Feb. 1-10 Make the trip to Bloomington for the Middle Eastern Arts Festival

A lot of excellent events if you are in Bloomington between February 1st and 10th:
Annual Middle Eastern Arts Festival

Contact: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program102 Goodbody, 3rd St, Bloomington, IN 47404, 812-855-5993, Melissa Henige at nelcmesp@indiana.edu

The Annual Middle Eastern Arts Festival Feb 1st-10th celebrates Middle Eastern art, culture, and influence. Visit the event website at www.indiana.edu/~nelcmesp/arts for descriptions, dates, locations, etc. This year, theFestival will feature Middle Eastern art and ethnomusicology, art demonstrations, films, food tasting, folkdance, poetry, lectures, and much more. The sponsored events are free and open to the public.









Windfall Dancers, and Iraqi music group Salaam

When: Feb. 2nd, 3rd, 9th, and 10th at 8:00pm

Where: John Waldron Arts Center,122 S. Walnut St. http://www.artlives.org/

Windfall Dancers use modern dance as a narrative to tell the age-old stories of Arabian Nights. The Iraqi music group, Salaam, performs with them. This show will be a magical event suitable for the entire family. Non-sponsored NELC event, so tickets cost: $10, $8 students and seniors. Tickets available by calling 812-334-0506, at 1101 N. Dunn St, or online at http://www.bloomingtonarts.info/


*********************************************************************************** Middle Eastern Book Exhibit

When: Feb 1st-18th 9AM-5PM
Where: IU-Fine Arts Library, 2nd floor 1133 E. 7th St,

A selection of Fine Arts Library books and facsimile editions of manuscripts on Middle Eastern arts and culture will be exhibited. Accompanying this exhibition will be a selection of artists' books by Buzz Spector, Chair, Department of Art, Cornell University. Contact B. J. Kish Irvine, Fine Arts Librarian for more information 812-855-5445. Free


************************************************************************************ Persian Film: "The Twilight"

When: Thursday Feb 1st, 7-9pm
Where: Swain East 140, IUB campus

"The Twilight", directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, presents an intense and stark portrait of life among the rural underclass and meditates on the meaning of freedom.

In 1998, petty criminal, Reza, who has spent half his life in prison in a northwestern part of Iran marries a woman prisoner. They have a child together and, after a while, the woman is pardoned. Several months later the man is also released. The three of them begin a new life outside the prison, but a harsh society is waiting for them. The director, Mohammad Rasoulof, was born in Shiraz in 1973. He has made numerous short films and has worked as assistant director on feature films. "Twilight" is his first feature film. It is based on true events and the characters play themselves.

Contact: plosensk@indiana.edu; sdaneshg@indiana.edu

************************************************************************************ Children's Spectacular

When: Sunday Feb 4th, 2-3pm
Where: Monroe Public County Library, 303 E. Kirkwood Ave, Library Auditorium

Children's comic program with folkdance, swordsman, and tales from the Middle East. The program has been designed specifically for children, though enjoyable for any age! Performers Katya Faris and Mohamed Shahin will dazzle with their elaborate colorful costumes, dance, and music! Free. For more information call 812-349-3100 or http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/



*********************************************************************************** Middle Eastern Cuisine Sunday

When: Sunday Feb 4th, 7pm
Where: Café Ragazzi, 212 S. Rogers Bloomington

Middle Eastern Cuisine Sunday fills up quickly so please call for reservations for International Cuisine Sunday. Graduate student, Ahmad Almallah, and Café Ragazzi owner, Tamyra Dippolito, will present the cuisine and history of Palestine. Call for reservations: 812-323-9005.

************************************************************************************ Internationally known contemporary artist Najjar Abdul Musawwir

When: Monday February 5, 7:00pm
Where: Foster International Center

Najjar Abdul-Musawwir is an award-winning painter, community-arts organizer, educator and consultant. Signatures of Musawwir’s paintings are harmonious visions of contrasting colors, flowing liquidation, and symbolic transparency. He believes the liquidation of the under painting gives balance to the glazing brush strokes in his works. Contact Andrew Gipe

************************************************************************************ Middle East Art related lectures

When: Friday Feb. 9th, 2:30-5:30pm
Where: Lilly Library, 1200 E. 7th St.

Distinguished professors and graduate students of IU-Bloomington--Christiane Gruber, Yasmine Gencer, and Deborah Justice--will provide talks on Middle Eastern art and architecture. Light refreshments will be provided. Free: 812-855-2452, http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/

************************************************************************************ Ethnomusicology Career Workshop

When: Feb. 9th, 7-9pm
Where: Mather's Museum of World Cultures, 416 N. Indiana. St

Irene Markoff, who is well-versed in Sufi music, having written her PhD dissertation on musical theory, performance and the professional baglama(folk lute),and specialist of Turkey. She will give a workshop on "The Challenges of Teaching Turkish Music in an Ensemble/Lecture Setting," as well as strategies and reflections on an ethnomusicology career. Light refreshments provided. Free, call 812-855-6873 for more information. Sponsored by the American Turkish Society.

