With the theme Musical Legacies of South and Southeast Asia, Bates College students and faculty, as well as internationally esteemed performers, present the college’s World Music Week from March 5 through March 15.

Performers include the Bates College Orchestra and Bates Gamelan Orchestra, Indian dancer Aniruddha Knight and Indonesian composer Nano S. (See the complete schedule.)

Sponsored by the Bates music department, festival events are open to the public at no cost. Except as noted, performances take place in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. For more information, call 207-786-6135.

“This year’s concept pays tribute to the profound traditional artistic roots of these regions, but at the same time acknowledges the strong innovative spirit evident in this year’s artists,” says festival organizer Gina Fatone, assistant professor of music. “The artists hold a deep reverence for their heritages, yet are driven to push the boundaries of tradition, creating something vibrant and new.”

Workshops begin the series on March 5. In a concert at 8 p.m. March 7, the Bates College Orchestra offers a program reflecting influences from around the globe, as well as works inspired by music of Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Hiroya Miura directs the orchestra.

Expert in the classical South Indian music and dance genre called “bharata natyam,” dancer Aniruddha Knight and his ensemble offer workshops on March 5 and 6, and a performance at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 8. On that occasion, Knight and the ensemble perform From the Heart of a Tradition, a new interpretation of this traditional form.

Knight’s dance reveals the profound musicality, mastery of technique and improvisational skill that distinguish his family’s hereditary style. But he also represents the face of young America: biracial, bicultural and, as an artist, completely contemporary. He and his ensemble were among 15 companies to receive production and touring support from the National Dance Project in 2007 and 2008, and their 2005 tour was partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Bates residency of Knight and his ensemble is made possible by a grant from the National Dance Project, a program of the New England Foundation for the Arts.

Closing World Music Week is a performance by the Bates College Gamelan Orchestra, joined by guest artists including Indonesian composer Nano S., at 8 p.m. March 15.

“Gamelan” refers to the large bronze percussion orchestras of Java and Bali, Indonesia. The Bates Gamelan Orchestra performs traditional and contemporary music of West and Central Java, as well as new music for gamelan by North American composers.

Nano S. is widely viewed as one of Indonesia’s most important and influential musicians. He has taught and toured extensively in Japan, Canada and the U.S. At Bates, he is a Mellon Learning Associate, supported by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Also performing are drummer Undang Sumarna, bamboo flute player Burhan Sukarma and dancer Ben Arcangel.

Bates College has received a $300,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a learning-associates program that in the past has involved experts like author Carolyn Chute and film director István Szabó in work with senior thesis students.

The Mellon Learning Associates Program in the Humanities and Social Sciences begins this fall and will continue for two years. With the addition of a social science component, the new initiative extends the Mellon Learning Associates Program in the Humanities that Bates established in 2001.

With more than 90 percent of Bates students completing a senior thesis — a significant research, service, performance or studio project — the Mellon Learning Associates program supports the participation of visiting experts and practitioners whose knowledge and experience can help illuminate new areas of inquiry.

“An important advantage of a small college like Bates is the opportunity for ongoing, in-depth faculty-student collaborations,” explains Jill Reich, dean of the faculty. “But these ideas and projects may expand to questions no longer encapsulated by the expertise on campus. This program allows us to reach out to relevant experts in a flexible and timely manner, driven by the excitement and integrity of the ideas.”

The program also expands the kinds of learning available to Bates students, Reich adds. “For example, learning associates might be practitioners who provide a real-world context for our students’ learning, and help expand that learning by linking theory to applied contexts. Or they might be experts in innovative techniques not yet available in the college setting.”

Like the previous Mellon program, the new initiative will support the participation of learning associates through long- and short-term residencies and distance learning. Author Chute, stage performer Avner Eisenberg and director Szabó (Being Julia) were among participants in the earlier program.

The Mellon Foundation has also supported the Bates environmental studies program through residential fellowships that have brought to campus such experts as nature photographer Will Richard, documentary filmmaker Melissa Paly and Brunswick, Maine, town planner Theo Holtwijk.

The latest Mellon grant continues a partnership that began in 1970, when the New York-based foundation awarded Bates a grant to enlarge the faculty and increase faculty pay. Since then, Mellon has supported Bates efforts to develop its curriculum, undertake collaborative programs with Bowdoin and Colby colleges and interact more closely with the Lewiston-Auburn community.

Longtime Maine grower and former Atlantic Monthly art director Terry Silber will talk about perennial garden design at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, in the Muskie Archives.

Colby, Bates and Bowdoin work as partners to run study abroad centers in Cape Town, South Africa, London, England, and Quito, Ecuador. The centers offer a wide variety of courses designed to make full use of the instructional and cultural resources of the regions.

