The Belly Dance Club will host a Belly Dance Night at 9 p.m. April 15 in the Fred Meyer Lounge, sponsored by Health Promotion and Student Wellness and the Linfield Activities Board.

The event will include a dance performance by club members and a belly dance workshop.

“We’re doing a group dance and then a couple of solo dances. There will be a workshop section in between,” senior Meredith Sagara, president of the Belly Dance Club, said. “There will be a little bit of history at the beginning, too. It’s a fun event that we’ve done every year.”

Senior Linh Tang, a member and former president of Belly Dance Club, said students attending the workshop will have a chance to learn how to belly dance.

“We hope to have a good turnout for this event since it will be on Friday night and last week has been long. There will be other activities happening on campus, but we think this event will draw a good amount of students’ attention,” Tang said in an email.

The Belly Dance Club offers belly dance lessons, weekly meetings and performances. They start the semester learning basic dance steps for members without former knowledge of belly dance and then focus on choreographing dances for performances. Sagara said that club members do not usually join having previous belly dancing experience, although some have dance backgrounds.

“Experience is not the most important thing in joining the club,” Tang said in an email. “It is the passion that counts. Belly dance, just like other dances, is about expressing yourself and your emotion.”

Sagara said she thinks that club members receive a sense of empowerment from participating in the club.

“Belly dance is exotic and fun. It was originally a dance for women by women, and only women watched it. I think the girls really enjoy practicing and just having fun,” she said.

Sagara said that the number of club members has declined since she was a freshman, but the group continues to practice and perform.

“When I first joined, there were about 20 people in the club. We started out last semester with about 15, but we’ve had people quit since then. I’ve tried to keep consistent with our practices and performances because the club had such good organization when I joined my freshman year,” Sagara said.

The Belly Dance Club performed at the Linfield Annual Cultural Show hosted by the Linfield International Club in Ice Auditorium. The club has also performed at Dance Ensemble, Parents’ Weekend and during Friday Night Live events.

Sharon Gollery/For the Review
Sharon Gollery can be reached at linfieldreviewculture@gmail.com.

The Linfield Chamber Orchestra celebrated its 20th anniversary from April 11-16 with the “Libby Larsen Festival,” a series of events featuring renowned American composer Libby Larsen.

The festival will culminate in two concerts on April 15 and 16 that will feature the world premiere of “Moabit Sonnets,” a commission piece composed by Larsen for the LCO’s anniversary.

The LCO will perform Larsen’s work with guest vocalists at 8 p.m. April 15 in Ice Auditorium, with a repeat performance at 3 p.m. on April 16. The concert will also include performances of works by Mozart, Elgar, Brahms and Haydn.

During her time on campus, Larsen visited classes, watched student performances of her works, discussed musical concepts and rehearsed her new piece with the LCO and guest vocalists.

“We’re honored and thrilled that Larsen was able to accept the invitation, that she agreed to accept the commission to write a work
especially for the Linfield Chamber Orchestra and that she’s been here with us all week collaborating with students, faculty and staff who have been studying her music and getting it ready for performance,” Faun Tiedge, professor of music, chair of the department of music and liaison officer for the LCO, said.

Rehearsing the piece with students has gone well, Larsen said.

“I was not [sure] that the piece would resonate with the students. That was a risk I took, but actually the opposite has happened,” she said. “The students resonated really well with the piece — the music of the piece, the ideas behind the piece and the texts.”

Larsen also held a residency at Linfield in 1990, which was one reason why the LCO chose to invite her for its 20th anniversary, Tiedge said.

“Libby Larsen’s name came up right away because [she] was here in 1990. So this is a return visit,” she said. “In that time, she has become one of the world’s most well-known, prolific, highly-published, often-performed and … award-winning composer of great acclaim.”

The commissioned work sets music to the text of a series of poems written by Albrecht Haushofer, an official in the Nazi party, who later became a part of the underground resistance to Hitler’s regime. He wrote his “Moabit Sonnets” after being imprisoned in the Berlin-Moabit prison for his actions. He was later executed by the SS guards.

Larsen discussed the political significance of Haushofen and her composition with students and faculty April 14 during a Pizza and Politics event hosted by the Department of Political Science.

At the event, Larsen said she chose to use 11 of the 80 sonnets Haushofer wrote in her piece. She said she chose to use poems that were about guilt, complicity and parables of power rather than those about Haushofer’s relationships with his family and nature.

“One of the lessons from the Third Reich is that a people of a country can be complicit in action or can choose to put the action in check because of moral values,” she said. “I’m interested in that because I am interested in what’s going on in America today.”

The composition will feature the 12-tone technique first developed by Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg during the same time that Hitler rose to power. The technique gives equal weight to all 12 pitches in an octave and is known for its dissonant sound.

