eInside Events

May 4 Visitors Center to Host Discussion of Social Impact of Marvin Gaye’s Album and the Vietnam War

Lauren Onkey, Ph.D., is the vice president of education
and public programs for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
and Museum. She will present “What’s Going On: Marvin
Gaye, Vietnam and the Rise of Political Soul" on March 30
at 7 p.m. in the Kent Student Center Kiva.

The Kent State University May 4 Visitors Center kicks off the 45th Annual May 4 Commemoration by hosting a multimedia presentation by Lauren Onkey, Ph.D., vice president of education and public programs for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, on March 30 at 7 p.m. in the Kent Student Center Kiva.

Onkey’s presentation, “What’s Going On: Marvin Gaye, Vietnam and the Rise of Political Soul," is the first event of the center’s monthlong series commemorating the tragic events that occurred on May 4, 1970, on the Kent Campus.

“Marvin Gaye’s 1971 ‘What’s Going On’ album was written as a response to his brother’s experience in the Vietnam War and the declining conditions in U.S. cities,” Onkey says. “It was a breakthrough for Motown’s response to political and social issues, and inspired other soul artists to write about the impact of the war and its impact at home. He specifically referenced the Kent State shootings as a catalyst to the change in his writing at the time.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum did an “album spotlight” session on the record on Martin Luther King Day this year and received a great response from the audience.

“Sadly, the issues raised in the songs are eerily relevant to today, so it made for a very powerful discussion,” Onkey says.

Onkey and her staff develop educational programs and materials in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s award-winning pre-K, K-12, university and adult programs, on site and through distance learning. She also oversees the museum’s library and archives, the museum’s community outreach program and community festivals. Onkey is executive producer of the museum’s American Music Masters series, conducts interviews for the museum’s many public programs and teaches rock ‘n’ roll history courses at Case Western Reserve University.

She joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in 2008 after 14 years as an English professor at Ball State University in Indiana. Her research and teaching explores the intersection of popular music with cultural studies, literature and women’s studies. She has published essays and book chapters on Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, U2 and Bruce Springsteen, and has presented numerous papers at national and international literature, cultural studies and pedagogy conferences. Her book, Blackness and Transatlantic Irish Identity: Celtic Soul Brothers, was published by Routledge Press in 2009. Onkey received her master’s and doctoral degrees in English from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and her B.A. in English and Government from the College of William and Mary.

Other events planned for the 45th Commemoration include:

• April 6 at 7 p.m. in the Wick Poetry Center: “Overcoming Trauma Through Creative Writing,” a discussion led by David Hassler, director of Kent State’s Wick Poetry Center, and Mindy Farmer, director of Kent State’s May 4 Visitors Center.
• April 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Schwartz Center, Room 177: “The Legacy of Matthew Shepard: Learn How One Mother Used Her Grief to Make a Difference,” a presentation by Judy Shepard. Free tickets are available at www.kent.edu/may4.
• April 16 at 7 p.m. in Taylor Hall, Room 146: “The Future of May 4,” presented by Mindy Farmer, director of Kent State’s May 4 Visitors Center.
• April 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Schwartz Center, Room 177: A special showing of the movie Dick Cavett’s Vietnam and a discussion with documentary filmmaker John Scheinfeld and Timothy Naftali, the head of Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
  

To learn more about the 45th Annual Commemoration of May 4, 1970, events, visit www.kent.edu/events/may4-visitors-center.

March 26 is Kent State Day at the Cleveland International Film Festival

Kent State University Day at the Cleveland Film Festival is
March 26. Kent State alumni, students, faculty and staff
get a $2 discount on films showing at the festival.

Kent State University Day at the Cleveland Film Festival is slated for March 26 at Tower City Cinemas in downtown Cleveland. Members of the Kent State community will receive a $2 discount on tickets to any film showing any day of the festival. Kent State alumni, students, faculty and staff should use the code KSU to obtain the special discount. To see the films playing on Kent State Day at the Cleveland Film Festival, visit www.clevelandfilm.org/schedule and select Thursday, March 26.

The annual Cleveland International Film Festival seeks to enrich the community by promoting artistically and culturally significant film arts through education and exhibition. This year’s festival takes place from March 18-29. Wear Kent State gear any day of the festival and you could be randomly selected to win prizes.

Kent State is a sponsor of the Cleveland International Film Festival.

For more information about Kent State Day at the Cleveland International Film Festival, visit www.kent.edu/calendars.

