This past Sunday at UNCG Auditorium, UNCG students performed works that interpreted the world-renowned writer’s stories and novels. Atwood joined the event from her home for a Zoom conversation with the audience.
Inspired by the “The Handmaid’s Tale,” in one performance (below) students and faculty voiced the handmaid’s thoughts and used clarinets to represent both the “ever-present Eye,” which sees and controls all, as well as the human being, who created and sustains the dystopian society.
Students and faculty musicians created an unearthly and thrilling environment to mimic Margaret Atwood’s short story “The Dead Hand Loves You,” in which an elderly writer reflects on his story about a disembodied hand set on tormenting its former love.
“Back to Ainsley” is a dance interpretation inspired by Margaret Atwood’s novel “Edible Woman.” The cast sought to create an emotion of “double empathy” through choreographing the beginning of the work and then moving into improvisation.
Students and faculty presented “Caliban and the Hag-seeds,” their version of Margaret Atwood’s novel “Hag-seed,” about a deposed festival director who is teaching William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in a theater class at a correctional facility. The students integrated step and hip-hop into the short skit.
Photography by Mike Micciche
Captions by Dana Broadus, University Communications