She said that Schoenberg developed the system during a tumultuous time in Germany and that the sound fits the historical and philosophical setting of the piece.

Tiedge said the technique will be a welcomed change in the LCO playlist.

“I think it’ll be interesting to have this piece premiere for our subscription audience because, in general, the Linfield Chamber Orchestra plays much more classic and romantic music,” Tiedge said. “To offer a truly 21st century piece in a modern musical language will be a good
experience for the audience.”

Larsen will also give a lecture before each performance at 7 p.m. April 15 and 2 p.m. April 16. Both will take place in Jonasson Hall.
Tickets are free at the door with student ID. To get tickets in advance, call 503-883-263.

Braden Smith/Managing editor
Braden Smith can be reached at linfieldreviewmanaging@gmail.com.

Heyman (left) speaks at the April 5 Frazee Lecture. Kanaan Kanaan (left center), Instructor at Portland State University; Brian Winkenweder (right center), department chair and associate professor of art history and visual culture; and Janet Elfers (right), director of member relations at Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, serve as panelists. Katie Pitchford/Photo editor

“The job of an artist is to make it more difficult to deny the humanity of those we bomb and detain and abuse in the name of security,” Heyman said.

Heyman’s portraits profile Iraqis who were detained without charge and abused in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and are now plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit.

Heyman sat in on interviews between the detainees and human rights activists, drawing their portraits and including pieces of their story.

Each portrait weaves text and image to convey the experiences that the detainees went through at the hands of American
soldiers.

Heyman said the portraits are not intended to shock so much as to enlighten and “take the audience beyond the confusion of politics to a place where they can start the work of repairing the world.”

In his lecture, Heyman told the Biblical story of Lot and his wife, who live in a town full of abuse and suffering that is encouraged by the powerful and ignored by the rest of the world. When Lot and his wife try to flee, the wife looks back and is turned to salt. Lot gets revenge by setting the town on fire.

“The fire raced on and on and continues to race on today,” Heyman said. “Today’s story isn’t complete, however, and doesn’t have to end the way Lot’s did.”

He questioned alternative scenarios such as Lot, who seeks no revenge or roams on the Earth, mourning and bearing witness.

Janet Elfers, director of ecumenical and interfaith relations and a panelist at the Frazee Lecture, said that Heyman’s portraits reclaim their subjects’ humanity and let them tell their story. She approached the subject of Abu Ghraib prison from a Christian perspective, calling for the need to educate and advocate to end American-supported torture.

“Torture is a moral issue,” she said. “It is important for us to seek justice … for tortures committed in our name.”

Artist and professor Kanaan Kanaan, the second panelist, held a differing perspective but agreed that Heyman’s portraits had a powerful impact. Khanan grew up in Jordan and lived in Iraq.

“I’ve been there,” he said. “I’ve felt the heat of bombs, of shrapnel whizzing past my head. When I saw [Heyman’s] work, I couldn’t see it again because the words were too powerful.”

Khanan spoke about the disconnect in America that separates his citizens from events overseas.

“We in America are so distant, so far away,” he said. “We don’t even know what poverty means.”

He said that it is time for Americans to educate ourselves, learn more and do more. He spoke of the need for more cultural exchange programs, diversified news sources and more artwork such as Heyman’s.

“We are not monsters,” he said, referring to the people of his homeland. “We want to tell our stories.”

Brian Winkenweder, department chair and associate professor of art and visual culture, was the final panelist of the night, and he spoke about the “epiphany of the face,” a theory proposed by philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas’ theory says that when we look into someone’s eyes, we have three thoughts: our mutual mortality, an awareness of our ethics and the trust that neither will try to kill the other.

Heyman’s portraits allow viewers to experience an “epiphany of the face,” Winkenweder said, by making eye contact with the portrait subject and the viewers.

“‘Epiphany of the Face’ allows you to see yourself in the others and witness your shared humanity,” he said.

He said torture has a dehumanizing effect on all of us but that Heyman’s work is helping.

The exhibit, “Bearing Witness,” will be on display at the Linfield Gallery in the Miller Fine Arts Center from April 2 to 30.

Rachel Mills/For the Review
Rachel Mills can be reached at linfieldreviewculture@gmail.com.

Members of the Wildcat Men’s Glee Club sway as they sing in Ice Auditorium during the last performance in their Spring Break tour April 1. They performed a variety of pieces, including a song from “The Little Mermaid.” Katie Pitchford/Photo editor

The groups were under the firm direction of Anna Song, director of choirs and assistant professor of music.

“Last year, we went up north to Canada, Washington, to the San Juans and the year before, south to San Francisco,” Song said. “This year, we went East since several students are from Idaho and have connections. So there were practical reasons.”

