Wall Street rebounds on Bernanke comments, data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rebounded from their worst decline since November on Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus and sales of new homes hit a 4 1/2-year high.


The S&P 500 had climbed 6 percent for the year and came within reach of all-time highs before the minutes from the Fed's January meeting were released last Wednesday. Since then, the benchmark S&P 500 has fallen 1 percent.


Bernanke, in testimony on Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee, strongly defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus program and quieted rumblings that the central bank may pull back from its stimulative policy measures, which were sparked by the release of the Fed minutes last week.


Bernanke's comments helped ease investors' concerns about a stalemate in Italy after a general election failed to give any party a parliamentary majority, posing the threat of prolonged instability and financial crisis in Europe, and sending the S&P 500 to its worst decline since November 7 in Monday's session.


Bernanke "certainly said everything the market needed to feel in order to get comfortable again," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.


"The fear is we were going to see a rollover, and the first shot over the bow was what we saw out of Italy yesterday with the elections," Kenny said. "When it came to U.S. markets, we saw some of that bleeding stop because our focus shifted from the Italian political circus to Ben Bernanke."


Gains in homebuilders and other consumer stocks, following strong economic data, lifted the S&P 500, and a 5.7 percent jump in Home Depot to $67.56 boosted the Dow industrials. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> rose 3.2 percent.


Economic reports that showed strength in housing and consumer confidence also supported stocks. U.S. home prices rose more than expected in December, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. Consumer confidence rebounded in February, jumping more than expected, and new-home sales rose to their highest in 4-1/2 years in January.


However, the central bank chairman also urged lawmakers to avoid sharp spending cuts set to go into effect on Friday, which he warned could combine with earlier tax increases to create a "significant headwind" for the economic recovery.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 115.96 points, or 0.84 percent, to 13,900.13 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 9.09 points, or 0.61 percent, to 1,496.94. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 13.40 points, or 0.43 percent, to close at 3,129.65.


Despite the bounce, the S&P 500 was unable to move back above 1,500, a closely watched level that was technical support until recently, but could now serve as a resistance point.


The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> or the VIX, a barometer of investor anxiety, dropped 11.2 percent, a day after surging 34 percent, its biggest percentage jump since August 18, 2011.


The uncertainty caused by the Italian elections continued to weigh on stocks in Europe. The FTSEurofirst-300 index of top European shares <.fteu3> closed down 1.4 percent. The benchmark Italian index <.ftmib> tumbled 4.9 percent.


Home Depot gave the biggest boost to the Dow and provided one of the biggest lifts to the S&P 500 after the world's largest home improvement chain reported adjusted earnings and sales that beat expectations.


Macy's shares gained 2.8 percent to $39.59 after the department-store chain stated it expects full-year earnings to be above analysts' forecasts because of strong holiday sales.


Volume was active with about 7.08 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq, above the daily average of 6.48 billion.


Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a ratio of about 2 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, three stocks rose for every two that fell.


(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal; Editing by Jan Paschal)



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India Ink: 2 Countries, 2 Struggles for Justice







BEIJING — China and India are regularly compared — as Asian giants with well over a billion people each, as fast-developing countries with high economic growth. What about in terms of rape?




In both countries recently, highly publicized gang rapes have dramatically raised public awareness of a hidden problem. Of course, rape is to some extent a hidden issue everywhere, even in societies with efficient legal systems and liberal attitudes toward women. But in China and India, as in other places where traditional notions may judge a raped woman as “ruined,” there are especially powerful disincentives to reporting the crime, experts say.


Here are the painful stories. On Dec. 16, a 23-year-old student was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi, the Indian capital, dying of her injuries two weeks later.


In China last week, the 17-year-old son of a popular singer and general in the People’s Liberation Army was detained with four others in Beijing on allegations of gang-raping a woman, according to widespread reports carried by Xinhua, the state news agency, and other official media like Beijing News.


