[ThisWeek] March of the Penguins/PCEI fundraiser and Darol Anger concert at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

Darol Anger Republic of Strings in concert
Thursday, October 27
7:30 PM
Tickets $16/adult, $12/senior or student
(see below for full press release)
* * *

Join the Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute
Friday, October 28
for ³March of the Penguins²
Doors open at 6:00 p.m. for food and drink, with the movie at 7 p.m.

PCEI is hosting a fun and fashionable evening for the whole family featuring
food and the flick, "March of the Penguins" on the Friday before Halloween.
The movie will show at the Kenworthy Performing Art Centre, 508 S. Main, in
downtown Moscow. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. for food and drink, with the movie
at 7 p.m. Tickets are available in advance for $8 at BookPeople of Moscow,
PCEI 1040 Rodeo Drive, and from PCEI Board members, or at the door for $10.
All proceeds will support PCEI¹s development of its Urban Nature Center on
Rodeo Drive in Moscow. To learn about the Nature Center, visit
<http://www.pcei.org/rodeo.htm>.

Look for Penguins and Tuxedos gracing the front of the Kenworthy Performing
Arts Centre Friday night.

In the spirit of Halloween, we encourage everyone to dress as a Penguin (or
in other related garb: Polar Bears, Puffins, Batman, Robin, etc).  Pizza
from the Moscow Food Co-op's new location will be served hot that evening,
and wine, beer and other beverages will be catered by Patti¹s Kitchen!
Additional sponsors for the evening include: Resource Planning Unlimited,
Rdesign, Machine Language, D8, Moscow Realty, Cutting Edge Signs, Red Door,
Paulucci Tailor & Men's Wear, and Creighton's.

This film, narrated by Morgan Freeman, takes the audience on a truly
remarkable journey through the Antarctic. Every March since the beginning of
time, the Penguins have made their quest to find the perfect mate and start
a family. This courtship begins with a journey across the continent by foot,
in freezing temperatures, icy winds and through deep, treacherous waters. On
this journey Penguins risk starvation and attack by predators, all in the
harshest conditions on earth to find true love.

For more information on the film visit, <http://www.marchofthepenguins.com>.

PCEI is a nonprofit organization actively participating in the restoration
and conservation of the Palouse-Clearwater region, and increasing citizen
awareness and involvement in decisions that promote the future of the local
environment. With the support of volunteers and more than 1,000 members and
donors, PCEI is able to find creative solutions to local issues concerning
transportation, water quality, energy sources and the community food system.
Learn more about PCEI at <http://www.pcei.org/>.
* * *

March of the Penguins also showing-

Saturday & Sunday, October 29 & 30
5:00 & 7:00 PM
$5 adult, $2 child 12 or younger
* * *

Darol Anger Republic of Strings in concert
Thursday, October 27
7:30 PM
Tickets $16/adult, $12/senior or student

The Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre is pleased to announce that Darol
Anger's Republic of Strings featuring Scott Nygaard will appear in concert
on Thursday, October 27, at 7:30 PM.

"Darol Anger is the quintessential improvising violinist," says Dr. Billy
Tayler of CBS Sunday Morning.  Eric Fidler of the Associated Press says,
"Darol Anger has been obliterating musical borders for years, but never to
better effect.  ... the Darol Anger Fiddle Ensemble creates rich, lusciously
textured, complex and quite beautiful music."

Renowned for his versatility and depth, Darol Anger has helped mastermind
the evolution of the American string band with his groundbreaking groups The
Turtle Island String Quartet, Fiddlers 4, Psychograss, Newgrange, Montreux,
and the David Grisman Quintet.  Michael John Simmons of Amazon.com says,
"Harmonically complex, rhythmically rich arrangements.  You might call this
improvised Afro-Scandivanian Irish old-time string band music, but it would
be equally true, and much simpler, to just say they play great music."

The concert is sponsored by local businesses Advantage America Mortgage and
Hayden, Ross & Co. and is funded in part by the Idaho Commission on the Arts
and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Tickets for the concert are on sale at BookPeople of Moscow.  Tickets are
$16 for adults and $12 for seniors, children, or students with ID and can
also be charged by phone to 208-882-4127.  There is a $.50 per ticket fee on
all charge card orders.
* * *

Next week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

Moscow Community Theatre presents
Noodlehead!
Original musical by Lisa Kliger
Thursday, Friday & Saturday, November 3, 4 & 5
7:30 PM
Sunday, November 6
2:00 PM

Also showing-
Thursday, Friday & Saturday, November 10, 11 & 12
7:30 PM
Saturday, November 12
2:00 PM
$11/adult, $9/senior, $6 student or child
* * *

November at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

Moscow Civic Association presents
The End of Suburbia (not rated)
November 7 at 7:00 PM
$5 donation

The Constant Gardner (R)
November 13 at 4:00 & 7:00 PM

University of Idaho Dept of Physics presents
Einstein¹s Miracle Year
November 17 at 7:00 PM
Free

