New York's Department of Correctional Services has canceled a prison theater performance because union workers threatened to picket. According to Adam Bosch in the Times Herald-Record (5/17/09), "A troupe of 18 convicted murderers, robbers and other felons at Woodbourne Correctional Facility had been scheduled to perform an original play Wednesday at Eastern Correctional Facility in Ellenville." The play was canceled because "relations between Albany and prison unions have turned sour since November, when the state announced it would close 12 prison farms, including three local ones, as part of budget cuts." The union found the play, "Starting Over," had "no value." "The commissioner does not want to jeopardize the program or the people in it by putting them in the middle of a statewide labor issue," said DOCS spokesman Erik Kriss. (Thanks, Arts Education Network Weekly News.) [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

A certificate program in Dialogue and Civic Engagement has been launched at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. The opening session runs September 22, 2009-January 7, 2010. Students will complete four core courses, at least two skills workshops and a practicum/field project. Courses include "Dialogue and Engagement: Principles and Concepts," "The Practice of Engagement," "Citizen Engaging Citizens: Issues and Practices" and "Public Issues and Engagement." Skills workshops include "Hosting Powerful Conversations: Introduction to World Café and Open Space Technology," "Public Learning & Feedback: Large Scale Public Involvement Methods: 21st Century Town Hall & Deliberative Polling," "Engaging 'Hard to Reach' Publics" and "Arts-Based Methods for Engagement." Details are online. Simon Fraser offers numerous opportunities and facilities for studying dialogue and engagement. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

UC San Diego students and artists are organizing the Freephone Art Project in Tijuana, Mexico, says Diane Haithman in the L.A. Times (5/21/09). They're installing a phone on an outside wall of the student-run Lui Velazquez Gallery, at the Tijuana border, to provide people who have been deported from the U.S. a chance to make one free call after they have been returned to Mexico. The artists purchased a nonworking pay-phone casing on EBay, wired it to a new $10 phone and hooked the contraption up to an adapter that will allow the phone to make Skype calls anywhere in the world over the Internet. The artists are splitting the $20-per-month cost. Says curator Micha Cardenas, a longtime border activist, "[I]t uses this strategy of building the world we want instead of asking for it." The phone goes live May 30. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

National Aboriginal Day in Canada will be celebrated at The Temagami Gathering in northeastern Ontario, June 19-21, 2009. Themed "Traditions of Storytelling: Intergenerational Sharing and Memories of The Land" the gathering is being organized by the Temagami Arts, Culture and Heritage Committee to honor the history of the area, homeland of the Anishnaabe (Ojibwe) community. The event is combined with an annual professional development, networking and showcase gathering by Community Arts Ontario, hosted each year by a different community in the province. Events include drumming and storytelling circles, Frank Goddard’s home movies of the Temagami of the 1930s-40s, a square dance, a workshop on working collaboratively with community, a school play, a Cross Cultural North/South Sharing Circle, walking tours of Bear Island, home of Debajehmujig Theater Company, and more. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Village Underground London is an example of the "creative clusters" cropping up all over Europe. This one is in some subway cars. It's a cultural space located in Shoreditch made up of a collection of ex-London Underground tube train carriages recycled into creative studios, plus the huge raw space of a restored Victorian warehouse. It supports a community of creative practitioners, businesses and organizations through not-for-profit studios. "We host a vibrant and diverse range of cultural disciplines from fashion designers and artists, to architects and film-makers, VJ’s, illustrators, graphic artists, musicians, writers," say the organizers. They hope it will "link all other cultural practitioners across European cities and beyond." The warehouse can be transformed into a multifunctional arena for a wide range of creative activity. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The National Coalition Against Censorship will launch the Free Speech Leadership Council in New York City, June 3, 2009, with "A Conversation with Toni Morrison." Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Morrison is the author of many novels, including "The Bluest Eye" and "Beloved," that are frequent targets of censorship efforts in schools around the country. In collaboration with the PEN American Center, she recently published "Burn This Book," a collection of essays on censorship and the power of the word. The Free Speech Leadership Council is a group of intellectual, cultural, legal and business leaders committed to the defense of free expression. Those who join the Council with a gift of $1,000 or more get admission to the Morrison talk and to other discussions with prominent people speaking on intellectual and artistic freedom. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

