Rocco Landesman, new chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, has issued a statement on his move to relieve Yosi Sergant from his duties as communications director of the NEA. On the NEA Web site, Landesman says that when Sergant helped organize and participated in an August 10, 2009, conference call to introduce members of the arts community to United We Serve and other service projects, he "acted unilaterally and without the approval of then-Acting Chairman Patrice Walker Powell" and "not appropriate and did not reflect the position of the NEA." The call, Landesman points out, "was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false. Rather, the call was to inform members of the arts community of an opportunity to become involved in volunteerism." Landesman took office August 11. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Today CAN brings you "Creating a Monster: Capitalism in the Community Arts Classroom" by Brandi Rose, analyzing the effects, and departures from, what's being taught in community arts curricula. Rose is a student in the AYCD (Arts in Youth and Community Development) graduate studies program at Columbia College Chicago, where she's learning to "compete in an ever more corporate nonprofit world" with skills in nonprofit arts administration. At the same time she's learning about social-justice movements of the past that achieved a lot with community organizing and grassroots funding. She describes foundations as co-opting social movements and shaping "the nonprofit world so that social protest would never go so far as to damage the capitalist system. ... The question lingering on the lips of my fellow arts management students is: 'How can we overcome the dominant power structure of corporate-controlled foundations?'" She explores some examples of young activist artists who are trying alternative methods of funding. This essay is part of Community Arts Perspectives, a publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Vol. II, Issue 1. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

"Dancing with Child Soldiers" is a remarkable story from Foreign Policy in Focus by David Alan Harris, a choreographer who specializes in fostering recovery among survivors of egregious human-rights abuse. He writes about his dance-music therapy experience with Poimboi Veeyah Koindu, the self-styled Orphan Boys of Koindu, in a remote outpost where Sierra Leone abuts Guinea and Liberia. Sierra Leone remains notorious for boys and girls as young as six fighting as soldiers on all sides of an 11-year civil war, writes Harris. At war's end in 2002, more than 48,000 child soldiers were demobilized. In his movement therapy work promoting the child soldiers' reintegration into society, Harris turned to pivotal cultural rites as a sanctioned medium for the expression and release of difficult emotions associated with wartime experiences. Harris talks October 9, 2009, at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. D.C. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

StoryCorps will launch Historias, a new U.S. Latino oral-history project, with a special event at El Museuo del Barrio in New York City. The Museo launch is September 30, 2009. The initiative will record and preserve the experiences of Latinos throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. StoryCorps will visit cities across the nation, partnering with local radio stations, cultural institutions and community-based organizations to collect the stories, and the public is invited to participate (there's a location finder on the StoryCorps Web site). StoryCorps Historias is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Selected interviews will air on Latino USA, an English-language news program broadcast in 31 states, as well as NPR’s Morning Edition and public radio programs across the country. All interviews will be archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The MIT Visual Arts Program is launching an interesting lecture series asking, "How do artists and cultural activists reclaim the street, activating the city as backdrop and insisting on public space?" The series, "City as Stage, City as Process," September 28-November 16, 2009, brings together speakers from art "and (counter) culture," architecture, urbanism and media technology. It kicks off with "The City is Our Factory" by Hamburg-based German conceptual artist Christoph Schaefer, introducing Park Fiction, a public park organized by residents in Hamburg St. Pauli. Other presentations in the series include "Performative City" (Joan Jonas), "Public City" (Antoni Muntadas), "Propaganda City" (Mike Bonanno of The Yes Men), "Protest City" (Ana Miljacki, Nomeda Urbonas), "Fragmented City," (Angus Boulton) and "Porous City" (Krzysztof Wodiczko). The series, directed by Ute Meta Bauer and Amber Frid-Jimenez, honors the VAP's 20th anniversary. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

