Western Washington University offers wide array of the arts, much of it free

Think of Western Washington University as a cornucopia of performing arts, spilling over with 300 performances a year. The question is, how can you best access that entertainment?

Start with this new website — cfpa.wwu.edu. The site gathers information from various campus departments and lets you search by day, week, month or event.

Choose a specific department, say, “Music,” to browse all of its offerings. Then click the visitor tab at the bottom of the page for information about parking, bus service, maps, and on-campus cafes, many of which stay open during the evening.

You can also sign up to receive an email newsletter, so Chris Casquilho, marketing and special events manager, can send you weekly highlights. That will help you to navigate among offerings that include major dance and theater productions, and 80-plus musical performances each year, many of them free.

Music performances, including recitals and small and large ensembles, are ubiquitous on campus. In particular, Casquilho recommends faculty recitals, for a free performance by a professional musician.

Western Gallery, in the Fine Arts Building across from Carver Gym, offers four major exhibits a year. During the academic year, the gallery is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, except 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Admission is free to the 4,000-square-foot space and its wide variety of art.

“The art show mounted in the spring by graduating seniors is phenomenal,” Casquilho says, “as good as I’ve seen anywhere.”

Now through Dec. 11, Western Gallery is hosting “The Art of Seating,” a survey of chair design from the 1800s to the present, including examples by Frank Lloyd Wright, Isamu Noguchi, and Charles and Ray Eames.

The most accessible art is Western’s famous collection of outdoor sculpture, with more than 30 diverse works around campus. A guide to the sculptures is available at Western’s information center and elsewhere on campus, and there’s online sculpture tour at westerngallery.wwu.edu.

“Take a relaxing walk through our parklike setting,” Casquilho says. “Spend time experiencing one, then another. It’s not a trail or route.”

“The Noguchi Skyviewing sculpture in the middle of Red Square on campus is iconic,” he says. “Another, Feats of Strength, is a collection of little hominid-like statues. These little guys are charismatic, engaging; children like them.”

This story was originally published November 15, 2015 at 5:02 AM with the headline "Western Washington University offers wide array of the arts, much of it free."