The IU Auditorium will host our dynamic Chinese Night Market.

Come taste special delicacies prepared by Chefs Drake and Tallent, as well as the China Remixed student cooking team:  Pork Belly Steam Buns, Red Cooked Beef Spare Ribs, Sweet Bao Dumplings, Mapo Tofu, and much more! And enjoy a variety of activities, including:

Chinese Board Game Club

The Chinese Board Game Club will offer five games for the First Thursday Chinese Market Night. Try your luck at the most popular board games in China: Mahjong, Five-in-a-Row, Chinese Checkers, Ring Toss, and Halli Galli.

Chinese Calligraphy Club (3C) & The Society for Inter-Cultural Understanding: My Name Project

The Chinese Calligraphy Club and the Society for Inter-Cultural Understanding present the “My Name Project.” The Society will help you learn the pronunciation of your name in Chinese, and the 3C will teach you to write it in beautiful Chinese calligraphy.

Chinese He Ping (Peace) Theater Club

This past February, the He Ping Theater Club brought a famous Chinese drama “Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land” (暗恋桃花源) to Bloomington. It was the first drama ever performed in Chinese on the Bloomington campus. For the First Thursdays Festival, the He Ping team will display their beautiful costumes from “Secret Love” and give you the chance to try some of them on.

Chinese Paper Cuttings (with Yuxin Li)

Paper cutting (Jianzhi) is a traditional decoration for Chinese New Year. It typically features Chinese characters or symbolizes Chinese zodiac animals in bright, intricate forms. Our Council intern Yuxin Li will teach you how to make easy paper cuttings at the Chinese Night Market.

Office of International Services: Chinese Knotting

The Office of International Services is happy to participate in the First Thursdays Festival by hosting a booth teaching the art of Chinese knotting. The tradition of Chinese knotting dates back to the Tang and Song Dynasty. They are made using one single piece of cord, which is then transformed into a beautiful design with each knot having a different meaning. These knots are seen as lucky and so are used for decorations. Participants will be able to learn how to make a simple knot to take home.

Asian Culture Center

Come visit the ACC’s tent during the First Thursdays Festival to learn about Asian American and Pacific Islander history and cultures. We will have several interactive games, answers to your frequently asked questions about AAPIs, and giveaways!

Chinese Flagship Program

Create a Beijing opera mask! In this fun exhibit, you will learn about the different characters in Chinese regional opera, hear how the music sounds, and paint masks to represent different characters.

The Political and Civic Engagement (PACE) Program: Civil Discourse Tent

The PACE exhibit focuses on the experience of Chinese students at IU and what American students can learn about Chinese students to help create a more welcoming campus culture and fruitful cultural exchange. In visiting the tent, both Chinese and American students will be available to participate in conversations to discuss issues of “Identity and Inclusiveness” on IUB’s campus. Information will be available about tools and skills to foster civil discourse.

The hope is to provide a rich experience where both Chinese and American students have an opportunity to learn more about each other’s cultural experiences, especially for American students to better understand what it might be like for Chinese students on our campus.

5:00 pm:  Fire Chief Charlie

Fire Chief Charlie is a family folk rock and roll band from Los Angeles, California. Lead by high school sweethearts, Jonah and Jamie Malarsky, Fire Chief Charlie paints pictures through visual storytelling atop flowing melody. Fire Chief Charlie songs are time machine songs that illuminate the nostalgic corners of the heart from a place familiar but unknown.

5:45 pm:  The Elements

The Elements are a rock band founded in 2014 by Chinese students at Indiana University Bloomington. The current lineup consists of vocalist/guitarist Boxun Hu (BFA 2017), drummer Yueyang Yan (BA 2017 in Public Relations), guitarist Juntao Han (MSA 2017 in Accounting), and bassist Chao Li (BA 2017 in Media). The band is heavily influenced by a variety of rock musicians, predominantly classic rock ‘n’ roll groups. As participants of China Remixed, the Elements will bring to the audience a 45-minute mix of Chinese rock and pop music. These songs are rooted in western music in terms of technique and songwriting, yet they are performed with a flavor of Chinese music. The performance aims to display Chinese pop music, with which most people are unfamiliar, and to convey the idea that music crosses borders as a universal language.

6:30 pm:  Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited

Known as “The Lion of Zimbabwe,” Thomas Mapfumo is one of Africa's greatest living musical legends. He rose to prominence as a guerrilla artist during the height of Southern Africa's liberation struggles against British settler colonialism in the early 1970s. Composing songs that translated the mbira sound for the electric guitar, he helped promote a musical style called Chimurenga and mobilized the popular struggle that birthed Zimbabwe in 1980. Mapfumo's music is beloved around the world, and his performances with the Blacks Unlimited are festival favorites. For more of Mapfumo’s music, videos, and a fuller biography, see www.Thomas-Mapfumo.com.

7:00 pm:  La femme du boulanger (The Baker’s Wife)

A classic film of love, betrayal, forgiveness, and baking by French master Marcel Pagnol, The Baker’s Wife revolves around the centrality of bread for a small Provençal village. Marital discord between the baker—Orson Welles declared Raimu the greatest actor in the world for this role—and his wife (a role offered to Joan Crawford) becomes public business when it impacts the staple of the villagers’ diet.

