One of Maine’s most respected poets, Wesley McNair visits Bates at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 28.

His appearance, part of the Language Arts Live series of literary readings at Bates, takes place in Skelton Lounge, Chase Hall, 56 Campus Ave., and is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact 207-786-6326 or 207-786-6256.

Language Arts Live brings highly regarded writers to Bates to read from and discuss their work. The series is sponsored by the English department, the Learning Associates Program, the Bates Humanities Fund, the programs in African American studies and American cultural studies, and the John Tagliabue Poetry fund.

One of Maine’s most effective advocates of the art of poetry, McNair’s poems have won praise from readers, reviewers and fellow poets alike for more than 40 years. Intended to be “both accessible and complex,” as a reviewer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote, his lines find truth in the small, often overlooked events of our common existence.

His most recent book is Lovers of the Lost: New & Selected Poems (David R. Godine, 2010), which showcases some of his best poetry from six previous volumes and a sampling of new work. He has authored or edited 18 books, including poetry, nonfiction and anthologies.

In 2006, McNair was selected for a prestigious United States Artists Fellowship, awarded annually to America’s finest living artists. He has held grants from the Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations, two Rockefeller Fellowships, an NEH Fellowship in literature and two NEA fellowships.

McNair served four times on the nominating committee for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, and in 2010 served as guest editor in poetry for the Pushcart Prize anthology. His poetry has appeared in two editions of The Best American Poetry and in more than 50 anthologies, and has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and 14 episodes of The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor.

McNair, of Mercer, served as a professor at the University of Maine at Farmington from 1987 until his retirement in 2004; founded and directed the Creative Writing program there; and is now UMF’s Writer in Residence.

He was a visiting professor at Colby College from 1999 to 2004. Colby acquired his personal papers in 2006 and has created an interactive McNair archive and teaching site on the Web.

Bates has a long tradition of welcoming poets and fiction writers to read from their work. During a 1932 U.S. tour, William Butler Yeats read his poetry to a large audience in the Bates Chapel. For 30 years, the inimitable Bates professor and poet John Tagliabue brought many distinguished writers to campus, including Allen Ginsberg and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Since 1991, when it formally instituted a concentration in creative writing within the major, the English department has hosted public readings, class visits and residencies by more than 75 acclaimed poets and writers, among them Nobel Prize laureates Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott; Pulitzer Prize winners Paul Muldoon, Donald Justice, Bates alumna Elizabeth Strout, Yusef Komunyakaa and Richard Ford; Carolyn Forché, Grace Paley, Galway Kinnell, Marge Piercy, Robert Pinsky and Sarah Manguso.

Recent Bates alums who have authored prize-winning first books have also returned to read: Jessica Anthony (class of 1996), Christian Barter (1990), Gabriel Fried (1996), Christina Chiu (1991) and Craig Teicher (2001).

Hello from Bates! Here is a preview of public events at the college in October 2010. Except as noted, these events are open to the public at no charge. (Where there is an admission fee, the cost for the general public appears first, followed by the cost for students and seniors.)

For a printable version: If you’re viewing this in the e-mail update, please click the headline above to go to the Events Schedule website. At the website, go to the bottom of the page and click “print”  (as in “print this page”) for the printable format.

For up-to-date events information throughout the month, see our Upcoming Events page. Questions or comments? Contact events editor Doug Hubley at this calendar@bates.edu.

Friday, Oct. 1

4:15pm

Q&A with playwright-songwriter Ethan Lipton: Lipton, who performs with his band in an evening show today, offers a question-and-answer session expected to range through myriad aspects of living a creative life, from the specifics of crafting lyrics vs. spoken lines to the business of creativity.

Olin Arts Center, Room 104

6pm

Volleyball vs. Amherst.
Alumni Gymnasium

7:30pm

Concert: Ethan Lipton and His Orchestra. Likened to “a peek into a curio shop from a hundred years ago” by The Village Voice, songwriter-playwright Lipton offers musically spare, conversationally scripted songs about bicycles, life, death, guilt and pets. Tickets are $10 and available at www.batestickets.com. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

8pm

Global Lens film: Please note that Saturday screenings of the Global Lens series have been discontinued, but 6pm Monday shows are now offered. And the location has changed for all Global Lens screenings: The new location is the Ronj, Bates’ student-run coffeehouse. Tonight, the international series presents Gods (Peru, 2008, 91 min.). Sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art. Admission: $5. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
The Ronj, 32 Frye St.

