56 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(10/04/07 4:40am)
With its famous circle in the heart of downtown and surrounded by the circular highway I-465, Indianapolis is affectionately referred to as the Circle City. Indiana’s capital is not only home to the Super Bowl XLI champion Colts, but it also is filled with opportunities to experience the arts. From Chihuly glass sculptures hanging in the Children’s Museum to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s “Symphony on the Prairie,” the choices are endless for a trip – or a few trips – away from Bloomington.
(10/03/07 4:40am)
As soon as the lights in the IU Auditorium went down Tuesday night, everyone in the crowd jumped to their feet, screaming. Guster took the stage amid swirling yellow and blue stage lights and quickly began to play. The crowd stayed pumped up throughout the show, dancing and clapping along with the music, and enthusiastic fans punctuated the words of the songs with joyful shouts and screams.\nDaniel Jacobson wore a handmade T-shirt that read “10th Guster Show.” He said he has been a fan since eighth grade, and has been attending Guster shows in Indiana for four years. He said the only outside Indiana that he attended was at Xavier University in Cincinnatti. \n“I love their drummer,” he said. “The bongos and hand drums add a really amazing and unique element to their sound.” \nThough the crowd praised Guster, talk show host Jake Sasseville, who emceed the concert, elicited quite a few boos in between opener Brett Dennen’s set and Guster. He mistakenly addressed the audience as being from “Illinois University,” garnering the ire of the crowd until he left the stage. \nBut their ire vanished as soon as Guster took the stage.\n“They have a unique style that’s very chilled and upbeat, and spreads good vibes,” said freshman Evan Snipes.
(10/02/07 4:42am)
College student favorite Guster will play today at the IU Auditorium. While the band hopes to make a whole lot of noise from the stage, it is also trying to lower its environmental impact while on tour.\nPercussionist Brian Rosenworcel said band members have done several things to “green up” their touring, including converting their truck and tour bus to biodiesel. \n“We also choose renewable energy, which is maybe buying carbon offset credits with a company that does wind farms and replaces the credit with clean energy,” Rosenworcel said. \nGuster fans can learn how to lower their personal environmental impact too, although they won’t hear it from the band at the concert.\n“There’s some literature out there, and people can check it out if they want,” Rosenworcel said. “We try not to get preachy.” \nGuster usually devotes April through October to going on college tours, Rosenworcel said. This year’s tour is the “Crocs Next Step Campus Tour” with opening act Brett Dennen. The Next Step tour is promoting green initiatives to attendees by creating a festival atmosphere, according to the Web site www.nextstepcampustour.com. \nThe Eco-Village will feature information on local and national non-profits, green technologies, a fan carbon offset program and eco-friendly consumer sampling. Attendees may also register to vote in the Eco-Village, according to the Web site.\nRosenworcel said there were several things that Guster fans could do to green up their life, including using biodegradable plates and cups and investing in more green eco-conscious companies. \n“There are a lot of campuses that are a little bit out of step with a lot of things that they could be doing,” he said. “Campus vehicles could be converting their engines from diesel to biodiesel.” \nSenior Michael Pigman said though he’s a Guster fan, he wasn’t likely to change his ways because of something a band said. \n“I like their music, but I don’t really change my lifestyle because of that,” he said. \nGuster was originally made up of Adam Gardner, Ryan Miller and Rosenworcel, who met in college at Tufts University in Boston. Joe Pisapia joined the band in 2003. \nRosenworcel said their sound is always changing.\n“Ryan was my roommate in college. He and I both played acoustic guitar and I played hand drums, so we had this kind of organic, folky sound by nature of the instruments we knew how to play,” he said. “However, Ryan was listening to Brit rock. So we’d be listening to the Stone Roses and stuff, but then we’d go and play a show, and people would say we sounded like Simon and Garfunkel. It always changes because we’ve always been influenced by a lot of bands.” \nSophomore Doug Blum, a New Jersey native, said he has gone to see Guster live more than \n10 times.\n“It’s really good acoustic music that, instead of having a drum kit, it’s all bongos and it’s really relaxing,” he said. \nSince each member of the band knows how to play several instruments, Rosenworcel said there’s a shuffle between each song. \n“Our live show is at the point where it’s at its most eclectic because I’m going back and forth between two drum kits and the other guys are switching it up between bass and keyboards and banjo and guitar,” he said. “It’s like musical, musical chairs.”\nThe band released its latest album, “Ganging Up on the Sun,” in June 2006. \nRosenworcel said “Ganging up on the Sun” is kind of all over the place, but still feels “Guster-y.” \n“Once we start writing a song it just takes us wherever it wants to go, so ... the new album is a lot of pop songs. Some are really bright, and some are really dark,” he said. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s my favorite one. I hope people like it.”
