CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, February 07, 2007

CFA Announcements

Future Tenant Fundraiser ___________________________________________________

Pay it Forward with Trixie Little, Blindsider and more!

Click link for fundraiser poster and feel free to post:
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/ecs/FT.pdf

On Friday, February 23rd, 2007, Future Tenant will present Pay It Forward:
An Annual Fundraiser. Join Future Tenant from 7:30pm - midnight for a night of food and drink, festivities, and fun. The event will take place at Future Tenant, 801 Liberty Avenue (located in Pittsburgh¹s Downtown Cultural District).

Tickets can be purchased at Future Tenant, or through ProArts Tickets at http://www.proartstickets.org, or via telephone at 412-394-3353. Advance tickets are $25 for students and 25 and under and $40 for adults. Tickets can be purchased at the door for $50. The funds raised from the event will help support future emerging artists and curators exhibit and hone their skills at Future Tenant.

The night will feature four fantastic performance acts:
· Trixie Little and the Evil Hate Monkey ­ Neo-burlesque Act from
Baltimore
· Hustlebot ­ Future Tenant¹s Resident Long Form Improv Comedy Group
· Blindsider ­ a Pittsburgh Rock/Indie/Pop Band
· The Dirty Pig Dancers ­ a dance choreographed by emerging director Mark
Chaitin

Future Tenant provides a laboratory setting for artists, arts managers and audiences to explore the limits of the creative expression, presentation and interpretation of various art forms.

Future Tenant, located in the heart of Pittsburgh¹s Cultural District, is a project of Carnegie Mellon University's Institute for the Management of Creative Enterprises. The art space, which features alternative exhibitions and performances by emerging artists from the Carnegie Mellon University community and beyond, is managed by a team of students from the Master of Arts Management program, a joint program of Carnegie Mellon University¹s College of Fine Arts and the H. John Heinz, III School of Public Policy and Management.

For more information, visit Future Tenant online at http://www.futuretenant.org, or email specialevent@futuretenant.org.

Events _____________________________________________________________________

Alvin AILEY: Alive and dancing!
featuring his masterpiece ballets,
REVELATIONS &
CRY

Original Choreography by Alvin Ailey
Adapted by Antwayn Hopper and Kara Lindsay Presented by the School of Drama Dance Division

Sunday February 11th 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM in Rangos Ballroom 1 & 2; with a catered reception following each performance in Rangos 3!

Special Introductions by
Elizabeth Bradley, Head, School of Drama and Jennifer Church, Dean of Student Affairs and VP of Enrollment.

Admission-$5.00
(School of Drama Senior Showcase Benefit Performances!!) TICKETS go on sale starting Feb.1, at the Box Office 412-268-2407.
_______________________

"Incognito", presented by Michael Fosberg.

The performance will be on Saturday, Feb. 24th at 5:00pm in the Philip Chosky Theatre. It will last no more than 90 minutes, and is Free.

"Incognito" unfolds as a mystery, for both Michael Fosberg, and the audience, as he searches for his biological father following the divorce of his mother and step-father. This one-man show challenge the audience about their own preconceptions of who we are and how we each define race. We are left with a realization of the difficulties in categorizing, and a clear understanding of the importance of embracing and celebrating all of who we are. Sponsored by the School of Drama, Vice Provost for Education, Spirit and Student Affairs in celebration of Black History Month.

Tickets will be available in the Purnell lobby (for free) at 4:00pm on the day of the show.

University Lecture Series________________________________________________

Monday February 5th
4:30pm ­ Adamson Wing, 136A Baker Hall
A Revolution in Environmental Health Sciences: New Opportunities to Prevent Genetic Diseases John Peterson Myers, CEO andChief Scientist, Environmental Health Sciences Environmental Distinguished Lecture Series in Environmental Science, Technology and Policy

Advances in the environmental health sciences are dramatically broadening the range of genetic diseases that may be caused by environmental factors.
This new perspective emerges from research that focuses on epigenetic control of gene expression, and emphasizes both fetal origins of adult disease as well as transgenerational impacts. These results severely challenge toxicological methods that have been used for decades to establish exposure standards intended to protect public health, indicating many are likely to be far too weak. Significant public health gains may be achievable by bringing those standards out of the scientific Jurassic.

