Visiting artist Adrienne Hawkins draws choreographic inspiration from personal history

The department of theatre and dance is hosting guest artist Adrienne Hawkins, artistic director of the Impulse Dance Company in Boston, for a three-day residency Oct. 29-31. During the residency, she is working with assistant professor of dance studies Mark Broomfield to create an original dance work. The piece is a three-way collaboration between Hawkins, Broomfield and visiting artist Nathan Lee Graham. While Hawkins and Broomfield have a long history of teaching and assisting each other on performances, this is their first time working together on a dance piece. The Geneseo Dance Ensemble will perform the finished choreography at its spring 2014 review, “46Live: New Voices Bold Moves.”

“We’re trying to coordinate something between the three of us in three different places to bring together a piece for the dance companies with three different basic kind of processes,” Hawkins said.

The choreography she is creating for Geneseo is influenced by her life experiences − the major societal and cultural changes Hawkins has witnessed in America.

She grew up during the protest movement of the 1960s and participated in the March on Washington in 1963.

“To see the social change over such a long period of time gives you a different perspective on what was now and what was then,” she said.

Hawkins sees these changes reflected in the evolution of social dance, from “the jitterbug, what was the things like the twist, the pony ... to twerking, which is like a whole different set of connotations of how we view ourselves and how we view our interaction with our partner, and how it is that we deal with the space around us,” she said.

She further developed her historical perspective on dance through her graduate work at Connecticut College, where she published a thesis focused on the history of social dance in America since the 1860s.

“What I always think of dance is that [it should be] looking at something and being reflective, instead of trying to say something; looking at what is instead of how we see ourselves progressing forward,” Hawkins said.

The ascendance of visual media in American culture, which Hawkins tracks through her academic research as well as her own personal experiences, has also reshaped the expectations of modern audiences.

“Our ability to be entertained is faster. And in that ability, our attention span is a lot quicker ... it’s easier for us to look away,” she said.

Hawkins has adapted her choreography designs to complement such changes in the modes of cultural consumption.

“If you want something to happen, you have to understand the amount of time it takes to make that happen,” she said. “And you can change it, and force people to actually catch something [happening], to be intense about it.”

Occupy movement less visible, remains in discussion

Despite claims of a lack of presence in the mainstream media, supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement said it is still moving forward.

“It’s hard to continue the physical occupation because of the weather,” said junior Dana Fitzpatrick, a member of Occupy Geneseo. “I feel like what a lot of people are failing to understand is that the nature of the movement is awareness … The fact that there’s dialogue demonstrates that the movement has been successful.”

According to The New York Times, protestors in Washington, D.C. – who were recently pushed out of their McPherson Park camp – maintain that their demonstration will not be soon forgotten.

“Aided by the target-rich visual environment of encampments, which proved to be irresistible to reporters and photographers, the protest rendered what had been a political argument into a physical declaration,” wrote David Carr in his New York Times blog, referring to the Occupy notion that “you can’t evict an idea whose time has come.”

“A protest that used social media to agitate and organize soon entered the bloodstream of established media, and its rhetorical tools have now become part of standard political discourse,” wrote Carr.

“Nobody’s talking about the deficit, they’re talking about equality … changing the nature of the conversation,” said senior Kate Harlin, a member of Occupy Geneseo.

Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker, however, wrote that the movement is wasting time with its media-frenzied focus and camp out demonstrations.

“Yes, O.W.S. has ‘changed the conversation.’ But talk, however necessary, is cheap,” wrote Hertzberg. “Ultimately, inevitably, the route to real change has to run through politics – the politics of America’s broken, god-awful, immutably two-party electoral system, the only one we have. The Tea Partiers know that. Do the Occupiers?”

According to the Associated Press, a group called the 99 percent Declaration Working Group has established plans to elect delegates from around the country to hold a “national ‘general assembly’” in Philadelphia, Pa. this July as a part of ongoing protests over “corporate excess and economic inequality.”

The working group’s representative, Michael S. Pollok, told the Associated Press that “One man and one woman will be elected from each of the 435 congressional voting districts … and they will meet in Philadelphia to deliberate, draft and ratify a ‘redress of grievances.’”

