Ticket Sales Begin Soon for 11th Lied Season

Next year, Lied patrons won't have to burn the midnight oil at concerts' end: curtain time for most performances has moved up 30 minutes to 7:30 p.m. Curtain for Family Favorites and Sunday evening performances will remain at 7 p.m.

Season brochures will be available in mid June. Single ticket sales begin Aug. 14 for the Lied Center's 11th season. Nearly 40 events are on tap this season.

The Lied schedule includes (time is 7:30 p.m. in the Lied Center auditorium unless otherwise noted; all student tickets are half-price unless otherwise noted.):

• Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Sept. 22. Tickets are $24/$20/$16.
• Ravi & Anoushka Shankar, Sept. 27. Tickets are $42/$38/$34.
• Veriovka Ukrainian National Song and Dance Ensemble, Sept. 29. Tickets are $24/$20/$16.
• Buddy Big Mountain, Oct. 2, 7 p.m.; Oct. 3, 7 p.m. and Oct. 4, 7 p.m., Johnny Carson Theater. Tickets are $10.
• Joan Baez, (shown at right), Oct. 5. Tickets are $38/$34/$30.
• o Randall Scarlata, Oct. 12, Kimball Hall. Tickets are $24/$20.
• STREB, Oct. 14, Kimball Hall. Tickets are $34/$30/$26.
• Shaolin Warriors, Oct. 17. Tickets are $36/$32/$28.
• Celebration 100 - Kurt Weill: An American Journey, Oct. 20. Tickets are $32/$28/$24.
• Lyle Victor Albert / Scraping the Surface, Oct. 24 & 25, Johnny Carson Theater. Tickets are $25.
• The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra with Garrick Ohlsson, Nov. 2. Tickets are $42/$38/$34.
• Capitol Steps, Nov. 3. Tickets are $30/$26/$22.
• Anthony Zerbe / "It's All Done With Mirrors," Nov. 5, 7 p.m., Kimball Hall. Tickets are $30/$26.
• Gordon Lightfoot, Nov. 9. Tickets are $38/$34/$30.
• A Christmas Carol, Dec. 7, 8, 9, 7:30 p.m.; Dec. 9 & 10, 2 p.m. Tickets are $28/$24/$20.
• The Edlos-The Bad Boys of A Cappella (Holiday concert), Dec. 20, 7 p.m. Tickets are $10.
• Trinity Irish Dance Company, Jan. 19. Tickets are $26/$22/$18.
• Ragtime, Jan. 23, 24, 25, 26 & 27, 7:30 p.m.; Jan. 24, 27 & 28, 2 p.m. Tickets are $55/$50/$39, students, $50/$45/$34. Matinees, $55/$50/$39, students, $50/$45/$19.50.
• The Chieftains, Feb. 3. Tickets are $36/$32/$28.
• Montana Repertory Theatre / The Diary of Anne Frank, Feb. 5. Tickets are $24/$20/$16.
• Tomás Kubínek, (shown below), Feb. 9, 7 p.m. Tickets are $10.
• Russian National Orchestra - Vladimir Spivakov, Feb. 10. Tickets are $44/$40/$36.
• VIDA, Feb. 13, Johnny Carson Theater. Tickets are $22.
• Robert & Rebecca Bluestone / Woven Harmony, Feb. 15, Johnny Carson Theater. Tickets are $25.
• Petersburg State Ice Ballet/Cinderella, Feb. 16 & 17, 7:30 p.m.; Feb. 17, 2 p.m. Tickets are $36/$32/$28.
• KODO Drummers, Feb. 21. Tickets, $34/$30/$26.
• AEROS, Feb. 25, 7 p.m. Tickets are $28/$24/$20.
• Richard Stoltzman with the UNL Jazz Ensemble, March 7. Tickets are $25.
• Richard Stoltzman with the UNL Wind Ensemble and Orchestra, March 8, Kimball Hall. Tickets are $25.
• Peter Pan, March 9 & 10, 7:30 p.m.; March 10 & 11, 2 p.m. Tickets are $36/$32/$28.
• Max Morath, March 21, Kimball Hall. Tickets are $28/$24.
• Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg with Sérgio and Odair Assad, Mar. 23. Tickets are $34/$30/$26.
• Jerry Gonzales & the Fort Apache Band - Norman Hedman's Tropique, March 24. Tickets: $24/$20.
• Royal Ballet of Flanders / The Three Musketeers, March 31. Tickets are $36/$32/$28.
• Godspell, April 6 & 7, 7:30 p.m., April 7 & 8, 2 p.m., April 8, 7 p.m. Tickets are $38/$34/$30.
• Troika Ranch, April 19, Johnny Carson Theater. Tickets are $22.
• Marvin Hamlisch, April 20. Tickets are $38/$34/$30.
• Nebraska Artists Showcase, April 25, Johnny Carson Theater. Tickets are $22.
• Footloose, May 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12, 7:30 p.m., May 12, 2 p.m. Tickets are $40/$36/$32.