The son, Li Tianyi, also known as Li Guanfeng, had been in the news in 2011 after a violent altercation on a Beijing street landed him in a correctional facility for a year. (The South China Morning Post, based in Hong Kong, reported that his parents changed his name to Guanfeng after that case.) The five suspects were taken into custody in the early hours of Feb. 21 and are now in investigative detention in connection with the alleged rape, which was said to have taken place Feb. 17, according to the China News Service. The evening of the alleged attack they had been drinking alcohol and celebrating the birthday of one of the members of the group, the China News Service said, quoting “police officers familiar with the case.” Mr. Li, a friend identified only as “Wei” and the three others used threats and violence to drag the woman from the bar to the Hubei Hotel, where she was raped, the China News Service said.


These are the individual, tragic tales. But how widespread are such crimes in the two countries? No one really knows, since the figures are highly unreliable, experts say.


In China, according to Zhang Rongli, a professor of law at China Women’s University, citing statistics from the Ministry of Public Security, there were 24,495 “solved” rape cases in 2008. In 2009, the number rose slightly to 26,404, she said.


“Rape is a common crime,” Ms. Zhang said. “But the rate is pretty much the same every year in China, without clear increases or decreases,” she said, making her suspicious of the numbers.


Few believe that’s the full extent of it, but the Chinese conviction figure is apparently higher than India’s. Women in China also experience far less sexual harassment in public, or “Eve teasing,” as it’s known in India.


Privately, researchers confide they have no idea what the real number of rapes is. Some estimate that less than one in 10 cases is reported. That might make at least a quarter of a million a year in China, but probably far more. In the United States, with less than a quarter of China’s population, Census Bureau figures show a fairly consistent rate of “forcible rape” (excluding statutory rape) of just over 80,000 a year over the last decade.


“With this crime there’s a problem of hidden figures, because some people aren’t willing to report it and bring a case. So it’s very hard for the state to bring swift cases,” said Ms. Zhang.


If a case is brought to court swiftly, if there is proof of an attack (like evidence of resistance), if there are “not too many conflicts of interest between the two parties,” she said, Chinese justice can move quickly. “Such cases can be pretty smooth and the outcome quite fast and the result quite sincere,” she said. However, she and other feminists warn that these conditions are frequently not met.


What of India?


Here, too, the data are problematic. The National Crime Records Bureau indicated that 22,172 women reported rape in 2010, according to a report on the Web site of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.


A leading newspaper, The Hindu, put the figure slightly lower, at 20,262, noting that the number of rape reports was rising but the number of convictions declining.


Either way, the statistics are considered neither reliable nor up to date, according to the report on the U.N.H.C.R. site, by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. Figures from India’s individual states were “factually and alarmingly incorrect,” the report said, citing a program officer at the Asian Human Rights Commission, a nongovernmental organization based in Hong Kong.


The same issues pertain in both of Asia’s giants. Shame. Ruined reputations. Threats by the rapists, who may be power holders, against the victims.


But major cases can change social attitudes. India has been shaken by the horrific crime in December. In China, there is a high level of interest in the case involving the singing general’s son.


This week, Mr. Li’s name was a top trending topic on Sina Weibo, the country’s leading microblog site, used by millions of people. But many comments focused less on the alleged crime than on his status as a “second-generation star,” the offspring of prominent and wealthy parents in the entertainment industry, and speculated whether the victim would strike a deal in return for hefty financial compensation.


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The Bachelor's Sean Lowe Reveals Final Two






The Bachelor










02/25/2013 at 10:30 PM EST







From left: AshLee, Lindsay and Catherine


Kevin Foley/ABC(3)


And then there were two.

After three incredible dates in Thailand with the remaining women, The Bachelor's Sean Lowe faced a difficult decision at the end of Monday's episode: Would he send home AshLee, Catherine or Lindsay?

Keep reading to find out who got a rose – and who was left heartbroken ...

Sean said goodbye to early favorite AshLee in a surprising elimination that left her virtually speechless.

Visibly upset, AshLee left Sean's side without saying goodbye. She even asked him to not walk her to the waiting car that would take her away.

But Sean did get to explain. "I thought it was you from the very beginning," he said. "This was honestly the hardest decision I've ever had to make ... I think the world of you. I did not want to hurt you."

"This wasn't a silly game for me," AshLee said as the car drove away. "This wasn't about a joy ride. It wasn't about laughing and joking and having fun."

