Professor of Theater — and filmmaker — Paul Kuritz. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

A short film directed by Bates Professor of Theater Paul Kuritz will premiere at the college at 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 8, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

Amy’s Wish is Kuritz’s adaptation of James Caputo’s award-winning short play with that title. The film recounts the story of a young girl facing her father’s terminal illness and encountering a professional mourner at a local funeral parlor.

The screening is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact 207-786-6257 or pkuritz@bates.edu.

Amy’s Wish has been selected to appear at the 2012 Midwest Christian-Inspirational Indie Film Festival, in Chicago Sept. 28-30; Kingdomwood Christian Film Festival, in Atlanta Oct. 5-7; and the Gideon’s Flame Christian Film Festival in Manila, the Philippines.

Performers in the film include Britt Davis, a member of the Bates class of 2014 from Chicago; and Cheryl Reynolds of Portland, an actress familiar to local audiences.

Robert Little of Auburn, who graduated from Bates in May, served as cinematographer on the production, while senior Cherelle Conner of Miami edited the film.

Location shooting was done at Lewiston’s historic Albert and Burpee Funeral Home.

Hosted by the Bates College Museum of Art, the series continues on Fridays and Sundays throughout the fall. Admission is $5. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

The series is produced by the Global Film Initiative to promote cross-cultural understanding by showing little-known, skillfully made independent films to American audiences. The initiative believes that “a powerful, authentic narrative can foster trust and respect between disparate cultures and mitigate the social and psychological impact of cultural prejudice.”

My Time Will Come tells the story of Dr. Arturo Fernandez , a reclusive Quito coroner. Through the film, a series of interwoven tragedies leads the protagonist to reconcile his relationships with both the living and the dead.

Made in 2008, the film is in Spanish with English subtitles (90 mins.).

After working as a director of photography for television and documentary films, winning awards and acclaim from organizations such as UNICEF, Arregui produced his first short film, El Tropezon in 1999. His first full-length film, Offside, was screened at over 30 film festivals. My Time Will Come is his second feature film.

Learn more about My Time Will Come and the entire Global Lens series.

Kudos from Lesotho

I just read the Spring 2009 issue; it was a pleasure. I’m writing from the Kingdom of Lesotho in Southern Africa where I work as a Peace Corps education volunteer teaching secondary math and science. I also work with the African Library Project setting up school libraries and am involved in HIV/AIDS education. Lesotho has the world’s third-highest adult HIV prevalence, so all volunteers in country incorporate HIV education into whatever we do.

As a transfer to Bates my sophomore year, I became quite close with this year’s graduating class. Unable to attend Commencement, I and my students sought a way to congratulate the grads. The students decided to make a poster and send photographs to our friends. This helped to meet the Peace Corps’ central goal of promoting amity between Americans and host country nationals. Take a look.

Jack Murphy ’08, Bela-Bela, Lesotho

Staying Home

Four years ago, I was a Bates senior about to graduate. I had spent my college days as a happy resident, swimming in all the resources and opportunities that Bates had to offer. Bates helped me discover and define my own values, and Lewiston for a time was home. But on the day of my graduation, when faced with that inevitable question of “What now?” I decided to leave. I wasn’t alone in this decision. Lewiston had few professional opportunities for newly minted bachelors of arts.

Please Write!
We love letters. Letters may be edited for length (300 words or fewer preferred), style, grammar, clarity, and relevance to College issues and issues discussed in Bates Magazine. E-mail your letter, or postal-mail it to Bates Magazine, Office of Communications and Media Relations, 141 Nichols St., Lewiston ME 04240.

This letter is to commend my dear friends Craig Saddlemire ’05 and Ari Rosenberg ’06, who stayed. Not only did they stay in Lewiston but became involved with the Visible Community (“Tents Situation,” Spring 2005), a grassroots community organization comprising downtown Lewiston residents taking it upon themselves to chart a positive future for their neighborhood and to become collaborators in the process of downtown redevelopment.

Craig had an unusual interest while he was a student at Bates: making movies. I, for one, did not know where that interest would take him. Since 2004 he has recorded and documented the history of the Visible Community. He has now created a documentary movie about Lewiston and its people, Neighbor by Neighbor: Mobilizing an Invisible Community in Lewiston, Maine, that humanizes the often-stereotyped and makes visible the most invisible among us. I hope this movie will open eyes and hearts alike.

Over the years, many Bates alumni have decided to stay in Lewiston. These Batesies have taken what they learned at Bates and are applying it to their adopted community, fulfilling a circle of mutual opportunity and responsibility shared by Bates and the city.

Gregory Rosenthal ’05, Catskill, N.Y.

