Reggae celebration
This weekend, area clubs and bands remember Bob Marley, the father of reggae.
By Kevin Hoffmann Kansan staff writer
Bob Marley has long been considered the father of the reggae movement.
This weekend, fans of the Jamaican reggae musician who died in 1981 can celebrate the superstar's birthday.
The Granada Theater, 1020 Massachusetts St., will host a Bob Marley birthday celebration Sunday. Reggae bands Tony Bell & Kutchie and The New Riddims will pay tribute to Marley's legacy by bringing the sounds of Jamaican reggae to Lawrence.
The event, sponsored by Keenan Gentry of Heartbeat Productions in Kansas City, will provide Lawrence ragae fans the chance to celebrate the man who popularized Jamaican music.
Bob Marley gained a following in the 1960s as a singer for the Jamaican band "The Wailers." As a political activist and Rastafarian, Marley spent his career working to bring recognition to the music of his country. He died of cancer in 1981, shortly after being awarded Jamaica's merit of honor for outstanding citizenship.
Tom Ballew, Lawrence senior and special program director and deejay for KJHK, said Marley was the first to bring widespread popularity to reggae music, which is characterized by a steady, pulsing beat with an emphasis on percussion and exotic rhythms.
"Bob Marley was the most popular reggae musician ever," he said.
Ballew, who hosts a reggae show on Sunday afternoons, said a fair amount of people listened to reggae or reggae-inspired music in Lawrence, though some may not identify with reggae's roots.
"True reggae music has a message to it," Ballew said. "A lot of what you hear nowadays is dance hall music, and a lot of the people may not understand the spiritual part of it."
Ballew, who also is an agent for reggae musicians, said he hoped the celebration of Marley's music would broaden people's knowledge of what the music was about.
"I'd like to see people who listen to reggae music become aware of the roots and the message it tries to convey," he said. "The music came out of the suffering of the Jamaican people."
Boris Fagon, Toronto junior, was born in Jamaica and acquired a taste for reggae at an early age.
"I grew up listening to the music, so it has always been a part of my life," he said. "The sound is different. The language is different."
Fagan said reggae music was more than just the stereotypical bright colors and dreadlocks worn by those who play it.
"It's music that people express their feelings through," he said. "It's something listeners really have to listen closely to and see how it relates to them."
Reggae music is closely tied to the Rastafarian religion, which centers around peace, love and closeness to nature.
Mike Wilson, Lawrence resident and Rastafarian, said Bob Marley helped spread the religion of Rastafaria.
"Bob Marley certainly is a prophet for Rastafaria," he said. "He's the person sent down by God to bring Rasta to the masses."
Wilson said he hoped the Marley celebration would bring people closer to Marley's true message.
"The real message of Marley is to look at the real powers of the world: nature and clean living." Wilson said. "Marley was a guy who would come up and tell people how to live."
Wilson said he hoped people who came to the birthday celebration would catch on to Marley's "vibes."
"Bob Marley always brought people together," he said.
Photo by Adrian Boot
The Bob Marley birthday celebration will be at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Granada Theater. Tickets are $7 in advance and $10 at the door and can be bought at Love Garden, 936-1/2 Massachusetts St., Creation Station, 726 Massachusetts St., Full Moon Cafe, 803 Massachusetts St. and The Granada Theater.
people
Natural Ties forges friendships
By Cathleen Siechta Kansan staff writer
Social events often bring people together and create new friendships. A dance sponsored by the Natural Ties program next week may help some special friendships continue.
Natural Ties, founded in 1988 by the Kansas Alpha chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, is dedicated to integrating people with mental and physical disabilities into college life through campus organizations. Participating organizations and living groups sponsor a person with a disability, or "tie," who participates in activities with those organizations.
The Natural Ties program is sponsoring its second annual benefit dance at Liberty Hall on Thursday, Feb. 10. Bands performing at the dance will be Turquoise Sol, Mother Well, Mountain Clyde and Soul Shaker.
Money raised from the dance will help finance a Natural Ties retreat to be held in March. During the retreat, campus organization representatives and their ties will go fishing, canoeing and camping in Missouri.
(Natural ties) is a very dually positive thing. It makes us more comfortable around people with disabilities. We can learn from them, and it creates friendships. Natural Ties makes that interaction common on a day-to-day
common on a day-to-day level.
Carolyn Bare Social expansion coordinator for Natural Ties
Carolyn Bare, Oldahoma City senior and social expansion coordinator for Natural Ties, said the retreat would benefit both the students and their friends with disabilities.
"The retreat will allow the disabled people to do things they normally wouldn't have a chance to do." Bare said. "And the experience is just as rewarding for the students. It's a very dually positive thing. It makes us more comfortable around people with disabilities. We can learn from them, and it creates friendships. Natural Ties makes that interaction common on a day-to-day level."
Brian Platt, a former representative of Sigma Alpha Epsilon for Natural Ties, said people tended to label those with disabilities without giving them a chance.
