FYE program opens three special events to public

A series of three special events taking place this year at Skidmore College in conjunction with its First-Year Experience (FYE) program will be open to the public as well as to the College's incoming first-year students.

Organized by the First-Year Experience Program, Skidmore's Office of the Dean of Special Programs, and its Department of Music, the events will range from a history lecture to presentations of music and dance. Each event is designed to complement the Class of 2013's focus on the American presidency?a timely theme in the bicentennial year of Abraham Lincoln's birth and the first year of Barack Obama's presidency, raising questions about history, government, slavery, and racism.

Observing a complex subject from such different perspectives as history, music, and dance can "deepen the aesthetic experience and the expansion of mind and spirit," explains Beau Breslin, director of Skidmore's First-Year Experience. That's an experience the public is invited to share with the college's newest students.

The three events will include the following:

• Eminent historian Eric Foner will deliver a lecture titled"The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and Slavery"at 8 p.m.Thursday, Sept. 10, in Gannett Auditorium in Palamountain Hall. Foner, who is theDeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is widely recognized for his work on the intersections of intellectual, political and social history and the history of American race relations. His books include Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988), which was awarded the Bancroft Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award; he has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the London Review of Books, and appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Bill Moyers Journal, Fresh Air, and All Things Considered, and in historical documentaries on PBS and the History Channel.
  
• Internationally acclaimed choreographer Bill T. Jones will speakat 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26, in Gannett Auditorium. His talk will be illustrated with video clips and followed by a question-and-answer session. Jones, who is the college's 2009-10 McCormack Visiting Artist-Scholar, is expected to discuss the massive political shift occasioned by the Lincoln and Obama presidencies and their impact on his choreography, as seen in three works viewed on DVD by the incoming freshmen last summer: Serenade/The Proposition (2008), which incorporates Lincoln's words; A Good Man! A Good Man?, which investigates key moments from Lincoln's life and envisions what might have been had he lived to oversee the post-Civil War program of reconstruction; and Fondly Do We Hope?Fervently Do We Pray, which explores slavery and what Lincoln has to say to Americans today. The Oct. 26 event will be part of Jones's Oct. 25-29 McCormack residency, organized by the Office of the Dean of Special Programs, which will also feature several members of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. The renowned choreographer has been honored with numerous major awards including a 1994 MacArthur "genius" grant and a 2007 Tony Award for choreographing the Broadway musical hit, Spring Awakening.
• The Skidmore Orchestra will perform Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait, at 8 p.m. March 6, 2010, in the college's new Zankel Music Center. A highlight of the new center's first orchestra concert, the classical orchestral work with its narration of excerpts from Lincoln's great documents will be presented by the college's music department and guest-directed by Schenectady Symphony Orchestra conductor Charles Schneider. Ticket prices will be announced at a later date.