Confronting a painful past

Filmmaker Lawrence Loewinger guests at a free campus screening of his award-winning film, “Bogdan’s Journey,” March 4 at 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre.

Presented by the Jewish Studies Program and Cornell Cinema, the Ithaca premiere will be followed by a talkback with Loewinger, who co-directed the film with Michal Jaskulski. 

Europe’s last Jewish pogrom occurred in Kielce, Poland, in 1946. More than 40 Holocaust survivors seeking shelter were killed, and 80 more were injured. Bogdan Białek, a Catholic Pole determined to heal a historical wound, launched a campaign in the 1990s to reconcile Poles and Jews in the aftermath of the pogrom, a forbidden subject while Poland was under Communist rule. Over time, and with great effort, he persuades the people of Kielce to confront this painful history and 70 years of bitter, contested memories.

Also showing at Cornell Cinema: Ithaca premieres of “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché,” March 6 at 7 p.m.; and the experimental film “Prototype,” March 7-8 at 7 p.m.

Raising grandchildren

Professor Rachel E. Dunifon discusses the unique strengths of grandfamilies and the distinct challenges they face, in a Chats in the Stacks book talk, March 7, 4 p.m. in 160 Mann Library. The talk is free and open to the public.

Dunifon is interim dean of the College of Human Ecology and a professor of policy analysis and management. In her new book, “You’ve Always Been There for Me: Understanding the Lives of Grandchildren Raised By Grandparents,” she examines an understudied family type now raising nearly 2 million American children.

Using data gathered in New York, Dunifon looks at such challenges as financial and health issues and lack of social services recognition. She also offers researchers, service providers, policymakers and the general public insight on how to promote well-being for members of this type of family.

Locally Grown Dance

The Department of Performing and Media Arts presents three unique dance pieces in the annual Locally Grown Dance concert, March 7-9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Schwartz Center’s Kiplinger Theatre. Tickets are $15 general, $8 for students, seniors and the Cornell community; available at schwartztickets.com and at the box office Monday through Saturday.

The works explore intersecting themes of love, loss and found community. One piece “incorporates ideas of the relationship in power and vulnerability, the familiar and the strange, love and grief,” said senior lecturer Jumay Chu, who choreographed it in collaboration with dancers. Musical trio powerdove – featuring Annie Lewandowski, senior lecturer in the Department of Music – accompanies the piece with music from their latest album, “War Shapes.”

Lecturer and guest artist Nic Ceynowa said his piece, “bye,” is “an intentional departure from my usual style,” to showcase the talents of his six dancers – five of whom, coincidentally, are graduating. The work features music by composer Luca D’Alberto.

Video and cinematic music accompany live dance in senior lecturer Byron Suber’s poignant piece, inspired by Ali Smith’s book “Artful” and by utopian/dystopian narratives such as “Westworld” and “Stranger Things.” “Concepts of melodrama are abstracted and distilled,” Suber said. “I want to show the ways in which trauma-based origin stories and loss can be recoded, and new concepts of familial relationships and security can be formed.” 

Locally Grown Dance is funded in part by a Cornell Council for the Arts grant. Ithaca Underground provided promotional support.

Last chance: ‘Mixed Media’

An exhibition of rare artifacts tracing the 500-year history of inventions that record and distribute information through sound and text is on display for one more week in the Hirshland Exhibition Gallery, Carl A. Kroch Library Level 2B. The gallery is open to the public.

Ending March 8, “Mixed Media: The Interplay of Sound and Text” features technologies used to replicate and transmit audio and text, such as the wax cylinder gramophone invented by Thomas Edison, and movable metal type.

The display examines how representations of text and sound have transformed perceptions of the material world. Items demonstrating these transformations include early field recordings of bird song collected by Cornell faculty, early modern illustrations of acoustics and examples of printed text rendered as audio.

John Scofield’s Combo 66

Jazz guitarist John Scofield’s Combo 66 performs March 8 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall as part of the Cornell Concert Series. Tickets are $29 to $36 general, $19 for students and available at cornellconcertseries.com.

To mark his 66th year, Scofield wrote 12 original compositions and formed a swinging new group to record and tour the music. With pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Bill Stewart, Combo 66 highlights its founder’s hallmarks of innovation and stylistic diversity, and is described as “an intricate exploration of jazz and its limitless direction.”

Lindsey White, from the Department of Performing and Media Arts, contributed to this report.