Entertainment
Page 6 University Daily Kansan, September 17, 1982
Music man gets direction, directs Mass music
By VINCE HESS Staff Reporter
Steve Farney's goal is audience participation. Not in a class discussion session. Not at a conference.
"We pray by singing," Farney, liturgical director for St. Lawrence Catholic Student Union, said of the choir.
Farley leads and plays guitar for the chair that performs at three Masses at Smith Hall every Sunday. The choir, which includes singers and musicians, will start performing this week also at the 5 p.m. Mass at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, 1229 Vermont St.
Farney he tried to increase audience participation through choir rehearsals and
IN ADDITION to selecting the songs for the week and leading the choir, Farney pursues religious and secular music on his own. He is now preparing an album of religious music and is considering an offer from a company to publish his secular work.
The 45-member choir consists mostly of KU students, he said, although some Lawrence residents also are members. The choir includes members who are majoring in a field and training who are majoring in another field *a*
people who have no training but have sung or played in churches.
The center announces rehearsals for the choir at the beginning of each semester, he said. The group practices every week for about 90 minutes and brushes up on the music again for 30 minutes.
THE CHOIR is large enough to be split up into groups that perform at different Muses, Farnery
Farney said he took several days to select songs. Farney meets on Mondays with the two priests who work at the Catholic Center, the Rev. Vince Krische and the Rev. Bill Porter. The three review the readings for the following Sundays and the priests decide on the topics of aarpms.
Farney asked he then chose music to emphasize what we really want to hit that week, how best we can get it to the mark.
"It might be any number of combinations of sons that works well."
Another consideration in selecting songs, he said, is whether the congregation knew the music. Farnay he saw part of his duty as music director as teaching the congregation new
Farney and some members of the group elaborate on the music by writing parts for such artists as Katherine, Amy and Chris.
bass and trumpets, he said. Now they are working on special parts for clarinets and the viola.
Farney said he enjoyed playing with new instruments.
"It was a real experience for me to play with a cello," he said. "I had never done that anywhere."
Farnay knew that his approach to church music was a recent innovation in the church and that his position as music director was becoming a respected emblem at campus centers and parishes in the United States.
THE CHURCH'S new emphasis on music, he said, is an outgrowth of Vatican Council II, a 1905 restructuring of some aspects of the church. He said, was in the approach to church music.
Before Vatican II, Farney said, the church followed the hierarchical model, in which music was considered an offering to God. Professional musicians were not supposed to inspire the congregation at church.
However, Farnay耶, the democratic model gained prominence in the 1980s. The democratic model calls for music to unify the celebration of Islam and to encourage the congregation to participate.
The democratic model at first meant just any guitar music in church, Farnay, said the.
trend for the 1890s appears to be toward an emphasis on the quality of music.
"The Catholic Church is really starting to put a premium on good music," Farney said, "not just folk music, but good organ music and good choirs."
The center is currently raising funds to construct its own church, Farney said. The building is supposed to include an organ, which would add greater variety to the choir's music.
Farnay that although he liked many of the pre-1980s church songs, many of these songs
GUITAR MUSIC, once considered simplistic, is becoming more advanced, he said. The folk music played in churches in the 1960s changed to scriptural-based music in the 1970s. Now guitar music has evolved to include other instruments and four-part chorals.
The folk songs of the 1960s, however, originally attracted Farney to church music.
Farney, a native of Wilson, took piano lessons for seven years during grade school but concentrated on basketball in high school. He attended Kansas State University for two years but was among the final cuts from the basketball team both years.
He had learned to play guitar in classes at K-State after listening to folk musicians such as David Gates of Bread.
"I really wished I could learn to play the guitar the way he did," Farry said.
He transferred to St. Mary of the Plains College in Dodge City his junior year to play basketball. He also enrolled in guitar lessons.
Then what he called "the turning point" occurred.
He injured his hand during a basketball practice but showed up for his guitar lesson. His teacher, a nun, told him, "It's a shame that you're getting back up like that."
Farney said that he then realized what he wanted to do. He returned to K-State, where he became involved with the Catholic Center's choir. He became musical director there, moving two years later to Marymount College in Salina. After two years there, he was hired by the St. Lawrence Center and assumed his position in July 1981.
Farley said he was seriously ill at age 25. After recovering, he made a plan: to get his music published in five years. Now, at age 27, he has received an offer from a publishing company for his songs, and he is completing an album of religious music.
However, he said, the choir will not use his work until he is sure it is good.
