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Jehlen as a starling in the “valley of viewers. Contemporary dance, she says, often bewilderment,” one of seven the birds focuses more on self-expression or explor- must pass through on their search for Simorgh in The Conference of the Birds ing movement itself, and less on content. “My work is very much about content....We pen,” she insists. “I think it was probably my want viewers to understand it in the way we aunt,” she offers. “I really don’t know.” She’s intend.” Next year, she hopes to tour with reluctant to provide an explanation for her Sholeh Wolpé, the Iranian-American poet pursuits, perhaps partly because she doesn’t and playwright who translated the most re- view her work as marked by any particular in- cent English version of The Conference of the Birds. terest in a specific tradition—bharatanatyam or Wolpé would read a condensed version of the Sufi mysticism or the Japanese dance-theater story before the performance, to give viewers form butoh—but instead by the larger, mys- a frame for understanding the dance.

GARY ALPERT terious, interconnected human experience. “I think our work as artists is to train peo- of our stories.” (The production premiered ANIKAYA has also produced works inspired ple to be empathetic,” Jehlen adds. Though in Boston last year, and a weekend of per- by the Hebrew Bible; the concept of gender; she doesn’t often address it directly, she formances in Washington, D.C., is planned and the idea, common to world religions and also thinks about the connection between for November. Jehlen is seeking funding to modern physics, of a time before creation. “To her work and current culture and politics. tour it around the country and the world. me, physics is as awesome and fascinating as “People get so much more attached to their Grant-writing, she acknowledges, is a pun- anything else,” she says. “I live for awe, and identity when they perceive themselves as ishing endeavor of its own: sometimes “as that’s very strong in the parts of Islam that I’m under attack. It can be a dangerous situa- time-intensive as creating art.”) interested in. I live for cognitive dissonance tion culturally because it makes you want to Some artists can think back to the moment and things that force you to wrap your head freeze your culture and label everything and they knew that music or dance or poetry was around other things.” separate everything.” But as Jehlen knows, what they were meant to do. Jehlen resists For Jehlen, it’s important that performanc- the intersections of culture can be every bit origin stories. “I have no idea why things hap- es convey a specific emotional experience to as magical, and generative, as their core. Cabaret and Cooperation bandleader is at his best bringing people together. by jacob sweet

cabaret singer, known simply derdale—the creator and band as “Meow Meow,” struts onto the leader of Pink Martini, an eclec- stage—her golden dress shim- tic “little orchestra” with about a A mering, her Disney-Villainess dozen members—plays the silent black wig bouncing—and lifts her arms straight man. There is no need for triumphantly. Nothing happens. excess flair on his part. Some per- “Usually someone throws flowers at formers are described as “dyna- this point,” she stammers, in faux-shock. mite.” Meow Meow is more like She lifts her arms a second time. Again, no a fusion bomb. flowers. She walks off stage in a huff, fetches This subdued display by Lau- As a performer, Lauderdale is often the her own bouquet, returns to the stage, and derdale is surprising. He grew up center of attention. With Meow Meow, he embraces a supportive role. hands it to a woman in the audience. Then in rural Indiana, one of several ad- she walks off again. Moments later, Thomas opted siblings from across the world, later Adams, and hosted the party that allegedly Lauderdale ’92, seated at the piano, re-intro- moving to Portland, Oregon, with his family. led to the closing of the Adams pool. “It feels duces Meow Meow, “international singing At Harvard in the early 1990s, he was the un- like most of my weekends were in cocktail sensation.” She takes the stage as if for the official social leader of Adams House, which dresses,” he recalled. first time. But now, there are flowers. he described over the phone as the “artsy, gay, After graduating with a degree in history For much of the Sunday evening show at international freak House.” He founded Café and literature, he moved back to Portland Boston’s Berklee Performance Center, Lau- Mardi, a Tuesday-night coffeehouse within and planned to run for political office, -at

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In a moment, Lauderdale’s playing style were randomly populated, Lauderdale can shift completely. orchestrated a one-time party between Adams and Eliot, the “preppy” House. the birth of Pink Martini, a Portland-based After college, he said, Pink Martini be- group that would go on to perform mostly came like “Adams House on the road,” classical, jazz, and old-fashioned pop mu- and he branched out in his social leader- sic in more than a dozen languages. They ship role. In 1997, “,” a single soon found themselves performing at fund­ he co-wrote with bandmate

