Hopkins Center for the Arts
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Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
is located at 2 East Wheelock Street in Hanover, New Hampshire
Hanover, New Hampshire
Hanover is a town along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 11,260 at the 2010 census. CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011, and the second best in 2007....
. The center, which was designed by Wallace K. Harrison and foreshadows his later design of Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, is the college’s cultural hub. It is home to the drama, music, film, and studio arts departments. In addition to these fields, the Hopkins Center, or the “Hop” as it is called by students, has a woodshop and jewelry studio which are open for use by students and the public.
Features
The center makes available several classes each term for the enrichment of students and the public. For example, the dance department usually offers classes in different styles of dance, from ballet to hip hop.
One of the features of the Hopkins Center is its Courtyard Café, a popular dining option for students and community members. When the weather is nice, it is enjoyable to sit outside in the landscaped courtyard for a meal. There is also ample seating inside. The café serves made-to-order platters from the grill, as well as snacks, sandwiches, soups, and burritos.
The Hop is also home to the College’s Hinman Mail Center. Each undergraduate student receives his or her own mailbox, known as a "Hinman Box" or "HB", at the beginning of freshman year. Packages may be sent to the mail center as well.
"Top of the Hop"
On special occasions, events are held at a spot called the “Top of the Hop.” This is an area on the second floor of the center. The College’s president often holds catered events here to celebrate various visitors, donors, exhibits, or performances.History
When the Hopkins Center opened in 1962, it was the first academic (or civic) arts center of its kind, and as such, it served as the prototype for an entire generation of such centers that has grown to encompass many hundreds over the succeeding half century. Its genesis was the promise for a new theater made in the late 1920s by then Dartmouth president Ernest Martin Hopkins to Warner Bentley, a newly recruited English faculty member with responsibility for the non-department theatre program. Various calamities intervened—the Depression, the Second World War, Korea, and Hopkins own retirement. But when the building finally reached the construction stage in the favorable economic climate of the early 1960s, its concept had grown to include space for a new concert hall / film theater, a “black box” theater, music and theatre rehearsal halls, a recital hall, gallery exhibition and art storage space, arts studios, and a student workshop — and its new footprint covered four and a half acres.An early architect’s rendering revealed a building of Georgian-style brick, matching much of the rest of the Dartmouth campus. But with the engagement of architect Wallace K, Harrison, a favorite of Dartmouth graduate and New York’s then governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, the style moved to 1960’s modern, and the arched and glassed-in front façade took on aspects that Harrison drew upon when he later designed the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center.
The arts were not new to Dartmouth at the time. A student theatre company, the Glee Club, Handel Society Chorus, Community Symphony Orchestra, Dartmouth Film Society, and artist-in-residence programs all pre-existed—but the thought was that students would need to be “drawn in” to the arts activity housed within the center. So, integral to its concept was the use of internal glass. Large windows looked into the theaters and design shops, practice rooms, art studios, and galleries — many of which proved impractical given the activity occurring within. Nevertheless, the arts flourished and the Hop proved enormously successful.
Public programs initiated by its first director, Warner Bentley, and his successor, Peter D. Smith, drew significant media coverage and made the Hopkins Center a regional and sometimes national destination. For a number of years in the mid- and late 1960s, the Hop hosted a summer Congregation of the Arts, which featured summer theatre programs, a festival orchestra and resident chamber ensembles that performed works by distinguished contemporary composers invited to residencies, exhibitions of works by artists-in-residents, and special film series. The Hop earned a reputation as a venue friendly to contemporary music that persisted for nearly two decades. In the 1970s its also initiated and hosted Celebration Northeast, an indoor / outdoor festival that was one of the first to celebrate indigenous but non–mainstream North America folk musics.
For many years the Hop remained ahead of the curve in its programming of imported events, and Peter Smith liked to joke that he was the only impresario who could fail to sell out a 900-seat hall for either Luciano Pavarotti or Bruce Springsteen — both of whom were engaged just prior to their super-stardom.
Connections
The Hopkins Center is connected to the Hood Museum of ArtHood Museum of Art
The Hood Museum of Art is a museum in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. Dating back to 1772, the museum is owned and operated by Dartmouth College and is connected to the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The current building, designed by Charles Willard Moore and Chad Flloyd, opened in the fall of 1985. It...
, North America's oldest museum in continuous operation. This is Dartmouth’s own museum, which houses both permanent collections and visiting exhibitions. After a walk through the museum, one can visit the Hood’s Museum store which is located next to the Courtyard Café. Beneath the museum is the Arthur M. Loew Auditorium which regularly has movie showings.