Forwarded from the U.S. Social Forum:

**PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY***

WHAT IS THE USSF?
From June 27th – July 1st, 2007, Atlanta will host the first United States Social Forum (USSF). The USSF is based on the premise that Another World is Possible. If another world is possible, then another US is necessary.

The USSF will bring together generations of movement organizers to learn from each other's experiences, share an analysis of the problems facing their communities, and bring renewed insight and inspiration to spur our movements forward.

ARTISTS AT THE USSF
Imagine a future where artists from all communities are part of visioning a new world where human rights are respected and the earth is valued. Where our role as artists, the ways we think and the particular skills we draw on unify us as a constituency, and make us a valuable partner in creating the future with the rest of our communities.

Well that future is now and the place is the USSF. At the 2007 USSF, artists will have the unique opportunity to be recognized as part of many social movements strategizing, networking, and building a concrete vision forward for the US. This future cannot be built without artists, not only do we care deeply about immigrant rights, justice for Katrina survivors, and living wages; We are immigrants, evacuees, and labor organizers! Join us at the USSF and help us imagine our future!

WAYS FOR ARTISTS TO INTERACT WITH THE USSF PROCESS•
* Register and participate in the Forum as an individual artist – (Registration is required to submit either a performance or session proposal for the forum)

* Submit a session proposal for the Forum. – Artists can propose a session at the forum that can be structured as a workshop, panel discussion, strategy session, and more.

* Submit a cultural performance proposal for the forum.

Please note: The USSF encourages collaboration and, as a result, no submissions by individuals will be accepted. Two ways for individual artists to work around this is:
1) Join with other artists to form an ad hoc group for the purposes of registering and submitting a proposal
2) Collaborate with a local organization to co-sponsor your proposal/event

If neither of these options works for you, please upload your proposal directly to the Culture Work Group at www.ProgressiveArtistRoster.org/register . We will do our best to have your proposal considered for the USSF.
* This is not a replacement for registering your proposal at USSF website *

EITHER WAY- ALL ARTISTS SUBMITTING A SESSION OR CULTURAL PERFORMANCE PROPOSAL MUST REGISTER FOR THE USSF ON THE WEBSITE IN ORDER TO HAVE THEIR PROPOSAL CONSIDERED.

Also, artists will be responsible for their own AV needs and other mounting costs.

FUNDING FOR THE USSF
This event is owned and operated by movement builders across the United States ! Other than a committed core of foundations that understand the importance of building a grassroots movement in the U.S., we are relying on the power of organizers, workers, and artists to provide the resources that will make this event a reality. This event begins and ends with us. Because we are the ones we have been waiting for!

DONATE NOW:
http://www.ussf2007.org/en/donate
and pass on this e-mail.
You can make your donations online via PayPal or send a check to Project South/USSF, 9 Gammon Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30315
Please Donate and Repost this email.

For more information. Please visit the website for detailed information: http://www.ussf2007.org

May 16, 2007

Linda Frye Burnham / 03:56 PM

Writer Judith Tannenbaum wrote to us today, sending along her notes from a May 14 workshop by Eric Booth in Berkeley: "Fostering Creative Engagement Through Habits of Mind." We thought you might find her notes valuable, so she said we could share them with you and she apologizes for their brevity.

By way of intro, she says, "I'm usually (always?) so resistant when people reduce into systems what I see as vast and layered. So I was kinda amazed by how impressed and excited I was by Eric Booth's ability to stay big (deep, complicated) and also to make points and practices specific. I've been trying to understand this 'teaching artist' field (which feels similar and also so different from our 'community arts' world). One primary aspect Eric's workshop revealed is his focus on breaking down the essential qualities of artistic/creative thinking and developing these as skills -- in combination with and also separate from actual art-making experiences."

Notes on the workshop leader (from artiseducation.org):
A master teaching artist, leading thinker in Arts Education and the author of "The Everyday Work of Art," Eric Booth teaches at the Kennedy Center, Stanford University, New York University and the Lincoln Center Institute, and is the founding editor of the Teaching Artist Journal.

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A nice blog from the Flynn
Linda Frye Burnham / 12:13 PM

We're so glad to learn that presenters are starting blogs on the Web to better connect with their constituencies, especially those with strong community programs. Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vermont, has started FlynnBlog and, in a recent post, Programming Manager Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup writes about some community engagements around New York choreographer Maureen Fleming's residency, culminating in her MainStage performance "Waters of Immortality," April 20. Ilstrup shares his reflections on Fleming’s community workshop with the Awareness Theater Company, a program of VSA Vermont. And we learned about this blog from Fleming herself, who alerted her fans by e-mail. Kudos to Fleming and the Flynn.

http://flynncenter.blogspot.com/2007/03/
stretching-bodies-and-boundaries-with.html

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May 15, 2007

John Cage on TV, 1960
Linda Frye Burnham / 11:48 AM

John Cage performing "Water Walk" in January, 1960 on the popular TV show I've Got A Secret: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U

