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News Release

Last modified: Monday, February 2, 2004

IU's 20th Arts Weeks celebration to showcase best of creative expression

For more than three weeks in February and March, Indiana University and the city of Bloomington will showcase some of their best and most exciting work in the creative and performing arts.

IU's 20th Arts Weeks celebration will be held from Feb. 6 to March 2, allowing audiences to experience the wide range of theatre, literature, music, dance and visual arts available at IU and in the surrounding community. Most events are free and require no tickets. Tickets for other events may be purchased from individual venues.

This year's Arts Weeks festivities kick off on Friday (Feb. 6) at 5 p.m. with an opening reception at the John Waldron Arts Center at 122 S. Walnut St. in Bloomington. The reception will feature welcoming remarks by City of Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan, IU Vice President for Research Michael A. McRobbie and Kim Walker, director of arts and cultural outreach at IU. It will also include music from IU Bloomington's African American Choral Ensemble.

Later that evening, IU faculty and students will perform "An Evening of Contemporary Dance" at Bloomington's Buskirk-Chumley Theater at 114 E. Kirkwood Ave. Friday night will also feature the opening of the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning drama Proof by David Auburn at the Wells-Metz Theatre at the IU Theatre and Drama Center, as well as the opening of the IU Opera Theater's production of The Ballad of Baby Doe at IU's Musical Arts Center.

Other highlights of the 20th Arts Weeks celebration include:

• A Black Culture Festival featuring African American quilting, musical instrument-making, jazz, poetry, storytelling, art history and acting for all ages, at the John Waldron Arts Center on Saturday (Feb. 7).
• A concert by banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck and IU alumnus Edgar Meyer, one of the world's foremost bassists, at the IU Auditorium on Sunday (Feb. 8).
• The first annual Bloomington Area Arts Council Leadership Awards Luncheon at the IU Auditorium on Feb. 11.
• A forum featuring leaders from the business and arts communities at the Musical Arts Center on Feb. 18.
• A Science Meets the Arts Series featuring lectures by IU faculty experts in psychology and music in the Psychology Building and Sweeney Hall on Feb. 22.
• A humanities forum led by guest author Lewis Hyde, whose book Trickster Makes This World is considered a classic of modern cultural criticism, in Room 015 of the School of Fine Arts on Feb. 27.
• A lecture by Daniel Libeskind, internationally renowned architect and master planner for rebuilding at the World Trade Center site, at Whittenberger Auditorium in the Indiana Memorial Union on March 1.
• Spring Song 2004, a collaborative, multimedia exploration of transformation as seen through the eyes of Bloomington writers, composers, visual artists and musicians at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater on March 2. This event will feature poetry of local children set to music by IU Distinguished Professor of Music David Baker, IU composition professor Don Freund and Bloomington-based composer Cary Boyce. It will also include the Bloomington Chamber Singers with Gerry Sousa conducting.

For a full schedule of all Arts Weeks events and information on participants, venues and parking, visit http://www.indiana.edu/~artsweek.

For more information about specific arts groups or programs, contact the Office of the Dean of Faculties at 812-855-0230.

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