This is the first in a series of three university lectures on Endocrine Disruption! Please mark your calendars for these dates also: Monday, February 12th (Professor Tyrone Hayes, UC Berkeley) and Monday, March 5th (Professor Shanna Helen Swan, University of Rochester).
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Monday February 12th
4:30pm ­ Adamson Wing, 136A Baker Hall
From Silent Spring to Silent Night: Hermaphroditic Frogs, Breast Cancer, and Pesticides Tyrone B. Hayes, Professor, University of California, Berkeley Environmental Distinguished Lecture Series in Environmental Science, Technology and Policy

The herbicide, atrazine is a potent endocrine disrupter that chemically castrates and feminizes exposed male amphibians. Further, atrazine exposure results in neural damage and hyperactivity and induces a hormonal stress response that leads to retarded growth and development, and immune suppression. The immune suppression results in increased disease rates and mortality. Though many factors likely contribute to amphibian declines, pesticides (such as atrazine) likely play an important role even in populations that appear to decline for other reasons, such as disease.
Pesticides like atrazine are ubiquitous, persistent contaminants and, though more pronounced in amphibians, the effects described above occur in all vertebrate classes (fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals) examined, via common mechanisms. These observations demonstrate the critical impact that pesticides have on environmental health. Furthermore, reproductive cancers and birth defects associated with exposure to many of these same chemicals (e.g. atrazine) via identical mechanisms demonstrate that the impact on environmental health is an indicator of a negative impact on public health.
Many of these mechanisms are being revealed only now in the scientific literature and agencies (such as the Environmental Protection Agency) are ill-equipped to deal with this emergent science and translate it efficiently into health-protective policies. Given the importance of this science and relevance to public health, there is a strong need to translate this information and provide public access to this knowledge. Command of the science and active involvement by the public in policy decisions is vital.
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URBAN FARMING
This is the second in a series of four lectures on Urban Farming‹Reconnecting Our Farms, Food, and Community Tuesday, February 13th 5:30pm ­ Rangos 1&2, UC Creating Livelihoods from Greenhouses and Forest Gardens Jerome Osentowski, Director of the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute Co-sponsored by the Urban Farming Initiative

I will show from my own experience how we have created a viable commercial culinary and medicinal herb and salad green business within the understory of a forest garden and in greenhouses. The other business we have created and will be discussed is the edible landscape nursery which includes our heritage fruit tree collection. These will all be presented within the framework of permaculture ethics and principles.
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Monday February 19th
4:30pm ­ McConomy Auditorium, UC
Upgrading Humans ­ Technical Realities and New Morals Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics, University of Reading, UK http://www.kevinwarwick.com/

In this presentation a look will be taken at how the use of implant technology is rapidly diminishing the effects of certain neural illnesses and distinctly increasing the range of abilities of those affected. An indication will be given of a number of problem areas in which such technology has already had a profound effect, a key element being the need for a clear interface linking the human brain directly with a computer.
However, in order to assess the possible opportunities, both human and animal studies from around the world will be reported on.

The main thrust will be an overview of Kevin's own research which has led to him receiving a neural implant which linked his nervous system bi-directionally with the internet. With this in place neural signals were transmitted to various technological devices to directly control them, in some cases via the internet, and feedback to the brain was obtained from such as the fingertips of a robot hand, ultrasonic (extra) sensory input and neural signals directly from another human¹s nervous system.

A view will be taken as to the prospects for the future, both in the short term as a therapeutic device and in the long term as a form of enhancement, including the realistic potential, in the near future, for thought communication ­ thereby opening up tremendous commercial potential. Clearly though, an individual whose brain is part human - part machine can have abilities that far surpass those who remain with a human brain alone. Will such an individual exhibit different moral and ethical values to those of a human? If so, what effects might this have on society?

