Highways Performance Space i Santa Monica has a unique comunity event lied up for World AIDS Day weekend.

November 30
WITNESS
VETERAN ACTIVISTS REVISIT ACT UP/LA AT 20
A reunion of the most effective activists in generations meets a new generation facing its own challenges.
DONATIONS please.

Beginning @ 7:00pm:
Reception in the gallery for activists + artists reflecting on the life of ACT UP/LA in photography and multi-media installations.

Beginning @ 8:30pm
The veterans of activist campaigns share their (sometimes conflicting!) perspectives and memories on confronting healthcare bureaucracies, the LAPD, and each other's mortality. Surprise guests!

December 1
GOING IN: ONCE UPON A TIME IN SOUTH AFRICA
MICHAEL KEARNS
In honor of World AIDS Day, activist-artist Michael Kearns tells stories of devastation and of redemption and of a journey he took with his daughter, Tia, to Johannesburg, South Africa. An impassioned look at the challenges everyone--no matter what continent you live on--faces when dealing with a plague that continues to rage on after more than a quarter of a century.
Sat 8:30pm $20/$15

Highways

...And here's something special from Highways regular Marcus Kuiland-Nazario:

November 27, 2007

Linda Frye Burnham / 11:31 AM

There's an online conversation in progress at the Center for Cultural Innovation's Web site, hosted by funder Claire Peeps. "Does optimism matter in the arts?" Peeps is executive director of The Durfee Foundation in Los Angeles, current president of the board of Grantmakers in the Arts, and former executive director of the nonprofit that published CAN's forerunner, High Performance magazine).

Pondering some changes in the grants program at her foundation, Peeps is asking, "If artists feel optimistic about opportunities available to them, do they produce more art, or better art? I ask because 'fostering a climate of optimism in the arts in Los Angeles' is one of the goals of the Durfee ARC grant program (Artists’ Resource for Completion). Eight years into the program, I’m curious." Peeps details her concerns and asks for responses from nine working L.A. artists. The conversation will go on for another three days. It's on Barry's Blog at CCI.

Claire Peeps conversation:

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November 26, 2007

Waking Up the Neighbors?
Linda Frye Burnham / 03:01 PM

Ever lived next door to a performance art space? I have. For four years I lived across the patio from Highways Performance Space in the 18th Street Arts Complex (now "Center) in Santa Monica, Calif. Four nights a week, 100 people showed up to applaud, stomp, cheer, boo and participate in some of the noisiest art ever produced. I couldn't really complain since it was mostly my fault: Tim Miller and I founded the space. It's in a teeny, tiny "arts and industrial zone" carved out of a residential neighborhood, and our neighbors were eminently sanguine about it.

But it is not always so. "Waking Up the Neighbours: Cultural Venues and their Neighbours" is an upcoming (11/30/07) Cultural Research Salon by the Centre of Expertise on Culture and Communities at Simon Frasier University in in Vancouver, B.C.

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Extension: MICA Proposals
Linda Frye Burnham / 02:49 PM

For those submitting essay proposals for MICA's March 2008 Community Arts Convening & Research project: The Dec. 1 deadline has been extended to Dec. 3 for the 2-5 page preliminary text of the article.

Details

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November 21, 2007

Great job at Otis in L.A.
Linda Frye Burnham / 02:44 PM

Otis College of Art and Design
seeks Faculty member for
Teaching and Learning 2
for Artists, Community, and Teaching Program
Spring 2008

This course develops students’ knowledge about human development and
effective teaching methods in art education, considering professional
issues, such as how to integrate their identities as artists and educators.

Qualifications:
* Minimum – PhD in Education; MFA or BFA in the Visual Arts.
* Previous college teaching experience.
* Collaborative, cooperative people skills.

Send or email cover letter of interest and resume by December 11, 2007 to:
ACT/ Fine Arts Dept, Otis College of Art and Design
9045 Lincoln Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Contact person: Jerri Allyn, jallyn@otis.edu

The ACT: Artists, Community, and Teaching Program allows Fine Arts Majors to
concentrate in Art Education. This increases job prospects for graduates to
work in kindergarten through 12th grade schools; be employed as Museum
Educators; and work as Public Artists and Curriculum Designers developing
theme based projects with cultural organizations to build community.

