September 27, 1996




Jeff Raz Reprises 'Father-land' at UNL Sept. 29

Theater artist and "juggler extraordinaire" Jeff Raz will be in residence Sept. 23 through Oct. 4 as part of the UNL College of Fine and Performing Arts Artists Diversity Residency Program. Raz will present his play Father-land at 8 p.m. Sept. 29 in Kimball Recital Hall. Tickets are $10 ($5 for students) and will be available at the door.

Jewish identity became an issue for Raz during a pleasure trip he took to Germany in 1989. His visit to Berlin just happened to coincide with the demise of the Berlin Wall. Traveling through the country, he visited Dachau, where he viewed photographs of the camp taken by the liberating forces. He imagined some of the shots could have been taken by his father, who served as a photographer with the American occupation forces in World War II and who died in 1966 before Jeff got to know him. His father had left behind a box of war memorabilia, among which were some photos of the death camps.

Although he originally had no intention of making his visit to Germany a "roots" trip, it turned out that way in the end. Father-land, a one-man theater show, grew out of Raz's struggle with this Dachau experience. Raz will perform a shortened version of the play and then lead a discussion that will focus on the issues he addressed in creating this work. Using minimal props and a liberal dose of new vaudeville techniques, Raz weaves numerous characters into Father-land, including the spirit of his father, a man he barely knew.

Jeff Raz was the lead character/actor/ringmaster for the Pickle Family Circus of San Francisco. He has toured the continental United States, Alaska and Europe as a solo performer and with such groups as Vaudeville Nouveau and the Dell'Arte Players Company. In 1983 he helped create the famed production of "Comedy of Errors," (with the Flying Karamazov Brothers and Avner the Eccentric) which eventually became a PBS Live from Lincoln Center special. From 1983-1989, as a member of Vaudeville Nouveau, he worked with directors Joseph Chaikin, Robert Woodruff, Jael Weisman and Sharon Ott in original plays and reinterpreted classics. In 1986 he was one of the founders of the San Francisco New Vaudeville Festival.

His career has had some marvelously strange turns, including a season with the world's only horse-drawn theater, the Caravan Stage Company, and five tours to the Eskimo villages of the Yukon -Kusukwim Delta, teaching and performing for thousands of Alaska residents.

Along with his solo performing, Jeff is a free-lance director, teacher and actor. This summer he held a juggling workshop at Ringling Brothers Circus in Sarasota, Fla.

Raz was on campus last year, where he reached approximately 900 students in University Foundations courses for first-year students and four performances of Father-land. He also worked with 150 additional students in other classes and groups in theater, residence halls, writing and honors courses.

The Artists Diversity Residency Program brings to campus artists from diverse backgrounds to address broad themes of general academic interest. Other artists who have come to campus as part of this program include Taos Pueblo flautist Robert Mirabal and Mary Lou Valencia, curator for the Centro Cultural de la Raza.

A-Festival Celebrates Arts, Architecture

The A-Festival returns Oct. 4 to offer students interested in the arts and architecture an opportunity to spend time learning about what UNL has to offer in these areas.

Sponsored by the College of Fine and Performing Arts and the College of Architecture, the festival will feature a variety of activities in art, architecture, theater, dance and music.

Students in grades K-6 will be on campus for the festival in two shifts, 10 a.m. to noon and noon to 2 p.m. They will be in the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery Sculpture Garden participating in a variety of hands-on activities.

For high school students, an entire day has been planned to give them an opportunity to see what UNL has to offer in the areas of the arts and architecture. They will begin their day at 11 a.m. with a welcome and orientation in Howell Theatre. They will be teamed with college students in both colleges in the arts and architecture. There will be two one-hour sessions for these students to explore music, visual art, dance, theater or architecture. These range from rehearsal time with University Singers or the Concert Band, to acting workshops, dance classes, visual arts classes, and an architecture session. Students could also participate in a session called Mystery in the Cathedral, a multimedia exploration of the art, music and architecture of the medieval cathedral.

More than 300 high school students from about 25 high schools will be on campus for the A-Festival. The high school students' day at the A-Festival will end around 2:30 p.m.

The third component of the A-Festival will be a collaborative event for students and faculty in both the College of Fine and Performing Arts and the College of Architecture. Student leaders from both colleges are planning this activity, which will begin at approximately 3 p.m. in the arts quadrangle at 12th and R streets.

Alumni groups from both colleges will also be participating in A-Festival activities.

