HANOVER — For the past few years, Dartmouth College’s Hopkins Center for the Arts has been largely out of commission while the building underwent a $123.8 million renovation and expansion to modernize its infrastructure and add new multidisciplinary performance and rehearsal spaces.
Some minor work is still ongoing, but the bulk of it is now complete, and the building has slowly been staggering back to life in the past month. To commemorate the new-and-improved venue, a four-day grand opening featuring performances, talks and workshops from household names such as Mindy Kaling and Yo-Yo Ma is set for this week.
“What we really want to let people know is that the arts at Dartmouth are a powerhouse,” the Hop’s Executive Director Mary Lou Aleskie said of the renovation.
Rather than building a conservatory where the arts are siloed, the overarching goal was to create multiuse spaces that encourage experimentation and underscore the college’s liberal arts approach to education, she said.
Most of those new spaces, which were designed in collaboration with the Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta, are housed in the Daryl and Steven Roth Wing, a 15,000-square-foot addition that overlooks the Green.
Tony-award winning producer Daryl Roth and her husband, the CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, Steven Roth, a member of Dartmouth’s class of 1962, pledged $25 million to the renovation project, which was funded primarily by private donations.
Chief among the wing’s spaces is the Daryl Roth Studio Theater, a black box performance space near the Top of the Hop that includes a shock-absorbent sprung floor to accommodate dance, movable seating for about 250 and digital technology designed to enable “performative installations” and “AI-driven, bot-driven interactions,” Aleskie said during a tour of the Hop earlier this month.
Other parts of the wing include the Jack 1953 and Mac 2011 Morris Recital Hall, with built-in recording equipment; Dartmouth’s first dedicated dance studio; and the Mindy Kaling Theater Lab, where acting classes are currently underway. Kaling, a member of the class of 2001, spoke at Dartmouth’s graduation ceremony in 2018. The Lab, fitted with a sprung floor and lighting rig, mirrors the proportions of the Hop’s Moore Theater, meaning performances can transition easily from rehearsals to the stage.
Meanwhile, the Roth Forum, located on the ground floor close to the Moore Theater, includes a staircase leading to the rest of the wing and a seating area that lends itself to impromptu performances, Director of Programming Initiatives Johanna Evans said.
The old Hop “didn’t invite experimentation as much. Every space was designed to do the thing that it was designed to do, excellently. But now we have a lot of spaces that are designed to do multiple things,” Evans said.
The Top of the Hop, an airy social space, also has a new look. The carpet has been pulled back to reveal the original wooden flooring, the central staircase has been sealed up, and a crescent-shaped bar has been added as a counterpoint to the hall’s broad fireplace.
Lastly, Spaulding Auditorium, the Hop’s largest performance venue, has new staggered seating and improved acoustics that can be tailored to fit each performance. The seats are a little bigger than the old ones, so the theater’s new capacity of 792 is about 100 spots smaller than before.
The Hop’s extensive renovation is part of a broader effort to build an arts district on campus. After the Black Family Visual Arts Center launched in 2012 and the Hood Museum of Art reopened in 2019, it was time for the Hop to “bubble to the top,” Aleskie said.
Now students and visiting artists will get to put the reimagined venue to the test at the grand opening. Many of the most star-studded events are already at capacity, but Yo-Yo Ma’s Saturday night performance will be livestreamed on the Green and other events, such as Upper Valley singer-songwriter Hans Williams’ concert in the same location earlier that day, are free and open to the public.
While this week is packed with entertainment, the rest of the season is relatively quiet, with performances from the college’s student ensembles. Programming begins in earnest in the New Year with a freestyle hip hop performance from Chrybaby Cozie and Harlem Lite Feet on Jan. 7 that starts in the Daryl Roth Studio Theater and transitions into the Top of the Hop.
“We wanted our faculty and students to feel a sense of being settled in the building and being able to learn to use the building the way they wanted to before we started bringing visiting artists back,” Aleskie said.
The Hop’s grand opening events run from Thursday, Oct. 16 through Sunday, Oct. 19. To register and learn more, visit hop.dartmouth.edu.
Taxidermy farm
Starting Thursday, Dartmouth alum Katie McCabe and their Upper Valley pals will perform in a three-day run of “Wunderkammer,” Francesca Pazniokas’ eerie drama about an uprising of taxidermied animals brought to life by their creator’s new assistant. The show will be staged inside McCabe’s barn-cum-art-space at 873 Bragg Hill Rd. in Norwich, so those who attend should bundle up as temperatures might turn chilly. Attendance is free with a suggested donation at the door. A free, pre-show vegan dinner will be served at 6 p.m. on Saturday, with cast and community members’ art available for purchase as well. To learn more and reserve a seat, visit tinyurl.com/wunderkammerplay.
Spooky town
In honor of the Halloween season, Barnard is getting a spooky makeover this Saturday courtesy of BarnArts’ annual Haunted Village Theater. Actors will lead guests on a tour of town, where they will be greeted with theatrical performances of original ghost stories. Family-friendly tours will run at 5 and 5:30 p.m., and the final tour starts at 8:30 p.m. For tickets ($20; $15 for students; $10 for kids 12 and under) visit barnarts.org or call 802-234-1645.
A pastel view
“An Ever Changing View,” a new show by Taipei and Brooklyn-based artist Yen Yen Chou, opened earlier this month at Kishka Gallery and Library in White River Junction. On view through Nov. 22, the exhibit showcases Chou’s candy-colored drawings of abstract patterns and her playful sculptures of oozing pastel droplets. The show is free and open to the public. For more information, go to kishka.org.