Mary Riepma Ross signs her name in concrete Oct. 4 as NU President L. Dennis Smith, left, and Chancellor Harvey Perlman watch at a ceremony honoring Ross' contributions to the Mary Riepma Ross Theater, which will be in the Van Brunt Visitor Center after it is completed next year.

Theater plans unveiled at tribute to Ross

By Robb Crouch, NU Foundation

The Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater's best fans gathered Oct. 4 at Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden to pay tribute to a the woman whose lifetime love for film is creating one of the most successful film programs in the nation.

Mary Riepma Ross, 92, who once lived in Lincoln, returned from her home in New York City for the tribute and to learn more about the Van Brunt Visitors Center and Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater under construction at 13th and Q streets. Both are expected to open late next year.

The film theater will house two state-of-the-art auditoriums or film and video screenings. Space is also planned for staff offices and a research library as well as much-needed room for the growing film and video archives, which now hold about 2,000 titles.

Dan Ladely, director of the film theater, said it's expected to be one of the finest, most up-to-date facilities of its kind in the nation.

Attendees applauded when Ladely announced that the theater will feature "a comprehensive repertoire of currently released American independent films and films from abroad, seven days a week, three shows nightly with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays."

The new facility will be home to the Film Studies Program and the future Center for Film and New Media Productions. Students will use the auditoriums for various courses, including introduction to film history, introduction to film medium, documentary film, women filmmakers, film theory and criticism. The film program includes courses offered by several academic areas, including art, art history, history, music, theater, English, philosophy and the journalism college.

Alumna Mary Riepma Ross announced plans in the early 1990s to establish an irrevocable trust at the University of Nebraska Foundation for construction of a new film theater and to bolster the program. A longtime UNL arts patron, she also made plans to bequest her personal art collection. In recognition of her support and planned gifts, the university named Sheldon's film theater after her.

"I've always felt that Lincoln should have access to independent and art films," Ross said shortly after her gift commitment was made public. "I've always felt they should have that access as part of their cultural life."

Ross moved to Lincoln with her family in 1928 and began studies at the University of Nebraska. She later completed English studies at Vassar College, and in 1938 she was one of two women to obtain a law degree at Memphis State University. The University of Nebraska awarded her an honorary doctor of law degree in 1973.

She worked as an attorney with the U.S. government and private firms during the 1940s before forming her own New York law practice in 1961.

It's Ross' enjoyment of film, however, for which she is perhaps best known. Even as a young girl, it was not uncommon for her to keep current with the latest silent movies.

Acknowledging this passion, Jack Oliva, dean of the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, said: "Mary, to know you is to know in part your love for the world of cinema, a love which for many years has brought us great fortune at this university."

1957 film makes U.S. debut

Gillo Pontecorvo's The Wide Blue Road takes the audience back to a time when story was important and when visual beauty was integrated into the meaning of a film. Pontecorvo, now 81, made this film in 1957. It's taken 44 years for it to make its U.S. debut. The Wide Blue Road was resurrected and restored by Milestone Films, which specializes in polishing up old movies.

The Wide Blue Road will show at 1, 3, 7 and 9 p.m. Oct. 13 and 3, 5, 7 and 9 p.m. Oct. 14 at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater.

Weidman's work re-created in Lied performance

Consort: Mezzacappa-Gabrian will bring The Genius of Charles Weidman to the Lied Center at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 19. A Lincoln native, Weidman was a pioneer of modern dance in the early 20th century. Weidman would have been 100 years old this year.

The Genius of Charles Weidman re-creates several of the choreographer's most memorable works. Carol Mezzacappa, Craig Gabrian and their company Dance Consort are an integral force in keeping alive Weidman's works, philosophy, movement principles and techniques.

The company passes Weidman's traditions, and those of his longtime partner, Doris Humphrey, to its junior company, Young Dancers in Repertory. Through Dance Consort, new works are created based upon the principles of the Humphrey-Weidman technique.

Weidman was considered one of the foremost dancer/choreographers of his era. Born in Lincoln in 1901, Weidman received a scholarship to Denishawn School, where he became a leading dancer. In 1928 he and Doris Humphrey founded their own dance school devoted to exploring new styles. In 1933 Weidman choreographed the first full-length modern dance work, Candide.

While best known for their choreography for the concert stage, Weidman and Humphrey were the first to choreograph modern dance for Broadway. In addition, Weidman and Humphrey were instrumental in introducing dance curriculum into colleges.

Dance Consort will be joined in "Bargain Counter" by dancers from The Moving Company and The Omaha Modern Dance Collective.

Tickets are $36, $32, and $28, half-price for students. Call the Lied box office at 472-4747 or (800) 432-3231 for ticket availability.

Author Eric Booth to speak on creativity Oct. 18

Award-winning director and actor Eric Booth will deliver a free lecture at 11 a.m. Oct. 18 in the Lied Center. His presentation, Creating and Sustaining Partnerships, is presented by Arts Are Basic.

Booth will address many of his groundbreaking theories about the creative process. Often referred to as the "Guru of Aesthetic Education," Booth has many followers and admirers, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma and author Madeline L'Engle.

