Cross Currents: The Art Of Japanese Woodblock Prints Traveling Exhibition
September 9, 2024-June 2, 2025
Installed in schools
Best for grades K-12
Explore both the figurative and the abstract through the ancient art of Japanese woodblock printing. Cross Currents features the works of two contemporary artists who use this centuries-old technique in new ways: Kalamazoo artist Mary Brodbeck and Japanese artist Yoshisuke Funasaka. This exhibition is a culmination of twenty-five years of cross-cultural exchange and relationship of the two artists after Brodbeck studied woodblock printmaking in Tokyo with Funasaka. Students will be able to compare recognizable landscapes with abstract shapes and colors to find new insights in both approaches. EFA will deliver and install the artwork in schools in two-week blocks. MORE
Legendary Voices: Art For The Next Century
September 18, 2024-February 14, 2025
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Best for grades K-12
Legendary Voices pairs and groups work from different periods, artists, and genres creating compelling connections and dialogues, while also illuminating the breadth of the KIA’s collection. Themes such as abstraction, environment, identity, and portraiture converge with artistic expressions and innovative practices offering shared narratives and often unexpected parallels. These thoughtful and at times, unusual, selections offer new perspectives and deeper insights into artistic processes spanning several centuries, while also emphasizing notable events and moments during the last century. Legendary Voices also explores how artists grapple with the human condition, question society’s most pressing issues, and draw from their unique cultural contexts and individual experiences. MORE
Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
Red Firecracker
October 22, 2024
10:00 AM & 12:30 PM
Miller Auditorium
Best for grades 1-8
All shows are sold out
The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company of New Jersey presents Red Firecracker, a spectacular production of dazzling props, colorful costumes, mesmerizing music, fantastic acrobatics, and lively dance by top notch performers telling the story of the origin of the Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration when a group of villagers, working together, defeated a terrifying monster of the ages. The story highlights the intrinsic value of coming together, courage, and ingenuity. It also explains some of the origin of the tradition of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Let’s celebrate with Red Firecracker! MORE
30th Anniversary Returning Artist
JazzReach
Hangin’ With The Giants
November 5, 2024
10:00 AM & 12:30 PM
Miller Auditorium
Best for grades K-5; older students are welcome
10:00 AM show is sold out
JazzReach presents Hangin’ With The Giants featuring Metta Quintet plus special guests. This fun, high-energy program is designed to promote the inclusiveness and accessibility of jazz while highlighting the legacies and music of some of the art form’s central contributors. Staged as a late night talk show, Hangin’ With The Giants features animated likenesses of jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk as show guests and offers numerous opportunities for students to interact and participate. MORE
TheaterWorksUSA
Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus! The Musical!
November 6, 2024
10:00 AM & 12:30 PM
Miller Auditorium
Best for grades K-2
All shows are sold out
Whatever you do, don’t let the Pigeon star in his own musical production! With a script written by Mo Willems, the creator of the #1 New York Times best-selling, Caldecott Honor award-winning Pigeon picture books, and featuring music by Deborah Wicks LaPuma, TheaterWorksUSA’s Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus! The Musical! is even more fun than staying up late and having a hot dog party! It’s not easy being the Pigeon-you never get to do ANYTHING! But when the Bus Driver has a crisis that threatens to make her passengers (gasp!) late, maybe that wily bird CAN do something. MORE
30th Anniversary Returning Artist
Manual Cinema
The Magic City
February 19, 2025
9:45 AM & 12:15 PM
Miller Auditorium
Best for grades K-12
Emmy award-winning Manual Cinema of Chicago has adapted Edith Nesbit’s 1910 novel The Magic City for a live, cinematic shadow puppet show. Using overhead projectors, paper shadow puppets, actors on camera, and live music, Manual Cinema’s adaptation updates the novel with a modern retelling. The Magic City tells the story of nine-year-old Philomena, whose great love is building miniature structures out of books, toys, and other found objects from around her house. One night, Philomena wakes up to discover that her city has come alive. As she steps through the city gates, her adventure begins. MORE
San Jose Taiko
March 25-26, 2025
10:00 AM (both days) & 12:15 PM (March 26 only)
Comstock Auditorium
Best for grades K-12
All shows are sold out
Since 1973, San Jose Taiko has captivated global audiences and critics alike with the powerful sounds of the taiko. Inspired by traditional Japanese drumming, company performers express the beauty of the human spirit through the voice of the taiko, creating a vibrant, contemporary art form as they strive to connect people through cultural understanding, creative expression, and rhythmic heartbeat. Known for synchronized choreography, eclectic musicality, and joyful spirit, San Jose Taiko performances and instruction are sought throughout the world by taiko fans and practitioners alike. MORE
30th Anniversary Returning Artist
Inlet Dance Theatre
What Do You Do With An Idea?
May 6, 2025
10:00 AM & 12:30 PM
Miller Auditorium
Best for grades K-2
10:00 AM show is sold out.
One day, a child has an idea. At first, they don’t know what to do with it. It seems strange. They don’t know what other people will think of this idea and they attempt to hide it away. But the idea persists and gets stronger – along with the child’s confidence. And then, one day, something amazing happens. Told through movement, music, and narration, Inlet Dance Theatre of Cleveland creates a magical world where ideas grow and take flight. Based on the New York Times best selling book of the same name, this is a story for anyone, at any age, who has ever had an idea that seemed a little too big, too odd, or too difficult. MORE