Things to Do, Jan. 23-30

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Margaret Bourke-White/Courtesy Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
The Johnson Museum has a new exhibition of the work of photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White '27. She took this self-portrait in the Sahara Desert during the North African Invasion of 1943.

Welcome back

Cornell Cinema offers free admission for all Cornell students Jan. 23 to the animated science-fiction tale “Big Hero 6” at 6:45 p.m. and David Fincher’s “Gone Girl” with Ben Affleck at 9 p.m.

“Big Hero 6” also screens Jan. 24 at 2 p.m., as part of the IthaKid Film Festival (tickets $5, $4 ages 12 and under).

Return from tour

Back on campus after performing across the northeast, the Cornell University Glee Club, under the direction of Robert Isaacs, presents its annual Return-from-Tour Concert Jan. 23 at 8 p.m. in the Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room. Admission is $15, $10 for students.

In honor of the university’s sesquicentennial, the concert by Cornell’s oldest student organization offers reflections on time – anniversary anthems, poetry about the passage of time, music using the contraction and expansion of time as a compositional device, even a piece about “doing time” on a chain gang. The program also features “Not One Word,” a piece commissioned by the Glee Club from composer Christopher Cerrone; an appearance by the Hangovers and a closing set of Cornell songs.

The Glee Club performed nine concerts on its 11-day northeast tour, including West Point Military Academy Jan. 6, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Jan. 7, and venues in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York City, Albany, Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.

Up all night

Some students will begin the semester by staying up all night this weekend at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts for the 24 Hour Playfest – writing, casting, rehearsing and performing original plays within 24 hours.

Students come together Jan. 23 at 7 p.m. for the announcement of the theme and “twist” of the Playfest for participants to create five brand-new short plays. They will choose on- and offstage roles and writers will submit their plays by 6 a.m. to directors, who will announce casting decisions at 7 a.m. Cast and crew members will start rehearsals, scrounge props and costumes, and make lighting and staging decisions.

The plays resulting from the process will be performed Jan. 24 at 7 p.m. in the Schwartz Center’s Black Box Theatre. Admission is free. The exercise gives students from across campus an introduction to the Department of Performing and Media Arts, to each other and to performance possibilities during their Cornell careers.

Actors and dancers from the Cornell community are invited to audition for upcoming productions Jan. 27 at 7 p.m.; email kk544@cornell.edu for information.

Music and dance

The Cornell Folk Song Society brings fiddler Lissa Schneckenburger and guitarist Bethany Waickman to campus Jan. 24 at 5 p.m. in the Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room. The concert will be followed by a dance with the O’Shanigans at 8 p.m., sponsored by the Cornell Contra Dance Club.

A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music dubbed a “world class fiddler” by Sing Out! Magazine, Schneckenburger explores the origins of New England traditional music, performing pre-20th-century American folk songs, northern fiddle tunes and contemporary original songs.

Tickets are $5 for Cornell students; all others $15 advance, $17 at the door; $3 rebate for CFSS members, senior citizens and teenagers. Children attend free. Advance tickets available at Ithaca Guitar Works, Autumn Leaves Used Books and Greenstar. Information: 607-351-1845.

Picture this

This spring, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art is featuring exhibitions showcasing the museum’s collections, highlighted by an artist’s talk with David Levinthal and work by a famed alumna photographer.

Levinthal, a photographer best known for posing toys and other props using depth of field and lighting for dramatic effect, will speak Feb. 19 in conjunction with the photography exhibition “Staged, Performed, Manipulated,” which includes his work.

“Margaret Bourke-White: From Cornell Student to Visionary Photojournalist” reflects Bourke-White ‘27’s journey in images, and a life’s work initially inspired by, in her words, “the beauty of Cornell and of its environs.”

Both exhibitions run from Jan. 24-June 7; museum admission is free.

Also on display: “‘This is no less curious’: Journeys through the Collection,” Jan. 24-April 12, examining hidden elements and unexpected connections among selected holdings at the museum, highlighting it as a site of exploration, teaching and research. “Cast and Present: Replicating Antiquity in the Museum and the Academy” opens Jan. 31.

The museum hosts an opening reception Feb. 5 at 5:30 p.m. to kick off three months of late-night Thursdays, when the entire museum will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. through April 30. Parking is free after 5 p.m. and on weekends at the museum’s metered spaces and in any Cornell parking garage.

Milestone for 'Glory'

Singer-songwriter Cosy Sheridan performs on the 1,500th live show of WVBR’s “Bound for Glory,”  Jan. 25, 8-11 p.m. in the Café at Anabel Taylor Hall. Admission is free and open to all ages.

Now in its 48th year and hosted by Phil Shapiro, M.A. ’69, since its first broadcast in 1967, “Bound for Glory” broadcasts Sunday evenings on WVBR-FM, 93.5 and 105.5, with three sets of live music at 8:30, 9:30 and 10:30 p.m.

The program’s winter-spring schedule also features Traonach, Feb. 1; Cliff Eberhardt, Feb. 8; and Vance Gilbert, Jim Gaudet and the Railroad Boys, Andy Revkin, Pat Wictor and Small Potatoes.

View from the islands

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Tiphanie Yanique

Caribbean fiction writer, poet and essayist Tiphanie Yanique will open the Spring 2015 Barbara and David Zalaznick Reading Series, Jan. 29 at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. Free and open to the public.

A native of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Yanique is author of the short story collection “How to Escape From a Leper Colony,” the novel “Land of Love and Drowning,” and “I Am the Virgin Islands,” a book for children, parents and teachers with picture collages by her husband, photographer Moses Djeli. One of BookPage’s “14 Women to Watch Out For in 2014,” her honors include the BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Fiction in 2011, a Pushcart Prize, the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Boston Review Fiction Prize and a Fulbright Scholarship.

The reading series, presented by the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English, also includes poet and essayist Dawn Lundy Martin, Feb. 19; English faculty members J. Robert Lennon and Valzhyna Mort, March 12; and poet and critic Stephen Yenser, April 23.

Media Contact

Joe Schwartz