If you like Spherus and juggling (Friday night State Theater) you’ll love:

Body and Soul-movement workshop (Friday afternoon CSMA)

Physics of juggling-how it works (Saturday Statler)

Dance of Scales – movement from insects to planets through dance (Saturday Statler)

Juggling workshop- learn how to juggle (Sunday CSMA third floor)

Chocolate Tasting (Sunday Statler)

Locovore’s Guide to Beer- tasting and eating (Sunday Statler)

If you like Klezmatics (Saturday night State Theater) you’ll love

Bitter Sour Salt Suite-contemporary classical music and funny poems (Thursday Wildfire Lounge)

Art/Reaction- reacting to art through personal writing (Friday afternoon State of the Art Gallery)

Of Sound Mind- world famous concert pianist on mind-body connection, introducing new hybrid instrument from Yamaha(Saturday Statler)

Dance of Scales (see above)

Locovore’s Guide to Beer (Sunday night)

If you like Living with Chance-bonding with a timberwolf (Sunday Statler) you’ll love

Sweet voiced bird has flown-american birds in decline (Saturday Lab of O)

Structural Intuitions-world expert on Leonardo da Vinci, links between natural world and art (Saturday Statler)

Flowers in Winter- Mann Library

Locovore’s Guide to Beer-how local growing affected by environmental change

If you like science and math you’ll love:

Kinetics physics of juggling (see above)

Structural Intutions (see above)

Calculus of friendship-bond between teacher and student through math

Hall of Wonders (Statler Saturday and Sunday)

Physics of Snowflakes-world expert on beauty and structure (Sunday Statler)

Sexing the Demon- nanotech and ambient electronic (Sunday Statler)

‘

Somewhere between emailing a radio talk show host and faxing a contract to a fire-spinner, it occurred to me that LIW Fest is happening two weeks from today. HOLY (insert your own expletive here). Really, very exciting but at the same time kind-of horrifying. If you’ve ever directed or hosted a very large event you know exactly what I’m talking about here… and I’m not talking about Thanksgiving dinner or a teeny little 150 person wedding. We’re talking about entertaining 6,500 people for the weekend. Kind of nerve-wracking, you know?

Festivals are a beautiful, funny thing. Sort of like a play. You plan and dream and direct and organize and plan some more. You gather details, sort problems, have tons of meetings. You do this for weeks if not months. And then BAM! It just happens. A giant beautiful spectacle right in front of you. Here’s to watching it happen. Can’t wait!

“There are more similarities than differences between the humanities and the sciences, and some of the stereotypes have to be altered,” Dr. Wilson said. “Darwin, for example, established his entire evolutionary theory on the basis of his observations of natural history, and most of that information was qualitative, not quantitative.”

The new program will bring together humanities, arts and sciences across the campus, as a way to explore the chasm that often divides the disciplines. Sounds familiar, no?

Kudos to Wilson and his collaborators.

Light in Winter 2009 January 23-25 is going to be pretty fabulous, exploring magic, music, mathematics, memory-and that’s just the “m”s. Our website is being reworked and when it’s up next month will have all the details.

Composer Gandolfi started off the event by speaking about his creative process – why he was inspired by the garden to compose a piece, and how he was able to transform his visual impressions into musical themes. He showed a series of photos he had taken of the garden during his talk. More photos were shown during the piece’s performance, which helped us to visualize the specific aspects of the garden which had inspired specific movements within the piece.

Gandolfi explained that his piece currently was made up of 11 movements (although he seemed to suggest it could expand in the future), but that he had stipulated that it need not be performed in his entirety. He suggests instead that orchestras perform any number of movements, in whatever order they want – just a visitor could choose to visit only specific parts of the garden. The seven movements chosen for performance here were varied and very interesting to listen to (especially in conjunction with photos of the garden), and the IC orchestra’s performance was very impressive.

…. Looking back, this weekend’s events have all explored Identity in so many different ways – altered identities, secret identities, biological identities, artistic identities, and cultural identities. Taken all together, it makes me realize how important and complex our identities are, both as individuals and as communities. I’m glad that we’ve been able to come together as a community to celebrate these things and learn about new ideas.

I’m already looking forward to another great year of Light in Winter – next January!

