Capital Region Curated: August 31-September 6
Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events, with TOPOS 2026 at EMPAC, Natalie Merchant at UAlbany, and Opalka’s First Friday.
Alan Koslow
17
mins read time
Originally published at
Substack: Capital Region Curated
Capital Region Curated, Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events.
What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
Fall Starts to Stir: TOPOS, Natalie Merchant, and Opalka’s First Friday 🎶📚🎨
The fall campus calendar is starting to wake up.
This is not yet a full fall week, but it is no longer empty.
The major anchor is TOPOS 2026 at RPI / EMPAC, a four-day festival of experimental music, media, film, performance, and conversation. UAlbany adds a high-profile NYS Writers Institute event with Natalie Merchant, plus a public literary conversation with Chinese writer M. Lin. Opalka Gallery reopens its fall public programming with Light and Transient Causes and a First Friday Pop-Up Beer Garden.
Then this issue finishes the current fall-preview category sequence with Film / Media on Campus — a guide to the campuses where film becomes more than a movie.
📣 Help Spread the Word
It really helps when readers share Capital Region Curated.
If you work with a college department, program, gallery, museum, performing arts office, campus newsletter, or personal newsletter, I’d be grateful if you would share it with people who might want a weekly guide to public events on Capital Region campuses.
Subscribe here: Capital Region Curated
🤝 Our Cross-Promotion Partner
Capital Region Curated is happy to cross-promote with The Jewish World, a wonderful local newsletter that helps readers find events and news from the local Jewish community.
The Jewish News highlights the best events, arts & culture, food, and news throughout the Capital Regions Jewish communities.
Subscribe here:
https://www.jewishworldnews.org/
Capital Region Curated stays focused on college and university public programming. The Jewish World helps readers see a portion of one of our ethnic religious communities you may rarely have a window into.
If you have a newsletter and would like to cross promote please contact me at alankoslow@gmail.com
⭐ Top Picks
TOPOS 2026: Defiant Life — Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith 🎶
The strongest single TOPOS event of the week: two major artists together in EMPAC’s Concert Hall.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 7:00 PM
📍 Where: RPI / EMPAC (Troy — EMPAC Concert Hall)
🔗 Links: Map | Details/Tickets | $20; included with festival pass
Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith headline one of the clearest high-value events in TOPOS 2026. If you are choosing one TOPOS performance, start here.
Natalie Merchant appears in conversation with Joe Donahue at UAlbany on September 2.
Natalie Merchant in Conversation — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany 📚
Natalie Merchant appears in person at UAlbany for a Writers Institute conversation.
📅 Date/time: Wednesday 9/2, 7:30–8:30 PM
📍 Where: UAlbany Performing Arts Center (Albany — PAC Main Theatre)
This is a conversation with Joe Donahue, not a concert. Merchant remains one of the region’s most recognizable creative figures, and the format should make this more substantial than a standard appearance.
Opalka Gallery opens Light and Transient Causes on September 1.
Opalka Gallery Pop-Up Beer Garden: First Friday 🎨
Opalka Gallery marks the opening week of Light and Transient Causes with a public First Friday evening outside the gallery.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 6:00–9:00 PM; music 6:30–7:30 PM
📍 Where: Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery (Albany — outside Opalka Gallery)
🔗 Links: Map | Details | Public event
The evening includes live music, food, brewers, and gallery access during the opening week of Light and Transient Causes. The music lineup includes Super 400 and Melora Creager with special guest Ryder Cooley.
Miho Hatori’s Paris Syndrome receives its world premiere at EMPAC as part of TOPOS 2026.
TOPOS 2026: Paris Syndrome — Miho Hatori 🎛️
A Friday night TOPOS performance and EMPAC commission.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 9:00 PM
📍 Where: RPI / EMPAC (Troy — EMPAC Theater)
🔗 Links: Map | Details/Tickets | $20; included with festival pass
Miho Hatori brings Paris Syndrome to EMPAC with Michiko Ogawa and Daniel Peck. This is the other major Friday-night TOPOS draw, especially for readers interested in experimental performance, sound, media, and commissioned work.
🗓️ This Week at a Glance
Festival anchor: TOPOS 2026 at EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media.
Major public conversation: Natalie Merchant at UAlbany with the NYS Writers Institute.
Literary event: Chinese writer M. Lin at UAlbany.
Gallery reopening: Opalka Gallery’s Light and Transient Causes opens September 1.
Friday night cluster: Opalka First Friday, TOPOS: Defiant Life, and TOPOS: Paris Syndrome.
🎶 Festival Spotlight
TOPOS 2026 — RPI / EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media
Wednesday 9/2–Saturday 9/5
🔗 Full festival details/tickets: TOPOS 2026
TOPOS 2026 is the week’s major campus arts anchor.
The festival brings together experimental music, film, media, performance, and conversation across EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media, with artists including Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, Miho Hatori, IMA, Edward George, Fred Moten, Paul Abbott, Rock City Falls Trio, Sun Dogs, and The Silent Light.
Full-festival passes are $50. Individual ticketed EMPAC events are generally $20.
TOPOS Schedule Highlights
Be The Media! workshop with Edward George — Edward George
Wednesday 9/2, 5:00–6:00 PM — the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Public TOPOS workshop before Black Atlas.
Black Atlas — Edward George and Fred Moten
Wednesday 9/2, 7:00 PM — the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Opening-night screening and program.
The Strangeness of Jazz — Edward George
Thursday 9/3, 6:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 2. Live podcast / listening session / performance.
And The Petals Burst Into Flames… — IMA
Thursday 9/3, 9:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman. TOPOS performance.
Defiant Life — Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith
Friday 9/4, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Concert Hall. Major individual TOPOS draw.
Paris Syndrome — Miho Hatori, with Michiko Ogawa and Daniel Peck
Friday 9/4, 9:00 PM — EMPAC Theater. TOPOS performance / EMPAC commission.
Improv Spaces — Rock City Falls Trio; Sun Dogs
Saturday 9/5, 2:00 PM — EMPAC Concert Hall. Saturday afternoon performance.
The Strangeness of Drumming — Paul Abbott and Edward George
Saturday 9/5, 4:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman. Performance / percussion / turntables.
A Page of Madness — The Silent Light
Saturday 9/5, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Theater. Screening / performance.
🖼️ Exhibition Now Open
Light and Transient Causes — Opalka Gallery
Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery
📅 On view Tuesday 9/1–Saturday 12/5 — Opalka Gallery, Albany
🔗 Details: Light and Transient Causes
Opalka Gallery reopens its fall public programming with Light and Transient Causes, on view from September 1 through December 5.
The exhibition takes its title from the Declaration of Independence during the 250th anniversary year and looks at what gets dismissed as too “light” or “transient” to address.
This week’s timed public Opalka event is Friday’s First Friday Pop-Up Beer Garden outside the gallery, with live music, food, brewers, and gallery access during opening week.
The formal exhibition reception follows on Friday 9/11.
📚 Also This Week
Chinese Writer M. Lin — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany
📅 Date/time: Thursday 9/3, 4:30–5:30 PM
📍 Where: UAlbany Campus Center (Albany — CC Multipurpose Room)
M. Lin, an award-winning Chinese writer living in the United States, discusses her debut story collection, The Memory Museum. This is a public Writers Institute event and a good early-season literary listing.
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📌 Plan Ahead: September 7–28
9th Annual Albany Book Festival — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany
Saturday 9/26 — UAlbany Campus Center
🔗 Details: Albany Book Festival
A full day of authors, panels, signings, books, and literary conversation, with participants including Elizabeth Kolbert, Namwali Serpell, Gish Jen, Carol Gilligan, Porochista Khakpour, John Katzenbach, Arash Azizi, Megan Nolan, Kelly McMasters, Terry Golway, Keith McNally, and many others.
This is not mainly a ticket-urgency item. It belongs here because readers should block out most of Saturday now.
Hell in a Handbag — Dynasty Handbag / EMPAC
Saturday 9/19, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Theater, Troy
🔗 Details/Tickets: Hell in a Handbag
A one-night performance by Jibz Cameron, best known for the multimedia alter ego Dynasty Handbag, combining performance and readings from the memoir Hell in a Handbag.
Tickets are only $5, and this is one performance only. If this sounds like your kind of evening, do not wait until event week.
American Patchwork Quartet — Skidmore / Zankel
Saturday 9/19, 7:30 PM — Arthur Zankel Music Center, Saratoga Springs
🔗 Details: Zankel Music Center
🔗 Tickets: American Patchwork Quartet tickets
A high-level visiting-artist concert blending American roots music with jazz and global traditions, led by multi-Grammy-winning musician Clay Ross.
Tickets are already on sale.
Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark — NYS Writers Institute
Monday 9/14, 7:30 PM — Page Hall, UAlbany Downtown Campus
🔗 Details: Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird joins Susan Goldmark for one of the stronger early-season Writers Institute conversations.
This is a strong intellectual event even though ticket scarcity is not the main issue.
Suketu Mehta — UAlbany / Opalka Gallery
Thursday 9/17 — two Capital Region appearances
🔗 UAlbany details: NYS Writers Institute: Suketu Mehta
🔗 Opalka details/registration: Opalka Gallery programs
Pulitzer finalist and author Suketu Mehta appears first at UAlbany and later that evening at Opalka Gallery in programming connected to Constitution Day and America’s 250th anniversary.
Readers especially interested in immigration, cities, citizenship, and American identity may want to plan for one or both programs.
Franny — Theatre Institute at Russell Sage
September 24–27 — James L. Meader Little Theater, Troy
🔗 Details/Tickets: Theatre Institute 2026–27 season
The Theatre Institute at Russell Sage opens its 2026–27 season with a new play by Barbara Gural, directed by David Baecker.
Four performances only; tickets are already available.
Black Atlas, presented as part of TOPOS 2026, shows how campus film can become screening, conversation, archive, and media art.
🎬 Preview: Film / Media on Campus
Where Campus Film Becomes More Than a Movie
Campus film is often only the beginning.
At Capital Region colleges and universities, a screening may lead to a filmmaker Q&A, faculty panel, documentary discussion, live performance, experimental video installation, or a semester-long exploration of a theme.
The most useful question is not simply:
What movie is showing?
It is:
Which campuses consistently turn film and media into something larger?
This guide is not a movie calendar. It is a map of where to watch during 2026–27.
🎞️ UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute
Albany Film Festival (annual spring anchor; 2027 details forthcoming)
UAlbany’s Albany Film Festival has become the region’s clearest recurring campus film anchor.
The 2026 edition was the 6th Annual Albany Film Festival, held in March, and featured filmmaker and novelist John Sayles.
The festival typically combines:
feature films
short films
filmmakers
writers
public conversations
panels
special presentations
student films
interdisciplinary discussion
This matters because the Albany Film Festival is not just a place to watch films. It is a place where film becomes a public conversation among writers, filmmakers, students, and audiences.
