Posted on Jan 16, 2008

Sundance, the glitzy winter marketplace for independent movies, opens today in Park City, Utah, and one filmmaker who will be front and center is Rawson Marshall Thurber ’97.

Thurber, who wrote and directed the 2004 hit comedy, “Dodgeball,” is getting considerable buzz for his new movie, “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.” The film, based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, stars Jon Foster, Siena Miller, Nick Nolte, Peter Sarsgaard and Mena Suvari.

It chronicles the post-college exploits of Foster’s Art Bechstein, the son of a gangster, played by Nolte. Saarsgard is a drug-addled thief named Cleveland, and Miller plays his girlfriend, Jane. Suvari is Foster’s sometime girlfriend, a beautiful librarian named Phlox.

“Some people might be intrigued by the idea that the guy who did ‘Dodgeball’ is doing this film,” Thurber told Hollywood Reporter this week. ‘But I don’t think it’s necessarily that there are indie directors or studio directors anymore but that there’s subject and subject matter, and some are aligned to indies and some to studios.”

Thurber fell in love with Chabon’s novel when he read it in 1995: “I kind of knew I wanted to make the movie of the book pretty much before I knew I wanted to make movies,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

"There’s a sense of beauty to the novel, a sense of fun, an overwhelming sense of nostalgia at play, of memory, and it’s a great summertime novel in the same way that “The Great Gatsby’ was a great summertime novel,” he said. “So I think it’s a classic American story, it’s a coming-of-age story, it’s the story about that last true summer of your life.”

On Wednesday, the film was named one of “10 Movies to Check Out at Sundance” by USA Today.

One of the producers of Thurber’s latest project is another Union graduate, Thor Benander ’95. And while in the Beehive State, if Thurber wants to reminisce about his alma mater, he can chat up Jackson’s Garden and the Nott Memorial with Sundance chief Robert Redford. The iconic actor/director spent several weeks on campus back in the fall and winter of 1972-73 filming scenes for “The Way We Were,” co-starring Barbra Streisand.

Thurber holds bachelor's degrees in English and Theater Arts from Union and an MFA in producing from the University of Southern California. He credits his liberal arts background at Union with giving him a good foundation for his Hollywood career.

His next planned big-screen project is an adaptation of the hit television series, “Magnum PI.”

And while Union’s at the movies, “The Bucket List,” starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, debuted at number one last weekend. What’s the connection? Director Rob Reiner, in a recent New York Times interview, said he tried to get the film made for several years, but had no luck until Alan Horn ’64, the president of Warner Bros. Entertainment, finally gave the project the go-ahead. Horn, Reiner and others co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment in 1987.

Thurber and Horn both live in California.

Posted on Jan 15, 2008

Here’s something to warm up a winter night: Noted Dutch pianist Marcel Worms will perform 17 “new blues” at Emerson Auditorium in the Taylor Music Center Monday, Jan. 21 at 8 p.m.

Worms is known for his exploration of modern piano repertory influenced by such jazz composers as Poulenc and Ravel. Taking the idea a step further, he decided to commission new blues and blues-like pieces.

Since 1996, more than 170 composers from Europe, China, Indonesia, Russia, the Middle East, the United States, Africa and South America have contributed to the project. Reviewing a concert in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.,  the Washington Post wrote: “All this was virtuoso fare and Worms played it with joy, grace, and, at times, humor that was contagious and captivating."

The blues project has been released on four CDs. More commissions, publications and recordings are in the works.

Monday’s program in Emerson will feature a selection of these new blues, showing the different ways in which composers have approached the project.

Michiel Braam has written "a short Boogie-Woogie," Mikhail Kohzhayev "was inspired by the most famous Armenian landscape painter” and David Macbride incorporated exactly notated music with performer improvisation.

In other words, if you can't chase away the blues, embrace them.

Worms’ visit to Union, part of a North American tour, is free and open to the public.

Posted on Jan 15, 2008

Tony Award nominee Calvin Levels will perform his solo play, “James Baldwin: Down from the Mountaintop,” Monday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. in the Nott Memorial. The play, part of the College’s Presidential Forum on Diversity, caps a daylong celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The performance, which is free and open to the public, will be followed by a question-and answer-session and a reception at 8:30 p.m. in the Nott.

The two-act play traces the life of Baldwin, the esteemed playwright, novelist and civil rights activist, from his early years as a fiery young minister in Harlem to his involvement with the civil rights movement. It culminates with his death in 1987 at his home in the South of France.

Levels’ theater achievements include best actor nominations for the Tony, New York Drama Desk Award and New York Outer Critics Circle Award. He captured the Theatre World Award for Outstanding New Talent and was honored by the National James Baldwin Literary Society for his contribution to the legacy of James Baldwin.

He has also appeared in numerous television network shows.

Screenings, music and more

On Monday at 6 p.m. in the Nott, before Levels takes to the stage, there will be a screening of Dr. King’s best known speech, “I Have a Dream,”  along with audio of “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Performances by the College’s Gospel Choir and the Garnet Minstrels will follow. A student exhibit, “1,000 Hands: Embracing all Cultures,” will be on display.

The College’s Jazz Quartet will perform during intermission.

In addition, the acclaimed documentary, “Eyes on the Prize,” which depicts the American civil rights movement, will be shown from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Reamer Campus Center Auditorium.

For more on Union’s celebration of the life and teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., contact Gretchel Tyson at ext. 6609 or via e-mail at tysong@union.edu.