Saturday, Oct. 2

Time TBA

Women’s golf: Bates Scramble.
Martindale Country Club, Auburn

1:30pm

Volleyball vs. Middlebury.
Alumni Gymnasium

Sunday, Oct. 3

5:30pm

Spiritual gathering: Protestant worship service, emphasizing gospel music led by the gospel choir. The Rev. William Bill Blaine-Wallace, multifaith chaplain, leads the service with faculty, staff and students participating. All are welcome. FMI: 207-786-8272.
Bates College Chapel

7:30pm

Concert: Naomi Shelton and The Gospel Queens. This acclaimed Brooklyn-based band brings a soulful blend of gospel and R&B to Bates. The Bates Gospelaires, a student ensemble, opens. Learn more. Tickets are $16/$8 and available at www.batestickets.com. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

Monday, Oct. 4

6pm

Global Lens film: Gods (see Oct. 1).
The Ronj, 32 Frye St.

7pm

Lecture: In Evolution of Morality, economist Herbert Gintis proposes that human morality results from a dynamic interplay of culture and genes. Hosted by the mathematics department and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program, which makes distinguished scholars available to colleges and universities with Phi Beta Kappa chapters. FMI: 207-786-6146.
Pettengill Hall, Keck Classroom (G52)

7:30pm

Lecture: Living Downstream: A Scientist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment by Sandra Steingraber, who wrote the first published work correlating data on toxic releases with data from cancer registries. The annual Otis Lecture is made possible by the Philip J. Otis Endowment at Bates. Free admission, but tickets required. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

Tuesday, Oct. 5

12:30pm

Noonday Concert: Performer TBA. FMI: Contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

4pm

Men’s soccer vs. Southern Maine.
Russell Street Field

Wednesday, Oct. 6

6–9pm

Figure drawing sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art. Artists, bring drawing board and supplies! Easels provided. Admission: $7 (free for Bates students).
Olin Arts Center, Room 259

7:30pm

Concert: Ensemble 415. Violinist Chiara Banchini leads this award-winning European early-music ensemble in chamber works and concerti by Albinoni, Muffat, Albicastro and J.S Bach. Tickets are $10/$4 and available at www.batestickets.com. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

Thursday, Oct. 7

4:15pm

Lecture: Episodic Memory in Primates by Bennett Schwartz, a specialist in memory and a psychology professor at Florida International University. Episodic memory means our ability to recollect individual events from our personal past. Often considered the sole domain of human beings, recent research suggests that other animals are capable of remembering episodically as well. Sponsored by the psychology department.
Pettengill Hall, Room G52

Friday–Sunday Oct. 8–10

Parents and Family Weekend: See the full weekend schedule.

Friday, Oct. 8

8pm

Contradance: Traditional New England folk dancing to the band Bustopher Jones. No experience needed; all dances taught and called. Beginners’ workshop at 7:30. Admission $5. Sponsored by the Freewill Folk Society.
Chase Hall Lounge

8pm

Global Lens film: Please note that Saturday screenings of the Global Lens series have been discontinued, but 6pm Monday shows are now offered. And the location has changed for all Global Lens screenings: The new location is the Ronj, Bates’ student-run coffeehouse. Tonight, the international film series presents Masquerades (Algeria, 2008, 92 min.). Sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art. Admission: $5. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
The Ronj, 32 Frye St.

