Concerto winner

A concert by the Cornell Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Katherine Kilburn, will feature 2019 Cornell Concerto Competition winner Joy Zhang ’21, Feb. 29 at 3 p.m. at Bailey Hall. She will play Georges Hüe’s “Fantasie for Flute and Orchestra.”

The concert program also includes Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Apu” and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 6.

Zhang, a human biology, health and society major, studies flute with Elizabeth Shuhan. She is a previous winner of the Hochstein School of Music Merit Scholarship Competition and the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition.

The concert is free and open to the public. A pre-concert instrument “petting zoo,” presented by Hickey’s Music Center, begins at 2 p.m. in the lower lobby.

Winning the space race

Cornell University Library and Cornell Cinema celebrate the legacy of trailblazing NASA scientists with a screening of “Hidden Figures,” March 3 at 4:30 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. It is free and open to the public, with free popcorn and soda for the first 50 attendees.

The mathematical and engineering achievements of Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan, three African American women scientists, are featured in the film. Along with Christine Darden, they helped the U.S. win the space race.

The screening is followed by the unveiling of “NASA’S Hidden Heroines,” a commemorative poster to be installed in the math, engineering and physical sciences libraries at Cornell.

The event includes an introduction by Eric Acree, director of the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library; and closing remarks by Jami Joyner, director of Diversity Programs in Engineering.

Gary Lucas plays “Golem” score

Legendary guitarist Gary Lucas reprises his 1989 score for “The Golem” (1920) and provides live accompaniment to a new digital restoration of the German Expressionist horror classic, March 4 at 7:15 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. Tickets are $14 general, $11 for students, with $3 off for Cornell Cinema All-Access Pass holders.

The Metrograph, a New York City art house cinema, hosted Lucas with a retrospective of his live film scores – including “The Golem” – last summer. Lucas has had a 40-year association with Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, and has collaborated with Jeff Buckley, John Cale, Nick Cave, Lou Reed, Sarah Stiles, Leonard Bernstein and Dr. John, among many others.

Event co-sponsors include the Jewish Studies Program, the Cornell Council for the Arts, the Department of German Studies, the Institute for German Cultural Studies and the Wharton Studio Museum.

Also showing: “Parasite,” the recent Academy Award winner (Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Feature and Best Screenplay), Feb. 27-March 1; and “Varda by Agnes” (2019), March 5-6, to kick off the six-film series Agnes Varda Tribute: Selected Documentaries.

Legalization and reparation

NOTE: This event has been canceled and will be rescheduled.
Noliwe Rooks, the W.E.B Du Bois Professor of Literature in Africana studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, will discuss the underside of cannabis legalization in the 2020 Society for the Humanities Annual Invitational Lecture, March 4 at 4:30 p.m. at the A.D. White House. Her lecture, “‘Legalize it?’: A Story of Cannabis, Race, Global Capital and Civil Wrongs,” is free and open to the public.

As legalization efforts expand across the United States, black elected officials and grassroots activists are leading the fight to have legalization and regulation tied to reparation efforts for those who are behind bars or have been convicted for selling the now somewhat-legal drug.

Rooks is the director of the American Studies Program at Cornell and a core faculty member in feminist, gender and sexuality studies. She lectures at colleges and universities around the country and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Time magazine and NPR.

An interdisciplinary scholar, her work explores how race and gender impact and are impacted by popular culture, social history and political life in the United States. Her work focuses on the cultural and racial implications of beauty, fashion and adornment, in addition to scholarship on race; capitalism and education; and black women and material culture.

Rooks’ current research explores relationships between capitalism, land, urban food politics and cannabis legalization in the United States. Her most recent book, “Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education,” won an award from the Hurston/Wright Foundation.

The Annual Invitational Lecture is designed to give the campus community a chance to hear from distinguished Cornell faculty who usually present their work at other institutions.

Bees: “The Untold Story”

Honeybees living in the wild hold the key to improving the health of the managed colonies kept by beekeepers, according to Thomas D. Seeley, the Horace White Professor in Biology in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Seeley will address why wild colonies thrive in a Chats in the Stacks talk, March 5 at 4 p.m. in 160 Mann Library. The talk is free and open to the public, with light refreshments served.

Seeley, whose most recent book is “The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild”(2019), will share new insights scientists have gained about the behavior, social life and survival strategies of honeybees by looking at how they live in nature. He also will discuss “Darwinian Beekeeping” – a new approach whereby beekeepers can revise their practices to make bees’ lives less stressful and more healthful.

Locally Grown Dance concerts

The annual Locally Grown Dance concerts at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts will feature dancers from the Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) in collaboration with guest artists in music, visual arts and dance.

Performances are March 5-7 at 7:30 p.m. in Kiplinger Theatre. Tickets are $18 for adults and $12 for students, seniors and the Cornell community, at schwartztickets.com and at the Schwartz Center box office, open Monday-Saturday, 1-8 p.m.

Each of the four dance pieces incorporates the idea of transformation – literally, figuratively or both. Choreography is by PMA dance faculty members Byron Suber, Nic Ceynowa and Jumay Chu and guest-artist-in-dance Sharaf DarZaid, performing his solo work “To Be…” Dance students in the production were mentored by professional dancers Florian Lochner and Ayo Janeen Jackson in the fall through PMA’s guest-artists-in-dance program.

Suber created videography and collaborated with Matt Gagnon ’96 on set design for his piece, “Tunneling.” Chu’s piece features “Sao” (video projections and dance) by artist Tong Yang-Tze, the 2020 Wong Chai Lok Calligraphy Fellow at Cornell, with live accompaniment by Christopher J. Miller, senior lecturer in the Department of Music. Tong’s exhibition “Immortal at the River” is at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art through June 7.

DarZaid, a Palestinian artist in folkloric and contemporary dance, is teaching technique classes through March 5 and gives a lecture, “Art Under Conditions of Oppression,” March 2 at noon in the Schwartz Center Film Forum. Both are open to the public.

Locally Grown Dance is funded in part by the Cornell Council for the Arts.