ITHACA, N.Y. -- From concerts and films to international dance, check out this week's event highlights at Cornell. For complete events listings, visit the university's online calendar at http://www.cornell.edu/events.

Branford Marsalis at State Theatre
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his quartet will begin the 2005-06 Cornell Concert Series with a performance Sept. 23 at 8 p.m. at the State Theatre in downtown Ithaca. Tickets range from $15 to $39; at the WSH ticket desk or call (607) 273-4497. Music professor Steven Pond also will speak with Marsalis in a public Q&A, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in Barnes Hall Auditorium. General seating tickets for the free event will be distributed at 1:30 p.m. A member of one of New Orleans' first families of jazz, Marsalis is a three-time Grammy award winner and a former "Tonight Show" bandleader. Currently he is an educator at San Francisco University and works with Habitat for Humanity in his recently devastated hometown. See http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Courses/cs165/CCS/index.html for more information.

'Two Lane Blacktop' at Cornell Cinema
James Taylor is The Driver. Beach Boy Dennis Wilson is The Mechanic. Together, they don't sing (or even talk very much) but they do tear down back roads in a '55 Chevy, pick up a girl and race against GTO (Warren Oates, not shown) in director Monte Hellman's drive-in cult classic "Two Lane Blacktop." Cornell Cinema screenings are Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 27 at 9:30 p.m., both in Willard Straight Theatre. For more information, call (607) 255-3522 or visit http://cinema.cornell.edu.

Percussionist Lynn Vartan in concert
Percussionist Lynn Vartan will give a guest solo concert of contemporary music featuring marimba, hand drums, clay flower pots, various other instruments and prerecorded sounds, Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall. The performance is free and open to the public. For more information about Department of Music events, see http://www.arts.cornell.edu/Cornell_Concert_Series.

Orissa Indian dance company
Orissa Dance will perform Odissi, a style of classical Indian temple dance that is thousands of years old, in a performance Sept. 29 at 8 p.m. at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, 430 College Ave. The performers will be accompanied by live musicians on traditional instruments. Tickets are $30 general, $25 for students and seniors, and available by calling (607) 254-ARTS. For more information, visit http://www.arts.cornell.edu/theatrearts/.

'Born Into Brothels' director introduces film
Filmmaker Zana Briski will introduce "Born Into Brothels," her 2004 Academy Award-winning documentary of children in Calcutta's red-light district, Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. in Cornell Cinema's Willard Straight Theatre. The film, co-directed by Ross Kauffman, recounts the story of Briski, a photojournalist who lived among her subjects and taught photography to prostitutes' children, eventually committing herself to finding a way out of the brothels for them. For more information, call (607) 255-3522 or visit http://cinema.cornell.edu.