A showcase of innovative California intergenerational arts programs is featured in a National Center for Creative Aging (NCCA) symposium, June 15. Set for the Tenants and Owners Development Corporation (TODCO)-Coleman House in San Francisco, Calif., the "Creativity Matters: Civic Engagement Symposium" is sponsored by the NCCA and the MetLife Foundation. Model programs include Stagebrige (Oakland, Calif.), the nation's oldest senior theater company, which uses theater and storytelling to bridge the generation gap by breaking down stereotypes; EngAGE, which provides affordable senior apartment communities statewide that have intergenerational and artmaking programs; the Center for Elders & Youth in the Arts, a division of the Bay Area Institute on Aging, which teams youth and elders in collaborative educational arts programs; and more. Following the showcase, Susan Perlstein, founding director of Elders Share the Arts and NCCA, presents a training: "Youth and Adult Ageline Across Cultures." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

"Spire," Andy Goldsworthy's new public artwork for San Francisco's Presidio, is being celebrated with a special exhibit at the National Historic Landmark, formerly a military post. Goldworthy's towering "Spire" was created near the Arguello Gate from mature trees felled as the Presidio’s declining forest is gradually replanted. As new young trees grow up to meet the sculpture, it will eventually disappear into the forest. The accompanying exhibition, through July 19, 2009, includes preparatory drawings, the artist's color photographs of spires he has created at other sites, and a ten-foot model of the Presidio spire. Text and photographs, a program of film and video clips and maps offer contextual information about Goldsworthy, site-based art and the Presidio Trust’s reforestation efforts. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Performance artist Rhodessa Jones was among speakers at the first Theater Matters conference, designed to "create a unified vision of theater for the next generation of youth of color." Themed "Reinventing Drama Education for the Next Generation," the conference happened May 23, 2009, at the UC Berkeley Multicultural Center. "Young people of color are severely underrepresented in drama programs from the elementary school level and up," say Theater Matters organizers. They crafted the conference to "create a community of people interested in taking on this issue and making real and lasting change in the Bay Area." The conference included performances, workshops, discussion groups and speakers, including music producer Akeila "Yung16" Tolson, who has been rapping since she was ten. Theater Matters is supported by a variety of theaters across the U.S. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Portland's Sojourn Theatre has added a media component to its 2009 summer institutes for adults working in theater, education and community settings. Concurrent with its institute in "Devising Civic Theatre: Performance, Social Practice, Participation & Dialogue" with Michael Rohd, July 6-11, at Lewis & Clark College ($450), the company will offer a tuition-free Sojourn Summer Integrated Media/Design & Engagement Institute featuring designers Shannon Scrofano and Liam Kass-Lentz, July 9-13. "Part workshop, part development," says Sojourn, "the institute will tackle the conceptual and technical challenges of Sojourn's upcoming, multi-site, Web-based interactive production event, 'On the Table' (2010" The institute is available by application only, and housing is provided. E-mail: info@sojourntheatre.org. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

T. Allan Comp, founder of AMD&Art, addressing acid mine drainage, has been named a National River Hero by the River Network. Comp, who left AMD&Art in 2005, is now founding director of the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team (ACCWT) and the Western Hardrock Watershed Team (WHWT), coalitions of grassroots-level groups created to repair the environmental degradation left by historic coal mining while creating economic stability needed in rural communities.. He will be honored on May 31, 2009, at the River Network’s National River Rally in Baltimore. Comp is the first federal employee to receive the award since its inception in 2002. An employee of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Comp works through the ACCWT and the WHWT to support the efforts of small community/watershed groups in mining communities of Appalachia and the Rocky Mountains. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