Saturday, Oct. 9

9am

Men’s tennis: Wallach Invitational
Wallach Tennis Center

11am

Men’s soccer vs. Williams.
Russell Street Field

Noon

Dance performance: The Bates College Modern Dance Company features work by students, faculty members Rachel Boggia and Debi Irons, and guest choreographer Monica Bill Barnes. Free; no reservations. The show will last just under an hour.
Schaeffer Theatre

Field hockey vs. Williams.
Campus Avenue Field

1pm

Football vs. Williams, in the first official game on the newly renovated Garcelon Field, featuring a state-of-the-art FieldTurf playing surface and a new scoreboard and grandstand.
Garcelon Field

2pm

Spiritual gathering: A celebration of the Hindu holiday of Navratri with Kirtan chanting led by Unitarian Universalist minister Ben Fowler. Details are tentative; contact the Multifaith Chaplaincy for more information at 207-786-8272 or this aberard@bates.edu.
Bates College Chapel

Women’s soccer vs. Williams.
Russell Street Field

3:30pm

Exhibition opening: Les Femmes du Maroc: An Exhibition by Lalla Essaydi. Nick Capasso, senior curator at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, offers a gallery talk on Essaydi and the exhibition (described under Bates College Museum of Art below). Reception follows. Sponsored by the museum, the Davis Family Foundation and the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. FMI: 207-786-6158 or this museum@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center, Bates College Museum of Art

7:30pm

Concert: The Rest Is Music, a program of new work by the Bates Composers Society, a campus-wide community of composers and musicians. Free, but tickets required. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

Sunday, Oct. 10

Time TBA

Men’s golf: Bates Invitational.
Martindale Country Club, Auburn

9am

Men’s tennis: Wallach Invitational.
Wallach Tennis Center

Noon

Dance performance: Modern Dance Company (see Oct. 9).
Schaeffer Theatre

5:30pm

Spiritual gathering: Protestant worship service (see Oct. 3).
Bates College Chapel

Monday, Oct. 11

4:30pm

Lecture: Helping People and Orangutans Through Video, a presentation of Phillips Fellowship-supported work by Robert Little ’12. Sponsored by the dean of the faculty’s office. FMI: 207-753-6952.
Chase Hall Lounge

6pm

Global Lens film: Masquerades (see Oct. 8).
The Ronj, 32 Frye St.

7:30pm

Reading: Novelist Debra Spark, author of The Ghost of Bridgetown and Good for the Jews. The Language Arts Live series is sponsored by the English department, the Learning Associates Program, the Bates Humanities Fund, the programs in African American studies and American cultural studies, and the John Tagliabue Poetry fund. FMI: 207-786-6326 or 207-786-6256, or this rfarnsworth@bates.edu or this eosucha@bates.edu.
Chase Hall, Skelton Lounge

Tuesday, Oct. 12

12:30pm

Noonday Concert: Music’s Quill. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

4pm

Men’s soccer vs. Amherst.
Russell Street Field

Wednesday, Oct. 13

3:30pm

Women’s soccer vs. Maine-Farmington.
Russell Street Field

4:30pm

Lecture: Unite for Sight by Emily Howe ’11 and Beyond the Culture of War by Theodore Sutherland ’11 are presentations of Phillips Fellowship-supported work. Sponsored by the dean of the faculty’s office. FMI: 207-753-6952.
Chase Hall Lounge

5pm

Field hockey vs. Southern Maine
Campus Avenue Field

6pm

Lecture: Artist Wally Reinhardt discusses his work in the exhibition Metamorphoses: A Collaboration with Ovid (described under Bates College Museum of Art below). Sponsored by the museum, the programs in classical and medieval studies and interdisciplinary studies, and the Division of Humanities. FMI: 207-786-6158 or this museum@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center, Room 104

6–9pm

Figure drawing sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art (see Oct. 6).
Olin Arts Center, Room 259

7:30pm

Panel discussion: Wrestling with School Reform in Maine: National Strategies, Local Realities. Panelists include Glenn Cummings of the U.S. Department of Education; Norm Fruchter of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, Brown University; and representatives from Maine school systems. Part of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships’ Civic Forum series. FMI: 207-786-6202.
Edmund S. Muskie Archives

Thursday, Oct. 14

7:30pm

Concert: Two beloved chamber works — Dvorák’s “American” Quartet and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet — are performed by two prominent names in Maine music, the DaPonte String Quartet and pianist Chiharu Naruse of Bates’ applied music faculty. Admission is free, but tickets required. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

