"In Madison, once again, we live in interesting times." Thus begins David Maraniss' keynote, "Into Sunlight: The Connections of War and Peace from Vietnam to Afghanistan, from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama, from a Book to a Dance." Scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday at Wisconsin Union Theater, the Pulitzer laureate's address provides context for this weekend's Sunlight Project & Symposium.
Interesting times indeed. Running March 24-26 as a cornerstone for the UW's Year of the Arts, the UW-Madison Arts Institute's collaboration with the dance department reflects on the Vietnam War from a contemporary perspective. The symposium employs the arts and panel discussions and involves veterans, students, faculty and alumni (see "Anyone who goes to see Robin Becker's dance will be completely moved by it," says Maraniss, associate editor for The Washington Post. "It's extraordinary and very powerful." He expects it to resonate all the more here in light of the recent pro-labor uprising. "It's a totally different context," he allows, "but in some ways it's the same." Observing these recent events from afar, Maraniss says, he has felt a sense of pride in his hometown. "I think it's a good place for it," he explains, citing Wisconsin's "divergent polarities. I mean, it produced Joe McCarthy and Russ Feingold and Gaylord Nelson and now Scott Walker." As someone whose oeuvre includes a tome on the "Republican revolution" of 1994, Maraniss observes, "It seems like almost every time they get this kind of power, they do overplay their hand and it rebounds against them, and I think that's what will happen in Wisconsin." Maraniss intends to focus his keynote on the stories and themes conveyed through Becker's dance. He has seen it twice, while it was still being workshopped at New York City's 92nd Street YMCA, where he was part of an audience of a few hundred for each performance. "It has the capacity," he observes, "to evoke pretty strong feelings and memories."