More than 800 New York City students are showcasing artwork and performances around immigration and identity for the Global Youth Media & Arts Program (MAP) Festival. The festival by World Savvy is underway in the New York University Commons Gallery through June 1, 2009. A special celebration is set for May 29, featuring a keynote by artist Judith Sloan of EarSay, plus youth performances and gallery viewing with the young artists. The Immigration & Identity MAP program, says World Savvy, "helps teachers and their students examine this complex theme through workshops, field trips and work with local artists, all of which use the community as a classroom. Over four months, students create artwork and media to express their perspectives on Immigration and Identity and then showcase their work." See Dana Edell's CAN story about last year's lively festival. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Today CAN brings you "Restorative Justice and Visual Restoration in Philadelphia," a story by Robin Buseman, who directs MAP's Restorative Justice Program. Buseman, who has degrees and extensive experience in criminal justice, directs her program for the City of Philadelphia's prolific Mural Arts Program. For CAN, she writes about restorative justice, "a concept that involves the victim, the offender and the community ... as an alternative to incarceration and revenge, enabling all parties to hear each other out and attempt to understand what has happened to the community and then proceed to healing and wholeness." The current project in Buseman's program is "Visual Restoration," the heart of which is trusting offenders with "telling or portraying the stories and hopes of the community" they have offended. She describes various parts of the project: mural-painting and community oral-history training for young offenders, children's programs, mural production by prison inmates and a re-entry jobs program. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The Woods Fund of Chicago has announced the suspension of its arts and culture program because of "significant reductions" in its assets. "We believe this is a fiscally responsible and prudent decision under existing economic realities but it in no way reflects our lack of commitment to the Chicago arts community," said President Deborah Harrington. "This is sorry news indeed," responded David Feiner, director of the Albany Park Theater Project, "that a foundation dedicated to social justice has suspended its longstanding support of arts and culture programs that engage people in civic life. For me, this decision by the Woods Fund comes as a stark reminder that, even with our allies, we must diligently reiterate and sharpen our case that the arts are essential in combatting inequality. We can't afford to lose friends like the Woods Fund." (Thanks, Michael Rohd.) [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The Truth About Immigrants is a campaign underway in New York City to educate the community about the social, economic and political contributions immigrants make. The campaign was initiated in April 2009 by Art for Change, the New York Immigration Coalition and East Harlem Against Deportation to "oppose unjust and illegal deportations and detentions that are tearing local families apart." A community event, "Truth About Immigrants: Mosaic of Stories and Voices," May 22, features four documentaries about local vendors: "Esperanza del Barrio: A Snapshot," "Taxi Drivers in Washington Heights," "The Red Hook Vendors of Brooklyn" and "The Only Tibetan Street Vendor in Jackson Heights," as well as music, conversation, dancing and letter signing. Art for Change is a community-based organization in East Harlem that provides "a space to explore social issues and celebrate the richness of cultural diversity." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Artists John Stone and Lonnie Graham recently completed work on the Common Room and Community Archive for Project H.O.M.E. in North Philadelphia. The installations, open June 4, 2009, are part of Common Ground, a new permanent public artwork for the St. Elizabeth’s/Diamond Street neighborhood by The Fairmount Park Art Association and the anti-homelessness organization Project H.O.M.E. Built on the footprint of St. Elizabeth's Church, a beloved landmark destroyed by fire, Common Ground features indoor and outdoor elements supporting community meetings and celebrations. The Common Room holds a white oak table, quotes from local elders, and photographic panels and murals of community images. The Community Archive, which occupies a corner of the Common Room, is a repository for photos, videos, and oral histories collected from the neighborhood. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Vancouver's Headlines Theatre is hiring up to 20 people who "have been touched by homelessness and its connections to mental health" for a Theatre for Living workshop. The workshop will enrich "after homelessness...," a Headlines Forum Theatre production intended to provide a vehicle for diverse audiences in Metro Vancouver to help develop policy to ensure that housing is safe, appropriately supported and affordable. Deadline is September 25, 2009, to apply for the six-day workshop, October 17-22, that will gather the core material for the production. Six members of the community workshop will create the audience-interactive play with Headlines' Artistic Director David Diamond and a professional design team. All participants, including cast, will be paid. Headlines has a 27-year history of creating this kind of theater. Call (604) 871-0508. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Commentary on President Obama's nomination for chair of the NEA is starting to roll in. Don't miss Arlene Goldbard's incisive analysis in her blog post, "The Right Symbolism." Goldbard muses on Obama's choice of Broadway entrepreneur Rocco Landesman, the "colorful theatrical producer and race-track aficionado." She worries that "in choosing Landesman, President Obama has made an appointment that encompasses all that is puzzling in his own subtle ambivalence about democracy as a practice rather than a principle: an intoxication with celebrity that overwhelms his populism, a taste for the grand gesture that overwhelms his attention to its aftermath." And she offers Landesman some advice: Pay attention to "questions of cultural policy and real cultural diversity to show us all that at long last, the NEA can symbolize something fully worthy of a true democracy, the public interest in culture." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Pallazzo Strozzi, an extraordinary example of Renaissance architecture in Florence, Italy, is the site of a three-month exploration of art, ecology and sustainability called "Green Platform." The Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina is hosting Green Platform, Aptil 24-July 19, 2009, offering an exhibition, lectures, workshops and films by artists and environmentalists from all over the world. For example, Enzo Tiezzi, professor of mathematical, physical and natural sciences at Siena University, speaks about "Beauty and Sustainability," June 18. there are artist talks by Denmark's Tue Greenfort, Serbia's Nikola Uzunovski and Italy's Michelangelo Consani. Screenings include "A crude awakening. The oil crash" (Switzerland), "Garbage! The revolution starts at home" (Canada) and "One Water" (USA). Green Sunday, May 24, is a free educational activity for children, 6-12, about the practice of environmental sustainability. Green Platform is curated by Lorenzo Giusti and Valentina Gensini. (Thanks, Land Arts listserve: landarts@lyris.ttu.edu. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