(09/14/07 2:24am)
Top Secret! The CIA once gave a Cuban operative poison to put in Fidel Castro’s daily chocolate milk shake. \nWell, it’s not so secret anymore – ever since the government’s recent release of 500,000 pages of formerly classified documents. \nMichael Hoerger, an artist who specializes in screen printing, was reading the documents as part of his graduate studies at the University of Connecticut, and began to notice a theme of food throughout the documents. \n“Edible Secrets: A food tour of classified 20th century U.S. history,” a multimedia exhibit featuring declassified U.S. government documents centering on the theme of food, will open at 7 p.m. Saturday at Sweet Hickory Music and Art, 317 E. Third St. \n“I was faced with this gargantuan amount of documents, and the ubiquity of food revealed itself to be equal with the ubiquity of government secrets,” Hoerger said. \nThe exhibit features hand-screen-printed reproductions of formerly top-secret U.S. documents as well as audio, video and historical artifacts pertinent to the chosen secrets. \nThe exhibit is like any other museum exhibit, though Hoerger said it tends to have a humorous element to it. \nHe said reading the declassified documents felt similarly voyeuristic to watching reality TV or even reading the government’s diary. \n“There’s something we enjoy about seeing things which no one was supposed to see,” Hoerger said. \nAlthough the exhibit has a humorous light to it, Hoerger said it often is quite serious, considering the importance of the social narratives and the truths the government kept from the populace. \nThe exhibit will feature some of the declassified documents arranged next to news reports from the time of the events to show attendees the difference between what the world was told and what really happened. \n“For some people, it will be surprising, and for some, it will confirm what they thought all along,” he said. \nHoerger said that, after he noticed the food trend and started actively searching for examples, he was confused by the types of food he was finding in the documents. \n“All the food items except for one, lettuce, are kind of junk food-y,” he said. “I started wondering, ‘Why am I finding all these not natural items?’ and I think it kind of reflects the change in diets in the last century.” \nHoerger, who moved to Bloomington to play music with his friends and practice his art, said he hopes to emphasize the importance of “iconic 20th century narratives,” from Castro to the arrest of Black Panther leader Fred Allen Hampton, for allegedly stealing $50 worth of ice cream. \n“I’ve done some graduate studies, and after I started finding the food parts, I saw the narrative was really important,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to work in the public information realm, and I though this would be more interesting than an article in some educational journal.” \nHoerger said he studied photocopies of the declassified documents at the University of Connecticut library as well as from an Internet database. He said anyone could see the documents now that they are declassified, but there is a fee to view the database. \nThe exhibit ends Oct. 14. For more information, visit \nediblesecrets.com.
(09/13/07 4:00am)
Rich Juzwiak is the author of the pop-culture blog FourFour and blogs full-time for VH1, contributing to the VH1 blog and Celebreality blogs at vh1.com. WEEKEND questioned him about the biz.
(07/05/07 4:00am)
The standard for animated films in CGI format is visually pleasing masterpieces with plotlines built for kids and a few wittily inserted adult jokes. In this regard, the newest release from the lab at Pixar misses the bag. "Ratatouille" is in fact technologically wonderful with all the ins and outs viewers have come to expect from CGI animation. However, the film fails in its attempt to hit its target audience. It is a long drama-filled piece with dialogue that is at times slightly too sophisticated for children.\nRemy (Patton Oswalt) is an amazing chef who is attempting to be renowned as the world's finest. There's only one problem: He's a rat. Living in the sewers and walls of Paris, Remy soon finds a possible outlet for his genius in a young and inexperienced chef named Linguini (Lou Ramano). Together the two begin to gain acclaim for Linguini's employer Gusteau's, which who had fallen from the pinnacle of greatness after a poor review from the most feared critic in the business, Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole). The adventure that ensues is wild and full of bumps as Remy learns about love, individuality and the art of cooking.\nUnfortunately for the children in the audience, they will be bored by the time Remy's first venture into the kitchen takes place. Parents might also be slightly disheartened as the film comments so starkly on death (even giving some images that might be frightening for children) and attempting to teach complicated lessons. However, for an older audience, "Ratatouille" is a cute film with interesting characters and a fun ending.\nWhile "Ratatouille" might suffer at the box office once word spreads that kids might not find it enjoyable, it is perhaps setting a new standard in animated films: one in which adults are the primary audience.\n-Jake Stewart C+
(04/26/07 4:00am)
Avril Lavigne is known for being the princess of punk-pop and she takes that to a whole new level on her newest album, The Best Damn Thing, by spitting out lyrics consisting of the likes of "Hell yeah/I'm the motherfucking princess" and "And now you're somehwhere out there with a/Bitch, slut, psychopath."\nLavigne's third album comes complete with a parental advisory warning, something that will surely please the parents of the teenage following her type of music targets.\nThe album starts on what is perhaps its highest note with the single, "Girlfriend," where Avril urges her interest to leave his current girl for her. The song works with a cheerleading-type of sound, with chants, claps and has a catchy tune that makes it a perfect listen-to-while-you're-getting-ready type of song. \nAlthough she was recently married, you'd hardly know it by the makeup of the album. It continues with the upbeat, poppy anti-dude song, "I Can Do Better," where Avril continues her ranting ("I'm sick of this shit/Don't ask why/I hate you now."). \nSongs like "The Best Damn Thing" and "I Don't Have to Try" continue the upbeat cheerleader theme, and though the lyrics sometimes annoyed me so much that I had to skip the songs ("I'm the one who wears the pants/I'm the one who tells you what to do"), the beats were still catchy in that teen-princess kind of way. \nAvril performs at her best on songs where she's not simply trying to keep up her queen of punk reputation. "Innocence," "When You're Gone" and the album's closer, "Keep Holding On," showcase a deeper side of Lavigne and give hope that she's at least slowly maturing musically and lyrically. \nThough she hasn't come too far from the days where lyrics as ridiculous as "I'm not the milk and Cheerios in your spoon" appeared on her debut album, The Best Damn Thing is fun with several catchy pop tunes and is at least more listen-able than her sophomore album (which sold less than half as many as her debut). Perhaps if she can get over her preoccupation with keeping up her punk look and just focus on music, Lavinge will continue to develop. Pop this album in if you're looking for something fun and simple, just don't expect it to actually be the best damn thing.