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Thursday, February 22nd
4:30pm ­ McConomy Auditorium, UC
A Dialogue with Phylicia Rashad
Sponsored by the School of Drama, Student Affairs, and University Advancement

For event information‹please contact Emily Half in Student Affairs‹412-268-2075; ehalf@andrew.cmu.edu.
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Monday February 26th
4:30pm ­ Adamson Wing, 136A Baker Hall
Human Computation: Using Games to Channel Brainpower Luis VonAhn, Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department


Tasks like image recognition are trivial for humans, but continue to challenge even the most sophisticated computer programs. This talk introduces a paradigm for utilizing human processing power to solve problems that computers cannot yet solve. Traditional approaches to solving such problems focus on improving software. I advocate a novel approach:
constructively channel human brainpower using computer games. For example, the ESP Game, described in this talk is an enjoyable online game -- many people play over 40 hours a week -- and when people play, they help label images on the Web with descriptive keywords. These keywords can be used to significantly improve the accuracy of image search. People play the game not because they want to help, but because they enjoy it. The ESP Game has been licensed by a major Internet company and will soon become the basis of their image search engine.

In addition, I describe my work on CAPTCHAs, automated tests that humans can pass but computer programs cannot. CAPTCHAs take advantage of human processing power in order to differentiate humans from computers, an ability that has important applications in practice.

The results of this work are currently in use by hundreds of websites and companies around the world, and over 100,000 people have played some of the games presented here. Practical applications include improvements in areas such as: computer vision, image search, adult-content filtering, spam prevention, common-sense reasoning, accessibility, and security in general.

The University Lecture Series is a partnership between the Office of the Vice Provost for Education and the Division of Student Affairs. All lectures are FREE and open to the public. For additional information, please call 412-268-8677 or send email inquiries to cr2@andrew.cmu.edu . ALL lectures are on Carnegie Mellon¹s Oakland campus.

PGH Events________________________________________________________________

Opera Theater, Gateway to the Arts and the Children¹s Museum of Pittsburgh announce the premiere of a new opera for children, Phantasmagorilla? No!
Phantasmagoria. The opera, with music by Efraín Amaya and story and libretto by Susana Amundaraín, takes place at the Children¹s Museum of Pittsburgh, February 24 and 25 at 1, 2 and 3pm daily.

The story involves a family going to an evening of opera, a production entitled ³The Ghosts of the Opera.² Bernard, the son, falls asleep shortly after the opera begins. He starts to dream and the audience members around him are transformed into the characters on the stage, who begin to sing and dance, telling a story that is literally fantastic.

Set to Efraín Amaya¹s delightful music, the opera features a small chamber ensemble with a cast of six singers. Musicians are members of the Point Chamber Orchestra, a premiere Pittsburgh music ensemble that Amaya conducts.
The cast of singers includes Pittsburgh favorites Kim Steinhauer and Charlene Canty in the adult roles and Amadis Amaya, Connor Doran, Annie Rago and Megan Abell double cast as Bernard and his sister Nessie. After premiering at the Children¹s Museum of Pittsburgh, it will be available to tour through Gateway to the Arts program in the 2007-2008 school year.

Amaya was born in Venezuela and is a member of the School of Music faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. His compositions have been selected for performance at major international festivals in Mexico City, Caracas, New York, Seattle and San Francisco as well as concert series throughout the Pittsburgh area. He has been a Meet The Composer Composer-in-Residence with Gateway to the Arts , WQED-FM , Renaissance City Wind Music Society
and Shaler School District
since September of 2001, made possible by Meet The Composer, Inc.
and its New Residencies program.

Admission to the opera is free with paid Museum admission. Donations are welcome. For more information about the opera, contact Sarah Marshall at smarshall@operatheaterpittsburgh.org or 412-621-1499. For information about the Children¹s Museum of Pittsburgh, contact Bethany Shaw at 412-322-5058.

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