“Let me set the scene / Two lovers ripped right at the seams,” country music star Kacey Musgraves sings in the first lines of her recently released fourth studio album, “star-crossed.” In this opening track, Musgraves outlines her marriage falling apart — from the painful split from American singer-songwriter Ruston Kelly, to the divorce itself, to finally breaking free from the hurt.
The Mount Holyoke College department of film, media and theater will open Lynn Nottage’s 2004 play, “Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine,” on Thursday, Oct. 21. The show will run until Sunday, Oct. 24 and will be directed by visiting lecturer in film, media and theater Michael Ofori, who teaches acting, “as well as various other courses in interdisciplinary arts and African theater and performance,” according to his staff biography.
On Friday, Sept. 24, Five College Dance and Mount Holyoke Division of Student Life, Office of Community and Belonging and the campus Cultural Centers hosted the second session of “RACE and … Dance,” a three-part dance workshop hosted on Zoom. The event was designed to allow the general public to learn about and appreciate African diasporic cultures “whose contributions to contemporary dance are often underexplored,” according to the event’s Embark page.
Netflix’s recent remake of the classic romance film “She’s All That,” titled “He’s All That,” is a modern spin on the original coming-of-age movie. The motion picture, starring Tik Tok-er Addison Rae, falls short, banking less on its cast’s acting abilities and more on their internet fame. With a lackluster script and direction from Mark Waters, the Netflix original proves to be just an awkward spoof of the hit ‘90s film it is inspired by, and, ultimately, is unnecessary.
“Solar Power,” the third album from New Zealand singer-songwriter Ella Yelich-O’Connor, more widely known as Lorde, is a sharp sonic departure from her earlier work. So far, “Solar Power” has been met with mixed reception from both long-time fans and critics. Released on Aug. 20, 2021, the album’s stripped-back, acoustic sound — reminiscent of pop songs from the early 2000s — ushers in a new chapter in her artistry.
This past spring, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and the department of Spanish, Latina/o and Latin American studies announced a new student award, the inaugural Mariposa Prize. The prize was funded by and based around the work of Hector Dionico Mendoza, a mixed-media artist who teaches in the visual and public art department at California State University, Monterey Bay.
“Seaspiracy,” a Netflix documentary released on March 24, attempts to draw viewers in as it takes them on a journey across the globe. It begins by explaining how ocean debris affects marine life, and the film soon transforms into an in-depth look at the corruption of the fishing industry and the destruction of the ocean it causes. Here’s what “Seaspiracy” explores through its investigative journalism.
Chances are that if you’ve spent any amount of time on the Mount Holyoke campus, you have probably encountered at least one of the many flyers that can be found urging students to “TAKE RUSSIAN: NOW IS THE TIME.” This past week, the department welcomed the Mount Holyoke community to the annual arts event “Wild Honey: An Evening of Russian Poetry.” The event is named after the play by Anton Chekhov and hosted by the Mount Holyoke Russian Club.
[Image text: WMHC has been Mount Holyoke's independent, student-run radio station since 1952. To catch WMHC’s most recent programming, scan this QR Code or listen on air at 91.5 FM.
WMHC Music Director Top Songs from February:
Sophie Maxfield '21→ NOTICE by JIMMY EDGAR
Lucy James-Olson '22 → Reason to Believe by Vagabon ft. Courtney Barnett”
Anyone close to me knows that I’m a hopeless romantic who watches ABC’s popular reality dating programs, “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” to see love-crazed singles attempt to find their future spouses. I became interested in the franchise as a sophomore in high school, and I have been obsessed ever since. As a white viewer, I wasn’t focused on the shows’ lack of diversity even though the majority of contestants were white and the first Black lead, Rachel Lindsay, only appeared in 2017.
Following the pattern set by her earlier films, Chloé Zhao ’05’s “Nomadland,” which launched on Hulu and in select theaters on Friday, Feb. 19, is an intimate portrayal of an often overlooked community. Frances McDormand stars as Fern, a woman who lost her husband, her job and her town — Empire, Nevada, a real place which closed after the local factory shut down — and embarks on a journey that takes her across the country and back again in pursuit of work and meaning.
“If Britney can get through 2007, you can get through anything” is just one of the viral pop culture phrases often thrown around social media. But the 2021 New York Times documentary “Framing Britney Spears” urges the audience to consider Spears today, living under the conservatorship of her father. The documentary provides an extensive view of the pop sensation and her career, dealing with the life of Spears not as a celebrity, but as a person.
From a young age, Kay Brown ’24 has had an affinity for the arts. As a Black woman, she often did not see herself represented in the fields she was interested in. Using her Southern roots and a passion for racial justice dialogue as her inspiration, Brown launched the e-magazine “Disturbance” in August 2020. The Mount Holyoke News recently met with Brown to ask her some questions about the last six months of publication and what the future might hold for “Disturbance.”
A Black woman in an intricately patterned quilted gown examines herself using a hand-held mirror. The other hand rests delicately on her temple. Her face is frozen in a state of self-analysis.
This photograph, titled “I Looked and Looked and Failed to See What so Terrified You,” is just one image from artist and photographer Carrie Mae Weems’ series “The Louisiana Project.” Weems’ piece was the concluding image in the student-led guided art tour “Through Their Eyes: Blackness Across Media,” which took place last Friday, Feb. 5.