"It's a big game of patience to get published," he said.
The elderly and communication is the theme of an art show, "Images of Aging," which opens Sept. 19 in the West Gallery of the Lawrence Arts Center, Ninth and Vermont streets. Another show, "Reflections," also deals with aging.
On campus
TODAY
MARION M. ARCHIBALD, of the British Museum, will speak on "German Coins, Hoards and Other Finds," at a p.m. in Engel German Library in Wescoe Hall.
BIOLOGY CLUB will meet at 4 p.m. in the Sunflower Room of the Kansas Union.
ASTROHONNY CLUB will meet at 8:30 p.m. in the Lindley Hall Observatory, if the night is clear.
Local artists try to capture, display essence of aging at art center shows
By SUSAN STANLEY
Staff Reporter
Most KU students live surrounded by people their own age and, except for an occasional visit with grandparents, rarely have any contact with the elderly. Two art shows opening this weekend will serve to remind students of the older segment of the population.
The shows, which focus on different aspects of the age, will open Sept. 19 across the hall from 8 to 10 a.m. at the Scripps Space Theater.
"The timing of the two shows is coincidence."
Kay Stewart, coordinator for one show, "Images
of people in crisis."
"Images of Aging" consists of writings, photographs and portraits done by local artists, Stewart said. The show will be in the West End where it will originate from the Western Endowment for the Arts.
THE OTHER SHOW, titled "Reflections," will be in the East Gallery. It is sponsored by the Council on Aging and will feature crafts made during classes at the Lawrence Senior Center, said Susan Hamilton, acting director for the Senior Center Arts program.
"The two shows will blend well." Hamilton said.
The idea for "Images of Aging" came from
inadequacies that Stewart sees in human communication, she said.
"People don't communicate well enough," she said. "People tend to isolate themselves whether they are alone or with others."
Two teams of artists, photographers and writers visited 42 Kansas nursing homes to meet with the patients.
we met people from 62 to 103 years old. They have been burlesque dancers, bouncers and migrant workers," Stewart said.
AS THE WRITER interviewed the elderly person, the artist drew a portrait of them and the photographer took pictures of the surroundings.
"We attempted to catch the essence of their lives by using more art forms." Stewart said.
Occasionally it was difficult to deal with the depressing atmosphere of the rest homes, Stewart said. Two of the people featured in the show have recently died, she said.
Stewart said one of the most important things he learned was that the elderly were still very much
"Although their bodies were worn out their minds weren't." she said.
The senior citizens who will be exhibiting their crafts in the gallery across the hall would benefit.
A few of the members of the Senior Center crafts classes will be selling their woven
baskets, watercolors, and enameled jewelry pieces at the show which has taken place annually since 1979, Mary Coral, former director of the Senior Center art programs, said Monday.
The best pieces from each student's work were chosen. Hamilton said. They did not compete against other class members, but rather against their own work.
The Lawrence Arta Council invited the group to put on the crafts show again this year, pursuant to a motion passed in 2013.
The Senior Center tries to respond to the wishes of the class members, she said.
"We try to take advantage of the creative talents of the community," she said.
"If ten class members wanted a class in stained glass and neither Mary Coral nor I knew anything about it, we would look for a volunteer in the community to teach it." Hamilton said.
OPENING RECEPTIONS for the two shows will be held together at 2 p.m. Sunday in the East Gallery of the Lawrence Arts Center, Hamilton Museum, and the museum's keeping with the theme of the elderly, she said.
It is important to focus on the aging in our society, Stewart said.
"There is an equality to each step of life except for aging." she said.
"A lot of the things they could tell us will be lost."
'Pixote' portrays life of inner-city children
Street-wise youths from the inner city must turn to crime to survive. This is the plot of "Pixote," a Brazilian film showing at the Kansas Union this weekend.
The film, by Argentine-born Brazilian director Helen Bacenb, will be shown at 7 p. Friday and at 3:30 and 9:30 p. Saturday in Woodstock and the Student Union Activities Film Committee.
" 'Pixote' is one of the most critically acclaimed Brazilian films that have come out in the last few years," Michael Gebert, SUA film chairman and Wichita state, said Wednesday.
BRAZIL IS EXPERIENCING a wave of good filmmaking, Gebert said, and "Pixote", made in 1980, is evidence of the quality of recent Brazilian films.
The film won the jury prize in the 1981 Cannes film festival in France, Gebet said. The jury included a host, Joel Gantz.