Reader note: The 2027 date and program are still to come, but this is the UAlbany film event to watch every spring.
UAlbany English Department Film Series (recurring semester series; next lineup forthcoming)
UAlbany’s English Department also runs a recurring public film series during the semester, with faculty-selected screenings spread across multiple evenings.
Recent evidence shows public semester film series in both Spring 2025 and Spring 2026.
These programs matter because they are not random movie nights. They are free, public, faculty-curated, and built as sustained series.
Reader note: Watch for the Spring 2027 lineup once UAlbany posts it.
🎛️ RPI / EMPAC
iEAR Presents! (long-running experimental media source)
At RPI, film often becomes experimental media.
The long-running iEAR Presents! series has existed since 1983 and brings screenings, video art, electronic media, artist talks, workshops, media installations, and art/technology programs into public view.
This is not a conventional movie series. It is one of the strongest regional examples of film and media as an experimental public form.
The series has explored subjects including:
politics
race
technology
environmental justice
immigration
feminist representation
queer representation
art and science
social media
Reader note: This is one of the region’s most important film/media lanes because it sits exactly where moving image, electronic art, technology, and public ideas meet.
EMPAC Moving-Image and Hybrid-Media Work (watch year-round)
EMPAC itself is a major source for moving-image work that crosses into installation, sound, performance, and experimental media.
Readers should watch for:
film/video installation
multi-channel video
experimental cinema
screening/performance hybrids
moving-image commissions
artist conversations
works where image, sound, and space are inseparable
Reader note: Do not expect a conventional film festival. EMPAC is where film becomes something stranger, more spatial, more sonic, and more interdisciplinary.
🖼️ Skidmore College
Tang Teaching Museum — Whole Grain: Experiments in Film & Video (recurring series; next schedule forthcoming)
The Tang’s Whole Grain: Experiments in Film & Video is one of the strongest named recurring film/media programs in the region.
The series explores:
experimental cinema
video art
16mm film
contemporary moving-image work
museum collections
themed film/video programs
visiting filmmakers and artists
This is exactly the kind of campus film programming that becomes more than a screening. It is film inside a museum context, often framed through art, artists, collections, history, and experimental practice.
Reader note: This is a very high-priority film/media source. Watch Tang’s calendar for the next Whole Grain dates.
MDOCS — John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (documentary / nonfiction media lane)
MDOCS is Skidmore’s major documentary and nonfiction-media lane.
It regularly presents public documentary screenings, often with:
filmmaker Q&A
visiting documentary artists
discussion
documentary practice
nonfiction storytelling
student and community-facing media work
MDOCS approaches film through documentary and nonfiction storytelling, often pairing screenings with the people who made the work.
Reader note: MDOCS is where film often becomes documentary practice and public conversation, not just a screening.
Storytellers’ Institute (summer recurring program; 2027 details forthcoming)
Each summer, Skidmore’s Storytellers’ Institute brings documentary and nonfiction creators to campus for an extended residency and public program.
The program includes creators working in:
documentary film
audio
photography
writing
performance
other nonfiction media
The public-facing component includes presentations, conversations, screenings, and work that crosses media boundaries.
Reader note: This is one of the strongest summer film/media-adjacent programs to watch once the 2027 lineup is released.
Skidmore’s MDOCS approaches film through documentary, nonfiction storytelling, and public conversation.
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🎥 Union College / Proctors
Film Across Disciplines (established programming pattern; future series vary)
Union’s distinctive strength is not one permanent film festival title.
Its strongest film programming often happens in partnership with Proctors, where screenings become interdisciplinary events involving faculty, filmmakers, science, history, technology, and sometimes live performance.
Recent named programs have included:
Breaking the Rules: Great Women of the Pre-Code Era
Breathing Fire: A Celebration of Anna May Wong
Our Monsters, Ourselves
Performing Cinema
QFEST
Horror/Noir
Decolonial Beats
Computer Science Film Series at Proctors
The individual past film titles are not the point.
The recurring model is:
cinema + faculty + interdisciplinary interpretation
That can mean a faculty panel after a film, film and science, film and history, film and technology, live narration, live music, filmmaker discussion, or a themed cinema program that turns the screening into a larger public event.
Reader note: Public access varies by program. Do not assume every Union/Proctors screening is automatically free or open under the same terms. Verify each future series individually.
🎨 Siena University
Creative Arts / Experimental Video / Socially Engaged Film (watch lane)
Siena’s Creative Arts program periodically presents experimental video and socially engaged film programming.
This lane may include:
experimental video
occasional socially engaged film events
creative arts media work
student or faculty-linked media programs
There is not yet enough evidence of a major durable named film festival or semester series comparable to UAlbany, Tang, Williams, or EMPAC.
Reader note: Keep Siena on the film/media watch list, but do not overstate the lane until stronger recurring programming appears.
🧑💻 Hudson Valley Community College
Refractions Student Film Festival (recent festival; next edition not yet confirmed)
HVCC has recently hosted the Refractions Student Film Festival, bringing together student filmmakers from colleges across the region and beyond.
The 2025 edition was described as the second year of the festival.
This is worth watching because it suggests a regional student-film ecosystem rather than a single-campus event.
Reader note: This is promising, but do not call it firmly annual until a new 2026–27 edition is announced.
Digital Media Student Exhibition (media-art lane)
HVCC also presents public digital-media exhibitions that can include:
video
animation
interactive media
photography
web-based work
This is more media-art than film festival, but it belongs on the broader film/media radar.
Reader note: HVCC’s digital-media lane is especially useful when student work becomes publicly visible through exhibitions, screenings, or showcases.
⚖️ Albany Law School
Albany Law occasionally uses film as a way into legal and historical discussion.
At this point, however, it does not have a major recurring public film series comparable to the major sources above.
Reader note: Include individual Albany Law film programs only when the legal, historical, or public-conversation component is strong.
🧭 Other Core Campuses
Some campuses occasionally present individual screenings but do not currently maintain a recurring public film/media program comparable to UAlbany, RPI / EMPAC, Skidmore, Union / Proctors, Williams, or Bard.
That is not a criticism. It is useful reader information.
Do not pad the guide with ordinary one-off screenings.
Williams’ film ecosystem is closely tied to Images Cinema, including annual French and German-Austrian film festivals.
🚗 Regional Extension — Williams College
Williams / Images Cinema Film Ecosystem (regional extension watch)
Williams has one of the strongest recurring film ecosystems outside the Capital Region core, largely through its relationship with Images Cinema.
Annual French Film Festival (annual; 2027 theme forthcoming)
Williams’ annual French Film Festival brings recent French and Francophone cinema to Images Cinema with faculty introductions and free public screenings.
Typical characteristics include:
French and Francophone film
free public screenings
faculty introductions
multi-film festival format
a clear annual structure
The 2027 theme and lineup are still to come.
German-Austrian Film Festival (annual; next edition forthcoming)
Williams also runs an annual German-Austrian Film Festival, with a new theme selected each year.
The festival launched in 2014, and the German program describes it as a recurring themed annual festival.
Additional Themed Series (recurring pattern; not all annual)
Beyond its established annual French and German-Austrian festivals, Williams regularly collaborates with Images Cinema on themed international, environmental, social-change, and visiting-filmmaker programs.
Recent programming has included:
Social Change Film Series
Transnational Asian Film Festival
Earth Month Film Festival
Immigration / Migration Film Festival
Visiting filmmaker programs
Do not describe every one of these as annual. The important point is that Williams and Images Cinema have a strong recurring pattern of film as public discussion, international culture, and campus-community programming.
Reader note: Williams belongs on the regional-extension film radar, but only stronger events should be passed forward for Capital Region readers.
🚗 Regional Extension — Bard College
Center for Moving Image Arts (regional extension watch)
Bard’s Center for Moving Image Arts regularly brings serious filmmakers, screenings, and moving-image programs to campus.
Bard regularly presents:
screenings
visiting filmmakers
moving-image talks
media art
film-related symposia
However, there is not enough current evidence to promise a specific annual 2027 public film festival.
Bard should remain a Regional Extension Watch only.
Reader note: Watch individual announcements. Only especially strong Bard film/media programs should be passed forward for Capital Region readers. Do not imply that every Bard screening clears the regional-extension threshold.
🎬 Bottom Line on Film / Media
The best campus film programming is rarely just a movie.
It is a way into filmmakers, archives, documentary practice, faculty expertise, media art, live performance, technology, history, and public argument.
The strongest film/media sources to watch this year are:
UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute
RPI / EMPAC / iEAR Presents!
Skidmore / Tang / MDOCS
Union / Proctors
Williams / Images Cinema as a regional extension
Bard / Center for Moving Image Arts as a selective regional extension
The rule is simple: ordinary screenings can be enjoyable, but the best newsletter items are the ones where film becomes something larger.
📅 By Day Calendar
Wednesday — September 2
Be The Media! workshop with Edward George — The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy (5:00–6:00 PM)
Black Atlas — RPI / EMPAC / The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy (7:00 PM)
Natalie Merchant in Conversation — UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute, PAC Main Theatre (7:30 PM)
Thursday — September 3
Chinese Writer M. Lin — UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute, Campus Center Multipurpose Room (4:30 PM)
The Strangeness of Jazz — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 2 (6:00 PM)
And The Petals Burst Into Flames… — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 1—Goodman (9:00 PM)
Friday — September 4
Opalka Gallery Pop-Up Beer Garden: First Friday — Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery, outside Opalka Gallery (6:00–9:00 PM; music 6:30–7:30 PM)
Defiant Life — RPI / EMPAC, Concert Hall (7:00 PM)
Paris Syndrome — RPI / EMPAC, Theater (9:00 PM)
Saturday — September 5
Improv Spaces — RPI / EMPAC, Concert Hall (2:00 PM)
The Strangeness of Drumming — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 1—Goodman (4:00 PM)
A Page of Madness — RPI / EMPAC, Theater (7:00 PM)
Possible partner sources:
The Jewish World:
https://www.jewishworldnews.org/
The 518 Newsletter:
🤝 Community Newsletter Partners
Capital Region Curated is pleased to cross-promote with two local publications that help readers stay connected to the larger community.
The Jewish World is a local source for Jewish community news, culture, events, and stories.
The 518 Newsletter highlights the best events, arts & culture, food, and curated music throughout the Capital Region.
This only works if people share it—feel free to forward to anyone who attends campus events.
I’m building this into a comprehensive weekly guide—recommendations are always welcome.
Fall is starting to arrive.
Alan Koslow
17
mins read time
Originally published at
Substack: Capital Region Curated
ADVERTISEMENT
Capital Region Curated: August 31-September 6
Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events, with TOPOS 2026 at EMPAC, Natalie Merchant at UAlbany, and Opalka’s First Friday.