In addition to his 25-plus years performing and directing on- and off-Broadway and his many years teaching and directing theater programs at The Juilliard School, Stanford University and New York University, Booth is an internationally recognized authority on education. His most recent bestseller, The Everyday Work of Art, explores the idea that artistic experience is available to all of us and that it improves our lives when accessed.

After earning an MFA from Stanford University, Booth launched a 20-year career in the theater, which included acting in six Broadway plays, dozens of plays off-Broadway and at leading regional theaters around the country.

Arts Are Basic is patterned after the Lincoln Center Institute in New York City and is UNL's outreach program to help prepare Nebraska elementary and secondary students to experience master works of art on a deeper level. Teaching Artists work with students before and after they attend performances either at the Lied Center or in their schools. Arts Are Basic offers a summer workshop at UNL each year for teachers and administrators. Arts are Basic serves children in Lincoln and several other Nebraska communities.

For more information, call Anne Sheedy-Gardner at Arts Are Basic, 472-6844.

Sheldon exhibit shows Schooner's artistic images

In conjunction with the 75th anniversary of the founding of Prairie Schooner magazine, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery is sponsoring an exhibition of Prairie Schooner cover arts.

The Visual Culture of Prairie Schooner, 1927-2001, runs until Nov. 25.

One of the longest running and best "little magazines" in the country, the Prairie Schooner has served as in important venue for emerging and established writers of poetry, short fiction, personal essays and criticism. This exhibition participates in the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Prairie Schooner by directing attention to the role that visual imagery played in its history and development and in defining and redefining the magazine's mission and audience.

The Visual Culture of Prairie Schooner will analyze the editors' changing views toward the role of visual imagery in a literary magazine, from Lowry Charles Wimberly (1927-56), Karl Shapiro (1956-62), Bernice Slote (1963-80) to Hugh Luke (1980-86). Particular attention will be focused on the collaborations between Hilda Raz (editor since 1987) and Dika Eckersley, who has served as the designer since 1985. Because it spans three quarters of the 20th century, the changing function of visual imagery on the magazine's covers will be interpreted as reflective of larger trends in the history and development of 20th-century American arts and letters.

This exhibition allows the viewer to trace the relationship between word and image in 20th-century U.S. culture through the unusual but provocative lens of a literary magazine. In fact, the Prairie Schooner's reader will probably be surprised to learn that it actually has a visual culture. Far from being something we choose to engage or experience, visual imagery interacts with disclosure to create and sustain conceptual communities within which we interact. While Prairie Schooner supports the "word," and the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery attends to the "visual," this exhibition seeks to present both word and image in close relationship to each other as we explore how and in what ways the visual imagery of the Prairie Schooner interacts with the poetry, short fiction and essays that were published in it.

A Voice from the South discussed Oct. 26

The 19th-Century American Women Writers Colloquium will hold a discussion of Anna Julia Cooper's A Voice From the South at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 26 in the Dudley Bailey Library, second floor of Andrews Hall.

Cooper has emerged as a classic writer in the tradition of African American feminist thought. Mary Helen Washington described Cooper's work as "the most precise, forceful, well-argued statement of black feminist thought to come out of the 19th century."

This collection includes all of the essays from Cooper's famous book, A Voice from the South, as well as other essays and letters. Editors Charles Lemert and Esme Bhan introduce Cooper as an activist, settlement founder, school teacher, college president, linguist and scholar - a life that paralleled the prodigious accomplishments of W.E.B. Du Bois in so many ways.

For more information, contact Jana Bouma at 472-1882, jnbouma@aol.com.

Texas-Nebraska Volleyball on NETV

Live volleyball action featuring the defending national champion Nebraska Cornhuskers returns for a third consecutive Wednesday evening on the Nebraska ETV Network at 7 p.m. Oct. 17. The game pits Big 12 Conference foe Texas against the Huskers.

The volleyball match will be rebroadcast at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Oct. 18 on NETV2.

Statewide reports on 'date rape' drug

One moment a woman student at a Nebraska college is sipping a drink at an off-campus party. The next thing she remembers is waking up, a victim of rape.

Statewide, the Nebraska ETV Network's weekly magazine series, examines the dangers of a new date rape drug in a special report airing at 8 p.m. Oct. 12.

This episode of Statewide, which includes up-to-the-minute news reports from across the state and other features, repeats at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 13, and at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 14. It also repeats on NETV2 at 3 p.m. Oct. 14.

Statewide correspondent Andrea Gallagher begins her investigation by reporting the story of a student at an Omaha college who lost consciousness while sipping a drink at an off-campus party. When she regained consciousness, she found her rapist standing next to the bed and gloating. After going to a hospital emergency room, a blood test revealed she had been drugged with Gamma Hydroxy Buturate, or GHB.

GHB is odorless, colorless, tasteless and dangerous. Before the Food and Drug Administration ordered it pulled from store shelves in 1990, athletes used it to enhance performance. But Jon Wagner, associate dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, says the drug can cause unconsciousness and, if administered in the wrong dosage, coma or death.

Although GHB is a controlled substance, Gallagher reports, it is difficult to enforce controls because it can be manufactured using common household chemicals such as nail polish remover and floor cleaner.