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Fri, Apr 01, 2005

April 1-3, 2005

GREAT PLAINS ART MUSEUM
LPS Visual Art Mentor Program Exhibit at Great Plains Art Museum

The Great Plains Art Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will host the Lincoln Public Schools Visual Arts Mentor Program annual Spring Art Exhibit beginning April 1. The exhibition will be presented through April 24 at the museum, 1155 Q St. The exhibit will feature both two- and three-dimensional works of art by 32 participants in the program. An artist reception will be April 1 from 5:30-7:30 pm. The exhibition, including the opening reception, is free and open to the public.

The purpose of the Visual Arts Mentor Program is to address the educational needs of a group of talented artists by establishing a mentor program for students with high ability in the visual arts in kindergarten through fifth grade.

Local artists are screened, interviewed, and hired as mentors for the program. Students are matched with mentors who have similar art interests. Students and mentors work for two hours per week and are also responsible for two hours per week of independent studio time. The work is done during school time to reinforce the belief that art is as important as learning. This is the third year that the Great Plains Art Museum has hosted the program. "We consider this exhibition to be a great way to reach out to young artists by giving them an opportunity to have their work on display in an art museum," said Stacey Walsh, museum registrar. "It is always fun to see what the kids in the program have created."

GREAT PLAINS ART MUSEUM

MARY RIEPMA ROSS MEDIA ARTS CENTER
Opening this week at the Ross: Moolaadé, The Assasination of Richard Nixon

UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center presents Moolaadé, the Grand Prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, and director Niels Mueller's debut feature film The Assasination of Richard Nixon, starring Sean Penn.

Extending the strong feminist consciousness that marked his previous triumph Faat Kin� (as well as such earlier classics as Black Girl and Ceddo), 81-year-old Ousmane Sembene directs Moolaadé as a rousing polemic directed against the stillcommon African practice of female circumcision. Though the subject matter might seem weighty, this buoyant film is anything but--Sembene places the action amid a colorful, vibrant tapestry of village life and expands the narrative well beyond the bounds of straightforward, socially conscious realism employing an imaginative array of emblematic metaphors, mythic overtones, and musical numbers.

In The Assasination of Richard Nixon, Sean Penn gives yet another remarkable performance as troubled soul Sam Bicke. As the Watergate scandal is breaking and President Nixon can be seen all over the television and newspapers, Bicke struggles to earn money as an office furniture salesman as he tries to win back his estranged wife, Marie (a brunette Naomi Watts). He has grand plans of starting a mobile tire store with his friend Bonny (Don Cheadle), but he is so blinded by truth and honesty that he stands in the way of his own potential success. His rage continues to build as he sees another man spending time with Marie and the kids until he cannot control it any longer and resolves to kill Nixon, whom he blames for all of society's ills. Based on true events, the film also deals with the racism and sexism that was rampant in the early-to-mid-1970s.

More information is available at the Ross website.

MRRMAC | MOOLAADÉ | THE ASSASINATION OF RICHARD NIXON

NEBRASKA CHAMPIONS CLUB, SAT 9:30AM
Ivy Day to Celebrate Student Service, Leadership

Students, faculty members and alumni will be honored at the annual University of Nebraska-Lincoln Ivy Day ceremonies beginning at 9:30 am April 2 in the Nebraska Champions Club, 707 Stadium Drive.

The event, co-sponsored by Mortar Board and the Innocents Society, will recognize the outstanding contribution of students selected to serve in the two organizations, as well as the achievements of current members and notable underclassmen and seniors.

Honorary memberships in the Innocents Society will be conferred on John Cook, head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers volleyball team, and Karen V. Lyons, associate director of the University Honors Program.

Honorary Mortar Board memberships will be presented to Dennis Leblanc, associate athletics director for academic programs and student services, and Annie Magnusson, assistant director of admissions for honors recruitment.

The keynote address will be given by Nebraska attorney general Jon Bruning. Ceremonies will conclude with the symbolic planting of the ivy. The Innocents Society inducts 13 new members each spring, with the selection based on leadership, scholarship and service to the university and greater community. The Innocents Society was founded in 1903 to promote the spirit of the university and is the chancellor's senior honorary. It is not affiliated with any national organization.

New members of Mortar Board are tapped into the Black Masque Chapter each spring by Mortar Boarders wearing black masks and robes. The 25 new members were selected on the basis of outstanding scholarship, leadership and service to the university and community. A full list (by hometown) of the 2005 inductees into the Innocents Society and the Black Masque Chapter of Mortar Board can be found here.