Alan Koslow
17
mins read time
Originally published at
Substack: Capital Region Curated
Capital Region Curated, Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events.
What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
Fall Starts to Stir: TOPOS, Natalie Merchant, and Opalka’s First Friday 🎶📚🎨
The fall campus calendar is starting to wake up.
This is not yet a full fall week, but it is no longer empty.
The major anchor is TOPOS 2026 at RPI / EMPAC, a four-day festival of experimental music, media, film, performance, and conversation. UAlbany adds a high-profile NYS Writers Institute event with Natalie Merchant, plus a public literary conversation with Chinese writer M. Lin. Opalka Gallery reopens its fall public programming with Light and Transient Causes and a First Friday Pop-Up Beer Garden.
Then this issue finishes the current fall-preview category sequence with Film / Media on Campus — a guide to the campuses where film becomes more than a movie.
📣 Help Spread the Word
It really helps when readers share Capital Region Curated.
If you work with a college department, program, gallery, museum, performing arts office, campus newsletter, or personal newsletter, I’d be grateful if you would share it with people who might want a weekly guide to public events on Capital Region campuses.
Subscribe here: Capital Region Curated
🤝 Our Cross-Promotion Partner
Capital Region Curated is happy to cross-promote with The Jewish World, a wonderful local newsletter that helps readers find events and news from the local Jewish community.
The Jewish News highlights the best events, arts & culture, food, and news throughout the Capital Regions Jewish communities.
Subscribe here:
https://www.jewishworldnews.org/
Capital Region Curated stays focused on college and university public programming. The Jewish World helps readers see a portion of one of our ethnic religious communities you may rarely have a window into.
If you have a newsletter and would like to cross promote please contact me at alankoslow@gmail.com
⭐ Top Picks
TOPOS 2026: Defiant Life — Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith 🎶
The strongest single TOPOS event of the week: two major artists together in EMPAC’s Concert Hall.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 7:00 PM
📍 Where: RPI / EMPAC (Troy — EMPAC Concert Hall)
🔗 Links: Map | Details/Tickets | $20; included with festival pass
Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith headline one of the clearest high-value events in TOPOS 2026. If you are choosing one TOPOS performance, start here.
Natalie Merchant appears in conversation with Joe Donahue at UAlbany on September 2.
Natalie Merchant in Conversation — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany 📚
Natalie Merchant appears in person at UAlbany for a Writers Institute conversation.
📅 Date/time: Wednesday 9/2, 7:30–8:30 PM
📍 Where: UAlbany Performing Arts Center (Albany — PAC Main Theatre)
This is a conversation with Joe Donahue, not a concert. Merchant remains one of the region’s most recognizable creative figures, and the format should make this more substantial than a standard appearance.
Opalka Gallery opens Light and Transient Causes on September 1.
Opalka Gallery Pop-Up Beer Garden: First Friday 🎨
Opalka Gallery marks the opening week of Light and Transient Causes with a public First Friday evening outside the gallery.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 6:00–9:00 PM; music 6:30–7:30 PM
📍 Where: Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery (Albany — outside Opalka Gallery)
🔗 Links: Map | Details | Public event
The evening includes live music, food, brewers, and gallery access during the opening week of Light and Transient Causes. The music lineup includes Super 400 and Melora Creager with special guest Ryder Cooley.
Miho Hatori’s Paris Syndrome receives its world premiere at EMPAC as part of TOPOS 2026.
TOPOS 2026: Paris Syndrome — Miho Hatori 🎛️
A Friday night TOPOS performance and EMPAC commission.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 9:00 PM
📍 Where: RPI / EMPAC (Troy — EMPAC Theater)
🔗 Links: Map | Details/Tickets | $20; included with festival pass
Miho Hatori brings Paris Syndrome to EMPAC with Michiko Ogawa and Daniel Peck. This is the other major Friday-night TOPOS draw, especially for readers interested in experimental performance, sound, media, and commissioned work.
🗓️ This Week at a Glance
Festival anchor: TOPOS 2026 at EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media.
Major public conversation: Natalie Merchant at UAlbany with the NYS Writers Institute.
Literary event: Chinese writer M. Lin at UAlbany.
Gallery reopening: Opalka Gallery’s Light and Transient Causes opens September 1.
Friday night cluster: Opalka First Friday, TOPOS: Defiant Life, and TOPOS: Paris Syndrome.
🎶 Festival Spotlight
TOPOS 2026 — RPI / EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media
Wednesday 9/2–Saturday 9/5
🔗 Full festival details/tickets: TOPOS 2026
TOPOS 2026 is the week’s major campus arts anchor.
The festival brings together experimental music, film, media, performance, and conversation across EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media, with artists including Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, Miho Hatori, IMA, Edward George, Fred Moten, Paul Abbott, Rock City Falls Trio, Sun Dogs, and The Silent Light.
Full-festival passes are $50. Individual ticketed EMPAC events are generally $20.
TOPOS Schedule Highlights
Be The Media! workshop with Edward George — Edward George
Wednesday 9/2, 5:00–6:00 PM — the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Public TOPOS workshop before Black Atlas.
Black Atlas — Edward George and Fred Moten
Wednesday 9/2, 7:00 PM — the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Opening-night screening and program.
The Strangeness of Jazz — Edward George
Thursday 9/3, 6:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 2. Live podcast / listening session / performance.
And The Petals Burst Into Flames… — IMA
Thursday 9/3, 9:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman. TOPOS performance.
Defiant Life — Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith
Friday 9/4, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Concert Hall. Major individual TOPOS draw.
Paris Syndrome — Miho Hatori, with Michiko Ogawa and Daniel Peck
Friday 9/4, 9:00 PM — EMPAC Theater. TOPOS performance / EMPAC commission.
Improv Spaces — Rock City Falls Trio; Sun Dogs
Saturday 9/5, 2:00 PM — EMPAC Concert Hall. Saturday afternoon performance.
The Strangeness of Drumming — Paul Abbott and Edward George
Saturday 9/5, 4:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman. Performance / percussion / turntables.
A Page of Madness — The Silent Light
Saturday 9/5, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Theater. Screening / performance.
🖼️ Exhibition Now Open
Light and Transient Causes — Opalka Gallery
Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery
📅 On view Tuesday 9/1–Saturday 12/5 — Opalka Gallery, Albany
🔗 Details: Light and Transient Causes
Opalka Gallery reopens its fall public programming with Light and Transient Causes, on view from September 1 through December 5.
The exhibition takes its title from the Declaration of Independence during the 250th anniversary year and looks at what gets dismissed as too “light” or “transient” to address.
This week’s timed public Opalka event is Friday’s First Friday Pop-Up Beer Garden outside the gallery, with live music, food, brewers, and gallery access during opening week.
The formal exhibition reception follows on Friday 9/11.
📚 Also This Week
Chinese Writer M. Lin — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany
📅 Date/time: Thursday 9/3, 4:30–5:30 PM
📍 Where: UAlbany Campus Center (Albany — CC Multipurpose Room)
M. Lin, an award-winning Chinese writer living in the United States, discusses her debut story collection, The Memory Museum. This is a public Writers Institute event and a good early-season literary listing.
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📌 Plan Ahead: September 7–28
9th Annual Albany Book Festival — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany
Saturday 9/26 — UAlbany Campus Center
🔗 Details: Albany Book Festival
A full day of authors, panels, signings, books, and literary conversation, with participants including Elizabeth Kolbert, Namwali Serpell, Gish Jen, Carol Gilligan, Porochista Khakpour, John Katzenbach, Arash Azizi, Megan Nolan, Kelly McMasters, Terry Golway, Keith McNally, and many others.
This is not mainly a ticket-urgency item. It belongs here because readers should block out most of Saturday now.
Hell in a Handbag — Dynasty Handbag / EMPAC
Saturday 9/19, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Theater, Troy
🔗 Details/Tickets: Hell in a Handbag
A one-night performance by Jibz Cameron, best known for the multimedia alter ego Dynasty Handbag, combining performance and readings from the memoir Hell in a Handbag.
Tickets are only $5, and this is one performance only. If this sounds like your kind of evening, do not wait until event week.
American Patchwork Quartet — Skidmore / Zankel
Saturday 9/19, 7:30 PM — Arthur Zankel Music Center, Saratoga Springs
🔗 Details: Zankel Music Center
🔗 Tickets: American Patchwork Quartet tickets
A high-level visiting-artist concert blending American roots music with jazz and global traditions, led by multi-Grammy-winning musician Clay Ross.
Tickets are already on sale.
Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark — NYS Writers Institute
Monday 9/14, 7:30 PM — Page Hall, UAlbany Downtown Campus
🔗 Details: Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird joins Susan Goldmark for one of the stronger early-season Writers Institute conversations.
This is a strong intellectual event even though ticket scarcity is not the main issue.
Suketu Mehta — UAlbany / Opalka Gallery
Thursday 9/17 — two Capital Region appearances
🔗 UAlbany details: NYS Writers Institute: Suketu Mehta
🔗 Opalka details/registration: Opalka Gallery programs
Pulitzer finalist and author Suketu Mehta appears first at UAlbany and later that evening at Opalka Gallery in programming connected to Constitution Day and America’s 250th anniversary.
Readers especially interested in immigration, cities, citizenship, and American identity may want to plan for one or both programs.
Franny — Theatre Institute at Russell Sage
September 24–27 — James L. Meader Little Theater, Troy
🔗 Details/Tickets: Theatre Institute 2026–27 season
The Theatre Institute at Russell Sage opens its 2026–27 season with a new play by Barbara Gural, directed by David Baecker.
Four performances only; tickets are already available.
Black Atlas, presented as part of TOPOS 2026, shows how campus film can become screening, conversation, archive, and media art.
🎬 Preview: Film / Media on Campus
Where Campus Film Becomes More Than a Movie
Campus film is often only the beginning.
At Capital Region colleges and universities, a screening may lead to a filmmaker Q&A, faculty panel, documentary discussion, live performance, experimental video installation, or a semester-long exploration of a theme.
The most useful question is not simply:
What movie is showing?
It is:
Which campuses consistently turn film and media into something larger?
This guide is not a movie calendar. It is a map of where to watch during 2026–27.
🎞️ UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute
Albany Film Festival (annual spring anchor; 2027 details forthcoming)
UAlbany’s Albany Film Festival has become the region’s clearest recurring campus film anchor.
The 2026 edition was the 6th Annual Albany Film Festival, held in March, and featured filmmaker and novelist John Sayles.
The festival typically combines:
feature films
short films
filmmakers
writers
public conversations
panels
special presentations
student films
interdisciplinary discussion
This matters because the Albany Film Festival is not just a place to watch films. It is a place where film becomes a public conversation among writers, filmmakers, students, and audiences.
