Friday, October 1,1999_ Page 13
Weekend
h Preview
The Weekend in Preview
The following is a brief list of
weekend events. Please call the
venue for more information.
CONCERTS:
Kimball Recital Hall, 301N. 12th
St.
Sunday: Wind Ensemble and
Symphonic Band
Knickerbockers, 901 OSt.
Friday: Husking April, VD6,
EKG
Saturday: Happy Dog,\Musico
The Royal Grove, 340 W.
Comhusker Highway
Friday: Static-X
Saturday: On the Fritz
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery,
12th and R streets
Saturday: Shanghai Quartet
Zoo Bar, 136 N. 14th St.
Friday and Saturday: Billy Bacon
and the Forbidden Pigs
THEATER:
Howell Theatre, Temple Building,
12th and R streets
Friday and Saturday: “The
Dining Room”
Lied Center, 301N. 12^St.
Friday: Bobby Watson and
Horizon with Victor Lewis
Sunday: Moscow State Radio
Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Lincoln Community Playhouse,
2500 S. 56th St.
All weekend: “Hello, Dolly!”
Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater,
12th and R streets
Friday and Saturday:
“Windhorse”
Sunday: “The Harmonists”
Star City Dinner Theatre, Suite
100, 803 Q St.
Friday and Saturday: Nancy
Norton in the Comedy Cabaret
GALLERIES:
The Burkholder p\iect, 719 P
St. \
All weekend: works by Carol
Gallion, Sammy Lynn, Patsy Smith
and mixed works by Prairie 7
Gallery 9,124 S. Ninth St.
All weekend: “Masks,” an all
member theme show
Hay don Gallery, 335 N. Eighth
St.
All weekend: works by Judith
Ernst Cherry
Lentz Center, Morrill Hall, 14th
and U streets
All weekend: paintings by Shi Hu
- Noyes Gallery, 119 S. Ninth St.
All weekend: “Roaring ‘20s,”
works by Sandy Meyers, LeRoy Van
Gian, Ray Anderson, Max Cox and
Ralph Spangler
The Sheldon Memorial Art
Gallery, 12th and R streets
All weekend: “Black Image and
Identity,” “Modem Masters,” Charles
Rain’s “Magic Realism,” “Robert
Colescott: Recent Paintings”
‘Windhorse’
hard-hitting
docudrama
By Jason Hardy
Senior staff writer
With motion pictures comes a
power that is hard to simulate with
any other medium.
It’s no secret. Films have the
power to shape one’s perceptions of
things. They move us.
Still, how many films today actu
ally do that? How many truly make us
more culturally aware and enlight
ened? How many simply pacify us?
Film is an incredible tool, and
when coupled with a desire to display
the truth without adhering to the limi
tations of a documentary format, film
can become a kind of journalism. It
becomes a way of telling a story
based on actual events in such a way
that is impossible to forget.
COURTESY rHOTO
DIRECTOR PAUL WAGNER and cinematographer Steve Schecter secretly filmed “Windhorse” in Tibet. The
Chinese government has attempted to halt showings of the film in the United States.
different ways of surviving and
searching for freedom from Chinese
oppression.
The beautiful scenery of the
Tibetan mountains and culture is con
trasted with the social atrocities com
mitted by the Chinese government
and the ludicrous propaganda
attempts made by the Chinese media.
Some parts of “Wipdhorse” are so
heart-wrenching that it’s almost hard
to watch.
Because of the film’s honest
depiction of China’s disgusting treat
ment of ethnic Tibetans, Wagner and
his crew literally had to sneak around
Tibet to film this movie.
By posing as tourists and enlisting
the help of local activists and con
tacts, Wagner filmed incredible
footage on a Sony mini-DV handi
cam.
And because of China’s always
watchful security cameras placed
around Lhasa, Tibet's capital city,
Wagner had to develop cues and
movements to symbolize basic words,
such as “action” and “cut.”
Other footage was filmed in
Nepal, but because of the Nepalese
government’s fear of China, Wagner
and his crew were forced to be just as
secretive and often posed as a crew
shooting a music video.
Aside from these difficulties,
Wagner was also faced with finding
an authentic cast without being able
to advertise for one.
One of the many miracles that
made this film possible was a group
of young Tibetan activists who
dubbed themselves “The Young
Yaks.” They basically sought out and
found people to play roles in the film
- some of whom had never even seen
a movie. They also found props, built
sets and scouted locations.
That is what makes “Windhorse”
so effective. These things have actual
ly happened to the people in the
Film Review
nw Facts
Title: Windhorse
Director: Paul Wagner
Rating: NR
Showing: Mary Riepma Ross Film
Theater on Friday at 7 and 9 p.m., and
Saturday at 1,3,7, and 9 p.m.
Grade: A
Five Words: Beautiful, sad, inspiring
and unforgettable
movie. They may be acting, but it’s
acting out a life they live every day: a
life of fear, courage and a spirituality
and camaraderie that is outlawed by
the Chinese government.
Because of China’s inhumane
treatment to Tibetans who don’t
adhere to the censorship laws, almost
Please see WINDHORSE on 14
A film like that has the power to
blow us away. A film like that is
“Windhorse.”
Focusing on the plight of the
Tibetan culture under a smothering
Chinese government, “Windhorse”
tells a hard-hitting story the likes of
which Hollywood seldom produces.
However, almost as moving as the
message in “Windhorse” is the meth
ods by which Academy Award-win
ning documentary filmmaker Paul
Wagner made it.
With “Windhorse,” Wagner has
created not only his first dramatic fea
ture but also the first feature film ever
written in the Tibetan language.
Secretly filmed inside Tibet,
“Windhorse” follows three Tibetans
from their childhood in 1959, when
China unleashed a full-scale military
attack on Tibet, up to present day,
Chinese-occupied Tibet. Along the
way, the three characters choose very
‘Alison’s House’ presented at Wesleyan
■ Play about turn of the 19th
century parallels modem fears
and hopes for the millennium.
By Josh Krauter
Senior staff writer
What’s going to happen this New Year’s
Eve? Will the worlcKcome screeching to a halt,
or will things continue as usual? And what kind
of legacy will this generation leave to the next?
These questions aren’ftmiqpe to this centu
In “Alison’s House,” a play opening tonight
at Nebraska Wesleyan University, a
Midwestern family asks themselves these ques
tions on the last day of the 19*h century. -•
Jay Scott Chipman, director of the play and
assistant professor of communication and the
ater arts at Wesleyan, said the play was as rele
vant now as it was in the 1930s when it was first
performed.
“It’s especially relevant, because here we
are getting ready for the millennium,” he said.
“The characters in the play are asking them
selves the same questions we are now.”
Chipman said the characters asked them
selves what the legacy of art would be in the
20th century, what technological advances
would be made and what their relationships
would be like.
The play is about a family in 1899 that is
thinking about closing the family estate and
moving to the city.The family also ponders
whether to publish recently-discovered poems
by a dead family member.
The play is billed as a serious comedy, and
while Chipman said the play is filled with
humor, its message isn’t.
“It’s addressing the legacy of one century to
another,” he said. “It asks serious questions
about the legacy of art and love.” \
Alison s House” was written by Susan \
Glaspell, an Iowa novelist, playwright, journal
ist and short-story writer. The play won the
Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1931 and was huge
ly popular in that decade. But it hasn’t been
performed much since, said Chipman.
Chipman, who is also a theater historian,
was researching Glaspell when he found out
about the play. He had never heard of it before,
so he read it, liked it and decided to stage it.
Coincidentally, an off-Broadway cast is per
cfe
Please see HOUSE on 14