Binghamton University biology professor David Sloan Wilson discussed examples from the animal world that illustrate that the ideas of personality and community are not unique to humans. His expertise in the field of evolutionary biology was clear.

Meanwhile, the four-person ensemble known as Water Bear performed three beautiful and unusual pieces. Led by violinist Mer Boel, the ensemble uses a system to map the letters of the alphabet to musical notes and thus create melodies out of words. The group performed songs based on the musical themes of words including “community,” “planetary we,” and their own names.

Mer Boel’s compositions were inspired by conversations with Professor Wilson, as well as having read his book “Evolution for Everyone.” In addition, their music was based heavily on improvisation, both as individuals and collaboratively as a group.

The audience clearly appreciated both Wilson’s biological insight and the musical interpretation and accompaniment that Water Bear provided. The two parts came together well, and audience members were quick to complement them on this. The question and answer session was full of inquiries for both Wilson and the musicians.

The spoken segments and the musical performances were a beautiful way to explore Gauguin’s work and the thoughts that inspired him – as well as inspiring Adolphe to interpret his paintings musically. The pieces dealt with water, storms, and the stunning natural beauty that Gauguin found in Tahiti.

One of the conflicts that was described was between Gauguin and the French critics who continually denigrated his work. The painter’s contemporaries were completely unable to understand his work, criticizing his lack of perspective and formal technique, as well as his wild and unrealistic colors. Excerpts from Gauguin’s journals explained that he believed paintings had to be overly vivid, because they were so much smaller and more constrained than the nature they depicted.

The event only got more interesting when the lights went up and audience members were able to ask Adolphe questions. He explained the creative process behind his compositions, his other musical works inspired by the real world (pieces on dinosaurs, modern art, and even wind power), and his work bringing collaborative music education to schools across the country. He had even visited an Ithaca elementary school yesterday to discuss the pieces inspired by Gauguin with the students. He said that his book, which accompanies a CD of the pieces, can be used by elementary, middle, and high school students as well as adults to learn more about Gauguin and musical interpretation of art!

Masekela himself played the flugelhorn, sang, emoted (using his voice to imitate the screeching of a train), told stories, and busted out some great dance moves. He also led a group of dynamic musicians on guitar, bass, percussion, drums, vocals, saxophone, violin, and keyboards.

Saying that he’d be showing the audience a “kaleidoscope” of music happening today in South Africa, Masekela brought on several guest musicians who sang and performed their own songs. Their spirit and energy was amazing and inspirational.

The number of people on their feet and dancing on the aisles was impressive – even for Ithaca! Several times during the show, Masekela managed to get the entire audience (there were a thousand tickets sold!) on their feet, dancing, cheering, and singing along.

After a standing ovation, as the audience trickled out of the performance hall, the band began to play again. We rushed back in to see what was happening. The audience remained on its feet, cheering as Masekela performed his hit 1987 song “Bring Him Back Home,” about Nelson Mandela, as an encore.

In one project he described, a robot had to learn how to propel itself forward without any knowledge of its own structure or what it looked like. First the robot had to internally generate a hypothesis about its own structure and test this (through movement), repeating the process over and over until it figured out how it was laid out. Then knowing its structure, the robot had to hypothesize a way to propel itself forward, and then try out methods over and over until it actually succeeded. By experimenting and creating new models, the robot “evolved” its ideas and found a way to function correctly. This and other examples that Lipson discussed gave a glimpse into the future of robotics. In answer to his own question, “Are we there yet?”, he responded “no, not yet,” but it was clear how far we’d already come.

Lipson was followed by philosopher and retired IC professor Lee Bailey, who discussed the philosophical implications of creating robots that seek to emulate humans. Although a bit rambling, Bailey made a good case for why robots will never be able to be like humans in terms of emotions, creativity, and ethics.

Both speakers were supplemented by musicians and musician-robots from the Brooklyn-based League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, who brought two instruments (one resembling an electric bass and one similar to a glockenspiel and a drum kit put together) which were hooked up to laptops and played music via robotic moving parts. The music was interesting, and rather eerie considering that people were not touching the instruments at all. After the end of the performance, audience members crowded up around the instruments to see exactly how they operated.