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May 14, 2007

Paul Hawken has figured it out
Linda Frye Burnham / 10:17 AM

The next big book is Paul Hawken's "Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming," out from Viking on May 10. Hawken is attempting to describe the worldwide "movement of movements" -- individuals and small, community-based organizations (including community arts) working on environmental, social-justice and indigenous issues This movement, which I think will become the "civil-society movement," is so spread-out, diverse and unprecedented that it's only visible when its components gather for large demonstrations where their values coincide. Hawken says it's invisible to the media and almost everybody else (even its members) because we can't recognize something without a cognitive precedent. We can't see it because it's all about the future and we've never seen anything like it. Hawken claims he learned about all this firsthand from giving lectures worldwide about environmental issues over the last decade and meeting audience members of every nationality, ethnic group, religion and political persuasion who pressed their business cards into his hand. All of us need a big meet-up, and his organization, the Natural Capital Institute, is trying to catalog us in a CAN-like Web site called WiserEarth; much of its arts-related content was culled from CAN (yay!). He says that scrutinizing all this has made him an enthusiastic optimist. You can buy the book from Amazon through the CAN Bookstore: http://www.communityarts.net/bookstore/index.php.

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May 10, 2007

Postcards from the people
Linda Frye Burnham / 04:23 PM

We recommend checking out the Walker Art Center's blog in CAN's BlogNet (CAN front page). They have been posting responses to questions raised by Kara Walker’s work in the exhibition "Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love." The responses were written on postcards created by the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council, asking gallery-goers to think about one of three prompts:
What are you suppressing?
What does power look like?
Retell a history

The postcards have been scanned and posted in the blog. Very interesting.....

http://blogs.walkerart.org/ecp/2007/05/10/kara-walker-response-22/

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May 09, 2007

A different kind of arts conference
Linda Frye Burnham / 04:46 PM

Community Arts Ontario and De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre Group are collaborating on an unusual arts conference on Manatoulin Insland on Lake Huron in the north of the provice, where the theater group makes its home. (De-ba-jeh-mu-jig itself means "storytellers" in Cree and Ojibway.)

"Breathing Northwinds," June 8-10, 2007, has the theme "Bridge Building and Bridge Builders." It's meant specifically for Ontarians, and its goal is "to make the sector work differently." The organizers promise to treat all participants "as a group of people embarking on a journey of exploration together." The gathering will be "tek-free" (no electronics) and there wil be no written transcripts. Participants will be known only by their first names and where they live. The byword is: "Come as the person you are, not the job that you have." Activities will include games with challenges played on a giant map of Ontario. Teams with a mix of urban and isolated/remote practitioners will plan and execute a fictional community arts project in a northern community. There will be feasts, socials, storytelling, drumming and singing.

Manatoulin (pop. 13,000) is five hours north of Toronto; you reach it by the Chi-Cheemaun Ferry from Tobermory or by the swing bridge at Little Current. There is no public transport on Manatoulin, and no parking.

De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre Group, the first professional theater company established in a First Nation community, is located on the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve. Its mainstage performance venue—the Holy Cross Mission Ruins—is an historic, stone-walled structure open to the sky and overlooking Wikwemikong Bay. The theater's National Aboriginal Arts Animator Program is located in the historic neighboring town of Manitowaning—a new, fully equipped, state-of-the-art training and production center, adjoining an historic 1892 general store.

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May 08, 2007

Ask the Experts - Demystifying Fair Use
Linda Frye Burnham / 12:05 PM

Forwarded from the Center for Social Media:

Ever wonder if you can use a photo you took at the march or a clip mentioning CNN on YouTube? Whether you are a blogger, a photographer or a filmmaker, it is not always clear where your freedom to use content publicly might be legally questioned. When it comes to using copyrighted material, you have more rights than you think.

To help answer your questions about fair use, OneWorld has joined with the Center for Social Media at American University to co-host an online dialogue with Patricia Aufderheide, Director of the Center for Social Media, and Maura Ugarte, Graduate Associate at the Center.

Post your questions by May 11. Pat and Maura will answer your questions and we will share their responses the week of May 21. Click here to post your questions: http://oneworldus.civiblog.org/blog/NonprofitNook/_archives/ 2007/5/3/2923752.html

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May 04, 2007

America's Ten Best Places for Artists
Linda Frye Burnham / 11:35 AM

According to BusinessWeek.com and Sperling's Best Places, here are the 10 places in the U.S. that are the best for professional artists. Indicators include highest concentrations of artistic establishments, percentage of young people age 25 to 34, population diversity, lower cost of living and concentration of museums, philharmonic orchestras, dance companies, theater troupes, library resources and college arts programs.

This link will take you to the article in Business Week. Go to the link at the bottom of that story to get to the actual list. Hint: The only way you can actually see the cities is to click on the pictures, so here's a convenient list:

1. Los Angeles, Calif.
2. Santa Fe, N.M.
3. Carson City, Nev.
4. New York City, N.Y.
5. Kingston, N.Y.
6. Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif.
7. Nashville, Tenn.
8. Boulder, Colo.
9. San Francisco, Calif.
10. Nassau-Suffolk County, N.Y.

Oxnard!

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content /feb2007/db20070226_149427.htm

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May 01, 2007

Is Arts in Education exploiting teaching artists?
Linda Frye Burnham / 01:56 PM

The Association of Teaching Artists is conducting a Teaching Artist Fee Survey, with 20 questions directed at Teaching Artists who work in schools, in Arts In Education programs and in the community. ATA says it's compiling this data in response to a need expressed by Teaching Artists. You can fill it out online.

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