A&E

It's all in the hips

Belly dancers with colorful costumes, exotic jewelry, convulsing hip movements and bare midriffs will migrate to Bloomington this weekend. But even though there will be special performances and workshops dedicated to the ancient art form this weekend, students can participate in belly dancing events year-round. The Bloomington Area Arts Council and Different Drummer Belly Dancers will host a Tribal: Pura, a tribal style belly dance workshop and "An Evening of Belly Dance" on Saturday.

PIGCASSO

Helping find your inner-geek

Most people have at least a little geek in them. It might be the driving force behind an addiction to Dungeons and Dragons or the online World of Warcraft. For others, it's the subtle voice prodding them to understand the artistic merits of Radiohead or to watch "The Fellowship of the Ring" for the umpteenth time. This dork factor has carved out a healthy niche on the Internet -- one crammed full of movies and music catering to the geek in all of us.

IMP students showcase majors, art at exhibition tonight

Sophomore Abbey Stemler wanted to study mental health, but since there wasn't a program for that at IU, she developed her own major. Calling it Social Constructions of Mental Health and Illness, Stemler developed it through the Individualized Major Program. She selects classes from anthropology, sociology and psychology to gain perspectives from different disciplines. At the IMP's 2nd Annual Creative and Performing Arts Exhibition at 6:30 p.m. in the John Waldron Arts Center, Stemler and 19 other IMP students will display posters they have made that outline their majors. At 7 p.m., IMP students in dance, musical theater and fashion design will perform their talents in a show that is free to the public.

DANCE WORKSHOP

ARTIFACTS

Local business honored for promoting films

Local law firm Mallor, Clendening, Grodner, and Bohrer received the 2006 Arts Leadership Award in business Feb. 22. This award, presented by the Bloomington Area Arts Council, recognizes businesses that have shown outstanding support of the local arts scene. "We wanted to recognize a business that supported the arts through more than just financial giving," said Danise Alano, assistant director of economic development for the city and member of the selection committee. "(The firm) has donated countless hours of pro-bono legal work for various causes."

Voice-over major performs both on airwaves and stage

If you have ever listened to WIUX on 100.3 FM, you've heard the catchy promos, a wide range of University information and a taste of the diverse variety of music. You've also heard the luring voice of junior Zach Pollakoff, which appears on the station at least every 20 minutes. Pollakoff writes and edits his own on-air spots and records the promos, the station identifications and the public service announcements. This isn't just something Pollakoff does in his spare time. This is his major, and he created it himself.

Our Town

Cody Fosdick swings a baseball bat backstage before rehearsals for the opera version of the Thornton Wilder play, "Our Town." Fosdick, a performance diploma candidate in the Jacobs School of Music graduate program, is one of two students sharing the role of George Gibbs. "I know it's stupid," he said as fellow cast member and second-year graduate student Liz Baldwin laughed at his admission, "but I'm supposed to be a baseball player."

Actors shine in 'Our Town'

A boy threw up on the stairs of the school bus on my fourth-grade field trip to see "Our Town" at Indianapolis Civic Theatre. I remember the teachers didn't want the rest of us walking over his pile of vomit, so they opened up the emergency exits on the bus and made us all crawl out into the streets. To this day, that is all I remember about the play. But after watching the world premiere of Ned Rorem's opera, "Our Town," Friday night at the Musical Arts Center, I realized it's perfectly OK if that's all I remember. Because those little moments in our lives, "ticking clocks and shoes and socks," according to J.D. McClatchy's libretto, are the most important parts of life.

EMBRACE

Live From Bloomington looking for cover art

Books shouldn't be judged by their covers, but that is precisely what members of the Union Board will be doing -- CD covers, that is. The annual CD art design competition for Live From Bloomington will come to an end Tuesday, said Live From Bloomington Director Tracy Johnson. The CD is a compilation of nine local bands that will perform April 6 at various venues for Club Night -- an annual event to showcase local music live while simultaneously raising money for a good cause.

Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife, dies at 81

LOS ANGELES -- Don Knotts, who won TV immortality and five Emmys for playing the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show" with self-deprecating humor, was remembered by his friend and co-star as a comedic genius who wrote some of the show's best scenes. "Don was a small man ... but everything else about him was large: his mind, his expressions," Griffith told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Actors make 'She Stoops' a laughable success

During the rehearsals leading up to this week's performances of "She Stoops to Conquer," director Fontaine Syer said repeatedly reminded actors that "The acting style this material requires has certain things in common with 'I Love Lucy.'"

Author offers insight on poetry, cancer

His yellow Mini Cooper pulled up to the circle outside the Musical Arts Center five minutes before his scheduled reading Sunday afternoon, and poet J.D. McClatchy emerged from the passenger seat. McClatchy and his companions left the car on the curb for his entire 45-minute lecture. McClatchy, an English professor at Yale University, was in Bloomington for ArtsWeek and to celebrate Friday's world premiere of "Our Town," the opera for which he wrote the libretto. McClatchy said he is a poet and an opera writer but he likes writing poetry more.

Saying 'no' to engagement chicken

I love to cook. I love it even more when I don't have to do it. Luckily, I don't live in an era where such domestic talents are a woman's main value. That notion is a thing of the past. Yet, Glamour magazine doesn't think so. In this year's March issue, a reader named Laura wrote in to share her success with a previously published Glamour recipe, called "Engagement Chicken," which she paired with her recipe of "Hook Him Apple Pie."

Umphrey's McGee to play Indianapolis

Umphrey's McGee perform Saturday at the Murat Egyptian Room in Indianapolis. The band formed in South Bend while attending the University of Notre Dame. The members say they still consider Indiana to be a home base for support and have played in Bloomington at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater and the IU Auditorium. The current tour is in promotion of the band's second DVD, "Wrapped Around Chicago: New Year's at the Riv." This is its second live release of a performance in Chicago.

'Tommy' brings rock concert with plot to Buskirk-Chumley Theater

It's a full-out rock concert with dancing and a plot. That's how University Players technical director and senior Greg Hofmann described The Who's rock opera, "Tommy." The University Players is performing the show at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Tickets are free, but seating is limited to about 600 per show. The show is appropriate for mature audiences, and haze will be used in the air.

Tale of mistaken identities on stage this weekend

Mistaken identities. Love. Lust. Relationship crises. Laugh-out-loud humor. No, this is not a reference to the typical events of a weekend at IU, but rather to Sir Oliver Goldsmith's comedy of manners, "She Stoops to Conquer," which will run at 7:30 p.m. Friday through March 4 at the Ruth N. Halls Theatre. According to the press release, the performance "combines slapstick visual humor with perfectly phrased wit to create a uniquely comedic brew." This 18th-century comedy centers on the independently minded, well-to-do Miss Kate Hardcastle, played by graduate student Renée Racan Rodríguez. Her hand has been promised in marriage to Sir Charles Marlow, played by graduate student Eric VanTielen, a timid young gentleman reluctant to enter into a relationship with a stranger, finding upper-class women to be immodest and hypocritical.

Ceremony to rename music school Friday

The Jacobs School of Music, renamed in November after receiving the largest single gift from an individual donor of $40.6 million, will celebrate its new identity with a naming ceremony and concert at 4 p.m. Friday in Auer Hall. IU President Adam W. Herbert will provide opening remarks for the event, and son of donors Barbara B. and David H. Jacobs, David H. Jacobs Jr., will attend as well as Jacobs School of Music Dean, Gwyn Richards, according to a press release.