Reader note: The 2027 date and program are still to come, but this is the UAlbany film event to watch every spring.
UAlbany English Department Film Series (recurring semester series; next lineup forthcoming)
UAlbany’s English Department also runs a recurring public film series during the semester, with faculty-selected screenings spread across multiple evenings.
Recent evidence shows public semester film series in both Spring 2025 and Spring 2026.
These programs matter because they are not random movie nights. They are free, public, faculty-curated, and built as sustained series.
Reader note: Watch for the Spring 2027 lineup once UAlbany posts it.
🎛️ RPI / EMPAC
iEAR Presents! (long-running experimental media source)
At RPI, film often becomes experimental media.
The long-running iEAR Presents! series has existed since 1983 and brings screenings, video art, electronic media, artist talks, workshops, media installations, and art/technology programs into public view.
This is not a conventional movie series. It is one of the strongest regional examples of film and media as an experimental public form.
The series has explored subjects including:
politics
race
technology
environmental justice
immigration
feminist representation
queer representation
art and science
social media
Reader note: This is one of the region’s most important film/media lanes because it sits exactly where moving image, electronic art, technology, and public ideas meet.
EMPAC Moving-Image and Hybrid-Media Work (watch year-round)
EMPAC itself is a major source for moving-image work that crosses into installation, sound, performance, and experimental media.
Readers should watch for:
film/video installation
multi-channel video
experimental cinema
screening/performance hybrids
moving-image commissions
artist conversations
works where image, sound, and space are inseparable
Reader note: Do not expect a conventional film festival. EMPAC is where film becomes something stranger, more spatial, more sonic, and more interdisciplinary.
🖼️ Skidmore College
Tang Teaching Museum — Whole Grain: Experiments in Film & Video (recurring series; next schedule forthcoming)
The Tang’s Whole Grain: Experiments in Film & Video is one of the strongest named recurring film/media programs in the region.
The series explores:
experimental cinema
video art
16mm film
contemporary moving-image work
museum collections
themed film/video programs
visiting filmmakers and artists
This is exactly the kind of campus film programming that becomes more than a screening. It is film inside a museum context, often framed through art, artists, collections, history, and experimental practice.
Reader note: This is a very high-priority film/media source. Watch Tang’s calendar for the next Whole Grain dates.
MDOCS — John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (documentary / nonfiction media lane)
MDOCS is Skidmore’s major documentary and nonfiction-media lane.
It regularly presents public documentary screenings, often with:
filmmaker Q&A
visiting documentary artists
discussion
documentary practice
nonfiction storytelling
student and community-facing media work
MDOCS approaches film through documentary and nonfiction storytelling, often pairing screenings with the people who made the work.
Reader note: MDOCS is where film often becomes documentary practice and public conversation, not just a screening.
Storytellers’ Institute (summer recurring program; 2027 details forthcoming)
Each summer, Skidmore’s Storytellers’ Institute brings documentary and nonfiction creators to campus for an extended residency and public program.
The program includes creators working in:
documentary film
audio
photography
writing
performance
other nonfiction media
The public-facing component includes presentations, conversations, screenings, and work that crosses media boundaries.
Reader note: This is one of the strongest summer film/media-adjacent programs to watch once the 2027 lineup is released.
Skidmore’s MDOCS approaches film through documentary, nonfiction storytelling, and public conversation.
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🎥 Union College / Proctors
Film Across Disciplines (established programming pattern; future series vary)
Union’s distinctive strength is not one permanent film festival title.
Its strongest film programming often happens in partnership with Proctors, where screenings become interdisciplinary events involving faculty, filmmakers, science, history, technology, and sometimes live performance.
Recent named programs have included:
Breaking the Rules: Great Women of the Pre-Code Era
Breathing Fire: A Celebration of Anna May Wong
Our Monsters, Ourselves
Performing Cinema
QFEST
Horror/Noir
Decolonial Beats
Computer Science Film Series at Proctors
The individual past film titles are not the point.
The recurring model is:
cinema + faculty + interdisciplinary interpretation
That can mean a faculty panel after a film, film and science, film and history, film and technology, live narration, live music, filmmaker discussion, or a themed cinema program that turns the screening into a larger public event.
Reader note: Public access varies by program. Do not assume every Union/Proctors screening is automatically free or open under the same terms. Verify each future series individually.
🎨 Siena University
Creative Arts / Experimental Video / Socially Engaged Film (watch lane)
Siena’s Creative Arts program periodically presents experimental video and socially engaged film programming.
This lane may include:
experimental video
occasional socially engaged film events
creative arts media work
student or faculty-linked media programs
There is not yet enough evidence of a major durable named film festival or semester series comparable to UAlbany, Tang, Williams, or EMPAC.
Reader note: Keep Siena on the film/media watch list, but do not overstate the lane until stronger recurring programming appears.
🧑💻 Hudson Valley Community College
Refractions Student Film Festival (recent festival; next edition not yet confirmed)
HVCC has recently hosted the Refractions Student Film Festival, bringing together student filmmakers from colleges across the region and beyond.
The 2025 edition was described as the second year of the festival.
This is worth watching because it suggests a regional student-film ecosystem rather than a single-campus event.
Reader note: This is promising, but do not call it firmly annual until a new 2026–27 edition is announced.
Digital Media Student Exhibition (media-art lane)
HVCC also presents public digital-media exhibitions that can include:
video
animation
interactive media
photography
web-based work
This is more media-art than film festival, but it belongs on the broader film/media radar.
Reader note: HVCC’s digital-media lane is especially useful when student work becomes publicly visible through exhibitions, screenings, or showcases.
⚖️ Albany Law School
Albany Law occasionally uses film as a way into legal and historical discussion.
At this point, however, it does not have a major recurring public film series comparable to the major sources above.
Reader note: Include individual Albany Law film programs only when the legal, historical, or public-conversation component is strong.
🧭 Other Core Campuses
Some campuses occasionally present individual screenings but do not currently maintain a recurring public film/media program comparable to UAlbany, RPI / EMPAC, Skidmore, Union / Proctors, Williams, or Bard.
That is not a criticism. It is useful reader information.
Do not pad the guide with ordinary one-off screenings.
Williams’ film ecosystem is closely tied to Images Cinema, including annual French and German-Austrian film festivals.
🚗 Regional Extension — Williams College
Williams / Images Cinema Film Ecosystem (regional extension watch)
Williams has one of the strongest recurring film ecosystems outside the Capital Region core, largely through its relationship with Images Cinema.
Annual French Film Festival (annual; 2027 theme forthcoming)
Williams’ annual French Film Festival brings recent French and Francophone cinema to Images Cinema with faculty introductions and free public screenings.
Typical characteristics include:
French and Francophone film
free public screenings
faculty introductions
multi-film festival format
a clear annual structure
The 2027 theme and lineup are still to come.
German-Austrian Film Festival (annual; next edition forthcoming)
Williams also runs an annual German-Austrian Film Festival, with a new theme selected each year.
The festival launched in 2014, and the German program describes it as a recurring themed annual festival.
Additional Themed Series (recurring pattern; not all annual)
Beyond its established annual French and German-Austrian festivals, Williams regularly collaborates with Images Cinema on themed international, environmental, social-change, and visiting-filmmaker programs.
Recent programming has included:
Social Change Film Series
Transnational Asian Film Festival
Earth Month Film Festival
Immigration / Migration Film Festival
Visiting filmmaker programs
Do not describe every one of these as annual. The important point is that Williams and Images Cinema have a strong recurring pattern of film as public discussion, international culture, and campus-community programming.
Reader note: Williams belongs on the regional-extension film radar, but only stronger events should be passed forward for Capital Region readers.
🚗 Regional Extension — Bard College
Center for Moving Image Arts (regional extension watch)
Bard’s Center for Moving Image Arts regularly brings serious filmmakers, screenings, and moving-image programs to campus.
Bard regularly presents:
screenings
visiting filmmakers
moving-image talks
media art
film-related symposia
However, there is not enough current evidence to promise a specific annual 2027 public film festival.
Bard should remain a Regional Extension Watch only.
Reader note: Watch individual announcements. Only especially strong Bard film/media programs should be passed forward for Capital Region readers. Do not imply that every Bard screening clears the regional-extension threshold.
🎬 Bottom Line on Film / Media
The best campus film programming is rarely just a movie.
It is a way into filmmakers, archives, documentary practice, faculty expertise, media art, live performance, technology, history, and public argument.
The strongest film/media sources to watch this year are:
UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute
RPI / EMPAC / iEAR Presents!
Skidmore / Tang / MDOCS
Union / Proctors
Williams / Images Cinema as a regional extension
Bard / Center for Moving Image Arts as a selective regional extension
The rule is simple: ordinary screenings can be enjoyable, but the best newsletter items are the ones where film becomes something larger.
📅 By Day Calendar
Wednesday — September 2
Be The Media! workshop with Edward George — The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy (5:00–6:00 PM)
Black Atlas — RPI / EMPAC / The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy (7:00 PM)
Natalie Merchant in Conversation — UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute, PAC Main Theatre (7:30 PM)
Thursday — September 3
Chinese Writer M. Lin — UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute, Campus Center Multipurpose Room (4:30 PM)
The Strangeness of Jazz — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 2 (6:00 PM)
And The Petals Burst Into Flames… — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 1—Goodman (9:00 PM)
Friday — September 4
Opalka Gallery Pop-Up Beer Garden: First Friday — Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery, outside Opalka Gallery (6:00–9:00 PM; music 6:30–7:30 PM)
Defiant Life — RPI / EMPAC, Concert Hall (7:00 PM)
Paris Syndrome — RPI / EMPAC, Theater (9:00 PM)
Saturday — September 5
Improv Spaces — RPI / EMPAC, Concert Hall (2:00 PM)
The Strangeness of Drumming — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 1—Goodman (4:00 PM)
A Page of Madness — RPI / EMPAC, Theater (7:00 PM)
Possible partner sources:
The Jewish World:
https://www.jewishworldnews.org/
The 518 Newsletter:
🤝 Community Newsletter Partners
Capital Region Curated is pleased to cross-promote with two local publications that help readers stay connected to the larger community.
The Jewish World is a local source for Jewish community news, culture, events, and stories.
The 518 Newsletter highlights the best events, arts & culture, food, and curated music throughout the Capital Region.
This only works if people share it—feel free to forward to anyone who attends campus events.
I’m building this into a comprehensive weekly guide—recommendations are always welcome.
Fall is starting to arrive.
Alan Koslow
17
mins read time
Originally published at
Substack: Capital Region Curated
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Capital Region Curated: August 31-September 6
Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events, with TOPOS 2026 at EMPAC, Natalie Merchant at UAlbany, and Opalka’s First Friday.