(04/26/07 4:00am)
One hundred years ago, impressionist painter T.C. Steele paid a visit to Nashville, Ind. \nHe so loved the light on the rolling hills and valleys of Brown County he decided to stay. And what’s more, he decided to invite all his friends.\nSteele was a member of the Hoosier Group, a coalition of Indiana impressionist painters, said Debbie Dunbar, marketing director for the Brown County visitors’ center. \n“When he came here to Brown County, he discovered the light was fantastic, he discovered the hills and loved them, so he invited all of these renowned artists to come and experience what he was experiencing. The result was many of them stayed in Brown County and established homes, and subsequently established what is known as the Art Colony,” she said. \nBrown County is celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the “Art Colony of the Midwest” by Steele. \nToday, there are about 250 artists living and working in Brown County, Dunbar said. \nMany of the artists have shops in or around Nashville and these shops are one of the main attractions to the many tourists that flock to Nashville.\nKathleen McGow is proprietor of Earth Dance, a shop that sells clothes, scarves and other items from the Salt Creek Weavers, a coalition of fiber artists. She said living in Brown County is helpful to artists because it is easier to network and get supplies. \nLike many of the artists living in Nashville today, McGow learned her craft from a parent. Her mother, who was the first to come to Nashville, taught her how to weave.\n“She’s been here since the 70s. The artist’s colony was part of the draw, as well as the terrain,” she said. \nUnlike McGow, John Mills of Brown County Pottery was the first of his family to learn to be a potter.\n“My father and mother learned it from me … we do everything backwards in my family,” he joked. \nWhen Mills moved to Nashville in 1968, there were no stoplights and only one four-way stop in Brown County. He said there were only 22 shops, and most were converted houses and not built to be shops. He said it’s easier to make a living today, but Nashville is very different from the quiet town he first moved to in 1968. \nMills said he was planning to be a teacher before he came to Nashville.\n“I was just finishing up graduate school at Indiana University, waiting for replies to applications for a college teaching job. I found this lovely little place to have a pottery shop and I couldn’t resist. So I forgot about the job applications – I thought I’d (sell pottery) briefly and then get serious, but I never got serious,” he said. \nAnother local artist, Grant Eversoll, uses music as his art. \nEversoll, who has been playing music professionally for 30 years, said he plays music outside every weekend during \ntourist season. \nHe encouraged students to come to Nashville this summer. \n“There’s always something going on,” he said. \nOne new activity Nashville is having is Downtown Saturdays in which shops stay open later and there are car shows and other activities to draw people to downtown, he said. He also said the Brown County Playhouse shows were excellent.\nMcGow said people who come to explore Nashville should look beyond the main drag. \n“Search out shops with locally made works,” she said. “Sometimes they’re not on the main street and you have to search them out.”\nMarsha Hall, an employee at Weed Patch Music Company, a store that sells instruments handmade in Indiana, said she thought part of the appeal of Nashville was its location. \n“It appeals to me because it’s out in the country,” she said.\nDunbar said one of the most unique things about Nashville was the For Bare Feet sock factory. The factory was created about 20 years ago by Sharon Rivenbark, a schoolteacher. The factory creates “literally thousands” of types of socks, according to the company brochure, and manufactures all the socks, headbands and wristbands for the NBA. \n“It’s something different and unique that people enjoy doing,” Dunbar said. \nBoth artists and shoppers return to Nashville because it has something special – something special that T.C. Steele noticed when he first paid a visit 100 years ago. \nHall said she thought Nashville’s activities invite return visits.\n“People come back year after year,” she said.
(04/18/07 4:00am)
Local Art Action Incorporated, under the leadership of Jen Eberbach, who also works in public relations for the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts, is working to better the lives of orphans at one orphanage in the Republic of Congo.\nFrom 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, April 19, and from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 21, LAAI will put on a film screening of several independent films to benefit the Bethesda Orphanage of Kinshasa-Ngaliema in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Donations will be collected at the door, and they will also be selling T-shirts to benefit the orphanage. \nThe film screening will feature films from several local filmmakers, including Downtime Studios, Christopher S. Potter, Clockwerk Pictures and Ryan Marino. \nThe film nights will feature three films from Christopher S. Potter, a filmmaker who moved here a few years ago from Los Angeles. The films are “Man in a White Linen Suit,” “February,” and “One,” a one-minute film. \nPotter said Eberbach contacted him through his MySpace page, and when he read how she was trying to help the Bethesda Orphanage, he decided to help. \n“It sounds like a worthy cause,” he said. “Also, it’s always exciting to have your films shown.”\nEberbach said she met the founder of the Bethesda Orphanage, Doudou Vuanda, while she was on a vacation in Amsterdam. \n“For a long time, I wanted to do some sort of charity or fundraising project that had to do with music or the arts. I was busy with school, so I was just waiting. After I graduated from the University of Michigan, I traveled with a friend and I was meeting these fabulous people, and it was a chance to network,” she said.\nEberbach said after she met Vuanda, she developed a friendship with him, and they became pen pals. Vuanda kept her updated on the status of the orphanage, and when he was looking for organizations to help with funding, she decided to help. \n“It was easier to work with someone I knew. It was almost fate,” she said. \nLAAI has already had three other events to raise money for the orphanage. The past events have been a stand-up routine at the McCalla Fine Arts Annex, a night with nine short plays, and an evening with music from the bands Puppy vs. Dyslexia and RCBNNN, a side project of the band Race Bannon.\nEberbach said the biggest challenges of creating LAAI have been researching different things like law that she didn’t know about before, and finding enough time and energy to devote to the cause.\n“Now that I’m out of school, I can concentrate on it,” she said. \nEberbach said her ultimate goal is to give as much help to the orphanage as she can, and then move on to another needy cause.\n“If I can help people, and if Bethesda can become a model for other orphanages, I think that would have far-reaching effects,” she said. \nFor more information, visit localartaction.org.