After the “general assembly” has concluded, representatives will deliver their petition to the White House, Congress and the United States Supreme Court and demand action within 100 days of taking office next year.

Occupy Geneseo also has plans for action; on Feb. 29 they held a general assembly and on March 7 they will be screening Inside Job, a film about the financial crisis and the people on Wall Street who have benefitted from it.

“We’ve been taking a general educational approach,” said Nick Sloper, cofounder of Occupy Geneseo. “We see that there is a lack of knowledge about political and social problems on this campus, so we’ve begun to shed light on those issues.”

Later in the month around March 24 and National Cash Mob Action Day, the Geneseo occupiers will be doing their own “cash mob.”

“It’s when you pick a local business to support and everyone goes at a certain time to buy something that they’d usually buy at a larger corporation,” said Harlin. “Hopefully it will be the first of many.”

“We think this is important because the movement is all above moving away from the corporate influence,” said Sloper. “By buying locally, we can keep the money in the community, and out of the hands of corporations.”

Top picks from Walmart’s bin

In recent years, the price of DVDs has skyrocketed. Stores like Barnes & Noble and CVS charge as much as $30 for some titles.

In the entertainment section of Walmart, though, there are bins filled with movies that cost just $5. The movies at the top of the pile are often obscure and terrible – consider Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars. To answer your question: no, it's not the loveable Nickelodeon movie you saw as a kid with Rosie O'Donnell, it's the contrived sequel for which no one asked.

But with a bit of searching, you can uncover an eclectic selection of films that span from early cinema classics to recent blockbusters. Here are a few DVD gems that I discovered during a recent visit:

Casino Royale (2006)

Casablanca (1942)

Batman Begins (2005)

Jurassic Park (1994)

Eurotrip (2004)

The Sandlot (1993)

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

The Orphanage (2006)

The Karate Kid (1984)

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Incidental Amusements

Goodbyes are never easy. Maybe you're trying to say goodbye to a dying parent. Maybe you're saying goodbye to an opportunity that has slipped through your fingers. Maybe you're trying to say goodbye to a woman you picked up at the bar who wants to stay for breakfast even though you've already called a cab.

In all cases, goodbyes are usually accompanied by tears. But there will be no tears this time -

not just because I'm too manly and not just because I've started an all-cinnamon diet and no longer have the necessary moisture, but because I feel I've done my job with no regrets.

Sure, I've offended people, embarrassed myself and admitted to a slew of felonies and disgusting perversions, like that time I said I make my girlfriend dress up like JFK so I can shoot her with a BB gun to play into my time traveler fetish. But that was all for fun and because I was tragically born without a sense of shame. Creepily enough, I also can't see dogs. All I hear is barking.

Sometimes I try to think back and remember why I started writing this column. I took it over from a creepy graduate student whose wit was as pathetic as his constant attempts to pick up the managing editor. I was asked to write a column and it was well-received. Because I'd had experience writing a humor column called "Not Quite Newsworthy" during high school, I figured it would be something I might enjoy doing.

I was right, for the most part, but it didn't stop me from writing my columns the day before the paper got put together. I think one thing I liked most about doing this column was the ability to lie to strangers. I lied my ass off, my two-ham-hocks-covered-in-subcutaneous-cottage-cheese ass off.

After graduation I'll be back home on Long Island, attending the City College of New York to get my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing while returning to my disturbing summer job: Writing stories for children at Speakaboos.com. That is not a joke, I actually write stories for children. Me, voted Most Likely To Inform Neighbors that I'm Moving into the Neighborhood by the 2010 graduating class. Even though I'll be gone, I know my legacy as the legend I so rightly deserve to be will live on at this campus.

This being my last column, I suppose I'd like to give some thanks to the people who have made my column such a hit. I'd like to thank Goings On Editor, sophomore Maris Finn, as well as Opinion Editor, junior Aaron Davis, and former Managing Editor Cassandra Visconti, class of '09. I'd also like to thank my friends at GSTV including Cory Alverson, class of '08 and juniors Dan Clark and Jack Silano for being such good sounding boards. And of course, I owe thanks to my girlfriend for taking each week's defamation in stride.

