Woodstock comes to OUS campus

Published 11:05 am Monday, April 7, 2014

Some things have had such an impact on society they fall into a category of being instantly recognizable by one name — Watergate, the Depression and Madonna are a few — and then there’s Woodstock.

The event was touted as “3 Days of Peace and Music” and took place in a field in New York on Aug. 15-18 1969. Ohio University Southern associate professor of sociology Dr. Charles Jarrett was there and a picture of him in the crowd was published in the August 1969 edition of Life magazine.

Now 45 years later Jarret will relive the Woodstock experience in the Riffe Center Mains Rotunda at OUS when he and the school’s fine arts majors re-enact the famous festival at noon and 6 p.m. Wednesday as the fourth program in the OUS Kennedy series.

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“It is open to the public and will be a fun and musical event,” Jarrett said.

The Kennedy brochure describes the show as an “innovative program” that “captures the spirit of the anti-establishment movement of the 1960s through the music of Woodstock.”

Jarrett, Phil Osborne, Catherine Cirner, Barry Gillum and selected undergraduates explore the collective angst of the times through critical dialogue and performing some of the songs associated with the iconic festival.

Jarrett challenges popular misconceptions through dialogue with the audience. Undergraduates Michelle Dotts, Alan Brown and Dave Wertz will lead an open microphone “jam session” before the band Woodstock performs selected songs from the festival.

The Woodstock band is Osborne (guitar), Barry Gillum (bass and keyboards), Jarrett (drums) and Cirner (lead vocals and guitar).

Open microphone is 6-8 p.m. and Woodstock begins at 8:30 and plays until 9:30 p.m.

For more information contact Dotts at md175310@ohio.edu.