PAGE 4 — THE DECREE — FEBRUARY 22,1991
Festival celebrates
contemporary arts
By SONU SAINANI
North Carolina Wesleyan
College witnessed the Contem
porary Arts Festival Feb. 4-9. It
was presented by the Performing
Arts Department and consisted of
a series of events, including the
N.C. Wesleyan Wind Ensemble
on Feb. 4, Composer’s Night on
Feb. 6, and a Chamber Music
Concert on Feb. 8.
An enjoyable and memorable
part of the festival were the plays
presented by the Wesleyan The
atre and Club Dramatica on Feb.
5, 7, and 9. The joint efforts of
these two groups helped make the
Contemporary Arts Festival a
great success.
On Feb. 5, the Club Dramatica
presented “An Evening of One
Acts-II.” The event included two
Session examines
boundaries of art
(Continued from Front Page)
“Nudes were presented as
nymphs and satyrs, not as real
people, of everyday Paris,” she
said. “When El Greco painted for
the church, ‘natural endowments’
had to be hidden.”
The message is clear, Thorp
said. “The real value of art has
nothing to do with price. It has to
do with helping us see our world.
Keep an open mind. Do not dis
miss things. We generally do not
like what we don’t understand.
You can enhance your life if you
keep an open mind and open
ears,” she said.
looking at the dirty Romans, this
was acceptable. They were
‘learning about history,’” she said.
However Manet forced viewers
to look at themselves.
plays, “One for the Road” by
Harold Pinter and “Sexual Per
versity in Chicago” by David
Mammet. Mammet’s play was
amusing and realistic, dealing
with the sexual lifestyle of men
and women in the 1980’s and
‘90’s. The plays were directed by
Todd Waters and Jimmy Slakie,
respectively. Original poetry was
read by juniors John Heame and
Alan Felton.
On Feb. 7 and 9, two plays
were presented by the Wesleyan
Theatre. They were directed by
Vaughn Schutz, assistant profes
sor and director of the Theatre.
The first play, “Humanity” by
Walter Hesenclever, was a Ger
man Expressionist play written in
1918. The second play, “On the
Verge” by Eric Overmyer, was
about three women who go trav
eling to Tierra Incognita (fictional
name of some tropical forests), in
1888 and rediscover themselves
in 1955. Music was provided by
Alan Berg, stage management
was conducted by Mike Finney,
and costumes were designed by
Sara Schutz.
Most students and faculty
members who watched the plays
enjoyed them even though the
play “Humanity” was conducive
to evoking baffling responses.
Freshman Peter Tuerk said that
the plays were very well directed
and appealed to the tastes of all
kind of people. Tuerk said, “Apart
from the story of the plays, I also
cherished the message that they
tried to convey.”
“Humanity” and “On the
Verge” were another step forward
after “Food from Trash” which
was performed in the fall of 1990.
The Wesleyan Theatre has three
major productions a year.
ETHERIDGE VISITS —State School Superintendent Bobby
Etheridge chats with Edythe Tweedy, a member of the Rocky
Mount Board of Education, during a visit to Wesleyan College
last week.
Panelists criticize U.S. policy
(Continued from Front Page)
punishing abuses. It is virtually
impossible to discipline a soldier
for crimes against civilians,” he
said.
American aid built a strong
military in El Salvador, but
couldn’t control the unbridled
power it holds over the popula
tion, Finney argued.
“In 1990 there is a fighting
force of 32,000 that is directly
and indirectly responsible for the
disappearances of countless
people,” he said, and from 1980
to 1982, such “disappearances”
concealed the killing of about 800
people a month —100,000 a year.
Watson’s reproach of ignorant
politicians was scathing. “Our
elected officials often represent
our own ignorance,” he added.
“Our ignorance has hurt us in
Africa It has abetted the persis
tence of £^artheid in South Af
rica,” he aid. American misun
derstanding of the people’s free
dom movement, the African Na
tional Congress, bolstered the ra
cial government.