If you run a media arts center and would like to hire a VISTA employee, first check out Morgan Sully's article on the NAMAC site. In "How To Pick a Good Candidate for your CTC VISTA Position," Sully, a former CTC VISTA for the National Alliance for Media Art + Culture (NAMAC), talks about what to look for if you're hiring. CTC VISTA is part of Americorps and the acronym stands for Community Technology Centers Volunteers in Service to America, an anti-poverty program that supplies fresh college grads to media organizations at a truly affordable rate. Sully recommends looking for, obviously, appropriate skills and previous experience but also connectedness to and confidence in learning through online social networks, which Sully calls "the new Internet (or university)." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has awarded Creative Capital a ten-year, $15-million matching grant. Creative Capital has, for ten years, been providing many grants and services that were once offered by the National Endowment for the Arts. It is currently one of the few grantmakers that funds individual artists and their projects, having supported 411 artists in 324 projects -- some with community-based components. It also administers two unique and vital programs: the Multi-Arts Production Fund and the Arts Writers Grant. "The Warhol Foundation’s gift presents us with both an amazing opportunity and a tremendous challenge. This grant must be matched dollar-for-dollar, $1.5 million each year," says Ruby Lerner, Creative Capital President. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Artists Judy Baca and Liz Lerman were among a group of grass-roots activists that met May 12, 2009, with White House officials, says Jacqueline Trescott in the Washington Post (5/13/09). They met to discuss how they could collaborate with the administration on its economic recovery and general policy plans. They wanted assurances of the Obama administration's commitment to the arts, and to offer their creative involvement when wider government initiatives intersect with their fields. The more than 60 participants, who paid their own way to Washington, were organized by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and three other partners. They represented such organizations as the Old Town School of Folk Music, the Asian Arts Initiative and Roadside Theater/Appalshop. The President's nomination of Rocco Landesman for NEA chair had yet to leak. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

BIG CAAKe and the League of Imaginary Scientists + E.K.K.O have been awarded the 2009 iLAB residencies by iLAND, the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance. BIG CAAKe, a collaborative team including an artist/engineer/educator, a choreographer/cook, an artist/designer, an architect and a mycologist, will conduct "StrataSpore," a project using mushrooms to develop dialogue about local New York City ecosystems and urban sustainability. The League of Imaginary Scientists and E.K.K.O., a collaborative team including an artist, a composer, an architect, an environmental researcher and a choreography collective, will develop "Waterways: fluid movements in a liquid city," a project that examines water through environmental and sociological study and "transforms that information into choreographic actions that engage New Yorkers." Get connected through the ongoing discussion on the iLAND Symposium blog. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

"PERSEVERANCE: waterbodies," on the outskirts of Oaxaca, Mexico, in June, is a six-day laboratory in the restoration of watersheds through environmental and dance practices Choreographer Jennifer Monson will facilitate a core group of up to 20 participants, camping and working together with members of Instituto Naturaleza y Sociedad de Oaxaca (INSO), and sharing methodologies and creative practices. Activities will include learning about the projects of INSO, assisting with community-based restoration projects, investigating the site through dance practices developed by Monson and proposed by the group and creating a public engagement and discussion based on the lab's experiences. The event, June 27-July 4, 2009, is part of a forum by Prisma, an artist self-education initiative funded by the European Union. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The SEEDS Festival, June 14-28, 2009, in Plainfield, Mass., is an interdisciplinary summer festival dedicated to arts and ecology. SEEDS 2009 will focus on potentiality, say the presenters, Earthdance, a nonprofit that cultivates dance and the art of improvisation. "Potential for new growth is generated in places where diverse organisms meet. In this year of potential political change, we invite this phenomenon into our interdisciplinary investigations." The festival will feature "Ritual Dance: Intimate + Universal Spaces," a group experience with Diego Piñón; "Along the Watershed," a workshop with Simon Whitehead and Jennifer Monson; "Mycoscaping + Ecology of Transformation," a mushroom intensive with Rafter Sass; "The Sustainable Landscape," a permaculture workshop with R.U.S.T./Skott Kellogg; "Integrating Interior + Exterior Spaces," a dancing/building workshop with Daria Faïn and Robert Kocik; "Eco-Art for Everyday Life," a course with Beverly Naidus; and a full-day public community celebration. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