Finally, I'd like to thank my fans, specifically senior Christine Treimanis and the girls of the Pan-Hellenic Council. Without fans, I'd just be talking to myself, and they'd make me go back on my meds. To you, current and graduating students of Geneseo, I say: Keep life "Amusing."

Interstellar drama Visits your television

ABC has a knack for crafting serial dramas that grab your brain and don't let go, and "V," the new science fiction show that airs after "Lost," is 100 percent capable of holding your neurons hostage.

It sounds like a formulaic concept: The Visitors (V for short) have come to Earth, parking their ships over major cities and telling everyone all they want is peace and a "mineral that's plentiful on Earth." Under the command of Anna, played by the always-beautiful Morena Baccarin, the Vs enact a public relations campaign that promises cures for cancer and heart disease and the unveiling of clean, waste-free energy that doesn't need infrastructure. Woah. Of course, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is: The Vs have ulterior motives.

The incredible intrigue comes in with their opposition, a consortium of humans and renegade Vs who call themselves the "Fifth Column." Several critics have already drawn the rather obvious parallels between the Vs' meteoric rise and conservative criticisms of the Obama administration; the Fifth Column, then, comes to represent a Tea Party with guns and nothing to lose. The analogy seems a bit of a stretch, though, as no one has ever heard of Obama munching on people's heads, which Anna has been noted to do.

The cast is full of stars who ABC is counting on viewers to recognize, and it works: Elizabeth Mitchell of "Lost" fame takes on the role of FBI agent and Fifth Columnist Erica Evans, and Laura Vandervoort, the eye candy from "Smallville," plays a V named Lisa who comes to identify more with humanity than with her own species. Most underrated, perhaps, is the double agent Fifth Column V named Joshua, played by Mark Hildreth, who works under Anna's nose, undermining her at every turn while maintaining a charade of loyalty.

What the show comes down to, though, is an intense look at the nature of humanity. An Army-chaplain-turned-parish-priest has his faith shaken. A newscaster examines the role of the reporter in the modern world: to tell the facts, or the story? We see the human condition through the eyes of Erica, whose son is enamored with the Vs - looking at Vandervoort, no one can really blame him.

Most compelling is the view of humans from the V perspective. Anna sees us as creatures to be dominated and tamed (perhaps eaten?), giving no more thought to priorities of humans than we give to those of cows. Fifth Column Vs like Joshua and Ryan, played by Morris Chestnut, take a more sympathetic view of humanity while still not necessarily understanding us. And Lisa, a young V thrust into the human world, grows more than anyone could expect.

The writing is great, the stories are fine, the themes are incredible and the acting is top notch. Watch "V," if only to see what an alien invasion would look like.

In Case You Missed It...

In case you missed it, The Learning Channel thrives on large amounts of children, people who can't dress themselves and food.

TLC's goal is not to teach you anything other than the fact that your life is probably better than the lives of the people on its shows.

Not only do they have four shows about "little people," four shows about larger-than-average families, and two shows just about cake, but there are a countless number of shows about people with medical oddities or who's lives are in shambles (see "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant").

It's almost guaranteed that at any time of the day, you can turn on TLC and feel good about yourself. You can take a sigh of relief that none of your friends nominated you for "What Not to Wear" and that you aren't off fighting petty crime like those cheeky "Police Women of Maricopa County."

You can also find solace in the fact that you don't have to take care of "19 Kids and Counting," and that you don't have your very own "Toddlers in Tiaras."

For the more prudent viewers, there are the shocking lives and even more shocking tattoos of the heathens on "LA Ink," and you can scoff at the greasy overweight men featured on "American Chopper."

If you're recently engaged and looking for the best things out of your price range, tune into "Say Yes to the Dress" and "Ultimate Cake-Off."

TLC has really struck gold in its newest show, "Little Chocolatiers." It combines two things that the network strives on most - it features little people making delectable chocolate morsels.

What will be next for the network? A show about dogs that make cakes with little people who work at a children's hospital? Or maybe a series featuring a tattoo artist who only works on pregnant women about to get married?

The possibilities are seemingly endless, considering that they use the same conventions in different permutations.