************************************************************************************ Ethnomusicology Presentation and Performance by Irene Markoff

When: Saturday Feb 10th, 4-6pm
Where: IMU, Faculty Room of the University Club

Irene Markoff will give a talk on Sufi Music and Ritual in Turkey. The presentation will include a discussion on poetry, rituals, music, and the concepts of sama and zikr. Performance (baglama and voice) will be integrated into the presentation. Light refreshments provided. Sponsored by the American Turkish Society. For more on this event, see

January 12-14: Be the first kid on your block to see David Hoppe's "After Paul McCartney"

David Hoppe's long-anticipated play "After Paul McCartney" opens at Butler University

When: Friday through Sunday, January 12, 13, 14
Where: Butler Theatre 328 in Lilly Hall

Most of us know David Hoppe from his excellent columns in NUVO. More than any other local writer, David tackles the really big issues of the day: local and national government performance (and malfeasance), public art and civic responsibility. More than some of his more self-revelatory NUVO colleagues, readers don't often see the intimate or personal side of Hoppe in his columns. His play "After Paul McCartney" could change that. It's a very touching picture of male friendship, often a tough subject for guys to handle. David has been showing working versions of the play, they have all been very well received. "After Paul McCartney" is a work with several incarnations, including an adaptation into a cycle of poems. You can read a section of a prose version here. I am looking forward to seeing the play. (The engagement of backstage star Rob Koharchik is a sign that it will be splendidly staged.) Tickets are $10 at the door.

If you are intrigued by local theatre, you should attend the talk with veteran actor Robert Neal March 7.

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February 1: Join Alice Kaplan in exploring writers' responsibilities and accountability

Award-winning author Alice Kaplan will discuss writers and responsibility, engagement and justice.

When: Thursday February 1, 7:30 PM
Where: Butler University, Jordan Hall 304

Alice Kaplan comes to Butler University as part of the Vivian S. Delbrook Writers Studio. Kaplan is a professor of romance studies, literature and history at Duke University. Her books include The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach, which won The Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History. Most Americans don't know about Robert Brasillach, a writer who was executed after World War II for collaborating with the fascists. Executed for intellectual rather than political crimes, for not for what he did but for what he wrote. Kaplan calls him "the James Dean of French Fascism," although presumably not because of the way he looked.

What makes Kaplan's work on Brasillach as well as other aspects of French literary fascism is not (only) that her father was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II. It is that her time at Yale coincided with the height of fashionability of Yale French professor Paul de Man. After de Man's death in 1983, it was revealed that he had himself written extensively for anti-semitic and pro-fascist newspapers in Belgium during the war.

This should be a very interesting talk. For interviews with Prof. Kaplan, go here and here. The Collaborator is a nicely written piece of history, you can read a chapter here. Here's an article that places Prof. Kaplan's work in a bigger context.

If this event sounds interesting, you should check out some other events that are curiously connected. Kaplan could help more sense of Europe, the emerging superpower in John McCormick's vision of the world (January 30). She also could help illuminate the Great Decisions groups' questions of war crimes and international justice to be discussed February 28 and March 13.

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February 5: Join a reading by poets María Meléndez and Francisco Aragón

María Meléndez and Francisco Aragón, two promising young poets, read and talk as part of Butler University's Visiting Writers Series

When: Monday February 5 7:30 PM
Where: Butler University Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

María Meléndez has published several volumes of poetry, including How Long She'll Last in This World.

Francisco Aragón teaches and directs Letras Latinas, the literary unit at the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His most recent book of poems is "Puerta del Sol."

Their appearance is co-sponsored by the Consulate of Mexico and the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library.

If this event sounds interesting, you should check out the poetry reading by Martín Espada April 27. Compare the poetry inspired in part by being Hispanic in the US with the Affrilachian Poets' poetry inspired by being African American in Appalachia.

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February 8: Get charged by a reading by The Affrilachian Poets

IUPUI's 2006-2007 Rufus and Louise Reiberg Reading Series present the Affrilachian Poets, poets addressing their rural roots, racism, and identity

When: Thursday February 8, 7:30 PM
Where: IUPUI University Library, Lilly Auditorium

The Affrilachian Poets are an electrifying ensemble of African-American writers who challenge notions of an all-white Appalachian culture while drawing on traditions of the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and experiences of the African diaspora. They celebrate their heritage and rural roots while addressing themes of racism and Black identity. This reading will feature performances by Ricardo Nazario Colon, Kelly Norman Ellis, Asha French, Parneshia Jones, Frank X. Walker, and Mitchell Douglas, a new assistant professor in creative writing at IUPUI. The Affrilachian Poets were the subject of the 2001 PBS documentary Coal Black Voices.