She added: "It's hard to say goodbye to Sean because I let him in ... It's the ultimate [rejection]."

Check back Tuesday morning for Sean Lowe's blog post to read all about his Thailand dates and why he chose to send AshLee home

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Koop, who transformed surgeon general post, dies


With his striking beard and starched uniform, former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop became one of the most recognizable figures of the Reagan era — and one of the most unexpectedly enduring.


His nomination in 1981 met a wall of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians, who complained President Ronald Reagan selected Koop, a pediatric surgeon and evangelical Christian from Philadelphia, only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.


Soon, though, he was a hero to AIDS activists, who chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances but booed other officials. And when he left his post in 1989, he left behind a landscape where AIDS was a top research and educational priority, smoking was considered a public health hazard, and access to abortion remained largely intact.


Koop, who turned his once-obscure post into a bully pulpit for seven years during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and who surprised both ends of the political spectrum by setting aside his conservative personal views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion to keep his focus sharply medical, died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H. He was 96.


An assistant at Koop's Dartmouth College institute, Susan Wills, confirmed his death but didn't disclose its cause.


Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general a decade ago under President George W. Bush, said Koop was a mentor to him and preached the importance of staying true to the science even if it made politicians uncomfortable.


"He set the bar high for all who followed in his footsteps," Carmona said.


Although the surgeon general has no real authority to set government policy, Koop described himself as "the health conscience of the country" and said modestly just before leaving his post that "my only influence was through moral suasion."


A former pipe smoker, Koop carried out a crusade to end smoking in the United States; his goal had been to do so by 2000. He said cigarettes were as addictive as heroin and cocaine. And he shocked his conservative supporters when he endorsed condoms and sex education to stop the spread of AIDS.


Chris Collins, a vice president of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, said many people don't realize what an important role Koop played in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.


"At the time, he really changed the national conversation, and he showed real courage in pursuing the duties of his job," Collins said.


Even after leaving office, Koop continued to promote public health causes, from preventing childhood accidents to better training for doctors.


"I will use the written word, the spoken word and whatever I can in the electronic media to deliver health messages to this country as long as people will listen," he promised.


In 1996, he rapped Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole for suggesting that tobacco was not invariably addictive, saying Dole's comments "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his blind support of the tobacco industry."


Although Koop eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy, his nomination met staunch opposition.


Foes noted that Koop traveled the country in 1979 and 1980 giving speeches that predicted a progression "from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen."


But Koop, a devout Presbyterian, was confirmed after he told a Senate panel he would not use the surgeon general's post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word.


In 1986, he issued a frank report on AIDS, urging the use of condoms for "safe sex" and advocating sex education as early as third grade.


He also maneuvered around uncooperative Reagan administration officials in 1988 to send an educational AIDS pamphlet to more than 100 million U.S. households, the largest public health mailing ever.


Koop personally opposed homosexuality and believed sex should be saved for marriage. But he insisted that Americans, especially young people, must not die because they were deprived of explicit information about how HIV was transmitted.


Koop further angered conservatives by refusing to issue a report requested by the Reagan White House, saying he could not find enough scientific evidence to determine whether abortion has harmful psychological effects on women.


Koop maintained his personal opposition to abortion, however. After he left office, he told medical students it violated their Hippocratic oath. In 2009, he wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging that health care legislation include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students would not be forced to perform abortions. The letter briefly set off a security scare because it was hand delivered.


Koop served as chairman of the National Safe Kids Campaign and as an adviser to President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan.


At a congressional hearing in 2007, Koop spoke about political pressure on the surgeon general post. He said Reagan was pressed to fire him every day, but Reagan would not interfere.


Koop, worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, opened his institute at Dartmouth to teach medical students basic values and ethics. He also was a part-owner of a short-lived venture, drkoop.com, to provide consumer health care information via the Internet.


Koop was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only son of a Manhattan banker and the nephew of a doctor. He said by age 5 he knew he wanted to be a surgeon and at age 13 he practiced his skills on neighborhood cats.


He attended Dartmouth, where he received the nickname Chick, short for "chicken Koop." It stuck for life.