A Piipaash song cycle and dance recently filled the Arizona State University Art Museum's Ceramics Research Center during an intervention by Postcommodity, an interdisciplinary indigenous artists' collective. Postcommodity's installation, "Do You Remember When," is part of the museum's exhibition "Defining Sustainability," August 28-November 28. The artists cut a square hole in the gallery floor, exposing the earth beneath the institution, and displaying the block of removed concrete, standing upright, on a pedestal. It's "a spiritual, cultural and physical portal," say the artists, contradicting the rigid Western scientific world view of our environment. Postcommodity's Kade Twist (Cherokee) makes it clear that the piece was a collaboration with the museum - not the university. The show parallels ASU's October global sustainability conference. "Sustainability has become an academic gold rush; it's been turned into a commodity," Twist told the Phoenix New Times (8/30/09). "The university is having this discourse without including any indigenous people in it." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Patricia Johnson will discuss her collaborative Petaluma Wetlands Park project at the Nevada Museum of Art's Center for Art + Environment LAB (Reno) in November. The talk, November 13, 2009, is part of "Art and Infrastructure," an exhibition of her drawings and designs on display in the museum's CA+E LAB, September 19, 2009 - January 10, 2010. Using constructed and natural wetlands Johanson created a multipurpose public landscape in Petaluma, Calif., providing three miles of recreational use, educational programs and nature study alongside a facility that processes human sewage, while also generating crops and creating wildlife habitats. "One of my missions as a designer is to create inclusive, life-supporting landscapes that broaden human understanding," says Johanson on her Web site http://www.patriciajohanson.com. "Artists have always changed the way we see. Now we need to change the way we act." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Today CAN brings you "High And Low: Partnerships Among Museums and Community-based Arts Organizations," a new essay by artist Prudence Browne. Browne has worked for ten years in community-based arts organizations in Chicago and New York City, and has a background in community organizing and social justice. She's currently a research intern at the Chicago History Museum and a graduate student in the Arts Entertainment and Media Management program at Columbia College Chicago. From this varied experience, Browne draws examples of partnerships in Chicago between community-based arts organizations and larger institutions that provide innovative art production, expand the definition of community and provide noteworthy collaborative models. They include partnerships between Street-level Youth Media and the Chicago Children’s Museum; Yollocalli Arts Reach and the National Museum of Mexican Art; and the Wallace Foundation and six university/community arts programs. she also presents an outline of "The Life Cycles of Long-term and Permanent Partnerships." This essay is part of Community Arts Perspectives, a publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Vol. II, Issue 1. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

"Mapping the Desert/Deserting the Map" is "an arts-centered investigation" of California's deserts by UC Riverside's Sweeney Art Gallery, October 22-25, 2009. The project also investigates "the new, not-so-new and downright ancient technologies that make such mapping possible." The four-day gathering, along with a year-long series of events focused on California’s deserts, is partially funded by the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts in association with its new Social Ecologies: California-centric embedded arts research program. The "Dry-immersion Roving Symposium" exploring "widespread concern over environmental, economic and cultural sustainability is fast pushing the desert from the margins to the center of attention in debates on the future of our planet" includes tours of the 29 Palms Marine Base and the lower Colorado desert oasis/dune systems and lectures and discussion on desert issues. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

CAN is excited to welcome Keep Arts in Schools to BlogNet, our round-up of Internet blogs of interest to the community arts field. Since so many of our users are teachers and parents, we're happy to tap into this very active blog from an online community for arts-education advocates, focusing on the efforts and successes of local organizations, communities, teachers and leading voices throughout the country who are all working to keep the arts in our schools. Right now they are blogging about taking action around Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's support for arts learning curriculum in public schools and his analysis of how No Child Left Behind can be seen to mandate it as well. KeepArtsInSchools.org is a project of the Ford Foundation's Integrating the Arts and Education Reform initiative. You'll be seeing their posts on CAN's front page. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Today CAN brings you "Making the Road," a new essay by Julia Di Bussolo about the project she directs, The Club at Collington Square. Di Bussolo's title refers to a quote from Paolo Freire, “We Make the Road by Walking." Di Bussolo had just graduated from MICA's Master of Arts in Community Arts program in Baltimore when she was hired on by The Club at Collington Square to help transform it from a recreation program in a distressed neighborhood to a community arts program with an asset-based approach to working with people and communities of all ages. Di Bussolo describes the obstacles overcome and lessons absorbed: "Learning how to trust my intuition as a leader and a professional were lessons that came slowly as I struggled to shed the mindset of a student ... remembering that community art is a work in progress." This essay is part of Community Arts Perspectives, a publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Vol. II, Issue 1. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