The concert began with the Men’s Glee Club which performed “Bar’bry Allen,” a traditional folk song and “Kiss the Girl” from “The Little Mermaid,” which received enthusiastic reactions from the audiences for its laid-back tune and humor.

The Women’s Vocal Ensemble sang two works, Opus 15: No. 2 Night and No. 6 The Angel, of Sergei Rachmaninov, from the Six Choral Songs. The women also sang a traditional Irish folk song, “Tell My Ma’” with the rhythmic accompaniment of spoons led by guest Vashon Bench and junior Jessie Goergen as soloist.

The Linfield Concert Choir’s program included a diverse range of songs that showed off the vocal capabilities of the Linfield Choir. Songs included the Kenyan piece “Wana Baraka,” American spirituals, Georgia and Hungary. The show also featured members presenting their humorous choir experiences, such as a group of female students singing a composed a capella for a male choir member.

The Choir experienced a few challenges, such as memorizing music and trying to hit the right notes, she said.

Freshman Angie Aguilar described one of the challenges on the tour.

“The first day, the bus broke down which made us two hours behind. Moreover, the first three days, some of us were tired of being on the bus,” she said. “We had a session where we talked about what we could do right. However, working as a group went well towards the end of the tour.”

Another Linfield choir member, senior Ryan Dickman, who is also an assistant conductor for the choir, said he believed that both the choir and tour went well.

“We overcame many challenges and became closer to one another,” he said.

Dickman said one of the toughest challenges he had was “finding personal meaning in songs and understanding them individually and as a group.”
Toward the end of the concert, Dickman conducted “Esti Dal” composed by Zoltan Kodaly.

“The piece was so lovely. It offered many challenges as a conductor,” he said.

The program included “favorite music, multi-cultural [music], as well as classical repertoires so students [could] be exposed to classical music,” Song said.

Song said it is important to experience live music.

“It’s a human way to express and to communicate. There’s nothing like listening to music, nothing like experiencing music live. We strive to stay true to what’s inside,” she said.

Song said she encourages students and faculty to participate in the Linfield Concert Choir and ensembles. No experience is needed, but a love of music along with openness to learning and trying new things is deeply appreciated, she said.

Students and faculty interested in participating in the choir or ensembles can contact Song at asong@linfield.edu.

Yoko Gardiner/For the Review
Yoko Gardiner can be reached at linfieldreviewculture@gmail.com.

Sand, play and learning unite for the April 8 event “Art of Play” at 4 p.m. in Riley Student Center 201.

Professor of Art and Visual Culture Nils Lou will “introduce the idea of play as a lubricant for being creative in making art in any medium,” he said. In this case, the medium is sand painting.

The event is related to the Sand Art Painting event that was scheduled March 17. Sophomore Linh Tang, Linfield Activities Board student talent coordinator, said the former event didn’t attract many students because it was so close to the beginning of Spring Break. But she said in an email that she wanted students to have another opportunity to learn about Lou’s approach to the process of creating art through play.

“I thought it would be a good idea to spread this idea of how to really play [and]enjoy ourselves again,” Tang said in an email.
Lou said that his experiments in making art remind him of the feelings he had playing as a child.

“Children naturally play, and they imagine their world. They invent their fantasies,” he said. “It’s definitely a state of mind where you’re willing to take risks and be surprised.”

For Lou, this is the definition of art.

“That’s what art is about: in developing a method of working that allows you to move on a trajectory where anything goes and you can explore the side roads,” he said.
However, Lou noted that the way students are educated today doesn’t leave room for play; in fact, it discourages play altogether.

“I think young people are cheated out of a huge chunk of learning when we disallow or take out play as a complement of learning,” he said. “I think adulthood is a disease in the sense that we have cut play out of our lives.”

Lou explained that by age 7, children have used play to develop fundamental skills regarding socialization, language and how to be human. Then, starting in first or second grade, our culture pushes children to stop daydreaming and start seriously focusing on learning, he said.

But Lou said the concept of play is essential to developing creativity in any area: art, writing, business, science, etc.

“We regard the word play as frivolous and inconsequential and just fun. I regard play as one of the most serious things that human beings do,” he said. “The problem is that with the institutions we have now, the way we’re educating, with an emphasis on assessment and standardized tests, we’re creating robots more than real educated individuals.”

Lou said that students rediscover their childhood creativity by learning “how to give themselves permission to move in a direction that is theirs and take ownership of that” instead of being guided by, for instance, structured assignments.

He said he hopes that event attendees will learn to trust their own instincts and processes and “ultimately be surprised with the result.”

“I think everybody can benefit from this event,” Tang said in an email. “We college students are always too busy with classes, activities, responsibilities and tons of other commitments. I feel like we need some time off, to just enjoy a moment of a cup of coffee, or a moment of painting a picture, or maybe just a moment of cooking pasta.”

