At Bucknell University, some weekends are spent studying, some are spent celebrating, but this one is about storytelling. On October 24, the campus will once again transform into a living film set as the Bucknell Film Club launches its 48-Hour Film Challenge, with this year marking an exhilarating collaboration with the Weis Center for the Performing Arts that dares students to write, shoot, and edit an entire short film within just two days. The challenge begins with a mandatory prop reveal at 7 p.m. on Friday, October 24, at the Weis Center. The props are random, sometimes ridiculous, and always […]

Some performances feel less like concerts and more like ceremonies, moments that blur the line between past and present, between what is sung and what is remembered. Kurbasy’s Songs of the Ukrainian Forest was one of those rare evenings. It didn’t simply perform; it reached, branching outward from deep cultural roots and carrying with it echoes of survival, sorrow, and hope. Before the first note was sung, the Weis Center was already steeped in reflection. The pre-talk, led by Heather Almer, Assistant Director of International Student & Scholar Services, set the tone for the evening with both warmth and understanding. […]

The Weis Center for the Performing Arts will welcome folk/Americana artist Yasmin Williams on Wednesday, November 5 at 7:30 p.m. in the Weis Center Atrium. Yasmin Williams is an innovative guitarist and composer known for her unique compositional approach and expansive instrumental style. Her latest album Acadia, released on Nonesuch Records, showcases her evolution from solo performer to collaborative artist, featuring partnerships with notable musicians like Aoife O’Donovan and Immanuel Wilkins. Williams’ distinctive creative process involves “ruminating” on single notes until compositions naturally emerge. Beyond traditional fingerpicked guitar, she demonstrates mastery of multiple instruments including kora, harp guitar, banjo, and […]

The Weis Center Atrium had never felt so alive. Before the performance even began, the space pulsed with an energy that was warm and contagious. Conversations intertwined, laughter filled the air, and a gentle hum moved through the crowd like the sound of anticipation itself. It was not noise but life, a kind of harmony that emerges when people gather for something they love. Children weaved through clusters of adults, friends called out to one another across the room, and strangers exchanged smiles that needed no introduction. Under that roof, the evening became a celebration of togetherness and of the […]

This year, the Samek Art Museum and the Weis Center for the Performing Arts have cometogether under one unifying theme: trees. It is more than coincidence, more than a sharedimage. It is a collaboration that asks us to think about growth, process, and connection acrossart forms, and to experience how these lessons move between the museum and the stage. At the Samek, Gina Siepel’s exhibition To Understand a Tree anchors the season. The project,created over six years in communion with a single tree, blends ecology, queer experience, andenvironmental philosophy into a living portrait of interconnection. But the exhibition does notstand […]

It is not every day that Bucknell becomes a portal to the rainforest. On the evening of September 30, the Weis Center for the Performing Arts transformed. What began as a crisp fall night soon unfolded into an immersive journey through one of the world’s most vital and endangered ecosystems. The performance, an extraordinary multimedia presentation by National Geographic explorer and ecologist Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, pulled back the canopy’s veil and invited us not just to see the rainforest but to feel it. Even before the lights dimmed, the Atrium pulsed with life. The Environmental Expo turned the space into […]

On Monday, September 29, Nalini Nadkarni, National Geographic Explorer at Large, met and interacted with more than 100 Bucknell University students through the Residential College Common Hour program. She met with students from the Discovery Res College, Society and Technology Res College, and Nature and Innovation Res College. Nalini will present her multimedia presentation “From Roots to Canopy” at the Weis Center on Tuesday, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Weis Center. Professor Chris Martine will introduce Nalini and facilitate a post-show Q&A. Nalini talked about growing up in Bethesda, MD and climbing the eight trees lining her parents’ […]

After several years, the Weis Center opened its Atrium once more for performance, and for that moment there could not have been a better choice than the André Mehmari Trio. Some concerts are made for grandeur and scale, but others are meant for closeness, for stillness, for intimacy. This was the latter, a performance that felt less like spectacle and more like a bud slowly opening, quiet, delicate, and full of promise. André has lived for over twenty five years in the Atlantic Forest, the vast tropical rainforest along Brazil’s coast, and his music carried that landscape within it. The […]

The Weis Center will welcome modern dance company Ailey II, the second company of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, on Thursday, October 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the Weis Center. A free pre-performance talk will take place in the Atrium from 6:45-7:15 p.m. The performance is sponsored, in part, by The Standard Journal.    For more than five decades, Ailey II has merged the spirit and energy of the country’s best early-career dance talent with the passion and artistry of today’s most outstanding and emerging choreographers. Founded in 1974 as a bridge between The Ailey School and the professional dance […]

The Weis Center will host a multimedia presentation, National Geographic Live: From Roots to Canopy, on Tuesday, September 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Weis Center. This engagement is part of the Weis Center’s year-long Trees Series.  Patrons are encouraged to arrive at 6:30 p.m. for a free Environmental Expo in the Atrium featuring: DCNR, Linn Conservancy, Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper, Seven Mountains Audubon, and Susquehanna Greenway Partnership. Climb into the clouds with tree canopy ecologist Nalini Nadkarni to experience the worlds hidden in the treetops above our heads. The performance is sponsored, in part, by The Daily Item and WellSpan […]