February 14, 1997



Anders' 'Grace of My Heart' Coming to Ross

Filmmaker Allison Anders makes personal films about other people. In Gas Food Lodging and Mi Vida Loca, both screened previously at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater, she presented uniquely uncompromising views of modern American women on the verge of society and the brink of another broken heart. With Grace of My Heart, opening at the Ross Film Theater on Feb. 20, Anders brings her vision home in her most personal and most successful outing to date.

Set against the backdrop of the late '50s and early '60s music scene, the film follows Edna Buxton (To Die For's Illeana Douglas), who heads to the big city to be a singer. There she meets manager Joel Milner (John Turturro), who changes her name and helps make her a successful songwriter. Now known as Denise Waverly, she lives through a succession of men, the changing times and evolving music styles to finally come into her own as a singer and songwriter. The movie also features Matt Dillon (pictured above, in a beachside video shoot).

The movie features a soundtrack with the likes of Los Lobos, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach.

Grace of My Heart will show Feb. 20 through Feb. 22 and on Feb. 27 through March 2. Screenings are at 7 and 9:15 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays; at 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. Admission is $6; $5 for students; and $4 for senior citizens, children, and members of the Friends of the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater. The movie is rated R.

Dwight Kirsch, Willi, undated, oil on canvas (shown at right).

Sheldon Gallery to Host Faculty Biennial

The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden is presenting UNL Faculty Biennial: Past and Present, the UNL Department of Art and Art History Studio Faculty Biennial Exhibition through March 23.

This biennial exhibition showcases the recent work of 13 studio faculty, which encompasses a wide variety of media, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography and prints. Included in the exhibition will be Ron Bartels, Shelley Fuller, Martha Horvay, Keith Jacobshagen, Gail Kendall, Karen Kunc, Mo Neal, Pete Pinnell, Dave Read, Doug Ross, David Routon, Pat Rowan and Joe Ruffo.

An added dimension to this biennial is a smaller exhibition of the work of former UNL faculty curated from the Sheldon's permanent collection presented in an adjacent gallery, which will include, among others, the work of James Eisentrager, Dan Howard, Dwight Kirsch and Sara Hayden.

Past and Present offers a unique opportunity to view the work of current faculty within the broader historical context of more than a century of NU faculty work in the permanent collection of the Sheldon Gallery. A public reception for the artists included in this year's faculty exhibition will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 21.

Conjunto Cespedes to Fire Up Lied Stage

Combine classic Cuban rhythms with molasses-rich vocals, a taste of Brazil peppered with a little jazz and driving percussion out of West Africa and you've got Conjunto Céspedes. This Latin jazz group performs at 8 p.m. Feb. 22 in the Lied Center for Performing Arts.

The sound of the 12-member San Francisco Bay area band is an ethnic musical soup of danceable sounds from congas, timbales, chekeres and crave that offers up bedrock Afro-Caribbean beat.

Their sounds include rumba, "son" (the big musical idiom of Cuba featuring piano, bass, "tres" guitar, congas, bongos, timables, horns, vocals and strings), and bembe (a musical cultural concept brought to Cuba from Nigeria). Finally, the group plays comparsa, carnival music of drums, bells, horns, piano and bass.

Deborah Reinhardt, assistant professor of music education at the School of Music, will give a free, 15-minute pre-performance talk at 7:05 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the Steinhart Room of the Lied Center.

Tickets for Conjunto Céspedes are $22, $18 and $14 and half price for youth 18 and under and students with valid identification from UNL, Nebraska Wesleyan University and Doane College. The Lied Center box office is open for walk-in business 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.

'Imaginary Invalid' at the Howell

University Theatre will present Moliere's comedy classic, The Imaginary Invalid, at 8 p.m. Feb. 20- 22, Feb. 25-28 and March 1 in Howell Theatre.

The Imaginary Invalid is a prose comedy in three acts. It was first performed in 1673 at the Theatre du Palais-Royal in Paris by Moliere's Troupe du Rol. Moliere played Argan. The play was a success; but during the fourth performance Moliere was seized with a coughing spell. He finished the part, but died later in the day.

The coincidences and ironies surrounding the play are extraordinary and macabre, making the humor often seem black.

