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  • Bring in Da Funk, Part I

    Class Schedule: Thursdays – September 12 & 19 | 7:30 – 9:00 PM

    “On the one”—James Brown often defined funk as a groove, emphasizing the first beat, using the ‘one-two-three-four’ downbeat. However, as the Godfather of Soul would agree, funk encompasses more than just a rhythm: it’s about freedom, expression, and dance. If not for funk, disco would have never been born. How did the genre develop, and who were the central figures in the history of funk? This two-session virtual course taught by Kit O’Toole will trace funk through its blues, jazz, soul, New Orleans, and R&B roots. The class will culminate in discussing, among other funk pioneers, three of the music’s most important figures: Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, and George Clinton. The course includes multimedia presentations and class discussions.

    Zoom Link will be provided upon registration.

  • Roxey Ballet’s Journey Back to the 80s

    Roxey Ballet’s Journey Back to 80s is a pop/rock music and dance extravaganza featuring top hits from the 80s like: features songs including Flashdance, Jenny Jenny, Tainted Love, Walk Like an Egyptian, Billy Jean, Like A Prayer, Footloose, and many more! Phenomenal choreography and dancing by Roxey Ballet will take the audience back to the era of rock ‘n roll, shoulder pads and iconic music and have them to on their feet, singing and dancing in the aisles!

  • Cherish the Ladies

    Celebrating their 40th anniversary in 2025, this Grammy-nominated, all-female ensemble will dazzle audiences of all ages with a rousing program of traditional Irish melodies and original arrangements. Enjoy virtuoso instrumentation, beautiful vocals, and spirited step dancing that has earned them recognition as the BBC’s “Best Musical Group of the Year” and the Irish Music Awards’ “Top North American Celtic Group.”

    Led by Bronx-native Joanie Madden, a 2021 NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award winner and All-Ireland flute and whistle champion, Cherish the Ladies captivates with their “passionate, tender, and rambunctious” (Washington Post) performances. Known for their heart, humor, and “heaps of music in their fingers and toes” (Glasgow Herald), this concert promises to be an afternoon filled with traditional Irish music and dance—bursting with energy, wit, and spirit. Don’t miss this electrifying performance that will have everyone tapping their feet and clapping along!

  • I Wish That I Had Spoken Only of It All: 20 Years of Sheryl Oring’s I Wish to Say

    Curated by Corey Dzenko, Associate Professor of Art History

    With backgrounds in journalism and fine art, Sheryl Oring began her ongoing project I Wish to Say in 2004 from a concern that many people’s voices were not being heard. She started to take dictation from the public about what they wanted to say to the (next) President. Dressed as a 1960s secretary with a typewriter, she records whatever participants say onto a postcard, making copies with carbon paper. During larger events, a secretarial bank takes dictation. Oring mails the postcards to the White House and exhibits copies. To date she has typed over 4241 postcards.

    For this exhibition, MU’s DiMattio Gallery will chronologically display hundreds of I Wish to Say postcards, photographs, and videos of performances, along with larger prints of select postcard texts. A timeline on the wall will note the presidential elections that span Oring’s project. The empty wall space for 2024 will fill as MU student-typists add postcards they collect during the current election season. The other half of the gallery will showcase a selection of Oring’s related projects that all involve a question, active listening, and a typewriter for a secretary to record dictation. These include Collective Memory (September 2011), recorded memories of the 9-11 attacks; Travel Desk (2014), travel stories that were then carved into a wooden table now installed in the San Diego International Airport; and other artworks.

    Multi-part programming will include an artist’s talk to showcase Oring’s timely and inclusive artmaking practice. MU students will participate as typists at numerous live events throughout the exhibition’s duration. MU faculty from various disciplines will hold public teach-ins in the gallery about topics related to Oring’s project. Finally, MU is collaborating with nearby Neptune and Long Branch school districts so that high school students can dictate their own postcards to the future president. As an educator, Oring has involved younger constituencies, empowering the next generation of participants in both US democracy and artmaking.

    Oring performs I Wish to Say: Thursday, September 19, 2024, 11am-1pm, Rebecca Stafford Student Center Patio

    Artist talk: Thursday, September 19, 2024, 4:30-5:30pm, Great Hall Auditorium
    Opening Reception: Thursday, September 19, 2024, 5:30-7:30pm, DiMattio Gallery, Rechnitz Hall

    About the Artist
    Sheryl Oring examines critical social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion, and foster open exchange. Using tools typically employed by journalists (the camera, the typewriter, the pen, the interview, and the archive), she builds on her experience in her former profession to create installations, performances, artist books, and internet-based works that address themes of citizenship, free expression, first amendment rights, story-telling, and activism through art. Oring received her MFA from the University of California at San Diego. She is currently a board member for the National Coalition Against Censorship. She has held several academic positions, most recently serving as the Dean of the School of Art at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

    Oring has shown her work at the O1SJ Biennial; Bryant Park in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Public Library; and the Jewish Museum Berlin. She has also presented work at Art in Odd Places in New York; the Art Prospect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; Encuentro in São Paolo, Brazil; and the International Symposium on Electronic Art in Dubai. She has completed public art commissions at the San Diego and Tampa International Airports. Collecting institutions include the Library of Congress; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Britain; Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg; and many others.