Going Away

Recently I faced the bittersweet reality of graduating from Bates College. During the past four years, Bates and the entire Lewiston-Auburn community became my home. As a lifelong resident of a small town in Aroostook County, I was somewhat nervous, four years ago, about moving down to such a big city. However, I was happy to find that my fellow Mainers here are characterized by the same qualities that I have always appreciated about people in the County. I want to thank the people of Lewiston-Auburn for being so kind and welcoming to me and my fellow classmates throughout our time at Bates. While I have committed to teaching for two years in Boston through Teach for America, long-term I am looking to move back to this part of Maine. The lessons learned inside the classroom at Bates are very valuable, but Bates’ location here in Lewiston is one of the things that make the institution so special.

Paul Suitter ’09, Oakfield, Maine

Paul Suitter’s letter originally appeared in the Lewiston Sun Journal shortly after Commencement. — Editor

In Memoriam

Readers remember three Bates people who have died. — Editor

As an alumna of the library audio room — I worked there all four years at Bates — I was saddened to hear of the loss of Jan Lee, the College’s audio librarian from 1982 to 1994 (“[intlink id="10325" type="post"]Turning Points[/intlink],” Spring 2009). Always with a smile, Jan taught me more than just how to catalogue music. She taught me to listen to music, to learn its history, and to share it with others as part of my job. Many days I would arrive at work to find Jan with headphones on, listening. She’d pull me over, plug in another set, and share what she was listening to, and why.

Melissa Storm ’93, Washington, D.C.

With a heavy heart and tremendous sadness, I read of the passing of Robert Paul Martin ’57 (“[intlink id="10291" type="post"]Deaths[/intlink],” Spring 2009). As a native ’Header and Bobcat football player, “Spinner” impacted my life on multiple levels. My only regret is that I never shared this with him during his life.

My first encounter with Mr. Martin was in a sophomore-year American history class at Marblehead High School. He taught using the Socratic method, so rather than lecturing from behind a desk he questioned and challenged the class from our first day of high school. He encouraged dialogue, debate, and dissenting opinions while also branding meaningful dates in the formation of our country onto uncluttered brains of willing students. As a senior, I again partook of his offerings, this time in a post–World War II American history class. I remember writing a position paper on Sen. Joe McCarthy that was so controversial that all of my classmates attacked my thesis. Meanwhile, Mr. Martin orchestrated the debate with a smile on his face, supporting my outrageous musings.

At no point was I aware of Mr. Martin’s Bates connection, even though he knew of my interest in the school as I had asked him to write college references for me. I was accepted to Bates. Soon thereafter, Mr. Martin commented on my acceptance and alluded to his having attended the school. He said that he hoped I enjoyed competing on the gridiron against the hated rivals from Brunswick and Waterville but never mentioned his exploits while in Lewiston. Mr. Martin never even mentioned he played football!

Arriving on campus for practice my freshman year, I walked through the trophy room upstairs in Alumni Gym. I saw the jerseys of a few (very few) decorated Bobcat football players. Then I came upon Spinner’s jersey, in the glass case, retired. It was the first time Mr. Martin’s Bobcat greatness became known to me.

In his humble and understated way, Mr. Martin kept his football prowess a complete secret. If I juxtapose his approach against all the underachieving chest pumpers among today’s athletes, his legend grows even greater. I feel blessed to have known you, Mr. Martin.

Bob Lieberson ’85, Marblehead, Mass.

You’ve probably already received news of the death of Nelson Boies Doak ’70 (page 57 of this issue).  As the long-time program director for WKTJ-FM 99.3 in Farmington, Maine, Nelson was my boss when I worked as a part-time radio announcer in high school. He gave me the station keys when I was 14 so I could run the control booth for my Sunday morning shift, 6 o’clock to noon. About a year later, I added the Saturday sign-on shift, which required waking at 4:15 a.m. to power up the station’s highly unreliable Korean War–surplus broadcast equipment by 5 o’clock. By the time I was a junior, I worked nearly every day during school break weeks and summers, filling in for anyone on vacation. With that job, Nelson gave me instant hallway cred at Mount Blue High School.

I consider Nelson to have been the best music teacher I ever had. Although he kind of looked like Jerry Garcia, he much preferred Grand Funk Railroad. At 14, I didn’t know what anyone in Grand Funk looked like, but I always pictured Nelson belting out “We’re an American Band.” He thought the artist formerly known as John Cougar was reprising (ripping off?) the early work of Neil Diamond. And he adored, for reasons unknown to me, The Archies. All the other grown-up full-time DJs gave him no end of grief for that. As a teen, I couldn’t bring myself to cue up an Archies track. Today, “Sugar Sugar” sounds sweeter.

