CULTURAL CENTER

Celebrates 60 years!

In a celebration of this milestone and our collaboration with the Hofstra University Music Department, core members Eriko Sato, Deborah Wong, Lois Martin, Chris Finckel, Assistant Director Mindy Dragovich, and Director Marilyn Lehman will be joined by alumni, faculty, and the Hofstra Chamber Choir in a concert of music by Schumann, Mozart, Gerber, Messager, Bernstein, Beethoven, and newly commissioned work by faculty member Andres Maldonado.

Guest artists are Tammy Hensrud, soprano; Karen Lehman DiMartino, soprano; Andrew DiMartino, baritone; Jessica Levin choreographer and dancer; and Dr. David Fryling, conductor of the Hofstra Chamber Choir. Alumni performers include John Paul West, Andres Maldonado, Brianna Brickman Blake, and Karen Lehman DiMartino. ACE student winner Jarred Mercado will also perform with ACE director Prof. Marilyn Lehman.

The Helene Fortunoff Theater
Monroe Lecture Center Theater, California Avenue, South Campus

Funding for this program has been provided by the Joseph G. Astman Family Fund for the Hofstra Cultural Center.

Hofstra Cultural Center
 and the
Department of Drama and Dance present 
present
Into Sunlight 

Join us for a dance performance by Robin Becker Dance marking 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War, followed by a moderated discussion about the War’s continued reverberation in today’s world.

After reading Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss book, They Marched into Sunlight, Hofstra professor and choreographer Robin Becker turned the book into a dance about the human tolls of war and healing from it. The acclaimed body of work continues to captivate audiences around the country and remains profoundly relevant amidst current world events.

“At its best, art has the potential to heal. This is art at its best.”

About Into Sunlight
David Maraniss’ Vietnam War-era book, They Marched Into Sunlight, encompasses two days in October 1967, weaving together the ambush of a battalion of American soldiers in Vietnam, an anti-war protest turned violent at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the federal officials’ response in Washington, D.C. The dance, Into Sunlight, premiered both at UW-Madison in 2011, as well as at Hofstra University. At each location it served as the centerpiece for an interdisciplinary conference examining the effects of war and violence on the individual and social body from Vietnam to our present era. The perspectives of history, psychology, political science, trauma studies, anthropology, visual art, and theater were all additions to the dialogue about the impact of war. After every performance, audiences have been engaged in discussions, expressing their emotions, concerns, interpretations, and ideas for action.

Later performances in 2012 included Georgetown University, 92nd St Y, Stony Brook University’s Festival of the Moving Body, Florence Gould Hall, and at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School, where it was the focal point of extensive residency. The work was also performed at Westpoint Military Academy and at the Walter Reed Military Hospital. In 2015, the company was invited to perform Into Sunlight in three cities in Vietnam in honor of the 20th anniversary of renewed diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the United States. Robin Becker Dance was awarded two National Endowment of the Arts Awards in 2016 and 2017 to bring Into Sunlight to military centers across the country.

“When I read They Marched Into Sunlight, David Maraniss’ powerful book on the Vietnam War, I immediately responded to the timelessness and universality of the and events he documented. I was deeply moved by the integrity, honor and commitment of both those who fought the war, and those who fought against it. I embarked upon the creation of this dance, Into Sunlight, hoping that the universal language of the body would reflect and offer the same sense of healing that David’s words evoked in me.

The dancers and I became immersed in the lives and events described in David’s book. It has been an honor to invoke the spirit of those who lived these events, and to offer our bodies’ response and appreciation of them through dance.

This work is dedicated to the 60 men of the Black Lions Battalion who lost their lives in Vietnam on Oct 17, 1967.”
— Robin Becker

To learn more about Robin Becker Dance, visit Robin Becker Dance Into the Sunlight.

Toni and Martin Sosnoff Theater
John Cranford Adams Playhouse, South Campus

Join Hofstra University as we kick off Black History Month with a performance by the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, founded in 1981 by co-founders Executive Artistic Director/Choreographer Abdel R. Salaam and Executive Managing Director Olabamidele Husbands. The Company, along with founding company member and principal soloist Hofstra Professor Dyane Harvey, have produced and presented programs throughout the world for over 42 years.