    For more information, see: https://www.sheryloring.org/
    Or contact Dr. Corey Dzenko, cdzenko@monmouth.edu

    This exhibition was made possible with funding from the Edna Wright Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation and from the Diversity Innovation Grant Program coordinated by the Office of the Provost and Intercultural Center at Monmouth University. Thank you also to ArtNOW, the Helen Bennett McMurray Endowed Chair of Social Ethics, and Monmouth University’s Department of Art and Design and Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

  • I Wish That I Had Spoken Only of It All

    Sheryl Oring, Performance of I Wish to Say | 11am-1pm | Rebecca Stafford Student Center Patio

    Artist Talk | 4:30-5:30pm | Great Hall Auditorium
    Exhibition Opening Reception | 5:30-7:30pm | DiMattio Gallery, Rechnitz Hall

    With backgrounds in journalism and fine art, Sheryl Oring began her ongoing project I Wish to Say in 2004 from a concern that many people’s voices were not being heard. She started to take dictation from the public about what they wanted to say to the (next) President. Dressed as a 1960s secretary with a typewriter, she records whatever participants say onto a postcard, making copies with carbon paper. During larger events, a secretarial bank takes dictation. Oring mails the postcards to the White House and exhibits copies. To date she has typed over 4241 postcards. In this artist talk, Oring will discuss I Wish to Say, now in its 20th year, alongside her other socially engaged art projects.

    This talk is in connection with the exhibition I Wish That I Had Spoken Only of It All: 20 Years of Sheryl Oring’s I Wish to Say, which is on display in Rechnitz Hall’s DiMattio Gallery for the Fall 2024 semester. A reception and performance of I Wish to Say in the DiMattio Gallery will follow this talk.

    About the Artist

    Sheryl Oring examines critical social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion, and foster open exchange. Using tools typically employed by journalists (the camera, the typewriter, the pen, the interview, and the archive), she builds on her experience in her former profession to create installations, performances, artist books, and internet-based works that address themes of citizenship, free expression, first amendment rights, story-telling, and activism through art. Oring received her MFA from the University of California at San Diego. She is currently a board member for the National Coalition Against Censorship. She has held several academic positions, most recently serving as the Dean of the School of Art at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

    Oring has shown her work at the O1SJ Biennial; Bryant Park in Manhattan; the Brooklyn Public Library; and the Jewish Museum Berlin. She has also presented work at Art in Odd Places in New York; the Art Prospect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; Encuentro in São Paolo, Brazil; and the International Symposium on Electronic Art in Dubai. She has completed public art commissions at the San Diego and Tampa International Airports. Collecting institutions include the Library of Congress; Museum of Modern Art; Tate Britain; Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg; and many others.

    For more information, see: https://www.sheryloring.org/
    Or contact Dr. Corey Dzenko, cdzenko@monmouth.edu

    This exhibition was made possible with funding from the Edna Wright Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation and from the Diversity Innovation Grant Program coordinated by the Office of the Provost and Intercultural Center at Monmouth University. Thank you also to ArtNOW, the Helen Bennett McMurray Endowed Chair of Social Ethics, and Monmouth University’s Department of Art and Design and Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

  • Saint Omer

    Rama, a literature professor and novelist, travels from Paris to Saint-Omer to observe the trial of Laurence Coly and write about the case. Coly is a student and Senegalese immigrant accused of leaving her 15-month-old daughter on a beach to be swept away by the tide in Berck. Rama, who is four-months pregnant and, like Coly, is in a mixed-race relationship and has a complex relationship with her own Senegalese immigrant mother, feels a personal connection to Coly. She plans to write a modern day retelling of the Greek Medea myth about the case. As she learns more about Coly’s life and the isolation Coly experienced from her family and society while living in France, Rama becomes increasingly anxious about her own life and pregnancy.

    There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Marina Vujnovic with special guest speaker Prof. Julius Adekunle.

  • The Look of Silence

    An Indonesian man with a communist background named Ramli was brutally murdered when the “Communist” purge occurred in 1965. His remaining family members lived in fear and silence until the making of this documentary. Adi, a brother of his, decided to revisit the horrific incident and visited the men who were responsible for the killings and one survivor of the purge. These meetings uncovered sadistic details of the murders and exposed raw emotions and reactions of the killers’ family members about what happened in the past – much to Adi’s disappointment.

    There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Minna Yu with special guest speaker Dickie Cox.

  • Court

    A sewerage worker’s dead body is found inside a manhole in Mumbai. An ageing folk singer is tried in court on charges of abetment of suicide. He is accused of performing an inflammatory song which might have incited the worker to commit the act. As the trial unfolds, the personal lives of the lawyers and the judge involved in the case are observed outside the court.

    There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Rekha Datta with special guest speaker Prof. Catherine Duckett.

  • A Separation

    Nader (Payman Maadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) argue about living abroad. Simin prefers to live abroad to provide better opportunities for their only daughter, Termeh. However, Nader refuses to go because he thinks he must stay in Iran and take care of his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who suffers from Alzheimers. However, Simin is determined to get a divorce and leave the country with her daughter.

    There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Mihaela Moscaliuc with special guest speaker Prof. Jeff Jackson.

  • Argentina 1985

    ‘Argentina, 1985’ is inspired by the true story of Julio Strassera, Luis Moreno Ocampo and their young legal team of unlikely heroes in their David-vs-Goliath battle to prosecute Argentina’s bloodiest military dictatorship against all odds and in a race against time to bring justice to the victims of the Military Junta. Now a Golden Globe® winner for Best Picture – Non-English Language.

    There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Manuel Chavez with special guest speaker Prof. Ken Mitchell.