Ross Theater's Jerry Jensen Cinema 16 Series Gives New Meaning to Summer Drive-in Movies

What do you do with 553 movies? Easy, you show them.

Jerry Jensen has given the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater a major contribution of 553 feature length and short films, mostly Hollywood productions ranging in release dates from the silent years up to the 1980s, comprising some of the most significant movies ever made.

Jensen, a former member of the Ross Theater's friends board, ran a movie distribution company, Jensen Cinema 16, near Chicago. The company specialized in renting 16mm movies to non-commercial theater venues, such as universities and schools. Danny Lee Ladely, Ross Theater director, said that the advent of videotapes caused many companies in the film rental business to go under, and Jensen's company also met that fate.

Jensen, who now lives in Wilmington, Del., donated most of his company's catalog to the Ross, Ladely said.

"It's a great catalog and quite a windfall for us," he said.

The movies are being screened free-to-the-public on Wednesday nights out-of-doors throughout the summer. The films are shown in front of Kimball Recital Hall, near 12th and R streets, immediately adjacent to the Lied Center. Screenings begin at dusk (approximately 9 p.m.) and admission is free. Popcorn and soda are served compliments of the University Program Council.

"Because you and your organization are so sincere about your love for film, as well as recognizing the collection's value and then having the facilities to both utilize it and preserve it, that's the major reason I've donated the collection to you," Jensen stated when making the gift.

Ladely said the collection will be invaluable for film students.

"It is especially auspicious in light of our new building, slated for construction beginning next year, which will include an archive to hold our growing film and video collection," he said.

The summer series highlights seven of the best films in the collection, all Academy Award winners and will also include some of the wonderful shorts and cartoons that are an important part of the collection

One of the best documentary films ever made, Woodstock by Michael Wadleigh, shows on June 21, the virtually perfect record of the music festival held in Bethel, N.Y., in 1969. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World by Stanley Kramer, a wild, wacky and wondrous film with a cast to match, screens on June 28.

Frank Capra's It Happened One Night, winner of five Academy Awards and starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, an altogether charming romantic comedy, shows on July 19. A dinner, open only to members of the Friends of the MRRFT and their guests, honoring Jensen and his family, will be held in the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery Sculpture Garden preceding this screening, Robert Altman's MASH, the hilarious black comedy starring Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland, shows on July 26.

The gripping drama by David Lean, The Bridge on the River Kwai, featuring sterling performances by Alec Guinness and William Holden, plays on Aug. 2. Paul Newman and Robert Redford are forever Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a classic Western by George Roy Hill, ends the series on Aug. 9.

"We have enough great films in this collection to entertain our audiences for many summers to come," said Ladely.

East is East Explores Generational Frictions

Miramax's East is East opens at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater June 15.

A bittersweet portrait of a mixed-race family set in England in the free-wheeling early 1970s, East is East does justice to a difficult subject. George Khan (My Son the Fanatic's Om Puri), a Pakistani shop owner long settled in Britain, insists that his grown children follow Pakistani traditions, much to their displeasure. Though married for 20 years to the Caucasian Ella (Linda Bassett), George is something of a hypocrite when it comes to his own kin. Ignoring his own example, he demands each of his children wed a Pakistani in a match to be overseen by him alone. The first attempt at an arranged marriage ends disastrously: eldest son Nazir (Ian Aspinall) jilts his prospective bride, is evicted from his parents' house and cut off by his father for life.

As horrifying as that may sound - and there are worse punishments ahead - director Damien O'Donnell never lets things get too dreary, largely because the characterizations are so full and the dark scenes balanced with plenty of humor. When his back is turned, George's daughter and six sons flout traditions. They eat bacon, frolic with their Anglo neighbors, and secretly pay homage to Christ, not Allah. Despite their father's efforts, the kids don't see themselves as Pakistanis.

