Warhol's screen tests

Cornell Cinema presents "13 Most Beautiful … Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests," Sept. 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. Musicians Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (of Galaxie 500 and Luna) will accompany rarely seen black-and-white short films Warhol made in the mid-1960s of famous friends and Factory hangers-on. The program, commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, includes intimate footage of Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, Nico, Mary Woronov (a Cornell art major "discovered" by Warhol assistant Gerard Malanga) and others. Seating is limited; advance tickets are $18.50 at Ithaca Guitar Works and the Cornell Cinema Office, 104 Willard Straight Hall. Prices are $23.50 at the door and $18.50 for students and senior citizens. Information: http://www.dansmallspresents.com. Co-sponsors include the Cornell Council for the Arts, the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance, and the Rose Goldsen Lecture Series.

LaCapra's legacies

Cornell honors the nearly four-decade career of one of its most prolific and challenging scholars with a conference, "Repetition With Change: The Intellectual Legacies of Dominick LaCapra," Sept. 25-26 at the A.D. White House.

LaCapra -- a professor of history and comparative literature, the Bowmar Professor of Humanistic Studies and former director of the School of Criticism and Theory -- has challenged the disciplinary and normative assumptions of scholars in the humanities throughout his career. His work has helped historians explore the relevance of literary theory for historical inquiry, while making a case for careful historical study within literary and critical theory. His most recent book is "History and Its Limits: Human, Animal, Violence" (2009), his 13th for Cornell University Press.

The conference will gather LaCapra's former students and intellectual interlocutors who have taken up one or more of his theoretical challenges in their own work. Papers will cover some of LaCapra's chief preoccupations through the decades: historiography and critical theory, secularization, trauma and repetition, excess and normative limits, and animal-human relations. Information: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/.

African migration

Africana scholars will discuss the contemporary phenomenon of Africans relocating to North America, Sept. 30 at 5 p.m. at the Cornell Store.

Due to the collapse of social, political, economic and educational structures in their home countries, more Africans have been driven to seek security and self-realization in the West. Since 1990, more Africans have migrated to North America than were brought here forcibly before the slave trade ended in 1807.

Adeolu Ademoyo, Yoruba language instructor at Cornell, joins participants from Binghamton University, fellow contributors to the new book "The New African Diaspora," which examines the immigrant experience, progress from expatriation to arrival, and successes and problems in establishing lives in a new country. There will be time for discussion with the audience. Refreshments will be available.

Ensemble X in concert

Cornell new music group Ensemble X will perform Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall. Free.

Founding director and Pulitzer Prize-winning Cornell composer Steven Stucky organized the concert. Ensemble X will perform music by Elliott Carter, Andrew Waggoner, D.M.A. '86, and Sebastian Currier; and compositions by conductors Francesco Antonioni and Donald Crockett. Cellist Caroline Stinson will perform two solo works; Antonioni will conduct the U.S. premiere of his "Ballata" for eight solo strings; and Crockett will conduct his composition "The Cinnamon Peeler," featuring guest mezzo soprano Rachel Calloway.

Antonioni, a composer in residence at Cornell, also gives a Composers' Forum lecture Sept. 25 at 1:25 p.m. in 316 Lincoln Hall.

Street dance, club culture

Choreographer Nicholas Leichter and his young company will bring energetic street dance to the Schwartz Center on Oct. 1 at 8 p.m.

Tickets for the performance by Nicholas Leichter Dance are $30; $25 for students and senior citizens, available at http://www.schwartztickets.com, at the box office or by calling 607-254-ARTS.

Leichter choreographs cultural narratives in which movement tells the story. The company will perform two new pieces: "Free the Angels," choreographed to music from Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life"; and "Killa," a celebration of street dance and the ingenuity of club dancing, with music by MIA, Basement Jaxx, Lionrock and funk stylist Monstah Black. The multitude of dance styles in "Killa" includes African, Latin and Michael Jackson-inspired choreography.

Mountain folk

Ginny Hawker and Tracy Schwarz bring traditional rural southern music to campus Sept. 26 at 8 p.m. in 165 McGraw Hall.

Schwarz, a multi-instrumentalist in the legendary New Lost City Ramblers, and Hawker, a keeper of oral traditions from her southern Appalachian upbringing, have performed together since 1988. The concert will feature mountain ballads and church music, old-time, folk, bluegrass and dance tunes.

Tickets are $15 in advance for the general public, $17 at the door; Cornell students $10 advance/$12 at the door, children free. $3 rebate for Cornell Folk Song Society members. Information: http://www.cornellfolksong.org/ or 607-279-2027.

Poetry and pastry

Cornell's Department of Near Eastern Studies will present "Poetry and Pastry: An Evening of Near Eastern, Mediterranean and Ithacan Poetry," Sept. 29 at 6:30 p.m. in the Guerlac Room of A. D. White House.

The event is free and open to the public, and features desserts and poetry read in many languages by students and faculty including Roald Hoffmann and Kenneth McClane.

Fruitful quest

Adam Leith Gollner -- filmmaker, musician, photographer, magazine editor and best-selling author of "The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Obsession, Commerce and Adventure" -- will deliver the second annual Elizabeth E. Rowley lecture Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Statler Auditorium.

Gollner will share stories about the otherworldly fruits he encountered on travels to the Amazon, Borneo, the Seychelles and tropical West Africa. He will also discuss the idea of biophilia, the instinctive bond between humans and living systems.

The lecture is free and presented by Cornell Plantations. A book sale and signing will follow. Information: http://www.adamgollner.com.