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College of Creative Arts helps community celebrate Einstein

Celebrating Einstein Dancers

The West Virginia University College of Creative Arts is taking part in a campus-wide celebration of Albert Einstein and his contributions to science.

A month-long series of events, Celebrating Einstein will feature CCA students, faculty and programs in a danced lecture and symphony performance that honor major discoveries in physics.

The danced lecture, produced by WVU’s School of Theatre & Dance, discusses Einstein's theory of general relativity, black holes and the existence of gravitational waves. The dance is inspired by the orbits of black holes, featuring a troupe of WVU student dancers who roll and run, turn and leap to demonstrate the concepts of Einstein's theories.

“The typical audiences that would normally attend a lecture or a dance show are probably very different,” said Jessica Morgan Bishop, associate professor of stage movement. “Blending the two, we get to gather an audience that might not normally interact and give them a new perspective on the topic.”

The Morgantown Community Orchestra, led by WVU School of Music Lecturer Juliana Cantarelli Vita, will perform “A Shout Across Time” by Ira J. Mowitz. The 25-minute piece was sponsored in part by NASA.

“The piece is a multi-media composition that utilizes live orchestra, video and soundtrack to reflect the universe Einstein revealed to us,” Vita said. “Most of what we know about the universe comes from what we can see, but in the search to find gravitational waves, scientists now listen, hoping to hear the universe. An orchestra is the perfect medium to celebrate that.”

The Morgantown Community Orchestra performs at 4:30 p.m. April 22-23. The danced lectures run at varying times April 21-23. Free and open to the public, the events are appropriate for ages 5-105. For more information and times, click here.

For a full schedule of events, visit Einstein.wvu.edu. Celebrating Einstein was originally produced by Montana State University and the eXtreme Gravity Institute. The WVU Celebrating Einstein event is partially supported by the West Virginia Space Grant Consortium.