University of Arkansas at Little Rock

UALR’s Art Department presents a weaving demonstration by fiber artist and weaver Edwina Bringle Saturday, Oct. 17 at 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  in the UALR Applied Design Facility in University Plaza.

Bringle, a studio artist in Penland, North Carolina, will demonstrate the basics of loom weaving as well as material and color selection.

She taught at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for 24 years. Bringle’s woven textile works are known for her use of color and design.

The demonstration is free.

For more information, contact the UALR Applied Design Program at (501) 683-7556 or e-mail mphall@ualr.edu.

UALR’s Department of Music hosts the Little Rock School District All-Region High School Choir Clinic from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept 26, bringing to campus 150 students from five area schools for a day of choral music intensive coaching.

The clinic at the Fine Arts Building will prepare the students for the upcoming All-Region Choir auditions on Oct. 31 at Cabot High School. Winners of the regional auditions will be eligible to compete for the All-State Choir auditions on Feb. 5 in Jonesboro.

This is the second time UALR’s music faculty has hosted the clinic. Faculty members participating in the workshop include Bevan Keating, director of choral studies, Kira Keating, director of women’s choir, and Ed Crafts, director of the UALR Opera Theatre. Also participating are the choir directors of the five participating schools.

Participating directors and their schools are Carolyn Foreman, Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School; Scott Whitfield of Central High School; Keith Heansberger of J.A. Fair High School; Doug Hoffman of McClellan High School, and Kelly Rush of Hall High School.

For more information, call Susan Belcher of the UALR Music Department at 501-569-3294.

The Music Department presents a guest lecture piano recital featuring Dr. Steven Keniston performing selected works by Claude Debussy at 12:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 1, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in UALR’s Fine Arts Building.

Keniston is on the faculty of St. Charles Community College in Cottleville, Mo., and teaches piano and music appreciation. He received his doctor of musical arts from the University of Texas at Austin.

Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call (501) 569-3294.

Artspree,UALR’s performing arts series, opens its 2009-2010 season with “Kathakali,” an Indian dance drama by Viswanath Kaladharan and Kalamandalam Shanmukhan showcasing India’s highly stylized classical dance and drama.

The performance will be at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28, in the Stella Boyle Concert Hall of the UALR Fine Arts Building. Tickets are $20 for the main floor, $17 for the balcony, $10 for non-UALR students, and free for UALR students. Group discounts are available. For more information, call 501-569-3288.

The art form Kathakali combines dancing, acting, vocal music, percussion and costumes in one art form dating back to 17th century India. Kaladharan and Shanmukhan will be presenting selected scenes from prominent Kathakali plays.

During the performance, Kaladharan will explain the story and context before each scene is performed by Shanmukhan. There will be a question and answer session about the onstage craft and aesthetics following the performance.

UALR kicks off the 2009-2010 William G. Cooper Jr. Honors Program Lecture Series with two lectures by experts in the field on the music, politics, and war of the 1960s.

Dr. Kevin Dettmar will present “Bob Dylan and the Academy” at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19, in the Donaghey Student Center’s Ledbetter Hall Room B. Focusing on the iconic folk singer, the lecture is a variation of the presentation Dettmar recently gave at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Dettmar, who serves as chair of the Department of English at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., is a music critic and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Popular Music Studies. He authored “Is Rock Dead?,” edited “The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan,” and co-edited “Reading Rock ‘n’ Roll: Authenticity, Appropriation, Aesthetics.”

The second lecture, “Approaching War: Hollywood and Vietnam 1929-1964” presented by Dr. Scott Laderman, will be 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, in the DSC Meeting Room D.

Laderman’s book, “Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides, and Memory,” will be published this year. He is an American studies and history specialist teaching at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Admission is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow each lecture. For more information, contact Zabelle Stodola at 569-3161 or kzstodola@ualr.edu.

UALR will present the lecture “Secret of the Great Pyramid: A New Theory of How It Was Built,” by Dr. Bob Brier at 1 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 24, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in UALR’s Fine Arts Building. Admission is free and open to the public.

Brier will discuss how the Egyptians used radical engineering ideas to pull two-ton stone blocks while building the Great Pyramid and debunk earlier construction theories.

Known as “Dr. Mummy,” Brier is a senior research fellow at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. He pioneers research in mummification practices and has studied mummies, including King Tut and Ramses the Great. The UALR lecture is in conjunction with the Arkansas Art Center’s exhibition “World of the Pharaohs: Treasures of Egypt Revealed” opening on September 25.

For more information about Brier’s lecture, contact Krista Lewis, assistant professor of anthropology, at (501) 569-8322 or at kxlewis@ualr.edu.

