Before the Curtain: Arts on Campus Week 5

and the different systemic forces that played into their development as women: as sexual beings, as creative beings, as artists. I really wanted to get at how women’s development can be derailed by patriarchal institutions and by the men who hold up those institutions.

I’ve also heard from young women who have read the book and appreciated that there’s a retrospective voice to the book. In the book, Isabel is telling the story from a point in the future, so she’s looking back on this experience, which lets us know that she has arrived on the other side of these things and has survived what has happened to her. It makes readers feel like they will also get through the things that have happened to them, that there is a point on the distant shore where they will finally arrive. What advice do you have for students at Dartmouth who might be interested in pursuing writing?

DAF: There are a lot of different ways to walk the creative path. You don’t have to know right after coming out of college that this is what you want to do. Sometimes it happens later, and that’s okay. Writing is not a path you can’t get back on after doing something else. It’s there anytime you want to come back to it. I feel that so strongly.

I always thought writers were people who were English or creative writing majors, and wrote for the literary journal, and then they left school and got an MFA and they published short stories. I thought if I hadn’t done any of those things, I was “off the path,” or that it was not a path that was available to me. I then discovered that you can pursue writing at any time. You can spend 10 years working a different job because you need to make a living. And then you can decide: Now I want to pursue writing. It doesn’t leave you.

I really want to make that clear because I did not feel like anybody ever told me that. Hopefully it doesn’t take 25 years for you to find your way back to writing, but if it does, it does. And that will be the book you need to write.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

BY EMMA COULTER The Dartmouth

Friday, April 28

At 8 p.m. in Wilson 301, the theater department will put on its opening performance of “FAIRVIEW.” According to the Hopkins Center for the Arts website, Jackie Sibblies Drury’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning play is “an interactive theatrical experience exploring the lenses through which we view other communities.” The performance follows the Frasiers, a middle-class Black family. In the play, Beverly, the protagonist, plans a birthday for her grandmother, which results in “complicated” family dynamics to surface.

“FAIRVIEW” is a sharp exploration of family drama and “the insidiousness of white supremacy.” Tickets are free and available through the Hopkins Center’s website.

At 9 p.m., The DoBros will perform at Sawtooth Kitchen. Based out of central New Hampshire, The DoBros’s style — often described as “farm-funk and dirt-grass” — is a synthesis of country, blues, bluegrass, rock, funk and Americana. Tickets are $5 and available on the Sawtooth Kitchen website.

Saturday, April 29

At 4 p.m., Sawtooth Kitchen will host Tommy Crawford for the final Saturday afternoon of his springtime residence. Crawford, who lives in White River Junction, will take the stage to play traditional folk tunes and original songs for all ages.

Tickets to his final performance are free and available on the Sawtooth Kitchen website. The theater department will put on its second performance of “FAIRVIEW” at 8 p.m. in Wilson 301. Tickets are free and available on the Hopkins Center’s website.

Sunday, April 30 At 4 p.m., the Hopkins Center will screen the film “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” (2022) in Loew Auditorium. According to the Hop’s website, Laura Poitras’s Oscar-nominated documentary is a “spellbinding look at the person, portfolio and politics of legendary photographer Nan Goldin.” In her work, Goldin focuses on LGBTQ+ visibility and activism, from the AIDS crisis in the 1980s to her criticism of the Sackler family for their role in the opioid crisis. “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” follows Goldin’s journey “from Polaroids in dingy hotel rooms to die-ins at the Guggenheim.” Tickets are available on the Hopkins Center’s website and are $8 for general admission and $5 for students.

Wednesday, May 3

At 8 p.m. in Rollins Chapel, the Clarion choir will perform “All-Night Vigil” by Sergei Rachmaninoff in celebration of the Russian composer’s 150th anniversary. The Clarion Choir, conducted by Steven Fox ’00, is a three-time Grammy nominee and one of New York’s leading professional choirs. The choir has received numerous accolades for its recordings and tours throughout Europe and Russia. “AllNight Vigil” is a “quiet, reflective and deeply moving set of vespers that exudes light as it gradually moves toward daybreak.” Tickets are available on the Hopkins Center website. They are $35 for general admission and $10 for Dartmouth students.

Thursday, May 4

At 7 p.m. in Loew Auditorium, the Hopkins Center will screen the film “Revenge” (1989), directed by Ermek Shinabaev. The film is a part of the new wave of Kazakh cinema, which began during the late-Soviet era. It tells the story of a Korean boy who was raised to avenge the murder of his half-sister killed before his birth. “Revenge” encapsulates the sense of “national upheaval and intergenerational trauma” experienced by Kazakh filmmakers. Tickets can be purchased on the Hopkins Center’s website and are $8 for general admission and $5 for students.