President Obama has nominated Rocco Landesman, a "colorful theatrical producer and race-track aficionado," to chair the NEA, says Robin Pogrebin in the N.Y. Times (5/12/09). Landesman brought hits like “Big River,” “Angels in America” and “The Producers” to Broadway. “It’s potentially the best news the arts community in the United States has had since the birth of Walt Whitman,” said playwright Tony Kushner. “He’s an absolutely brilliant and brave and perfect choice for the job.” Writes Pogrebin, "He is not famous for his skills as an administrator or diplomat. Rather, he is known for his energy, intellect and irreverent — and occasionally sharp-elbowed — candor. ... His directness may prove refreshing to official Washington, and his affinity for country music, horse racing and baseball may help grease the wheels in his conversations with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Seven graduate students in Duke University's Documentary Studies Certificate Program will present their capstone projects in an upcoming graduation ceremony. At the Center for Documentary Studies in Durham, N.C., May 15, 2009, they will show their projects in audio, video and photography documenting the solemn rehearsal of a military funeral, battles over a lake in India, the triumph of an individual over addiction and homelessness, the youthful self-expression of Tanzanian orphans, life in the kitchen of a Guatemalan coffee farmer, denizens of a local wrestling ring and newly married couples who've paused for a moment in a courthouse hallway. "Their access is intimate, and ... cut to the heart, with a steady gaze and ear for life's challenges and hardships as well as the importance of duty, work, and love," says instructor Nancy Kalow. More about the projects is online. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

June 1, 2009, is the deadline for submission of abstracts for Issue Two of Masks: The Online Journal of Law and Theatre. Masks is a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed online journal based at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law. Its focus is on the intersections of law and theater: courtroom as theater; historical connections between theater and Inns of Court; lawyer playwrights; images of lawyers in popular culture; law in literature studies of plays; and legislative theater. Submissions are accepted from scholars, students and practitioners in the fields of law, theater, sociology, psychology, social work, communication studies, literature, business and more. July 15 is the deadline for submissions of papers; abstracts are not strictly required. Issue One, with essays on Theatre of the Oppressed, cameras in the courtroom, Theatre of Memory in Northern Ireland, and "Boston Legal," is online now. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

"Eye of the Storm," a cross-sector conference on scientific controversy" will be presented by The Arts Catalyst and Tate Britain in London, June 19-20, 2009. The two-day symposium will bring together scientists, artists, social scientists and policymakers to explore scientific controversy from an interdisciplinary perspective. Speakers include Harvard science-and-technology scholar Sheila Jasanoff, artists Eduardo Kac and Rod Dickinson, French astrophysicist Roger Malina and Oron Catts, director of SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia. "Eye of the Storm" will touch on "brilliance and ego, obsessions and cover-ups, dissent and whistleblowing, big science, high finance, deviant science, the reliability of knowledge and the legislation of uncertainty," say the presenters. The conference "develops Tate Britain's mission to present new research and debates within visual culture into the area of contemporary interrelationships between art, science and society." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