Forces of Nature cultural matrix is centered in an African and an American intelligence that is global and environmental. Its aesthetic has been critically acclaimed as visceral, thought provoking and creatively brilliant. The Company utilizes a unique blend of performing arts, which includes contemporary modern dance, traditional West African dance, Afro-beat, fusion, contemporary ballet, house and hip-hop forms as well as live and recorded music and the martial arts. Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Spirit Walkers returns to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the 48th Annual 2025 Dance Africa Celebration.

Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Spirit Walkers returns to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the 48th Annual 2025 Dance Africa Celebration.

Funding for this program has been provided by the Joseph G. Astman Family Fund for the Hofstra Cultural Center. The performance is held in collaboration with the Center for “Race,” Culture and Social Justice; the Africana Studies Program and the Department of Drama and Dance.

Guests are encouraged to donate non-perishable food items or basic items (toiletries-soap, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, toilet paper, etc.) towards the Hofstra Pantry and the Mary Brennan INN.

FOR GROUPS 10 people or more, please contact the offices of the Hofstra Cultural Center directly at 516-463-5669 to reserve seating.

Join us for an enchanting evening of religious and court music from North India. Dr. Sumeet Anand Pandey, will present traditional rāgas and dhrupad compositions depicting the romantic and meditative atmosphere of the night accompanied by visually stunning pictures and miniatures that reflect the cultural and artistic themes of the night in South Asia, offering a multisensory experience.

Friday, February 21, 2025 7-8:30 p.m.
The Helene Fortunoff Theater, Monroe Lecture Center, California Avenue, South Campus

DR. SUMEET ANAND PANDEY is currently being hosted as a Fulbright Professional Fellow by UCLA for 2024-25. He is an exponent of the Darbhanga lineage, an illustrious tradition of dhrupad singers from Bihar, India. Dhrupad is one of the oldest genres of South Asian music that holds its roots in the pre-colonial court and temple traditions. A graded artist of All India Radio (A.I.R) and an empaneled artist of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (I.C.C.R), he has performed extensively in India and Europe.

Dr. Pandey will be accompanied on the Indian percussion Pakhāwaj by Michael Shoureas (Hofstra Class ’23), a student of renowned Sikh musicians Bhai Baldeep Singh and Parminder Singh Bhamra, and Ritika Singh on the Tānpūrā.

Funding for this program has been provided by the Joseph G. Astman Family Fund for the Hofstra Cultural Center and The Sneh Arts Foundation, @snehartsny.

Media Partner: The South Asian Times

JOSEPH G. ASTMAN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT
Monday, March 10, 7-9 p.m.
Live From Studio A:
EscuchARTE: LATIN AMERICA, Through Words and Song

From the Rio Grande to the Caribbean, the Andean region to Patagonia, music is the mirror into which Latin Americans look in search of their spirit and soul. Join us for a special evening of exploration through the musical landscapes of the all too different regions of this diverse and vibrant constellation of cultures.

Featuring the world-renowned Colombian pianist, arranger, composer and Hofstra University professor Hector Martignon, who will be accompanied by a number of his outside musical collaborators. The event will showcase the production talents of students from Hofstra’s Lawrence Herbert School of Communication and the music/performance talents of Hofstra Music Performance and Music Production students.

Captured and broadcasted “live” through Hofstra’s YouTube channel, the program will be edited for a special TV broadcast on WLIW Public Television subsequent to the event.

Studio A – The Lawrence Herbert School of Communication, South Campus

Presented by Hofstra Cultural Center’s Joseph G. Astman International Concert and the Department of Music.

Thursday, March 13, 7 p.m.
In Celebration of Women’s Herstory Month, Jazz Vocalist Amy London 
Women in Jazz and Popular Song

Ms. London will perform songs from the Great American Jazzbook, written by women from Billie Holiday to Joni Mitchell and beyond, with world renowned jazz musicians, Janice Friedman, piano, Jennifer Vincent, bass and  Sherrie Maricle, drums.

Ms. London will also share the stage with her Hofstra voice students:
The Senior Singers: Sole Borrego, Brooke Cerami, Rachel Chisholm, and 
Sam Merchiore
The Undergrad Choir: Kendall Campbell, Avigayil Fischman-Charry, Rishi Patel, Savannah Stone, 
Grace Ward and Steph Wilson.

