This week: The Gorman Museum of Native American Art begins a new exhibition, the Manetti Shrem celebrates their exhibitions with a Sunday event and featured artist speaker. Catch NewMusic at the Pitzer and dance at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. Many events are free. Karen Nikos-Rose, Arts Blog Editor

Shelley Niro exhibition opens at Gorman Museum of Native American Art

Photographic and multimedia artworks by award-winning artist Shelley Niro are on view this week. The show opened this past week on Jan. 28 and will be on view through Aug. 30.

Niro is widely known for her ability to explore traditional stories, transgress boundaries and embody the ethos of her matriarchal culture, said exhibition organizers. 

A member of the Kanyen’kehaka (Mohawk) Nation, she uses a wide variety of media, including photography, installation, film and painting, to bring greater visibility to Indigenous women and girls. 

Brightwork NewMusic in Thursday noon concert and Friday evening

Brightwork Ensemble is a classical new music sextet based in Los Angeles. A flexible and fearless group of world-class musicians, Brightwork consists of piano, violin, soprano, cello, flute, clarinet, percussion (an instrumentation which is often called “Pierrot + percussion,” and which is to modern chamber music what the string quartet was to earlier centuries), and champions the best of the music that’s being written today, while continuing to play the classics of “new” music from the last hundred years. Both events are free. 

Artists-in-Residence

Thursday, Jan. 29, Noon – 1 p.m. , Recital Hall, Ann E. Pitzer Center

Brightwork NewMusic
Sara Andon, flute
Brian Walsh, clarinet
Shalini Vijayan, violin
Maggie Parkins, cello
Aron Kallay, piano

Program

Ania Vu: Five in One

Akshaya Tucker: Breathing Sunlight

Andy Akiho: Mvt. 4 from Chiaroscuro Street

Karlo Margetić: Svitac

Reena Esmail: Mvt. 2 from Flute Sonata

Takuma Itoh: Parallel Divergence

Free
a Shinkoskey Noon Concert

Writer speakers in Library Creative Writing Series

Thursday, 4:30 p.m., Shields Library

Thursday’s event in the 2025-2026 Creative Writing Series features a  fiction reading and Q&A featuring author Jemimah Wei.
This event is free and open to all. It will be available in-person and live-streamed.

Wei is a National Book Foundation 5 under 35 Honoree, William Van Dyke Short Story Prize winner, and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and Felipe P. De Alba Fellow at Columbia University. Her debut novel, The Original Daughter, is a Good Morning America Book Club pick, a New York Times Editors’ Pick, and an Indie Next Pick. 
This event is co-sponsored with America-China Talk. 

The Creative Writing Series is presented by the UC Davis Department of English, Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts Program, and the UC Davis Library. Additional information on the Creative Writing Series. 

The views expressed in this series, including descriptions and biographies, are those of the speakers and not meant to represent the views of any other person or institution.

Malpaso Dance Company at Mondavi: ‘Indomitable Waltz,’ ‘Tabula Rasa’ and ‘A Dancing Island’

Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, Jackson Hall

Since its establishment in 2012, and with a rapidly growing international profile, Malpaso Dance Company has become one of the most sought-after Cuban dance companies.  

Guided by the keen artistic direction of its original founders, the Malpaso dancers deliver “a non-stop barrage of fluid movement, supported by admirable technique and easy musicality” (NOW Toronto). Emphasizing a collaborative creative process, Malpaso is committed to working with top international choreographers while also nurturing new voices in Cuban choreography. 

Prepare for an evening of pieces that sway between the bounds of discipline and freedom, including Aszure Barton’s Indomitable Waltz, Ohad Naharin’s Tabula Rasa, and Osnel Delgado’s A Dancing Island.

Ticket information here.

Winter season celebration Sunday at Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

Sunday, Feb. 1, 2025, 2-5 p.m., conversation with artist 3 p.m., Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, UC Davis

• Artist Sahar Khoury in conversation with Associate Curator Susie Kantor, offering insights into Khoury’s practice, followed by audience Q&A

Celebrate the launch of winter exhibitions — Sahar Khoury: Weights & Measures and Backstory: Digitizing the Museum. Read the full story on this exhibition and Backstory: Digitizing the Museum Collection. 

Admission to the museum and talk are always free.

UC Davis alumni collaborate in arts event for Black History Month

Sunday, Feb. 1, Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium, Davis

UC Davis alumni JR Wolfe (formerly Yancher) (MFA, dramatic arts), Sandy Lynne Holman (B.A., psychology) and Jordan Brownlee (B.A., cinema and digital media) are collaborating on a project for Yolo County Black History Month. The Sankofa Experience is a progressive continuum on effort focused combating hate and anti-Blackness by using the arts educate, entertain and evaluate. The event is Sunday, Feb. 1 at 2 p.m. in Veterans Memorial Theatre in Davis. Free to the public but donations are accepted.  

Presented in conjunction with the Culture C.O-O.P. and Studio Creatch, the family friendly afternoon includes theatre, live music, slam-poetry and dance. The event showcases scenes and original hip-hop based on Holman’s award-winning children’s book Grandpa, is everything Black Bad?

Next week:

Native American artist, composer to give art talk and have music performed at 2 events next week  

Talk is 4:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 5, Manetti Shrem Museum; music is Friday, Feb. 6 at 4 p.m., Gorman Museum courtyard (In case of inclement weather, the performance will be held in the Ann E. Pitzer Center.)

Raven Chacon, a composer, performer, and installation artist born at Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation, will give a talk as part of The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residencies in the Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Program at UC Davis on Thursday, Feb. 5 in the Anne E. Pitzer Center. The lecture begins at 4:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Doors open at 4 p.m.

A recording artist over the span of 24 years, Chacon has appeared on more than 80 releases on national and international labels. He has exhibited, performed, or had works performed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA, The Whitney Biennial, Borealis Festival, SITE Santa Fe, Swiss Institute Contemporary Art New York and more. As an educator, Chacon is the senior composer mentor for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project, or NACAP. In 2022, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his composition Voiceless Mass, and in 2023 he was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship.

Chacon is the winter quarter spotlight artist in The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residencies. His artist talk is made possible with additional support from the Department of Music’s William E. Valente Endowment.

Student ensemble performs his music

On Friday, Feb. 6,  the Gorman Museum of Native American Art will host a student ensemble from the Department of Music performing Chacon’s American Ledger No. 1 in the Gorman courtyard. The piece is about 20 minutes and begins at 4 p.m. In case of inclement weather, the performance will be held in the Ann E. Pitzer Center. Organized by The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residences in the Maria Manetti Shrem Art Studio Program.

UC Davis Design Speaker Series Explores 'Morphing Matter'

Thursday, Feb. 5, Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, 4:30 p.m.

Lining Yao, an assistant professor at the Mechanical Engineering Department, UC Berkeley, directs the university’s Morphing Matter Lab and has courtesy appointments in CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Yao will give a talk. “Morphing Matter,” for the UC Davis Department of Design’s Alberini Family Speaker Series in Design on Feb. 5 at 4:30 p.m. 

The presentation is at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, UC Davis. Free and open to the public, a light reception follows the talk. 

In her talk, Yao explores the evolution of design into a cross-disciplinary practice that integrates “morphing matter” – reconfigurable, bio-derived materials — to address ecological and technological challenges. She argues that future designers must act as catalysts for transformation by navigating both physical and digital worlds to create sustainable, intelligent and responsive systems.  Watch for more in next week’s Arts Blog.