Provided

The Bryant Park Quartet, in residence at Cornell this week, performs at a free concert March 14 in Bailey Hall with the Cornell Chamber Orchestra and student string players.

Drama, sex and death

The Association of Graduates in Theatre (AGIT) Performance Laboratory is presenting two experimental works-in-progress reimagining old world drama, March 13-14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts’ Black Box Theatre. Tickets are $5, available at the Schwartz Center box office, SchwartzTickets.com or at the door.

“The Vampire of the Grotto,” written and directed by performing and media arts doctoral student Aoise Stratford, is a Gothic drama adapted from J.R. Planché, about a Scottish vampire who marries a maiden and drains her blood once a year. “Friedrich Schiller's Bad Girls Club,” adapted and directed by graduate students Nick Fesette and Erin Stoneking, is an original and riotous mashup of reality television and the 18th-century German literary movement Sturm und Drang.

AGIT encourages thoughtful discussion between audiences, scholars and artists, and invites audience members to engage in informal conversation with the creative collaborators at each performance. A formal audience talkback with the artists follows the March 14 show.

Sponsored by the Department of Performing and Media Arts and the Cornell Council for the Arts.

Climb high

The Cornell Outing Club & CU Tonight present a night of climbing-related fun, March 14, 7 p.m.-1 a.m. in the Ramin Room of Bartels Hall. Free to students and non-students alike, donations accepted.

Featured: A trail mix and popcorn bar, a Reel Rock 9 Film Tour screening of outdoor adventure films at 8 p.m., indoor rock climbing and a prize raffle for Cornell students. The Lindseth climbing wall will be open after the movie.

Asia Night

Student organizations representing all the different Asian and Asian-American cultures on campus will gather for Asia Night 2015, March 14, 8 p.m. to midnight in Duffield Hall. The event features food, performances, games and raffles.

The theme of the evening is “Celebration” – honoring the 10th year of Asia Night and the 150th anniversary of Cornell’s founding. Admission is $5, or $3 with a ticket stub from Pao Bhangra XIV, also that evening in Barton Hall.

String Day

Cornell String Day is March 14, with the Bryant Park Quartet (BPQ), Ithaca-area string players and the Cornell Chamber Orchestra performing a free concert at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall, organized by director of orchestras Chris Younghoon Kim.

The New York City-based string quartet, in residence at Cornell March 12-15, will join the orchestra and then perform unaccompanied after an intermission. The concert program includes Maurice Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, featuring three Cornell students – harpist Sarah Baldessari ’15, flutist Jae Baek ’17 and clarinetist Ellen Hong ’17.

Area high school advanced string players will be featured on Jean Sibelius’ “Romance in C Major” and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.”

The BPQ residency is supported by the Cornell Council for the Arts and the Department of Music. 

Women’s Day

The International Women’s Day Banquet, March 15, noon to 2 p.m. in the Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room, will celebrate the global accomplishments and aspirations of women with an awards ceremony, speakers, performers and a luncheon catered by New Delhi Diamond’s Restaurant. Free; RSVP online.

The keynote speaker is clinical professor of law Sital Kalantry ’94, founder of the Cornell International Human Rights Clinic and co-founder of the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice at Cornell Law School. Her Cornell honors include the 2009 Dean Lukingbeal Award, given by law students in recognition of her contributions to women students; and the 2009 Outstanding Work for the Advancement of Women Award.

Sponsored by the Women’s Resource Center, the Graduate School, Student Assembly, GPWomeN and the South Asian Council. 

Russia in world affairs

Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014, will deliver the Bartels World Affairs Fellowship Lecture, “A New Cold War? Explaining Russia’s New Confrontation with the West,” March 16 at 4:30 p.m. in Alice Statler Auditorium. Free and open to the public.

McFaul is director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he is a professor of political science; and former director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law. He is also a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he co-directs the Iran Democracy Project.

The Bartels Lecture is sponsored by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. 

Microbes and health

Learn about how you and your microbes might better interact with the environment to support a healthier life at the next Science Cabaret, “How to Train Your Superorganism … Via the Microbiome,” March 17, 7-8:30 p.m. at Lot 10 Bar & Lounge, 106. S. Cayuga St., Ithaca. Free and open to all ages. There will be yogurt samples from Ithaca Water Buffalo, good for boosting the microbial population.

Cornell professor of microbiology and immunology Rodney Dietert will discuss the role of microbes, lifestyle and informed decisions in combating ever-increasing numbers of debilitating chronic diseases such as asthma, food allergies, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, obesity, heart disease and cancer.

Dietert is a scientist, author and lecturer with a focus on reducing environmental health risks in children and pregnant women, and protecting against chronic diseases. Science Cabaret is held at Lot 10 one Tuesday a month, mixing science, art and audience participation.