Marc Glass ’88, Wilton, Maine

The Global Lens 2008 film series, a touring program of narrative feature films from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia, concludes at Bates College this week with screenings of the Chinese drama Luxury Car.

The series is assembled and distributed by the Global Film Initiative, a U.S.–based nonprofit organization promoting independent filmmaking in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Founded in 2002 with the mission of promoting cross-cultural understanding through cinema, each year the initiative not only presents the film series but awards grants to deserving filmmakers from around the world.

• Wednesday, Dec. 3rd at 7 p.m.
• Room 105, Olin Arts Center

During four days in September, the Bates College Museum of Art will host both the world premiere of a documentary about artist Marsden Hartley and a symposium about Maine folk art.

The museum and the Connecticut-based film production company 217 Films present the hourlong Visible Silence: Marsden Hartley, Painter and Poet in screenings at 7 and 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

As a gift to the citizens of Lewiston honoring one of their most famous sons, admission is free, but tickets are required. For reservations or more information call 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu.

Three days later, the museum hosts a daylong symposium on the history and techniques of Maine folk art, beginning at 9:15 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 28, in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

Produced by the Maine Folk Art Trail, “Traditional American Folk Art in Maine” will examine folk-art forms as diverse as hooked rugs, scrimshaw, quilts, paint-decorated furniture and schoolgirl needlework.  For more information visit the Web site or call 207-786-6400.

More about Visible Silence: Independent filmmakers Michael Maglaras and Terri Templeton of 217 Films produced the documentary about Hartley, a Lewiston native who went on to become one of America’s signature artists. Maglaras wrote, narrated and directed the film.

Lewiston Mayor Laurent Gilbert will introduce the 7 p.m. screening, and Maine Gov. John Baldacci has proclaimed Sept. 25 as “Marsden Hartley Day.”

Hartley has long been considered a father of American modernist art. In May, a Hartley painting sold for $6.31 million, setting an auction record at Christie’s in New York for an American modernist work and overtaking a record previously held by a work of Georgia O’Keeffe.

The Bates museum is home to the world’s largest collection of Hartley artifacts, and Visible Silence features more than 45 of Hartley’s paintings and drawings — from his earliest work as a child to the last painting found on the easel in his studio in Corea, Maine, the day he died in 1943.

Hartley was deeply attached to his hometown, Lewiston, and to the Androscoggin River, and these locations play a key role in the film. Hartley traveled extensively, but always returned to Maine and, at the end of his life, considered himself “Maine’s painter.” He requested his ashes be strewn along the Androscoggin when he died; and this important and poignant moment is dramatized in Visible Silence.

Next stops in the national tour of Visible Silence include the University of Southern Maine in Portland; Boston; and New Britain, Conn.

The world premiere of 217 Films’ first Maine-made movie, Cleophas and His Own, based on a story by Hartley, took place in Lewiston in 2005.

More about “Traditional American Folk Art in Maine”: Nine folk-art experts are scheduled to speak at the symposium, including authorities such as Leonard Brooks, the director of the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Museum, New Gloucester, and Maine state historian Earle Shettleworth Jr. The symposium will also exhibit Maine-specific folk-art works.

For centuries, Maine residents without formal training or art education made art. Objects such as quilts or hooked rugs often served functional as well as artistic purposes and over the years became integrated within families, communities and culture.

The symposium is held in conjunction with the current museum exhibition [intlink id="11411" type="post"]Flourishing Folk: New England Decorated Works on Paper and Document Boxes from the Deborah N. Isaacson Trust[/intlink], which runs through Dec. 14. This exhibition represents Bates in the Maine Folk Art Trail, a collaborative effort among 11 museums and historical societies statewide to guide visitors to the best of Maine folk art.

Thanks to the coordinated statewide exhibition, Mainers and visitors will be able to follow the Maine Folk Art Trail from York to Lewiston to Searsport to see samplings from these diverse collections.

The Bates Dance Festival presents a weeklong focus on the extraordinary performing arts of contemporary Africa. The week includes panel discussions with the artists, a screening of the acclaimed film Movement (R)evolution, talks with noted dance scholar and filmmaker Joan Frosch, and Africa/NOW, a performance by Nora Chipaumire and Gregory Maqoma, two exceptional African artists.

The festival presents Africa/NOW at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 25 and 26, in Schaeffer Theatre, 365 College St., Bates College. Tickets are $20/$12 (students and seniors) and may be purchased by calling 207-786-6161 after July 7.

