Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Aspen Film Fest


An Aspen Film Presentation.Movies at the Wheeler: LIVE AND BECOME.
Live and BecomeFrance/Israel, 2005, 140 min.
Radu Mihaileanu directs.Yael Abecassis, Roschdy Zem, Moshe Agazai, Mosche Abebe, Sirak M. Sabahat star.

Aspen Film and the Wheeler present this return screening of Aspen Filmfest 2006 Audience Award-winner Live and Become, an epic, emotional story of sacrifice and survival. Amidst the confusion of a refugee camp during the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s, a mother, desperate to save her young son, places him with a group of Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) bound for Israel as part of "Operation Moses." Warned to never reveal his true identity, the boy, now called Schlomo, grows up pretending to be both Jewish and an orphan in modern Israel. He adopts Judaism and Western values, but must also confront the cultural divides - black and white, secular and orthodox, war and peace - that compete for the soul of his country. Warmly embraced by his new family, Schlomo maintains his secret as he comes of age, but growing tension between his hidden truth and outward facade challenges his deepest fears and his never-forgotten desire to one day reunite with his mother. Featuring a succession of remarkable performances by actors portraying Schlomo as a child, adolescent, and young man, Live and Become is brave, complex, moving, and compassionate. It is both the story of one small boy and anyone who starts over, reborn in a new land

Trinitiy House Corporation

Trinity Housing Corporation
The Kaleidoscope Youth Program (KYP) is a six-week, all-volunteer-taught, laugh-a-minute summer program for kids at Island Grove Village Apartments (IGV) and the surrounding community. IGV is a HUD (Housing and Urban Development) low-income housing complex in Greeley’s impoverished, primarily Hispanic northeast side, and KYP is one of the few, free summer programs available which provides structured, supervised activities. The CCA sponsored “Visiting Artists Series” (VAS) artists quite literally brought a variety of folk artists and cultures to these kids in ways no MTV or X-Box ever can, by engaging, intriguing, and educating them through hands-on, participatory entertainment.

Over 100 kids from IGV, the City of Greeley Summer Recreation Program, and a nearby Habitat for Humanity community listened, sang, rhymed, drummed, chanted, danced, and created with Native Americans, a Cowboy Poet, and an Hispanic folk artist. They asked youthfully-honest questions and received direct answers, even when the questions definitely would be considered inappropriate in the MTV, X-Box, adult world. They touched and shared, dreamed aloud and bragged about their own family heritage. The “Visiting Artist Series” brought real people – people of heart and culture – into these kids' community and showed them in tangible and wonderfully intangible ways that their lives could extend beyond the walls of a low-income housing project and maybe even as far away as their own roots, their own culture, their own heritage.

George Antuna, a member of Teresa McNeill’s Morningstar Drum Group, chanted traditional songs with silly lyrics about Mickey and Minnie Mouse, low-riders, and getting sick in school, passing his homemade drums around and encouraging the kids to pound away. It was hot, over 100 degrees, and sweat ran down his face, even in the shade of the large tree where he sat cross-legged in a casual circle with the kids. He brought a friend with him, introducing him as "Tom," who, it turned out, grew up at Island Grove Village Apartments. George told of his own involvement in gangs, the trouble that landed him in prison, while Tom waved a burning sage bundle in the air. “I had to be put away, far away from my family, in prison” George said, “before I could face who I was and then who I wanted to be.”

At the end of his presentation, he moaned a long, sonorous prayer he said he wanted to offer up to all the boys and girls around him. When he finished, the girl sitting next to him said that it looked like he was crying. “I was,” George said, “for you, for all of you, so that you might learn today that you only need to look inside yourself, to your family, to your roots, to find out who you are, instead of drugs and gangs and trouble.” George and Tom received a lot of hugs as they made their way to their car. “He’s pretty cool,” the girl said as kids wandered back to the classroom. “It’s like, you know, he’s really kind of one of us, you know?"

The VAS turned out to be so much more enriching than the participants imagined it would be; wide-eyed kids finding beauty in simple art, the honesty and openness of the questions and the answers, the awakening of cultural pride in the young and old alike. Even after the last cowboy poem or beat of a handmade drum has faded, the wonder and the excitement of discovery will continue for years to come.Excerpted from Final Report Trinity Housing Corporation, by Thom Mahoney

Monday, April 9, 2007

2nd Annual Art and Science Exhibition April 10 & 11


All Colorado State University students, faculty and staff are invited to the 2nd Annual Art and Science Exhibition. The Exhibition celebrates the creative energy of both Colorado State Univeristy scientists and artists and the product of their endeavors.
The Exhibition will be held in the Lory Student Center North Ballroom April 10 and 11.
The Exhibition opening is 10 a.m. Tuesday, followed at 7 p.m. by a reception and the presentation of awards.
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Ties between scientific inquiry and artistic practice
This exhibition showcases the creative energies of students, faculty and staff at Colorado State University and exemplifies the common ties between scientific inquiry and artistic practice. This includes artists who use aspects of science for their artistic inspiration or utilize fundamental principals of science in the creation of their art.
It also includes scientists who utilize or generate art in the creation of scientific models and imagery used to illustrate their concepts, theories and discoveries. This exhibition acknowledges and celebrates the wide range of creative output found in the juxtaposition of these distinct yet undeniably related disciplines.
Jurors for the 2007 Art and Science Exhibition are Patrick Fahey, Chair of the Department of Art; Ann Gill, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts; and Dan Bush, Chair of the Department of Biology.
All are invited to attend.
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The Art and Science Exhibition is sponsored by both the College of Natural Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts.
For additional information, visit http://www.natsci.colostate.edu/artscience or contact exhibition organizer Hannah Shadis, at purlyzig@hotmail.