The UALR Student Guitar Society and the Office of Campus Life will present a workshop featuring Astral Project, a New Orleans jazz group, at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall of the Fine Arts Building.

Astral Project is a co-op band comprised of the world-class improvisers John Vidacovich on percussion, Tony Dagradi on saxophone, Steve Masakowski on guitar, and James Singleton on bass. The workshop will focus on aspects of jazz, performing, and the music business.

Admission is free and open to the public. For more information about the workshop, contact Michael Carenbauer, director of guitar studies, at (501) 569-8437.

The University History Institute announces the 2009-2010 season of “Evenings with History” series. UALR faculty members will present their current research at the monthly lectures, which begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Historic Arkansas Museum, 200 E. 3rd St. , in Little Rock.

This year’s events include:

• “Traveling the World with M.W. Gibbs: Local History Goes to School” with Dr. Kristin Mann; Tuesday, Oct. 6.
• “Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Out to Get You: Re-thinking Political Conspiracy in Early Modern History” with Dr. Tom Kaiser; Tuesday, Nov. 3.
• “Attach at Samu: A New Perspective on Hussein’s Reconciliation with Nasser” with Dr. Clea Bunch; Tuesday, Dec. 1.
• “Marketing War” with Dr. Vince Vinikas; Tuesday, Feb. 2.
• “Whose Holiday is it Anyway? A History of St. Patrick’s Day” with Dr. Moira Maguire; Tuesday, March 2.
• “If You Don’t Help Us We Will Be Bad Off: A Czech Family and their Perceptions of America in the 1920s” with Dr. Raymond Screws; Tuesday, April 6.

The University History Institute is a nonprofit organization of private citizens interested in history and supporting UALR.

An individual can subscribe to the series for $50 annually, which includes admission to all six lectures. A joint subscription to the series, at $90 annually, offers savings of $10 to couples and friends.

At $250 annually, a Fellow of the Institute receives the previous benefits, plus an invitation to special presentations for fellows exclusively. This often includes a private evening with noted authors. The institute also offers a life membership at $1,000 that can be paid in installments. Subscriptions and donations to the institute are tax deductible as allowed by law.

Subscribers to the series help support historical research. Presenters donate their time, and the University History Institute uses all proceeds from the series to encourage research at UALR. In recent years, annual institute grants, made possible by the “Evenings with History” series, have made major purchases of historical research materials for UALR.

For subscription information, contact the History Department at (501) 569-3235.

UALR’s non-credit class in Arabic begin on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Dr. Krista Lewis, assistant professor of anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies, said the classes are free and open to the public. Enrollment will be open until 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4, or until classes are filled.

Beginner’s Arabic will be offered at 11 a.m. to 12:15 Tuesdays and Thursdays. A second section of Beginning Arabic will meet at 1 to 2:15 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. First classes will be on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Intermediate Arabic will be offered from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with the first class on Friday, Sept. 11.

Beginner sections will be filled on a first-come, first serve basis. Anyone wishing to enroll in the intermediate class must have passed a previous UALR Arabic class or take a placement exam.

For more information and registration forms can be found at Middle Eastern Studies or contact Lewis at (501) 569-8322 or kxlewis@ualr.edu.

UALR’s Community School for the Arts is offering a series of strings sessions on Saturdays this semester, culminating in a term-ending concert held in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Building.

The group sessions are free to the CSA string students taking private lessons, though students who study outside the CSA string program can join for a nominal fee.

In the group sessions, students will spend time reinforcing their regular assignments, learning beneficial exercises to aid in relaxed performance, rehearsing new group selections, and working on various music theory skills such as scales and rhythmic counting.

Beginners with at least one semester of private lessons experience will meet from 10 to 10:50 a.m. Intermediate students with middle or high school experience without Arkansas Symphony Youth Orchestra will meet from 11 to 11:50 a.m. Advanced students with ASYO experience will meet from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

CSA also will offer this semester’s string quartet Saturday sessions from 1:45 to 2:30 p.m. during the session. Open to all group levels, participants will be partnered with same-level students with literature appropriate for their level.

Fees for non-CSA string students are $135 per semester, including a $10 registration fee, for a minimum of 10 sessions. All registered string students are welcome to the quartet session.

The strings program will also offer a “fiddle circle” for parents who want to learn an instrument along with their child, as well as a violin circle for 4- and 5-year-old beginners and their parents in a group setting. The schedule and location will be announced.

CSA offers private weekly lessons on violin, viola, cello, and bass. For fees, schedules for classes, and violin rentals, contact the Community School for the Arts at (501) 568-3480.