American governments tradi
tionally refused support for the
ANC because it supposedly pro
moted violence to eliminate the
slave status of blacks in that
country. Statesmen were fond of
pointing to the Martin Luther
King’s peaceful methods in this
country, Watson said.
Yet, he said, ‘The South Afri
can movement had used peaceful
methods from 1912 to 1960. In
1960, however. South African
police had shot down several
hundred blacks who were pro
testing peacefully. The ANC re
sponded to continued state vio
lence by changing its course.
“Our poUcy was based on a
lack of understanding of the South
African state, and probably
slowed the end of apartheid. Any
process that is not based on facts
is like a castle on the sand. It
won’t bear scrutiny,” he said.
Good schools
key to future
(Continued from Front Page)
remedial summer school program.
Individualized summer instruc
tion has helped children in grades
three, five, and eight move on
instead of repeating an entire
school year.
In addition to the summer pro
gram, the BEP also envisioned
equal opportunities in the arts and
foreign language, and proposed
funds for more instructors, coun
selors, and clerical help for
teachers. This year, Martin has
said, the state can’t afford to pay j
for the program’s next install
ment.
“If you want SB 2 to fiail, then
don’t fiind the BEP,” Etheridge
responded. “Certairdy we ought
not to waste a single dollar in
education. Mcmey is precious and
will be more precious in the ‘90s.
This program is for all children
of North Carolina, whether they
live in the poorest county of
Richmond County, or the richest
county of Mecklenburg County.
“If you don’t provide them
with a good education, you’ve
said to them you’re going to be a
second-class citizen for the rest
of you life. Because education is
your ticket up,” he said.
Etheridge noted that North
Carolina has the lowest industrial
wage rate in the nation, and that
14 percent of the state’s adults
over 20 are illiterate. One-fifth of
the state’s children live below the
poverty level, and, in some coun
ties, this figure is as high as 40
percent.
In the face of these figures,
Etheridge said, those who criti
cize educational spending “need
to get real. They need to get out
where the problems are. We can
break the cycle of underachiev
ers — but we cannot back off
school reform.”
Bush administration hazardous to U.S.
By ALAN FELTON
President George Bush con
tinues to wage war against Iraq
while the United States falls fur
ther into economic and social ruin.
As thousands of American sol
diers stand in the desert to defend
the so-called “American way of
life,” that same lifestyle is being
destroyed at home. The war may
reach a conclusion in the near fu
ture; what will the situation be at
home in the United States?
The President ignores the
problems of reducing a $3 tril
lion deficit while adding to that
deficit with a costly war. "Tie
long-proposed war on poverty is
not being waged while millions
of dollars are thrown away in the
Kuwaiti desert. Unemployment is
at its highest level since the early
1980s. The United States has the
highest infant mortality rate of
any other industrialized nations.
The American education system
produces a nation of culturally
and academically illiterate stu
dents.
The Last Word
President Bush’s policy on
race relations finds the com
mander-in-chief sending unfair
numbers of African-Americans to
fight in the Middle East and also
Bush wages a genocidal drug war
against African-Americans.
Meanwhile, Bush waves the flag.
Mom, and apple pie in front of
the American people and calls the
eflfort the building of a new world
order.
The time has come to bring
about a change in the United
States. The President has shown
his disregard for the well-being
of the American population. The
founding fathers of this nation
revolted against an uncaring ty
rant and built the nation we call
the United States. Thomas
Jefferson wrote in the Declara
tion of Independence that the
government had the responsibil
ity to provide for the needs of the
people and that “....governments
are instituted among men, deriv
ing their just powers from the
consent of the governed; that
whenever any form of govern
ment becomes destructive to these
ends it is the right of the people
to alter or abolish it, and to insti
tute a new government...”
The goverrunent of George
Bush is clearly destructive to the
security and well-being of the
American people. The decade of
the 1990s will be a time of revo
lution. Listen up, George. The
revolution will'come.