Alan Koslow
17
mins read time
Originally published at
Substack: Capital Region Curated
Capital Region Curated, Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events.
What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
Fall Starts to Stir: TOPOS, Natalie Merchant, and Opalka’s First Friday 🎶📚🎨
The fall campus calendar is starting to wake up.
This is not yet a full fall week, but it is no longer empty.
The major anchor is TOPOS 2026 at RPI / EMPAC, a four-day festival of experimental music, media, film, performance, and conversation. UAlbany adds a high-profile NYS Writers Institute event with Natalie Merchant, plus a public literary conversation with Chinese writer M. Lin. Opalka Gallery reopens its fall public programming with Light and Transient Causes and a First Friday Pop-Up Beer Garden.
Then this issue finishes the current fall-preview category sequence with Film / Media on Campus — a guide to the campuses where film becomes more than a movie.
📣 Help Spread the Word
It really helps when readers share Capital Region Curated.
If you work with a college department, program, gallery, museum, performing arts office, campus newsletter, or personal newsletter, I’d be grateful if you would share it with people who might want a weekly guide to public events on Capital Region campuses.
Subscribe here: Capital Region Curated
🤝 Our Cross-Promotion Partner
Capital Region Curated is happy to cross-promote with The Jewish World, a wonderful local newsletter that helps readers find events and news from the local Jewish community.
The Jewish News highlights the best events, arts & culture, food, and news throughout the Capital Regions Jewish communities.
Subscribe here:
https://www.jewishworldnews.org/
Capital Region Curated stays focused on college and university public programming. The Jewish World helps readers see a portion of one of our ethnic religious communities you may rarely have a window into.
If you have a newsletter and would like to cross promote please contact me at alankoslow@gmail.com
⭐ Top Picks
TOPOS 2026: Defiant Life — Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith 🎶
The strongest single TOPOS event of the week: two major artists together in EMPAC’s Concert Hall.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 7:00 PM
📍 Where: RPI / EMPAC (Troy — EMPAC Concert Hall)
🔗 Links: Map | Details/Tickets | $20; included with festival pass
Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith headline one of the clearest high-value events in TOPOS 2026. If you are choosing one TOPOS performance, start here.
Natalie Merchant appears in conversation with Joe Donahue at UAlbany on September 2.
Natalie Merchant in Conversation — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany 📚
Natalie Merchant appears in person at UAlbany for a Writers Institute conversation.
📅 Date/time: Wednesday 9/2, 7:30–8:30 PM
📍 Where: UAlbany Performing Arts Center (Albany — PAC Main Theatre)
This is a conversation with Joe Donahue, not a concert. Merchant remains one of the region’s most recognizable creative figures, and the format should make this more substantial than a standard appearance.
Opalka Gallery opens Light and Transient Causes on September 1.
Opalka Gallery Pop-Up Beer Garden: First Friday 🎨
Opalka Gallery marks the opening week of Light and Transient Causes with a public First Friday evening outside the gallery.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 6:00–9:00 PM; music 6:30–7:30 PM
📍 Where: Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery (Albany — outside Opalka Gallery)
🔗 Links: Map | Details | Public event
The evening includes live music, food, brewers, and gallery access during the opening week of Light and Transient Causes. The music lineup includes Super 400 and Melora Creager with special guest Ryder Cooley.
Miho Hatori’s Paris Syndrome receives its world premiere at EMPAC as part of TOPOS 2026.
TOPOS 2026: Paris Syndrome — Miho Hatori 🎛️
A Friday night TOPOS performance and EMPAC commission.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 9:00 PM
📍 Where: RPI / EMPAC (Troy — EMPAC Theater)
🔗 Links: Map | Details/Tickets | $20; included with festival pass
Miho Hatori brings Paris Syndrome to EMPAC with Michiko Ogawa and Daniel Peck. This is the other major Friday-night TOPOS draw, especially for readers interested in experimental performance, sound, media, and commissioned work.
🗓️ This Week at a Glance
Festival anchor: TOPOS 2026 at EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media.
Major public conversation: Natalie Merchant at UAlbany with the NYS Writers Institute.
Literary event: Chinese writer M. Lin at UAlbany.
Gallery reopening: Opalka Gallery’s Light and Transient Causes opens September 1.
Friday night cluster: Opalka First Friday, TOPOS: Defiant Life, and TOPOS: Paris Syndrome.
🎶 Festival Spotlight
TOPOS 2026 — RPI / EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media
Wednesday 9/2–Saturday 9/5
🔗 Full festival details/tickets: TOPOS 2026
TOPOS 2026 is the week’s major campus arts anchor.
The festival brings together experimental music, film, media, performance, and conversation across EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media, with artists including Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, Miho Hatori, IMA, Edward George, Fred Moten, Paul Abbott, Rock City Falls Trio, Sun Dogs, and The Silent Light.
Full-festival passes are $50. Individual ticketed EMPAC events are generally $20.
TOPOS Schedule Highlights
Be The Media! workshop with Edward George — Edward George
Wednesday 9/2, 5:00–6:00 PM — the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Public TOPOS workshop before Black Atlas.
Black Atlas — Edward George and Fred Moten
Wednesday 9/2, 7:00 PM — the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Opening-night screening and program.
The Strangeness of Jazz — Edward George
Thursday 9/3, 6:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 2. Live podcast / listening session / performance.
And The Petals Burst Into Flames… — IMA
Thursday 9/3, 9:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman. TOPOS performance.
Defiant Life — Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith
Friday 9/4, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Concert Hall. Major individual TOPOS draw.
Paris Syndrome — Miho Hatori, with Michiko Ogawa and Daniel Peck
Friday 9/4, 9:00 PM — EMPAC Theater. TOPOS performance / EMPAC commission.
Improv Spaces — Rock City Falls Trio; Sun Dogs
Saturday 9/5, 2:00 PM — EMPAC Concert Hall. Saturday afternoon performance.
The Strangeness of Drumming — Paul Abbott and Edward George
Saturday 9/5, 4:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman. Performance / percussion / turntables.
A Page of Madness — The Silent Light
Saturday 9/5, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Theater. Screening / performance.
🖼️ Exhibition Now Open
Light and Transient Causes — Opalka Gallery
Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery
📅 On view Tuesday 9/1–Saturday 12/5 — Opalka Gallery, Albany
🔗 Details: Light and Transient Causes
Opalka Gallery reopens its fall public programming with Light and Transient Causes, on view from September 1 through December 5.
The exhibition takes its title from the Declaration of Independence during the 250th anniversary year and looks at what gets dismissed as too “light” or “transient” to address.
This week’s timed public Opalka event is Friday’s First Friday Pop-Up Beer Garden outside the gallery, with live music, food, brewers, and gallery access during opening week.
The formal exhibition reception follows on Friday 9/11.
📚 Also This Week
Chinese Writer M. Lin — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany
📅 Date/time: Thursday 9/3, 4:30–5:30 PM
📍 Where: UAlbany Campus Center (Albany — CC Multipurpose Room)
M. Lin, an award-winning Chinese writer living in the United States, discusses her debut story collection, The Memory Museum. This is a public Writers Institute event and a good early-season literary listing.
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📌 Plan Ahead: September 7–28
9th Annual Albany Book Festival — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany
Saturday 9/26 — UAlbany Campus Center
🔗 Details: Albany Book Festival
A full day of authors, panels, signings, books, and literary conversation, with participants including Elizabeth Kolbert, Namwali Serpell, Gish Jen, Carol Gilligan, Porochista Khakpour, John Katzenbach, Arash Azizi, Megan Nolan, Kelly McMasters, Terry Golway, Keith McNally, and many others.
This is not mainly a ticket-urgency item. It belongs here because readers should block out most of Saturday now.
Hell in a Handbag — Dynasty Handbag / EMPAC
Saturday 9/19, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Theater, Troy
🔗 Details/Tickets: Hell in a Handbag
A one-night performance by Jibz Cameron, best known for the multimedia alter ego Dynasty Handbag, combining performance and readings from the memoir Hell in a Handbag.
Tickets are only $5, and this is one performance only. If this sounds like your kind of evening, do not wait until event week.
American Patchwork Quartet — Skidmore / Zankel
Saturday 9/19, 7:30 PM — Arthur Zankel Music Center, Saratoga Springs
🔗 Details: Zankel Music Center
🔗 Tickets: American Patchwork Quartet tickets
A high-level visiting-artist concert blending American roots music with jazz and global traditions, led by multi-Grammy-winning musician Clay Ross.
Tickets are already on sale.
Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark — NYS Writers Institute
Monday 9/14, 7:30 PM — Page Hall, UAlbany Downtown Campus
🔗 Details: Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird joins Susan Goldmark for one of the stronger early-season Writers Institute conversations.
This is a strong intellectual event even though ticket scarcity is not the main issue.
Suketu Mehta — UAlbany / Opalka Gallery
Thursday 9/17 — two Capital Region appearances
🔗 UAlbany details: NYS Writers Institute: Suketu Mehta
🔗 Opalka details/registration: Opalka Gallery programs
Pulitzer finalist and author Suketu Mehta appears first at UAlbany and later that evening at Opalka Gallery in programming connected to Constitution Day and America’s 250th anniversary.
Readers especially interested in immigration, cities, citizenship, and American identity may want to plan for one or both programs.
Franny — Theatre Institute at Russell Sage
September 24–27 — James L. Meader Little Theater, Troy
🔗 Details/Tickets: Theatre Institute 2026–27 season
The Theatre Institute at Russell Sage opens its 2026–27 season with a new play by Barbara Gural, directed by David Baecker.
Four performances only; tickets are already available.
Black Atlas, presented as part of TOPOS 2026, shows how campus film can become screening, conversation, archive, and media art.
🎬 Preview: Film / Media on Campus
Where Campus Film Becomes More Than a Movie
Campus film is often only the beginning.
At Capital Region colleges and universities, a screening may lead to a filmmaker Q&A, faculty panel, documentary discussion, live performance, experimental video installation, or a semester-long exploration of a theme.
The most useful question is not simply:
What movie is showing?
It is:
Which campuses consistently turn film and media into something larger?
This guide is not a movie calendar. It is a map of where to watch during 2026–27.
🎞️ UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute
Albany Film Festival (annual spring anchor; 2027 details forthcoming)
UAlbany’s Albany Film Festival has become the region’s clearest recurring campus film anchor.
The 2026 edition was the 6th Annual Albany Film Festival, held in March, and featured filmmaker and novelist John Sayles.
The festival typically combines:
feature films
short films
filmmakers
writers
public conversations
panels
special presentations
student films
interdisciplinary discussion
This matters because the Albany Film Festival is not just a place to watch films. It is a place where film becomes a public conversation among writers, filmmakers, students, and audiences.
Reader note: The 2027 date and program are still to come, but this is the UAlbany film event to watch every spring.