(04/11/07 4:00am)
A quiet revolution is brewing Monday nights in a pub on Walnut Street. \nAt the Player’s Pub, 424 S. Walnut St., local songwriters gather to share their music and create a unsual listening atmosphere for the audience. \nGreg Hill, owner of the two-year-old pub, said music has healing power, and it’s why he opened a music-focused pub. \n“It’s the Player’s Pub for a reason – we are musician-driven. We’re aiming for adults in a college town, and that’s kind of unique,” he said. \nEach Monday night for about two months, songwriters have been coming together to play. The Songwriter’s Showcase, led by Dave McConnell, local songwriter and carpenter, is composed of four different local songwriters. \nMcConnell, vocalist for the band The Lopers, said he sees a great potential for local songwriting. \n“I think there are a lot of good songwriters in the area, and I don’t think a lot of them are prone to get out and play on their own, and I don’t think there’s a forum for that. I think that’s a main reason (The Songwriter’s Showcase) has a chance of succeeding, because it’s a unique format,” McConnell said. “In all my time in Bloomington, I’ve never seen anything that happens on a regular basis like this, once a week, all the time, so I would like to hear every good songwriter in the area.”\nMarc Haggerty, another local songwriter, said one of the aims of the showcase was to raise the quality and quantity of the audience, and he’s already seen an increase in audience at the Player’s Pub. \n“The truth is, you couldn’t make it in Bloomington because of the attitude here. We’re changing that little by little. The owner (of the Player’s Pub) has respect for local musicians and for people who respect it,” he said. \nDan Fontaine, news director at WIUX radio, who is also a part-time waiter at the Player’s Pub, said he thinks it is already one of the best places in Bloomington for local music. \nHe listed Rhino’s, Bear’s Place, the Bluebird and Cheeseburger in Paradise as other good venues for local music. \nOne of the problems with raising the quality and quantity of the audience is defining the audience for local music in Bloomington. \nThe audience is mostly composed of people interested in the process of creating music and the friends and family of the musicians performing, McConnell said.\nHaggerty said he thinks that an adult audience is more likely to be loyal to a local songwriter’s scene because he believes the media has “brainwashed” young Americans. \n“It doesn’t matter who the audience is, they’re completely barraged by the media, TV, radio on one speaker and an iPod on the other. So we’re dealing with an audience that is so brainwashed by the concert setup that they forgot what the real reason for songwriting was,” he said. \nMcConnell said he thinks it’s important when establishing the core audience to start with the local audience, but that doesn’t exclude younger people interested in local music. \n“To be honest with you, I don’t care who comes out,” he said. “I think everybody who cares about good music should come.” \nHowever, Fontaine said he thinks there’s an equal amount of disdain of the students by the local audience. \n“There’s definitely a disconnect between the students and the community, but the community has to be willing to reach out,” he said. “The people in here sometimes don’t want students in here because they have a bad idea, thinking about the people they see on Kirkwood.”\nHe said WIUX tries to play a lot of local music, but it focuses on local students rather than some of the bands of nonstudents. \nAs well as working to create a recurring venue for local musicians, the Songwriter’s Showcase is working with the Bloomington Area Arts Council and the Bloomington Economic Arts District to promote Bloomington’s image as a good place in the Midwest for music.\n“There’s a chance we could have a respect for talent and not for fame,” he said. \nMcConnell said he thinks there is a fair amount of time and work before Bloomington can be considered a music destination. \n“I like the idea of it being a music destination. ... I don’t think it’s impossible by any means. I think we need to get going here on a local level.” \nFontaine said he thinks it is unlikely that Bloomington will become known as a music destination because the types of bands and musicians in Bloomington and surrounding cities are so different. \n“It would be awesome,” he said. “I think the problem is the local music in Bloomington is not the scene in Chicago, not even in Indy or Evansville, so I don’t think it’ll work.” \nThough Bloomington may be far from being considered the next Nashville, Tenn., Fontaine said at least at the Player’s Pub, there’s a healthy appetite for local songwriting. \n“There’s some Monday nights people really come in for the music,” he said. \nFor more information, visit www.theplayerspub.com.
(02/27/07 5:00am)
As the lights dimmed and voices began to soar Sunday night in Auer Hall, dancers clad in red, yellow and blue silk suddenly ascended from the crowd onto the stage, rushing together in the middle to express, through dance, the words to the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”\nThus began the 13th annual Extensions of the Tradition concert, co-sponsored by the African American Arts Institute and the Archives of African American Music and Culture. \nThis year’s theme was “The Enjoyment of Composition: from Stage to Audience.”\nEvent producer Marian Harrison, a fourth-year doctoral student and a featured composer of the event, quoted civil-rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois as Harrison introduced the event and its theme.\nShe said “Extensions of the Tradition” refers to the several different “musical tongues” in which African-American composers speak, which Du Bois said exist “in a double consciousness” of European and African artistic traditions.\nThe event featured the works of four composers, including Harrison; David Baker, a distinguished professor of music in the Jacobs School of Music; William C. Banfield, professor of Africana studies and music and director of black music programming at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.; and Tyron Cooper, a second-year doctoral student with the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. \nThe music that was played varied from emotional pieces on piano and strings to big-band sounds. \n“I thought it was very well-done and it stretched the imagination,” said William Wiggins Jr., professor emeritus of African American Studies and Folklore. \nJohn Pruitt, who attended the concert in support of his friend Harrison, said he liked Tyron Cooper’s compositions and the music of Banfield and Cooper with harp accompaniment. \n“I loved the intricacies of the harp, where it went from more classical to gospel,” he said. \nThis was Harrison’s second year producing the concert. She said the fact that black composers get so little notice outside of Black History Month upsets her.\n“The thing that angers me the most about being a black composer is, how are we supposed to live if we only play during the month of February?” she said. “We need to play and live March through January as well, and that’s definitely something that needs to be addressed, and not just in the month of February.” \nThe theme of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was expressed in several ways through the evening.\nAt the beginning of the event, Harrison unveiled a painting by her aunt, Wilhelmina Fowlkes, based on the song. The painting featured three women dressed in red, blue and yellow representing passion, hope and struggle.\nFowlkes said her niece contacted her and asked her to create a painting based on the song, and she just listened to the words and used the emotions the words stirred in her to paint the three women.\nJunior Jennifer French was one of the dancers. She said she liked the way everything came together.\n“I thought it was really interesting how the dance connected to the painting, which connected to the song,” she said. \nFor more information and events featuring African-American arts, visit www.indiana.edu/~aaai/AI06.htm.
