Science intersects with art in experimental illustrator’s work

Amisha Gadani has made a career of blending science and art, from creating a dress that inflates like a pufferfish to illustrating birds without beaks Gadani, an independent illustrator who is on the temporary staff for the UCLA Institute of Society and Genetics, will run a drawing workshop that emphasizes how art is a communication […]

Professor bonds biochemistry and the humanities together in class

About 10 years ago biochemistry professor Albert Courey put on sunglasses and a backwards hat and rapped “The Rhyme of the Ribozyme,” a verse written by Dennis Kuo, an alumnus who took Courey’s class on DNA and RNA biochemistry. “If the students have to think about how to express a scientific fact in an artistic […]

Album Review: ‘Anti’

Rihanna, Jay Z’s million-dollar pop product, turned trite demos into golden radio hits. The recipe required no lyrical profundity or vocal artistry. She hummed repetitive phrases like “umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh,” sang over EDM-based melodies like Calvin Harris’ “We Found Love,” and profitable radio hits were born. But after the release of “Unapologetic” […]

Graduate student musician carries on childhood folk music roots

Ryan Koons removes the nyckelharpa from its case leaning against the wooden wall of his family’s cabin in Maryland. As his fingers climb the small keys along the side of the instrument, his parents join in on the folksy tune and music fills the small, dimly lit room. Outside the dining room walls of his […]

Kid Koala’s ‘Nufonia Must Fall’ meshes music, film with puppetry

The dimly lit stage hosted a bustling 13-man team composed of cameramen switching angles, musicians harmonizing and puppeteers directing miniature characters. When the audience’s gaze shifts upward, the hectic scene completely transforms fluidly to black and white film. The Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA will present “Nufonia Must Fall” in Royce Hall […]

Party Flavors: No-guilt truffles

The party food landscape has become increasingly homogeneous, with its ubiquitous bag of Doritos rather than homemade fudge or stuffed mushrooms. Columnist Erin Nyren would like to bring back the house parties of yore, in which everyone cooked or baked something to share. I stared down at my hands, palms completely covered in oily chocolate […]

Q&A: Musician from student jazz band Swingers on musical reinvention, performance

The Swingers looked up to jazz artists like Freddie Hubbard and Charlie Parker, yet never replicated their performances exactly. The members of this seven-piece student jazz band used their love for classic jazz music to reinvent it in their own unique way. Joseph Kwon, a second-year jazz ethnomusicology student and organizer of the group, practices […]