UAlbany English Department Film Series (recurring semester series; next lineup forthcoming)
UAlbany’s English Department also runs a recurring public film series during the semester, with faculty-selected screenings spread across multiple evenings.
Recent evidence shows public semester film series in both Spring 2025 and Spring 2026.
These programs matter because they are not random movie nights. They are free, public, faculty-curated, and built as sustained series.
Reader note: Watch for the Spring 2027 lineup once UAlbany posts it.
🎛️ RPI / EMPAC
iEAR Presents! (long-running experimental media source)
At RPI, film often becomes experimental media.
The long-running iEAR Presents! series has existed since 1983 and brings screenings, video art, electronic media, artist talks, workshops, media installations, and art/technology programs into public view.
This is not a conventional movie series. It is one of the strongest regional examples of film and media as an experimental public form.
The series has explored subjects including:
politics
race
technology
environmental justice
immigration
feminist representation
queer representation
art and science
social media
Reader note: This is one of the region’s most important film/media lanes because it sits exactly where moving image, electronic art, technology, and public ideas meet.
EMPAC Moving-Image and Hybrid-Media Work (watch year-round)
EMPAC itself is a major source for moving-image work that crosses into installation, sound, performance, and experimental media.
Readers should watch for:
film/video installation
multi-channel video
experimental cinema
screening/performance hybrids
moving-image commissions
artist conversations
works where image, sound, and space are inseparable
Reader note: Do not expect a conventional film festival. EMPAC is where film becomes something stranger, more spatial, more sonic, and more interdisciplinary.
🖼️ Skidmore College
Tang Teaching Museum — Whole Grain: Experiments in Film & Video (recurring series; next schedule forthcoming)
The Tang’s Whole Grain: Experiments in Film & Video is one of the strongest named recurring film/media programs in the region.
The series explores:
experimental cinema
video art
16mm film
contemporary moving-image work
museum collections
themed film/video programs
visiting filmmakers and artists
This is exactly the kind of campus film programming that becomes more than a screening. It is film inside a museum context, often framed through art, artists, collections, history, and experimental practice.
Reader note: This is a very high-priority film/media source. Watch Tang’s calendar for the next Whole Grain dates.
MDOCS — John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (documentary / nonfiction media lane)
MDOCS is Skidmore’s major documentary and nonfiction-media lane.
It regularly presents public documentary screenings, often with:
filmmaker Q&A
visiting documentary artists
discussion
documentary practice
nonfiction storytelling
student and community-facing media work
MDOCS approaches film through documentary and nonfiction storytelling, often pairing screenings with the people who made the work.
Reader note: MDOCS is where film often becomes documentary practice and public conversation, not just a screening.
Storytellers’ Institute (summer recurring program; 2027 details forthcoming)
Each summer, Skidmore’s Storytellers’ Institute brings documentary and nonfiction creators to campus for an extended residency and public program.
The program includes creators working in:
documentary film
audio
photography
writing
performance
other nonfiction media
The public-facing component includes presentations, conversations, screenings, and work that crosses media boundaries.
Reader note: This is one of the strongest summer film/media-adjacent programs to watch once the 2027 lineup is released.
Skidmore’s MDOCS approaches film through documentary, nonfiction storytelling, and public conversation.
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🎥 Union College / Proctors
Film Across Disciplines (established programming pattern; future series vary)
Union’s distinctive strength is not one permanent film festival title.
Its strongest film programming often happens in partnership with Proctors, where screenings become interdisciplinary events involving faculty, filmmakers, science, history, technology, and sometimes live performance.
Recent named programs have included:
Breaking the Rules: Great Women of the Pre-Code Era
Breathing Fire: A Celebration of Anna May Wong
Our Monsters, Ourselves
Performing Cinema
QFEST
Horror/Noir
Decolonial Beats
Computer Science Film Series at Proctors
The individual past film titles are not the point.
The recurring model is:
cinema + faculty + interdisciplinary interpretation
That can mean a faculty panel after a film, film and science, film and history, film and technology, live narration, live music, filmmaker discussion, or a themed cinema program that turns the screening into a larger public event.
Reader note: Public access varies by program. Do not assume every Union/Proctors screening is automatically free or open under the same terms. Verify each future series individually.
🎨 Siena University
Creative Arts / Experimental Video / Socially Engaged Film (watch lane)
Siena’s Creative Arts program periodically presents experimental video and socially engaged film programming.
This lane may include:
experimental video
occasional socially engaged film events
creative arts media work
student or faculty-linked media programs
There is not yet enough evidence of a major durable named film festival or semester series comparable to UAlbany, Tang, Williams, or EMPAC.
Reader note: Keep Siena on the film/media watch list, but do not overstate the lane until stronger recurring programming appears.
🧑💻 Hudson Valley Community College
Refractions Student Film Festival (recent festival; next edition not yet confirmed)
HVCC has recently hosted the Refractions Student Film Festival, bringing together student filmmakers from colleges across the region and beyond.
The 2025 edition was described as the second year of the festival.
This is worth watching because it suggests a regional student-film ecosystem rather than a single-campus event.
Reader note: This is promising, but do not call it firmly annual until a new 2026–27 edition is announced.
Digital Media Student Exhibition (media-art lane)
HVCC also presents public digital-media exhibitions that can include:
video
animation
interactive media
photography
web-based work
This is more media-art than film festival, but it belongs on the broader film/media radar.
Reader note: HVCC’s digital-media lane is especially useful when student work becomes publicly visible through exhibitions, screenings, or showcases.
⚖️ Albany Law School
Albany Law occasionally uses film as a way into legal and historical discussion.
At this point, however, it does not have a major recurring public film series comparable to the major sources above.
Reader note: Include individual Albany Law film programs only when the legal, historical, or public-conversation component is strong.
🧭 Other Core Campuses
Some campuses occasionally present individual screenings but do not currently maintain a recurring public film/media program comparable to UAlbany, RPI / EMPAC, Skidmore, Union / Proctors, Williams, or Bard.
That is not a criticism. It is useful reader information.
Do not pad the guide with ordinary one-off screenings.
Williams’ film ecosystem is closely tied to Images Cinema, including annual French and German-Austrian film festivals.
🚗 Regional Extension — Williams College
Williams / Images Cinema Film Ecosystem (regional extension watch)
Williams has one of the strongest recurring film ecosystems outside the Capital Region core, largely through its relationship with Images Cinema.
Annual French Film Festival (annual; 2027 theme forthcoming)
Williams’ annual French Film Festival brings recent French and Francophone cinema to Images Cinema with faculty introductions and free public screenings.
Typical characteristics include:
French and Francophone film
free public screenings
faculty introductions
multi-film festival format
a clear annual structure
The 2027 theme and lineup are still to come.
German-Austrian Film Festival (annual; next edition forthcoming)
Williams also runs an annual German-Austrian Film Festival, with a new theme selected each year.
The festival launched in 2014, and the German program describes it as a recurring themed annual festival.
Additional Themed Series (recurring pattern; not all annual)
Beyond its established annual French and German-Austrian festivals, Williams regularly collaborates with Images Cinema on themed international, environmental, social-change, and visiting-filmmaker programs.
Recent programming has included:
Social Change Film Series
Transnational Asian Film Festival
Earth Month Film Festival
Immigration / Migration Film Festival
Visiting filmmaker programs
Do not describe every one of these as annual. The important point is that Williams and Images Cinema have a strong recurring pattern of film as public discussion, international culture, and campus-community programming.
Reader note: Williams belongs on the regional-extension film radar, but only stronger events should be passed forward for Capital Region readers.
🚗 Regional Extension — Bard College
Center for Moving Image Arts (regional extension watch)
Bard’s Center for Moving Image Arts regularly brings serious filmmakers, screenings, and moving-image programs to campus.
Bard regularly presents:
screenings
visiting filmmakers
moving-image talks
media art
film-related symposia
However, there is not enough current evidence to promise a specific annual 2027 public film festival.
Bard should remain a Regional Extension Watch only.
Reader note: Watch individual announcements. Only especially strong Bard film/media programs should be passed forward for Capital Region readers. Do not imply that every Bard screening clears the regional-extension threshold.
🎬 Bottom Line on Film / Media
The best campus film programming is rarely just a movie.
It is a way into filmmakers, archives, documentary practice, faculty expertise, media art, live performance, technology, history, and public argument.
The strongest film/media sources to watch this year are:
UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute
RPI / EMPAC / iEAR Presents!
Skidmore / Tang / MDOCS
Union / Proctors
Williams / Images Cinema as a regional extension
Bard / Center for Moving Image Arts as a selective regional extension
The rule is simple: ordinary screenings can be enjoyable, but the best newsletter items are the ones where film becomes something larger.
📅 By Day Calendar
Wednesday — September 2
Be The Media! workshop with Edward George — The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy (5:00–6:00 PM)
Black Atlas — RPI / EMPAC / The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy (7:00 PM)
Natalie Merchant in Conversation — UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute, PAC Main Theatre (7:30 PM)
Thursday — September 3
Chinese Writer M. Lin — UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute, Campus Center Multipurpose Room (4:30 PM)
The Strangeness of Jazz — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 2 (6:00 PM)
And The Petals Burst Into Flames… — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 1—Goodman (9:00 PM)
Friday — September 4
Opalka Gallery Pop-Up Beer Garden: First Friday — Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery, outside Opalka Gallery (6:00–9:00 PM; music 6:30–7:30 PM)
Defiant Life — RPI / EMPAC, Concert Hall (7:00 PM)
Paris Syndrome — RPI / EMPAC, Theater (9:00 PM)
Saturday — September 5
Improv Spaces — RPI / EMPAC, Concert Hall (2:00 PM)
The Strangeness of Drumming — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 1—Goodman (4:00 PM)
A Page of Madness — RPI / EMPAC, Theater (7:00 PM)
Possible partner sources:
The Jewish World:
https://www.jewishworldnews.org/
The 518 Newsletter:
🤝 Community Newsletter Partners
Capital Region Curated is pleased to cross-promote with two local publications that help readers stay connected to the larger community.
The Jewish World is a local source for Jewish community news, culture, events, and stories.
The 518 Newsletter highlights the best events, arts & culture, food, and curated music throughout the Capital Region.
This only works if people share it—feel free to forward to anyone who attends campus events.
I’m building this into a comprehensive weekly guide—recommendations are always welcome.
Fall is starting to arrive.
Alan Koslow
17
mins read time
Originally published at
Substack: Capital Region Curated
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Capital Region Curated: August 31-September 6
Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events, with TOPOS 2026 at EMPAC, Natalie Merchant at UAlbany, and Opalka’s First Friday.
Alan Koslow
17
mins read time
Originally published at
Substack: Capital Region Curated
Capital Region Curated, Alan Koslow’s weekly guide to Capital Region campus events.