National Arts and Humanities Month (NAHM) is a coast-to-coast collective celebration of culture in America, held every October and coordinated by Americans for the Arts. AftA says it's the largest annual celebration of the arts and humanities in the nation. "From arts center open houses to mayoral proclamations to banners and media coverage, communities across the United States join together to recognize the importance of arts and culture in our daily lives." NAHM has an online map tracking events all over the U.S. You can enter your events or search for events in your area. The NAHM Web site offers a nice National Arts and Humanities Month Public Service Announcement from Americans for the Arts and Ovation TV. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Artists and scientists will collaborate with community members in learning how to "act like an animal" during "Interspecies," an Arts Catalyst October project in London, England. "Interspecies," October 2-4, 2009, "draws together projects by Nicolas Primat and other artists who question the one-sided manipulation of non-human life-forms for art, and have tried to enter the animals’ point of view as a fundamental part of their practice," says Arts Catalyst. Artist Kira O'Reilly will cohabit a space with a live pig for 72 hours. Antony Hall's Enki Experiment 4 allows visitors to communicate with an electric fish. "Primate Cinema: How To Act like An Animal" will explore the social dynamics of primates through workshop/performance. Families will become bowerbirds for an afternoon, learning to construct alluring bowers. Symposia will discuss "Non-Human Primates" and "Animals, Humans and Power." [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Intermedia Arts is presenting its fourth installment of B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop. B-Girl Be, September 17-20, 2009, is a multimedia festival encompassing the four elements of hip-hop: MCing, DJing, breakdancing and graffiti. Its mission is "to influence and inspire leadership to change the perceptions and roles of women in hip-hop for current and future generations." Events begin with a B-Girl Be Block Party and "The SHEro Show," with hip-hop dancers and choreographers described as "SHEroes not only on-stage, but also in their communities, where they inspire young artists of the next generation and plant seeds of positivity wherever they perform or teach their craft." Also upcoming: dance events like "Bad Mama Jama Jam" and "DeCipher This," a group exhibition called "Mama Said Knock U Out!" and hip-hop workshops. The full schedule is online. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

"Wonderland" is a new volunteer collaborative arts project in San Francisco's Tenderloin district involving artists, arts organizations, nonprofit agencies, business owners and community groups. The exhibition, October 17-November 15, 2009, encompasses 16 site-inspired projects set throughout the Tenderloin, created by 53 artists from San Francisco and beyond. The Tenderloin is the only largely working-class neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, home to low-income immigrant families, senior citizens, artists and homeless people. Directed by volunteer New York-based curator Lance Fung, artists have worked for a year with the Tenderloin community, including religious organizations, schools, local arts associations and the public, to develop the new artworks. Themes include giving a voice to children shuttered by the environment, human trafficking, theater, homelessness, immigrant communities, local history and embracing the beauty of historic architecture. The project is sponsored by the North of Market/Tenderloin Community Benefit District organization. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The Kresge Foundation’s new community arts and civic engagement project, Kresge Community Arts, is being rolled out in three pilot cities: St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit. Kresge plans to invest $200,000 over two years in each community. The nationwide grants program encourages city residents and community-based groups to pursue art and cultural projects that address important issues, promote collaboration and enhance neighborhoods. “Our hope is that these projects will employ local artists, engage underserved and new audiences, promote cross-cultural understanding, and increase exposure to the arts,” says Regina R. Smith, Kresge program officer for Arts and Culture. “As a great by-product, this initiative will feed the human spirit and encourage creative outlets among neighborhood residents during the current economic downturn.” Application for the grants has already closed. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Jeff Chang on Huffington Post had a more detailed story about the resignation of Yosi Sergant from his post as director of communications at the NEA. Chang profiles Sergant as "the second hip-hop activist to be targeted in the Obama administration in a week" by rightwing TV talk-show host Glenn Beck (the first being Van Jones). Then he goes on to characterize the Beck actions as a reignition of the '90s culture wars. "Beck's agenda is unveiling itself--he means to go hard after the progressives in the Obama administration whose work engages grassroots movements and reaches people and communities directly through media and the arts. ... But better than any other conservative, Beck understands the new role culture is playing in how change is made. When all avenues for change are blocked, organizers and artists find the holes to slip through and connect with their communities. Put bluntly, this is the shape of the new culture war." Chang links to a Glenn Beck Boycott petition by Color of Change. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Today CAN brings you "Voices from the Battlefront: Achieving Cultural Equity Through Critical Analysis," a news essay by Jamie Haft of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life. Haft catches us up on this unique artist movement, calling for a cultural policy of global pluralism that deeply respects local life and its tradition bearers. CAN has been following the most recent iteration of this 20-year international conversation about the role of art and culture in the struggle for social justice, human rights and a sustainable natural environment. Haft has been intimately involved with Voices, and here she explains its theory, evolution and action in specific detail. She relates personal reflections of participants as the forum moves across the country, as well as the important involvement of younger people. She reviews recent strategy developments and looks toward the future of the movement. This essay is part of Community Arts Perspectives, a publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Vol. II, Issue 1. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Today CAN brings you "Pittsburgh Project REMIX: Animating a Historical Landmark," a new essay by Megan Carney about resurrecting the stories of the Steel City. Project Director Carney and a small team of artists collaborated with the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area, a heritage preservation organization that oversees the Pump House of the now razed Homestead Mill. Their goal was to construct a performance project using contemporary stories and historical research to examine the forces shaping the Steel City in the post-industrial age. The performance event took place in the actual Pump House, and community conversations followed in which people commented on the character traits of the city that emerged through the stories, including determination, endurance, ingenuity, friendliness and pride. This essay is part of Community Arts Perspectives, a publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Vol. II, Issue 1. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Five new arts journalism models will compete for a total of $15,000 in prize money at the National Summit on Arts Journalism in Los Angeles, Calif., October 2, 2009. The summit is an effort by USC Annenberg School for Communication and the National Arts Journalism Program to "help reinvent journalism in the 21st Century." Presenting finalists (from 109 submissions) are: Sophie, a new multimedia authoring tool for presenting critical response; Indianapolis Museum of Art's Art Babble and Dashboard; InstantEncore.com, an aggregator that can gather up everything about an art form, making it accessible in one place; NPR Music, A traditional big media company blurring between journalism, curation, presenting and producing; and Gazette Communications, an Iowa media company reinventing the idea of what is news and how it's gathered and presented. Two summit roundtables will discuss evolving arts journalism and "the business" of supporting it. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