She said she hopes students take the time to just play and enjoy their time playing.

To learn more about Lou’s philosophy on play, check out his book “The Art of Play.” You can preview the book at www.blurb.com/okstore/detail/1980636.

Kelley Hungerford/Editor in chief
Kelley Hungerford can be reached at linfieldrevieweditor@gmail.com.

Senior Caity Halvorson, an art and writing student from Hot Springs, Mont., has made life-long pasttimes the foundation of her diverse academic interests.

Halvorson is pursuing majors in both creative writing and electronic arts and minors in English, computer science and studio art.

Halvorson said in an email she comes from a family of artists. She has learned from her sister, an artist; her father, a photographer; and her mother, a quilter. Halvorson said she discovered her joy in doodling, crafts and stories.

“I’ve always been interested in stories. Ever since I can remember I have been creating ‘imaginings’ in my head. It just took a while before it occurred to me to write them down,” she said. “I remember teaching my classmates how to draw dragons in kindergarten, and once I got into junior high school, I never went anywhere without my story notebook.”

Halvorson does not limit herself to writing particular genres or using specific artistic mediums. “I write [and] make whatever appeals to me at the time,” she said. “I like the creative process in whatever form it happens to come in — whether with words, pixels or hands-on materials, I’ll probably enjoy working with it.”

Halvorson will work primarily with electronic formats for her senior thesis. She said she generally writes in areas of fantasy, science fiction and surreal fiction. Among the different art forms, Halvorson prefers the art of writing.

Professor of English Lex Runciman has noticed Halvorson’s passion for writing.

“In a Caity Halvorson poem, a sentence can sweep across lines and stanza breaks, making for larger effects than those available to prose. And she brings to her work the best sort of writer’s ambition. She wants to push her language and imagination toward those recognitions, those truths, beyond the mundane, beyond the clichéd,” Runciman said in an email.

Not only does Halvorson occupy herself with what one might consider “artsy,” such as reading books, writing and attending plays, she also enjoys gaming, martial arts, fencing, karate and bellydancing. Halvorson is the president of Linfield’s Fencing Club.
In the future, Halvorson plans to produce freelance work on top of a currently undetermined day job. She has applied for Fulbright grant to study and write while living in Romania.

Michele Wong/For the Review
Michele Wong can be reached at linfieldreviewculture@gmail.com

(Top) Starck performs a reprise of his poetry April 7 in the Nicholson Library. Katie Paysinger/Senior photographer

The event was co-sponsored by the Theatre and Communication Arts Department, the Department of English and Nicholson Library and took place at 7:30 p.m. in the Austin Reading Room in the Nicholson Library.

Starck has made his living as a carpenter and construction foreman. He has also worked as a ranch hand in Eastern Oregon, a merchant seaman, a newspaper reporter on Wall Street and a door-to-door salesman.

“I write about my life, my experience, what it is to be alive on the planet, what that means, what I’ve seen and experienced,” Starck said.

The poems that Starck read ranged in topic from fixing a car to contemplating a name written in a still-wet sidewalk in 1917. His imagery of machines and construction conveyed the themes of work and rest.

The accompanying music set the mood of each poem. Along with the guitar and the harmonica, the musicians played a few novel instruments such as an iron triangle, wind chimes, a typewriter and the wet rim of a wineglass.

Starck began writing at age 21, although he was always interested in writing. He says he started writing poetry because it seemed easier than writing a novel.

“I was always a bit of a bookworm as a kid,” he said. “I loved to read, and thought I would like to write. I thought maybe I could use poetry as a stepping-stone to writing novels. But I got hooked on poetry, and I’ve been writing poetry for over 50 years.”

His collection of work, “Journeyman’s Wages,” won the Oregon Book Award and the William Stafford Memorial Poetry Award. He is the author of four books of poetry.

He said he does not have any background as a musician and normally does solo poetry readings. Combining poetry and music in this fashion is an unusual event for him, he said.

“I got to know Jon Broderick and Jay Speakman at a gathering in Astoria for fisherman poets, poets who write about work, like I do. We decided to make a CD, and it turned out pretty well, so we did a live performance on the coast last year,” Starck said.

Brenda DeVore Marshall, department chair and professor of Theatre and Communication Arts, was in the audience during the performance. She asked the trio to perform at Linfield — an ironic coincidence considering the fact that Starck and Broderick first met on the Linfield campus during a weekend convocation for high school students.

“Jon Broderick saw that my poems were about carpentry and about working. He knew a lot of fishermen who also wrote about work, and he more or less set up the Fisher Poets in Astoria. So performing at Linfield feels like I’ve come full circle,” Starck said.

Sharon Gollery/For the Review
Sharon Gollery can be reached at linfieldreviewculture@gmail.com.