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COLLEGEVILLE, Pa., April 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- Responding to student interest, strengthening its ties to the growing Philadelphia suburban region and confirming a mission to educate the whole student, Ursinus College is opening The Kaleidoscope, its new performing arts center, April 21, by showcasing a selection of theater, dance and music demonstrations throughout the building.
The Ursinus center opens at a time when new or improved space for performing arts has became a priority for campuses, as colleges give the performing arts a greater role in a liberal arts education and campuses balance the role of a performing arts center in hosting events and providing a venue for student learning.
Guided tours of the $25 million Kaleidoscope building at Urinsus will begin at 9:30 a.m. and will continue every hour. Ursinus students will offer workshop performances in ballet, chamber music, comedy improvisation, dance and theater, so visitors can preview the facilities. To help celebrate the opening, world-renowned trumpeter Wynton Marsalis continues his affiliation with Ursinus, giving his second concert at the college. His father, music scholar Ellis Marsalis Jr., will be Ursinus's commencement speaker May 14 and will receive an honorary degree. An invitation-only evening concert by jazz artist Marsalis is planned as an appreciation for the generosity of major donors who contributed to Ursinus' $115 million capital campaign, which includes the performing arts center as its centerpiece.
To herald the opening, the PECO building in Philadelphia will announce the opening in its roof lights at times during April.
Ursinus began planning for its performing arts center almost a decade ago, when student interest in the arts began to increase. Eventually, student performances were sold out to standing room. Participation in the arts, even among majors in non-arts disciplines, grew to an all-time high, and the college added a theater major and a dance major last year.
Planning of the center was driven by the college's dedication to a liberal arts curriculum, and the conviction that a true liberal arts education includes a strong commitment to the arts, said Ursinus President John Strassburger. "To complete the mission of a liberal arts education, and for Ursinus to continue to grow as a national liberal arts college, we set out to strengthen the arts," Strassburger added. "For all students, exposure to the arts is necessary to provide windows to other ideals and cultures, and to know ourselves, to foster both self expression and student achievement."
The Kaleidoscope will be the new home of the college's departments of theater and dance, which are the newest academic departments at the college. The architects, Perry Dean Rogers of Boston, working with a faculty-student committee, were mindful of what encompasses the appropriate space for college performances, as well as a venue for regional arts programs. The building houses a 350-seat proscenium arch theater and a black box "experimental" theater, as well as teaching support space and a gallery and work space for art students. Student interest in the arts on campus had been growing beyond the capacity of the older venues.
The building has been financed with gifts to the college, and from a state community development grant. It will complement The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art on campus, each building serving as an anchor on different sides of the campus.
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CONTACT: Wendy Greenberg, Ursinus Media Relations, 610-409-3300
ABOUT URSINUS: Ursinus College, founded in 1869, is a highly selective, nationally ranked, independent, coeducational liberal arts college, located on a scenic, wooded, 165-acre campus, 28 miles from Center City Philadelphia. Known for quality programs in the arts and sciences, it is one of only 8 percent of U.S. colleges to possess a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. The college's Web site is located at http://www.ursinus.edu.
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