LEWISTON – In observance of the lunar new year, Bates College and the student organization Sangai Asia have added a fireworks display to Asia Week, the college’s celebration in January of the cultures of Asia, particularly China.
Produced by Blue Hill Pyrotechnics, a Maine fireworks firm, the display over the college’s Lake Andrews will begin at 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 24. All are welcome to watch the fireworks from the Olin Arts Center terrace, 75 Russell St., at no charge. For more information about the fireworks, people can contact Chien Nakayama at (207) 777-7682.
Actually commencing on Jan. 22 with the new moon, this lunar new year begins the year of the monkey. Celebrated in a number of Asian cultures, lunar new year resembles the American traditions of Thanksgiving and Christmas – times for family, feelings of joy and appreciation of the blessings of the past year. Throughout the celebration’s 15 days, families visit and offer gifts. Religious ceremonies are dedicated to heaven and earth, to the gods of the household and to family ancestors. Fireworks are traditionally part of the celebration.
Other Asia Week events: At 8 p.m. the same evening in Olin Arts Center’s concert hall, “The Zheng: A Concert of Classical Chinese Music” will feature Tian Qing, a musicologist and multi-instrumentalist, and Zhang Shan, a virtuoso on the zither-like stringed instrument called the zheng. The musicians will offer a free, pre-concert lecture in the concert hall at 4 p.m.
Asia Week at Bates begins at 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 16, with a lecture and opening reception for the Bates College Museum of Art exhibition “Documenting China: Contemporary Photography and Social Change.” Showcasing the work of seven Chinese photographers, this nationally significant exhibition examines the impacts of urbanization and industrialization in that rapidly modernizing land.
Also starting Jan. 16 are exhibitions of student photographs of China in the Chase Hall Gallery, Campus Avenue, and the Ronj, Bates’ student-run coffeehouse, 32 Frye St. The images come from a body of work by the two dozen students who spent the fall semester in Nanjing.
“The Eye: The 2004 Bates College Festival of Contemporary Asian Cinema” offers seven films to be shown between 6 and 10 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20, through Friday, Jan. 23. The first screening takes place in the Benjamin Mays Center, Russell Street, and the remainder in Olin Arts Center, Room 104. For more information see www.bates.edu/asian-cinema-festival.xml or call (207) 786-6195.
In the Mays Center at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 26, Cleveland-based designer David Slawson offers the slide lecture “Creating Japanese Gardens Inspired by Native Scenery.” For information, call (207) 786-6255.
Admission for the Jan. 24th concert is $8 for the general public and $5 for seniors and students. For reservations, people can call (207) 786-6135.
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