Nassau Notes

A conversation with choreographer Paul Taylor

Celebrated choreographer Paul Taylor (pictured) will participate in a conversation with dance historian Maura Keefe on Friday, April 29, as part of the University’s Public Lectures Series.

The event will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau St.

Taylor first presented his choreography with five other dancers and himself on May 30, 1954, in Manhattan. In the decades since, Taylor has become a living legend and one of history’s most celebrated artists. His two dance companies, the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Taylor 2, travel the globe, bringing his repertoire to theaters and venues of every size and description.

Taylor’s choreography, once deemed experimental, avant-garde and even “painful” to sit through, has become the gold standard of modern dance. The dance company is scheduled to perform at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 3, in the Matthews Theatre of the McCarter Theatre Center.

Keefe, who also is a choreographer, is an assistant professor of dance at Ohio University and a scholar-in-residence at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Mass.

Taylor’s conversation is designated as the J. Edward Farnum Lecture and will be available for online viewing a week afterward at <www.princeton.edu/webmedia>.

Notable alumni converse on producing for Broadway

Tony Award-winning producer Roger S. Berlind will discuss the art and business of “The Great White Way” in a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer A. Scott Berg at 8 p.m. Monday, April 25, in the Berlind Theatre.

The event, “From Medea to Madonna: Producing for Broadway,” is this year’s G.S. Beckwith Gilbert ’63 Lecture, and it will take the form of a dialogue between the two distinguished Princeton alumni about the state of American theater. Berlind, whose extraordinary career as a Broadway producer spans more than 25 years, will be interviewed by Berg, who most recently published a memoir about legendary actress Katharine Hepburn.

Berlind, a member of the class of 1952, has won 12 Tonys. He has brought more than 50 plays and musicals to Broadway and London’s West End, including “Amadeus,” “City of Angels,” “Proof” and celebrated revivals of “Guys and Dolls” and “Kiss Me, Kate.” His current productions include “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Doubt, a Parable,” which was just awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Berg, a member of the class of 1971, won the Pulitzer for his acclaimed 1998 biography of aviator Charles Lindbergh. He also has written biographies of book editor Maxwell Perkins and movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn.

Both Berlind and Berg performed as undergraduates in the Triangle Club; as alumni, both have b een University leaders, serving on the Board of Trustees. Berlind has been a prominent supporter of the arts at Princeton, and his generosity made possible the construction of the Roger S. Berlind Theatre at the McCarter Theatre Center.

The Gilbert lecture was established in 1988 to bring innovative leaders in business, government and the professions to campus to discuss their ventures and the insights gained in their careers. This year’s event is co-sponsored by the University’s Council of the Humanities and the Program in Theater and Dance.

‘Prophetic Religion in America’ is topic

A lecture titled “God’s Politics: The Role of Prophetic Religion in America” is set for 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 26, in McCosh 50.

Speaking will be: Cornel West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion at Princeton and author of “Democracy Matters”; and the Rev. Jim Wallis, author of “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It,” editor of Sojourner magazine and director of Call to Renewal, a faith-based movement to overcome poverty.

The event is sponsored by the Office of Religious Life, Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton Theological Seminary, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and University Center for Human Values.

Dworkin to debate ‘Is Democracy Possible?’

Legal scholar Ronald Dworkin will deliver four lectures around the theme, “Is Democracy Possible Here? Principles for a New American Political Debate,” Tuesdays and Wednesdays, April 26-27 and May 3-4, on campus.

The talks, part of the Scribner Lecture Series, are sponsored by the University and by Princeton University Press. All will begin at 4:30 p.m. in McCosh 50.

Dworkin, the Sommer Professor of Law at New York University, is expected to identify foundational principles that most Americans — liberal and conservative — share. He will defend a liberal interpretation of these principles and challenge conservatives to construct and defend their own competing interpretation.

The dates and lecture topics will be:
• April 26, “Common Ground: The Ethics of Human Rights.”
• April 27, “Religion: Private Conviction or Public Faith?”
• May 3, “Taxes: The Limits of Legitimacy.”
• May 4, “Democracy: What Is It, and Is It Possible Here?”