"The ties come over to the fraternity house, and they are comfortable with us," said Platt, Minneapolis, Minn., senior. "We accept them, and they accept us, and we have fun together. That's enough reason for the program's existence."
Seventeen fraternities and sororites now sponsor ties through the program. Natural Ties hopes to expand to include groups other than Greek organizations.
"Natural Ties helps mainstream people with disabilities into the college setting." said Tim Barton, Annandale, Va, senior and four-year Natural Ties volunteer. "More groups need to get involved to help expand the program. It's worthwhile, and it builds lasting friendships within your group."
"Natural Ties has been a very good program for the residents at Cottonwood that have been a part of it," Baker said. "They are doing new and fun things with the ties. It is not a charitable program. It is mutually beneficial to all participants. The relationships are interdependent and equally satisfying. This is the kind of program that builds social acceptance of physical disability in community life."
Jill Baker, residential director of Cottonwood, Inc., a housing and employment organization for people with disabilities, said expanded participation in the program would be a positive step.
"Last year no one was dancing at first," he said. "Then all the ties got out on the dance floor, and everyone joined in. It was great."
Barton said that acceptance was visible at Natural Ties' first dance last year, which many of the ties attended.
The Natural Ties benefit dance will be held at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10 at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St. Admission is $5.
theater
Cartoon-inspired fun offered by Inge comedies
By Anne Sutherland
Special to the Kansan
The cast of the University Theatre's most recent productions, "Gammer Gurton's Needle" and "Ralph Roister Doister," burst through the entrance of the Inge Theater, laughing and full of excitement. They dispersed through the crowd, shaking hands, making jokes and welcoming everyone.
The two plays combined a unique blend of slapstick and pre-Shakespearean comedy, said director Bethany Larson, Lawrence graduate student.
Without a doubt, the performance had begun.
"I consider these plays to be in what people may best relate to as the comic tradition of cartoons," Larson said, as her cast and crew put the finishing touches on the comedies in their final dress rehearsal Wednesday.
"I think people will find familiar qualities in the play," she said as she listened to the soundtrack for the performance, a compilation of familiar music from Warner Bros. Inc. cartoons.
The two plays are the earliest existing English comedies. They combine modern references with Old English dialogue.
"There is a certain broad, comedic style which you can see in such modern comics as the 'Keystone Cops,' the Marx Brothers and maybe even Charlie Chaplin a little bit that is in these plays," Larson said.
The cartoon quality of the plays was evident in the costumes. During the performance, papier-mache masks were scattered across the stage of the small Inge Theater.
The masks were made by the cast members themselves. Larson said that the actors should be able to create the characters' masks to have a better feel for who they were playing.
"Most times the masks are made by the prop department, and the actors only get to use the masks for a few weeks," Larson said. "We've been working with the masks since the first few weeks of
See INGE, Page 8.
Your guide to Entertainment in the Lawrence Area.
calendar
EXHIBITIONS AND LECTURES
Exhibition- "The Sleep of Reason: Reality and Fantasy in the print series of Goya," Jan. 9-Feb. 20 at the Spencer Museum of Art.
Exhibition - Dennis
Oppenheim: Drawings and Selected Sculpture, Jan. 16-Feb. 27 at the Spencer Museum of Art.
Exhibition - Sculpture by Douglas Warnock,
Jan. 22-Feb. 10 at the Lawrence Arts Center,
200 W. Ninth St.
Exhibition - Sacred and Profane: Two Books In Black and White, Jan. 23-March 20 at the Spencer Museum of Art.
Program - "Women of Color: Self-Image" sponsored by The Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, 7 tonight at the Pine Room in the Kansas Union.
Tour du Jour - Exhibition of Dennis Oppenheim Drawings and Selected Sculpture by
Michelle Robinson, National Endowment for the Arts Intern in European and American art. 12:15-12:45 p.m. tomorrow at the White Gallery in the Spencer Museum of Art.
Video - Goya, produced by the Museum Without Walls, on request at the Kress Gallery in the Spencer Museum of Art.
Lecture - A Slide Lecture by Sculptor Douglas Warnock, 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Lawrence Arts Center, 200 W. Ninth St.
Tour of the month - "Classical Myths in Painting and Sculpture," 1 p.m. Sunday at the Spencer Museum of Art.
Hallmark Symposium - Henry Wolf, designer/photographer from New York, N.Y., 6 p.m. Monday at the Spencer Museum of Art. Program - "Dating and Violence" sponsored by The Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Pine Room in the Kansas Union.
PERFORMANCES
Lawrence Community Theater presents "Three Men on a Horse," 8 p.m. tomorrow, Friday and Saturday with a 2:30 p.m. matinee Sunday at the Theater, 1501 New Hampshire St. $10 public, $9 students and senior citizens tomorrow, Friday and Saturday; $8 public, $7 students and
$10 public, $9 students and senior citizens tomorrow, Friday and Saturday; $8 public, $7 students and
See CALENDAR, Page 8.