Zimbabwean Dinner

A night of authentic Zimbabwean food, dance, and music is scheduled for 5-10 p.m. 11 December in the Indiana Interchurch Center, 1100 West 42nd Street, Indianapolis. Admission is $25.

Seating is limited to 120; reservations can be made online. The event is hosted by the International Interfaith Initiative. Information, email.

Proceeds benefit the Healing Friends Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization that offers microfinance opportunities and support to families in the African nation.

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Festival Award Winners Announced

Here are the award winners for this year's International Festival, hosted by the Nationalities Council of Indiana.

Cultural Booths of NCI Group Members are judged in the following four categories:

1. THEME: Include in cultural booth historical, geographical, culinary, social or educational aspects of the particular culture. 2010 theme: Food for Thought - Tradition, Culture and Cuisine.
2. EDUCATIONAL VALUE: Provide relevant information about the culture.
3. CREATIVITY: Demonstrate an effective and enjoyable method to attract visitors.
4. QUALITY: Overall excellence. Examples would be people in native costumes and friendly approach to visitors.

First and second place winners for theme:
Society for Promotion of Persian Culture and Swedish American Order of VASA

First and second place winners for educational value:
Sons of Norway and German Heritage Society

First and second place winners for creativity:
Korean American Women’s Association and Hungarian Club of Indianapolis

First and second place winners for quality:
Camp Mabuhay (Filipino) and Swiss Club of Central Indiana

In addition, the Best Overall Cultural Booth, recipient of “The Betty” trophy for 2010:
Taiwanese American Association of Indianapolis

Food Booths of NCI Group Members are evaluated for quality and authenticity of ethnic food, appearance and sanitary conditions and overall assessment.
First Place: Indonesian Association of Indianapolis
Second Place: German American Klub

Finally (but not insignificantly), the NCI's Volunteer Service award (also known as “The Steve” trophy) is presented to the individual(s) who have demonstrated commitment to the goals of NCI and have actively worked toward their achievement. This year, for the first time, three volunteers were honored:
Josef Laposa and Frances Russell (pictured), and Charles Lindgren (deceased).

Mark your calendars for next year's festival, to be held 17-20 November.

(Photo courtesy of Ming Russell)

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More Views of the 2010 International Festival

Be sure to mark your calendars for next year's International Festival, to be held November 17-20, 2011, in the West Pavilion of the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis!

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This Weekend: Indy's International Festival

Yes, the annual International Festival is underway in the West Pavilion at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, 1202 East 38th Street, Indianapolis. It's open today (10 a.m. to 9 p.m.) and tomorrow (noon to 6 p.m.). Come join the fun!

(Photos taken Friday, 19 November, by Susan McKee)

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Today! The International Festival Starts Today!

School buses will be lined up along the West Pavilion of the Indiana State Fairgrounds this morning for the opening of the International Festival in Indianapolis!

Today's just for student groups, but the festival opens to the public tomorrow through Sunday. There's lots more information online.

Y'all come!

Indy's International Festival is This Weekend!

This year's International Festival opens for student groups on Thursday, and for the general public Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Check the website for details!

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It's International Festival Time!

Make plans to head to the Indiana State Fairgrounds this weekend for Indy's International Festival! It's open to the public Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

For details, go online. Don't miss it!

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International Education Week

In celebration of International Education Week, program directors will be promoting their study abroad programs at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

An information table will be on the second floor of Cavanaugh Hall on the IUPUI campus from 15-18 November, where students can find out more information about programs traveling to India, China, France, Germany, Dominican Republic, South Korea, Greece, Canada and many more.

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Indianapolis Firm Receives International Honor

Indianapolis-based global engineering consulting and design firm RW Armstrong has received the United Arab Emirates' Interior Design of the Year award, reports Inside INdiana Business.

The company was honored for designing the approximately $27 million Environment Agency headquarters in Abu Dhabi. RW Armstrong has more than 600 employees in 17 offices in the United States, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Egypt and Libya.

