Need inspiration to participate in getDowntown's Commuter Challenge beginning May 1? May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Awareness Month. It's also National Bike Month and May 18 is Bike to Work Day. Get ready by reading The Bicycle Commuting Book or any of our many books on bicycle maintenance and repair, such as last year's Bicycle! A Repair and Maintenance Manifesto. For additional inspiration, watch The Bicycle Corps: America's Black Army on Wheels, Breaking Away or Curious George Rides a Bike.

The urgent humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s western region of Darfur is the subject of a photo exhibit opening Friday at AADL’s Mallet’s Creek branch. Sponsored by a number of church and temple groups, the exhibit showcases the photographs of native Michigander Ryan Spencer Reed and is called Hands of a Displaced Sudan: The Cost of Silence. The grand opening of the exhibit is scheduled for 6-8 p.m. Friday, May 4, when people will be able to meet the photographer and view the photographs he shot and smuggled out of Darfur. At AADL there are a number of good books about the Darfur crisis, including the new book The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing witness to the genocide in Darfur by Brian Steidle.

The Play Ground

"It's an Art Thing": Performance Network Children's Theater Network.The local modern dance company People Dancing performs a trio of original dances for kids in kindergarten through 5th grade. Caps is a modern dance based on Esphyr Slobodkina's classic tale Caps for Sale, an absurd and simple story about a peddler who walks around selling caps from a tall pile on his head.

A Better View is a dance drama exploring an Asian aesthetic that's set to the text of Arthur Lobel's children's book Ming Lo Moves the Mountain about a wise man who tells Ming Lo how to move the mountain away from his house.

Madcap Masks celebrates the relationships between music, dance, and visual art. Performance Network, Saturday, April 28, 11:00 am, 63-0681.

Try contact improvisation dance and move where the groove takes you. On Saturday May 5th and Sunday May 6th local contact improv teacher, Stefanie Cohen will host a visit by Kathleen Maltese, a Chicago-based dancer, teacher and co-founder of the Chicago Contact Improvisation Group, for a special series of classes where students will explore the practice of falling and jamming. The event will also include dancers from throughout the Great Lakes region, an open dance for all, food, and live music by Detroit band Immigrant Suns. For more information, check out the Ann Arbor/Detroit Contact Improvisation website. If you want to read more about contact improv, check out:

Dances That Describe Themselves: The Improvised Choreography of Richard Bull
Choreography: A Basic Approach Using Improvisation
The Moment of Movement: Dance Improvisation
Speaking of Dance: Twelve Contemporary Choreographers on Their Craft

Family

The Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County is offering a 2-part workshop on Sunday, April 22 on choosing and utilizing genealogy software to document and create your family history. A number of software packages will be profiled (including 'The Family Tree Maker', 'GenBox', 'Legacy', 'The Master Genealogist' and 'Reunion'). Attendees will be able to try out the programs and obtain assistance from Society members. The workshop is free to anyone interested. It will be held at the Education Center Auditorium, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Campus, 5305 Elliott Drive, at 1:30 p.m.

The Play Ground

Getting good reviews out in Chelsea at the Purple Rose Theatre company is When The Lights Come On by former football coach Brian Letscher. Letscher played football for the University of Michigan and was the wide receiver coach and recruiting coordinator at Eastern Michigan University in the late '90s. The play explores the high-stress coaching world and the things these driven men do to the women in their lives. Apparently, some high powered coaches feel closer to their staff than they do to their families. The play is also able to impart the thrill of the locker room and the tensions at home. For mature audiences. Through June 2. Box Office: (734) 433-ROSE (7673) for reservations.

Lyle Gomes

Imagining Eden: Connecting Landscapes, an exhibition by photographer Lyle Gomes is on view at the University of Michigan Museum of Art Off/Site (through June 3, 2007)

Created over a sixteen-year period, this project represents a long-term study of “idealized human-made landscapes of parks, golf courses, gardens, and garden cemeteries (and) explore the enduring human impulse to shape the landscape and to strive for a harmonious balance between humankind and nature.”

Many of the images in this exhibition reflect Gomes’ personal journey and professional development. His Fulbright Scholar Award allowed him to spend time in Britain and a Rockefeller Foundation residency took him to Bellagio, Italy. He continues to reside in the San Francisco Bay Area and heads the Photography program at College of San Mateo. He is represented locally by the Halsted Gallery.

the Play Ground

Just say the word "Tommy" and the beginning of the famous lyrics pop into our head and stay there for a very long time: Tommy Can You Hear Me? Can you feel me near you?. And we have never even seen the play. Well, now we have our chance to watch the story that follows the life of Tommy Walker and his dysfunctional family in post-WW II England. Originally brought to Broadway in 1993 the play won a record breaking eleven Tony Award nominations and won five. Power Center through April 15. 764-2538

Feeling a tad peckish? The Arbor Brewing Company’s upcoming British Beer Tasting is sure to satisfy your rumblings and grumblings. The tasting will cover a variety of British brews, from India Pale Ales to Bitters. Those inclined to do a little pre-game research will certainly appreciate the library’s selection of books about beer, most notably those by the other Michael Jackson.

The Play Ground

The Reverend James Morell's joy in his comfortable marriage to Candida is shaken by the arrival of the young poet, Marchbanks. Both men adore her and she is attracted to them for their very different qualities. They both forget she is her own woman. In "Candida,'' first produced in England in 1898, George Bernard Shaw turns his eye on marriage and how and why successful unions become and stay that way. Through April 15 at the Performance Network, 663-0681.