"Soul Deep: A New Artist for a Renewed Society" is the title of Urban Bush Women's 2009 Summer Leadership Institute, July 31-August 9, in New Orleans, La. The New York dance-theater organization says the title for the institute "references two important American writers: Langston Hughes ("my soul has grown deep like the rivers") and W.E.B. DuBois (A New Negro for a New Society). With a focus on issues of community health, our primary purpose will be to serve as a catalyst for the renewal, sustenance and growth of the artistic and cultural organizing communities of New Orleans." Institute students will participate in daily UBW dance technique classes, community dancing traditions (e.g. Second Line, capoeira, dances of the Orishas, hip hop), teach-ins around specific political and social-justice issues, undoing racism training and guided creative time. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Since Brazilian theater director Augusto Boal passed away on May 2, 2009, there have been numerous obituaries and memorials written about him, including this one by Michael Rohd. Rohd, director of Sojourn Theatre in Portland, Ore., was invited by Politics Daily to write a Boal obit "for newsreaders who didn't know him, and had no interest in the arts on a daily basis." The article (5/11/09) is titled "The Most Influential Man You Have Never Heard Of." Writes Rohd: "Boal created theatrical techniques and a philosophy of performance that not only transformed the theater but became a vehicle for social change." It includes a mini-bio of Boal as theater practitioner, philosopher, activist, author, teacher and politician, and brief sketches of his arrest, torture and exile from Brazil, as well as examples of his worldwide influence. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Today CAN brings you a new, permanent feature on its Web site: CANtv, highlighting some of the interesting community-arts related videos we learn about on the Internet. Today it's a delightful piece shared with us by jil p. weaving, arts and culture coordinator of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation. It introduces the Board's Arts, Health and Seniors Project, which explores how involvement in the arts can improve the health and wellbeing of vulnerable seniors. Created by Andrew Nguyen of Lemongrass Media, it's a revealing, deeply touching portrait of seniors working in the program with artists all over the region and talking about how it affects their lives. Don't miss it. The Project will celebrate 2009 Seniors Week, June 2-4, with performances and an exhibition on June 2 at the Roundhouse Community Arts Centre in Vancouver. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Forum Theatre groups, producers, experts and activists all over the world are being invited to participate in WorldForumTheatreFestival Austria 2009. June 15, 2009, is the deadline to propose performances, lectures, workshops and discussions for the festival, set for October 22-November 1 at sites all over Austria. The sponsor, InterACT expects these topics to be explored: Close the Gap!: the growing chasm between poor and rich in national and worldwide contexts; Global Warning and Warming: climate change, water, (rain)forests, pollution and food challenges; Women’s Power: women worldwide living within patriarchal structures and relationships associated with discrimination and violence; Participation and Human Rights: theatre of the oppressed as part of a worldwide movement in civil society and human-rights initiatives beyond artistic work. Proposals may be sent to: festival@interact-online.org . [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

You can now make CAN's content available on your own Web site by clicking on easy-to-install widgets from our "Subscribe" page. You may choose to install the APInews widget, which will bring your Web-site users our news items as soon as they are posted on CAN. You may also choose to install the Reading Room widget, which will display the most recent essay commissioned by CAN. And you can choose to install two different Blog widgets: the CANblog, occasional blog posts written by our staff, passing along information peripheral to the field; or the CAN Guest Blog from Community Performance Inc., written by that company's artists as they work in communities all over the world. And last but not least, there's a widget that combines the three main CAN feeds -- APInews, Reading Room and CAN Blog into one widget. These widgets may be installed on any Web site, including MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Typepad, WordPress. It's easy and free. To find out more and to see examples, just go to the APInews Subscription Page and scroll down to "Subscribe to our syndication feed." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Young writers in Tucson, Ariz., are celebrating the release of 110º Issue 9, the most recent publication of the VOICES 110º After School Magazine Project. Since October, VOICES youth have been writing articles and taking photographs for 110º magazine. They'll tell their stories and show their images at the Temple of Music and Art in Tuscon, May 13, 2009. VOICES is a community-based nonprofit serving Pima County, mentoring low-income youth to tell their personal, family, neighborhood, tribal and community stories. Stories are excerpted throughout the year on radio station KXCI as spoken-word segments and in the Arizona Daily Star as guest opinion pieces. Youth who successfully complete the 110º program receive three degree-applicable credits from Pima Community College. Over each of the past three years, 120+ youth have applied to get into the program. See the VOICES Web site for lots of stories. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