The CBB program was launched in 1999 with funds from a 1998 Mellon grant. To date, 300 students and 25 faculty members from the three colleges have participated. As a rule, students are in their junior year upon participating in the study abroad program.

“While the focus of the grant is international study, it has promoted wonderful collaboration among the faculty of the three colleges in Maine as they plan programs together,” said Stephen W. Sawyer, associate dean of students at Bates and director of the college’s off-campus study programs.

“The grant has allowed our faculty to join our students abroad, to share the wonderful learning experiences that occur in the field,” Sawyer said.

CBB faculty and students come from varied disciplines, and courses have been offered abroad in anthropology, art history, biology, English, ecology, government, history, mathematics, performing arts, sociology and Spanish language.

Participating students receive instruction by CBB faculty and local scholars. Courses are given at the program’s three centers and at the University of East London and Cape Town University. Local field trips are integrated into the courses.

Students also interact with local families, and do community service and internships. In Cape Town, CBB students tutor high school students in basic science, work in an HIV-awareness campaign and help communities grow cash crops. In Quito, they work at schools, an orphanage, a children’s rights organization and a center for rehabilitating prostitutes. In London, students volunteer in local business, government, media and arts organizations.

The new grant from the New York-based Mellon Foundation will strengthen and solidify the management of the CBB program through support of its central administration office, which is located at Bowdoin and charged with integrating the resources, expertise and common goals of the three colleges.

The grant will support efforts to build and broaden connections between the three campuses and London, Cape Town and Quito. Increasing student enrollments, maximizing educational opportunities at the off-campus locations, making the program financially viable and funding program evaluation are also important goals of the grant.

“The Center for Community Partnerships will ensure a sustainable link of the College’s academic mission to its commitment to service, and to mutually valuable partnerships with the community beyond the College — partnerships that bring benefits and support that otherwise would not be possible,” Harward said in remarks at a breakfast seminar of business, civic and health-care leaders from the Lewiston-Auburn community. “Our engagements with the community outside of the College have been true partnerships. They serve mutual, yet independent, interests that honor the integrity of both partners.”

The Center for Community Partnerships will consolidate existing and new programs, current and future collaborations, personnel and resources:

* The Center will enhance Bates’ focus on and support to service-learning. Service-learning at Bates goes beyond traditional volunteerism by incorporating community service into academic course work. Since 1995, more than half of the Bates student body has engaged in service-learning projects, while more than a third of the faculty has included a service component in their courses. In the last academic year, September 2000 to May 2001, Bates students participated in 53,547 hours of service in the local community. Bates enjoys national recognition, having successfully integrated academic excellence, with a model service-learning program involving nearly 150 community agencies and institutions.

* The Center will provide an ongoing institutional structure and resource for collaborations with the community, including LA Excels. A community-based strategic alliance founded in 1998, LA Excels is composed of colleges, schools, hospitals, municipal governments, arts organizations and businesses that work together to create a shared vision of excellence in community development. After two conventions involving more than 1,000 local citizens, LA Excels decided to champion plans that no single entity could accomplish, including: bringing Lewiston and Auburn together to develop a performing arts center, a community arts learning center, and a museum devoted to the area’s industrial and social heritage. It also supports an LA conference center, neighborhood housing improvements, green corridors and bicycle pathways linking the two cities, and projects to increase educational aspirations of local schoolchildren. In its second year, the Civic Institute is offering leadership training for area citizens and middle-school personnel. The Institute is supported by grants from the Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds.

* The Center will align and support research projects by students and faculty that have application in the community — research that brings external support that otherwise would not occur. Examples include a student who developed a Geographical Information System for Lewiston and Auburn and saved the municipalities nearly $200,000 in labor and consultants’ fees. Another gave 34 students from Lewiston’s Longley Elementary School a chance to conduct hands-on science experiments with four Bates professors. Significant grant support from the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation provide resources that enable these College and community collaborations.To reinforce its grounding in the academic life of the College, the director of the Center will work with the new President and under the direction of Dr. Jill Reich, Vice President for Academic Affairs and the lead academic officer of the College.

The Bates College Board of Trustees voted to create the Center and authorized a search for its first director at its meeting Oct. 27. The work of the Center will be supported by a new Board of Trustees Committee, confirming the centrality of its work to the mission of the College.

During Board discussion, Board Chairperson Burton Harris, among others, noted the importance of a lasting partnership between campus and community. “The fences, physical and metaphorical, have come down,” Harris said. “The College and its partner, the community, now have a direct, a sustainable, and a mutually-reinforcing relationship.

“The establishment of this Center, one of the most significant steps taken by the College, will assure the Lewiston-Auburn community that, as partners now and in the future, both the College and the community can reinforce their strengths, their mutually beneficial interactions and their missions of excellence.”