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Burmese Refugee Event in Indy

(IUPUI = Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis)

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Unintentional Intolerance

Steve Robbins (pictured) will discuss "Unintentional Intolerance: What Nice People Need to Know" during a 3 p.m. event 17 November in 93 Auditorium at Eli Lilly and Company's corporate headquarters in Indianapolis.

Dr. Robbins, a diversity expert, notes that "cognitive flexibility and behavioral adaptability are necessary for navigating a 21st century world". A reception follows his presentation.

The event is sponsored by Lilly India Network, Eli Lilly Asian Network, Chinese Culture Network at Lilly, Middle Eastern Network at Lilly and the Asian-American Alliance of Indiana. For reservations, please send an email; deadline is 8 November.

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It's Almost International Festival Time in Indy!

Plans are well underway for the next International Festival. It's set for 18-21 November in the West Pavilion of the Indiana State Fairgrounds, 1202 East 38th Street, Indianapolis.

Hours for school groups and other student tours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. both 18 and 19 November. The festival's open to the public from 2 to 9 p.m. 19 November, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 20 November and noon to 6 p.m. 21 November.

Come see the world without leaving home (and bring your appetite: there'll be authentic, traditional cuisine from around the globe).

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Russian Orthodox Music Performed in Indy

The Indianapolis Symphonic Choir performs Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vespers on 6 and 7 November in two Indy churches.

Hear what has been called "the greatest musical achievement of the Russian Orthodox Church" performed at 8 p.m. Saturday in downtown Indianapolis at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, and at 2:30 p.m. the next afternoon in the newly-constructed Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Carmel.

Tickets are available online.

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Being Good in Life

"About Family, of the Virgin Marshmallow and about Being Good in Life" is the provocative title of a lecture reflecting on anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism in contemporary German discourse from the literary perspective. This presentation by Esther Dischereit will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 1 November in Room 238 of the Campus Center at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. It's sponsored by the Max Kade German-American Center and the IUPUI German Program.

Dischereit, who is the Max Kade writer-in-residence at Oberlin College, will unfold thoughts on what it is like to be foreign or to be mainstream, challenging certainties about our personal origins. She counters desires to renew demarcations against the outsider, like the immigrant Muslim baker from Turkey with her shop in Berlin-Moabit. Her presentation ponders the ongoing debate about the relative higher or lower value of race, religion, genetics or other "targets".

Dischereit is a prolific and versatile Jewish-German writer. Her work challenges the repression that she feels characterizes German memory of the National Socialist past, bearing witness not to the Holocaust itself but to how it is both remembered and forgotten in twenty-first-century Germany. Her work addresses intergenerational discussions, themes of alienation and "otherness" in German society that include questions on minority and gender.

Her work covers a wide spectrum of genres: novels, stories and essays; poetry, plays, including radio plays; opera libretti and sound installations. She collaborates with composers and jazz musicians and founded the avant-garde project “WordMusicSpace/Sound-Concepts. A union activist and advocate for women, and later for art and culture with the German Trade Unions, she has played an increasingly prominent literary and cultural role in Germany since the 1980's.

Her fiction has earned her international acclaim and translation of several of her novels into English and Spanish. She was a fellow at the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European and Jewish Studies and has lectured widely in the United States, Canada, Columbia and Israel. Esther Dischereit has won stipends from the Hessian Ministry for Science and Art, the Stiftung Preussische Seehandlung in Berlin, the Berlin Senate and the Erwin-Strassmann-Stiftung. A symposium about Esther Dischereit's work was held at the University of Wales, Swansea, in 2003, and she was writer-in-residence at Deutsches Haus, New York University, in 2004. In 2009 Esther won the Erich Fried Prize, the most prestigious literary prize awarded by Austria.

For more information, contact Claudia Grossmann, 317:274-3943. Visitor parking is available in the IUPUI Vermont Street Parking Garage.

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Science and Society in the 21st Century

"Science and Society in the 21st Century" is the topic for a presentation by Sir Harry Kroto (pictured), who shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1996.