Everything is Illuminated (PG-13)
November 18 at 7:00 PM
November 19 & 20 at 4:30 & 7:00 PM

Wallace & Gromit
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (G)
November 25-27 at 4:45 & 7:00 PM

Coming in December: 2046, Junebug

Check KPAC¹s web site for dates & times. http://www.kenworthy.org

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adult, $2 child under 13
KFS passes accepted year-round for Sunday movies!
* * *

Moscow Civic Association Sponsors ³End Of Suburbia² Documentary

The Moscow Civic Association is sponsoring a public showing of the
documentary film ³End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the
American Dream² at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, 508 South Main in
downtown Moscow, at 7pm on Monday, November 7. Donations will be accepted at
the door to cover the costs.

The film explores the growing global demand for fossil fuels, the inevitable
decline of that fuel supply, and the impact on the American way of life.
The 78-minute film has been honored at numerous film festivals, and has
sparked discussion groups and citizen activism nationwide.

The MCA sponsored a showing of the film in September, and due to the
enthusiastic response of the audience, agreed to show it again at the
Kenworthy.  In an effort to encourage voter participation in the Moscow city
election, the film is being shown the evening before election day.

For more information about the film, see the websites:
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/index.htm
<http://www.endofsuburbia.com/index.htm>  and
http://eos.postcarbon.org/index.php <http://eos.postcarbon.org/index.php> .

The Moscow Civic Association is a non-profit citizen¹s organization that
strives to improve the quality of life for Moscow residents.  The mission of
Moscow Civic Association is to inform community members about important
local issues and encourage civic participation.  More information is
available on the MCA website, www.moscowcivic.org
<http://www.moscowcivic.org/>
* * *

This week¹s review-


March of the Penguins

Directed by Luc Jacquet, Narrated by Morgan Freeman
Running time: 84 minutes. This film is rated G.

As reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek writing for Salon.Com

Think you've got it bad? This emotionally wrenching documentary about the
difficult life of the emperor penguin will put things in perspective. It may
even renew your faith in love.

Luc Jacquet's luminous, moving documentary "March of the Penguins" is enough
to make you hope there's no such thing as reincarnation: Human beings have
it hard enough, but the life of the emperor penguin, one of strife,
deprivation and against-all-odds adaptability in one of the most unforgiving
corners of the earth, is far rougher.

Emperor penguins, who make their home in Antarctica, may not be able to fly,
but they're fabulous swimmers. In the summer months, they enjoy their ocean
habitat fattening up on small fish, squid and crustaceans. But when it's
time for them to breed, being so close to the water won't do: They need to
reach their breeding ground, far inland, a place where the ice is
reassuringly solid and where, in winter, few predators will bother them. In
March, as winter approaches in Antarctica, throngs of emperor penguins
belly-flop onto the ice after their summer of blissful swimming and trek
dozens of miles across a heartless frozen landscape (their short legs make
them woefully slow walkers), through blizzards and biting winds, to reach
the spot where they can mate and, with luck, raise their young. And that's
when the hard work of procreating really begins for the emperor penguin.

There's more drama, and more heartbreak, in "March of the Penguins" than in
most movies that are actually scripted to tug at our feelings. More than
once the picture's narrator, Morgan Freeman, notes that the emperor
penguin's saga of mating and child rearing is a love story, and while that's
an admittedly handy anthropomorphic device, when it comes to understanding
why the emperor penguin would go to such great lengths to mate and have
babies, the inexplicability of human love may be the only comparison we
have. 

Of course, in the more rational corners of our brains, we know that like all
living creatures, the emperor penguin is driven by an instinctual desire to
propagate the species. Even so, rationality is useless in the face of the
choked-back cooing sound a penguin mother makes when she realizes her chick
has died -- she nudges its body with her beak, perhaps not so much out of
sorrow as disbelief, as if her faith in its survival had become programmed
into her very being. And in a moment not even Douglas Sirk would have
attempted to dramatize, she tries to steal another mother's chick as a
replacement: The other moms in the flock intercede, shooing her off --
nature's way of dealing with sociopathic behavior.

Saying too much about what the emperor penguin has to do just to survive the
mating and child-rearing process would be a little like giving away too much
of the plot of a thriller. But Jacquet captures some key details so artfully
it's hard not to give a few of them away: He shows us how the parents keep
their one precious egg warm by balancing it on their feet and tucking it
under a pouch of skin. (If the egg should roll away for even a second, the
chick inside will freeze to death. In austral winter, inland temperatures
can reach as low as -85 degrees Fahrenheit.)