East is East is rated R for language, sexual content and some domestic violence.

Also showing is a short feature, Milkman, by William Phillips (Canada, 15 minutes). An elderly stroke victim, Danny, is confronted by Martin, a visitor, who hounds him for milk. When Danny succumbs to his demands, his life is changed forever.

East is East and Milkman are showing June 15 through 18 and June 22 through 25. Screenings are at 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays; 1, 3:15, 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Saturdays; and at 2:30, 4:45, 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Sunday.

Jazz in June Continues

The Nebraska Art Association will sponsor two more Jazz in June concerts on Tuesday evenings in June. The free jazz concerts being at 7 p.m. in the Sculpture Garden of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery. The remaining concerts on this year's schedule include the Matt Wallace Group on June 20, and the Angela Hagenbach Sextet with Musa Nova June 27.

The Gallery will open at 6:30 p.m.on concert evenings. In case of rain, concerts will be held in the Sheldon auditorium.

Soft drinks, iced tea and cookies from the Cookie Company will be for sale at each concert. Nebraska Arts Association volunteers also sell Jazz in June posters, T-shirts and CDs and tapes by the featured performers.

Tuesday Tales Returns for Summer Story Adventures

Tuesday Tales, the storytelling series sponsored by UNL Summer Session and Arts Are Basic will have performers display their storytelling talent on the steps of Architecture Hall beginning June 27. The series continues each Tuesday throughout July with the exception of July 4. The presentations, which are suitable for all ages, will last about an hour and are free to the public. The Tuesday Tales schedule is as follows:

9:15 p.m. June 27, David Landis, a member of the Nebraska State Legislature and is a storyteller at the Nebraska Storytelling Festival, and Rita Paskowitz, actress, writer, comedienne, cartoonist and a member of Bright Chicks storytelling group will tell ghost stories immediately following Jazz in June. Rain site: Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery.

7 p.m. July 11, Paskowitz; Rain site: Architecture Hall Link.

7 p.m. July 18, Nancy Duncan's stories vibrate in the lives of her listeners and inspire them to explore their own stories. Rain site: Architecture Hall Link.

7 p.m. July 25, Pippa White will share an original story about Ellis Island. Rain site: Architecture Hall Link.

Kontra-Gapi musicians use instruments like this drum during performances.

Arts Are Basic Summer Collaboration

Filipino Music/Dance Group Performing June 15-16

The resident music and dance ensemble of the University of the Philippines will perform indigenous Filipino music in concerts June 15 and 16.

Kontemporaryong Gamelan Pilipino, also known as Kontra-Gapi, will perform a colorful repertoire of music and dance representing Filipino culture and ethnic groups. The 16-member ensembled, composed of students and faculty, will play a variety of instruments including wood and metal xylophones, drums, bamboo and even the bodies of the performers.

The group performs at 7 p.m. June 15 in Kimball Hall and at noon June 16 in the Energy Square offices of Southeast Community College (12th and O streets). Both performances are free and open to the public.

Kontra-Gapi will also perform with American Indian dancers and musicians at Macy, at the Nebraska State Penitentiary and the Hillstad Textiles Gallery at UNL. Group members will be available for free lectures and demonstrations. The ensemble has conducted two world tours and has performed in a variety of places including rice fields, school auditoriums and concert halls.

Kontra-Gapi's Nebraska visit is sponsored by the Center for Curriculum and Instruction, Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, Arts Are Basic aesthetic education program at UNL; Southeast Community College; and the Nebraska and Lincoln Arts Councils. For more information contact Arts Are Basic at (402) 472-2019 or the Center for Curriculum and Instruction at (402) 472-2019.

156 Quilts Donated by Alabama Couple

African American Quilts Enhance James' Collection

By Kelly Bartling, Public Relations

A gift of 156 African-American quilts from the collection of Robert and Helen Cargo arrived in mid-May at the International Quilt Study Center. This exceptional collection will add a new facet of American quilt history to the center's world-class James Collection, said center director Patricia Crews.

"The Cargo Collection superbly illustrates the ongoing role that African-American quilt makers play in the larger tradition of American quilt history," Crews said.

