Experimental art
"Collision Six, Senses," the sixth in a series showcasing experimental exploration of art and technology by artists from MIT and beyond is on view at Art Interactive in Cambridge (130 Bishop Allen Dr.) daily from noon to 6 p.m. through Sunday, Nov. 7. The artwork is presented in an interactive workshop format that uses new technologies, concepts and installation approaches. MIT participants include alumni Stefan Agamanolis and Dan Maynes-Aminzade, electrical engineering graduate students Jessica Banks and Andrew Brooks, Center for Advanced Visual Research Affiliate Nell Breyer, and Media Lab graduate students Ben Dalton, Jeana Frost, Nick Knouf, Jeff Lieberman, Amanda Parkes, James Patten and Hayes Raffle.
Clarinetist takes a turn
Evan Ziporyn, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music, is best known as a clarinetist and for his compositions for gamelan and western instruments, but lately he's taken a turn on the dance floor. As a live accompanist for Elliot Feld's Mandance Project, a new chamber dance group, he's garnering his share of reviews from dance critics. "The New York City Ballet star Damian Woetzel and the bass clarinetist Evan Ziporyn engage in a witty dialogue that enhances the singular blend of majesty and lightness in Mr. Woetzel's dancing," wrote Anna Kisselgoff in a New York Times review of the ensemble's Oct. 21 debut. "Mr. Woetzel breezes through 'Jawbone' as if he owns the world but knows that he must share it with Mr. Ziporyn's insistent and brilliant bass clarinet," Kisselgoff continued. The program of six dances plays at the Joyce Theater in New York City through Nov. 7.
North Indian music revue
"When George E. Ruckert begins his recently published introduction to Hindustani music with an evocative description of the strains of a ballad sung by film music superstar Lata Mangeshkar rising above the din of Rashbehari Avenue in South Calcutta, we know we are in good hands," wrote Thomas Hunter in The Review of Asian Music. He was critiquing "Music in North India: Expressing Music, Expressing Culture" (2004, Oxford University Press), a new book and CD package by Ruckert, a senior lecturer in music. "Through a combination of lively writing and the aptly chosen examples of the accompanying CD, the reader-listener is transported into the byways of North Indian music by a guide whose 30-odd years of devotion to the study, teaching and practice of Hindustani music is reflected at every turn of the path," Hunter wrote.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 3, 2004 (download PDF).