Nora Chipaumire is known for provocative and politically relevant dances that illuminate the struggles of human identity in an increasingly borderless world. She presents an excerpt from Chimurenga, a post-revolution solo that uses movement, film, text and sound to confront the personal and collective trauma of surviving Zimbabwe’s second war of liberation. Featuring the music of Thomas Mapfumo, this multimedia performance memoir moves from recollections of a childhood filled with violence into a celebration of life.

Chipaumire is a remarkable solo dance artist who investigates the collaborative process within the cultural, political, economic and technological identities of African contemporary life. Chipaumire was born in Mutare, Zimbabwe, during the Chimurenga Chechipiri, or second war of liberation. A self-exiled artist now based in New York, she has been a featured dancer with the world-renowned Urban Bush Women for three years. Her work is inspired by art from her native country, such as shona sculpture and chimurenga music — art that results from the often violent convergence of rural/urban, African/non-African, cultural, economic, colonial and technological ideas. A visionary African contemporary dance artist, her work speaks to the human condition with power, authority and urgency.

Gregory Maqoma is one of the most talented choreographers to emerge from the new generation of South African artists. He performs an excerpt from his new solo “Beautiful Me,” created with choreographers Akram Khan, Faustin Linyekula and Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe. The choreographers contributed their choreographic language, movement, music and text towards the realization of Beautiful Me.The work is a connection to tradition and style that Maqoma has translated to reflect his choreographic landscape and body. Beautiful Me includes an original score by four South African musicians who specialize in distinctive instrumental intonations using sitar, violin, cello and percussion.

Described as a “visionary,” “the gentle enfant terrible of South African Dance” and “an original post-modern African Renaissance man,” Maqoma is founder and artistic director of Vuyani Dance Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was trained in South Africa and Belgium. As a choreographer, teacher, dancer, artistic consultant and creative director, he has taught and presented work in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, Mexico, Finland, Burkina Faso, Austria, Nigeria, France, Senegal, Norway, Belgium, Germany, the U.S. and South Africa. His awards, accolades and nominations include the FNB Dance Umbrella Choreographer of the Year, Standard Bank Young Artist for the Year and Gauteng MEC Award for Choreography. A Rolex Mentor and Protégé Award Finalist as well as a Daimler Chrysler Choreography Award finalist, Maqoma serves as associate artistic director for Moving Into Dance and artistic director of The Afro Vibes Festival in the Netherlands. He is founding member of MUiSA (Multi Arts Initiative of South Africa).

In addition to the main stage performance, the festival offers several free and low-cost events focused on African contemporary dance. ”Global Exchange: Sharing Across Cultures,” a panel discussion with international visiting artists, takes place at 8 p.m. Tuesday, July 22, in Olin Arts Center Recital Hall, 75 Russell St., Bates College.  Filmmaker and scholar Joan Frosch screens and discusses her acclaimed film Movement (R)evolution, a portrait of the vibrant contemporary dance scene in Africa, at 8 p.m. Thursday, July 24, in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

“Inside Dance: Understanding Contemporary Dance,” a pre-performance lecture led by Joan Frosch offering insight into the artists and their work, will accompany Africa/NOW at 7:15 p.m. Friday, July 25, in Schaeffer Theatre, 365 College St.

Kevin Jackson '01

When he shifted from NFL Films to NASCAR Images in 2006, producer Kevin Jackson ’01 went from being a greenhorn at a company boasting nearly 100 Sports Emmys to the old hand at a company just few years old.

“NFL Films was like my grad school,” says Jackson. It’s an apt analogy considering his Bates background: as a theater major whose senior thesis project was directing Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor and an athlete in track and football. [More...]

The film’s location makes it exotic, says Abikeyeva, “but at the same time it will be the journey of your own childhood. That is why the film will be very close to your own heart.”

The production is the first post-Soviet feature film produced in Kyrgyzstan, one of the smallest nations in Central Asia, and bordered by China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The size of Minnesota and dominated by towering mountains, some as tall as 24,000 feet, the country has a population of 4.5 million people, most of whom are Sunni Muslims.

The author of two books, The New Kazakh Cinema (1998) and Central Asian Cinema: 1990-2001 (2001), Abikeyeva has published more than 100 newspaper and magazine articles about film. She received a doctorate from the All-Union Institute of Cinema in Moscow where she wrote a dissertation on The Interaction of Cultures of the East and the West in Modern Cinema Process.

Abikeyeva has directed arts and culture programs in Kazakhstan for The Soros Foundation since 1997. Between 1992 and 1994, she was editor-in-chief of the critically acclaimed film magazine Asia-kino. Since 1995, she has taught film at the Kazakh Academy of Arts.

During her Fulbright visit, Abikeyeva is based at Bowdoin College. The Bates event is co-sponsored by the German, Russian and East Asian languages departments and the Office of the Dean of Faculty.