Koop received his medical degree at Cornell Medical College, choosing pediatric surgery because so few surgeons practiced it.


In 1938, he married Elizabeth Flanagan, the daughter of a Connecticut doctor. They had four children, one of whom died in a mountain climbing accident when he was 20.


Koop was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.


He pioneered surgery on newborns and successfully separated three sets of conjoined twins. He won national acclaim by reconstructing the chest of a baby born with the heart outside the body.


Although raised as a Baptist, he was drawn to a Presbyterian church near the hospital, where he developed an abiding faith. He began praying at the bedside of his young patients — ignoring the snickers of some of his colleagues.


Koop's wife died in 2007, and he married Cora Hogue in 2010.


He was by far the best-known surgeon general and for decades afterward was still a recognized personality.


"I was walking down the street with him one time" about five years ago, recalled Dr. George Wohlreich, director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a medical society with which Koop had longstanding ties. "People were yelling out, 'There goes Dr. Koop!' You'd have thought he was a rock star."


___


Ring reported from Montpelier, Vt. Cass reported from Washington. AP Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.


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Asian shares decline on deadlocked Italy election

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares took their lead from overnight plunges in global equities to fall on Tuesday as an apparently inconclusive election outcome in Italy raised fears of a resurgent euro zone debt crisis.


Italy's centre-left coalition will win a majority in the lower house of parliament but the upper house will be deadlocked, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday after almost all votes were counted. No party or coalition won a majority of seats in the Senate, which a government would need to pass legislation.


A split parliament in the euro zone's third-largest economy is seen as likely to paralyze any new government and potentially reignite the euro-zone debt crisis.


"There's a possibility that the Italians might be heading back to the polls. In the short term, investors and traders don't like the uncertainty," said Ben Le Brun, market analyst at OptionsXpress in Sydney.


The yen and the euro stabilized while London copper and gold gained, and Asia's overall equities losses were limited compared to their global peers, such as U.S. benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> which suffered its worst one-day percentage decline since November 7 with a 1.8 percent tumble on Monday.


The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> fell 0.5 percent. Australian shares <.axjo> fell 0.7 percent, South Korean shares <.ks11> eased 0.4 percent while the Philippines stock market <.psi> plunged 1.2 percent after a record finish on Monday.


"There's an argument going on among traders at the moment. Was the Italian election result a cause or an excuse for something the market wanted to do? Because the market has run so hard we were due for a pull-back," said Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets. Australian shares last week scaled a 4-1/2-year high.


The yen resumed its retreat after firming sharply on Monday when nervousness about Italy exposed the yen to sharp reversals from its recent steep losses on bets of aggressive reflationary monetary policy in Japan.


The yen traded down 0.6 percent against the dollar at 92.35 after gaining 2 percent to a three-week high of 90.85 on Monday from its intraday low of 94.77 touched earlier in the day, its lowest since May 2010. The yen was also down 0.5 percent against the euro to 120.87 after jumping more than 3 percent to 118.74 on Monday from its day's low of 125.36.


Traders said the plunge in the dollar and the euro against the Japanese currency has provided fresh opportunities to buy these currencies against the yen, with many market players still seeing a weak yen trend continuing.


But the euro's rebound was limited, putting the single currency near its more than six-week low of $1.3047 hit on Monday on jitters about political gridlock in Italy hampering the country's efforts to reform and slash its debts.


"Uncertainty over the Italian election outcome and its impact will certainty keep the euro under strong pressure for some time," said Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo.


"A safety net has been provided over the past year in the euro zone and given the size of Italy's economy, I doubt that the situation will turn into a disaster, but we need to carefully monitor developments. It revives memories of risks in the euro zone," Saito added.


The focus will now be on an Italian treasury bill auction on Tuesday when borrowing costs could rise, given the Senate election result.


The yen's overnight appreciation hit Japan's Nikkei stock average, with the index <.n225> declining 1.4 percent after closing at a 53-month high the day before. <.t/>


Investors also await testimony later in the day from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for further clues of when the Fed intends to slow down or stop its bond-buying program.


