Beware the Stacks: Haunting of Hannon VI
Trick, treats and other frightful delights return to William H. Hannon Library’s stacks tonight for the sixth annual “Haunting of Hannon,” a campus tradition created through partnership with LMU Theatre Arts students. This year’s theme, “Inferno,” will scare up stories of damnation, demonology, deadly sins and include nods to Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” and Daniel Defoe’s “Diary of a Plague Year.”
“The Haunt’s theme is always related to the subject of the Hannon Special Collections exhibition at the time,” Kevin Wetmore, Chair of the Theatre Arts department said. “This year, the special collections exhibition is on collaboration. I was listening to a lecture on Dante’s “Inferno” and the professor pointed out something I never noticed before – in his description of Hell, Dante implies that the gates of Hell were smashed open and destroyed by Christ on Good Friday, so the doors of hell are wide open, and nobody chooses to walk out. Everyone who is in hell chooses to be there, first by sinning, then by not walking out. It hit me – we collaborate in our own damnation, and the show began to write itself.”
Wetmore says students followed Dante’s work and created nine circles of hell, starting in the basement of the library and going all the way up to the top floor, with each story reflecting a circle of hell – the Greedy, the Lustful, the Angry, the Violent, the Heretical, etc. Guests will encounter stories that speak to the experience of being in hell and lost souls that have collaborated in their own damnation.
“One of the points of this fun event is to get people to think about horror literature and perhaps even seek out some of the sources in the library,” Wetmore said. “In other words, we hope you’ll see this and maybe become curious enough to read ‘The Screwfly Solution’ or ‘The House on the Borderland.’”
A sign-up table for tours will be located on the library’s third floor atrium, with groups descending every 10 minutes. The scares will run from 8 to 10:30 p.m., and guests can sign up starting at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to all, though not recommended for children.
If tonight’s chills seem a tad much, a family-friendly version will offer up fun frights tomorrow from 2 to 3:30 p.m., with theatre students bringing to life beloved children’s classics such as “Bunnicula,” “Dr. Seuss” and “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.”
“Our monsters and ghosts don’t jump out and yell boo, there are no chainsaws or clowns,” Wetmore said. “Instead, we pull you in with a story and tell you that you cannot see it, but there is something just behind you and it will follow you home and give everyone in the dorm nightmares tonight.”
Fall Exhibition Captures Artistry of Photographer Judy Dater
LMU students can come face to face with a 50-year-career survey of photographer Judy Dater’s masterpieces of portraiture at Laband Art Gallery’s fall exhibition, “Judy Dater: Only Human.” The exhibition was organized by San Francisco’s de Young Museum and celebrates Dater’s artistic evolution and what it means to be “simply and only human.”
A pioneering figure since the 1970s, Dater’s work is known for its embrace of feminism and elements of natural light and nudity that aim to challenge gender stereotypes and perceptions of the female and male body.
“Nothing you see on a mobile phone or computer screen can do justice to seeing these prints in person,” Karen Rapp, Director and Curator of Laband Art Gallery said. “Dater brought issues of gender and sexuality to her image-making practice. These issues –the role of women and the fluidity of gender, for example—resonate strongly in 2018.”
Rapp adds that it is a thrill to see how Dater’s work has changed over time, saying that her prints have gotten larger and that she has pared down the “environments” in which she depicted her subjects from elaborate settings to the barest of essentials.
The exhibition is part of the 2018-19 Bellarmine Forum themed “Collaboration and Creativity: Faith, Culture, and the Arts,” an annual series of interconnected courses and events that celebrate the life of the mind.
Additionally, a 200-page publication “Judy Dater: Only Human, 1964 to 2016, Portraits and Nudes,” was published by LMU’s Marymount Institute Press and Tsehai Publishers to complement the exhibition.
“This show is really a testament to Judy’s lifelong engagement with people and her commitment to a collaborative relationship between photographer and sitter,” Rapp said. “Laband seized the opportunity to exhibit such high quality artwork and to work with esteemed partners.”
“Judy Dater: Only Human” runs through Dec. 8 and is free and open to the public.
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