Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Ruby Que '20 and Prof. Sabine Haenni
As Cornell University shifts to remote instruction due to COVID-19, this year's Centrally Isolated Film Festival (CIFF), Cornell's annual student-run film competition celebrating student filmmakers, will also move online. Selected films will be available for free streaming between April 24 and May 1 at CentrallyIsolatedFilmFestival.org.

Since 2013, the Centrally Isolated Film Festival has been a highlight of the Department of Performing and Media Arts' spring season. Student filmmakers from colleges and universities throughout the greater central and upstate New York region submit short films to be judged by industry professionals. This year, submissions were selected from Cornell, Ithaca College, Binghamton University, Brown University, Syracuse University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute, and Columbia University.

The Community Arts Partnership released a list of local arts offerings that people can attend online from home.  The organization also provided a list of resources for artists.  The list will be updated weekly.

"The staff of the Community Arts Partnership (all two of us!) have considered what it means to strengthen communities in this time of quarantine," wrote Executive Director Megan Barber and Program & Grant Director Robin Schwartz. "For us, it means that we continue on with our work of amplifying the voices of our local artists, and providing grants and resources so that we all can stay safe and stay connected!"

The Cherry Artists' Collective announced the commission of a new work of live streaming theater exploring life under pandemic quarantine, co-written by seven brilliant collaborating writers from around the world. The as-yet-untitled work will première in early May and will plumb the ways interactions and relationships happen on global screens in a time of danger.

For the past five years, the Ithaca-based Cherry Artists' Collective, has created theater that is "Radically Global, Radically Local, and Formally Innovative". They have created productions with playwrights from Serbia, France, Germany, Argentina, El Salvador, and Quebec, as well as experimental new works inscribed in their local community. Now for the first time the Cherry Collective brings together writers they have worked with from around the world to collectively create a new piece for an extreme time.

In light of its recently cancelled run of Catch As Catch Can, along with the annual Lip Sink Fundraiser and of the growing threat the novel coronavirus poses to public health and safety, Kitchen Theatre Company (KTC) is putting plans in place to ensure the future stability of the theatre while continuing its engagement with the Ithaca community. As part of this effort, KTC has begun making difficult choices to mitigate financial losses.

On Friday, March 20th, the Kitchen Theatre furloughed much of its workforce in response to the immediate and sudden loss of revenue resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. The decision was very difficult, made harder by there being no foreseeable end date in sight. A small core of staff remains to continue to provide customer service to our patrons, to keep planning for next season moving ahead and to find innovative ways to keep our mission alive virtually.

The current special exhibit at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York, is "Bees! Diversity, Evolution, Conservation", and while the Museum has made the decision to keep the physical building closed until further notice, it announced yesterday that an engaging and informative online version of the exhibit is now available.

This online version of the exhibit takes you through the fascinating world of bees and reveals amazing facts and new insights into an insect which is vital to the cultivation of the food we eat. Discover the diversity of the over 20,000 species of bees from all over the world. Learn about their co-evolution with the flowers they pollinate. Explore bee biology and behaviors. Find out what threats bees currently face, and what you can do to help.

One of the hardest hit industries by the coronavirus pandemic is the entertainment industry.  Musicians and actors who depend on shows and gigs and concerts to make a living have been forced to stay home, as performing arts venues across the globe were closed.  Musicians began sharing videos, including full online concerts, many of them for free, some asking for donations, and some with an admission tag.

One of the fist big-name singers to perform online was John Legend, who performed a #TogetherAtHome concert with no pants (the camera was aimed from the waist up) on March 18th.  That started a trend of celebrity videos providing entertainment while asking viewers to donate to a myriad of charities, many of them to provide COVID-19 relief.  Keith Urban, Pink, Chris Martin, Charlie Puth, Niall Horan, and  Neil Young were just a few of the celebrities that soon followed.

The Josh Endo Memorial for Continuing Support of Music Education (JEMM) Fund, an endowed fund of the Ithaca Public Education Initiative (IPEI), recently announced the 2019-20 award of $1,000. JEMM annually supports music education needs with priority for elementary student instrument rental scholarships and secondary student instrumental music group trip scholarships. IPEI administers JEMM with help from the Fine Arts Booster Group (FABG). JEMM celebrates the late Josh Endo's love of music and his music education in the Ithaca City School District (ICSD).

In a weekend devoted to student work, two back-to-back events at Cornell's Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts will showcase select plays and screenplays written by Cornell students. The winning stage play, screenplay, and solo performance from this year's Heermans-McCalmon Dramatic Writing Competition will be presented Friday, March 20, at 4:30 p.m. in the Class of '56 Dance Theatre at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Then, on Saturday, March 21, staged readings of three new works by Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) students will be featured between 9:00 a.m. and 2:45 p.m., also in the Dance Theatre.

The presentation on March 20 includes readings of the first-place-winning play, Quinn Theobald's "Those That Left," and the first-place screenplay, "Take Away" by Cynthia He. This year for the first time, a piece in the spoken word/solo performance category will also be honored in the competition, "Hi my name is [Mee-ya]" by Miya Kuramoto. The readings are directed by PMA PhD student Caitlin Kane. A moderated Q&A with the winners will follow the readings.

March 15 is Music Sunday at the First Congregational Church. The Choir directed by Bill Cowdery will perform Part 2 of Handel's Messiah with an ensemble of strings, trumpets, and organ. Part 2 depicts Christ's suffering, death, and triumph over evil, culminating musically with the Hallelujah Chorus. It has underlying resonance with the season of Lent.

The Cornell Department of Music announced a number of performances are being cancelled due to policies announced this week motivated by the novel coronavirus threat.  Among the cancelled performances is A.D. White Professor-at-Large Wynton Marsalis' return to Cornell for a concert on Friday, March 20 at 7:30 pm at Bailey Hall. The Pulitzer and Grammy-winning trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and educator performs with the Cornell Wind Symphony, conducted by James Spinazzola, and a jazz combo.

"In response to new Cornell University guidelines, the Department of Music has cancelled many of its upcoming concerts, including the visit of A.D. White Professor-at-Large Wynton Marsalis on March 20. His visit will be rescheduled for the fall semester."

Abbey Crowley '22 as Iris Photo by Youngsun Palmer 
When there are no consequences, who draws the lines? 'The Nether' by Jennifer Haley (March 12–14, Cornell University's Department of Performing and Media Arts) presents an eerie alternate future in which realms and avatars become increasingly real as laws and morals fade away online.

In 'The Nether', an ecological disaster has effectively ruined the natural world; the online realm becomes a virtual wonderland of sights and sensations that no longer exist in reality. One of the darkest corners of The Nether is The Hideaway, a picturesque Victorian manor run by Papa, or Sims as he's known on the outside. Sims is interrogated by Detective Morris, who seeks to impose real-world consequences for Sims' virtual behaviors. Throughout the investigation, Morris learns about other inhabitants of The Hideaway: both their real-world personas and the avatars they hide behind.

Lúnasa, one of the most influential bands in the history of Irish traditional music, gets Ithaca into the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, 2020.

Named after an ancient Celtic harvest festival, Lúnasa drew from Ireland's greatest bands to form what Folk Roots magazine has called an "Irish music dream team." They have proven their mettle time and again, having sold over a quarter of a million albums, and performed more than 2,000 shows in 36 countries at venues including Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl.