Labor play comes to the Waldron\nClaudia Shear's Obie-award winning play "Blown Sideways through Life" is coming to Bloomington for one performance only 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the John Waldron Arts Center, 122 S. Walnut St. The bawdy play is a tribute to working women and men rooted in real life. Shear wrote the play after spending years working odd jobs to make ends meet. Julie Dixon, a theater professor at Indiana State University, created Sunday's rendition of the production for ISU's SummerStage and later toured Germany with the play. After the performance, Dixon will join state representative Linda Lawson and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis professor Robert Aponte for a discussion about the play and its connection to such labor issues, such as gender and racial gaps in Indiana wages. The event, which may not be suitable for children, costs $5 at the door.
High school students become living statues\nStudents from Francesca Sobrer's Advanced Acting classes at Bloomington High School North will be performing as living statues 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday at the Bloomington Farmers' Market at Showers Common on the corner of Eighth and Morton streets. Living statues are a European street tradition in which actors remain frozen as a statue until someone puts a coin in their basket, then the statue comes to life. The students have been studying and practicing the art form since the beginning of the school year. Sobrer's class has performed this technique at the Farmers' Market for the past three years. All donations given to the living statues benefit the Bloomington High School North Theater program.
Artist lectures about exhibit in SOFA \nAl Souza, whose artwork is on display at the SoFA Gallery, will give a lecture at 7 p.m. tonight in Fine Arts Room 015. Souza's work is part of the "Possible Worlds" exhibit, which will be on display in the Gallery until Oct. 2. The show explores images of the dreamed, imagined and romanticized through paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures and videos. Souza, a professor of painting at the University of Houston, has received two National Endowment of the Arts Visual Arts Fellowships, two Massachusetts Council on the Arts Fellowships and a California Arts Council Artist Fellowship. The artist, who often works a lot with found objects, will discuss his art during the lecture.
Persian film series shows 'The Cow'\nThe Persian Student Organization kicks of its film series at 7 p.m. tonight in Room 150 of the Student Building with "The Cow." Based on a short story by Gholamhossein Saedi, "The Cow" is one of the founding films of the new Iranian cinema. The film tells the story of a poor villager who forms a deep bond with a cow, which provides him economic support and a sense of personal identity. The film was produced in 1969 with the support of the Shah's government but was banned in Iran because of its stark portrayal of rural life. Once smuggled out of the country, "The Cow" performed well at international film festivals. Its director, Daryush Mehrjui, went on to make "Hamoon" and "Leila." Viewing of the film is free.