The Fortunoff Theater, Monroe Lecture Center
California Avenue, South Campus

Presented by the Hofstra Cultural Center  and the Department of Music.

Thursday, April 10, 4:30 p.m.
JOSEPH G. ASTMAN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT
Shakespeare in Verse, Music, and Dance

By Erik Ryding
Directed by Christopher Morrongiello

This exquisite program presents selected recitations from Shakespeare’s most beloved sonnets and plays set to music of the lute, recorder, virginal, harpsichord, and voice. Included are Shakespeare’s Sonnets 116 and 128 and verses from Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Sir Thomas More, As You Like It, The Tempest, and Othello. It also features dances invoked by Shakespeare, offering a rare opportunity to experience period dances based on historical choreographies. Composers include Henry VIII, John Dowland, Thomas Morley, William Byrd, Anthony Holborne, Robert Johnson, and Henry Lawes.
This event is not to be missed!

Presented by the Stuart and Nancy Rabinowitz Honors College and the Hofstra Cultural Center.

The Helene Fortunoff Theater
Monroe Lecture Center, California Avenue, South Campus

Presented by the Stuart and Nancy Rabinowitz Honors College and the Hofstra Cultural Center.
Funding for this concert has been provided by the Stuart and Nancy Rabinowitz Honors College and the Joseph G. Astman Family Fund for the Hofstra Cultural Center.

MY MUSIC SPEAKS is a pilot program held annually to galvanize talents around the world to create a music genre with Afrocentric tunes. This interactive lecture performance will comprise Afrocentric Drumming and recitation plus a brief history on African Drumming infused with Jazz featuring percussionists George kwasi Barima Asante Owel, a native of the Akan tribe of Ghana, Senam Ayiku, from the GA tribe of West Africa Ghana, Hempstead resident, Everton Bailey on trumpet and Uniondale resident, Nigel Innis on saxophone, with the Wuza-Wuza Music and Dance Ensemble led by Yawuza Alhassan.

GEORGE KWASI BARIMA ASANTE OWEL, a native of the Akan tribe of Ghana and a resident in Westchester NY is a Business Entrepreneur. George is the CEO of HINGI & ASSOCIATES, a consulting firm. George is a musician and his love for his culture and Jazz led him to start Jazz & Hat an, Afrocentric Jazz movement,  based in Cambria Heights Queens NY. George is an educator and a history researcher.

SENAM AYIKU is a skilled drummer and a percussionist with impeccable cultural and modern story telling ability. He is the founder of MY MUSIC SPEAKS and hails from the GA Tribe of West Africa Ghana where Drumming and Dancing is a cultural way of life. Senam had shared stage with great musicians like Richard Bono, benefit concert with Stevie Wonder for a Polio/Malaria awareness, R&B great Irene Logan and Hugh Masekela the Jazz great.

EVERTON BAILEY, a British Jamaican and Hempstead resident, is the founder of Trumpet Academy in Hempstead, and ISOP (Instrumental Sound Of Praise). Bailey has been featured in numerous stage plays and movies like Cadillac Records and The Inside Man, in addition to such TV shows as The Good Wife and 30 Rock. His unique trumpet sounds is comparable to the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Myles Davis.

NIGEL INNIS is a saxophonist/educator/composer specializing in jazz performances. He is a graduate from the New York School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts. A native of Uniondale, New York, Nigel has shared the stage with many great musicians like Warren Smith, Charlie Persip, Alvin Atkinson, and Donnie McClurkin.

WUZA-WUZA AFRICAN MUSIC AND DANCE ENSEMBLE based in Bronx, NY is a music and dance performance company featuring Ghanaian artists deeply invested in the expression of African traditions and cultures. Wuza Wuza translates best as “you and us together as one,” and the name is a combination of the Akan word wu, or “you,” and the Dagbani word zaa, or “together as one.” Additionally, the group’s name references the dance company’s founder, cultural and artistic director, composer, choreographer and performer Yawuza Alhassan, one of Ghana’s most internationally recognized dancers and choreographers

The Fortunoff Theater, Monroe Lecture Center, California Avenue, South Campus

Presented by the Hofstra Cultural Center in collaboration with the Africana Studies Program.

Funding for this program has been provided by the Joseph G. Astman Family Fund 
for the Hofstra Cultural Center.

