IUSA

Student composers and dancers collaborate for performance

Three days before their biggest performance of the semester, student dancers were just as excited about rehearsing as performing. Dance major and sophomore Maureen Maryanski said Monday night at her practice in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation building that she loves coming to class everyday. "I genuinely love to dance," she said. "I'd be just as happy dancing in a room all by myself, just me." Dancers rehearsed with student choreographers who have worked all semester for the culminating concert 7 p.m. tonight at the John Waldron Arts Center. The concert, titled "Hammer and Nail" is free and open to the public, with a short reception following the performance.

Musicians prepare for emotional Jazz Fest in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS -- There will be one less stage, one less day of music and 100 fewer performers, but one thing this year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival will not lack is emotion. The annual fete, started in 1970, will mark the return of hundreds of the city's musicians for the first time since Hurricane Katrina struck Aug. 29, laying waste to much of the Big Easy. And with a Louisiana-heavy lineup accented with a landmark collection of giants including Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen and Fats Domino, performers and organizers alike say they expect raw sentimentality from everyone involved.

'Transformations' juxtaposes fairy tales, opera

Friday night promises to be bittersweet and poignant for singers and audiences of the IU Department of Opera Studies, as it stages a production of Conrad Susa's "Transformations," a thoughtful and reflective opera composed of a collection of fairy tales adapted from author Anne Sexton's poems. Transformations is at 8 p.m. Friday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Admission is free and open to all. Throughout her life, Anne Sexton battled a number of psychological and emotional issues, including depression, conflicting feelings concerning her own sexuality and pressures to live out the American dream, according to an e-mail from Scott Voyles, the production's conductor. As she fought her personal demons, Sexton found refuge in writing, and from her literary endeavors emerged "Transformations," a collection of fairy-tale poems in which she strove to come to terms with the events of her life and to reach a state of mental peace and contentment with the lifetime memories that haunted her, he said.

Sidewalk Runway

The dead art lives again

More than 20 skinned human beings are arranged around the room in various poses. One is kicking a soccer ball. Another one is in the "Thinker" position, kneeling with its chin on its fist. Yet another has one hand on its hip and his other hand in the "thumbs-up" position. Their muscles and bones are all completely visible. They stare eerily at museum patrons. Shocked? Good. This must have been the aim of Gunther von Hagens, the man who invented "plastination," a revolutionary new method of preserving the human body. He has created a traveling exhibit of cadavers, called "BODIES...The Exhibition," to display his techniques and to educate the public about the art of the human body. The exhibit has been to the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Tampa Bay, Fla., the Atlanta Civic Center, the South Street Seaport in New York and is currently in London. Each show has brought record crowds -- and controversy.

The birth of funk, soul, cool

In the world of jazz there are the major players -- cats like Miles, Coltrane, Monk, Mingus, Bird, Gillespie -- then there are the musicians who, although were equally as talented and important to the music, did not gain the same colossal level of popularity as the bigger names. Trumpet legend and Indianapolis native Freddie Hubbard is one of these artists. While Hubbard had a strong early career as a backup player for bebop artists like Art Blakey and Sonny Rollins some of his most brilliant and often overlooked recordings came during the 1970s funk/fusion exploration era with collaborations with pianist Herbie Hancock, guitarist George Benson and bassist Ron Carter.

Erasure welcomes you to suck street

Maybe one of the downsides to Erasure having perfected the synth-pop song in the late 1980s is that they can't manage to break out of their formula. Although 1994's I Say, I Say, I Say and 1995's self-titled release showed a more mature group, little progress has been seen since then. Last year's Nightbird was a disappointing, tired retread, and Union Street is even more so in that it's an acoustic album of old B-sides and album tracks. I wouldn't have complained if they had made interesting unplugged versions of some of their exciting lesser-known songs, but instead they chose songs that were by and large downbeat (or even acoustic) to begin with. Why do we need an acoustic version of "Piano Song" when the original is nothing but a piano?

Better when called "24"

While watching "The Sentinel," you will feel like you have already seen this film before. At first I thought this feeling was because previews for "Sentinel" made it look like a "24" rip off. So I went into the theater figuring that, on the up side, if it was like "24," then surely "Sentinel" would be entertainingly suspenseful and Keifer Southerland would be at his "Jack Bauer" best.

IU Memorabilia

You might have been one of those people who own enough IU memorabilia to fill a U-Haul truck. Outfits made up of T-shirts with that familiar "Indiana" across the front (in that classic, collegiate block-style font), IU baseball caps, complete with "Indiana University" folders stuffed with IU stationary in hand. When you first came to college your parents and grandparents might have bought those "IU Mom" buttons, or some other article of clothing to proudly display the fact that they were so proud of you, that they had to go out and get an "IU Grandpa" hoodie. Some of you might have even hopped on the bandwagon before you came to college. Maybe your parents decked you out in a cream-and-crimson windbreaker, or maybe you thought you were the hippest kid in your middle school language arts class in middle school because you had the "emergency key" to your house dangling on the end of an IU lanyard.

Now presenting, burlesque Dench

It is very rare that a movie can make you both laugh and cry, but "Mrs. Henderson Presents" does just that. And, very rarely do you see a film with humor and nudity that stays within a tasteful class range and never crosses the line to sleezy. Set in London, circa 1937, Laura Henderson (played by Dame Judi Dench) is an upper-class widow who is left with a large amount of money when her husband passes away. Alone and bored, Mrs. Henderson decides to purchase a theatre, which she names The Windmill. With the help of her hired manager, Vivian Vann Damm (Bob Hoskins), it is soon in business, yet the venture seems to be a failure not too long after its conception.

