Feeling stressed out? Too many midterms to manage? Come take a study break with some culture and arts this week!

New York City is packed with amazing culture and inspiring art, but sometimes it’s difficult to break the Morningside-bubble and experience it all first-hand. “Where Art Thou” is a weekly guide to interesting and notable lectures, events, and performances for the literary/musically/ theatrically-inclined on campus.

Tuesday, October 18th

• Filming at the Borders: Hope, 6:30 PM, Maison Francaise – “Deep in the Sahara desert, as they try to get to Europe, Léonard, a young man from Cameroon, rescues Hope, a Nigerian woman. In a fiercely hostile world where safety requires staying with one’s own people, these two try to find their way together, and to love each other. Hope premiered at the Cannes Film Festival (Semaine de la Critique, SACD award) and was theatrically released in France in 2015, after having been widely shown around the world, and specifically on the African continent. The two leading actors won acting awards at Tübingen Festival. Lojkine had directed award-winning documentaries about Vietnam before shooting this first feature film. For Hope, he exclusively worked with non-professional actors whom he cast for several months in Rabat among the migrants, while finishing writing the script. Shot in Morocco and in a dozen languages, Hope describes the underground world of migration from the inside, the business it relies on, and the extreme gender-based violence. “Boris Lojkine filmed Sub-Saharan migration in a way that has never been shown before. A complete shock.” (Le Point)”
• Preservation as Battle Zone: Book Launch & Discussion, 6:30 PM, Wood Auditorium – “This round table will elaborate on the inherent problems and unfulfilled potentials of the “battle zone position” of preservation. Obviously, the dynamic and hazardous properties of war fuels the discipline with energy and activism, but at the same time it can overshadow the more subtle and complex aspects of the field – consequently preventing it from being integrated into a broader disciplinary discourse. How can we combine the vigorous and forceful with the ambiguous and unpredictable? How can we untangle ourselves from the armor of war and take on new identities? And finally: how can we combine progress and preservation to solve the challenges of the future city?”
• A poetry reading by Jorie Graham and Robyn Schiff, 7:00 PM, Sulzberger Parlor in Barnard Hall – “Jorie Graham’s most recent book is From the New World: Poems 1976-2014. She “thinks of the poet not as a recorder but as a constructor of experience. Like Rilke or Yeats, she imagines the hermetic poet as a public figure, someone who addresses the most urgent philosophical and political issues of the time” (James Longenbach). Her many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship. She teaches at Harvard University. Robyn Schiff is the author of three books of poetry, including A Woman of Property. “Schiff’s is a major species of weird, glowing genius…her brilliance is singular, her vision compound. We’ll be measuring this work’s radiance in light-years” (Brenda Shaughnessy). She teaches at the University of Iowa.”

Wednesday, October 19th

• Mid-Day Music @ Columbia featuring Bruce Barth on jazz piano and music associate, 12-1 PM, Garden Room 2 in the Faculty House – Yong Murray will be performing a program of selections that have yet to be announced. This event is free.
• “Summertime” by Columbia Stages, 7:30 PM, Shapiro Theatre – “Meet 13 people. All different, all the same. Each trying to grasp that slippery bar of soap called love. Assumptions are confronted by others’ realities as everyone must face the question “How does love work?” With the backdrop of a nostalgic and dreamlike summertime day, each character ponders if their idea of love is too simple or too complex. As they search, one by one, they discover they may not know how love works at all. Do you think you do?” – Tickets free with student ID using code “student” – additional shows at 7:30 PM on October 20th, 21st and 22nd; matinee at 2:00 PM on October 22nd

Thursday, October 20th

• Composer Portrait: John Zorn, 8:00 PM, Miller Theatre – “As prolific as he is provocative, John Zorn returns to Composer Portraits with five new works, all slated to receive their world premiere performances. A dream team of new music superstars comes together to give voice to Zorn’s newest creations, affirming once more the depth and breadth of his musical palette, which draws on punk, jazz, klezmer, classical, and other genres—spanning continents and centuries.” -Tickets $7 with CUID
• “Baby with the Bathwater” by Christopher Durang, 8:00 PM, Lerner Black Box – “CUP proudly presents Baby with the Bathwater by Christopher Durang, a play about the difficulty and importance of good parenting. Helen and John fancy themselves as ideal parents. But it soon becomes obvious that they are in over their head. A rough Nanny bursts in and seduces John, a wandering loon breaks into the house and sings to the child; and all that chaos is only the first scene! This shockingly funny and deeply insightful comedy will take you through the extremes of terrible parenting and show how — even with a rocky start — we can all work to overcome our demons.” – additional shows at 8:00 PM on October 21st and 22nd
• “username”, 8:00 PM, Glicker-Milstein Theatre – “username tells the story of 17-year-old Toby, a closeted young man whose discomfort with himself and alienation from those around him propels him to create a false online identity as Sosanna. When Toby-as-Sosanna meets another reclusive 17-year-old, Rickie, the fantasy world created between them takes on a life of its own as Toby and Rickie come to terms with the underlying dysfunction in their families, their pasts, and themselves. username explores the important and thought-provoking themes of identity, sexuality, love, and family though both humorous and touching dialogue. Note: this show contains mentions of suicide, underage sex, and homophobic slurs.” – additional shows at 8:00 PM on October 21st and 22nd

Friday, October 21st

• Sound Arts MFA in the Library, 6:00 PM, Music and Arts Library in Dodge Hall– “The Sound Arts MFA Program is comprised of artists engaging in critical study of sound, and working with this medium as an integral part of their artworks. Each artist employs a multidisciplinary approach to working with sound—visual arts, music, computer programming, performance, and film—exploring innovative ways to alter perception and experience. The Sound Arts MFA Program has developed a unique partnership with Columbia University’s Gabe B. Wiener Music & Arts Library to exhibit sound art through the investigation of the library’s spatial possibilities and devotion to sonic histories.”
• Symposium / Beyond the Frame | Contemporary Photography from Africa and the Diaspora, 1:00 PM, Schermerhorn Hall, Room 501– “The symposium will focus on individual artistic practices, while also considering the institutional and infrastructural contexts in which these practices emerge. Incorporating a wide range of speakers, Beyond the Frame will provide an opportunity for exchange, debate, and dialogue about critical issues in the field of contemporary photography in Africa and the Diaspora.”
• Symposium | The Global Book Review, 2:00 PM, The Italian Academy– “The editors of Public Books, Sharon Marcus and Caitlin Zaloom, invite you to Columbia University for a half-day event about the future of cultural journalism. Join editors and critics from around the world to discuss how the internet has—and has not—created a global readership.”

Saturday, October 22nd

• Jazz: Vijay Iyer, 8:00 PM, Miller Theatre – “Vijay Iyer is no stranger to Miller audiences: he played there with Craig Taborn a few years back, and his works for classical players have also been featured on the Miller stage. This time around, he’ll showcase his longstanding trio. For over a decade, the group has taken inspiration from everything from electronica to Indian classical to the jazz legend Thelonious Monk, mashing up genres and styles to create surprising and invigorating new jazz. “The logic of repurposing has always been part of what the trio does,” says Iyer.” – Tickets are $7 with CUID
• Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency: Sandi Hilal & Alessandro Petti, 4:00 PM, Wood Auditorium – “A conversation on the intersections of art, architecture, and pedagogy with Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti. The two discuss and their experiences working with refugees and exploring ways of creating, in their words, “different social, political and spatial relationships between people, state and territory beyond the liberal notion of citizenship.”- RSVP to Sihem Mellah

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