COURTESY OF THOMAS LAUDERDALE raisers for every possible progressive politi- ’92, became a hit in France, allowing Pink tending “every political fundraiser under cal cause: civil rights, affordable housing, Martini to tour overseas. This spring and the sun.” Finding them boring, he found library funding, education. summer, they will perform in Turkey, himself on stage in 1994, again in a cock- Though Lauderdale’s loudest feature South Korea, France, Belgium, and Hun- tail dress, opening for a concert in opposi- may be his flamboyant exuberance, his gary, switching between popular songs tion to a proposed anti-gay rights amend- greatest skill is bringing people togeth- from across the world and those written ment to the Oregon constitution. That was er. Before the undergraduate Houses by Lauderdale and friends in myriad lan-

rar, Straus and Giroux, $25). A useful through which Americans came to know collection of the late Nobel laure- Picasso and other foundational modern Off the Shelf ate’s work, from first to last, select- artists. ed by his family members—the first Recent books with Harvard connections in several projected volumes by the Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven publisher, including a biography. Un- but Nobody Wants to Die, by Amy Matters military. Having really negotiated til the latter appears, Adam Kirsch’s Gutmann ’71, Ph.D. ’76, and Jonathan D. with North Korea (see “The Korean Nu- “Seamus Heaney: Digging with the Pen” Moreno (Liveright, $27.95). U Penn’s pres- clear Crisis,” September-October 2003, (November-December 2006, page 52) pro- ident, a political philosopher, and her fac- page 38), and later served as secretary of vides a superb point of entry into the life ulty colleague, a medical ethicist, draw on defense, Ash Carter (now director of the and poetry. the old song title to point out that although Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Sci- Americans “view the afterlife [as] an ideal ence and International Affairs) offers in- Young Castro: The Making of a Revo- place where no one has to pay the price of sights into running the Pentagon, U.S. stra- lutionary, by Jonathan M. Hansen (Simon achieving eternal perfection,” it ain’t that tegic challenges, and more, in Inside the & Schuster, $35). A fresh life, based on Cu- way. Given merited concern about, say, the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Life- ban archival sources and interviews, of the misuse of CRISPR technology to “perfect” time of Leadership in origins of the larger-than- embryos, their accessible exploration of the Pentagon (Dutton, life figure whose national- American health care and bioethics is im- $29). Useful background ist uprising in his island portant and timely. heading into 2020—or for country ultimately steered whenever the public and into its present, commu- Evolution or Revolution? Rethinking its leaders next take mili- nist gridlock. The author is Macroeconomic Policy after the tary and defense issues a senior lecturer on social Great Recession, edited by Oliver seriously. From a soldier’s studies. Blanchard and Eliot University Professor perspective—far from the Lawrence H. Summers (MIT, $39.95). Hav- secretary in the hierarchy, Alfred Stieglitz: Taking ing attained “normalcy” after the protract- but proximate to the Pen- Pictures, Making Paint- ed recovery from the financial crisis and tagon—U.S. senator Tom ers,  by Phyllis Rose ’64, Great Recession—and therefore a period Cotton ’99, J.D. ’02 (R- Ph.D. ’70 (Yale, $26). The suitable for both reflection and worry Arkansas), a veteran (and veteran essayist and biog- about the next, inevitable downturn—a prospective presidential rapher (Virginia Woolf, pair of leading macroeconomists present candidate after 2020), Josephine Baker, et al.) colleagues’ best thinking about monetary writes about Sacred briskly portrays the pio- and fiscal policy, and about the need for Duty: A Soldier’s Tour neering photographer who heightened focus on inequality and political at Arlington National made an even greater im- economy. Academic, but not impossible. Cemetery (Morrow, pact with his gallery, 291, $28.99). Coffee Lids, by Louise Harpman ’86 and The master photogra- pher: “Spring Showers,” Scott Specht (Princeton Architectural 100 Poems, by Seamus by Alfred Stieglitz, c. Press, $19.95 paper). During the next crisis,

Heaney, Litt.D. ’98 (Far- DIGITAL IMAGE © THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART/LICENSED SCALA BY / ART RESOURCE, NY 1900, gelatin silver print the macroeconomists (see prior item) may

