Norfolk will join other cities around the world Thursday in its second annual “Night of Ideas 2021” with virtual discussions based on the theme of “physical distance, spiritual closeness.”
Peter Schulman, professor of French and International Studies at Old Dominion University, helped bring the program to Norfolk last year with an all-night learn-a-thon that attracted more than 1,000 people to the Slover Library. People mingled and sat in on free one-act plays, food talks and yoga classes from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. at last January’s event.
The Institut Francais in Paris organizes the marathons, and Schulman assumed that this year’s program would go on hiatus because of the global pandemic. He then learned that organizers in areas such as San Francisco, Madrid, New York and Fiji were planning shortened virtual sessions.
In December, he happened to organize an online poetry reading with people in Montreal and Kolkata, India, “and, for a few hours, I felt like I’d traveled.”
He wanted an event that could evoke a similar experience. Thursday’s free, three-hour program begins at 7 p.m. and includes speakers and topics that will look at how people can remain connected while physically separated. For example, Montreal-based playwright Marie Ayotte will talk about how she had to rethink theater and audience participation after COVID-19 restrictions closed venues in Canada last year. She created two pieces, one an online participatory play.
Norfolk’s program will end in Japan with Buddhist prayers and a small concert from a temple in Tokyo. Last year’s international events ran over nine days but Thursday’s will be a 24-hour digital experience on various social media and online platforms. ODU’s event can be accessed via Zoom and online stream.
Schulman said people could literally spend the day bouncing around the globe and learning.
“That’s the beauty of the virtual,” Schulman said. “You’re in Norfolk but you’re also everywhere.”
Schedule:
7:10 p.m. – 7:40 p.m. “Treasuring the Local Before It Disappears,” Robin Paez, director of the documentary “I Found it at the Video Store” on Norfolk’s Naro Expanded Video store, which closed in 2019.
7:40 p.m. – 8:10 p.m. “Inventive and Healing Theater in the Time of a Pandemic,” Marie Ayotte, artistic director of Le Théâtre Déchainés in Montreal and author/director of the recent “Planetarium 2.0” and “Tantôt demain peut-être.”
8:10 p.m. – 8:40 p.m. “Looking at the Stars, Looking Within: The Effect of ‘Awe’ on People’s Behaviors and Convictions;” Justin Mason, director of the Pretlow Planetarium, ODU.
8:40 p.m. – 9:10 p.m. “Overcoming distance in the Nunavik region of Northern Quebec.” Author and educator Juliana Lévéllé-Trudel will discuss her novel “Nirliit” and her experiences teaching in a remote Inuit village.
9:10 p.m. – 9:25 p.m. A poetry reading and discussion from India by award-winning Kolkata poet Somrita Urni Ganguly
9:25 p.m. – 9:40 p.m. Buddhist prayers and a small concert from Japan by Kossan, head priest of Hosho-ji Temple.
Conclusion by Peter Schulman
Denise M. Watson, 757-446-2504, denise.watson@pilotonline.com
