Events

The Carleton College Art Gallery will kick-off its fall season with an exhibition showcasing fine art prints created by artists from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, and Hawaii. Prints Around the Pacific Rim, running from September 17 to November 17, 2010, celebrates the varied method of printmakers, and highlights artistic exchange between cultures across the wide Pacific. Prints Around the Pacific Rim is also one of many fall events coinciding with the Mid America Print Council Conference, Old World/New World, taking place in the Twin Cities in mid-October.

    First United Church of Christ of Northfield is celebrating the 200th birthday of Frederic Chopin with a concert Saturday, Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m. performed by Horacio Nuguid of Rochester, Minn.

Rudolph Byrd, professor of American studies at Emory University and a renowned civil rights scholar, will deliver the weekly convocation address at Carleton College beginning at 10:50 a.m. on Friday, October 1, in the Skinner memorial Chapel on the College campus. Byrd is the founder of the James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory University, which is the first institute established at Emory in order to honor the achievements of Americans of African descent. Byrd’s presentation, entitled “Regarding James Weldon Johnson,” is free and open to the public.

Some of the hip hop world’s best b-boys (or “break-boys”) will take to the floor in a not-to-be-missed battle on Friday, Oct. 1, beginning at 7 p.m., in the Carleton College Recreation Center. The battle – a competition between a half dozen “crews” from the Twin Cities, Carleton and Northfield – will be judged by three world-class b-boys hailing from New York City: Kid Glyde, Whorah, and Gravity. Featuring fancy footwork, acrobatic style, and back-beats provided by Chicago-based DJ Lester Burnem, this event is free and open to all ages.

All three master b-boys are members of the prize-winning break-boy crew, the Dynamic Rockers. Established in 1979, the Dynamic Rockers, whose members mostly hail from Queens and Long Island, New York, are responsible for pioneering the art of b-boying, also known as “breakdancing.” The Dynamic’s original members brought “breakin’” into national and international focus in 1981 with a legendary battle with their biggest rivals at the time, the Rock Steady Crew, as part of New York’s Lincoln Center Outdoors Program. The event was covered by National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Village Voice—later gaining the crew worldwide exposure and a feature in the film, “The Last Dragon.”

Pianist Nicola Melville will present an eclectic program of old favorites and new works on Friday, Oct. 1, at 8 p.m., in the Carleton College Concert Hall. The performance will feature a sparkling sonata by C.P.E. Bach, Chopin's beautiful fourth Ballade and Nocturne in B Major, Op. 62, contemporary jazz- and blues-based works by American composer Doug Opel, the evocative "The Horizon from Owhiro Bay" by New Zealand composer Gareth Farr, and Minneapolis composer Steven Rydberg's "Harp." Meville will also be joined by Minneapolis pianist Jill Dawe for a rousing two-piano arrangement of William Bolcom's ragtime masterpiece, "The Garden of Eden." This event is free and open to the public.