Things to Do, April 18-25

taiko drum team
Provided
Japanese drumming group Yamatai gives its annual Pulse concert April 19 in Bailey Hall.

Drum sensation

Cornell’s Japanese drumming group, Yamatai, holds its annual concert, Pulse, April 19 at 7 p.m. in Bailey Hall, featuring taiko drumming and the Phenomenon Step Team.

Advance tickets are sold out; a limited number of tickets will be available at the door for $15 each, with a wait list signup beginning when doors open at 6 p.m.

Pulse is Yamatai’s only concert on campus and has sold out for the past three years. The student group undergoes rigorous training for its energetic and expressive performances, while exploring the cultural origins, musical possibilities and contemporary adaptations of the traditional art of taiko. Information: http://yamatai-taiko.com

Cloud art

Berndnaut Smilde will give an artist’s talk on his creative practice and a project he is creating on campus, April 21 at 5:15 p.m. in Abby and Howard Milstein Auditorium. A reception at 4:30 p.m. in the L.P. Kwee Studios in Milstein Hall precedes his talk. Free and open to the public.

 During Smilde’s talk, “Nimbus, Milstein Hall 2014,” large-scale prints documenting his ephemeral work in Milstein Hall will be unveiled.

The Amsterdam-based artist creates indoor clouds that exist only for a brief moment in time, fragile creations that are preserved only in photographs or an image in the memory of those who see his process first hand.

Smilde’s talk is co-sponsored by the College of Architecture, Art and Planning and the Cornell Council for the Arts’ 2014 Biennial, “Intimate Cosmologies: The Aesthetics of Scale in an Age of Nanotechnology.”

Faith and war

Philip Jenkins will give the annual Frederic C. Wood Lecture, “Reshaping Faith: How the First World War Transformed Christianity, Judaism and Islam,” April 23 at 4:45 p.m. in Sage Chapel. Free and open to the public.

Jenkins will discuss how religion created and prolonged WWI, and how religious belief and language, coupled with mass media and patriotic and militaristic language, were central to the war and had an impact on major faiths in ways that still reverberate today.

His new book is “The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade” (HarperCollins). Jenkins is the Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, co-director of Baylor’s Program on Historical Studies of Religion and the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University. His scholarship focuses on history, religious studies, criminal justice and American studies.

Presented by Cornell United Religious Work, the annual Frederic C. Wood lecture was established in 1984 by former Cornell Trustee Frederic ’24 and Emma Wood to “bring scholars dedicated to innovative religious thought” to campus.

Springtime in Paris

Cornell Cinema presents “Le Joli Mai (The Lovely Month of May),” a portrait of Paris, April 23 at 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre.

After being embroiled in wars for 23 years, May 1962 was the first springtime of peace in Paris. Chris Marker (“La Jetée”) and Pierre Lhomme’s 1963 film showcases Parisians rediscovering their city in an honest and compelling way. The filmmakers interviewed random citizens on the street, with awareness of the political turmoil and social unrest permeating the city as they examine how global themes relate to individuals. The restored film premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival last year.

Gypsy jazz

The Roby Lakatos Ensemble brings the 2013-14 Cornell Concert Series to a close with a performance April 24 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall.

Known as “the Devil’s fiddler” and “King of Gypsy Jazz,” Lakatos gives audiences a musical thrill ride, mixing the fiery music of his Hungarian roots with classical technique, played with versatility and virtuosity.

Tickets are $25, $32 and $35 for the general public, $17 for students, available at www.baileytickets.com.

The concert series also has announced its 2014-15 season, with nine events beginning Sept. 27 with Dawn Upshaw and Gil Kalish. Information: www.cornellconcertseries.com

Development ideas

How have ideas on development changed since WWII? The certainties of the postwar period are no longer with us, and there are gaps between public policy goals and what is achieved by practice.

Ravi Kanbur, T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs at Cornell, will discuss his new book, “International Development: Ideas, Experience, and Prospects” (Oxford University Press), April 23, 4 p.m., 160 Mann Library. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

The book examines how the real-life experiences of different countries and organizations have been inspired by, and contributed to, the ideas behind development. By bridging academic analysis and practical policymaking in developing economies, people and organizations can achieve more successful outcomes.

Kanbur is a professor of economics and international professor of applied economics and management. He has served at the World Bank as resident representative in Ghana, chief economist of the African region and director of the World Development Report. He has taught at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Essex, Warwick, Princeton and Columbia.

 ‘Shadow Man’

Tennis great Arthur Ashe, the only black man to win the singles title at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Australian Open and a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, is scholar Ray Arsenault’s subject for the 2014 Harold Seymour Lecture in Sports History, April 24, 6 p.m. in 165 Statler Hall.

His talk, “Shadow Man: The Life and Times of Arthur Ashe,” is free and open to the public, and sponsored by George Kirsch ’67 and the Department of History.

Arsenault is a longtime community activist and public historian, with numerous civil rights, social justice and professional honors. His books include “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice” (2006), the basis of an award-winning PBS “American Experience” documentary; “The Wild Ass of the Ozarks: Jeff Davis and the Social Bases of Southern Politics”; and “The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America.” He is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History and the history and politics department chair at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, where he has taught since 1980.

‘Canterbury’ tale

“Far From Canterbury,” an original musical written and scored by Danny Bernstein ’14, will premiere April 24-26 in the Schwartz Center’s Class of ’56 Flexible Theatre. Presented by the Department of Performing and Media Arts.

There are four performances, at 7:30 p.m. nightly and a matinee on April 26. Tickets are $5 each, available at the Schwartz Center box office.

“Far From Canterbury” is a re-imagining of “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales.” The show is directed and choreographed by Stephen Low, a graduate student in performing and media arts.

A music major/theater minor, Bernstein is the Cornell Council for the Arts’ Undergraduate Artist of the Year for 2013-14, recognizing an outstanding student in the arts who has demonstrated talent and dedication with achievements in one or more artistic disciplines at Cornell.

The CCA award presentation is April 24 at 5 p.m. at the Schwartz Center, with Bernstein in conversation with professor of theater Bruce Levitt. The opening performance of “Far From Canterbury” follows the presentation.

Media Contact

Joe Schwartz