Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896
April 3, 2025

Arts & Entertainment

COURTESY OF HELENA GIFFORD The Lan Yun Blue Orchids perform a fan dance during their Spring Showcase.

Lan Yun Blue Orchids perform Chinese traditional dance with a modern twist

By HELENA GIFFORD | April 23, 2022

The Lan Yun Blue Orchids presented their Spring Showcase on April 16. Though the on-campus dance group is devoted to learning and performing traditional Chinese dance, they add a twist of modernity by dancing to songs that are popular in China today. This was the group’s first time hosting its own showcase, which also featured performances from the Yong Hang Lion Dance Troupe, Music Dynasty and the Hopkins Oriental Music Ensemble (HOME).

COURTESY OF SOPHIA PASALIS The Hopkins Film Festival poster displays in a screening room of theater-goers.

The Hopkins Film Festival: Knives Out and animated film steal the spotlight

By SOPHIA PASALIS | April 17, 2022

The Hopkins Film Society presented Whodunnit, a screening of six famous feature-length murder mysteries and selected shorts, for the 2022 Hopkins Film Festival during the weekend of April 8 to 10. The Film Society chose the weekend’s theme as a group, deciding between other interesting theme suggestions, including “red flag” movies.

COURTESY OF EVAN MORRIS A dedicated Instagram page showcases students’ fascinations with the liminal spaces on campus.

The search for the University’s most liminal spaces

By PAIGE MAULTSBY | April 13, 2022

Visitors to Shaffer Hall’s basement might find themselves pausing at the odd sight of floor space dedicated to a shallow gravel pit. Some might have moved on without a second glance. Senior Evan Morris, however, stopped to take a picture of the pit, which he generously described in an interview with The News-Letter as a rock garden.

IMAGE GROUP LA/CC BY-ND 2.0 The documentary driving home 2 u (a SOUR film) follows singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo in her journey to create her album SOUR.

Olivia Rodrigo's driving home 2 u is a propaganda vehicle that fails to drive home its central aim

By SOPHIA PASALIS | April 4, 2022

Released March 25 on Disney+, Olivia Rodrigo’s driving home 2 u (a SOUR film) tries to depict a sentimental homecoming for the celebrity but falls flat with its contrived authenticity. The film follows Rodrigo as she drives from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, a trip she took many times while writing her debut album SOUR. The star stops at various locations along the route to perform the songs that appear on SOUR.

JUSTIN HIGUCHI/CC BY 2.0 Alumbro reviews the latest album Circles by Swedish singer Léon.

Léon’s junior album Circles celebrates the journey of moving on

By JULIA ALUMBRO | March 15, 2022

Feel-good and retrospective, Léon’s third album Circles was released this past week on March 4. The Swedish singer’s junior album leaves us with a hint of nostalgia and a desire for transformative change. Léon, whose real name is Lotta Lindgren, utilized the sounds of contemporary synth for her album, in some cases going as far as sampling ‘80s synth for her dance tracks.

DAVID OOMS/CC BY 2.0 Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile is a remake of the 1978 film of the same name.

Death on the Nile is a fun time, but don’t expect to be blown away

By VAREN TALWAR | March 5, 2022

Movies can be great or they can be terrible, but in my experience, most are just adequate. These adequate ones might not affect us as deeply as the great one, or grant as much material for jokes as the terrible ones, but sometimes they can be precisely what we need: an escapist, fun ride. Keeping that in mind, I can’t think of a more appropriate adjective for Death on the Nile than just perfectly adequate.

DAVID SHANKBONE/CC BY 2.0 Kimi, starring Zoë Kravitz, critiques technology amid an increasingly corporate world.

A pandemic-era thriller, Kimi is a critique of surveillance capitalism

By JULIA ALUMBRO | March 1, 2022

2022 is Zoë Kravitz’s year for playing lead female roles in cinema. While most people are anticipating her appearance in The Batman this March, Kravitz has received a lot of praise for her performance in the new HBO Max thriller Kimi. The movie, which was released on Feb. 10, is set in a dystopian pandemic world where surveillance capitalism is at its peak.

COURTESY OF MADELEINE GRAY Muratore reviews Peabody Chamber Opera and Peabody Concert Orchestra’s performance of La Scala di Seta, noting the exceptional cast and inventive set designs.

The Peabody Institute’s production of La Scala di Seta injects newfound creativity into the celebrated Italian opera

By REBECCA MURATORE | February 25, 2022

After what has seemed like a never-ending dearth of live music and theater these past two years, live performances are finally returning. While livestreams and Zoom performances were certainly better than nothing, there really is nothing like sitting in an audience, watching a story come to life in the same room as you, feeling music reverberate throughout your body and just immersing yourself in a theatrical experience.

PUBLIC DOMAIN All four plays at the I-Show revolve around the setting of a cabin.

Witness Theater showcases wide range of student work

By RISHABH KUMAR | February 20, 2022

Witness Theater, the only student-written, directed and produced theater group on campus, held its Intersession Show last weekend. For this showcase, titled “Cabin Fever,” each story stayed on them by being set in a cabin, at least to some extent.

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