IVY DAY PRESS RELEASE

HOWELL THEATRE, 7:30PM
UNL's University Theatre to Produce The Voice Of The Prairie

UNL Theatre's University Theatre completes its 2004-2005 season with a play about the development of radio in the Midwest by John Olive. The Voice Of The Prairie performances are in Howell Theatre, first floor Temple Building at 12th & R Streets, April 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9 at 7:30 pm.� Tickets are $14 regular, $12 faculty/staff and senior citizen, and $10 student/youth.�Tickets are available at the Lied Center Ticket Office, 301 N. 12th Street, 472-4747 or 800-432-3231, 11:00 AM to 5:30 PM Monday through Friday and one hour prior to performance in the Howell Theatre lobby.

This John Olive story begins when radio is first heard across America and tells of a teenage orphan, his youthful adventures with a spirited blind girl and their bittersweet reunion later in life.� Radio and storytelling play an essential role in this vibrantly dramatic exploration of memory, fear, laughter and hope. The Voice Of The Prairie is a wonderful tribute to the art of theatrical storytelling with three actors portraying many colorful characters.

This production of The Voice Of The Prairie has been invited to the internationally acclaimed Podium Festival in Moscow, Russia in late April.� In early May, this production will travel across Nebraska. Director, Associate Professor Virginia Smith, who directed the October production of Medea for University Theatre, says, "The Voice Of The Prairie is a tribute to the energy and ingenuity of the American spirit; part con artist, part dreamer.� It's about rules and regulations losing, and dreamers and lovers winning.� It's about the magic of radio and the transcendent power of storytelling." Smith continued, "The Voice Of The Prairie is truly an actor's piece.� Two MFA graduate and one undergraduate actors play nearly a dozen characters bouncing back and forth in time from a free wheeling adventure in the 1890s to the 1920s and the first days of radio.�Think of Garrison Keillor spinning yarns on The Prairie Home Companion and then imagine gathering in the parlor with all your neighbors listening to the adventures of Davey Quinn and Frankie the Blind Girl."

The actors are Ja'nelle Taylor and Andrew Beck, both members of the MFA Professional Actor Training Program and undergraduate theatre major Jordan Warren. Scenic design is by graduate student Stori Lauritzen with costumes by graduate student Cate Wieck.� Graduate students Erik Vose and Mike Legate design lighting and sound, respectively.

UNL THEATRE ARTS

UNL CAMPUS, MARCH 31 - APRIL 2
UNL Hosting Whitman 150th Anniversary Event

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln will play host to an international event, the Leaves of Grass 150th Anniversary Conference, March 31 through April 2. The conference will draw upon the expertise of more than two dozen distinguished Walt Whitman and American literature experts, writers and musicians.

"The 150th anniversary conference is a major event in Whitman scholarship, bringing together the world's leading experts on the poet and helping to solidify Nebraska's role as a central location for Whitman studies," said Kenneth Price, Hillegass professor of American literature at UNL.

"Leaves of Grass is the founding book of American literary democracy," Price said. "Before Whitman, America was politically independent but culturally bound to British fashions and traditions."

Directors for the conference in addition to Price are Susan Belasco, professor of English at UNL, and Ed Folsom, Carver professor of English at the University of Iowa and the keynote speaker for the conference.

For detailed information about the conference, including registration and lodging information, biographical information on conference speakers and presenters and the full schedule of events, visit the conference web site. Students may attend scheduled events on a space-available basis.

LEAVES OF GRASS 150TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE

203 NATURAL RESOURCES HALL, EAST CAMPUS, 1:30PM
UNL School of Natural Resources Teaching Seminar - 'Historical Water Allocation Methods and Potential Gains from Trade'
Dr. Karina Schoengold

201 BRACE HALL, 1:30PM
Center for Materials Research and Analysis / NSF-MRSEC Seminar - 'Spin Polarized Transport in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions: The Effects Due to DOS and Barrier Shape'
John Q. Xiao, University of Delaware

327 KEIM HALL, 3PM
Agronomy/Horticulture Seminar - 'Soybean Rust: How Great is the Threat for Nebraska Soybean Producers?'
Loren Giesler, UNL

112 HAMILTON HALL, 3:30PM
Chemistry / Sigma Xi Colloquium - 'Separations and Fluorescence: Is There More of a Connection Than Simple Detection?'
Isiah Warner, Louisiana State University

BESSEY AUDITORIUM, 3:30PM
Geosciences - T. Mylan Stout Lecture Series - 'Large Lake Basins: The Water Beneath the Sands'
Warren Wood, Michigan State University

BAILEY LIBRARY, 228 ANDREWS, 3:30PM
Rehearsing New Roles: How College Students Develop as Writers -
Lee Ann Carroll, Pepperdine University