The parents trade off baby-sitting (or egg-sitting) duties: The males stay
with the eggs while the females trek back to the ocean for food -- they
bring some back for the babies in pouchlike compartments in their throats --
meaning the dads go without food for two months. They stand around, unable
to move too much owing to the precious orbs balanced on their feet -- it's
probably something like being an extra on an eternal movie set, only under
the most extreme weather conditions. Jacquet's cameras (his cinematographers
are Laurent Chalet and Jerôme Maison) capture the penguin males huddled in a
giant swirl against devastating winter storms, protecting the eggs at all
costs: The group rotates slowly, so that all the penguins will have a turn
at the warmest part of the pinwheel, the very center.

You have to wonder why any living creature would put up with all this. But
that's part of the emperor penguin's mysterious allure: They seem to be
stubborn, sturdy creatures who take pride in triumphing over adversity, like
grandparents who brag about having made it through the Depression. Jacquet
captures the cold beauty of their landscape in a way that makes us
understand why, for better or worse, it represents home to them: The appeal
of all that white-sugar ice, glistening in the summer sun, is easy enough to
understand. But even the icy blue-grays of the dusky winter have their own
mystical pull. 

The emperor penguin itself is a natural movie star: Jacquet captures a group
of them in long shot during their arduous walk -- moving in long lines and
clusters, they look like shimmery black jelly-beans against the snow. When
the chicks are finally born, we see that they were worth the wait: Fuzzy and
winsome, they look just like Steiff toys.

And the adults are beautiful beyond words: Their glossy feathers are so
densely packed they resemble fur; the orange markings on their heads are so
softly colored they look as if they've been airbrushed on. Their elegance
goes far beyond the fact that they look as if they're decked out in evening
wear. Each penguin seeks out his or her mate for the season (these couples
will stay together, but only for the year), looking for those unnameable
qualities, that je ne sais quoi, that even humans seek in a mate. When a
"he" has found the right "she," or vice versa, the two celebrate by
gracefully arching their necks; their heads lowered, they nudge each other
conspiratorially, and communicate with each other in a language of
distinctive clicks.

They could be performing a number from a '30s musical: You and me and baby
makes three. Maybe "March of the Penguins" is a love story, one that
recognizes nature as the foundation of even the most refined feelings of
human beings: Hard times are coming, but together we'll see them through. If
birds can do it, maybe people can too.

As reviewed by G. Allen Johnson writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

Life in Antarctica can get pretty grim. But don't tell that to these driven
birds.

After watching the sometimes astonishing new documentary "March of the
Penguins," I couldn't help but think that the emperor penguins got an unfair
shake in the way things went down in Antarctica.

Apparently, the ice continent that is larger than Europe was once a tropical
paradise teeming with life before it went south, literally, drifting into
its present position. All the other species made their way out, except for
these flightless birds who eat fish and other undersea life to survive.

They couldn't get away. So now, to keep the species going, they must trek 70
miles inland, walking and sliding on their bellies all the way, to find a
solid patch of ice to mate and raise their chicks.

But the food is still in the sea, so the fathers and mothers must alternate,
after months of starving themselves in sub-zero temperatures, trekking back
to the sea to eat again while the other stays behind to protect their egg
and subsequently their child.

Poor penguins! 

Director Luc Jacquet and his team have done an incredible job gaining the
trust of these penguins and recording their tortuous migration. Some of the
shots -- such as a mother tenderly passing her unhatched egg to her mate to
keep it warm before she goes for food, and the undersea shots of feeding
taken from a small submersible -- are jaw-dropping.

Just as poetic are the sweeping vistas of ice, with long lines of penguins
in the distance inching forward, looking like ants. "March of the Penguins"
is in a way an epic adventure film with a cast of thousands -- and narrated,
as if he were the voice of God, by Morgan Freeman (and let me be the first
to lobby for legislation that Freeman narrate all documentaries from now on;
I'm phoning my congressman today).

Most striking are the scenes of group activity. The mate-selection process,
wherein thousands of penguins waddle around as if it were a singles mixer,
features jealous squabbles and sweet talk. Later, when the fathers are
guarding the eggs as the mothers are away feeding, they huddle in a group of
about a thousand, shielding the eggs from snowstorms and winds of up to 125
mph, even taking turns being the ones on the front lines.

"March of the Penguins," in its original French form, apparently had the
penguins talking about their hopes and dreams; foreplay sounds were even
dubbed in, and the music was silly and comedic.

Peculiar sense of humor these French have.

Luckily, sanity has been restored stateside. Warner Independent Pictures
rescored the music, wrote new narration and hired Freeman. They have honored
Jacquet's stunning achievement by turning a work that should never have been
farcical in the first place into something majestic and moving along the
lines of another French documentary, "Winged Migration."

"March of the Penguins," which is suitable for the entire family despite its
adult sensibility, is devoid of some facts about the emperor penguins -- for
example, what is their lifespan? But that's OK. By emphasizing its visuals,
it instills a deep reverence for the unforgiving power of nature and the
stubborn resilience of life.
* * *

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
208-882-4127
Sign up for this weekly email on events and movies at the Kenworthy by
logging onto our website
http://www.kenworthy.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/thisweek/attachments/20051026/be07bf74/attachment.htm