(02/22/07 5:00am)
The Asian American Association is putting a spin on MTV’s “Diary” TV series this Friday at its annual fashion show.\nThe IU show, titled “The Diary of an Asian American,” will feature several types of dancing and runway modeling from different Asian organizations on campus.\nStarting at 7:30 p.m. in the Wilkie Auditorium, the show aims to educate and entertain, said Asian American Association President Aobo Zou. \nThough it’s still being called a fashion show, Alice Feng, the association’s vice president, said the event will be more similar to a variety show, with only one fashion walk featuring traditional Asian garb.\nThe show will feature break dancing from the IU Break Dancing Club and a traditional dance from the IU Vietnamese Student Association, Feng said. \nShe said being an Asian-American is different from other cultural backgrounds because one must find a balance between Eastern and Western cultures.\n“Specifically with Asian-Americans, you learn how to assimilate into Western society when you come from families of first-generation immigrants from Asia,” she said. “Dealing with the Eastern values and beliefs of your parents, and then at the same time trying to adapt to Western values, it’s kind of hard to find that medium. So a lot of times, Asian-Americans kind of have an identity crisis.”\nFeng said she chose the MTV “Diary” theme to break the stereotypes of Asians living in the library and being good at math and to incorporate Western culture. \nShe said American culture has a socially constructed view of what Asian is, but it’s usually not true.\nPeople from India, Turkey and Kazakhstan are considered Asian, she said.\nFeng described the event as, “Eastern cultures and Western cultures melted into one.”\nThe doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 7:30. Admission is $3. Donations to the Timmy Foundation are welcomed.
(02/16/07 2:30am)
Friday marks the screening of the second film in the IU Hungarian Cultural Association's Film Series.\nThe HCA will show the animated feature "Fehérlófia" ("Son of the White Mare") at 6 p.m. in Swain Hall East 140. \nThe film, directed by Jankovics Marcell, is the first major animated cartoon from Hungary, produced in 1982, according to Imdb.com. \nAgnes Fulemile, the Hungarian Chair for the Central Asian Studies Department in the College of Arts and Sciences, said this story incorporates themes from the history of the Hungarian people.\nShe said the film, which features a horse on a nomadic journey through magical lands, parallels the nomadic life of the Hungarians before they settled down. \nThe main character travels to the underworld and rises with the help of a griffin, according to Fulemile. \n"It is quite a complex folk tale," she said.\nLike Disney films and Japanese anime, Hungarian animation has quite a distinct style, Fulemile said.\n"The pictorial scheme is something very unique," she said. \nMarcell's film was supported by a lot of research in ethnography and Hungarian cultural history, Hungarian painter Gyorgy Szemadam said in an issue of "Hungarian Heritage," a yearly magazine published by the European Folklore Institute.\nEach motif in "Fehérlófia" carries symbolic meaning and presents viewpoints that all connect at a shared core. These elements are typical of ancient, mythical language, said Szemadam in the article. \n"The heroic nature of Jankovics's venture is to be seen in the fact that he managed to introduce an entirely new facet to animated filmmaking, based on the traditions of printed cartoons and caricatures," said Szemadam. "We could probably even say that, thanks to Marcell Jankovics, a new and so far unknown tone emerged in Hungarian animated filmmaking." \nThe films in the Hungarian Film Series were discussed and chosen during the HCA's coffee hours over the past semester. The coffee hour is from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursdays at the Indiana Memorial Union Starbucks.
(01/31/07 3:32am)
There are three main goals of the Middle Eastern Arts Festival, which will be held Thursday to Feb. 10, says Naomi Spector, assistant outreach coordinator of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. \nThe first goal of the festival is to highlight the arts at IU. \n"We mean to challenge people as to their concept of, 'What is art?' We try to include as many types of medium as possible and as many disciplines as possible," she said.\nThe 10-day festival will include dance performances by the Bloomington modern dance group Windfall Dancers; speeches by artists and professors; and film screenings, according to the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures' Web site. \nThe second goal of the festival, Spector said, is to challenge people's notions of who belongs to Near Eastern cultures.\n"People tend to focus and they say, 'Well, it's the Middle East,'" she said. "The idea is that culture is a place of intersection and people, you know, grouped in next to each other (that) get historically identified with each other. So the Arabo-Islamic (or Near Eastern) world has Africans, North Africans, Indonesians, Asians, Indians, Pakistanis -- they're a huge group that includes this part of the world. \nThe third and final goal of the group, Spector said, is to create a "communal model" to put on the event. It will give several different departments and groups their own tasks to bring to the festival, creating a "much larger event than people might normally anticipate." \nThe festival, sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, will showcase a broad array of performances and lectures around Bloomington. \nSome of the on-campus events include a screening of the film "The Twilight," directed by Mohammad Rasulof, at 7 p.m. Thursday in Swain East; a book exhibit in the IU Fine Arts Library from Feb. 1 to Feb. 18; and an art exhibit by Najjar Abdul Musawwir at the Foster Living-Learning Center at 7 p.m. Feb. 5.\nSpector said there are two important reasons to celebrate Middle Eastern culture. \n"Given our current political and historical climate, I think it's very necessary for the public to become better informed about Middle Eastern culture and to realize how complex it really is," she said. "I think, personally, on another level, (it's important for people to be) learning about each other, period."\nSpector said that learning about one culture could have a domino effect that could encourage the public to begin learning about many different cultures and ultimately "open up the whole world." \nAll events are free and open to the public, except for the performances of the Windfall Dancers and the Bloomington music group, Salaam, at the John Waldron Arts Center. For more information, visit www.indiana.edu/~nelcmesp/event.htm.