For more information about the Cleveland International Film Festival, including the full program lineup, visit www.clevelandfilm.org.

Kent State School of Theatre and Dance Presents “Kent Dance Ensemble 2015: 25 Years”

Pre-professional student dance ensemble marks 25 years of performance and educational outreach

Members of the Kent Dance Ensemble perform "Two
Pieces of One: Green," choreographed by Tony
Award® winner Garth Fagan.

Kent State University’s School of Theatre and Dance presents the Kent Dance Ensemble’s 25th annual main stage concert as part of a weekend celebration that includes a reception for campus and community, a dance alumni reunion and a dinner to benefit dance student scholarships. The April 2-4 concert includes selected repertory from the last 25 years and a signature work by Tony Award® winner and internationally renowned choreographer Garth Fagan. Performances are Thursday, April 2, through Saturday, April 4, at 8 p.m. in E. Turner Stump Theatre located in the Center for Performing Arts, 1325 Theatre Drive on the Kent Campus.

For tickets, call 330-672-ARTS (2787), purchase online at www.kent.edu/theatredance or in person at the Performing Arts Box Office located in the Roe Green Center lobby of the Center for the Performing Arts, Monday to Friday, noon to 5 p.m. Tickets are $18 for adults, $16 for Kent State alumni, faculty and staff, $14 for seniors (60+) and non-Kent State students age 18 and under are $10. Tickets are free for full-time, Kent Campus undergraduate students. Groups of 10 or more can purchase tickets for $12 per person. The box office accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover, checks and cash.

“Kent Dance Ensemble: 25 Years” showcases jazz, modern and theatre dance choreography by the ensemble’s founding faculty members John R. Crawford, dean of Kent State’s College of the Arts; Dance Division Director Andrea Shearer and Darwin Prioleau, Ed.D., now dean of the College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at State University of New York, the College of Brockport. The concert also features choreography by current Kent State dance faculty members Kimberly Karpanty, Kent Dance Ensemble artistic director (1996-present), Joan Meggitt and Barbara Allegra Verlezza.

“The 3-D Duet,” choreographed by Crawford, premiered in 1993 on the Kent Dance Ensemble and is a “manifesto” for modern dance. Using text from speeches made by modern dance pioneers Jose Limon and Martha Graham, as well as ideas from philosophers and aestheticians, the dance is interwoven throughout the concert and appears in three distinct parts: Part 1 “Dialogue,” Part 2 “Discussion” and Part 3 “Declaration.” In addition to being a work in a post-modern style, the dance represents the educational outreach component of Kent Dance Ensemble’s mission.

Shearer’s “Considering Lilies” premiered as a trio in 1994 and in its current form with six Kent Dance Ensemble dancers in 2000. It is an abstract dance in four sections, undeniably linked to the music of Antonio Vivaldi — serene, reverent, light, spacious and full of grace.

Karpanty revisits “Soledades (The Solitudes),” the first dance she created for the ensemble in 1995. The dramatic dance/theatre work was inspired by Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise,” and addresses women’s issues of domestic violence, identity, fear and overcoming. An original score by Bradley Kaus was composed for the piece.

Repertory from the 21st century begins with Prioleau’s 2000 jazz piece “Feel the Rhythm…and Dance!” Performed to the head-bopping, foot-stomping music of Benny Goodman, the dance also requires the performers to play found instruments and vocalize.

Meggitt’s 2009 “Drift In, Drop Out” pairs an evocative sound score by Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg with a gracefully idiosyncratic dance for four women. Like Ginsberg’s visceral poetry, the dance invites the viewer to let the movement wash over them, and to then swim with it as it moves through space and travels from dancer to dancer.

Pictured is a dance routine from "Two Pieces of One:
Green," choreographed by Tony Award-winner Garth
Fagan and performed by members of the Kent Dance
Ensemble.

The most recent dance in the concert, Verlezza’s “Three Sister Sonata,” premiered in 2014 on current ensemble members. The piece is a modern-based work that focuses on the relationship of three women exploring the stages and struggles of growth, aging and change. The exquisite guitar rendering of J.S. Bach’s "Sonata No. 1 (Adagio)"by Paul Galbraith serves as inspiration for the work with its rich and somber tone. The work will be presented in New Jersey for the Raritan Valley Community College faculty concert in March.

