Chris Vinsonhaler brings the gift of the bard to reveal the hidden enigma of Beowulf. Awarded a fellowship funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, this 90-minute performance in Modern English has been hosted by schools, universities, and community groups.
Interested in hosting the performance in your community?
A project grant—funded through The City University of New York—is available to help subsidize costs.
To learn more, please contact Chris Vinsonhaler at Contact@Beowulf.Live.
Reviews of the Performance
“You made Beowulf vivid and alive even for those who had hated reading it. You are a superb storyteller, and you made everyone in the audience feel that Beowulf, Grendel, and Hrothgar were with us—in the room, and in our time.” — Rosemary DePaolo, President (emerita), University of North Carolina, Wilmington
“If the recent success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy tells us anything, it is that the mentality of Anglo-Saxon culture speaks deeply to us. In the compelling performance of her new translation of Beowulf, Chris Vinsonhaler captures the radical poetics of this powerful text. She gives us Beowulf, not as a stuffy philological exercise, but as a vivid experience that is by turns heroic, ironic, and darkly comic—an experience that shakes us and leaves us pondering.” — Christopher McDonough, University of the South, Board member, Sewanee Medieval Colloquium.
“I highly commend Chris Vinsonhaler’s performance of Beowulf. Her dramatic translation captures the tone and energy of the original poem, while reflecting the intricacies of current scholarly debate about its content, meaning, and mode of delivery. The specialists in our audience were moved to an animated discussion of the poem, the generalists were illuminated on issues of greatest current concern, and the students were energized to delve yet deeper into the complexities and beauty of the earliest period of our literature. And we were all hugely entertained.” — Robert Bjork, Foundation Professor of English, Arizona State University, Editor, Klaeber’s Beowulf and A Beowulf Handbook
Performance History
Visiting Scholar with Performance for The Beowulf Symposium, Arizona State University: 2019.
Rutgers University, Camden: 2018
Canisius College, New York: 2018
City University of New York (BMCC): 2017
University of Notre Dame: 2017
University of Iowa: 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016
Stetson University: 2007
University of Southern Mississippi: 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007
Medieval Colloquium, University of the South: 2006
Florida Southern College: 2006
Medieval Colloquium, University of the South: 2005
Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies: 2004
International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo: 2004
Cleveland State University: 2004
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: 2003
Carroll College, Montana: 2003
Arizona Center for Renaissance and Medieval Studies: 2003, 2004, 2006
Florida State University: 2003
Louisiana State University: 2002
University of Miami, Ohio: 2002
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College: 2002
Southeastern Medieval Association: 2001
Georgia College and State University: 2000
Meredith College: 1999, 2000, 2002
Middle Tennessee State University: 2003