This week, in and around a preeminent wrestling tournament and the excitement of the Mission Creek Festival, another group of worldwide visitors has descended on Iowa City: representatives from the UNESCO Cities of Literature. A branch of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, which covers seven different creative fields (Crafts & Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Music and Media Arts), the Cities of Literature are a group of 28 literary communities across 23 countries. Iowa City was the third city to earn the designation, in 2008. This year, to honor the 10th anniversary of its designation, Iowa City was chosen to host the Cities of Literature Annual Meeting.
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Daily Iowan - Thursday, April 5, 2018
Bassem Youssef is no stranger to the powers of a ruling government. When an arrest warrant from Egyptian police was put out for him, he complied and turned himself in, spending five hours under questioning. His crime? Comedy. What began as a five-minute YouTube political-satire show turned into an opening that landed him a spot in Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2013. Youssef’s show, “Al Bernameg,” was the first of its kind to go from online to television in the Middle East. At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Youssef will be at Hancher as a part of this year’s Mission Creek Festival. The festival is organized by the Englert and features venues all over Iowa City.
The Daily Iowan - Wednesday, April 4, 2018
New York-based Iranian filmmaker and graphic artist Hamid Rahmanian spoke about his ongoing work, “The Shahnameh Project,” at the School of Art and Art History on Monday.
Each work in the project is based on 10th-century Persian poet Ferdowsi’s epic poem of the same name, a 50,000-line-long work that blends elements of myth and history of the Persian Empire. The project now includes a 600-page illustrated translation of the poem, a pop-up book, and a shadow play, Feathers of Fire, which will appear at Hancher on Wednesday.
Press Citizen - Monday, March 26, 2018
Renowned activist and basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had words of praise for young people involved in activism throughout the U.S. at his lecture inside Hancher Auditorium on Sunday.
"My hat's off to this generation of young activists because they get it and they're doing it the right way," Abdul-Jabbar said to a packed crowd inside the University of Iowa's auditorium.
The Gazette - Sunday, March 25, 2018
It wasn’t the first time he publicly said it and it happened a half-century ago, so it didn’t feel like a bombshell here Sunday afternoon.
Yet, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar still got quite an audience reaction here Sunday afternoon when he responded to a question about how he handled life as a UCLA student who didn’t get paid to play basketball there.
“I got through college without being paid because I had season tickets for my college games and I gave them to one of the boosters who ...”
The audience, which filled nearly every seat in Hancher Auditorium, laughed as Abdul-Jabbar paused for effect before finishing his confession.
The Gazette - Friday, March 23, 2018
When stage and screen star Brian Stokes Mitchell shares the Hancher spotlight with the University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra on Wednesday night, he’s going to “give these students the experiences of a lifetime,” Hancher['s] Chuck Swanson said. “Those students will leave here remembering that.
“That’s a lot of what Hancher and the university are about — student success, creating opportunities for students to have experiences that change our lives.”
Likewise, Mitchell is hoping to count Hancher among his favorite places.
Little Village - Monday, March 19, 2018
Hancher Auditorium will host two free public events featuring Combat Paper co-founder and Iraq War veteran Drew Cameron in Iowa City on Monday, March 19, leading up to Hancher’s production of the opera My Lai on March 21.
The Daily Iowan - Thursday, March 8, 2018
Charles Swanson attended the UI in 1972 during Hancher’s first season. Now, he continues Hancher’s legacy of providing exquisite artistic performances to audiences, while also creating important connections and sentiments for the organization’s future.
Press Citizen - Friday, February 23, 2018
For this story, an attempt to rank the 45 "greatest" Hancher events, I've sifted through countless old Iowa City Press-Citizen news clippings, dived into the Hancher archives of old programs at UI's Special Collections in the Main Library, interviewed six different Hancher employees and reviewed 45 years of attendance statistics.
Daily Iowan - Thursday, February 22, 2018
The shuffling of shoes down the dimly lit aisles of an auditorium molds feelings of excitement and perhaps a bit of claustrophobia all into four words: It’s almost show time. What wonders from the corners of the world will be on display for the audience today? Hancher has rolled up its sleeves, and from the East, presents the Cloud Gate Dance Theater of Taiwan, a dance company from across the Pacific that also has ties to the University of Iowa.
“The company’s founder, Lin Hwai-min, came to the university to take part in the International Writing Program and then enrolled in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop,” said Rob Cline, the Hancher director of marketing communications. “While he was on campus, he took a dance class, and it changed his life. He graduated from the university in 1971 and founded Cloud Gate in 1973. The work the company will dance here, Formosa, is apparently his last performance-length piece of choreography. He plans to retire from Cloud Gate in 2019.”