The 25th anniversary concert closes with all 14 Kent Dance Ensemble members performing excerpts from Fagan’s “Two Pieces of One: Green.” Fagan has had a modern dance company based in Rochester, New York, for more than 40 years but is most recognized for his Tony award-winning choreography for Broadway’s “The Lion King.” Natalie Rogers-Cropper, assistant rehearsal director of Garth Fagan Dance, set the piece in an intensive weeklong residency in October 2014. Getting to work with guest choreographers is an important step for dancers pursuing careers in performance, choreography and education. The company recently performed the second section, “In Memorium” at the American College Dance Association’s East Central Region conference in Athens, Ohio.

In addition to the main stage concert each season, the Kent Dance Ensemble also educates K-12 students with lecture-demonstration performances and movement workshops, and it has performed for special events, festivals, symposiums and conferences on campus, in the region and throughout the nation.

For more information about “Kent Dance Ensemble: 25 Years,” visit www.kent.edu/theatredance/kent-dance-ensemble-25-years.

Kent State Will Host WhiteHot 5K Race to Remember Late Alumna

The fourth annual WhiteHot 5K will take place on Saturday,
April 18, in honor of the late Kent State University alumna
Ashley White, ‘09, who was killed in action while serving
in Afghanistan in October 2011.

Kent State University’s Department of Military Sciences will host the fourth annual WhiteHot 5K on Saturday, April 18, in honor of the late Kent State alumna Ashley White, ‘09.

Participants will run to remember 1st Lt. White, who was killed in action while serving in Afghanistan in October 2011. She served as one of the first members of the U.S. Army’s Cultural Support Team, a program that trains female soldiers to work with Afghan women and children when it is culturally inappropriate for a male service member to interact with them.

“This race is a reminder that amazing people, including amazing women, gave their lives for this country. Specifically, a young lady with hopes and aspirations not much different from ours, felt compelled to raise her hand and volunteer to serve,” says Joe Paydock, Kent State’s ROTC Training Officer. “I want the public to recognize that lives were given for their freedom, and I hope they pause to consider that.”

The race celebrates White’s life and service and will begin at 8 a.m. at Terrace Hall.

Registration is $25 and participants can sign up online at http://rsracingsystems.com. Proceeds from this race go to the Ashley White Memorial Scholarship Fund, which is awarded annually to an outstanding ROTC Cadet at Kent State.

This race is the first of five races in the Freedom Run Series, which includes races throughout the Northern Ohio area.

If you have questions, call 330-672-8211 or visit the WhiteHot 5k Facebook page.

Pulitzer Center Reporter to Speak at Kent State on “Women and Children in Crisis”

Event is part of School of Communication Studies Global Issues Forum

Beenish Ahmed, Pulitzer Center journalist,
will speak at Kent State University on
March 31 at 7 p.m. in the Moulton Hall
Ballroom.Ahmed's appearance is part of
the Kent State School of Communication
Studies' Global Communication Issues
Forum, “Women and Children in Crisis.”

The School of Communication Studies at Kent State University will host its Global Communication Issues Forum, “Women and Children in Crisis,” featuring Beenish Ahmed, a Pulitzer Center journalist, on Tuesday, March 31, at 7 p.m. in the Moulton Hall Ballroom on the Kent Campus. This forum examines the consequences when women and girls are impoverished, denied an education and become victims of domestic violence.

The event will feature recent reporting projects by Ahmed, including education of women and girls in Pakistan, women as targets of acid attacks and the shooting of Malala Yousafzai by a Taliban gunman. The program is free and open to the public.

In addition to her work with the Pulitzer Center, Ahmed is a reporter at ThinkProgress and covers international issues. Ahmed was a Kroc Fellow at National Public Radio through which she reported for its nationally syndicated flagship shows, as well as WBUR, Boston’s NPR station. Her work has since aired on PRI’s The World, Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale, Monocle 24 and Sky News. Her written work has been featured in The Atlantic, VICE, Foreign Policy, The Daily Beast, The American Prospect, GlobalPost, Boston Review, Himal Southasia, Medium and The Huffington Post.

Each Global Communication Issues Forum, an ongoing series sponsored by the School of Communication Studies, addresses the global effect of a topic and how media communicate their coverage to share with a worldwide audience, says Paul Haridakis, Ph.D., director of Kent State’s School of Communication Studies.

“The Global Issues Forum brings to campus Pulitzer Center reporters who share their story behind the news story,” Haridakis says. “They offer personal and professional perspectives on how a story is covered. In turn, we as media consumers are informed on how media coverage can influence our viewpoint of these global issues.”