He'll be speaking from 5:30-7 p.m. 10 November in Room CE450, Campus Center, Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. Registration is online.

Kroto, who is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and holds an emeritus professorship at the University of Sussex in Brighton, United Kingdom, will discuss a necessary condition for creativity in the science and the arts -- a liberal/democratic sociopolitical environment.

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Localizando Food

"Localizando Food", an innovative documentary and a stop-motion animation film, both created by local youth, explore the social implications of insufficient food choices.

Part of "Spirit & Place", the films showcase local projects challenging the status quo and changing the way Indianapolis eats. Dialogue with local filmmakers and residents, facilitated by youth, will follow the screening, set for 1 p.m. 7 November in the Indianapolis Art Center, 820 East 67th Street, Indianapolis.

It's presented by the Latino/a Youth Collective, Indianapolis Art Center, Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianap-olis Center for Urban and Multicultural Education, IUPUI Common Theme Project, IUPUI Multicultural Center, and the IUPUI Office of International Affairs.

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New ISO Music Director from Poland

Conductor Krzysztof Urbański (pictured) becomes the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s seventh Music Director effective 1 September 2011, according to an announcement today by the ISO. At age 28, he is the youngest music director among major orchestras in the United States. Urbański will return to Indianapolis to conduct in concerts on 20 and 21 May, and will lead the ISO in its Opening Night Gala in September 2011.

In April of 2010, Urbański made his U.S. debut with the Indianapolis Symphony and returned for a second visit during Marsh Symphony on the Prairie in June. In September, the ISO’s search committee unanimously voted to appoint Mr. Urbański to the post, and the ISO musicians overwhelmingly supported the recommendation.

Urbański graduated from the Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw in 2007, and in the same year, was the unanimous First Prize Winner of the Prague Spring International Conducting Competition. He works regularly with all the major Polish orchestras, including Sinfonia Varsovia, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra and served as Assistant Conductor to the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra from 2007-2009.

Urbański, who was born in Pabianice, Poland, and his wife Joanna currently reside just outside Warsaw. He will become an Adjunct Professor of Music (Orchestral Conducting) at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music when his tenure with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra begins in 2011.

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Lilly to Close Singapore Center

Eli Lilly and Company is closing a facility in Singapore, impacting approximately 130 employees, reports Inside INdiana Business The pharmaceutical manufacturer says some of the projects and capabilities will be shifted to Indianapolis.

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Sagamore's Indiana-Africa Connections Project

Senator Richard G. Lugar (R.-Ind.) will speak at the Sagamore Institute on 21 October as part of the Indianapolis-based think tank's unveiling of its Indiana-Africa Connections Project. This database lists more than 250 Indiana individuals and organizations who regularly engage with sub-Saharan Africa. The event will be from 10:30 a.m. to noon.

Senator Lugar's experience as Ranking Member and former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and advocate for improving Africa's economy and health care makes him an ideal partner with Sagamore in showcasing Indiana's role as an important global citizen.

Through leadership on crucial legislation such as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, PEPFAR, the African Growth and Opportunity Act and Tropical Rain Forest Conservation Act, and a heavy interest in energy and hunger security, Senator Lugar has shown time and again the need for a strong and healthy relationship between the United States and countries throughout the African continent.

Sagamore worked with University of Indianapolis graduate students to compile the database, which includes entries such as the Bryantsville Hunger Relief Project, a farm that sends corn to South African countries, and The Institute for Affordable Transportation, an Indianapolis-based group that manufactures and distributes low-cost utility vehicles to individuals in developing countries. (NOTE: such groups also are listed on the Nationalities Council's international links pages.)

Sagamore Institute is an Indianapolis-based nonpartisan research group that brings policymakers and practitioners together to turn ideas into action.

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Heartland Film Festival Runs Through 23 October

Heartland, the annual 10-day celebration of international film, includes movies from Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan (and the United States).

For more information, including a schedule, go online.

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