NIU Today

The NIU Community School of the Arts has announced the schedule for spring recitals and concerts. Solo and ensemble performances are featured in April and May on the stage of the Recital Hall and Concert Hall in the NIU Music Building. All CSA concerts and recitals are free and open to the public. Founded in...

The Northern Illinois University School of Theatre and Dance’s upcoming Mainstage Series production of its Spring 2016 Dance Concert is a mixed repertoire dance show, with three dance pieces under the choreographic direction of faculty members Richard Grund, Blair Burkhalter and Paula Frasz. Opening Thursday, April 28, the Spring 2016 Dance Concert illustrates the many...

For 200 years, popular culture has used the phrase “met one’s Waterloo” to describe someone who has suffered an utter defeat or an insurmountable confrontation. The phrase was born when the armies of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington met on the battlefield near Waterloo, Belgium, in 1815, resulting in Napoleon’s defeat. NIU’s...

Paul Kassel, professor of theatre arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz, will become dean of the NIU College of Visual and Performing Arts. Members of the NIU Board of Trustees endorsed his appointment April 14 following a national search. Kassel begins work July 1 in DeKalb. NIU Executive Vice President...

Kay Martinovich, a director, and Robert Schneider, a playwright, both professors in NIU’s School of Theatre and Dance, will explain “Where Drama Comes From” in a free public lecture Thursday, April 21. The lecture begins at 5 p.m. in the Diversions Lounge Theatre in the Holmes Student Center. Both professors will provide examples from their...

After decades of film work, actress and NIU alumna Joan Allen is relishing the experience of her “kind of, sort of” first television series. Allen, theatre arts ’89, starred for one season in the HBO series “Luck” and for six episodes of the AMC series “The Killing.” But “The Family,” airing at 8 p.m. CST...

Theater, visual arts and instrumental jazz are on the summer camp agenda at NIU this summer. At Summer in the Arts at Northern residential camps for junior high and high school students, campers work and live with NIU faculty, alumni, and students, gain a greater appreciation for the life of an artist, and experience their...

“Blithe Spirit,” the NIU School of Theatre and Dance’s upcoming Mainstage Series production, is what director Patricia Ridge calls “a classic.” The supernatural comedy will open Thursday, April 7, at the Huntley Middle School auditorium, 1515 S. Fourth St. in DeKalb. “Noel Coward wrote this play in 1941, at the worst of the bombing by...

The New NIU Jazz Ensemble, formerly known as the NIU Jazz Lab Band, directed by Rodrigo Villanueva, is booked to perform this week at the House Café in DeKalb and next week at the legendary Jazz Showcase in Chicago. Shows at the House, 263 E. Lincoln Hwy., are scheduled for 8 and 9:30 p.m. Thursday,...

NIU’s 2016 World Music Festival is approaching. The NIU Middle Eastern Music Ensemble, directed by Omar al Musfi and guest artist Issa Bolous, will kick off this year’s festival at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 7, in the NIU School of Music’s Recital Hall. Musicians will perform a wide array of traditional and contemporary Arabic and...

The annual Juried Blick Art Materials Ars Nova Exhibition opens at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 24, with a reception, juror’s talk and award presentation by Noritaka Minami. Minami, this year’s juror, is a Chicago-based artist photographer who holds an MFA from UC Irvine. He has taught photography at Harvard University, Wellesley College, UC Berkeley and...

NIU School of Theatre and Dance students will remount their December production of “Women In To Light” at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 13, to benefit the DeKalb Area Women’s Center. As a part of the center’s Women’s History Month programming, the NIU actresses will host a talk-back immediately following their performance to discuss their process...