62 July - August 2019

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. 617-495-5746 Montage guages. His home itself is a monument to stage, locked with them arm-in-arm. Then I breathe with whomever I’m accompa- togetherness. Portland Monthly described it they become part of the performance. Dur- nying, and a lot of accompanists don’t do as “one of the city’s most important cul- ing one dramatic song, she gets four men to that,” he explained. “I like supporting, es- tural hubs,” known for dinners, private high-kick alongside her, like a line of Rock- pecially singers.” During delicate songs, he concerts, benefit auctions, and “his leg- ettes. Later, a group lifts her up and spins plays softly with warm phrases. When it’s endary annual holiday party, replete with her around, in a sitting position, on their upbeat, he doesn’t just play the piano—he a towering tree, caroling, and arguably the shoulders. By the end, she is crowdsurf- slaps, flicks and bops it like he’s playing most eclectic and influential gathering of ing—getting passed, parallel to the ground, whack-a-mole. His support isn’t exclusive- Portlanders to be found.” through the auditorium. Lauderdale has his ly musical. When Meow Meow gets into a On stage with Meow Meow, with whom eyes trained on her through all of these mo- split-legged position and feigns being stuck, Lauderdale released the joint Hotel ments, adjusting the tempo, volume, or tim- Lauderdale holds a bottle of wine just out of Amour in March, he is the backbone, the bre to keep the performance steady, adding her reach, inspiring her to get up and finish steady pulse of the show. Throughout the to the spectacle without distracting from it. the performance. selections, she runs through the audience, He said he thrives in this low-key role. In the end, his goal is to get everyone in picking out men and parading them onto the “I think I’m a good accompanist because the crowd laughing at and enjoying the same consume a lot of strong coffee. This un- helped turn the tide of World usual gem of a book takes seriously the War II. You’re in good hands business of designing disposable cups and from the get-go, in Trafalgar lids. Copiously illustrated, with mind-bog- Square, as “under the eternal gling detailed diagrams, and the resulting gaze of Admiral Lord Nel- products. You will never ignore your coffee son…Mrs. Odette Samson” topper again. races to an appointment at the War Office on July 10, The Weil Conjectures: On Math and 1942, “the 1,043rd day of the the Pursuit of the Unknown, by Karen world’s worst war.”

Olsson ’95 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, STEINHARDT SHATZMAN NANCY $26). A genre-defying exploration of the Unequal Europe, by Jason Beckfield, The master architects: Hall for Worship of siblings Simone and André Weil, philoso- professor of sociology (Oxford, $99). Glo- the Ancestors, Beijing, early fifteenth century with many later repairs pher and mathematician, respectively, balization aside, Beckfield’s searching re- mashed up with a memoir of the author’s search leads him to conclude that the in- own undergraduate math infatuation, car- ternal integration of Europe has prompted This America: The Case for the Na- ried off in the style and skills she has since “a new era of restructuring welfare states tion, by Jill Lepore, Kemper professor of honed as a novelist and former editor of in a way that signals the beginning of re- American history (Liveright, $16.95). Hav- The Texas Observer. trenchment and the ending of Europe’s ing recently produced These Truths, an long-term trend to income egalitarianism.” enormous reinterpretation of the nation’s Democracy and the Next American Thus, just as U.S. critics have taken to entire history (see the review, “True Lies,” Economy, by Henry A. J. Ramos, M.P.A. bashing the Old World for its supposed September-October 2018, page 64), Le­ ’85 (Arte Público/University of Houston, sins of socialism and petty regulation in the pore focuses more tightly (138 small pages) $22.95 paper). A progressive, in search of name of greater equality, both “flaws” are on what the community really is, the na- “where prosperity meets justice” (the sub- fading away. More generally, an important ture of patriotism, and the American tradi- title), surveys the socioeconomic landscape analysis of the institutional bases of social tions that matter—lest they be perverted and an array of social-justice organizations outcomes, such as the distribution of in- by illiberal nationalism. in pursuit of an agenda for federally guar- come among households. anteed rights to basic social goods; a unify- Don’t Read Poetry: A Book about ing civic culture; refreshed democratic in- Chinese Architecture: A History, by How to Read Poems, by Stephanie Burt, stitutions; environmental sustainability; Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Ph.D. ’81 professor of English (Basic Books, $30). As and more. Given current crabbed and ugly (Princeton, $65). A large-format work of the subtitle suggests, Burt attempts, acces- discourse, it is hard to see how existing scholarship and accompanying beautiful sibly and successfully, to demystify poetry institutions could act on his list, but that photographs and illustrations, by the pro- by focusing readers’ attention on individu- doesn’t invalidate the making of it. fessor of East Asian art and curator of Chi- al poems, and the reasons for creating and nese art at the University of Pennsylvania. engaging with them: feelings, character, D-Day Girls, by Sarah Rose ’96 (Crown, Important, indeed invaluable, as China’s wisdom, and so on. The author, who serves $28). A deft, appealing account of the un- explosive urban and industrial growth has as poetry editor for The Nation, was pro- der-recognized role of spies who aided the transformed its cities and countryside, and filed in “‘Kingmaker’ to Gatekeeper” (No- resistance, sabotaged the Nazi armies, destroyed much of its traditional building. vember-December 2017, page 78).