Tickets for The Imaginary Invalid are $10, $9 for UNL faculty and staff and senior citizens; $6 for students. Call the box office at 472-2073.

Theatrix Offers Double Feature

Theatrix will present a double feature on Feb. 13-15. "Three By Ives," from All in the Timing by David Ives and directed by Heather Currie, will be presented at 7 p.m. Feb. 13-14 and at 7 and 10 p.m. Feb. 15 in 301 Temple Building. Admission is $3.

The hour of three fun vignettes includes "Sure Thing," "Foreplay, or the Art of the Fugue" and "Speed the Play."

Immediately following "Three By Ives" is Patient A, by Lee Blessing, directed by Miki Wigley.

In 1991, at age 23, Kimberly Bergalis died of AIDS. Having "innocently" contracted the disease from her dentist, Kimberly spent the last year of her life fighting for a change in public health policy. She was a leading spokesperson for mandatory AIDS testing for health professionals.

"Patient A" is an examination of Kimberly's case, and the controversy surrounding it.
For more information, call Julie Hagemeier at 472-1619.

Duggin to Present Reading Feb. 20

The Creative Writing Program and Prairie Schooner will present Richard Duggin, reading from his fiction at 7 p.m. Feb. 20 in the English Department Lounge, 228 Andrews Hall.

Duggin, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, founded the Writers Workshop at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1972, and has taught fiction writing there ever since.

He is the author of The Music Box Treaty, a novel, and his stories have appeared in Beloit Fiction Journal, Crosscurrents, Kansas Quarterly, The Sun, Playboy, and elsewhere. He has received an NEA fellowship, a Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artists Merit Award, and several fellowships to Yaddo and Ragdale. His work has been cited by Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize Anthology, and Playboy Magazine. Most recently he has finished a novel and a two-act stage play.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Creative Writing Program at 472-1871.

Artist Jeff Raz Returning to Nebraska

Theater artist Jeff Raz will be in residence Feb. 17-28 and April 7-10 as part of the College of Fine and Performing Arts' Artists Diversity Residency Program.

Raz deals with issues of Jewish identity and anti-Semitism in the context of his own story, which he has dramatized in his one-man play Father-Land. Raz has performed the play several times on campus over the past three years.

Raz was on campus last year, visiting with approximately 900 students in University Foundations courses for first-year students and performing 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.

Raz was the lead actor and 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.

He began working as a teen-age street juggler at Renaissance and Dickens Fairs and continues to perform and refine his variety act. This summer he conducted a juggling workshop at Ringling Brothers Circus in Sarasota, Fla.

New Deal Era Photos on Display at Plains Gallery

Visions Of New Mexico: FSA Photographers, an exhibition of the work of FSA photographers Russell Lee and John Collier Jr., continues through Feb. 28 at the Great Plains Art Collection in 215 Love Library.

The exhibition includes 54 photographs by Lee and Collier, selected from the New Mexico Farm Security Collection, a special permanent collection in the Museum of New Mexico of archival photographs from the Prints and Photography Department of the Library of Congress.

The New Mexico archive was created with the support of the Pinewood Foundation, the special efforts of Eddy Dyba (Lee's printer) who made prints from the original negatives, help from the two photographers, and from writer/photographer Nancy Wood, who consulted on selections.

During the Great Depression, the federal government implemented many social programs (collectively designated The New Deal) both to alleviate widespread economic misfortune and to stimulate recovery. The Farm Security Administration photographic project was created to chronicle this difficult period in U.S. history.

FSA photographers were sent out across the country with instructions to capture in photographs the determined nature of traditional values by documenting the situation of common people in their local environment. It was hoped that these visual reports would confirm the success of the federal programs. In many cases, photographs from this archive surpass these political intentions by also conveying the unique character of the diverse cultures that inhabit America.

FSA photographers Lee and Collier, were sent to photograph rural life in New Mexico between 1940 and 1943. They created evocative documents of two distinct facets of New Mexican culture.

The exhibition is organized by the Museum of New Mexico and circulated through The Traveling Exhibitions Program of the Museum of New Mexico, supported by grants from the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and private donors.

This special exhibit is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.; closed during holiday weekends, between exhibits and academic sessions.

To schedule group or school tours, or for more information, call the curator or curatorial assistant at 472-7220, or e-mail mhk@unlinfo2.unl.edu.

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