SENIOR Salute

For many members of IU's class of 2006, the past four years have been the party of a lifetime. Coming to Bloomington with your parents and a car full of "dorm room essentials" might seem like only yesterday. Soon you'll be getting ready to walk into Assembly Hall to receive your diploma. Most seniors will attest to the fact that their time at IU went by way too quickly, and now they're ready to move on to the next chapters of their lives. They're ready to get jobs, go to graduate school or -- for some -- move back home into their parents' basement, Xbox and Doritos in hand.

A South African cinematic triumph

The Afrikaan word "tsotsi" roughly translates to "thug." On the surface, the film "Tsotsi" is about the life of a young street-raised gangster named Tsotsi, in the same vein as 2001's "City of God." However, below its skin the film is more a stark look at redemption and one man's desire to break away from the harsh innate life of the slums is South Africa. "Tsotsi" chronicles a group of South African hoods as they reap mayhem throughout their run down shantytowns and the upper class, bourgeois sectors of the city of Johannesburg. Tsotsi (newcomer Presely Chweneyagae in a daunting and brilliant debut) is the leader of the small gang of thugs who spend their days robbing business men on the subway, getting into bar fights and have little or no concern for the social struggles around them.

An enjoyable evening with friends

The crazy thing about Nicole Holofcener's "Friends With Money" is that I didn't notice there wasn't a plot until I'd reached the end, but by then I had enjoyed the movie enough that it didn't really matter. Ostensibly, "Friends With Money," bestowed the honor of opening film of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, is a study of women and their relationships to each other and to their husbands. In that regard, it doesn't beat too far off the path of Holofcener's previous films -- 1996's "Walking And Talking" and 2001's "Lovely & Amazing," also studies of women and their relationships -- but hey, when something works for you, keep it working.

All About ME:

Eamonn Brennan, a junior studying journalism, was recently selected to become the summer editor in chief at the Indiana Daily Student. "I have gotten a chance to lead the sports desk these past few months and I realized that I want to take a higher leadership role at the paper." So why does he feel he's ready to take on such an important position at the IDS this summer? "It's the general idea that I have a major role in shaping the way people can hear and learn about their world." Overall, Brennan is looking forward to spending time in Bloomington this summer.

What they say is true

With warm weather each spring comes a time for change and a chance to move on. It happened to me in preschool, the sixth grade, ninth grade, senior year of high school and it's happening again in less than two weeks. Before I went away to college, everyone I talked to told me to enjoy my four years of college because they would go by too fast. I remember thinking to myself, "yeah, yeah, I'll enjoy it." That might be the one piece of advice I wish I would have listened to -- not to say I haven't enjoyed my time in college. The past four years seem like one big blur, but they might be one of the best blurs of my life. College was nothing like I thought it was going to be and was everything it should have been. It's funny how a mere four years can change you.

O'Riley gets lost in Elliott Smith's world

Christopher O'Riley is best known for his classical piano renditions of songs by the British alternative-art rock band Radiohead, which he first began playing during set breaks of "From the Top," a National Public Radio program which he hosts. The popularity of the songs led to the release of two albums; True Love Waits: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead and Hold Me To This: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead. Although many Radiohead fans praised his work, there have been some critics of O'Riley who claim he is only profiting from the use of the band's name. However, anyone who is remotely knowledgeable in the realm of music would be a fool to say that O'Riley is not an incredibly gifted pianist and meticulous in his arrangements.

Truckers lay down the blessing

The Drive-By Truckers might be the last true rock 'n' roll band. They still believe in the spirit and possibilities of a dying art, and do so without irony or excuses. A generation ago, they likely would have been huge rock stars, but in today's apathetic and splintered rock scene, they are just another great band that you'll never hear on the radio. A Blessing and a Curse, the band's seventh album, is essentially everything you'd come to expect from a DBT album, with its loud guitars, occasional twang and tales of the hard life.

A pocketfull of Italian new wave

"Fists in the Pocket" emerged during the 1960's New Wave era in Europe, which was heavily dominated by directors like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Although this film might not be as popular as many of the other titles released during that time period, it's still highly subversive, groundbreaking and a remarkable debut by Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio. The film examines the lives of what seems like a typical Catholic middle class family in the Italian countryside. This is a family that, despite its quarrels and lack of communication, appears relatively normal at the surface. Augusto, the oldest brother and patriarch, is the only character in the family with any stability, but he fails to maintain any order or control.

'Silent' night, unholy night

When nighttime comes and little Sharon Da Silva (Jodelle Ferland, soon to be seen in Terry Gilliam's "Tideland") lays her head down to sleep, there are times when her parents awaken in horror as she is sleepwalking outside and shouting out "Silent Hill." Concerned for her daughter's well-being, Rose (Radha Mitchell, "Finding Neverland") goes against her husband Christopher's (Sean Bean) wishes, taking young Sharon to Silent Hill, the mysterious place she mutters about. As they race up the mountain drive, Rose swerves to avoid hitting a girl in the road, banging her head and leaving her knocked out until daylight when her worst fear returns: Sharon is missing. What happened to the town of Silent Hill? It was built on top of a coal mine where fires never stopped burning, resulting in catastrophe.

The darker, gorier side of European backpacking

Two young American men (Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson) set out on a backpacking trip looking to hook up and trip out in the European countryside, only to find themselves held captive and tortured in a seedy, debaucherous youth hostel in Slovakia. Produced by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Eli Roth, "Hostel" is a warts-and-all gorefest whose Unrated DVD incarnation pulls even less punches in the torture department than the already blood-soaked theatrical cut.