On April 3 and 4, Hancher Auditorium held its inaugural Stop/Time Festival, a multi-disciplinary, multi-venue fest spread throughout the University of Iowa campus and downtown Iowa City. “There’s a lot of stuff we know that’s cool that just doesn’t get on as many stages,” festival organizer Andre Perry said in an interview with Little Village […]
Hancher Auditorium
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Review: Bob Dylan wasn’t afraid to start a song over to give Hancher a masterful show
Bob Dylan has never been afraid of surprising an audience. On a sunny day in late July at the Newport Folk Festival a young Dylan stood in front of a disconcerted public with a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar backed by a rock band—the very first time the famous folk singer did that.
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Andre Perry hopes Stop/Time celebrates the ‘spirit of innovation’ Iowa City artists and festival-goers embrace
I first met Perry standing in front of the bar at The Mill (R.I.P.). He was memorable for his manner: he pays attention, asks probing questions, looks you in the eye and seems to actually care about what you say. At the time he had a band, The LonelyHearts, and was working on an MFA in […]
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Hancher announces a new multi-venue spring music fest in Iowa City, Stop/Time Festival
Hancher Auditorium, lead by executive director Andre Perry, announced that they are producing a new music and arts festival scheduled for this coming Spring. The Stop/Time Festival is billed as a “two-day, multi-venue, multi-artist spring festival devoted to innovation and independence in contemporary music and the arts.”
The first edition of Stop/Time Festival launches Friday, April 3 through Saturday, April 4 in Iowa City.
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After four decades, the Minnesota Orchestra makes a triumphant return to Hancher Auditorium
The Minnesota Orchestra, under new Music Director Thomas Søndergård, performed at Hancher Auditorium earlier this month, on Nov. 15. The performance saw the return of the ensemble to the University of Iowa, as their last visit came in 1982. Before that, the Orchestra made regular visits through the decades prior, with a a partnership that […]
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With ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,’ chef Samin Nosrat boiled cooking down to its elements. At Hancher — and with her new book — she reflects on why we set a table in the first place
If there’s anything we all could use at the end of 2025, it’s comforting food with good company. Helping patrons get into the holiday feasting mindset, Hancher Auditorium hosted a conversation with acclaimed chef and author Samin Nosrat and Iowa City’s own Carmen Maria Machado on Nov. 13. The auditorium, buzzing with food enthusiasts of […]
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Review: Yo-Yo Ma reflects on finding his sound, overcoming doubts and what makes us human at Hancher
Yo-Yo Ma sits in the middle of the stage, one leg draped over the other, as he listens to a question from someone in the audience. “Ask me anything” appears on a large screen above him. One of the questions comes from a young man, a cello player who wants to know how to overcome […]
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Review: Third Coast Percussion and Jessie Montgomery let Hancher audience inside their cutting-edge collaboration
The plastic hose hangs from his mouth. It is plugged into the drum in front of him, like an oxygen line breathing life into the instrument. He beats the skin of the drum, eyes following the notes on the score in front of him, glimpsing the movements of the other percussionists on stage, the members […]
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Author Rachel Kushner describes writing ‘an ideas novel that’s not boring’ in conversation with Kim Gordon
The American woman watches people standing in line and waiting to pay at the cash register. It’s a highway travel center in France and the woman observes customers walk in and out. She’s at the same time bored and fascinated. People buy dried truffles or lavender oil or glass jars of something resembling cat food. […]
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Review: Emanuel Ax and Anthony McGill ooze chemistry in a virtuosic duet at Hancher
This past Saturday world-renowned pianist Emanuel Ax and clarinetist Anthony McGill performed at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City.
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Review: Twyla Tharp brings 1999’s ‘Diabelli’ back to Hancher as the legendary choreographer celebrates her ‘Diamond Jubilee’
Despite two decades of dance training, most of my context for Twyla Tharp’s Diamond Jubilee at Hancher last Wednesday night was via an undergraduate dance history class on the choreographer and her eponymous company. That she was part of my dance curriculum speaks to how Tharp is one of the most well known names in American modern dance…
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Review: The road to Hell runs through Hancher for ‘Hadestown,’ a grim but crackling musical tragedy
A haunting hymn to love, sacrifice and the inescapable grip of fate, Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown arrived at Hancher Auditorium with all the mythic grandness one would expect from a Tony Award-winning musical — though the production occasionally wrestled with the very myth it sought to reimagine. From the moment the orchestra’s brooding, blues-infused tones seeped into the […]