Friday, Oct. 15

4pm

Poster session: Celebrating the development of an undergraduate public health concentration at Bates, the poster presentation Health, Public Health and Medicine precedes the African Refugee Health conference (see next item).
Pettengill Hall, Perry Atrium

6:30pm

Conference: Keynote lectures by prominent experts in refugee healthcare begin the three-day conference African Refugee Health: Best Practices: A Clinical and Public Health Perspective. Speakers are: Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, and Patricia Walker, medical director of the Center for International Health in Minnesota. Sponsored by Bates; the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the Central Maine Medical Family; and St. Mary’s Health System. Space is limited and reservations required. Contact 786-6400 or this bpelleti@bates.com, or visit the website.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

7:30pm

Theater: Fuddy Meers by David Lindsay-Abaire. For an independent study, Michelle Schloss ’12 directs this story of an amnesiac who awakens each morning as a blank slate on which her husband and teenage son must re-imprint the facts of her life. Free; no reservations. FMI: 207-786-6161.
Black Box Theater

8pm

Global Lens film: Please note that Saturday screenings of the Global Lens series have been discontinued, but 6pm Monday shows are now offered. And the location has changed for all Global Lens screenings: The new location is the Ronj, Bates’ student-run coffeehouse. Tonight, the international film series presents Leo’s Room (Uruguay, 2009, 92 min.). Sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art. Admission: $5. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
The Ronj, 32 Frye St.

Saturday, Oct. 16

11am

Men’s soccer vs. Wesleyan.
Russell Street Field

Noon

Field hockey vs. Wesleyan.
Campus Avenue Field

1pm

Football vs. Wesleyan.
Garcelon Field

2pm

Spiritual gathering: A celebration of the Hindu holiday of Navratri with yoga and Kirtan chanting. Details are tentative; contact the Multifaith Chaplaincy for more information at 207-786-8272 or this aberard@bates.edu.
Benjamin Mays Center

Women’s soccer vs. Wesleyan.
Russell Street Field

7pm

Performance: Performers from Africa appear in conjunction with the weekend African Refugee Health conference. Featured are spoken word poetry by IBe, readings by Somali poet/playwright Omar Ahmed and Somali rap by Jamal and Friends. Space is limited and reservations required. Contact 786-6400 or this bpelleti@bates.com, or visit the website.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

7:30pm

Performance: Fuddy Meers (see Oct. 15).
Black Box Theater

Sunday, Oct. 17

11am

Lecture: Dr. Richard Mollica, director of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, offers a keynote address on a topic TBA to conclude the conference African Refugee Health: Best Practices (see Oct. 15). Space is limited and reservations required. Contact 786-6400 or this bpelleti@bates.com, or visit the website.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

2pm

Performance: Fuddy Meers (see Oct. 15).
Black Box Theater

5:30pm

Spiritual gathering: Protestant worship service (see Oct. 3).
Bates College Chapel

6pm

Spiritual gathering: A celebration of the Hindu holiday of Navratri with traditional prayers, dance and food. Details are tentative; contact the Multifaith Chaplaincy for more information at 207-786-8272 or this aberard@bates.edu.
Benjamin Mays Center

7:30pm

Concert: After an amazing performance at Bates in 2008, Israeli bassist Avishai Cohen returns with his highly personal Aurora project, reflecting Israel as a crossroads of many cultures. Tickets are $12/6 and available at www.batestickets.com. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

Monday, Oct. 18

Time TBA

Poetry reading: Meena Alexander, author of six highly regarded volumes of poetry and diverse other works, is tentatively scheduled to read from her writings. Please visit the Events and Calendars page for further information, or call 207-786-8294.
Benjamin Mays Center

6pm

Global Lens film: Leo’s Room (see Oct. 15).
The Ronj, 32 Frye St.