Robert Cargo, professor emeritus at the University of Alabama and owner of the Folk Art Gallery in Tuscaloosa, began building his collection of Alabama quilts in the late 1950s after inheriting a number of quilts from his great-grandmother. He decided early on to focus his collecting efforts primarily on Alabama, rather than allowing the collection to grow in a haphazard fashion. He assembled a collection that became widely regarded as one of the most important quilt collections in the United States.

Since 1980, Cargo has concentrated more on African-American quilts from Alabama with a few examples from several other states of the deep South.

"As a group, these quilts have the qualities that excite me as I grow older - bold, eccentric, idiosyncratic, improvisational, brightly colored," he said.

The collection encompasses quilts by more than 32 quilt makers, including a number of imaginative and expressive pictorial quilts by Alabama folk artists Yvonne Wells, Nora Ezell, Mary Lucas and Mary Maxtion. The quilts in the Cargo Collection date primarily from the fourth quarter of the 20th century, but also include a number of significant pre-1950 works. Many of the quilts were purchased directly from the makers, some of whom Cargo came to know quite well, visited regularly over the years, and photographed at work in their homes.

Yvonne Wells, winner of the prestigious Alabama Arts and Visual Craftsmen Award in 1998 and the best-known quilt maker represented in the collection, said, "Robert Cargo was the most encouraging person I met in my early years of quilting. He came by my home almost every Saturday morning to look at the quilts I was working on and said, 'Yvonne, keep on doing what you're doing."

The supporting documentation associated with each quilt maker is one of the unique strengths that sets the Cargo Collection apart from other quilt collections, Crews said.

The gift of the Cargo Collection to a public institution affords quilt lovers and scholars all over the world access to these special quilts and an unparalleled opportunity to study the traditions of African-American quilters of Alabama.

Carolyn Ducey, curator of the International Quilt Study Center, said, "We can only imagine the significance of this incredible gift to quilt historians and enthusiasts. It is a legacy that will continue to inspire quilt makers, scholars and historians for generations to come."

Selected quilts from this collection have been exhibited at the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, the National Humanities Center in North Carolina and at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and are featured in a number of publications, including Quilts: A Living Tradition, by Robert Shaw.

Generous donations from the James Foundation and from the Cargos made this acquisition possible. The collection has an estimated value in excess of $500,000.

A selection of quilts from the Cargo Collection will be exhibited at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery from February through April 2001. A small number of quilts will be available for viewing at the quilt center prior to the exhibition. The center is open Monday through Wednesday, 9 a.m. to noon.

Ladely, Ross Patrons Screening Telluride Student Entries

The Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater and its director, Dan Ladely, will help conduct a screening program for student filmmakers entering the Telluride Film Festival's Filmmakers of Tomorrow program.

Ladely said that a cohort of local film buffs will help screen and rate the expected 500 submissions, to get to a short list of 30 films to send forward to Godfrey Reggio, the creator of the non-narrative masterpiece Koyaanisqatsi, and curator of the Filmmakers of Tomorrow program. Films will be assessed using a process the Ross group developed to judge entries into the Great Plains Film Festival.

Now in its 27th season, the Telluride festival has a reputation for intimacy and excellence while showcasing new world and independent cinema. Ladely said that the choice of Ross patrons as judges speaks well for the reputation and tastes of its core film aficionados.

Telluride's Student Symposium provides 50 college undergraduate and graduate students with a weekend of film and discussion. Ladely has been involved with the Student Symposium Program for the past three years, serving on its advisory committee. The success of the Student Symposium program spurred Festival directors to develop a way of recognizing the contributions of young filmmakers. Filmmakers of Tomorrow is the Festival's program of short films highlighting the work of film school students.

Weiss Exhibiting at Norfolk Art Center

The Norfolk Art Center is presenting the creative collaboration of Wendy Weiss, associate professor of Textiles, Clothing and Design, and Jay Kreimer, Lincoln musician and sound designer, in a new work called the Ephemeral Forest. This exhibition marks the grand opening of Norfolk's new art facility. The exhibition runs through July 28. The gallery is located at 305 N. Main St. in Norfolk, Neb. The center is open from 9 to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Weiss, a handweaver, has created weavings that are shaped on the loom as one continuous fabric but branch out into space to evoke trees and organic forms. The textiles are woven with a combination of space dyed nylon monofilament, wire, linen, cotton and silk thread. Kreimer has developed a sound score that is embedded in the space. The viewer triggers the shifting sound. Crinkling of leaves in wind, water flowing, fire crackling and roaring, a faint groan in the distance, emerge, fade and combine as the viewer/participant moves through the installation. The sounds create a 360' sphere of experience, immersing the viewer, and allowing them to shift from observer to participant. Ephemeral Forest weaves sound as well as textiles.

