Thursday, April 16, 2009

EVENT: Ballets Russes 2009

Ballets Russes 2009

The Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership Presents a Weeklong Festival to

Celebrate International Collaboration in the Arts

BOSTON, Massachusetts – April 15, 2009 – This May, Boston will observe the centenary of the first performances of the Ballets Russes, a revolutionary Russian ballet and opera troupe that captivated European and American audiences for twenty years in the early 20th Century. The Ballets Russes 2009 festival, presented by the Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership, will feature performances, an exhibition, an academic conference, and a procession and street fair that will celebrate the impact and enduring legacy of this world-renowned performing company. With this festival the Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership will commence a permanent artistic and intellectual exchange initiative between Boston, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.

About the Ballets Russes

The legendary impresario Serge Diaghilev launched the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris in May 1909. For the next twenty years, this revolutionary performing company electrified Western audiences with a potent fusion of music, choreography, theatrical design and dance, all of equal brilliance. The content was a revelation; it was sensual, innovative, provocative, and yet it drew on artistic traditions. Although it grew out of the Imperial Theaters, this profoundly Russian performing company flowered in Europe, contributing to and joining forces with Western modernism. Painters, composers and choreographers of the avant-garde were central to the achievements of the Ballets Russes.


Vaslav Nijinsky, Leon Bakst, Igor Stravinsky, George Balanchine, Pablo Picasso were among the creative geniuses made famous by the Ballets Russes.

Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership will celebrate Diaghilev’s progressive artistic and cultural legacy, which encouraged international cooperation and established lasting global bonds between Russia and America. The May festival will serve as the kick-off to a renewed cultural partnership between the two countries.

About the Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership

Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership is the only organization of its kind to promote lasting global bonds between Russia and America based on cultural awareness and mutual appreciation for the arts.

This renewed international partnership between the two countries will be anchored by a week-long centennial celebration of Ballets Russes – the legendary dance and opera company created by Serge Diaghilev one hundred years ago. In the spirit of multi-cultural cooperation that Diaghilev pioneered, performers and artists from Russia, Europe, and America will congregate in Boston to honor and commemorate the lasting cultural impact of Ballets Russes.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

EVENT: Mon., April 13---Health Information Technology Council Holds Public Hearing on Health IT Provisions

The Health Information Technology Council holds a public hearing to receive public comments on health IT provisions off the recently approved economic recovery and stimulus law. Secretary of Health and Human Service JudyAnn Bigby chairs the hearing.

When/Where: 6:00 PM at Mass. Medical Society, 860 Winter St., Waltham.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

EVENT: Sat., April 18---First Wave Hip Hop Theater Ensemble!

The SED Alumni Speaker Series presents: First Wave Hip Hop Theater Ensemble!

When/Where: 4:00 PM SED AUDITORIUM on Saturday, April 18, 2009

First Wave Performace at SED: First Wave Hip Hope Theater Ensemble, featuring Sofio Snow, voted best Spoken Word Artist in Boston in 2007, will be performing at SED on Saturday, April 18 at 4:00 PM – Don’t miss this amazing performance!

http://www.myspace.com/firstwave1

http://omai.wisc.edu/firstwave/

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

EVENT: Sunday May 3---Walk for Hunger

In the midst of the steepest economic downturn in fifty years, Project Bread’s Walk for Hunger on Sunday, May 3, takes on urgent meaning for those struggling to put food on the table. “We have never needed it more,” says Ellen Parker, the executive director of Project Bread, the state’s leading antihunger organization. “This year, we’re asking everyone to do something to help. Every dollar, every mile, and every volunteer hour counts.”

Project Bread estimates more than 522,000 people in the state are food insecure. With foreclosures and layoffs, many more people find themselves hungry and hurting for the first time. Calls to Project Bread’s FoodSource Hotline, the only comprehensive hunger resource in Massachusetts, have surged from month to month. Inquiries to the Hotline were up 34 percent in January from the same period of time a year ago, 67 percent in February, and 88 percent in March. The FoodSource Hotline — 1-800-645-8333 — is a toll-free information and referral service that immediately connects a hungry person to soup kitchens, food stamps, and groceries at food pantries. “We are getting more of every kind of caller, including those from college-educated professionals who say ‘they never thought they’d have ask for help,’” said Diane Dickerson, Director of Emergency Food Resources.

Despite these historically hard times, Walk registrations are edging up from last year and Project Bread is encouraged that Walkers, donors, and dollars are responding to the increased demand. In 2008, 40,000 Walkers and 2,000 Volunteers participated in the 20-mile trek that wends its way through Boston, Brookline, Newton, Watertown, and Cambridge. Last year, they raised an unprecedented $4 million to fund 400 emergency programs in 128 Massachusetts communities — money that is being used to buy food to feed hungry people right now.

As the nation’s oldest continual pledge walk, The Walk for Hunger has raised over $70 million since 1969 with an estimated 952,000 participants walking 19 million miles to nourish those in need. The Walk involves many families, school, religious, and work organizations that make the fundraiser a celebrated rite of spring. This year, the tradition is more crucial than any since the Walk began as “Feet for Wheat” in Quincy, Mass., founded by activist Patrick Hughes of Boston’s Paulist Center.

To register for the Walk for Hunger, visit projectbread.org or call 617-723-5000.

About Project Bread

As the state’s leading antihunger organization, Project Bread is dedicated to alleviating, preventing, and ultimately ending hunger in Massachusetts. Through The Walk for Hunger, Project Bread provides millions of dollars each year in privately donated funds to emergency food programs statewide. Project Bread also advocates systematic solutions that prevent hunger in children and provide food to families in natural, everyday settings. With the support of the Governor and state Legislature, the organization has invested millions in grants to community organizations that feed children where they live, learn, and play. For more information, visit www.projectbread.org.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Monday, April 6: Screening/Discussion of HBO's “The Alzheimer’s Project”

After screening a new HBO documentary called “The Alzheimer’s Project,” a panel of Alzheimer’s experts discusses the latest in research on the disease. Panelists include Harvard University psychology professor Randy Buckner, Boston University School of Medicine Alzheimer researcher Robert Green, Brigham and Women’s Hospital neurologic diseases expert Dennis Selko, Harvard Medical School neurology professor Reisa Sperling and Boston University neurology professor Philip Wolf. The panel, which also includes a Boston-area patient with early-stage, younger onset Alzheimer’s, will be moderated by Alzheimer’s Association Massachusetts Chapter President James Wessler.

When/Where: 6 PM, Joseph B. Martin Conference Center, Harvard Medical School, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston

Monday, April 6: Organ Donor Week Kicks Off

Sen. Michael Moore (D-Millbury) hosts a press conference kicking off Organ Donor Week. He will be joined by Registrar of Motor Vehicles Rachel Kaprielian, Rep. Katherine Clark, New England Organ Donor Bank official Sean Fitzpatrick, and Ann Lineham, mother of the late Laura Lineham, who used her struggle with a genetic disease to bring attention to organ donations.

WHEN/WHERE: 11:00 AM, Grand Staircase, State House