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November 20, 2007

The Laptop Club
Linda Frye Burnham / 09:58 AM

When is your kid old enough to use a computer? Even "wired" moms are leery of letting the little ones go at it lest they beome addicted, but now comes The Laptop Club, a bunch of 7-to-9-year-olds (mostly girls) at a North Carolina Montessori after-school program, who draw their own keyboards on construction paper and wear them out with constant use. These kids came up with this idea without adult coaching.

"Parents may want to delay their children’s computer use, but here they are drawing their own designs. It reminded me of taking away toy guns and seeing the kids make guns out of sticks instead," says blogger-mom Amy Tiemann, interviewed on TMN by Rosecrans Baldwin. The paper laptops have keyboard buttons assigned to “Barbie.com,” “best friends” next to “friends,” “HP [Harry Potter] trivia,” and “werd games” as well as “rily werd games.” Says Tiemann: "Having your name on your friend’s keyboard is a little like being in someone’s 'Top 8 friends' on MySpace. And yet these kids most likely don’t even know about MySpace yet." How much do we really know about "creativity"?

The Laptop Club:

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November 19, 2007

New NEA reading study: flawed?
Linda Frye Burnham / 02:14 PM

Today, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced the release of "To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence," a new analysis of reading patterns in the U.S. It gathers statistics from some 40 studies on the reading habits and skills of children, teenagers and adults. It looks at all varieties of reading, including fiction and nonfiction genres in various formats such as books, magazines, newspapers, and online reading. "The compendium reveals recent declines in voluntary reading and test scores alike, exposing trends that have severe consequences for American society," says the press release. At the same time, says Motoko Rich in the N.Y. Times, 11/19/07, the NEA warns that "performance in other academic disciplines like math and science is dipping for students whose access to books is limited, and employers are rating workers deficient in basic writing skills." But, says Rich, not everyone agrees...

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November 16, 2007

Holiday gift idea: The Curiosity Shoppe
Linda Frye Burnham / 11:38 AM

The Curiosity Shoppe is a store in San Francisco's Mission District owned and operated by Lauren Smith and Derek Fagerstrom. They sell "crafts kits and curios for the creatively inclined" and you can shop online. The Craft Room offers a $16 DIY music box kit (write your own songs), a matchstick garden, and kits for whittling, making a pinhole camera, sunprints and the original paint-by-numbers. Also check out the mushroom shelves, American Wonderland tableclothes, vintage French journals and cell-phone headsets.

The Curiosity Shoppe

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November 15, 2007

See Pangea on MTN TV
Linda Frye Burnham / 05:39 PM

Pangea World Theater's Bridges Program is featured in this month's MTN Access to Art, a television show that explores the arts in Minneapolis, Minn., "from large and venerable institutions like the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Guthrie Theater to small galleries and performance groups that work out of neighborhoods all over the city." Access to Art Correspondent Beth Peloff spoke to Pangea Artistic Director Dipankar Mukherjee and Executive/Literary Director Meena Natarajan about the Bridges Program, which brings artists together from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to "create a new aesthetic that will be more relevant to our increasingly diverse population." Watch every Tuesday night in the month of November at 8:30pm on MTN 17 on the Minneapolis cable system, or click on the link below to watch the episode online. It's Session Two, about two minutes in (wait for it).

Pangea on MTN Access to Art

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November 14, 2007

Great Job at Columbia Chicago
Linda Frye Burnham / 05:18 PM

POSITION AVAILABLE: TENURE-TRACK FACULTY IN ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT, AND MEDIA
MANAGEMENT:

COORDINATOR OF ARTS IN YOUTH AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Columbia College Chicago, an urban institution of over 12,000 undergraduate
and graduate students, emphasizes the arts, media and communications in a
liberal arts setting. The Arts, Entertainment and Media Management
Department (AEMM) is seeking a full-time, tenure track faculty member with
proven expertise in the business of arts in youth and community development
organizations to coordinate the Arts in Youth and Community Development
(AYCD) Concentration.

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November 01, 2007

Defining social entrepreneurship
Linda Frye Burnham / 10:19 AM

Another buzzword has surfaced in the grants world: social entrepreneurship (type that three times fast). Wikipedia says: "A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create,and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, social entrepreneurs assess their success in terms of the impact they have on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors." See that entry for more about the history and examples of the idea. Watch CAN for news about funders linking community-based arts and social entrepreneurship.

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