Briefly Noted

Pitt Dance Ensemble to Present Verbatim March 25-27

The University of Pittsburgh Dance Ensemble will present Verbatim—a formal dance program of works created by Pitt students and professional guest choreographers—at 8:15 p.m. March 25-27 in the Trees Hall Dance Studio.

A $6 donation for general admission and a $3 donation for students is requested at the door. For more information, call 412-648-8262.

Dances choreographed by Pitt students include “A Dot in the Eye of Jessica,” a performance about recovery following the loss of a loved one, and “Breaking the Wall,” a high-energy tap dance featuring 10 students dancing to the music of Fatboy Slim.

Professionally choreographed pieces include “Finding Oz,” by Michelle Hall Dawson, formerly with the Dance Alloy Theater in Pittsburgh. The piece uses a montage of music and text by poet Pablo Neuroda. It was performed last month at the American College Dance Festival at Mercyhurst College. Also featured is “Blue and Gold Concerto,” with the music of George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, choreographed by Mara Mandrajieff, a dancer with Bodiography.

The director of the Pitt Dance Ensemble since 1978 is Susan Gillis-Kruman, a faculty member in Pitt’s School of Education.

—Sharon S. Blake

Literary Theorist To Offer Glimpse of Poetry’s Future

Literary theorist and critically acclaimed poet Nathaniel Mackey will offer his perspective of what tomorrow holds for poetry during an interview titled “The Future of Poetry II” at 8:30 p.m. March 25 in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium. The free public event is a continuation of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series’ 2009-10 season.

The interview will be conducted by Pitt assistant professor of English Ben Lerner, poetry editor for Critical Quarterly and the author of the poetry collections Angle of Yaw (Copper Canyon Press, 2006) and The Lichtenberg Figures (Copper Canyon Press, 2004).

For the past two decades, Mackey’s major prose project has been From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate—an experiment in serial fiction that has produced four books. He is the author of Splay Anthem (New Directions, 2006), which won the 2006 National Book Award for Poetry.

The 2009-10 Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series season is cosponsored by Pitt’s Writing Program, Book Center, University Library System, and University of Pittsburgh Press. This season’s series will conclude April 1 with a rescheduled discussion between essayist Sven Birkets and blogger Maud Newton titled “Future of the Book.”

All events in the Writers Series are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Jeff Oaks at oaks@pitt.edu or visit www.english.pitt.edu.

—Anthony M. Moore

Pitt Law School Sets March 25 Lecture on Lawyering for Social Change

The University of Pittsburgh School of Law will hold its Lawyering for Social Change Lecture, featuring William P. Quigley, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), at noon March 25 in the Barco Law Building’s Teplitz Memorial Courtroom.

Titled “The Crime in Criminal Justice,” the talk will address how lawyers may effect social change within the criminal justice system. The event is free and open to the public, but preregistration is requested. To register or for more information, visit www.law.pitt.edu or call 412-648-1490.

Quigley joined CCR, a national legal and educational organization dedicated to advancing and defending constitutional and human rights, in May 2009. He is on leave from his position as director of the Loyola Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans.

This event has been approved by the Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Board for one-and-one-half hours of substantive CLE credit. A fee of $25 will be collected at the door for CLE credit.

—Patricia Lomando White