Presented by IUPUI School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI and University Library

If this event sounds interesting, you should check out some other examples of the cultural cross-fertilization of Africans in the Americas. You can groove to Sancocho's explorations of African music in Latin America February 9 at IMA, or hear about the centuries of complex relations between Indigenous and African Americans at the Eiteljorg February 24.

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February 14: Sweeten your V-Day with Chinese and Western art and music at UIndy

Plaisir d'Amour: The greatest living traditional Chinese artist, Master Au Ho-nien, joins singers from Shanghai and Indianapolis Opera for a very special Valentine's Day

When: Wednesday February 14 7:30 PM
Where: University of Indianapolis, Christal deHaan Fine Arts Center

IndyBuzz has never been accused of sentimental romanticism, but this event is worth making a Valentine's Day recommendation. One of the city's underappreciated treasures is the Museum of Master Au Ho-nien at the University of Indianapolis. When the Master is in town, it is definitely worth clearing one's schedule. Watching Master Au create a paiting with such an economy of brushstrokes is a remarkable experience.

The theme of the UIndy Valentine's Day Concert, "Plaisir d'Amour," will be "The Butterfly Lovers," a love story that is to Chinese culture what Romeo and Juliet is to Western. Here's what the disembodied people at Wikipedia have to say:

A young woman named Zhu Yingtai from Shangyu, Zhejiang, disguised herself as a man travelling to Hangzhou to study. During her journey, she met and joined Liang Shanbo, a companion schoolmate from Kuaiji (會稽) in the same province.

They studied together for three years, during which their relationship strengthened. When the two parted, Zhu offered to arrange for Liang to marry her 16 years old fictitious sister. When Liang travelled to Zhu's home, he discovered her true gender. Although they were devoted and passionate about each other at that point, Zhu was already engaged with Ma Wencai (馬文才), a man her parents had arranged for her to be married to. Depressed, Liang died in office as a county magistrate. On the day Zhu was to be married to Ma, whirlwinds prevented the wedding procession from escorting Zhu beyond Liang's tomb. Zhu left the procession to pay her respects for Liang. Liang's tomb split apart, and Zhu dived into it to join him. A pair of butterflies emerged from the tomb and flew away.

You can see a pretty telling of the story here. This story has inspired a wide range of great music and art ... we'll have a chance to hear and see some of it. On February 14th, Liang Zhu's "Butterfly Lovers" opera will be performed as a prelude. (Constant Lambert's "Eight Poems of Li Po" will be performed. So too will be love songs from Chinese and Western opera, sung by singers from Indianapolis Opera, Shanghai Normal University, and the University of Indianapolis music faculty.

If this event sounds interesting, you should check out Indianapolis Opera's free "Music in Art" performance at IMA February 22.

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Visit IndyBuzz's sister site "Views-PRI" for an essay that connects many of the events related to Asian economy and culture: "China, Japan, Indiana: Eastern and Midwestern Cultures Mingle."

February 24: Experience performance art by María Magdalena Campos-Pons

A World Premiere Performance of María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Regalos/Gifts

When: February 24 3:00 PM
Where: Indianapolis Museum of Art Pulliam Great Hall

March 7: Meet the Actor Robert Neal

Robert Neal, local actor, appears as part of IUPUI's "Meet the Artist" Series

When: Wednesday March 7, 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Cavanaugh Hall 508
Robert Neal has been working in the professional theatre for 20 years. Some of the theatres he has worked with include the Indiana Repertory Theatre, Syracuse Stage, The Blackstone Theatre and Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, both in Chicago, American Players'Theatre in Wisconsin, the Oklahoma, Kentucky, and former Indianapolis Shakespeare Festivals, Shadowape Theatre Company, The Brown County Playhouse, The Phoenix Theatre, and Pennsylvania Center Stage to name a few. He has also performedthroughout Germany in a two-person show, All About Shakespeare, which he co-wrote and directed as well as playing Prospero in The Tempest at the English-American Theatre Festival of Dusseldorf, Germany. From 1996 to 1999, Robert was the Artistic Director and cofounder of the Indiana Shakespeare Company in Bloomington, Indiana.
Sponsored by The Theatre and Performance Certificate Program, The Department of Communication Studies, and The School of Liberal Arts.

March 23: Learn what it was like “Editing Ray Bradbury”

March 23
“Editing Ray Bradbury”
Jonathan Eller, Professor of English, IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI
Associate Director, Institute for American Thought
Resident Scholar, Center for Ray Bradbury Studies

IUPUI Cavanaugh Hall 5084:30 pmContact: Annette Hill, 317-278-1839

“What does an author do when publishers do more than impose house styling on a novel? Not much, even if the author is Ray Bradbury. His 1972 novel The Halloween Tree was written for children of all ages, but his editors made nearly 2,000 changes to the text as they shaped it into a novel for pre-teens. Professor Eller will discuss the challenges he faced in editing, annotating and publishing the first restored edition of this seasonal classic.”

