Sydney Collinger, Senior Staff Writer, Layout Editor
Dlisah Lapidus, Arts & Culture Editor
E.J. LaFave, Production Editor
Lyric Anderson, Senior Staff Writer
Maeve Woltring, Senior Staff Writer
Nikki Keating, Editor-in-Chief
Lucy Curtis, Arts & Culture Editor
March 15, 2024
One of my resolutions this year was to start watching more movies. I am someone who likes to be up to date on popular culture, but I realized that I really had no idea about the current state of film. I’d seen Barbie, because of course I had — it was the event of the summer. However, out of all of the films nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year, that was it. So, about a week ago, in one of my most elaborate schemes to procrastinate homework, I decided to try and watch as many Best...
Sydney Collinger, Senior Staff Writer, Layout Editor
March 8, 2024
The College’s first-ever Cinema Brawl lasted 48 hours and will come to fruition at its screening at the Apollo Theatre on Sunday at 11 a.m. Students entered the competition in groups, and the process of producing a film began at 5 p.m. March 1. Submissions were due in person at 5 p.m. March 3 to the editing room in the upstairs of the Apollo. Four student media associates in the Cinema Studies department arranged this event with the help of faculty. The media associates are resources for people...
Chloe Ko, Arts & Culture Editor
March 8, 2024
Although I first watched Avatar: The Last Airbender as a child, I, along with many other Netflix enjoyers, admittedly rediscovered an obsession with the animated series during the pandemic. Bound inside the lonely walls of my house with all of my social interaction consisting of scattered FaceTime calls, I sought a source of comfort to help pass the time. The series was my sanctuary, healing my inner child’s cries for peace. I quickly developed an adoration for the characters’ iconic traits —...
Travis O’Daniel, Conservatory Editor
March 8, 2024
In the vibrant world of musical theater where creativity and innovation have historically thrived, there is growing concern that we are witnessing a decline in originality. The golden age of Broadway was marked by the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Andrew Lloyd Webber, who revolutionized the genre with their unique voices and avant-garde approaches. While Broadway continues to captivate audiences with dazzling productions, a closer look reveals an unsettling trend toward...
Drive-Away Dolls is Raunchy, Unapologetically Queer Film We All Need
March 1, 2024
Tokusatsu Contemplates Destruction, Revival of Dreams in World of Film
February 23, 2024
Sydney Collinger, Senior Staff Writer, Layout Editor
March 15, 2024
A plethora of exuberant “Yes Aunty!”s reverberated through the crowd at drag queen Dr. LaWhore Vagistan’s show “Lessons in Drag” at the Cat in the Cream Monday. The show included some lecture, some lip syncing, and some audience participation. The show sought to inform people on South Asian and South Asian-American issues through drag, and it successfully did just that. Dr. LaWhore Vagistan is the drag queen persona of Dr. Kareem Khubchandani, associate professor of Theatre, Dance, and...
November 10, 2023
On Friday, Nov. 3, I walked into Warner Main and sat down on the crowded mats in front of the bleachers. I was there to see Fall Forward, the annual performance put on by the Oberlin College Dance department. Before I walked into the show, one of my friends told me that there was a controversy about a half-hour senior dance piece that was part of the program for the night. It was about whether or not a piece that took up three dance slots in the show should have been allowed or whether it should...
Ava Cantlon, Staff Writer
April 7, 2023
For the first time since 2019, students gathered by the hundreds in Hales Gymnasium for the Dandelion Romp, an event put on by the Oberlin Contra Dance Club consisting of live music, dancing, and socializing with both old friends and new acquaintances. Contra dance is a form of American folk dance in which couples dance in line with others, often to fiddle music. The Dandelion Romp was canceled for the past few years due to COVID-19, and the reestablishment of the Romp created quite...
Dlisah Lapidus, Arts & Culture Editor
March 31, 2023
Al Evangelista is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, choreographer, and assistant professor of Dance. His work focuses on social justice, queer and Filipinx identity, and technology. He is currently choreographing a performance for this semester’s Spring Back event, exploring movement in spaces and working with audio about recent legislation restricting freedoms for transgender people. Evangelista recently contributed to the Dance Studies Association’s Chats issue and is on the...
Juju Gaspar, Arts & Culture Editor
October 28, 2022
There are over 17 student-led dance groups at Oberlin, including troupes like VIBE Dance Company, Kinetik Hip Hop Crew, AndWhat?!, Capoeira Angola, and more. That’s not to mention that Fall Forward and Student Showcase: Dance Umbrella are coming up. These groups offer a diverse spectrum of dance styles and many opportunities for those interested in dance to get involved. Yet despite the large number of groups, there are far more students wanting to get involved in dance on campus than already...
May 20, 2022
Bright, colorful artworks were on display in the lobby windows of the Irene and Alan Wurtzel Theater this past week, marking the first part of Assistant Professor of Dance Al Evangelista’s multidisciplinary project Somewhere Good. The project is a collaboration between Oberlin’s Dance, Theater, and TIMARA departments as well as a community project between Oberlin dancers, English for Speakers of Other Languages, students of the Conservatory, and residents of Kendal at Oberlin. This Friday and...
Lucy Curtis, Arts & Culture Editor
February 16, 2024
The first Saturday night of my first year here at Oberlin, I found myself in someone’s dorm room in Barrows Hall, sitting on the floor and listening to a vinyl of Funeral by Arcade Fire on a record player that was surely pilfered from a parent. I was a first-year in 2020, so I didn’t get a proper in-person orientation, but this felt like an appropriate unofficial substitute. Though baroque pop isn’t always my go-to genre, I love Florence + The Machine as much as any other witchy lesbian...