According to David White, Claudine Brown, director of the Arts and Culture Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, is a candidate for chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. White, former director of Dance Theatre Workshop, says in an e-mail quoted on Daily Kos, recommends Brown to the post as "a progressive and social justice activist." Says White: "Claudine has worked with vision and commitment at the nexus of arts and social justice in her role at Cummings as well as in her prior career (see her biographical summary). It would be extraordinary to have an NEA Chair who has her field knowledge, experience, and progressive values - and, like all of us, has grown up within a landscape of artists and community that we have fought to build and sustain." White calls for letters/e-mails of support to the NEA decisionmakers. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The history of the Educational Alliance as reflected in the changes in New York City's Lower East Side is the topic of a conversation during the opening of HomeBase IV. The Educational Alliance is one of the first settlement houses in New York. HomeBase, founded/directed by artist Anat Litwin, is an annual site-specific project devoted to the exploration of "Home," marking a temporary base, a raw urban architectural site in a neighborhood undergoing change, and inviting international artists to engage in a three-week workshop that includes study, dialogue and communal dinners, followed by a three-week happening and a publication. HomeBase IV takes place in a former medical center in the Lower East Side., opening May 9. It's a project of LABA (National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture at the 14th St. Y) and the Educational Alliance. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Art in the Public Interest has been granted $10,000 to support writing and editing fees for the Web-based Community Arts Network. CAN was one of 642 projects awarded $14,659,500 under the Access to Artistic Excellance program. Others honored in the Presenting category of that program are: New Village Press, to support the Beginner's Guide Service to Community Based Artists and Arts Organizations Project, a package of professional development resources, including online lesson plans and activities and in-person residencies; Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, to support the Arte es Vida Westside Cultural Grounding Project revitalizing San Antonio's Westside community life; and the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, to support the Online Artists in Healthcare Registry and Showcase. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Zoë Cohen, Philadelphia Cathedral’s 2008-09 Artist in Residence, will soon unveil "Sacred Origins," a permanently installed artwork for the cathedral. The five-foot-x-five-foot mixed-media artwork is based on Cohen's series of drawing workshops for people of all faith backgrounds in West Philadelphia, held over the past year at the cathedral, the West Philadelphia Synagogue Kol Tzedek, and A-Space, a community organizing space. Participants were invited to make a small drawing symbolic of some aspect of their faith practices or backgrounds, with an emphasis on origins – the origins of their faith practices in their own lives, or imagery from origin stories from their religions. The piece will be installed in the cathedral as part of its permanent art collection, and will be unveiled at the annual Philadelphia Cathedral Festival, May 31, 2009. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The International Journal of Community Music is looking for contributions to its special issue: "Criminal Justice and Music." The IJCM is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes research articles, practical discussions, timely reviews, readers’ notes and special issues concerning all aspects of community music. It's available in both print and electronic formats from Intellect Publishers. For the criminal-justice issue, the editors seek scholarly research reports, pieces on the development of professional practice and short compilations of book and music-project reviews relating to recently published or produced work. Contact Mary Cohen, mary-cohen@uiowa.edu with ideas or questions. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Augusto Boal, the Brazilian theater director and playwright known for the interactive genre called the "Theater of the Oppressed," died Saturday, May 2, 2009. He was 78. Boal died of respiratory failure following a long battle with leukemia, says an AP story (5/3/09). Boal, who studied theater arts at New York City's Columbia University, created Theater of the Oppressed in the early 1960s as a way to establish a dialogue between audience, playwright, director and actors that encouraged political activism. Seen as a threat to the dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985, Boal was arrested, jailed and tortured before being exiled to Argentina. He returned to Brazil after the fall of the military regime. His impact on the field of community-based art is incalculable. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Los Angeles Poverty Department, Appalshop's Roadside Theater and California's Teatro Visión are among the winners of the 2009 Otto René Castillo Awards for Political Theatre. Poet Ntozake Shange and the Street Spirits Theatre Company of Canada will also be honored May 17 at the 11th annual awards ceremony in New York City. The Otto Award is named after Guatemalan poet and revolutionary Otto René Castillo, who was murdered by that country’s military junta in 1968. The Castillo Theatre describes it as "the only honor in the United States recognizing the achievement of individuals and theatre companies who conceive, produce and foster the development of innovative and socially challenging theatre." Previous winners have included El Teatro Campesino, The Living Theatre, Laurie Anderson, the Steppenwolf Theatre, Bread and Puppet Theatre and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

A discussion about healing of body, mind and spirit is part of Sandglass Theater's fifth annual Voices of Community series in Putney, Vt. On May 11, 2009, community members will talk with artist Lyena Strelkoff as part of a Sandglass residency featuring "Caterpillar Soup," a performance piece about her two-year search for wholeness after being paralyzed by a spinal-cord injury. Other conversations in the series have included "Theater as Social Activism" with Robert Karimi, accompanying his "Self: The Remix," the tale of a first-generation child of Iranian and Guatemalan immigrants "learning how to survive the cultural imperialism of the United States." Sandglass Theater is an internationally touring theater company specializing in combining puppets with music, actors and visual imagery. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham