March Highlights

Department of Music
University Symphony Orchestra: Battleship Potemkin
8 p.m. Saturday, March 5
Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th St. 702-9075. http://music.uchicago.edu. Ticket prices range from $10 to $30 for reserved seating.

In a multimedia experience of epic proportions, Sergei Eisenstein’s silent film Battleship Potemkin will be screened as the University Symphony Orchestra performs Edmund Meisel’s original full symphonic score, marking the score’s U.S. premiere. Hailed as “a miracle” at its 1926 premiere in Berlin, Battleship Potemkin is widely considered one of the great treasures in cinematic history. The film, which was recently restored, commemorates the failed 1905 Russian Revolution against the Czarist regime, focusing on the mutiny of sailors in their struggle against the imperial navy. Complementing the film’s themes and techniques, Meisel’s haunting score “is as powerful, as vital, as galvanic and electrifying as the film,” one critic noted.

The Renaissance Society
Su-Mei Tse: “The Ich-Manifestation”
Sunday, March 13 through Sunday, April 17
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; noon-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Room 418, Cobb Hall, 5811 S. Ellis Ave. 702-8670. http://www.renaissancesociety.org. Free.

Su-Mei Tse, a Luxembourg-based artist, has produced an eclectic body of performance-based work (video, video installation, photography and sculpture), which explores metaphors of futility and longing. Tse’s new video installation, which inquires into whether animals have a presence of mind, is comprised of five large projections of tortoises. There will be an opening reception from 4 to 7 p.m. Sunday, March 13, with an artist’s talk from 5 to 6 p.m. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Renaissance Society will bring the musical ensembles oso, the Zs and Flockterkit to the gallery for a bill that mixes post-glitch folk art, math rock and Chicago-style experimentation. The concert, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 8 p.m. Monday, March 14.

International House
Bamboo Orchestra of Japan
7 p.m. Thursday, March 10
International House, Assembly Hall, 1414 E. 59th St. 753-2274. http://ihouse.uchicago.edu. Tickets, available only at the door, are $15 general and $10 for seniors and children 10 and under.

Based in Tokyo, the unique Bamboo Orchestra of Japan will perform at International House as part of Midwest World Fest. The orchestra performs on more than 20 instruments made of bamboo, ranging from a booming, bamboo-based marimba to a delicate bamboo flute, called a shakuhachi.

Special Collections Research Center
“Book Use, Book Theory: 1500-1700”
Tuesday, March 8 through Friday, June 17
8:30 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Monday-Friday; 9 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Saturday.
Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St. 702-8705. http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/. Free.

This exhibition will examine the relationship between book use and forms of knowledge production in the early modern period. By attending both to the ways in which books defined the conditions of their own use and to the ways in which early readers actually used books, the exhibition will delineate some of the models of thought and theory made possible by such forms of textual practice. Bradin Cormack, Assistant Professor in English Language & Literature and the College, and Carla Mazzio, Assistant Professor in English Language & Literature and the College, co-curated the exhibition.