Illinoise: A New Kind of Musical Succeeds in Every Sense
February 16, 2024
The Music of Mudd: What Oberlin Students Listen to While Studying
February 16, 2024
2024 Grammys Showcase Groundbreaking Women-Led Bands
February 9, 2024
Kathleen Kelleher, Senior Staff Writer
September 29, 2023
This past Saturday morning, I queued up outside the Allen Memorial Art Museum, much as I have for the last three years. When I arrived at the front of the line, I noticed what would become my painting, for a semester at least: Zoë Sheehan Saldaña, OC ’94’s “White-Tailed Deer (America’s Most Dangerous Animal).” When I picked it up, my housemate remarked, “You got the digital art piece.” The rather large piece looks somewhat like a QR code. Staring at it in my living room, I parsed...
Kathleen Kelleher, Senior Staff Writer
September 22, 2023
Oberlin welcomed a new mural to town this week as artist Jared Mitchell put the finishing touches on the Oberlin Community Mural Project’s new vintage postcard-inspired wall. The mural sits on the south side of Mill on Main, at the intersection of West Vine and Main Streets. This is the second mural from the Oberlin Community Mural Project, after the “We Are Oberlin” mural on the wall behind the bookstore. The group’s organizer, Tanya Rosen-Jones, OC ’97, said the community wanted more...
Kayla Kim, Managing Editor
September 22, 2023
On September 13, New York investigators seized pieces by Egon Schiele from three out-of-state museums. The pieces were “Russian War Prisoner" from the Art Institute of Chicago, “Portrait of a Man” from the Carnegie Museum of Art, and “Girl With Black Hair” from the Allen Memorial Art Museum. Oberlin released a statement one day later. “We are confident that Oberlin College legally acquired Egon Schiele’s ‘Girl with Black Hair’ in 1958, and that we lawfully possess it,” a statement...
Dlisah Lapidus, Arts & Culture Editor
September 8, 2023
In the Allen Memorial Art Museum’s Ellen Johnson Gallery, a series of textiles with fluid black silhouettes line the walls. These quilts honor the life and findings of Henrietta Leavitt, a female astronomer who studied at Oberlin from 1885 to 1888. Through her work as a “computer” in the Harvard College Observatory, Leavitt discovered thousands of variables of stars, and her research was vital to understanding several fundamental rules of the universe. This series is part of the solo exhibition...
BadArtCo Gallery Show Questions Mainstream Values of Art
May 5, 2023
AMAM Invites Local Musicians to Celebrate Shared Art Program Painting
May 5, 2023
Vintage Looks, Cat Motifs Highlighted In Met Gala Theme
May 5, 2023
March 15, 2024
I wouldn’t say I like the taste of you. In fact, I’ve always hated Jello but I like to feel you inside my stomach coagulating and warm. Between yellow bed sheets you turn over, cough and startle the cricket that lives in my ear. On my tongue, the fabric is wet, limp and clean. Salty hard crusts mold into my teeth The roof of my palate shines with thick clotting strands. My eyes close slowly as you turned towards my ear listening to the gentle rubbing of wings. When you found the...
March 8, 2024
Snow falls like paper pulp as we await the opening of the snail sludge bucket Aimee dips her hand in the gloop – “mucilage” – and it splops at us in challenge We rehome it with a yogurt cup, waggle the fingers of our jazz hands in the water We’ve created a whole new texture of liquid & it’s like heavy water – Do you remember trying to explain it to me? You said That’s just how it is. We crowd around Aimee like...
Ben Franklin & Mindfair Books Hosts Author Karen Wilfrid, OC ’09
March 1, 2024
March 1, 2024
February 23, 2024
Love in Many Tongues: Beauty in Translation
February 16, 2024
February 9, 2024
December 8, 2023
The name Brown Bag Co-op evokes the image of a mom-and-pop grocery store, and that is effectively what the co-op, which existed prior to the pandemic, was. Brown Bag, which operates under a principle similar to Costco’s, where purchasing foodstuffs in bulk is cheaper than purchasing individually, is set to reopen next semester. Though operating within the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, Brown Bag provides a unique alternative to traditional co-ops, because the workload expectation is...
January 7, 2022
Elena Rabin and Josephine Rosman
March 15, 2024
Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, documentary filmmaker, teacher, and Zen Buddhist priest. She will be visiting campus Tuesday, March 19 to give a talk on Zen and the Art of Realizing...
Lucy Curtis, Arts & Culture Editor
March 8, 2024
College fourth-year Sofia Tomasic and College first-year Bella Schmitt are members of this year’s Drag Ball committee. Alongside other committee members, they have been...
Calvin Ray Shawler, Staff Writer
March 1, 2024
Laura Carlson-Tarantowski is a renowned scenic director and is a scenic designer and lecturer in Theater at Oberlin. She is in the midst of construction for the upcoming production...
Nikki Keating, Editor-in-Chief
February 9, 2024
Preston Crowder, OC ’16, is a visiting assistant professor of Theater and Africana Studies at Oberlin. Recently, he directed At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen at Dobama Theatre...
Calvin Ray Shawler, Staff Writer
December 1, 2023
Kari Barclay is a director, playwright, and assistant professor of Theater at Oberlin College. Barclay wrote and directed Stonewallin’, which was performed at Oberlin in...
Lucy Curtis and Chloe Ko
November 17, 2023
Anna Aubry, OC ’21, graduated with a degree in Theater, receiving Highest Honors and the Nash Drama Award. She is currently a cast member on Brooklyn Comedy Collective’s...
On The Record With Julius Bailey: Author of Philosophy Behind Modern Hip-Hop
November 10, 2023