Painter and filmmaker will discuss her latest work

Painter and filmmaker Sarah Morris will discuss her latest work, based on the city of Los Angeles, at 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 26, in Betts Auditorium, School of Architecture. In addition, her new film, “Los Angeles,” will be shown at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 25, in the Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau St.

Morris’ latest body of work focuses on the city’s unique and spectacular architecture, its sprawling, de-centered urban plan and its role as a center for image production.

Her paintings incorporate complex grids and bright colors executed in household gloss paint. Pictured here is her 2005 work “Creative Artists Agency (Los Angeles).”

Her film, “Los Angeles” — like her four earlier films — has been described as a “hyper-narrative” of a city at a very distinct moment in time. In “Capital,” Morris shot Washington, D.C., during the last days of the Clinton administration. In “Los Angeles,” the city is captured during the week running up to and including the Oscars.

Morris has described her films as “condensed manifestos” for the paintings, in the sense that they provide a compendium of collaged images that could provide the visual source from which the paintings have abstractly evolved.

The events are sponsored by the Program in Visual Arts.

Art Museum exhibition

“Storehouse Model,” an earthenware piece from the Eastern Han dynasty (206 B.C. to 220 C.E.) is part of the exhibition, “Recarving China’s Past: Art, Archaeology and Architecture of the ‘Wu Family Shrines’” that runs through June 26 at the University Art Museum. The show re-examines one of ancient China’s great archaeological sites in an effort to reconsider some of the most fundamental assertions about the country’s cultural, archaeological and artistic past. An international symposium in connection with the exhibition is set for Saturday and Sunday, April 30- May 1, in McCosh 50. For more information on the event, visit <www.princetonartmuseum.org>.

Fristfest celebrates spring April 28-30

Faculty, staff, students and University family members are invited to celebrate the spring season and the close of another academic year at the Frist Campus Center’s annual Fristfest weekend Thursday through Saturday, April 28--30.

Festivities will kick off at 4 p.m. Thursday with an outdoor picnic and carnival featuring live entertainment, games and giveaways on the Frist South Lawn. Students with an active meal plan contract can swipe their PUID to receive tickets for the picnic dinner. Non-meal plan holders can purchase $2 tickets for the dinner. Tickets will be on sale at the C-Store and Food Gallery at the Frist Campus Center starting Monday, April 25. Free refreshments, including cotton candy, popcorn and beverages, will be available in the afternoon.

The celebration continues at 8 p.m. Friday with an outdoor Moonlight Movie presentation featuring “The Incredibles” and “Napoleon Dynamite” on the Frist South Lawn. Free popcorn, ice cream and cotton candy will be available.

The weekend will conclude on Saturday with a performance by the Princeton University Wind Ensemble on the 1879 Green at 9 p.m. and a comedy night showcasing some of today’s rising comedians at 10 p.m. in Dillon Gymnasium.

For more information and a complete schedule, visit the Frist Campus Center Web site at <www.princeton.edu/frist>.

2004 Nobel winner to discuss future of physics

Nobel laureate David Gross, the Thomas Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics Emeritus, will speak on “The Future of Physics” at 8 p.m. Friday, April 29, in A02 McDonnell Hall.

Gross won the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics with Frank Wilczek, who earned his Ph.D. from the University in 1975, for a discovery they made while working together at Princeton. They were recognized along with David Politzer for their fundamental insights concerning the force that holds the parts of an atomic nucleus together.

Now director of the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of California-Santa Barbara, Gross was a faculty member at Princeton from 1969 to 1997. He received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1987 and the Dirac Medal in 1988.

In his talk, designated as the 30th Donald Ross Hamilton Lecture, Gross will discuss 25 questions that might guide physics — in the broadest sense — over the next 25 years.

The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Physics.

Nassau Swim Club seeks members

The Nassau Swim Club, located on lower Springdale Road, is accepting members for the 2005 season. An open house is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22.

Priority is given to University faculty, staff and students; members of the Institute for Advanced Study; and staff of the Princeton University Press.

The season runs from late May through early September at the small, family-oriented club. For more information and to download an application, visit: <www.nassauswimclub.org>.