Pot 101; Ichiro Matsuo; 2010; Ceramic.

Now through May, the Penn Museum will present The Goodlands: Young Photographers Inspiring Hope in North Philadelphia, a selection of more than 40 color photographs of people and places in the community, including the one above, taken between 2000 and 2009 by neighborhood children aged 5 to 13. The photography exhibition, on view in the Museum’s Kress gallery, challenges stereotypes and negative biases by highlighting hopeful images in the local community.

In Citizen’s Garb: Southern Plains Native Americans, 1889–1891, a photographic exhibition on view at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology now through June 20, explores the ways dress—and life—changed for the Kiowa, Comanche, and other Native American nations of the Southern Plains during the last tumultuous decades of the 1800s. Plains Indian clothing from the period, selected from the Museum’s own collection, complements the photographs.

Above: Chief Quanah Parker, citizen’s garb, modern gelatin silver print from original glass plate negative, ca 1888-1891; courtesy Joe Swalwell.

Righteous Dopefiend: An Anthropological Installation on Homelessness, Addiction and Poverty in Urban America, December 5 through May 2010 at the Penn Museum. © Jeff Schonberg 2009

Lenape Meesing Candle holder made of metal and paint. Each year, the Lenape of Pennsylvania honor Meesing, the protector of the woodlands, with a fall Meesing ceremony. At the ceremony, a member of the Medicine Society, a group of men responsible for organizing and performing the Meesing ceremony, represents Meesing as a dancer. The Meesing dancer prepares for his task during the year preceding the ceremony by meditating on Meesing and making objects with Meesing’s image, which are given to the Medicine Society.  

A Lenape fan made of beads, deerskin and feathers rests in the hands of Shelley DePaul, director of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania and co-curator of Penn Museum’s new exhibition, Fulfilling a Prophecy: the Past and Present of the Lenape in Pennsylvania.

Photos: Lauren Hansen-Flaschen.

Above: From the 1950s What In The World television show, Carleton Coon, Loren Eiseley, and Schuyler Cammann study an object, while Alfred Kidder II moderates. A cameraman is in right foreground. Photographed at WCAU TV Studios, ca. 1955. Photo courtesy of the Penn Museum.

Gold bull amulet (Height: 1.5 cm; Width: 1.5 cm) originally part of a necklace of gold. The bearded bull, considered divine in early Mesopotamia, is made of a thin sheet of gold wrapped over a bitumen core. Found loose in the soil at the Royal Cemetery, ca 2550 BCE.

April 27-May 1.

Omaha Theatre Company performs The Little Engine That Could at the Zellerbach Theatre, Annenberg Center, throughout the festival, for ages 4 and up.

Rasta Thomas’ Bad Boys of Dance come to the Zellerbach Theatre, Annenberg Center, April 15-17. Recommended for mature audiences, these versatile male dancers do anything and everything, fusing hip-hop, capoeira, jazz and contemporary ballet into one performance.

The Acting Company & The Guthrie Theater; Romeo and Juliet; April 20-24, 2010