A new recruit threatens the very nature of the French Foreign Legion in this film by Claire Denis.

Beau Travail opens June 29

Tale of Legionnaires Marches Into Ross Theater

Inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Beau Travail, set in the east African enclave of Djibouti, is the most provocative and accomplished film yet by Claire Denis (I Can't Sleep, Nénette and Boni). Focusing on the lives of men in a small French Foreign Legion outpost, the film emphasizes the banality and ritual of their days in the scorching sun. They spend their time practicing military drills, exercising vigorously and performing domestic chores. Contact with the locals is minimal, largely limited to nocturnal soirees in open-air discos.

Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant), barely older than his charges, seems the ideal Legionnaire: a brooding loner, cut off from his past. He runs the troupe like a well-oiled machine, until the arrival of a new recruit, Sentain (Grégoire Colin), threatens to upset the delicate balance that is his life. This is a poetic and lyrical exploration of a special, very enclosed male world through its rituals, codes and barely contained emotional conflicts.

The New Yorker said the film is saturated with a rich musical score combined with lush, stark images of the raw beauty of the men's muscular torsos juxtaposed against a stunning African landscape. It creates a visual poem that is actualized through ballet-like movements, and resonates with the power of a Greek tragedy.

Also showing is the short feature, Amplifier, by Glenn Forbes (Canada, 22 minutes). Welcome to a world where the TV remote control is destined to become the defining instrument of human evolution. In the future, a shared addiction to biotechnology haunts the lives of new mother Miranda and, 25 years later, her grown daughter Jane. A government agent, The Collector, tries to end it . . . one way or another.

Beau Travail and Amplifier screen June 29 through July 2 and July 6 through 9. Screenings are at 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays; 1, 3:15, 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Saturdays; and at 2:30, 4:45, 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Sunday.

Celebrating Human Rights

"Menschen" (Humans) by Gisela Rikeit and Saalbach Quilter Bruchsal of Graben-Neudorf, Germany; first-prize winner, from "Expressions of Freedom: Quilts Celebrating Human Rights," presented through Sept. 15 at the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery, Home Economics Building, East Campus. Featured in this exhibit are prize-winning quilts and finalists of a competition sponsored by the James Foundation, Quilter's Newsletter Magazine and the International Quilt Study Center. Winning quilts and finalists were selected by jurors Penny McMorris, Robert Shaw and Jeannie Spears.

A reception featuring the Nihon Vogue Quilters of Japan will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. June 18 at the Gallery. The reception is sponsored by the Friends of the Hillestad Textiles Gallery.

Cather Seminar Looks at Environmental Imagination

By Kelly Bartling, Public Relations

Hundreds of admirers of Willa Cather will make a pilgrimage June 17-24 to Nebraska City and southeast Nebraska for a weeklong exploration of "Willa Cather's Environmental Imagination." Scholars of Cather's writing and life will put their senses to the test in the same land where the author drew her inspiration.

A focus on "ecocriticism," an emerging approach to literature, and "environmental imagination" epitomized by Cather's works, will combine with tours and excursions to her home of Red Cloud and Webster County, Brownville and Nebraska City. Music and art, literary criticism and presentations will highlight seven days of touring, talk and entertainment.

"Foremost scholars of the field will meet with students and laypeople for a week of residency to explore the foremost issue of our time - our relation to the environment," said Susan Rosowski, Adele Hall distinguished professor of English and noted Cather expert. "And for our common forum, the seminar has Willa Cather's writing. Intellectual inquiry just doesn't get any better than this."

The seminar, which is the eighth international and the fifth hosted at Nebraska, is sponsored by UNL and the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation.

In past years, hundreds have attended the conference, and this year's planners expect interest to be high. Participants range from from literary scholars and educators to fans and tourists. International visitors are expected from Japan, Portugal, Great Britain, Bosnia, France and Canada. Lectures featuring the top Cather scholars, music and multimedia will be part of the weeklong discussion and learning sessions, while trips to Red Cloud, Webster County and Brownville are planned, with the primary setting at historic Nebraska City at its Lied Conference Center.