Chumbley, Irek Return For Mozart Performance

Robert Chumbley, former director of the Lied Center for the Performing Arts, and Shirley Irek, former chair of the piano department at UNL, will join the Lincoln Symphony in a performance at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 8 in Kimball Recital Hall.

The husband and wife duo will perform Mozart's Concerto No. 10 in E-flat Major for Two Pianos and Orchestra, K. 365. The program also includes Mozart's overture to The Magic Flute, K. 620; Bright Sheng's H'un (Lacerations); and Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a.

This is the second classical concert in the Lincoln Symphony's 70th anniversary season, and will be dedicated to the memory of former Symphony President Sheila Griffin.

Chumbley was recently named executive and music director of the Atlanta Ballet. Along with his administrative duties, he will serve as resident conductor and composer.

Irek has firmly established a reputation as a leading collaborative pianist. A recent release from Crystal Records featuring Irek in a performance with the Moran Woodwind Quintet of Theodor Blumer's Sextet for piano and winds was selected by Audiophile as one of the "Best Recordings of 1994. "

The concert is sponsored by Lincoln Mutual Life and the Nebraska Arts Council.

For ticket information call the Lincoln Symphony office at 474-5610. To order tickets, call the Lied Center Box Office at 472-4747.


Mary Beth Hurt stars in Seberg

Jean Seberg 'Fictionalized Autobiography' at Ross Theater


As in his Rock Hudson's Movies (1992), Mark Rappaport's From the Joumals of Jean Seberg, opening at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater on Oct. 10, offers a trenchant piece of film criticism, revisionist history, and social commentary in the form of a movie star's fictionalized autobiography.

Mary Beth Hurt portrays Jean Seberg, speaking from beyond the grave about her life and career, as well as the careers of Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave, who, like Seberg, have also been associated with radical politics.

Rappaport is a highly entertaining raconteur as he speaks through his title character, always justifying his many digressions on such subjects as movies about Joan of Arc, close-ups, expressionless actors, film directors who depict their actress-wives as whores, the Vietnam War, the FBI, and the Black Panthers. He also tells a rather chilling story, not only about Seberg but also about what her audience did and didn't see in her films from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, including Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse, Breathless, Lilth, and Paint Your Wagon.

Jean Seberg's story, from her Cinderella-like rise to celebrity in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan in 1957 to her equally precipitous fall after the movie was released, through her resurrection as a star in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless in 1960 to her death, officially labeled a suicide, in 1979, is examined through clips from a wide range of her films and other films of the time.

From the Joumals of Jean Seberg is showing Oct. 10 through 13. Screenings are at 7 and 9 p.m. on Thursday and Friday; at 1, 3, 7 and 9 p.m. on Saturday; and at 3, 5, 7 and 9 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $5.50; $4.50 for students; and $3.50 for senior citizens, children, and members of the Friends of the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater.

The presentation of this program at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater is made possible, in part, with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council, a state agency.

Celebration of Native Song and Dance at the Lied

Tribal members of the American Indian Dance Theatre will celebrate their native song and dance at 8 p.m. Oct. 7 in the Lied Center for Performing Arts.

From the Eastern woodlands to the Great Plains and west to the Rocky Mountains and pueblo-scattered deserts of the country, members of 15 Native American tribes in authentic dress will share their ancient traditions.

Formed in 1987, the dance troupe is the national showcase for Native American song and dance and will perform ancient, unwritten songs passed down in tribal language from one generation to another. The dancers will move to the sounds of drums, gourds, rattles and bells wearing authentic regalia costumes made within their families.

Their work is a colorful spectacle that includes seasonal, spiritual and social dances. Within the Native American culture, dance is central to teaching, celebrating life passages and communicating with nature and the spirits.

"This is the premiere group in the country, offering the most diverse sampling of song and dance from all the American tribes. You'll see dance that has been part of this country since ancient times and is a way to perpetuate the history of the tribes. Every dance tells a story. They are a link to our ancestors," said Lawrence SpottedBird, executive director of the Indian Center, Inc., in Lincoln.

A member of the Kiowa Nation of Oklahoma, SpottedBird will be the featured speaker at an educational pre-performance talks in the Lied Center's Steinhart Room scheduled 55 minutes and 30 minutes before the 8 p.m. performance.

The group has been honored with its own major national TV special on PBS and in 1990 received a Grammy nomination for a cast album.

Tickets are $28, $24 and $20. The fee is half price for youth 18 and under or UNL, Wesleyan and Doane students who present identification. The Lied Center box office is open for walk-in sales weekdays from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 90 minutes before the performance. Phone orders may be placed by calling 472-4747 or 1-800-432-3231.

