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A Boston Sunday Globe Magazine feature on Shakespeare & Company Artistic Director Tina Packer opens with a description of an acting class she conducted at MIT last April, focusing on her intense coaching of a student's presentation of Mercutio's dying monologue in Romeo and Juliet. "The work is deep, fast, and physically and emotionally demanding," wrote Vicki Sanders for the August 17 publication. "She emphasizes again and again the power contained in the words themselves and asks the students to listen more intently and open themselves more viscerally to the psychic charge the language transmits." The Lenox-based Shakespeare & Company are artists-in-residence with the theater arts section.

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"Engineering students tackle acting equation," announced the August 17 Boston Globe's "Night & Day: Pulse" column, spotlighting the recent Musical Theatre Guild production of Blood Brothers. "The foreboding and highly emotional rock musical Blood Brothers might seem like a strange choice to be staged at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but for students usually wrapped up in complex equations, there is something appealing about cutting loose with all their inner demons," wrote David Wildman.

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When the Tech Squares, MIT's modern square dance club, claims "it's not your parents' square dancing," they're not kidding. Rolling Stone magazine mentions MIT as a "lively scene" for challenge square dancing in a column titled, "Hot Geek Scene" in the August 21 issue. Comparing challenge dancing to "a Rubik's Cube in graceful motion," the magazine notes that the "aim is to perform mind-bogglingly complex maneuvers on cue, following the rapid-fire instructions of the designated caller."

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Karl Sims (SB in biology, 1984; SM in media arts and sciences, 1987) rated a rave in the August/September issue of Art New England for Gal������������������pagos, his interactive installation on permanent exhibition at the Intercommunication Center in Tokyo. Viewers can see Darwin's theories in operation as they effect the "natural selection" process by choosing organisms displayed on 12 computer screens, which then survive, mate, mutate and reproduce. "The results are beautiful and otherworldly," wrote George Fifield. "Sims has created a remarkable allegory of the mechanism that four and a half billion years ago began the most complex design of all -- life." Gal������������������pagos can be seen on the Web at .

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Through September, the MIT Women's League is sponsoring art workshops on Wednesdays and/or Saturdays at the MIT Furniture Exchange (Building WW15). Ruth Milne, a painter and graduate of the Art Institute of Boston, will provide instruction for beginners. Informal discussions and slide shows of art will be included, as well as an exhibition and party to show the work. The fee is $10 per session. For more information, call 491-2760 or x3-4293.

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Marek Zebrowski may be on leave right now from his post as lecturer with the music and theater arts section, but he's by no means idle. Mr. Zebrowski has been awarded a fellowship by the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy, giving him the opportunity to concentrate on composition. His main project is a 12-song cycle for baritone and piano, based on poems by Constantine Kavafy, which will premiere at MIT next May with world-renowned performers, baritone Chris Trakas and soprano Dawn Upshaw. Another composition, "Colloque sentimental" for strings, will be premiered on October 31 at the Edmonton New Music Festival in Edmonton, Alberta.

In addition, Mr. Zebrowski's piano piece, Ex tempore, was awarded a second prize at the international competition at The Hague last May. The world premiere will be in late March 1988 in The Hague. It will be recorded on a CD and published in the Paris New Music Review.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 10, 1997.

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