Songs and arias from Cather's fiction will be sung by mezzo-soprano Ariel Bybee at an opening concert June 17 at Nebraska City High School. The concert is free and open to the public.

Music is also part of the program throughout the week, including a June 19 evening lecture-recital by soprano Jane Dressler, professor of music at Kent State University. Dressler will be premiering "Antonia: Writing on the Sun" by Minneapolis composer Libby Larsen and performances from Tyler White's opera "O, Pioneers!"

As many as 100 scholars, students, writers and editors will present papers for discussion, sharing individual philosophies and insights on Cather's phenomena.

Registrations are $650 or $550 for students. Course credit is available.

The full schedule can be found at http://www.unl.edu/cather_semina r.

Leon Caldwell, psychology, left, sets the rhythm during African dance class at Campus Rec, joined by drummer Dadisi Sanyika, right. The rec class grew out of Caldwell's class which teaches African history and psychology.

Uniting Spirit, Body and Soul

Drums, Dance Connect African American Psyche

By Kelly Bartling, Public Relations

The driving beat of the djun-djun sets feet afire in the Campus Rec gym; dozens of bodies - blonde, silver-haired or afroed; short, svelte or muscled - begin their movement.

The rhythm of the African drum speaks to their hearts and their feet, says Leon Caldwell, assistant professor of education psychology, as he thumps his djembe drum with alternating fingers and palms.

The connection between African music and dance and African American body and spirit is as palpable as the sound of the rhythms. Caldwell is using the drums and dance to help teach about African American psychology, a course offered for the first time at UNL this past spring.

"In the African sense, this is holistic," Caldwell said, "...in the way we drum and the way we teach it, it's understanding the connection between mind, body and soul. The spirit connects to the drum."

The African embodiment of mind, body and soul - the spirituality of psyche - clashes with the European concept of psychology, Caldwell said, so European and African Americans have a lot they could learn. Studying African history, knowledge and traditions, and interpreting their rituals, such as music and dance, helps Americans understand ethnic and cultural differences.

Students this semester in Caldwell's African and African American psychology class (498/898) learned of these ancient African traditions, read from numerous African scholars, studied history and discussed how African tribal customs evolved and how they have relevance today.

And they danced.

"The class is an attempt to do a paradigm shift," Caldwell said. "Here we are in the context of western dogma, and so we have to confront that dogma and understand why in this context people of African descent, or non-western people, are misinterpreted, because those norms and standards for behavior are based on a European cosmology or world view. But if we look at the history of psychology, it has not been used to benefit or appropriately explain the behaviors of people of African descent, or non-Europeans."

Critical to understanding African psychology is experiencing the connection of body, mind and soul. In the African world-view, psychology is the process of spiritual illumination.

"If you study the soul, you study the mind and you study the body. That's where the African drum and dance comes in," Caldwell said. "You have to understand the drum from a metaphysical perspective: What the vibrations do to cells. When African people hear music or any rhythm, they move to it. They are very in tune to rhythm, as they are in tune to nature."

Caldwell said that if non-Africans understood this psychology and history, they could learn how to work with the culture to build on these positives: Of community, sociology and economics.

"My biggest lesson is to understand that I am connected to something greater than me... to know that what I'm doing here, the many things I've been afforded, are built upon the backs of my ancestors and the people who came before me, I realize my power and my limitations, and I see the potential in anybody," he said.

Caldwell said many people see race or background as defining "what they are not," but Africans would see people as all connected to the same life, form - as a community.

Drawn together by the drum.

Caldwell's study of African drum music, dancing, and his connections to African scholars opened opportunity for his African American psychology class to experience true African dance. Beginning in April, master drummer/dancer, author and artist Dadisi Sanyika of Los Angeles, taught African dance to Caldwell's students and other participants at Campus Rec. Sanyika, during his visit, also led cultural arts classes through dance and song, and visited local schools through the Artist Diversity Residency Program of Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts. He shares messages of cultural diversity, African pride, and music and art.

"It's a dance. It's exercise and it's aerobics," Caldwell said. "And in the African sense it's holistic." Through one dance, the jelidon (history dance), the dancers, giraffe-like, moved their legs, arms and heads in a celebration of spirit and history.

"A dance is about pulling you in... about community," said Sanyika, Caldwell's mentor. "It's telling a story, a re-enactment of a life experience. It's a lesson about wisdom, science, math, history, culture, spirituality embodied in rhythm and song." Some dancers, appearing stiff or awkward at first, became moved by the drum beats. Feet tapping to the djun-djun, they lost their inhibition. Forming a circle, they moved as one.