Wind Ensemble to Present Works of Howard Hanson

The UNL Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Jay Kloecker with piano soloist Paul Barnes, will perform the wind compositions of Nebraska native Howard Hanson at 3 p.m. Oct. 6 in Kimball Recital Hall. The concert is free and open to the public. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Hanson's birth.

Born and raised in Wahoo, Hanson became one of the most influential American composers, music educators, and music advocates of this century. His distinguished career - including 36 honorary doctorates from American colleges and universities and innumerable awards in both this country and abroad - was highlighted by a 40-year term as the director of the Eastman School of Music (1924-1964).

Under his direction, the Eastman School came to be recognized as one of the finest musical training institutions in the world - one that continues to rival the most prestigious European conservatories. Tireless advocacy for the value of music education in the public schools made Hanson one of the principal figures in the growth and advancement of public school music during the second half of the century.

Hanson's music draws strongly from his Nebraska roots, particularly his devout Lutheran upbringing. Many of his compositions are marked by hymn-like chorale sections, which he credits to his heritage of singing in the family church in Wahoo. Indeed, many of his works - and in particular his works for winds - quote directly from these hymns or use familiar Lutheran chorales as a foundation for his musical explorations. Hanson's continued fondness for his native state was further demonstrated by his composition of a march - Centennial March - for Nebraska's centennial celebrations.

The Wind Ensemble will present Hanson's six published works for wind band in honor of his centennial. Also on the program will be Hanson's musical realization of his book Harmonic Materials of Modem Music: Resources of the Tempered Scale. Titled The Young Person's Guide to the Six-Tone Scale, Hanson's work is a virtuosic exposition for solo piano and 28 solo wind and percussion performers.

The UNL Wind Ensemble will release a compact disk featuring these compositions in 1997.

Theatrix to Stage 'White Chicks'

Theatrix will present Kathy Dudley and Becca Babbitt in A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking, directed by Amy K. Rohr, at 8 p.m. on Oct. 4; 2 and 8 p.m. Oct. 5; and 2 p.m. Oct. 6 in Studio 301, third floor of the Temple Building.

Maude Mix, an uptight Westchester, N.Y., housewife, has her life completely planned until Hannah Mae Binder bursts into Maude's kitchen. Hannah Mae, a flamboyant ex-cheerleader from Texas, is determined to make friends with Maude, even though they mix like oil and water.

Tickets are $3 and available only at the door.

Susan Moeser to Perform Sept. 29

The UNL School of Music's Faculty Recital Series continues with Susan Dickerson Moeser celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Westminster's Casavant organ at 4 p.m. Sept. 29 in the Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2110 Sheridan Blvd.

Moeser, 1983 winner of the prestigious Fort Wayne National Organ Playing Competition, is a well-known recitalist and workshop leader. She is currently on the faculty at the UNL School of Music. Active nationally in the American Guild of Organists, she is the Director of the AGO Regional Competitions for Young Organists.

Prior to coming to Nebraska, she was a lecturer in music at the University of South Carolina and earlier, an assistant professor of music at Penn State University (1987-1992), where she coordinated the freshmen music theory program. During that time she was the National Councilor for Region III of the American Guild of Organists, also serving as dean of the State College chapter of the guild.

Prairie Schooner Poetry, Story in Anthologies

Seven poems and one short story from Prairie Schooner, the literary magazine of UNL, will appear in anthologies published this fall.

Five poems, selected by guest editor Adrienne Rich, appear in Best American Poetry 1996. All of the poems appeared in the Winter 1994 issue of Prairie Schooner, a special issue featuring Latina/Latino literature.

The selected poems were "It is Not," by Valerie Martinez Allen, a teacher in a rural school in Swaziland; The other two poems from Prairie Schooner were awarded Pushcart Prizes and are published in "Pushcart Prize XXI: Best of the Small Presses."

The poems are "First Sex," by Richard Tayson, who is coordinator of the NUY/Goldwater Hospital writing workshops on Roosevelt Island and a poetry teacher at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Centery in New York City (published in the Fall 1995 issue), and "Facing Into It," by Eleanor Wilner, a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and author of five books of poetry and a critical study (published in the Spring 1995 issue).

The story, chosen to appear in Best American Short Stories 1996, is "The Eve of Spring Festival," by Lan Samantha Chang, a Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University whose work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and in the 1994 edition of Best American Short Stories. Her selected story from Prairie Schooner appears in the Spring 1995 issue.

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