What’s worth your time at Capital Region colleges and universities.
Fall Starts to Stir: TOPOS, Natalie Merchant, and Opalka’s First Friday 🎶📚🎨
The fall campus calendar is starting to wake up.
This is not yet a full fall week, but it is no longer empty.
The major anchor is TOPOS 2026 at RPI / EMPAC, a four-day festival of experimental music, media, film, performance, and conversation. UAlbany adds a high-profile NYS Writers Institute event with Natalie Merchant, plus a public literary conversation with Chinese writer M. Lin. Opalka Gallery reopens its fall public programming with Light and Transient Causes and a First Friday Pop-Up Beer Garden.
Then this issue finishes the current fall-preview category sequence with Film / Media on Campus — a guide to the campuses where film becomes more than a movie.
📣 Help Spread the Word
It really helps when readers share Capital Region Curated.
If you work with a college department, program, gallery, museum, performing arts office, campus newsletter, or personal newsletter, I’d be grateful if you would share it with people who might want a weekly guide to public events on Capital Region campuses.
Subscribe here: Capital Region Curated
🤝 Our Cross-Promotion Partner
Capital Region Curated is happy to cross-promote with The Jewish World, a wonderful local newsletter that helps readers find events and news from the local Jewish community.
The Jewish News highlights the best events, arts & culture, food, and news throughout the Capital Regions Jewish communities.
Subscribe here:
https://www.jewishworldnews.org/
Capital Region Curated stays focused on college and university public programming. The Jewish World helps readers see a portion of one of our ethnic religious communities you may rarely have a window into.
If you have a newsletter and would like to cross promote please contact me at alankoslow@gmail.com
⭐ Top Picks
TOPOS 2026: Defiant Life — Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith 🎶
The strongest single TOPOS event of the week: two major artists together in EMPAC’s Concert Hall.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 7:00 PM
📍 Where: RPI / EMPAC (Troy — EMPAC Concert Hall)
🔗 Links: Map | Details/Tickets | $20; included with festival pass
Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith headline one of the clearest high-value events in TOPOS 2026. If you are choosing one TOPOS performance, start here.
Natalie Merchant appears in conversation with Joe Donahue at UAlbany on September 2.
Natalie Merchant in Conversation — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany 📚
Natalie Merchant appears in person at UAlbany for a Writers Institute conversation.
📅 Date/time: Wednesday 9/2, 7:30–8:30 PM
📍 Where: UAlbany Performing Arts Center (Albany — PAC Main Theatre)
This is a conversation with Joe Donahue, not a concert. Merchant remains one of the region’s most recognizable creative figures, and the format should make this more substantial than a standard appearance.
Opalka Gallery opens Light and Transient Causes on September 1.
Opalka Gallery Pop-Up Beer Garden: First Friday 🎨
Opalka Gallery marks the opening week of Light and Transient Causes with a public First Friday evening outside the gallery.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 6:00–9:00 PM; music 6:30–7:30 PM
📍 Where: Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery (Albany — outside Opalka Gallery)
🔗 Links: Map | Details | Public event
The evening includes live music, food, brewers, and gallery access during the opening week of Light and Transient Causes. The music lineup includes Super 400 and Melora Creager with special guest Ryder Cooley.
Miho Hatori’s Paris Syndrome receives its world premiere at EMPAC as part of TOPOS 2026.
TOPOS 2026: Paris Syndrome — Miho Hatori 🎛️
A Friday night TOPOS performance and EMPAC commission.
📅 Date/time: Friday 9/4, 9:00 PM
📍 Where: RPI / EMPAC (Troy — EMPAC Theater)
🔗 Links: Map | Details/Tickets | $20; included with festival pass
Miho Hatori brings Paris Syndrome to EMPAC with Michiko Ogawa and Daniel Peck. This is the other major Friday-night TOPOS draw, especially for readers interested in experimental performance, sound, media, and commissioned work.
🗓️ This Week at a Glance
Festival anchor: TOPOS 2026 at EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media.
Major public conversation: Natalie Merchant at UAlbany with the NYS Writers Institute.
Literary event: Chinese writer M. Lin at UAlbany.
Gallery reopening: Opalka Gallery’s Light and Transient Causes opens September 1.
Friday night cluster: Opalka First Friday, TOPOS: Defiant Life, and TOPOS: Paris Syndrome.
🎶 Festival Spotlight
TOPOS 2026 — RPI / EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media
Wednesday 9/2–Saturday 9/5
🔗 Full festival details/tickets: TOPOS 2026
TOPOS 2026 is the week’s major campus arts anchor.
The festival brings together experimental music, film, media, performance, and conversation across EMPAC and the Sanctuary for Independent Media, with artists including Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, Miho Hatori, IMA, Edward George, Fred Moten, Paul Abbott, Rock City Falls Trio, Sun Dogs, and The Silent Light.
Full-festival passes are $50. Individual ticketed EMPAC events are generally $20.
TOPOS Schedule Highlights
Be The Media! workshop with Edward George — Edward George
Wednesday 9/2, 5:00–6:00 PM — the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Public TOPOS workshop before Black Atlas.
Black Atlas — Edward George and Fred Moten
Wednesday 9/2, 7:00 PM — the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Opening-night screening and program.
The Strangeness of Jazz — Edward George
Thursday 9/3, 6:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 2. Live podcast / listening session / performance.
And The Petals Burst Into Flames… — IMA
Thursday 9/3, 9:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman. TOPOS performance.
Defiant Life — Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith
Friday 9/4, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Concert Hall. Major individual TOPOS draw.
Paris Syndrome — Miho Hatori, with Michiko Ogawa and Daniel Peck
Friday 9/4, 9:00 PM — EMPAC Theater. TOPOS performance / EMPAC commission.
Improv Spaces — Rock City Falls Trio; Sun Dogs
Saturday 9/5, 2:00 PM — EMPAC Concert Hall. Saturday afternoon performance.
The Strangeness of Drumming — Paul Abbott and Edward George
Saturday 9/5, 4:00 PM — EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman. Performance / percussion / turntables.
A Page of Madness — The Silent Light
Saturday 9/5, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Theater. Screening / performance.
🖼️ Exhibition Now Open
Light and Transient Causes — Opalka Gallery
Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery
📅 On view Tuesday 9/1–Saturday 12/5 — Opalka Gallery, Albany
🔗 Details: Light and Transient Causes
Opalka Gallery reopens its fall public programming with Light and Transient Causes, on view from September 1 through December 5.
The exhibition takes its title from the Declaration of Independence during the 250th anniversary year and looks at what gets dismissed as too “light” or “transient” to address.
This week’s timed public Opalka event is Friday’s First Friday Pop-Up Beer Garden outside the gallery, with live music, food, brewers, and gallery access during opening week.
The formal exhibition reception follows on Friday 9/11.
📚 Also This Week
Chinese Writer M. Lin — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany
📅 Date/time: Thursday 9/3, 4:30–5:30 PM
📍 Where: UAlbany Campus Center (Albany — CC Multipurpose Room)
M. Lin, an award-winning Chinese writer living in the United States, discusses her debut story collection, The Memory Museum. This is a public Writers Institute event and a good early-season literary listing.
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📌 Plan Ahead: September 7–28
9th Annual Albany Book Festival — NYS Writers Institute / UAlbany
Saturday 9/26 — UAlbany Campus Center
🔗 Details: Albany Book Festival
A full day of authors, panels, signings, books, and literary conversation, with participants including Elizabeth Kolbert, Namwali Serpell, Gish Jen, Carol Gilligan, Porochista Khakpour, John Katzenbach, Arash Azizi, Megan Nolan, Kelly McMasters, Terry Golway, Keith McNally, and many others.
This is not mainly a ticket-urgency item. It belongs here because readers should block out most of Saturday now.
Hell in a Handbag — Dynasty Handbag / EMPAC
Saturday 9/19, 7:00 PM — EMPAC Theater, Troy
🔗 Details/Tickets: Hell in a Handbag
A one-night performance by Jibz Cameron, best known for the multimedia alter ego Dynasty Handbag, combining performance and readings from the memoir Hell in a Handbag.
Tickets are only $5, and this is one performance only. If this sounds like your kind of evening, do not wait until event week.
American Patchwork Quartet — Skidmore / Zankel
Saturday 9/19, 7:30 PM — Arthur Zankel Music Center, Saratoga Springs
🔗 Details: Zankel Music Center
🔗 Tickets: American Patchwork Quartet tickets
A high-level visiting-artist concert blending American roots music with jazz and global traditions, led by multi-Grammy-winning musician Clay Ross.
Tickets are already on sale.
Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark — NYS Writers Institute
Monday 9/14, 7:30 PM — Page Hall, UAlbany Downtown Campus
🔗 Details: Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird joins Susan Goldmark for one of the stronger early-season Writers Institute conversations.
This is a strong intellectual event even though ticket scarcity is not the main issue.
Suketu Mehta — UAlbany / Opalka Gallery
Thursday 9/17 — two Capital Region appearances
🔗 UAlbany details: NYS Writers Institute: Suketu Mehta
🔗 Opalka details/registration: Opalka Gallery programs
Pulitzer finalist and author Suketu Mehta appears first at UAlbany and later that evening at Opalka Gallery in programming connected to Constitution Day and America’s 250th anniversary.
Readers especially interested in immigration, cities, citizenship, and American identity may want to plan for one or both programs.
Franny — Theatre Institute at Russell Sage
September 24–27 — James L. Meader Little Theater, Troy
🔗 Details/Tickets: Theatre Institute 2026–27 season
The Theatre Institute at Russell Sage opens its 2026–27 season with a new play by Barbara Gural, directed by David Baecker.
Four performances only; tickets are already available.
Black Atlas, presented as part of TOPOS 2026, shows how campus film can become screening, conversation, archive, and media art.
🎬 Preview: Film / Media on Campus
Where Campus Film Becomes More Than a Movie
Campus film is often only the beginning.
At Capital Region colleges and universities, a screening may lead to a filmmaker Q&A, faculty panel, documentary discussion, live performance, experimental video installation, or a semester-long exploration of a theme.
The most useful question is not simply:
What movie is showing?
It is:
Which campuses consistently turn film and media into something larger?
This guide is not a movie calendar. It is a map of where to watch during 2026–27.
🎞️ UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute
Albany Film Festival (annual spring anchor; 2027 details forthcoming)
UAlbany’s Albany Film Festival has become the region’s clearest recurring campus film anchor.
The 2026 edition was the 6th Annual Albany Film Festival, held in March, and featured filmmaker and novelist John Sayles.
The festival typically combines:
feature films
short films
filmmakers
writers
public conversations
panels
special presentations
student films
interdisciplinary discussion
This matters because the Albany Film Festival is not just a place to watch films. It is a place where film becomes a public conversation among writers, filmmakers, students, and audiences.