(01/25/07 5:25am)
What is pride?\n"To me, gay pride is just to go and have a good time with people who are accepting of me and I am accepting of them," said James Cummings, GLBT student support services office assistant. \nTo some people, it is a sense of togetherness. \nThis weekend the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, 114 E. Kirkwood Ave., will offer the opportunity for such camaraderie with the PRIDE Film Festival, a series of 31 films that will run in several areas around Bloomington. \n"We've been to several GLBT film festivals, and there's so much more of a sense of community," said Drea Weber, star and producer of the featured film "The Gymnast." \nFor Bloomington, a relatively small city nestled in a largely conservative state, to have such a large event celebrating the GLBT community may seem surprising.\nHowever, there is a reason, said theater director Danielle McClelland: Bloomington has a reputation as being progressive and encouraging artistic expression.\n"That's one of the reasons that the festival has taken off so readily," McClelland said. "It's a conservative region, but that gives (GLBT events) a special importance because they give people who don't experience a larger queer community every day a chance to experience it for at least a weekend, and to meet each other."\nSome people outside of the GLBT community can be unfamiliar with the use of the word "queer" to describe an event or a lifestyle.\n"One of the things we talk about a lot in the steering committee is the concept of queer, which is a term that some people feel comfortable with," McClelland said. "It is about messing with gender roles and what sex is all about."\nBut not everyone is at ease with the phrase.\nSophomore Drew Rhoda said that the description of Saturday night's dance party at the theater as a "queer space" made him uncomfortable. He said he had never seen a film with a GLBT emphasis, and he wasn't really interested in going to the festival.\n"I would have to say in the back of my mind that I would be a little reserved about what I may see, but I've never seen (a GLBT film), so I don't know," he said. \nFreshman Cassey Crowell said she wasn't interested in attending the festival, although several of her gay friends had talked about it. She said the word "queer," used in the manner of the Buskirk-Chumley news release, did not make her feel uncomfortable.\n"A lot of my friends are gay, so it really doesn't (matter)," she said. \nNolin Chatterjee, a sophomore, said he wasn't disconcerted by the word "queer."\n"It's a little different to me, but I'm not homophobic," he said. "They're just people. I think any open, sane person would agree."\nMcClelland said she was unaware of the implications of the phrase "queer space." \n"The most important aspect is it's a space where you can express desire without discrimination," she said. "... The main mission is to celebrate queer culture. It is a space to say straight out: This is what this is going to be."\nThe festival will show 31 films, with GLBT issues making up much of the subject matter. \nBoth the general film industry and the GLBT community have the same goals artistically, but the filmmaking industry aims to make money in the end, Weber said.\nShe said besides "Brokeback Mountain", GLBT films are not generally known for making money. And the industry has a tendency of marginalizing GLBT films because they don't think they will be profitable, she said.\nShe said most GLBT filmmakers are struggling with competing desires: to tell a story and to make money.\n"Big stars can help, but that's catering to a Hollywood notion that's anathema to a lot of filmmakers," she said. \nMcClelland said a major difference in the style of GLBT films from the general film industry is the aggressiveness of the director toward the issues in the films.\n"I think GLBT filmmakers are more aggressive than the average filmmaker because those are the issues in the filmmaker's mind-set," she said. \nShe said the issues tackled in this year's films included gay marriage and the intersection of queer oppression and drug use.\n"Concepts of where queer oppression and drug use interact with any situation where an individual is constantly facing cultural oppression, where their freedom, culture and lifestyle is being discriminated against -- there is a higher instance of drug use," she said.\nMcClelland said she thought it was important to emphasize that the film festival was open and accessible to all people, not only people who consider themselves part of the GLBT population.\n"It's an important opportunity for the GLBT community, because there's often a large division between GLBT students and the community based on age," she said. \nCummings said he thought the festival was a good way to bring the community together. Any person thinking about attending should go, as long as they are comfortable with the subject matter, he said.\n"If they feel comfortable with the culture, then they should go and have a good time -- if they feel that they would be able to handle it," he said. \nThe events begin today with two films being shown at the Whittenberger Auditorium in the Indiana Memorial Union and will continue until Saturday night, culminating with the dance party at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.\nFor more information, visit www.buskirkchumley.org or check out the PRIDE Festival guide in today's Weekend magazine.
