Around The Arts

African Students Association celebrates 41st birthday\nThe IU African Students Association will present a night of African food and music to celebrate its 41st birthday at 6 p.m. Saturday at Forest's Greenleaf Dining Hall, 1725 E. Third St. Organizers encourage participants to come dressed in African attire if possible. Speakers at the event include Dean of International Programs Patrick O'Meara who was a graduate student in the African Studies Program when ASA was formed. The Afro-Hoosiers will provide the music for the event.\nThe ASA was founded at IU in 1962. Its mission is to study and recognize the cultural, social, political and economic matters affecting the African community in Bloomington as a whole and African students at IU in particular. \nFor more information, visit www.indiana.edu /~iuasa.\nAcclaimed Russian director's film presented in Ryder series\nThe Ryder Film Series will present "House of Fools" by acclaimed Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky at 7:15 p.m. Friday at the Fine Arts Building. Written by Konchalovsky, the film stars Julia Vysotsky and Bryan Adams. Based on an actual incident in the 1996 Chechen conflict, the film is set in a mental hospital caught in the crossfire. In a story reminiscent of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "King of Hearts," the patients are left to fend for themselves as the fighting approaches. Zhanna (Vysotsky) is an accordion player whose repertoire of a single polka helps quell the madness around her. She herself, however, is completely given over to the delusion that she is engaged to pop singer Bryan Adams.\nKonchalovsky has cited Tolstoy's "War and Peace" as a major influence. "House of Fools" shows both the deplorable conditions of an asylum and the absurdities of war.\n"House of Fools" won the Jury Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival.\nAdmission to the showing is $4.\nTheatre and Drama Center seeks ushers for performances\nThe Theatre and Drama Center is a very active production facility, presenting eight quality theatre productions, including plays and musicals produced by the Department of Theatre and Drama and performed by the students of IU for the Bloomington campus and community. \nThe IU Theatre and Drama Center offers all students the opportunity to see its shows for free when students sign up to usher. Students also have an opportunity to get free tickets to shows for putting up posters around Bloomington and on campus. Sign-up sheets for ushering are usually posted outside the scenic studio two weeks prior to the opening of every show. \nFor more information about ushering or putting up posters in exchange for free tickets, contact thtraud@indiana.edu.\nLocal photographer looks \nat 15 years of Polish culture\n"Through Foreign Eyes: An American Photographer in 1980s and 1990s Poland" opens today at Ballantine Hall, Room 109. In Wednesday's IDS, the date and time of the slideshow were incorrect. The slideshow and lecture by photographer Dennis Chamberlin will begin at 7:30 p.m. Chamberlin first visited Poland during Martial Law and began work on a documentary photo project that turned out to be more involving than he first thought. In 1986, Chamberlin decided to move to Poland, sold all his belongings -- except for a bag full of cameras, and immersed himself in Polish culture. Six years and many rolls of film later, ZNAK publishers in Krakow published his photographic album depicting life in Poland during the last decade of Communism. He continued to photograph and document the changes in the country for 15 years until he and his family moved to Bloomington last year. For more information, contact the Polish Studies Center at 855-1507.\nJewish Book Month begins with display, Klezmer concert\n"From King David to Yid Vicious: Jewish Music Through the Ages" will be displayed in the Main Library's main lobby throughout November. The display, in honor of Jewish Book Month, is arranged by Noa Wahrman, the Jewish Studies bibliographer and librarian. This year's theme is "Jewish Music and Musicians" and is put up in collaboration with IU's music library. To celebrate Jewish Book Month, Bloomington's klezmer band, The Hunted, Haunted, Bazerghan Klezmorchestra, with band leader Kevin MacDowell of Kid Kazooey, amongst other talented band musicians, will perform at 6:30 tonight. Klezmer is the traditional instrumental music of Eastern European Jews. The event will take place at the Media Showing Room E174 of the Main Library. The concert is free and open to the public.\nTolkien in Russian translation explored in professor's lecture\nThe Russian and East European Institute and Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures will sponsor a presentation by Mark T. Hooker, "Tolkien Through Russian Eyes," at 1:30 p.m. Monday, in Ballantine Hall, Room 004. \nThe lecture is based on Hooker's forthcoming book, which explores the multiplicity of Russian translations of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings." \n"Mark Hooker does an excellent job in explaining to the non-specialist the various idiosyncrasies of the many competing translations of Tolkien's fiction in Russian, with an examination of the literary, ideological, political and religious motives that have led translators to 'adapt' Tolkien's texts," writes David Doughan, a well-known British Tolkienist, in his foreword to Hooker's book.\nHooker holds a master's degree in Russian from IU. He has been a visiting scholar with REEI since 1995, when he settled in Bloomington after a career as a military, political and language analyst for the U.S. Army and Department of Defense.