7:30pm

Lecture: Taiwan’s Health Reforms: Lessons for the U.S. and Maine by William Hsiao, a professor of economics at the Harvard School of Public Health and architect of Taiwan’s universal health care system. Part of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships’ Civic Forum series. FMI: 207-786-6202.
Edmund S. Muskie Archives

Tuesday, Oct. 19

12:30pm

Noonday Concert: Performer TBA. FMI: Contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

3:30pm

Women’s soccer vs. St. Joseph’s.
Russell Street Field

5pm

Field hockey vs. New England College.
Campus Avenue Field

Wednesday, Oct. 20

6–9pm

Figure drawing sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art (see Oct. 6).
Olin Arts Center, Room 259

Wednesday–Friday, Oct. 20–22

Fall Recess: No classes, but administrative offices remain open.

Sunday, Oct. 24

5:30pm

Spiritual gathering: Protestant worship service (see Oct. 3).
Bates College Chapel

Monday, Oct. 25

4pm

Lecture: Kiado Cruz, community organizer for a food-sovereignty network in Mexico, speaks on sustainable agriculture, community organizing and effects of U.S. trade policies and increasing privatization. Organized by the Latin American studies concentration faculty with support from a Mellon Innovation Grant, the environmental studies program and the anthropology department. FMI: 207-786-8295.
Pettengill Hall, Room G21

Tuesday, Oct. 26

12:30pm

Noonday Concert: Jazz by two members of the faculty, guitarist John Smedley of the physics department and pianist Tom Snow, director of the Bates Jazz Band. FMI: 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
Olin Arts Center Concert Hall

Wednesday, Oct. 27

6–9pm

Figure drawing sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art (see Oct. 6).
Olin Arts Center, Room 259

Thursday, Oct. 28

7:30pm

Reading: One of Maine’s best-known poets and poetry advocates, Wesley McNair has written eight collections of poetry including this year’s Lovers of the Lost. For more about the Language Arts Live series, see Oct. 11.
Chase Hall, Skelton Lounge

Friday, Oct. 29

3pm

Field hockey vs. Colby.
Campus Avenue Field

4pm

Men’s soccer vs. Colby.
Russell Street Field

8pm

Global Lens film: Please note that Saturday screenings of the Global Lens series have been discontinued, but 6pm Monday shows are now offered. And the location has changed for all Global Lens screenings: The new location is the Ronj, Bates’ student-run coffeehouse. Tonight, the international film series presents My Tehran for Sale (Iran, 2009, 97 min.). Sponsored by the Bates College Museum of Art. Admission: $5. FMI: Contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.
The Ronj, 32 Frye St.

Saturday, Oct. 30

TBA

Men’s and women’s tennis: Alumni Match.
Wallach Tennis Center

1pm

Football vs. Colby.
Garcelon Field

Sunday, Oct. 31

5:30pm

Spiritual gathering: Protestant worship service (see Oct. 3).
Bates College Chapel

Exhibition

Oct. 8–17

In celebration of the Hindu holiday of Navratri, images and statues of Hindu goddesses are displayed. FMI: 207-786-8272 or this aberard@bates.edu.
Bates College Chapel

Bates College Museum of Art

Museum hours: 10am-5pm Tuesday-Saturday. FMI: 207-786-6158 or this museum@bates.edu.

Oct. 8–Dec. 18
Les Femmes du Maroc: An Exhibition by Lalla Essaydi: The images in Essaydi’s most recent body of work present Moroccan women in staged narratives. These women inhabit a place that is literally and entirely circumscribed by text, written by the artist herself directly on their bodies, apparel and surroundings. The photographs, based on 19th-century Orientalist paintings, critique contemporary social structures, but simultaneously confront historical attitudes that have helped construct representations of Arab women. Made possible by the Lois and Richard England Family Foundation and the Davis Family Foundation.

Metamorphoses: A Collaboration with Ovid by Wally Reinhardt: Reinhardt since the 1980s has focused his work solely on interpreting Ovid’s Metamorphoses. His gouaches vividly bring to life many of the favorite characters of classical mythology. Reinhardt’s exhibition is offered in co-sponsorship with the programs in classical and medieval studies and in interdisciplinary studies, and by the Division of Humanities.

A shadow-puppet performance of an ancient Indonesian story and an orchestral concert featuring a setting of four poems by a noted Maine poet will distinguish Bates among local arts presenters this weekend.

