February 05, 2010

Forwarded from Sade Turnipseed in Indianola, Miss.:

The newest cultural arts center to arrive on the Mississippi Delta scene “officially” opens Friday March 5, 2010, but is already having major impact on the people, the arts and the media throughout Mississippi. The House of Khafre -- affectionately called “da’ House” -- is located at the epicenter of where Blues (America’s Root Music) was born, 103-105 Main Street, in historic downtown Indianola, Mississippi.

The 9th Political Theatre Festival, themed "Across the Divide," will explore geopolitical and gender boundaries with seven plays about Latino immigration and Latina women's issues. Immigration, and social justice are two of the topics that will be addressed on the stage. The festival is set for the Gremlin Theatre, St. Paul, Minn., February 25-March 13, 2010.

9th Political Theatre Festival

February 04, 2010

System, infrastructure, capacity, impact, Web site (oops) and catalyst.

See why here.

February 02, 2010

February 26, 2010, is the deadline for proposals for a design for a new "Art Works" logo for the National Endowment for the Arts. The winning finished design may be reproduced by the Agency in print and online. It appears the winning designer will be awarded $25,000, but we're not sure. See if you can understand the jury process:

"The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer, conforming to the solicitation; will be most advantageous to the Government; price and other factors considered. In order to select the winning offeror, NEA will rank offerors from best to worst. In addition to the narrative assessments prepared by the Evaluation Team for each evaluation factor, a point scoring system will be used to rank all technical proposals. The point scoring system uses a rating scale of 100%. However, NEA will not select an offeror for award on the basis of a superior capability without consideration of the amount of its price. In order to select the winning proposal, NEA will rank each offeror by making a series of paired comparisons between them, trading off the marginal differences in capability with the marginal difference in price."

See?

Art Works Logo Design

Tomorrow, February 3, 2010, the Los Angeles City Council will consider a measure to close a nearly $200-million budget gap by eliminating 1,003 jobs across city government. The cuts would carve most deeply into neighborhood councils, arts programs and initiatives aimed at reducing ethnic tensions, says David Zahniser in the L.A. Times (1/28/10). The L.A. arts community is rallying to defeat the measure, which would eliminate the Department of Cultural Affairs' sole dedicated revenue stream, the 1% allocation from the Transient Occupancy Tax that currently funds much of the Department's programming and operations. The advocacy Web site Arts for LA has started an e-mail campaign. "The arts are a part of the solution to generate tourism, stimulate our economy and keep our residents employed," said Jan Williamson, executive director of the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, in a mass e-mail to stakeholders. "Cultural infrastructure is much harder to put back in place after taking it away."

You can download the text of the city council measure here.

February 01, 2010

February 15, 2010, is the proposal submissions deadline for the 2010 National Outreach Scholarship Conference in Raleigh, N.C., hosted by North Carolina State University. The conference will explore authenticity and sustainability as critical components of engaged scholarship, and will take place October 4-6, 2010, at the Greater Raleigh Convention Center. Proposals are invited for presentations that “communicate innovative research, program designs and impacts, lessons learned and curricular and policy development reflective of diverse environments and populations,” including topics such as urban and rural interactions, international contexts, distance-based learning, underserved populations, university-wide engagement programs and more. Proposals for panels, workshops and poster presentations must be submitted online. This is the 11th national conference sponsored by the National Outreach Scholarship Partnership Institutions, and attendance of more than 400 faculty, students, administrators and community partners is expected.

Request for Proposals

January 28, 2010

Historian Howard Zinn died yesterday, January 27, 2010, in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87. Zinn challenged the received version of American history and was author of the popular "A People's History of the United States" (1980). In 1956, he was offered the chairmanship of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, an all-black women’s school in segregated Atlanta, says an AP story (1/27/10). He was involved in the Civil Rights movement, organizing sit-ins at downtown Atlanta cafeterias. Read the AP for more.

"Howard Zinn, Historian, Dies at 87"