Caldwell said he hopes to offer the class again; next summer during presession he is taking students to Ghana, where they will study West African culture, education and other topics.

"This class is important in helping stop some mislabeling of differences of African Americans," said Dolores Tarver, a grad assistant. "If we all understand those difference, we can appreciate them more. This helps us challenge things that are taught (in psychology) or stereotypes we have. Dr. Caldwell's class helped me understand our history and where African Americans are coming from... it bridges the gaps."

As a non-African American, graduate student and substitute teacher Matt McCrudden said the class gives him insight into the special cultural differences.

"I have already used some of this information in my classroom. I see where some kids are coming from, and how an environment is such a clash for them. Americans have such a myopic view. Now I see how this African American culture has been suppressed.

Backyard Farmer Broadcasts from Tuesday Market July 11

Nebraska ETV's Backyard Farmer program is set to dispense gardening advice live at 7 p.m. July 11 on location at the Mid-Week Haymarket Farmers' Market at 12th and R streets.

Gardeners can bring questions and plant samples for the experts, join the live television audience or simply tune into Nebraska ETV.

Producers are looking for gardeners to appear on camera with their plant problems in this special edition of Backyard Farmer. Interested people may contact Penny Costello, 402-472-9333 ext. 237, or e-mail: <pcostello1@unl.edu>.

The live broadcast of Backyard Farmer is sponsored in part by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Downtown Lincoln Association, the Haymarket Farmers' Market and the City of Lincoln.

Backstage Pass Spotlights Annette Murrell June 23

Backstage Pass series host and jazz/blues singer Annette Murrell takes the spotlight on the weekly performance series at 9 p.m. June 23 on the statewide Nebraska ETV Network. This Backstage Pass will also be telecast on EduCable at 8 p.m. June 26.

A professional performer for nearly 20 years, Murrell has performed jazz, blues and gospel in nightclubs, churches and schools in California, New York, Colorado, Florida and throughout the Midwest.

For two years, she was the featured vocalist with the Tablerockers, a Lincoln-based Chicago-style blues band. In August 1991, the Tablerockers were finalists in the Long Beach Blues Festival National Talent Search Contest. Currently, she heads her own jazz/blues ensemble, which performs throughout Nebraska and the Midwest. Murrell released her first solo album, My Shining Hour, in 1999.

Lincoln Lightning Football on EduCable, ETV

It's fast. It's exciting. And it's football competition at its best.

Live coverage of Indoor Football League gridiron action between two South Division rivals - the Sioux Falls Cobras and the Lincoln Lightning - will be telecast at 7 p.m. June 16, EduCable, the cable television service of Nebraska Educational Telecommunications. A videotaped replay of the football game will be broadcast at 8 p.m. June 17 on the statewide Nebraska ETV Network.

Broadcast from the Lightning's home field in the Thunderdome at Lincoln's Pershing Auditorium, the two-and-a-half-hour contest will be called by sportscaster Kevin Kugler, with sideline reports from Larry Putney.

The Jose Jefferson-coached Lightning are led by quarterback Josh Luedtke, who played for the UNO Mavericks, and former Nebraska Cornhusker running back Damon Benning.

For football fans worldwide, Nebraska Educational Telecommunications will "webcast" the Cobra/Lightning game live at 7 p.m. June 16 on NET's web site NET Online, http://net.unl.edu. All that is needed is access to the Internet and a free Real Media player program.

Lil' Slim's Chicago-style Blues on Backstage Pass

The son of master bluesman Magic Slim struts his own stuff when Lil' Slim and the Back Alley Blues Band appear on Backstage Pass, airing at 9 p.m. June 16 on the statewide Nebraska ETV Network. This Backstage Pass will also be telecast on EduCable, at 8 p.m. June 19.

This four-piece blues band - featuring Lil' Slim on blistering lead guitar and vocals, Joe Manthey on rhythm guitar and vocals, Jeff Boehmer on bass and Ryan Larsen on drums - play incredibly hot, authentic Chicago-style blues. Lil' Slim's guitar style has been compared to a young Chris Duarte.

The band has recently released their first CD "Live At the Zoo Bar," recorded appropriately enough at Lincoln's Zoo Bar.