At 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12, the Bates College Orchestra presents a program including conductor Philip Carlsen’s setting of poems by renowned Maine writer Wesley McNair.

At 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13, Indonesian puppet master Joko Susilo will present a shadow-puppet performance of “The Abduction of Sinta,” a central story from the Hindu epic Ramayana. Susilo will be accompanied by the Bates Gamelan Mawar Mekar (“blossom of inspiration”), an Indonesian-style gamelan orchestra, and guest musicians from New Hampshire and Minnesota.

Both events take place in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall at Bates, 75 Russell St., and are open to the public at no charge. For more information, please call 207-786-6135.

The orchestral concert features Four Journeys in Maine, a 1989 composition by Bates faculty member and orchestral director Philip Carlsen. This piece is a setting of works by award-winning poet McNair, author of the collections My Brother Running and Fire. McNair and Carlsen are colleagues at the University of Maine at Farmington, where the poet directs the creative writing program and Carlsen is a professor of music.

Soprano Christina Astrachan, of the Bates music faculty, is featured vocalist on the Carlsen work. Each movement of Four Journeys evokes a place, or a sense of place — a late-night drive in the country, a Farmington street in the snow, a decrepit building in the potato fields of Mars Hill, birdwatching on Monhegan Island.

The orchestra will also perform Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 in E-flat and Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia.

Joko Susilo belongs to the eighth generation of “dalangs” — shadow-puppet masters — in his family, and also composes and teaches gamelan music. Although Indonesia today is predominantly Muslim, a period of Hindu rule beginning in the seventh century left a cultural legacy that remains robust.

“Wayang kulit,” the puppet theater form practiced by Susilo, derives many of its stories from the Hindu epics Mahabarata and Ramayana. On Nov. 13 he will perform a central episode from the latter.

It’s the story of the battle between Rama, a semi-divine king, and the demon-king Rawana. Rawana, smitten by the beauty of Rama’s wife, Sinta, asks a servant to help him kidnap her.

The servant transforms himself into a golden deer, which Sinta asks Rama to catch for her. “This evil deer tricks Rama away from Sinta, far away in the middle of the forest, so then Rawana can take Sinta from Rama,” Susilo explains.

“Rama’s friend, the gigantic bird Jatayu, tries to save Sinta,” he continues, but Rawana kills the bird and reclaims Sinta. Finally, Rama enlists the aid of a monkey god and his followers to fight Rawana, and an epic battle ensues between the monkey army and the giant soldiers of Rawana.

“The story ends with the reunion between Sinta and her husband, Rama,” says Susilo. “Happy ending.”

More than mere fantasy, the story and the epic from which it’s derived are rich in moral lessons, Susilo says. “In the puppets we have a lot of philosophy. If you watch the puppets it’s like you’re watching yourself in the mirror. You will find yourself, because many, many characters appear on the screen — ‘Oh, that’s like me.’ ”

“Rama is the incarnation of wisdom, the god of law,” and exemplifies good leadership, he continues, and the play will offer lessons, about leadership and other subjects, that won’t be lost on observers of contemporary politics. “It’s for everybody — for children, adults, all people.”

The guest artists are Jody Diamond, a New-Hampshire-based singer and international expert on gamelan, and Nicole Erickson, a gamelan musician from Minnesota.

Bates is unique in Maine and distinguished nationally for its resources in Indonesian performing arts, especially its extensive collection of shadow puppets — around 250 — on permanent loan by David Eisler, of Dover, N.H.

“Only a few schools in the United States have a complete set of puppets,” Susilo says. “There are more than 500 gamelan groups, but the complete puppets are very few.”

A lecturer in the music department at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, he is teaching at Bates through the college’s first-ever grant from the Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence Program. He was born into a family of dalangs in a village in Central Java, Indonesia. At the age of 3, his father began taking him to performances, and at age 10 he performed his first all-night wayang kulit play.

He finished his doctorate at Otago in 2000. In the United States, Susilo has taught and performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C, at Dartmouth and at the University of Virginia, among other venues. Internationally he has worked in the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands, and brought his Padhang Moncar gamelan group from Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, on tour in Indonesia.