Harvard Magazine 63

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 Montage thing. At a time he thinks is especially frac- comes naturally: bringing people together, past. “Ideally,” he said, “there will be a mo- tured politically, in which people can com- often literally, in the form of a conga line. ment where everybody comes to the table fortably avoid opinions or world-views they What comes after? He’s still figuring it and we start listening to each other and don’t like, he finds the mission especially im- out. Pink Martini isn’t a protest band, but it try to figure out a way together through portant. During his concerts, he does what hasn’t totally shaken its politically minded all this.”

burgeoning considered by many Chinese to A Fragile Relationship be their nation’s first modern moment, the flow of ideas would persist, albeit in the re- The parallel, perilous histories of China and Japan verse direction. So many of the era’s leading by edward s. steinfeld lights—including the writer Lu Xun and two of the co-founders of the Chinese Communist Party, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao—all spent t a time when the United States tus within each society. With China and Japan: key formative years in Japan. It was there that is preoccupied with its relations Facing History, Vogel now turns to the inter- they witnessed Meiji- with virtually everyone else in action between these two great societies. era Japan’s standing up Ezra Vogel, China and A the world, it is worth being re- As the book makes clear, Japan and China to the West, thanks to a Japan: Facing History minded that other nations have their own for more than 1,500 years have shared bonds strong state, a powerful (Harvard University relationships with one another. As Ezra of deep cultural interconnection and mutual military, and a citizenry Press, $39.95) Vogel, Ford professor of the social sciences learning. At the height of premodern cosmo- galvanized by national- emeritus, so brilliantly argues in his latest politanism during the Tang Dynasty (618-906 ism. While in Japan they were also able to be book, China and Japan: Facing History, probably c.e.), Buddhism, Confucianism, and written inspired by a Japanese society far more liberal, no other bilateral relationship comes close language (Chinese pictographs) all made vibrant, and open to ideas—including many to combining the mixture of profound cul- their way from China to Japan. The vector from the West—than anything comparable tural affinity, intense national rivalry, and was neither war nor conquest, but instead a back in China. long-term geopolitical import found in that small number of individuals in the cultural If only cultural cross-pollination de- between China and Japan. Given his unpar- sphere: Japanese monks who had studied in scribed the totality of the Sino-Japanese ex- alleled knowledge of the language, culture, Chang’an, the great Tang capital at the east- perience. But as Vogel’s book painstakingly and society of both nations, Vogel is unique- ern end of the Silk Road; Koreans situated describes, the two nations are just as inex- ly positioned to tell this story. He is, after all, geographically between the two great cul- tricably linked through calamitous violence, one of the few scholars ever to have written tures and accustomed to navigating both; bloodshed, and subjugation. Bookended by pioneering books about each society—Japan and a select few Chinese monks and crafts- the years 1895 and 1945, each society through as Number One: Lessons for America (1979) and people who had made their way to Japan. its interaction with the other suffered dev- Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China A thousand years later, during the May astating civilizational defeat. (2013)—that also achieved best-seller sta- 4th Movement (1919), the great intellectual Loss came first to the Chinese, who in their stunning defeat by Japan in the Sino- Japanese War of 1894-95 would suffer not only the indignity of territorial loss—the ceding of Taiwan to the growing Japanese empire—but more existentially, the total collapse of their age-old system of domes- tic governance and social control. Within 20 years of the 1895 defeat, the last Chinese emperor had abdicated, Confucian society lay in shambles, and the country had split apart into warlord-run fiefdoms. Into the breach surged an increasingly militarized and imperially ambitious Ja- pan, first colonizing Taiwan and Korea in 1895 and 1905 respectively, then establish- ing a vassal state in Manchuria in 1931, and finally invading and occupying all of coast-

Chinese refugees stream through the wrecked streets of Chongqing, heavily bombed by the Japanese from 1938 to 1943

CENTRAL PRESS/GETTY IMAGES during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

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