The Pulitzer Center promotes in-depth engagement with global affairs through its sponsorship of quality international journalism across all media platforms and an innovative program of outreach and education.

Moulton Hall is located at 800 Hilltop Drive, near White Hall, the home of the College of Education, Health and Human Services on East Main Street.

For more information about the School of Communication Studies, visit http://www2.kent.edu/comm/index.cfm.

"Peter and the Starcatcher" on Stage at Kent State Tuscarawas

Pictured is the “Peter and the Starcatcher” Company. The
five-time Tony® Award-winning musical, will play at
the Performing Arts Center at Kent State University at
Tuscarawas on March 27 at 7:30 p.m.

(Photo credit: Scott Suchman)

“Peter and the Starcatcher,” the five-time Tony® Award-winning musical, will play at the Performing Arts Center at Kent State University at Tuscarawas on March 27 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets range in price from $45 to $65 and can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center Box Office, online at www.tusc.kent.edu or by calling 330-308-6400. The box office is open Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free parking is available for all shows.

“Peter and the Starcatcher,” the swashbuckling prequel to “Peter Pan,” takes a hilarious romp through the Neverland you never knew. “Peter and the Starcatcher” is the innovative and imaginative comedy based on the best-selling novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. A company of a dozen actors play more than a 100 unforgettable characters, all on a journey to answer the century-old question: How did Peter Pan become the boy who never grew up? This epic origin story of popular culture’s most enduring and beloved character proves that your imagination is the most captivating place in the world.

“Peter and the Starcatcher” won five 2012 Tony Awards (the most of any play of the 2011-2012 season) and was named one of The New York Times, New York Magazine and New Yorker’s top 10 shows of the year.

The New York Times hails the play as "the most exhilarating storytelling on Broadway in decades,” Entertainment Weekly calls it “an absurdly funny, fantastical journey,” and Broadway.com says "sweet enough for kids, sophisticated enough for grownups, this play with music is both a valentine to the innocence of childhood and the magic of stagecraft."

Written by Tony Award nominee Rick Elice, “Peter and the Starcatcher” is based on the original direction by Tony Award-winner Roger Rees and Tony Award‐nominee Alex Timbers, recreated by Shawn Pennington and original movement by Steven Hoggett, recreated by Patrick McCollum.

The design team of “Peter and the Starcatcher” includes Donyale Werle (scenic design), Paloma Young (costume design), Jeff Croiter (lighting design), Darron L. West (sound design), who all won Tony Awards for their work on the show. “Peter and the Starcatcher” also features music by Wayne Barker and music supervision by Andy Grobengieser. The show is produced by Phoenix Entertainment.

“Peter and the Starcatcher” is suitable for younger audiences but most enjoyable for those 10 and up.

Registeration for the Spring 2015 Bowman Breakfast Ends March 26

Spring 2015 Bowman Breakfast to discuss local and global impact of Kent businesses

The spring 2015 Bowman Breakfast will take place at Kent State University in the Kent Student Center Ballroom on Wednesday, April 1. Doors open at 7 a.m., breakfast begins at 7:30 a.m., and the program will follow at 8 a.m.

Four speakers will discuss the topic “Kent Businesses – Their Local and Global Impact 2.0” at the event. The featured speakers are Tom Myers, president of Davey Drill; Gary Niehaus, Ph.D., chief scientist at Crystal Diagnostics and professor of physiology and pharmacology at Northeast Ohio Medical University; Bob Oborn, president of Kent Elastomer Products; and Joe Zeno, president and CEO of ACS Industries. David Ruller, Kent's city manager, will serve as facilitator.

The cost to attend is $10 per person, payable by cash or check at the door only. Invoicing is not available for this event. Reservations can be completed online or by contacting Mary Mandalari at 330-672-8664 or mmandala@kent.edu no later than Thursday, March 26. No shows will be billed. If you find you cannot attend, please contact Mandalari to cancel your reservation by March 26.

Kent State is committed to making its programs and activities accessible to those individuals with disabilities. If you or a member of your family will need an interpreter or any other accessibility accommodation to participate in this event, contact the university’s accessibility liaison, Jacqueline Gee, by phone at 330-672-8667, by video phone at 330-931-4441 or via email at accessKSU@kent.edu.

The Bowman Breakfast, a tradition since 1963, is sponsored by Kent State and the Kent Area Chamber of Commerce.