Financial markets were rattled last week by minutes of the Fed's January meeting showing some Fed officials were mulling scaling back its strong monetary stimulus earlier than expected.


"Bernanke's testimony will likely drive global market sentiment tonight, as markets wait for clues on the Fed's exit strategy for its bond-buying stimulus program. Our house view is that Bernanke will remain dovish," ANZ said in a note.


Ahead of Bernanke's appearance, Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said on Monday that U.S. economic growth could surpass expectations this year, but an anemic labor market requires ongoing support from monetary policy.


The United States also faces downside risks to its economy if $85 billion in government-wide "sequestration" spending cuts go ahead on March 1.


U.S. crude slid 0.6 percent to $92.54 a barrel and Brent fell 0.5 percent to $113.86.


Spot gold inched up 0.2 percent to $1,596.56 an ounce.


(Additional reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr in Singapore and Thuy Ong in Sydney; Editing by Eric Meijer)



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India Ink: Universities UK Welcomes Indian Partnerships







British-Indian partnerships formed on Cameron’s visit




Universities UK, an advocacy group that represents the interests of British academic institutions, has backed the education partnerships announced by Prime Minister David Cameron during a British trade mission to India last week, when representatives from both countries’ education sectors met.


“We are delighted that the prime minister articulated so clearly that there is no limit on the number of Indian students wishing to study in the U.K. and that there are work opportunities following graduation,” Joanna Newman, a Universities UK representative, wrote in an e-mail from the sidelines of the government trip to India. “It is very important to the sector to welcome international students.”


Britain’s student immigrant policy has been criticized as being too stringent, especially after one university lost its right to host non-E.U. students.


Dr. Newman said that one main initiative involved the use of British MOOCs, or massive open online courses, as well as free content provided by British universities and the British Library.


According to a British government statement, new agreements include a training program by the British Council, which is forecast to produce 1.5 million teachers in India by 2017; scholarships by the London School of Economics for postgraduate Indian students; and a partnership between Cambridge and the Indian government to establish a Center for Chemical Biology and Therapeutics.


— JOYCE LAU AND CALVIN YANG


Anti-fascism group defends demonstration at Cambridge


Unite Against Fascism, an activist group, is standing by its decision to organize a demonstration against the French politician Marine Le Pen at the University of Cambridge last week.


“We do not think that prestigious universities like Cambridge should give publicity to fascists, especially at a time when there is an economic crisis in Europe,” Sabby Dhalu, the group’s joint secretary, said by telephone. “We called a protest because we did not agree with the decision to invite her to give a speech.”


Ms. Le Pen, who took over leadership of the French far-right National Front from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was invited by the Cambridge Union Society to speak last Tuesday. Her appearance drew about 200 protesters, the British news media reported.


The Union Society has courted controversy in the past. An appearance last year by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund chief accused of sexual misconduct, drew protests. A planned talk last year by the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange drew criticism and was ultimately canceled for what the Union called technical reasons.


— CALVIN YANG


Vigil for rape victims held at University of Cape Town


As the case of the athlete Oscar Pistorius continues to captivate South Africa, thousands of students, staff members and faculty demonstrated at the University of Cape Town last week against violence against women.


According to a university statement, the protest, followed by a nighttime vigil, was in response to two recent cases in which rape victims died of their injuries in Cape Town. According to local news reports, Anene Booysen, 17, was found disemboweled on Feb. 2 and died the same day; on Feb. 9, Ge-Audrey Green, 19, was found dead in her home.


“We want to say directly to those in authority that we feel you are failing us,” Max Price, the vice chancellor, said to protesters, according to a statement.


— JOYCE LAU


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Tegra 4 performance crushes current-gen processors







NVIDIA’s (NVDA) next-generation processors won’t be available in devices until later this year, however early benchmarks have revealed that the new chipset will be worth the wait. Engadget ran a variety of benchmark tests on one of the company’s Tegra 4 reference tablets and was left with scores that in some cases nearly quadrupled the performance of older Tegra 3 devices.