(01/19/07 2:44am)
Several musicians will perform music by Hungarian composers at 5 p.m. Sunday in Ford-Crawford Hall. \nBloomington harpist Erzebet Gaal will perform, as will several students from the Jacobs School of Music. \nThe recital is being held to celebrate the Jan. 22 International Day of Hungarian Culture, said Lynn Hooker, assistant professor of Hungarian Studies. \nThe International Day of Hungarian Culture celebrates the 1822 writing of the lyrics of the Hungarian national anthem, she said. \nThe recital was organized by Gaal to offer students with an interest in Hungarian culture a chance to expand their repertoires. \n"Hungary is known for its music," Gaal said. She noted several famous composers and musicians with Hungarian roots, such as Franz Liszt and IU Jacobs School of Music professor Janos Starker. \n"However, there are many more significant Hungarian composers not as well known outside of Hungary. Therefore, some of my Hungarian friends … welcomed the idea of organizing a concert program that would present Hungarian music played by students with Hungarian backgrounds or an interest in Hungarian music," Gaal said.\nGaal, a 16-year member of the Hungarian Cultural Association at IU, said Hungary has a vibrant culture because of its location.\n"Three major ecological regions -- the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Continental -- meet and blend in the Carpathian Basin at the center of Europe, where Hungary is situated," Gaal said. Being a crossroads throughout the centuries, Hungary was influenced by many different cultures, which is reflected in its art and enriched its music, Gaal said. \nSteve Grimes, president of the Hungarian Cultural Association, said many people on campus are unaware of the group. \nHe said while there are about 30 active IU students in the association, there are 100 to 300 members who are not affiliated with IU. \nA separate postal mailing list of the group is "largely Hungarian immigrants living in the Midwest and trying to stay connected to Hungarian culture," Grimes said in an e-mail.\nAmericans who have no Hungarian heritage but have visited the country comprise the largest portion of the group, Grimes said. \nThe group holds weekly coffee hours from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays at the Starbucks in the Indiana Memorial Union. During this time, students can practice their Hungarian language skills or attend poetry readings, film series, folk dance lesson, picnics or academic lectures hosted by the group.\n"As many students have either weak or nonexistent Hungarian skills, a lot of English is spoken at these events as well," Grimes said. \nGaal hoped people would come to the recital to enrich their cultural knowledge. \n"When we immerse ourselves in another culture's music as performers or listeners, we learn new musical language, which can build bridges between cultures and can teach us to respect achievements. … Thus, we expand our horizons. Bloomington is a wonderful place where many different cultures are represented through IU and through the community's cultural life," Gaal said in the e-mail.\nHooker said there would be a "modest reception" after the performances Sunday. \n"We can't serve alcohol, but frankly, most Hungarians celebrate with a bit of wine," she said. \nFor more information about Gaal, visit www.harpahungarica.com.
(01/18/07 3:32am)
It was the craze that, for a short time, almost killed rock 'n' roll.\nCalypso, that is.\nStudents can discover calypso music at the Calypso Music in Postwar America exhibit's opening reception at 7 to 9 p.m. Friday at the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Grand Hall, 275 N. Jordan Ave.\nThe exhibit focuses on the changes that calypso music underwent as it experienced feverish popularity, especially in the United States. The public is invited to tour the exhibit, enjoy Caribbean food and enjoy calypso music from the Indianapolis band Caribbean Consort. \nThe exhibit will feature photographed illustrations of calypso performers, movie posters, records and illustrations from the entertainment industry during calypso's American heyday, said Grace Jackson-Brown, director of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Library. \nCalypso music traces it origins to African slaves on the sugar plantations of Trinidad and Tobago, islands in the Caribbean, according to the press release from the library.\nThe slaves used calypso music as a form of communication as well as a way to poke fun at the slave masters.\nLater, the music evolved into political and social commentary with ties to Carnival, a two-week period leading up to Mardi Gras. \n"It's a mix of European old-world carnival with African traditions blended in complex ways," said Raymond Funk, co-curator of the event.\nCarnival music and bands developed in the 19th century. The bands would parade through the streets before Lent, in a similar fashion of New Orleans' Mardi Gras bands. People from Trinidad would set up tents during Carnival and perform music as social and political commentary, Funk said.\nThe exhibit, he said, is not to give the history of the calypso art form, but to talk about what happens when the type of world music leaves its country of origin .\nCalypso began to gain popularity through a few artists such as Roaring Lion and Attila the Hun and turned into a full-blown pop-culture obsession with Harry Belafonte's million-selling album, "Calypso," Funk said.\n"It's hard for anyone to remember 50 years ago in the spring of 1950; the whole entertainment industry thought that calypso would kill rock and roll," Funk said. "It was an amazing thing." \nIn the 1950s and '60s, Jackson-Brown said, the music Americans knew as calypso was really pop, including the incredibly popular Belafonte album. With the success of Belafonte, the entertainment industry jumped to satisfy the public's thirst for all things calypso.\n"There was an enormous move by different ends of the entertainment industry to decide, 'This was it,'" Funk said. "So there were dozens and dozens of singles issued and writers trying to write kind of pseudo-calypsos. Night clubs all put in palm trees and calypso was real popular in Miami. ... There were records, movies, calypso mystery novels -- it was just a big pyramid where everybody thought this was the new thing."\nHowever, within six months, the industry realized it was not making the sales it had expected.\n"It was suddenly something that was everywhere, and then six months later, it was like, 'Never mind,'" Funk said. "The whole effort to have it take over from rock and roll kind of disappeared, but the music itself has not disappeared."\nThe exhibit will also feature a series of presentations Jan. 19 and 20. \nFrom noon to 1:30 p.m. Friday, Funk will give a presentation called "Introduction to the Global Spread of Calypso"; from 3 to 4:30 p.m. he will present "Sir Lancelot, Calypso Pioneer."\nFrom 1 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, he will present "Steel Drums and Calypso" and from 7 to 8:30 p.m., "The Roots of Jamaican Folk Music and Mento."\nThe traveling exhibit, from the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, will stay at the Neal-Marshall library through April 30. \nFor more information, visit the exhibit's accompanying online exhibit at www.calypsoworld.org.
(01/10/07 2:10am)
A can of Coke and a Papua New Guinean portrait skull share common ground in an exhibit at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures. \nThey are both parts of culture in the exhibit titled "Thoughts, Things and Theories ... What Is Culture?" \n"Culture explains who we are and the context of why we do what we do," said Judith A. Kirk, assistant director of the Mathers Museum. "Our lives are shaped by what we do. If you want to understand someone, you have to understand the cultural context (of their action)." \nAlong with the display of the Coke can and the decorated skull, the exhibit features a comparison of a two 1967 families, one from Bloomington and the other from Nigeria.\nThe hands-on households, which allow visitors to interact with the exhibit in such ways as opening the refrigerator in the Bloomington house and sitting on ornate stools in the Nigerian huts, also feature projections of the members of the respective families talking about their lives.\nThe Mathers Museum staff chose to feature a Nigerian family and home because they had a variety of Nigerian items and had two staff members that had lived in Nigeria, Kirk said. \nThe households are one aspect of the exhibit that will change over time, and other cultures, such as a Pakistani household, will replace the homes. \n"We may change the casework, objects and scenes, but they'll still all be tied together (by) this notion of 'What is culture?'" Kirk said. \nKirk said she and the staff hope people who visit the exhibit will begin to reflect on their own cultures. \n"For us as a museum, we want to demonstrate how objects in everyday lives are constructed by culture, and that the objects you have show who you are," she said. \nThe museum is located at 416 N. Indiana Ave. and is open 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday and 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.indiana.edu/~mathers.
