Things to Do, Feb. 22-March 1
By Daniel Aloi
‘A People’ continues
Three performances remain for “A People,” a play featuring love stories, comic vignettes, family stories and personal experience of Jewish cultural history, at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
Showtimes are Friday, Feb. 22, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 23, at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Playwright Lauren Feldman ’01 will offer a “talkback” with audience members following the Saturday evening performance. The play is directed by Beth Milles, associate professor of acting and directing in the Department of Performing and Media Arts.
Tickets are $11 for students and seniors and $13 for the general public. For information or tickets, visit the Schwartz Center box office, 430 College Ave., open 12:30-4 p.m. weekdays; call 607-254-ARTS or see http://www.schwartztickets.com.
Panther in exile
The Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives sponsors a visit Feb. 25-27 by former Black Panther Charlotte O’Neal, with several events on campus open to the Cornell community.
O’Neal is an accomplished poet, musician and visual artist and a founding director of Tanzania’s United African Alliance Community Center, an organization promoting community development in rural Africa.
A welcome reception, Feb. 25, 3-5 p.m. at the Africana Studies and Research Center, features a 3:30 p.m. screening of “Mama C: Urban Warrior in the African Bush,” a documentary about O’Neal’s struggle to come to terms with being an African-American who has lived most of her life in exile in Africa.
O’Neal is the featured speaker at a Social Justice Roundtable Dinner Feb. 25 at 5 p.m. in 200 Computing and Communications Center (CCC), 235 Garden Ave. Her topic is “The Spirit of the Panther in Empowerment Through the Arts.” RSVP recommended but not required; email cdsjprogram.oadi@cornell.edu.
On Feb. 26, O’Neal speaks in the Tuesday Lunch Engagement Series, 11:30 a.m. at CCC (email oadi@cornell.edu). A Jazz Jam with Charlotte O’Neal and Friends is at 7:30 p.m. in the William Keeton House Common Room.
Information: pcc27@cornell.edu.
‘Words and Birds’
Lawrence Lipking, Ph.D. ’62, will examine the work of Michel Foucault and the words attributed to birds in poetry in “Les Mots et les Oiseaux, or Words and Birds: A Natural History of Poetics,” Feb. 26 at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.
As the 2012-13 M.H. Abrams Distinguished Visiting Professor, Lipking is teaching two English courses this semester: “What Galileo Saw: Imagining the Scientific Revolution” for undergraduates and “The Presence of Eighteenth-Century Poems” for graduate students.
An emeritus professor of humanities at Northwestern University, Lipking is a scholar of 18th-century literature, Romanticism and literary history and theory. He is the author of “The Ordering of the Arts in Eighteenth-Century England” (1970), “The Life of the Poet: Beginning and Ending Poetic Careers” (1981), “Abandoned Women and Poetic Tradition” (1988) and “Samuel Johnson: The Life of an Author”(1998). His current research project is a study of relationships between the arts and sciences in the early 17th century.
As a student at Cornell, Lipking studied with Abrams, the Class of 1916 Professor of English Literature Emeritus, and worked with him on “The Norton Anthology of English Literature.” He also participated in Cornell’s “M.H. Abrams at 100” celebration in July 2012.
Community dialogue
Slain civil rights worker Michael Schwerner ’61 and his connection to development sociology at Cornell is the topic of a Black History Month community dialogue and lunch Feb. 26, noon-1:30 p.m. in 109 Academic Surge A, 222 Tower Road.
Sponsored by the Development Sociology Undergraduate Majors’ Club, the discussion and lunch of South Asian cuisine are free. RSVPs by Feb. 22 are appreciated but not required; email ct259@cornell.edu. Information: http://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/.
Schwerner, who earned a Cornell sociology degree, was one of three young Congress of Racial Equality workers murdered by Ku Klux Klan members in June 1964 while helping with voter registration in Mississippi. The three are memorialized in a stained glass window in Sage Chapel, donated in 1991 by the Class of 1961.
Vietnam book talk
Professor of history Fredrik Logevall will discuss his book “Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam” Feb. 26 at 4:30 p.m. in Amit Bhatia ’01 Libe Café, Olin Library. Free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Logevall used declassified diplomatic archives in several nations in his research to trace the political, military and diplomatic paths of France and the United States over three decades of involvement in Vietnam.
Logevall is director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. His other books include “America's Cold War” (2009) and “Choosing War” (1999).
Information: http://news.library.cornell.edu/booktalks.
Strike history
The Kheel Center in Catherwood Library is hosting a rare screening of the 1951 film “With These Hands,” Feb. 27, 5-6:30 p.m. in 105 Ives Hall.
“With These Hands” re-enacts the New York City Cloakmakers’ Strike of 1910 and the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911, and traces the growth of labor and the garment industry in the first half of the 20th century.
Produced by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, the film starred Sam Levine and Arlene Francis and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. “With These Hands” saw limited theatrical release in 1951 and is being presented publicly here for the first time in almost 50 years.
An elegant gamble
Cornell Cinema’s ninth annual Elegant Winter Party, “A Night Worth Gambling On,” Saturday, March 2, at 7:30 p.m., will see Willard Straight Theatre redecorated as a betting parlor to create atmosphere for two films about con men.
Collage artist and animator Lewis Klahr’s “The Pettifogger,” about a year in the life of an American gambler and confidence man circa 1963, will be shown during a cocktail reception featuring jazz piano by A.J. Strauss from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. A new 40th anniversary print of “The Sting” (1973) screens at 9 p.m., starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and the late Harold Gould, M.A. ’48, Ph.D. ’53.
The party includes drawings for door prizes, a cash bar, hors d’oeuvres and desserts from Ithaca restaurants and caterers, and complimentary tastings of Meleau wines. A silent auction will feature movie memorabilia and specialty items and services. Proceeds from the evening will benefit Cornell Cinema.
Tickets are $50 each for the general public, $90 per pair; and $30 each for students, $50 per pair; available at http//CornellCinemaTickets.com. More information: http://cinema.cornell.edu.
Gospel festival
The 36th Festival of Black Gospel (FBG), March 1-3, will feature performances by guest artists Anita Wilson and Jonathan McReynolds, Cornell, Ithaca College and community choirs, plus an original musical.
March 1 events include an Opening Night Café, 7 p.m. in Appel Commons, with McReynolds, Amani Gospel Singers (Ithaca College), Chosen Generation Gospel Choir (Cornell), Janelle Boyd ’13 (Cornell) and J. Nichole.
A staged reading of “Broken Chains,” an original musical about the life of St. Peter, is March 1 at 9 p.m. in Risley Theatre, featuring slam poetry, gospel music, steel pan and West African drums. The production is presented by Cornell Artist-in-Residence Patrick Gray. Workshops and a vocal master class will be held March 2 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at Ithaca College. A Mass Choir rehearsal is at 2:30 p.m.
Grammy-nominated singer Anita Wilson will perform in the FBG 36th Anniversary Concert, March 2 at 7 p.m. at the State Theatre, Ithaca, with Baraka Kwa Wimbo Gospel Ensemble (Cornell), Darnell Moore & Co., the FBG Mass Choir and others. A closing service is March 3 at 4 p.m. at Calvary Baptist Church, 507 N. Albany St., Ithaca.
Founded in 1977 at Cornell, the festival promotes community cultural, spiritual and intellectual awareness through gospel music. Information and workshop registration: http://www.ithacafbg.com.
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