If this event sounds interesting, you should check out Jane Hirschfeld on the challenges of translating in a language she knows not on March 27.

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March 27: Visit with Visiting Writer Jane Hirshfield

March 27
Visiting Writer Jane Hirshfield
7:30PM - 10:30PMButler University Robertson Johnson Room

Jane Hirshfield was born in New York City in 1953. After receiving her B.A. from Princeton University in their first graduating class to include women, she went on to study at the San Francisco Zen Center. Her books of poetry include After (HarperCollins, 2006); Given Sugar, Given Salt (2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Lives of the Heart (1997), The October Palace (1994), Of Gravity & Angels (1988), and Alaya (1982).
She is the author of Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (1997) and has also edited and translated The Ink Dark Moon: Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan (1990) with Mariko Aratani and Women in Praise of the Sacred: Forty-Three Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (1994).

About her work, the poet Rosanna Warren has said: "Hirshfield has elaborated a sensuously philosophical art that imposes a pause in our fast-forward habits of mind. Her poems appear simple, and are not. Her language, in its cleanliness and transparency, poses riddles of a quietly metaphysical nature.... Clause by clause, image by image, in language at once mysterious and commonplace, Hirshfield's poems clear a space for reflection and change. They invite ethical awareness, and establish a delicate balance."

Her honors include The Poetry Center Book Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, Columbia University's Translation Center Award, the Commonwealth Club of California Poetry Medal, and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. In 2004, Hirshfield was awarded the 70th Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement by The Academy of American Poets. In addition to her work as a freelance writer and translator, Hirshfield has taught at UC Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and been Elliston Visiting Poet at the University of Cincinnati.

If this event sounds interesting, you should check out another example of poetry crossing borders at the special performance of painting, music, and poetry with Master Au and Indianapolis Opera Valentine's Day.

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Visit IndyBuzz's sister site "Views-PRI" for an essay that connects many of the events related to Asian economy and culture: "China, Japan, Indiana: Eastern and Midwestern Cultures Mingle."

April 27: Find out why they compare Martín Espada to Pablo Neruda

Martín Espada provides the keynote event of the Etheridge Knight Poetry Festival, of the Rufus and Louise Reiberg Reading Series

When: Friday April 27 7:30 PM
Where: Indiana Historical Society Auditorium

Called “the Pablo Neruda of North American authors,” poet Martín Espada draws inspiration from his Puerto Rican heritage and his work experiences ranging from bouncer to tenant lawyer. His eighth collection of poems, The Republic of Poetry, is forthcoming from Norton in fall 2006. Of this new book, Samuel Hazo writes: “Espada unites in these poems the fierce allegiances of Latin American poetry to freedom . . . with the democratic tradition of Whitman, and the result is poetry of fire and passionate intelligence.” His last book, Alabanza: New and Selected Poems, 1982-2002 (Norton, 2003), received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was named an American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. An earlier collection, Imagine the Angels of Bread (Norton, 1996), won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s, The Nation, and Best American Poetry.

If this event sounds interesting, you should check out the poetry reading by poets María Meléndez and Francisco Aragón February 5.

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April 27: Don't miss this chance to see Kurt Vonnegut!

April 27
Kurt Vonnegut
Butler University Spring Visiting Writers Series
Clowes Memorial Hall
7:00 p.m.
Indianapolis native Vonnegut delivers the 30th Annual Marian McFadden Memorial Lecture, sponsored by The Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Foundation and The Patricia Cornwell Foundation.
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May 10: Discuss Cuban dissident Zoe Valdes's "Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada"

IMA Salon discussion of Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada by Zoe Valdes

When: Thursday May 10 6:30-8:00 pm
Where: Indianapolis Museum of Art, Adult Lecture A

IMA's book discussion program highlights literary works that complement exhibitions. Valdes’ novel describes her series of relationships with allegorical characters, representative of a “wry, if not humorous, indictment of Castro’s Cuba,” writes a critic from the Library Journal. In Valdes’ first novel, she takes us from Yocandra’s revolutionary beginnings to her marriage to an abusive diplomat and finally to her position as a literary editor. Through this journey the reader witnesses the effects of a political regime that has forced her parents and closest friends into exile. As an explorer of the hopeful energies of women in Cuba, Valdes was identified by María Magdalena Campos-Pons as an author who has informed her own art work.

Related exhibition: María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Everything is Separated by Water in Special Exhibitions Gallery of the Indianapolis Museum of Art
Free

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