[More from BGR: Samsung is just trolling us now, and it’s not alone]






 Tegra 4 performance crushes current gen processors


[More from BGR: Another major security flaw discovered on iPhone [video]]


Tegra 4 Quadrant scores topped out at 16,436 and AnTuTu benchmarks reached over 36,000, both of which more than tripled the performance from comparable Tegra 3 tablets. Perhaps the most impressive result was the 499ms score from the SunSpider test. The Tegra 4 benchmark, which measures web browsing performance, nearly halved Apple’s iPad 4 score of 865ms.


NVIDIA and its partners are scheduled to debut Tegra 4 in smartphones, tablets and the company’s Project Shield gaming device in July.


This article was originally published on BGR.com


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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All the Details on Michelle Obama's Oscar Look







Style News Now





02/25/2013 at 12:50 AM ET











Michelle Obama Oscars Gown
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters/Landov


She was one of the few Oscars guests who didn’t sing a tune, dance a few steps or clutch a trophy, but Michelle Obama‘s surprise appearance during Sunday night’s awards show was still one of the most talked-about moments of the broadcast.


The First Lady appeared via video to announce the Best Picture Oscar, looking like she belonged on the Oscars’ Best Dressed List in a glittering custom smoke gray Naeem Khan gown and Sutra Silver at Fragments jewelry. She wore her bangs straight down but pulled the rest of her hair back into a low bun.


Though it would have made our night if she had gotten dressed to the nines just to present the award from the White House, Obama actually was taking a quick break from hosting the Governors Dinner — so no word on what she thought of the Les Misérables performance or Seth MacFarlane’s hosting job.


Tell us: Were you surprised to see Michelle Obama? What did you think of her outfit?


–Alex Apatoff


PHOTOS: SEE MORE FABULOUS OSCAR STYLE HERE!




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India Ink: Forces of Creation Moving in Unison





Presenting non-Western dances to Western audiences can be a difficult business. If an artist adjusts too much, a deep tradition can flatten into pandering tourist fare. If an artist adjusts too little, fidelity can get in the way of communication; a living art form can come across as a relic.







Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

Bijayini Satpathy, left, and Pavithra Reddy of the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble in “Alap.”












A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.





The Indian choreographer Surupa Sen negotiates the balance with grace. The sinuous, asymmetrical poses of her Odissi tradition, looking at once immovable and full of motion, disguise complex negotiations with gravity as mere embellishments of line. Similarly, Ms. Sen’s choreography elaborates on classical Odissi style while seeming merely to clarify it.


For 20 years Ms. Sen has worked closely with the dancer Bijayini Satpathy. For 20 years, in fact, the two women have lived in the same village in Southern India, Nrityagram, which is devoted to dance. The concert of duets and solos they’re bringing to the Skirball Center (April 6 to 7) is titled “Samyoga,” which in Sanskrit means “union” or “the conjunction of heavenly bodies.” That’s a fair description of Ms. Sen and Ms. Satpathy dancing together.


There’s a philosophical idea behind the work — the interaction between male and female principles in creation — but it can be appreciated on purely aesthetic and theatrical grounds. The women dance both male and female roles. Suggestions of demons and giant birds blend into abstract shapes, patterns and rhythms. A love spat between gods is presented as human comedy, in motion touched by the divine. And, as at all events presented by the World Music Institute, the live music should be at least as distinguished as the dancing.


Souleymane Badolo takes on the translation challenge from a different angle. Born in Burkina Faso, he started his dancing career there, in a traditional African troupe. Since 1993 he has been experimenting with Western contemporary dance, performing in Africa and Europe, but the first work he presented in New York, after he moved there in 2009, still looked pretty foreign. Telling his story in a mixture of French and his native language, Gurunsi, Mr. Badolo enacted a private ritual, slapping his flesh and clicking his tongue.


Since then it’s been fascinating to watch him adapt to his new home. Working with Reggie Wilson, a New York postmodern choreographer well versed in African dance, Mr. Badolo has become more postmodern and more New York. For his performances at New York Live Arts (April 25 to 27) he’s looking again at legacy, the line from his great-great-grandfather to his son. He’s also creating a piece based on a Gurunsi divination method involving the scattering of cowrie seeds.


Is that so different from Merce Cunningham’s chance practices? Is there such a great distance between Africa and downtown New York?


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