According to Ryan Grim on the Huffington Post, Yosi Sergant, communications director by the National Endowment for the Arts, has been asked to resign. At issue was an August conference call in which the NEA encouraged select artists to participate in an administration project dubbed "United We Serve" and led by the First Lady. Fox News commentator Glenn Beck attacked Sergant and the NEA on his TV talk show, accusing the agency of propaganda efforts similar to those used by Nazi Germany. The White House was not involved in asking him to leave, administration spokesman Shin Inouye told HuffPost. Filmmaker (and rightwing "Big Hollywood" blogger) Pat Courrielche, a participant in the call, sent a tape of it to Beck, saying he was uncomfortable working in coordination with the White House. See video clips (at Huffpost) of Courrielche on Beck's show. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Miami University of Oxford, Ohio, will host October events commemorating the 45th anniversary of Freedom Summer, a 1964 effort to register voters and teach freedom schools in Mississippi. Events include walking tours of the Oxford site where volunteers trained for activism, a conference/reunion of Civil Rights veterans and scholars, the debut of Guggenheim Fellow Carlyle Brown’s play "Down in Mississippi: A Gospel Play with Music" plus exhibits and workshops. The “Finding Freedom Summer in Oxford Ohio Project” recently received an NEH Interpreting America’s Historic Places grant for the planning of future permanent programs on the site of Western College for Women (now a part of Miami University’s campus) where volunteers came for training in 1964. The play "Down in Mississippi" runs October 1-8, 2009 The Freedom Summer: Unity and Change, Then and Now Conference Reunion runs October 9-11. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Cultural critic (and CAN writer) Arlene Goldbard will give the keynote address at the upcoming Expo Symposium for Independent Arts, "Art Works When Artists Work: A Day of Vision, Community & Action." Billed as "a day of discussion, networking, panels and workshops on the role of art in civic dialogue, renewed interest in community-driven art, and new work that's both innovative and entrepreneurial," the Expo is presented by Independent Arts and Media (Indy Arts) at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, Calif., September 25, 2009. It will include such workshops as "Partnerships from Grasstops to Grassroots," "Community 2.0: Social Media, Blogging, Adding Friends and Making Friends," "DIY Marketing on a Shoestring" and "Elevator Evaluations: Moving Up!" (elevator pitch training in a moving elevator). Those who have been reading CAN know that Goldbard has spent much of the last year focusing on the possiblities of public-service jobs for artists and the creation of a new WPA. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Today CAN brings you "The Art and Craft of Integrating 'Social Justice Ally' Curriculum into Service-Learning," a new essay by community artist Kate Collins. A faculty member at Ohio's Bowling Green State University, Collins get right to the central problem of teaching community-based art practice to university students in the real world: privilege. Collins has written for CAN in the past about the experiential course she teaches at BGSU, "The Citizen Artist," an upper-level, service-learning theater course where students partner with Libbey Humanities Academy, an urban high school in a lower-income area of Toledo. Uncomfortable with the power differential between the two groups -- a challenge inherent in all service-learning courses -- Collins has newly developed a pedagogy around "the social-justice ally," focusing on identifying ways for students to challenge members of their own dominant group in combating issues of oppression as opposed to putting all focus on “helping” target group members. Collins talks about her research and her process. This essay is part of Community Arts Perspectives, a publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Vol. II, Issue 1. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