(12/11/06 4:05am)
Children dined with Santa and received a little "Entertainment with Love" from an IU club Saturday at the Sterling House of Bloomington. \nThe Entertainment with Love club, founded by sophomore Sarah Kiperman, works to put on performances for people who need a "Christmas they can't supply themselves," Kiperman said.\nOn Saturday, the group joined the Salvation Army and Sterling House, an assisted living facility, to perform a skit and several musical pieces at the annual Breakfast with Santa event.\nAbout 40 kids and their parents came together with a group of Alzheimer's patients to have breakfast. \nThe group performed several traditional holiday songs like "Sleigh Ride," "The Christmas Song" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."\nThe entertainment provided by the IU club helped to divert the children's attention while they waited for Santa to arrive, said Monica Clemens, social services coordinator for the Bloomington branch of the Salvation Army. However, the kids were still excited during the performance. \n"The kids were a little rowdy during the show," said sophomore Tema Sall, the club's vice president.\nThough the kids enjoyed the performance, they were the most excited when Santa finally arrived, Kiperman said. \n"They were so cute. They started screaming, 'It's Santa! It's really Santa!'" Kiperman said. \nClemens said that there is a lot of need for help like this during this holiday season. \n"We have 750 people that applied for food and toys, and we are just one of about six agencies that do that," she said. \nAnna Bedoy, an associate at Sterling House, said she thought the idea of getting different generations of people together was wonderful.\n"I think it's a great event, to have the interaction of the younger population with the older generation. The inter-generational programs are always wonderful. (The Sterling House residents) always need that interaction, and they always enjoy it. They just want to hold (the children) and hug them and be as close to them as they can when they're here," she said. \nBedoy said entertainment is a big need for the people at Sterling House.\n"Considering the people here are set here and don't really get out into the community, they really enjoy what we bring here," she said. \nClemens agreed that the idea was great. She said that this club was the only one that called wanting to perform for people, though there are several fraternities and sororities putting on toy drives for the Bloomington community. \n"This is the only group … where they're coming and volunteering their time and talent," she said. \nSall said the performance was rewarding after seeing the group come together in rehearsals. Now the club is looking to grow, she said.\nKiperman said the group is putting together Disney and oldies performances for next semester and is interested in continuing to work with the Salvation Army. \nKiperman said she got the idea for Entertainment with Love from an organization in her community at home in West Bloomfield, Mich.\n"In my hometown, we have what we call 'The Optimist Club,' which puts on random acts of kindness, and so I wanted to model something like that but focus it on a performing group so acting students can have more of an opportunity to get involved in the community," she said. \nFor more information, e-mail Sarah Kiperman at skiperma@indiana.edu.
(12/07/06 4:24am)
Local Spanish speakers -- from those with mediocre skills in the language to native speakers -- will have the opportunity this weekend to enjoy authentic Spanish-language theater.\nA group of Spanish-speaking actors and actresses will perform a three-act play at 8 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday at the John Waldron Arts Center Auditorium. \nThe play is presented by Grupo de Teatro VIDA, a theater group made up of students and community members, and the Bloomington Area Arts Council, according to a news release from the organizations. \nTickets cost $5 for general admission and are available online at www.bloomingtonarts.info or at the auditorium's door.\nThe appeal of Spanish-language theater had much to do with the strong cultural ties throughout Spain and Latin America, said Lillian Casillas, director of La Casa, IU's Latino Cultural Center.\n"(Theater in the original language) is an expression of culture," she said.\nThe play, titled "Trampa o Triunfo: El Engano en las Manos de una Mujer," translates to "Trick or Triumph: Deceit in a Woman's Hands."\nThe three acts, each directed by a different member of the theater group, will all be performed entirely in Spanish.\nThe first act, "El Viejo Celoso" ("The Old Jealous Man"), is directed by IU graduate student Marda Rose. The second act, "El Delantal Blanco" ("The White Apron"), is directed by Myron Ávila, a faculty member of the department of Spanish and Portuguese, and IU student Anita Park. The third act, "La Que Sigue" ("The Next in Line"), is directed by Carolyn Jackson. \n"I think we're offering something different," Rose, director of the first act, said of the program. "We haven't had theater in Spanish in a long time (in Bloomington). It's that idea of having something live -- for me, it brings Spanish to life." \nThere will be no subtitles throughout the performances due to time constraints, Rose said. But the directors will appear before their acts to give synopses of their stories so audience members, regardless of their Spanish-speaking abilities, can follow along. Rose said that this would be helpful not only to the attendees who do not know Spanish but to the students attending the play who are enrolled in beginning Spanish classes.\nRose said she thought the play would appeal to both native and non-native Spanish speakers as well as those who don't know the language.\nThe Hispanic or Latino population of Monroe County is around 2,294, or 2.13 percent of the total population, according to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau data, available at www.census.gov.\nBloomington's population of Hispanic or Latino people is about 1,981, or 3.6 percent of the city's population, according to the census. Data from 2000 shows that 1,888 people in Bloomington, or 2.8 percent of the population, said they spoke Spanish at home.\nAnd there were 849 Latino or Hispanic students who attended IU during the 2005-2006 term, according to the IU Factbook.\n"Seeing a play live in Spanish really brings the language to life," Rose said. "This is very different from reading a book"