This fall, Caltech is opening doors and crossing over into blended worlds where art and science merge. As part of Getty's PST ART: Art & Science Collide event, Caltech is spearheading three projects, one of which is Opening Doors, a performing arts series on campus highlighting world-renowned performers and stories of science and engineering.
Organized by CaltechLive, Opening Doors includes a play, two dance programs, a choral concert, and a panel discussion. All events are open to the public and will invite audiences to explore topics relevant to today's society such as artificial intelligence, climate change, and ethics in scientific research.
"For centuries, artists have been helping all of us understand our world and our lives," says Michael Alexander, Caltech's campus arts and culture liaison, who spearheaded Opening Doors. "I proposed these performances to bring to campus a representation of the vast repertoire of works artists are creating that tell stories of science. I wanted to show that playwrights and actors, choreographers and dancers, and composers, lyricists, and musicians are all exploring how their art can help the rest of us better understand the work of scientists, the character of scientists, and the ways that artists love incorporating new technology and ideas into their works."
The Opening Doors series begins with Tesla: A Radio Play for the Stage, running from October 4–6 in Caltech's Ramo Auditorium. Originally developed as part of MACH 33, Caltech's festival for new science-driven plays, Tesla: A Radio Play for the Stage recounts the life of famed engineer Nikola Tesla. Written by Dan Duling and directed by Michael Arabian, the show is presented in the style of a radio drama, featuring live sound effects and a star-studded cast of television and film actors, including Gregory Harrison, Dan Lauria, Hal Linden, Charles Shaughnessy, French Stewart, and Vanessa Stewart.
Next, on October 18 and 19, HUANG YI & KUKA will take the stage in Beckman Auditorium. This performance stars KUKA, an industrial robot programmed to dance alongside Taiwanese choreographer Huang Yi. In a series of vignettes, the performance explores the convergence of human creativity and mechanical precision, sparking questions and reflection. "Dancing face to face with a robot is like looking at my own face in a mirror," Huang says. "I think I have found the key to spin human emotions into robots."
On November 16, the Grammy Award–winning vocal ensemble Tonality will present HomeCare, a choral concert focused on the climate crisis, in Beckman Auditorium. Known for its adventurous programming and its commitment to address critical social issues, Tonality will incorporate the words of young climate leaders into its performance, amplifying calls for urgent environmental action. Directed by Tonality founder Alexander Lloyd Blake, this performance features 24 singers, five instrumentalists, and two American Sign Language interpreters.
The series continues December 6 and 7 in Beckman Auditorium with Turing Tests, Apples, and Queens: Collective Storytelling Through Fairy Tales and Artificial Intelligence, a dance performance by Los Angeles-based Invertigo Dance Theatre. Choreographed by Laura Karlin, the performance explores the life of Alan Turing, who is often called the founder of computer science. The program will include an interactive storytelling component with the audience, a dance performance, and a panel following the show about fairy tales and storytelling, queerness and binary coding, opportunities and biases woven into artificial intelligence, and more.
Concluding Opening Doors, a special panel, "Scientists and Artists on Failure," will take place on December 14 in Ramo Auditorium. The panel will include Rob Manning, chief engineer, emeritus, and systems engineer at JPL; Julia Greer, the Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Materials Science, Mechanics, and Medical Engineering and Fletcher Jones Foundation Director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute; and Herbert Sigüenza, an actor, writer, artist, and co-founder of the performance troupe Culture Clash. The panel will be moderated by writer Matilda Bathurst and explore how artists and scientists conceptualize failure within their work.
Tickets to Opening Doors events can be purchased online, with discounts for students. Subscribe here to receive email reminders about the series.
Written by Julia Ehlert