CAN is pleased to announce the publication of "In a City of Bubbles and Barriers: The Studio Baltimore Project" by Beck Slogeris. Created by Slogeris while still a graphic design major at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), The Studio Baltimore Project comprises a small team of ten MICA students from different majors who, with the guidance of a faculty member, connect with a neighborhood in Baltimore through an art or design project. It takes the students out of the "bubble" of an art college to cross the social barriers of a de facto segregated city. Slogeris discusses her research into design as an instrument of social change -- including the Situationists, IDEO’s “deep dive,” Bruce Mau’s “Massive Change," Baltimore's Piece Studio, city advocate Jane Jacobs, urban theorist Gerald Frug, artist Allan Kaprow, eco-artist Fritz Haeg and Charles Landry's "Creative City." Says Slogeris, "What the concept of design provides is consolation that eventually we can move beyond a superficial beauty, and not only lift up what is already there but begin to redesign the way things are at their core." This essay is part of Community Arts Perspectives, a publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Vol. II, Issue 1. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

CAN is pleased to announce the publication of Volume II, Issue 1, of Community Arts Perspectives: A Publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project (CAP). From September 2008 through February 2009, CAN will publish monthly issues containing research and other writing generated through the second convening of the Project, developed by Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) and hosted by CSUMB, April 19-21, 2009, and funded through a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation's Art and Culture Program. Issue 1, September 2008, opens with an editorial by CSUMB's Amalia Mesa-Bains and essays by Becky Slogeris and Kate Collins. Following in September will be essays by Jamie Haft, Megan Carney, Julia Di Bussolo, Prudence Brown, Brandi Rose and Phyllis Johnson. CAP is co-published by MICA and CAN. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Today CAN brings you a remarkable suite of articles about New WORLD Theater’s project in collaboration with women of the Somali refugee community in western Massachusetts. "Walaalo! Somali Sisters Collective Case Study" is a compendium of articles examining a unique multi-year arts-based economic development or “creative economy” initiative culminating in a multidisciplinary theatrical production, “Shekadii Walaalo/Sister-Story,” says dramaturg and case-study curator Ayaan Agane in her introduction to the package. The compendium includes "Walaalo! Somali Sisters Collective: A Springfield, Massachusetts, Case Study," a field report from an arts-based economic development perspective by Maren Brown, director of Arts Extension Service at the University of Massachusetts; "Walaalo: Iman Allah," a reflective essay on the creative process from the point of view of an African Muslim woman artist by Rashidah Ismaili AbuBakr; and "Re-making the Geography of Identity: The Somali Community in Springfield and the Case of 'Shekadii Walaalo,'" a theoretical essay on the politics of Somalia and the U.S., the issues of gender and the role of art in survival and identity formation by Mule Katwiwa, scholar on African women's theater. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The 10th Annual Human Rights Film Series commences October 2, 2009, at American University's Center for Social Media in Washington, D.C. The October-long series (with special guests) includes "As We Forgive," about two Rwandan women coming face-to-face with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide; "Burma VJ" by band of Burmese reporters who faced down death to expose the repressive regime controlling their country; "Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai," about Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights and defend democracy; "New Muslim Cool," a ride with Puerto Rican-American rapper Hamza Perez's through the streets, projects and jail cells of urban America; and "The Reckoning," about the daring International Criminal Court in the Hague. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Artists and scientists will explore “Moving Perspectives – approaches to understanding water through geology, environment, art and society” at the Urbana Free Library in Illinois, October 13, 2009. The panel discussion includes George Roadcap, Illinois Water Survey; Cecily Smith, Prairie Rivers Network; Brett Bloom, artist and activist; Brigit Kelly, poet; choreographer Jennifer Monson; and moderator Michael Scoville, an environmental philosopher. The talk is part of Monson's Mahomet Aquifer Project, a series of public dance performances, workshops and a mobile gallery, October 10-18, to inform and engage the communities in East Central Illinois dependent on the aquifer and draw the audience into their own understanding of their relationship to water. Monson intends the iLAND project to “draw connections between our scientific and political relationships to natural resources and the cultural frameworks that shape our perception and relationship to these resources.” [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice is presenting an arts festival, "Bearing Exquisite Witness," as part of its Women PeaceMakers Program. Events, September 24-26, 2009, highlight the ability of the arts to transform individuals and reconcile communities suffering conflict and violence. The festival showcases playwrights, filmmakers, poets, musicians, visual artists and academics from theater arts and conflict resolution who are using the creative power of art to raise awareness, prevent violence, help communities recover, change policies of exclusion and heal trauma. Four workshops address how to connect the theater arts with peacebuilding, a panel discusses "Peacebuilding through Arts and Academia," and Paola Gianturco makes a presentation from her book "Women Who Light the Dark," on women from 15 countries who are helping one another tackle the problems that darken their lives. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The National Center for Creative Aging (NCCA) is starting a Webinar series with gerontologist Gene Cohen, founder/director of George Washington U's Center on Aging, Health & Humanities. Cohen was the principle investigator for the landmark study "The Impact of Professionally Conducted Cultural Programs on the Physical Health, Mental Health and Social Functioning of Older Adults." At GWU he just launched SEA Change (Societal Education about Aging for Change). He also founded the Creativity Discovery Corps and a think tank (the Washington DC Center On Aging) and authored more than 150 publications in the field of aging. Cohen will present five Webinar sessions based on his international lecture series; the first is titled "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: What Is Aging After All -- Creativity and Positive Changes Because of Aging, Not Despite It," September 14, 1-2:30 PM EDT. It's free to NCCA members. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

Artist-activists Sharon Bandy and Joan Lipkin have written a short play about the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., October 11, 2009, and you can use it royalty-free. In "Beyond Stonewall: Why We March," a newscaster is doing a story on the "New Face of Gay Activism" when it gets hijacked by bloggers, the ghosts of Stonewall, a gay college student and his straight female friend. Lipkin, director of St. Louis' That Uppity Theatre Company, says the "funny and informative" piece centers on a values confrontation between a white, newly-out gay bank president and an African-American lesbian activist. It explores reasons people should be interested in the upcoming Equality March to address issues like the legalization of gay marriage, the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, hate-crimes initiatives and repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Request the script at Uppityco@aol.com. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham

The Yes Men will receive the first Creative Time Prize for Art & Social Justice during the Creative Time Summit: Revolutions in Public Practice, October 23-24, 2009. The Yes Men are being honored for work that "powerfully enriches public understanding of timely issues and activates public space as a place for democratic dialogue and creative action." The two-day event also includes 42 artists from around the globe giving short presentations about the experimental social-justice art practices they are developing. Among them are Ross Bleckner, Mel Chin, Teddy Cruz, Harrell Fletcher, Amy Franceschini/Future Farmers, Thomas Hirschhorn, Alfredo Jaar, Rick Lowe, Eve Mosher, Laurie Jo Reynolds from Tamms Year Ten, Martha Rosler, Greg Sholette, David Levi Strauss, Temporary Services and Rirkrit Tiravanija as well as cultural critics Okwui Enwezor, Suzanne Lacy, David Levi Strauss and Maria Lind. [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham