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The Dartmouth
March 30, 2026
The Dartmouth
Arts
Arts

'Ghost and the Darkness' dramatizes true events

By Arvid Nelson | October 15, 1996

The skeletal remains of the man-eating lions which inspired the movie "The Ghost and the Darkness" can be seen today in the Smithsonian Institute. "The Ghost and the Darkness" is a rousing adventure tale of man-versus-nature in the grand tradition, at times a bit formulaic, but overall an appealing and diverting movie. The superb special effects and atmospheric set designs make it an entertaining film. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the movie, and incidentally a major selling point, is the fact that most of the events dramatized therein actually transpired. In the late nineteenth century, a pair of unusually vicious lions attacked an English railway camp in Africa, killing more than a hundred men in a period of several months. Val Kilmer plays John Patterson, the Irish engineer sent to northern Africa to build a railway bridge across a river. However, Patterson's work is brought to a halt when the camp is plagued by several unusually pernicious man-eating lions. Patterson is under considerable pressure from his employers in London to complete the bridge on time.

Arts

Redman eschews bar for jazz

By Aditya Dutt | October 15, 1996

When tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University in 1991, he was presented with two choices -- he could either go on to Yale Law School or he could try his luck on the notoriously competitive New York jazz club scene. He chose the latter. And, in 1991, when he took the first prize at the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz saxophone competition, there was little doubt among critics and fans alike that he had made the right choice. Five years later, Redman has racked up almost every major jazz award, played with the young lions as well as the standard-bearers of jazz, and recorded five extremely successful albums. Redman will appear at the Hopkins Center tonight, riding on the wave of his latest release, "Freedom in the Groove," a Warner Brothers production. Featuring Peter Bernstein (guitar) and a rhythm section of Peter Martin (piano), Christopher Thomas (bass) and Brian Blade (drums), "Freedom in the Groove" is a reflection of Redman's eclectic taste and diverse musical education. In the liner notes to the album, Redman wrote, "These days, I listen to, love, and am inspired by all forms of music.

Arts

Kreamer lecture marks new Hood exhibitions

By Kelly Sidley | October 14, 1996

The Hood Museum of Art celebrated the opening of two new exhibitions on African Art with a lecture and gallery reception this weekend. Christine Mullen Kreamer, the exhibit developer at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., delivered a lecture titled "The Head Carries the Body: Head and Hair in African Systems of Thought" to a nearly full audience in the Loew Auditorium on Saturday afternoon. Kreamer is the co-curator of the exhibit "Crowning Achievements: African Arts of Dressing the Head" currently on display in the Jaffe-Hall Galleries. The exhibit travels to Hanover from its home gallery at the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the University of California at Los Angeles. Her lecture emphasized the social, religious and intellectual significance that the head holds in African cultures. "The head carries the body" is an Afro-Cuban metaphor that refers to the body as the "body politic" or the people of a community who are ruled under a figurehead. She said that in African culture, the head is the seat of intelligence and strong emotion.

Arts

Webster show delivers dose of many cultures

By Mary F. Brown | October 14, 1996

Through art, music, dance, food and fashion, this weekend's "Culture Shock" show gave students the chance to experience a broad range of cultures. The large throng of students, faculty and community members who came to Webster Hall for the event Saturday afternoon between 3 and 7 p.m.

Arts

Company delights with irreverent jokes

By Jess McCarter | October 9, 1996

I am still in pain as I write this. The Reduced Shakespeare Company's performance last night of "The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)" was humor at its finest, deftly combining physical with more traditional comedy. I literally threw my back out laughing along with the rest of the audience. This is the same group who wrote the amazingly funny "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)." The name, though, is a leftover from the group's origins at Renaissance Fairs where they performed during the early 1980's.

Arts

Film looks at gay porn

By Michael Borden | October 9, 1996

"Super 8 1/2" is the tale of a washed-up porno star (Bruce La Bruce) "rediscovered" by an underground avant-garde lesbian filmmaker, Googie (Liza LaMonica) who wants to make a documentary about him titled "Bruce." He thinks that this is his big comeback, but she is only using him to finance her pet project, "Submit to My Finger," a tribute to underground film auteur, Richard Kern. Bruce, a former director, spends his time on his "alcholidays" in bed with his hustler boyfriend Pierce (Klaus Von Brucker), who supports the two of them by his "profession," (the oldest one). The film doesn't hide the fact that it's a gay porn flick, but with off-the-wall humor.

Arts

Tool defies music categorization

By Arvid Nelson | October 9, 1996

Tool utterly defies classification. Is the band alternative? Clearly not. "Alternative music is jocks with punk rock haircuts," Tool's vocalist Maynard James Keenan said. Heavy metal perhaps?

Arts

Theater company abridges the Good Book

By Jack Vaitayanonta | October 8, 1996

The Reduced Shakespeare Company, one of the world's best-known touring comedy troupes, will perform its hilarious repertoire of condensed versions of religious, political and literary classics at a sold-out show tonight. The group has many targets for its material.

Arts

'Twin Houses,' festival finale, probes human psyche

By Joseph Scott | October 7, 1996

The Hopkins Center's Festival of International Puppetry came to a close this weekend with a performance of "Twin Houses" by the Compagnie Nicole Mossoux/Patrick Bonte. And what a finale it was. The performance, the work of Nicole Mossoux and Patrick Bonte of Belgium, consisted of several scenes involving Mossoux and one or more exceedingly life-like mannequin-size puppets. "Twin Houses" was a portrayal of the effects upon the human psyche of the numerous, and often contradictory, impulses and ideas that control our lives.

Arts

Motherwell's painting marks a new era in American art

By Kelly Sidley | October 3, 1996

While students affiliated with the art history and studio art departments regularly venture to the Hood Museum of Art, most students admit that they have never visited the museum, or have only been inside very briefly. That may be unfortunate because they may miss an opportunity to view the painting of an innovative twentieth-century American artist. The most recent acquisition of the Modern and Contemporary Arts collection hangs in the main foyer of the second floor. Robert Motherwell's abstract expressionist piece titled "Chambre d'Amour" (1958) offers a wonderful example of work by the New York School of artists during the time their paintings were becoming widely accepted and admired by the general public. A new school of thought The New York School developed into a fortified group of starving artists, many of them immigrants, after the Second World War.

Arts

Film series continues with Kelly classic

By Rachel Federman | October 2, 1996

"Singin' in the Rain," an all-time American classic, will be shown at 6:45 and 9:15 p.m. tonight as part of the Dartmouth Film Society's series "Reflections." This is a unique opportunity for many students to view a work that is a part of our cinematic heritage. Directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, this film is so famous you may forget if you've actually seen it. Perhaps you may have experienced it through clips of the film or heard it alluded to in other ground-breaking films like "The Clockwork Orange" and "North by Northwest." The picture of Kelly swinging on a lamp post, soaking wet and thrilled with life, is perhaps a cinematic reference point.

Arts

Danagerous cord found along mountain path

By Elysa Jacobs | October 2, 1996

Cailin Nelson '97 discovered a wire stretched across a mountain bicycle path near Sachem Pond on Saturday morning, which poses a potential hazard to mountain bicycle riders. Nelson removed the cord, which she found stretched across the trail up to Boston Lot Lake, when she discovered it, she wrote in an e-mail message. Dartmouth Outing Club mountain bicycle instructor Mike Silverman expressed concern about the condition of the trail. "If a person gets pulled off their bike they could hit their head," Silverman said.

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