Join Hofstra University as we kick off Black History Month with a performance by the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, founded in 1981 by co-founders Executive Artistic Director/Choreographer Abdel R. Salaam and Executive Managing Director Olabamidele Husbands, the company, along with founding company member and principal soloist Hofstra professor Dyane Harvey, have produced and presented programs throughout the world for over 42 years.

Forces of Nature cultural matrix is centered in an African and an American intelligence that is global and environmental. The Company utilizes a unique blend of performing arts, which includes contemporary modern dance, traditional West African dance, Afro-beat, Fusion, Contemporary ballet, house and hip-hop forms as well as live and recorded music and the martial arts. Forces of Nature Dance Theatre has performed and toured widely throughout the U.S. and abroad in addition to numerous television appearances – the Emmy Award winning three-part PBS Great Performances documentary on the history of Black dance in the 20th Century entitled, Free to Dance; in a film project with the National Association of Black Museums on the influence of African American dance in Western culture entitled, When the Spirit Moves, culminating in an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; in the dance films Dawnfeather Rising (2020) and the Nguzo Saba (2021) for the Apollo Theater; and 2021 in the film Earthborn as part of the 44th Annual Dance Africa Celebration at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Spirit Walkers returns to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the 46th Annual 2023 Dance Africa Celebration.

Funding for this program has been provided by the Joseph G.Astman Family Fund for the Hofstra Cultural Center. The performance is held in collaboration with the Center for “Race,” Culture and Social Justice; the Africana Studies Program and the Department of Drama and Dance.

Toni and Martin Sosnoff Theater, John Cranford Adams Playhouse, South Campus

Program Details
Choreography, Costume and Set Design: Abdel R. Salaam
Light Design: William H. Grant II
Musical Composition: Michael Wimberly, Abdel R. Salaam 

A Concert Lecture
Performed by Diane Cypkin, PhD
Accompanied by Lena Panfilova on piano.

Molly Picon (1898-1992) was the First Lady of the Yiddish Stage during its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. In this hour-long presentation, part cabaret, part classroom, Diane Cypkin will trace the highlights of Molly’s lengthy career from the Yiddish stage to English-language films through songs popularized by Ms. Picon.

Diane Cypkin is a Professor Emerita at Pace University, presently an adjunct Professor at Hofstra University, and a seasoned performer. 

An expert on Molly Picon and the Yiddish stage, Dr. Cypkin curated a well-received exhibition at Lincoln Center on Molly Picon entitled, “Molly Picon: Yiddish Star, American Star.”

Ms. Panfilova is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, performing in Russia, across Europe and in America.

Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater, Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library, South Campus

HOFSTRA CULTURAL CENTER
Joseph G. Astman International Concerts
presents  a concert series
in commemoration of Women’s History Month

Far more than entertainment, music is a portal for mind-body synchronization, a conduit for engagement in ritual, group catharsis, and entrainment, and a holder of mythology and history. In this recital, renowned player of the Indian flute bansuri, Steve Gorn will explore the relationship between Nature, Well-Being, and Sound in South Asian Music.

Mr. Gorn will be accompanied by Mir Naqibulislam on Tabla.

The Helene Fortunoff Theater

Monroe Lecture Center, California Avenue, South Campus

Presented in collaboration with the Department of Music.

It’s 1883 and an ordinance prohibiting women from wearing pants has been passed in Tucson. Hailed “a potent, tremendously entertaining mixture” (Thinking Theater NYC), The Anthropologists’ subversive new comedy, dares to calculate the cost of gender oppression today.

Devised by The Anthropologists
Director/Script Melissa Moschitto
Lead Deviser Mariah Freda
Ensemble: April J. Barber, Nazlah Black, Mariah Freda, Jalissa Fulton
Production Dramaturgy Linnea Valdivia
Costume and Scenic Design Irina Kuraeva
Sound Design Erica Huang

The Fortunoff Theater Monroe Lecture Center, California Avenue, South Campus

Music, stories and legends of Italian cinema

After the Americans, the Italians are the composers who have received the most Oscars in music in the world.

This is the common thread of the show, through which the public will be able to listen to the melodies of the authors who have made Italy great in the world.

The Helene Fortunoff Theater, Monroe Lecture Center, California Avenue, South Campus