A clothing drive

And in keeping with the spirit of Dr. King’s legacy of community outreach, the Zeta Gamma Chapter of Iota Phi Theta and the Black Student Union are holding a coat and clothing drive at Reamer Campus Center, West Dining Hall and College Park Hall, Jan. 21-27. All clean clothes and coats in good condition are appreciated.

Posted on Jan 15, 2008

The St. Lawrence String Quartet makes its Union College Concert Series debut Sunday, Jan. 20 at 3 p.m. in Memorial Chapel performing a classical repertoire from Haydn, Berg and Dvorak.

The group, founded in Toronto in 1989, includes original members Geoff Nuttall, violin, and Lesley Robertson, viola, along with violinist Scott St. John and cellist Christopher Costanza. The ensemble’s popularity soared in 1992 after winning the Banff International String Quartet Competition and Young Concert Artists International Auditions.

The St. Lawrence String Quartet performs annually throughout North America and Europe. This summer will mark its 13th year as resident quartet at the Spoleto USA Festival in Charleston, S.C. It also plays at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, Maverick Concerts, Bay Chamber Concerts (Maine) and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival.

Known for fervently championing the works of contemporary masters, the group returns to a more traditional chamber music repertoire for this performance. The program features Franz Josef Haydn’s (1732-1908) String Quartet in C major, Op. 54, No. 2; Alban Berg’s (1885-1935) “Lyric Suite” and Antonin Dvorak’s (1841-1904) String Quartet in G major, Op. 106.

The group is also commited to bringing chamber music to venues outside the traditional concert hall or classroom. This has spawned collaborations with the Pilobolus Dance Theatre and the Emerson String Quartet. As ensemble- in-residence at Stanford University since 1998, the musicians also have worked with students and faculty from the School of Medicine, School of Education and the Jewish Studies program.

The group’s initial recording of Schumann's First and Third Quartets received the coveted German Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik as well as Canada’s Juno Award. The 2002 recording, “Yiddishbbuk,” featuring the chamber music of Golijov, received two Grammy nominations.

Sunday's concert is free for members of the Union community, $20 for general admission and $8 for area students. For tickets, call ext. 6080; for more information on the concert series, call 372-3651 or visit http://www.union.edu/ConcertSeries.  

Posted on Jan 15, 2008

In Juárez, Mexico, in December, Carly Aimi ’08 met with members of Casa Amiga, a nonprofit organization that helps women with everything from birth control to domestic violence prevention. Casa Amiga was the first crisis center for women on the Mexican side of the Mexico-U.S. border region.

In El Paso, Texas, Aimi talked with women from the Frontera Women’s Foundation, a group devoted to expanding opportunities and promoting positive social change for Mexican-American women and girls with bi-national ties.

“I went to shanty towns, to the poorest communities of Mexico,” said Aimi, an Anthropology and Latin American Studies major.

In addition to Juárez and El Paso, she traveled to Tijuana and Los Angeles with her research advisor, Associate Professor of Spanish Victoria Martinez.

Aimi is one of seven students who received funding through the Union College Internal Education Fund (IEF) to travel for work associated with their senior thesis or sophomore scholars research projects.

Her research in cities and villages along the Mexican-American border gave her a first-hand look at what women in those areas face today and how globalization is changing their daily lives.

“I met with grandmothers and mothers who spent their whole lives inside their houses, but who are now leaving and claiming their independence,” Aimi said. “They’re providing cake decorating and piñata classes as a way to teach women skills so they can make extra money for their families. These are small but important ways for them to be entrepreneurial in these poverty-stricken areas.

“They’ve also mobilized to fight for water. These women have been struggling for 10 years just to get running water in their communities, and now they have succeeded. It’s a huge achievement.”

Aimi also visited a woman who ran a children’s library after she was injured in an accident in a maquiladora, an internationally-owned factory. “Her hands were burnt and she didn’t get past sixth grade, but she was tutoring 150 boys and girls in this shanty town so they can have better lives.”

Aimi spent hours speaking with undocumented female workers in El Paso, and she met with a nun in Juárez who is helping mothers who have lost children to the “femicide.” The term refers to the city’s wave of unsolved murders of hundreds of women over the past decade. Most of the targets of this violence are young, and nearly all have been employees in the maquiladoras.

“Five hundred or more women have been lost in the past five years or so, young girls who have been brutally murdered. And the government’s done nothing about it,” Aimi said.

Calling the research experience “remarkable,” Prof. Martinez said the IEF grant made it possible for her to accompany Aimi, facilitate interviews on both sides of the border and act as a translator, when needed. She also expressed gratitude for the generosity of those who shared their stories.

“Carly and I both learned a great deal about how different groups and individuals are working to improve conditions for women in El Paso and Juárez,” she said.

Aimi’s IEF research is part of a larger study of Third World feminism. Her senior thesis is titled “A Cross Cultural Perspective on Women’s Rights in Fiji and Mexico,” and it focuses on how women’s organizations in these two cultures strategize to improve women’s rights.

“I want to see if these groups are effective in getting through, in speaking to the local women and their needs,” Aimi said. “Though not everything I saw was easy to understand, many of the women and organizations I met gave me inspiration. All I can hope for is that through my research, I can sincerely shed some light on all the things women are doing around the world to help one another. “

As part of her larger research, last summer Aimi took her second trip to Fiji with Professor of Anthropology Karen Brison, her thesis advisor. As an assistant researcher, Aimi helped Brison explore gender and racial relations among preschool Fijian children.

While there, she conducted her own research.

“I thought it would be interesting to compare the borderlands of Mexico and Fiji to understand and develop suggestions on the anthropological debate of universal human rights and how many identities of women in Third World countries do not comply with the ‘westernized’ universal standard,” Aimi said.