, located at 1210 Stanford Drive across the street from the Lowe Museum. Directions to the Gallery may be found at the Department’s Facebook page at facebook.com/umiamiclassics). Presentations will be accessible to a generalaudience and will address a spectrum of topics relevant to the krater, such as ancient religious practices, Greek mythology, ancient drinking parties, ancient Greek tragedy, archaeology, and museum displays of ancient objects.
The Department of Theatre Arts will present Euripidis’ The Bacchae February 16 – 19 at 4:30 PM on the hill area just to the North of the Lowe Art Museum. Admission is free and no tickets or reservations are required. There will be seating provide for 50 guests. The Bacchae is being produced by the Department of Theatre Arts, Henry Fonte Chair. The production is being directed by Lee Soroko with a World Premiere adaptation by Edith Freni (Both Mr. Soroko and Ms. Freni are faculty in the Department of Theatre Arts).
The Calyx Krater was acquired by the Lowe Art Museum in April 2011. A krater was a large Greek vessel used to mix wine with water. The Calyx Krater, named for it shape like the calyx of a flower, is decorated with paintings in tribute to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It is believed to have been created in the 3rd Century B.C.E.
The Museum will be open to provide an opportunity for those attending The Bacchae to view the Calyx Krater, which will be located in the Friends of Art Gallery as part of the exhibition, From the Vault, Building a Legacy: Sixty Years of Collecting at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami. The Calyx Krater was a major purchase for the Museum’s Greco-Roman Collection.
The plot of The Bacchae begins with Dionysus’ return to Thebes, the place of his birth. He arrives expecting all the honors that befit a God but his cousin, the boy-king Pentheus, refuses to acknowledge his existence. After leading all the free women of Thebes up to Mount Cithaeron and whipping them into a wine-induced, lustful frenzy, Dionysus appears in disguise to four slave women who are desperate for change.
With old King Cadmus; the blind prophet Tiresias; and plenty of wine to assist in their efforts, these fourwell-intentioned women try to convince young Pentheus of their God’s true power. But Pentheus proves a hard nut to crack and his insolence might spell doom for all of Thebes. Freni’s “transdaptation” of Euripides’ classic play explores what happens when humans stop believing and start thinking they know anything about anything at all.
The cast of theatre students includes Danny Merritt, Nicholas Ley, Javier Del Riego, Kristin Devine, Kaela Flanagan, Rachel Lipman, Samantha Sutliff, Sara Gordon, Ross Papitto, and Ziggy Baran.
February 16, 2012