Reader note: The 2027 date and program are still to come, but this is the UAlbany film event to watch every spring.
UAlbany English Department Film Series (recurring semester series; next lineup forthcoming)
UAlbany’s English Department also runs a recurring public film series during the semester, with faculty-selected screenings spread across multiple evenings.
Recent evidence shows public semester film series in both Spring 2025 and Spring 2026.
These programs matter because they are not random movie nights. They are free, public, faculty-curated, and built as sustained series.
Reader note: Watch for the Spring 2027 lineup once UAlbany posts it.
🎛️ RPI / EMPAC
iEAR Presents! (long-running experimental media source)
At RPI, film often becomes experimental media.
The long-running iEAR Presents! series has existed since 1983 and brings screenings, video art, electronic media, artist talks, workshops, media installations, and art/technology programs into public view.
This is not a conventional movie series. It is one of the strongest regional examples of film and media as an experimental public form.
The series has explored subjects including:
politics
race
technology
environmental justice
immigration
feminist representation
queer representation
art and science
social media
Reader note: This is one of the region’s most important film/media lanes because it sits exactly where moving image, electronic art, technology, and public ideas meet.
EMPAC Moving-Image and Hybrid-Media Work (watch year-round)
EMPAC itself is a major source for moving-image work that crosses into installation, sound, performance, and experimental media.
Readers should watch for:
film/video installation
multi-channel video
experimental cinema
screening/performance hybrids
moving-image commissions
artist conversations
works where image, sound, and space are inseparable
Reader note: Do not expect a conventional film festival. EMPAC is where film becomes something stranger, more spatial, more sonic, and more interdisciplinary.
🖼️ Skidmore College
Tang Teaching Museum — Whole Grain: Experiments in Film & Video (recurring series; next schedule forthcoming)
The Tang’s Whole Grain: Experiments in Film & Video is one of the strongest named recurring film/media programs in the region.
The series explores:
experimental cinema
video art
16mm film
contemporary moving-image work
museum collections
themed film/video programs
visiting filmmakers and artists
This is exactly the kind of campus film programming that becomes more than a screening. It is film inside a museum context, often framed through art, artists, collections, history, and experimental practice.
Reader note: This is a very high-priority film/media source. Watch Tang’s calendar for the next Whole Grain dates.
MDOCS — John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (documentary / nonfiction media lane)
MDOCS is Skidmore’s major documentary and nonfiction-media lane.
It regularly presents public documentary screenings, often with:
filmmaker Q&A
visiting documentary artists
discussion
documentary practice
nonfiction storytelling
student and community-facing media work
MDOCS approaches film through documentary and nonfiction storytelling, often pairing screenings with the people who made the work.
Reader note: MDOCS is where film often becomes documentary practice and public conversation, not just a screening.
Storytellers’ Institute (summer recurring program; 2027 details forthcoming)
Each summer, Skidmore’s Storytellers’ Institute brings documentary and nonfiction creators to campus for an extended residency and public program.
The program includes creators working in:
documentary film
audio
photography
writing
performance
other nonfiction media
The public-facing component includes presentations, conversations, screenings, and work that crosses media boundaries.
Reader note: This is one of the strongest summer film/media-adjacent programs to watch once the 2027 lineup is released.
Skidmore’s MDOCS approaches film through documentary, nonfiction storytelling, and public conversation.
ADVERTISEMENT
🎥 Union College / Proctors
Film Across Disciplines (established programming pattern; future series vary)
Union’s distinctive strength is not one permanent film festival title.
Its strongest film programming often happens in partnership with Proctors, where screenings become interdisciplinary events involving faculty, filmmakers, science, history, technology, and sometimes live performance.
Recent named programs have included:
Breaking the Rules: Great Women of the Pre-Code Era
Breathing Fire: A Celebration of Anna May Wong
Our Monsters, Ourselves
Performing Cinema
QFEST
Horror/Noir
Decolonial Beats
Computer Science Film Series at Proctors
The individual past film titles are not the point.
The recurring model is:
cinema + faculty + interdisciplinary interpretation
That can mean a faculty panel after a film, film and science, film and history, film and technology, live narration, live music, filmmaker discussion, or a themed cinema program that turns the screening into a larger public event.
Reader note: Public access varies by program. Do not assume every Union/Proctors screening is automatically free or open under the same terms. Verify each future series individually.
🎨 Siena University
Creative Arts / Experimental Video / Socially Engaged Film (watch lane)
Siena’s Creative Arts program periodically presents experimental video and socially engaged film programming.
This lane may include:
experimental video
occasional socially engaged film events
creative arts media work
student or faculty-linked media programs
There is not yet enough evidence of a major durable named film festival or semester series comparable to UAlbany, Tang, Williams, or EMPAC.
Reader note: Keep Siena on the film/media watch list, but do not overstate the lane until stronger recurring programming appears.
🧑💻 Hudson Valley Community College
Refractions Student Film Festival (recent festival; next edition not yet confirmed)
HVCC has recently hosted the Refractions Student Film Festival, bringing together student filmmakers from colleges across the region and beyond.
The 2025 edition was described as the second year of the festival.
This is worth watching because it suggests a regional student-film ecosystem rather than a single-campus event.
Reader note: This is promising, but do not call it firmly annual until a new 2026–27 edition is announced.
Digital Media Student Exhibition (media-art lane)
HVCC also presents public digital-media exhibitions that can include:
video
animation
interactive media
photography
web-based work
This is more media-art than film festival, but it belongs on the broader film/media radar.
Reader note: HVCC’s digital-media lane is especially useful when student work becomes publicly visible through exhibitions, screenings, or showcases.
⚖️ Albany Law School
Albany Law occasionally uses film as a way into legal and historical discussion.
At this point, however, it does not have a major recurring public film series comparable to the major sources above.
Reader note: Include individual Albany Law film programs only when the legal, historical, or public-conversation component is strong.
🧭 Other Core Campuses
Some campuses occasionally present individual screenings but do not currently maintain a recurring public film/media program comparable to UAlbany, RPI / EMPAC, Skidmore, Union / Proctors, Williams, or Bard.
That is not a criticism. It is useful reader information.
Do not pad the guide with ordinary one-off screenings.
Williams’ film ecosystem is closely tied to Images Cinema, including annual French and German-Austrian film festivals.
🚗 Regional Extension — Williams College
Williams / Images Cinema Film Ecosystem (regional extension watch)
Williams has one of the strongest recurring film ecosystems outside the Capital Region core, largely through its relationship with Images Cinema.
Annual French Film Festival (annual; 2027 theme forthcoming)
Williams’ annual French Film Festival brings recent French and Francophone cinema to Images Cinema with faculty introductions and free public screenings.
Typical characteristics include:
French and Francophone film
free public screenings
faculty introductions
multi-film festival format
a clear annual structure
The 2027 theme and lineup are still to come.
German-Austrian Film Festival (annual; next edition forthcoming)
Williams also runs an annual German-Austrian Film Festival, with a new theme selected each year.
The festival launched in 2014, and the German program describes it as a recurring themed annual festival.
Additional Themed Series (recurring pattern; not all annual)
Beyond its established annual French and German-Austrian festivals, Williams regularly collaborates with Images Cinema on themed international, environmental, social-change, and visiting-filmmaker programs.
Recent programming has included:
Social Change Film Series
Transnational Asian Film Festival
Earth Month Film Festival
Immigration / Migration Film Festival
Visiting filmmaker programs
Do not describe every one of these as annual. The important point is that Williams and Images Cinema have a strong recurring pattern of film as public discussion, international culture, and campus-community programming.
Reader note: Williams belongs on the regional-extension film radar, but only stronger events should be passed forward for Capital Region readers.
🚗 Regional Extension — Bard College
Center for Moving Image Arts (regional extension watch)
Bard’s Center for Moving Image Arts regularly brings serious filmmakers, screenings, and moving-image programs to campus.
Bard regularly presents:
screenings
visiting filmmakers
moving-image talks
media art
film-related symposia
However, there is not enough current evidence to promise a specific annual 2027 public film festival.
Bard should remain a Regional Extension Watch only.
Reader note: Watch individual announcements. Only especially strong Bard film/media programs should be passed forward for Capital Region readers. Do not imply that every Bard screening clears the regional-extension threshold.
🎬 Bottom Line on Film / Media
The best campus film programming is rarely just a movie.
It is a way into filmmakers, archives, documentary practice, faculty expertise, media art, live performance, technology, history, and public argument.
The strongest film/media sources to watch this year are:
UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute
RPI / EMPAC / iEAR Presents!
Skidmore / Tang / MDOCS
Union / Proctors
Williams / Images Cinema as a regional extension
Bard / Center for Moving Image Arts as a selective regional extension
The rule is simple: ordinary screenings can be enjoyable, but the best newsletter items are the ones where film becomes something larger.
📅 By Day Calendar
Wednesday — September 2
Be The Media! workshop with Edward George — The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy (5:00–6:00 PM)
Black Atlas — RPI / EMPAC / The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy (7:00 PM)
Natalie Merchant in Conversation — UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute, PAC Main Theatre (7:30 PM)
Thursday — September 3
Chinese Writer M. Lin — UAlbany / NYS Writers Institute, Campus Center Multipurpose Room (4:30 PM)
The Strangeness of Jazz — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 2 (6:00 PM)
And The Petals Burst Into Flames… — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 1—Goodman (9:00 PM)
Friday — September 4
Opalka Gallery Pop-Up Beer Garden: First Friday — Russell Sage / Opalka Gallery, outside Opalka Gallery (6:00–9:00 PM; music 6:30–7:30 PM)
Defiant Life — RPI / EMPAC, Concert Hall (7:00 PM)
Paris Syndrome — RPI / EMPAC, Theater (9:00 PM)
Saturday — September 5
Improv Spaces — RPI / EMPAC, Concert Hall (2:00 PM)
The Strangeness of Drumming — RPI / EMPAC, Studio 1—Goodman (4:00 PM)
A Page of Madness — RPI / EMPAC, Theater (7:00 PM)
Possible partner sources:
The Jewish World:
https://www.jewishworldnews.org/
The 518 Newsletter:
🤝 Community Newsletter Partners
Capital Region Curated is pleased to cross-promote with two local publications that help readers stay connected to the larger community.
The Jewish World is a local source for Jewish community news, culture, events, and stories.
The 518 Newsletter highlights the best events, arts & culture, food, and curated music throughout the Capital Region.
This only works if people share it—feel free to forward to anyone who attends campus events.
I’m building this into a comprehensive weekly guide—recommendations are always welcome.
Fall is starting to arrive.
Alan Koslow
17
mins read time
Originally published at
Substack: Capital Region Curated
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