As part of the exhibition Ingo Gunther: Refugee Republic at Cambridge's Gallery 57 (57 Inman St., through June 30), Professor Krzysztof Wodiczko of the Department of Architecture will take part in a joint presentation titled "Alien Network/Alien State," tonight (Wednesday, May 12) at 7pm at the Goethe-Institut (170 Beacon St., Boston). The program is presented in conjunction with the Boston Cyberarts Festival.
Robin Lippincott, senior secretary in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and author of the novel Mr. Dalloway (Sarabande Books), will read in Blacksmith House Reading Series on Monday, May 17 at 8:15pm at 42 Brattle St. in Cambridge. "Audacious and daring," said author Joseph Caldwell, calling Mr. Dalloway "a suspenseful, searching, and triumphantly satisfying work."
Freshman Pauravi Shah of chemical engineering was featured in a New York Times article on the Bhangra Blowout, an annual intercollegiate dance competition at George Washington University. While conventional Bhangra is a folk dance done by the men of Punjab, a province in northern India, the blowout is coed, the traditional folk songs are remixed with techno and hip-hop, and the movements incorporate modern dance moves such as breakdancing. A 17-member MIT bhangra ensemble, which performs in elaborate authentic costumes, is part of the South Asian Students Association. Last year, they placed second in the Blowout.
Media Laboratory Associate Professor Tod Machover's new opera Resurrection (MIT Tech Talk, April 14) has been receiving positive reviews in publications nationwide. The work, which premiered in April at the Houston Grand Opera, was called "Machover's richest and most varied" by Lloyd Schwartz for National Public Radio's Fresh Air and the Boston Phoenix. "From minimalism and rock, he's learned to create pounding, pulsating rhythms that build to ferocious climaxes. And he has his own genius for soaring melody and dazzling color and texture... Resurrection is a serious and powerful work, a milestone for Tod Machover, and a noble achievement of the Houston Grand Opera."
New York Times critic James R. Oestreich noted that Professor Machover, who "has made a specialty of electronically generated sounds, also proved a fine orchestrator, and produced ravishing combinations of the two media." The libretto by Laura Harrington, a lecturer in music and theater arts, drew praise, especially the first act. Wrote Mr. Oestreich, "Especially on the strength of enterprising music and the drama of its first act, the work deserves another life."
Mark Swed (Los Angeles Times) wrote, "The vocal writing [of Resurrection] often dazzles with grand melismatic flourishes; jazz tumults through the brutish seduction scene; a gripping rhythmic pulse catapults through ever-changing meters."
"The MIT Symphony Orchestra is bursting into bloom under the leadership of new music director Dante Anzolini, and Saturday night's concert provided evidence that the maestro has won the musicians' hearts and imaginations as well as their minds," wrote Susan Larson in a Boston Globe review of MITSO's May 8 concert.������
A version of this article appeared in the May 12, 1999 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 43, Number 30).