The film has the conviction of a documentary, national critics have said, but it was adapted from a novel, "Infinacia dos Mortos" by Jose Louzeiro.
The film records how Pixote, one of the boys, is taken to a juvenile detention center where he witnesses rape, blackmail and other forms of intimidation by the other kids.
When Pixote breaks out of the center, his associates are Lilica, an effeminate boy, Dito, a macho kid and Diego, who is closest in age and disposition to Pixote.
On the outside the four meet a drugalier for whom they make a drugal delivery and a worn-out
streetwalker whose customers they occasionally rob.
The film is a mixture of outrage at social conditions and awe that within such lives traces of real humanity are still to be found, critics have said.
"The film is very realistic. A huge number of kids in Brazil are homeless and without assistance."
The actors really are Brazilian street-wise kids, he said.
PIXOTE IS PLAYED by Fernando Ramos Das
Silica; Lilac, Dito and Dito are played by Jorge
Juliano, Gilberto Moura and Jose Nilsen de
Melano; the streetwalker, is played by Marta Perna.
all performances have been critically acclaimed, especially those of Da Silva and Pera.
New values Photographer shows real life in Chinatowns
Bv SUSAN O'CONNELL
Staff Reporter
Most people in the United States think of Chinese people as pidgin-English-speaking Fu Man-Chu types, Pok-Chi Lau, assistant professor of design, said recently.
A realistic view of the Chinese can be seen in a photography exhibition, "Interiors: Chinatown and China," by Lau at the Kellas Gallery, 7 E. 20th St.
The exhibition consists of black and white photographs of the interiors of U.S. Chinatowns.
Lau said bulldogs of tourists with cameras went into U.S. Chinatowns and thought they were getting realistic pictures of the Chinese way of life.
Typical tourist shots or National Geographic pictures are not what real China is like, Lau said. "I want to show what National Geographic would not show," he said.
Lau and color gave viewers a warm feeling, but warmth was not necessarily the effect he intended.
Lau said he used only black and white photos because he wanted to present a realistic situation in an unrealistic way. Black and white photos are also because people view color in colors, he said.
He said people were used to seeing color, and that the use of black and white photographs brought more attention to the pictures.
Lau left the pictures uncropped for effect, saying he did not want to make things appear beautiful by being selective in what was included in the scene.
In 1983, Mao, chairman of the Communist Party of China, started a cultural revolution with the intent to root out the evils of old Chinese tradition. The revolution was a period of battles
THE PICTURES in Lae's exhibit show the changing values of the Chinese after the demise of the Cultural Revolution in 1963 and the death of Mao Tse-tung in 1976.
Mao's wife wired a group called the "Gang of Four," which started the "Red Guard Movement." The movement sought to tear down the shaded aristocratic and feudalistic institutions.
The photographs reveal the new values of the Chinese after decades of political chaos and instability.
In an effort to save their lives, many Chinese removed anything representing family or community.
However, after Mao died and Tang Siu Piung took control of the government, the people once again revealed their values and traditions through their possessions.
For years, sayings of Confucius were replaced with pictures of Mao, the symbol of the movement.
ONE PHOTOGRAPH shows a picture of Mao partially covered by a hat. Another shows a portrait of Mao.
The exhibit is divided into three section. One section shows photographs of abandoned houses.
Lau said the people left their homes for many reasons, ranging from natural disasters to political chaos and economic depression. Others are drawn to work on the transcontinental railroad.
Another section shows the Chinese today in American Chinatowns.
"There is a lot more to know about Chinese living in Chinatowns and outside Chinatowns," Lau said. "Most of the real facts are difficult to find in history books or on TV."
Lau gave a lecture on Wednesday explaining the photographs and the background of Chinatown.
He said he hoped his exhibit would bring people mentally closer to the Chinese.
innumerable part of the exhibit shows the lifestyles of the people who remained in China. Many farmers went from villages to the British city of Kwong Zhou, in Hong Kong.
The farmers in southern China no longer find it necessary to leave home, especially because of the floods.
He said the new land reform and economic systems developed by Tang were giving great benefits to the farmers, who make up 80 percent of China's present population.
Lau just returned from a summer in China, where he studied with the financial help of a General Research Award given to him by the University of Kansas.
"Chinatown, N.Y.C., 1978." is one photograph in an exhibit by Pok-Chi Chiu, KU professor of design. The show, at 7 e. 7th St., is called "Interiors, Chinatown and China."
1
-