This film screening is presented as part of a campus visit by Alice Waters, taking place April 6–7. Behind restauratrice Waters and her world-famous Chez Panisse lies a coming-of-age story that took her to France and introduced Waters to the films of Marcel Pagnol. Indeed, Pagnol’s Fanny trilogy set the tone for her modest Berkeley dining experiment and gave it its name. Now, decades later, and as a global spokesperson for real food and “edible education,” Waters presents The Baker’s Wife, the most food oriented film of Pagnol’s opus, as part of her visit to IU. This screening is sponsored by the IU Food Project; the departments of History, French and Italian, and Anthropology; the Institute for European Studies; and IU Cinema. 

8:00 pm:  Latin American Music Ensemble

Come celebrate with the Latin American Music Ensemble’s end-of-semester concert. See two musical groups, Soneros la Caliza and Conjunto Escuela Vieja, comprised of undergraduate and graduate students from the IU Jacobs School of Music, perform classic Cuban popular dance music from the first half of the 20th century. Join us and feel free to get up and move your feet.

Making Memories in Mixed Media

A scrapbooking style activity about identity (in conjunction with A Step in Time Across the Line) will be hosted by volunteers from Hutton Honors College. Visitors explore mixed media to address questions like “Who am I?” or “Where am I from?”

Playing with Abstraction

This playful exploration of abstraction will be hosted by museum volunteers. Relating to Abstract Painting in Europe.

Coloring Craze

Staff overheard families saying there wasn’t enough to do for kids last month, so we’re bringing this back. Color images from the museum’s collection. Then go see the original artwork in the gallery. We’ll put this activity next to family-friendly Game Night.

Game Night 

Hosted by students and parents from TianTian Chinese School. Learn Tangrams, Chinese checkers, and other fun games.

Photo Scavenger Hunt - Second floor galery.

International Treasure Hunt – Second floor gallery

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

• 5:30-6:00 pm: Stories of the Chinese-American Experience told by writer and Hutton Honors student Jenny Huang | Special Exhibitions
• 5:30-7:00 pm: Open Sketch Night with Ellen Starr Lyon and live music | Second Floor Gallery
• 6:00-7:00 pm: Meet the Artist: Chee Wang Ng | Special Exhibitions
• 6:30 pm: Tendrils of Design led by Tavy Aherne | Second Floor Gallery

4:00 pm: Judith Shapiro, Scholar Talk

China's Environmental Challenges: A Grassroots Perspective

Judith Shapiro is the director of the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development program for the School of International Service at American University. Her research and teaching focus on global environmental politics and policy, the environmental politics of Asia, and Chinese politics under Mao. She is the author, co-author, or editor of seven books, including China’s Environmental Challenges (Polity) and Mao's War Against Nature (Cambridge University Press).

Grunwald Gallery

Open exhibits with Thesis work from MFA and BFA students in the School of Art + Design.

Textiles

Students from the Textiles Department will be on hand to show you the ins and outs of weaving. Try your hand at the loom or participate in a community weaving project.

Printmaking

The Print students will be working on a large scale linoleum block! Help ink up the plate and watch rollers and hand tools do the work. Additionally, students will be on hand to describe and demonstrate other printmaking methods.  

Art Student Guilds

Various student guilds will have artwork for sale including Textiles, Metals and Jewelry, and Painting.

Friends of Art Bookshop

Open in Fine Arts 120 for your browsing and shopping pleasure, including student made work from IU’s Ceramics, Metals, Painting, Printmaking, and Textiles Guilds.

Mathers Museum of World Cultures

Prior to opening its new exhibition Beijing’s 798 Art Zone (7:00-8:30 pm), the Mathers Museum of World Cultures will host a team of dragon dancers from the Indianapolis Chinese Community Center. The museum will have a dragon dance costume that festival goers can try on during the event.

Medieval Studies: Making a Medieval Manuscript

The Medieval Studies program will host a hands-on demonstration of “Making a Medieval Manuscript.”  People will be able to feel parchment, practice using a stylus on wax tablets, decipher medieval handwriting, and peruse manuscript facsimiles. Also, enjoy medieval-themed treats!

Center for the Study of Global Change: Take me to Germany

In this riveting exhibit, professional photographer Charlotte Schmitz will be presenting “Take me to Germany,” a series of polaroid images taken by Schmitz of refugees who took the dangerous journey from Turkey to Greece searching for a new home.  The subjects of the photos wrote messages on the photographs, becoming co-creators of the art and co-authors of the refugee narrative; a young refugee in Greece wrote, “I see only Humans, not Humanity.”  Alongside the exhibit, Rahim Alhaj, virtuoso oud musician and Iraqi-born refugee, will give an acoustic performance. These events are a culmination of the Arts & Refugees Symposium, which starts on the morning of April 6^th in the Global & International Studies Building and is free to attend.

IU Traditions Catering

• • Pork Belly Steam Buns - $3
    • with Gunthorp Farms Pork, Cucumbers, & Peanuts
  • Mushroom Steam Buns - $3
    • with Spicy Bean Sprout Salad
  • Red Cooked Beef Spare Ribs - $6
    • Fisher Farms Beef
  • Mapo Tofu - $5
    • with Steamed Rice
  • Sweet Bao Dumplings - $3
    • with Five Spicy Pastry Cream
  • Drinks - $1C

    • Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite, & Bottled Water

RPS Dining

• • Steamed Vegetable Dumplings - $2
    • with Sauce
  • Steamed Chicken Dumplings - $2
    • with Sauce
  • Sweet-n-Sour Balls - $2
    • served over Rice
  • General Tso Chicken - $4
    • with Rice
  • Sesame Chicken - $4
    • with Rice
  • **All food served with a fortune cookie
  • Soda & Water - $1