Returning from the dead.

In case you haven’t noticed, Where Art Thou has been a little MIA lately. Well, the wait is over; Bwog has a new arts editor, Alexander Katz, and in addition to providing you with information on the best of Columbia’s art scene every Wednesday, Alex is pushing for Bwog to get real and preface every post with this video. If you’d like your event featured on Bwog, please e-mail events@bwog.com. 

Thursday

Book Discussion: Dreaming in French,  The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis at 6 pm in French House. Alice Kaplan discusses her new book, Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag and Angela Davis (University of Chicago Press, 2012), that tells how their sojourns in the City of Light changed the lives of three extraordinary American women, who would each go on to become key figures in American cultural, intellectual, and political life. Free.

Barnard Senior Thesis Festival at opens at the Minor Latham Playhouse with three plays: Gloryday at 7 pm, The Blind at 8 pm and The Long Goodbye at 9 pm. Gloryday is a provocative show about faith, hope, confession, truth, lies, sex, and disillusionment. The Blind is a symbolist adaptation of the 1890 Maeterlinck play that plays on the base fears within us all. The Long Goodbye is a Tennessee Williams Classic about a man moving out of his apartment struggles to comes to terms with his family’s collapse. All are free.

CMTS’ Bright Lights, Big City opens at 8pm in the Lerner Black Box.The show follows Jamie, a writer in 1980’s Manhattan, possessed of so little clarity that when he looks out over the jagged and exciting New York nighttime, all he can see are bright lights and a big city, splotches of reality through a haze of illusion.  Bored at work, neglecting his writing, and sexually frustrated to within an inch of his life, Jamie turns to the glamour of drugs and hysteria in the downtown club scene—yet despite his best efforts, the pain and grief of the real world find a way in. Continues Friday and Saturday. $5 with CUID.

Friday

CoLab Spring Showcase 2012 at 7:30 pm also Saturday in the Glicker-Milstein Black Box. CoLab is an interdisciplinary student art group made up mostly of dancers and choreographers. Their Spring Showcase features 9 original works choreographed by CU and BC students, as well as video and live music. Free.

Columbia Ballet Collaborative at 7 pm also Saturday in Miller Theater. This season, Columbia Ballet Collaborative brings together five choreographers for an exciting program. Highlights include a new work by the acclaimed founder of Avi Scher & Dancers, New York based choreographer Avi Scher. This program also features a new piece by CBC’s resident choreographer and founder of The Young Choreographer’s Showcase, Emery LeCrone. $7-17.

Saturday

CU Wind Ensemble Presents: Perspectives at 12pm in Roone Arledge Auditorium. For the end of the year, CU Wind Ensemble will look at how music offers perspectives to this time of change, and honor the graduating class by performing pieces chosen by the seniors! The concert will include… Huapango – Jose Pablo Moncayo William Byrd Suite – Gordon Jacob Second Suite for Military Band – Gustav Holst Pictures at an Exhibition – Modeste Moussorgsky. Free.

Monday

In Memoriam of Adrienne Rich at 7pm at Deutsches Haus. Poet, essayist, feminist, champion of social justice, teacher, friend.  The Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia University invites you to join in celebrating Adrienne Rich’s life, to mourn her passing, and to read her work, again. Free

When a Text is a Song: Translating Kabir Oral Traditions in North India, a lecture by Linda Hess at 7 pm in Sulzburger Parlor. In this talk, Linda Hess will reflect on what it means to translate Kabir from Hindi/Urdu into English. She will explore the shifts that occur across oral, written, performative, and media divides wherever Kabir is intoned. Free.

Prospective Columbians via Wikimedia Commons