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« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 » 
January 28, 2008 Nayo Watkins RememberedSteven Durland / 11:36 AM Nayo Barbara Malcolm Watkins, a fixture in the Southeast for more than 30 years as an author, playwright, community arts champion and Civil Rights activist, passed away on January 20, 2008, in Durham, North Carolina. Watkins has been a contributor to CAN and a researcher as well as the subject of a profile on her work. She is remembered by many in the blog "Remembering Nayo."
January 26, 2008 Sicko gets the Oscar nodLinda Frye Burnham / 11:05 AM Michel Moore's healthcare doc "Sicko" has been nominated for an Academy Award (Moore won the Best Doc Oscar in 2003 for "Bowling for Columbine"). Says Moore on his listserv: I am very honored to be in this group of documentaries, three of which I brought last summer to our film festival in northern Michigan. "Taxi to the Dark Side" is a brutal examination of U.S. torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Operation Homecoming" has actors reading letters from soldiers in Iraq. "No End in Sight" has ex-Bush administration officials admitting how they messed up the occupation, lamenting how things would have been so much better if only Bush had put people in Baghdad who knew what they were doing (and wouldn't we all have loved to see THAT? Hahaha). And "War/Dance" tells the moving story of kids in a dance competition in war-torn Africa. A diverse group of films, and proof that nonfiction movies are stronger than ever.
Hello from California Linda Frye Burnham / 10:18 AM I'm on the road in California this week, so posts to the CANblog and APInews will be a little sparse. Yesterday I attended "Arts, Neighborhood and Social Practice: The Arts and Processes of Urban Community Revitalization and Engagement" at UC Berkeley, a small symposium put together by Shannon Jackson of the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies and Karen Chapple of the Center for Community Innovation. This is a very interesting cross-sector project where two different groups of scholars and practitioners are putting their heads together over cultural community development and real estate (the latter still highly contested in the crowded and high-priced Bay Area).
January 25, 2008 Barack Obama's Arts PolicyLinda Frye Burnham / 10:12 AM Forwarded from the Obama '08 campaign BARACK OBAMA: A CHAMPION FOR THE ARTS Our nation’s creativity has filled the world’s libraries, museums, recital halls, movie houses, and marketplaces with works of genius. The arts embody the American spirit of self-definition. As the author of two best-selling books – Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope – Barack Obama uniquely appreciates the role and value of creative expression.
January 24, 2008 S.F. WritersCorps on YouTubeLinda Frye Burnham / 06:52 PM Check out this San Francisco WritersCorp video on YouTube. It’s great example of using this social-networking tool to promote your public programs and services. Of course, it helps if you have a great videographer (Lise Swenson) and a staff full of excellent writers. "Writers in Service: An American Tradition"
Storm of Roses: Women Against War in San Francisco March 14 Linda Frye Burnham / 06:47 PM San Francisco’s Dance Brigade will present “A Storm of Roses: Women Against War,” a March 14, 2008, commemoration of and protest against the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq. The event roster includes Holly Near, Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, Las Que Son Son, Al Juthoor and the Grrrl Brigade. It honors the work of Code Pink, Barbara Lee, Carole Migden and Cindy Sheehan. It’s happening at the Herbst Theater. For tickets call (415) 392-4400 or visit www.cityboxoffice.com.
January 21, 2008 Summer in Wyoming?Linda Frye Burnham / 02:11 PM Forwarded from Jessica Holt at the Bauen Camp in Wyoming: Hi Folks,
January 17, 2008 Walking as artLinda Frye Burnham / 02:21 PM Forwarded from artist Phil Smith (Crab Man) of Wrights & Sites, who explores the possibilities of walking as a performance practice: Dear Linda, Dee Heddon's new book on 'Autobiography and Performance' is now out from Palgrave and has a section on Place and Self which includes material on 'the art of walking' including Crab Walks and you can order from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Autobiography-Performance-Theatre-Practices/dp/0230537537/ref= (Blogger's note: Apologies for not making all these URLs clickable. Way too much work. --LB)
After the Art Wars Linda Frye Burnham / 12:52 PM Forwarded from the Cultural Policy Listserv: Commentary magazine, January 2008 Michael J. Lewis reflects on the past and possible future of the National Endowment for the Arts. "In brief, the NEA has withered in a matter of decades from a self-styled instrument of world peace to a cautious dispenser of largesse whose one inflexible principle is that no grant must ever redound to the administration’s embarrassment. Whether it can regain its early ambition—or whether it should try to—is an open question." Rather than fund contemporary artists again, Lewis suggests that NEA might do better to "steward America’s artistic patrimony by supporting museums, exhibitions, and performances of works validated by the cumulative consensus of time."
Three decades of Popular Theater in Nigeria Linda Frye Burnham / 10:07 AM "Theatre, Knowledge and Community Development" is the theme of a conference on three decades of Popular Theater/Theater for Development in Nigeria, February 24-March 1, 2008, at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria. The conference is sponsored by the ABU Department of Theatre and Performing Arts Founded in 2002, Ahmadu Bello is the largest university in Sub-Saharan Africa. The conference was originally billed for October 21-27, 2007, but had to be rescheduled because the university was closed. Presidential and state elections in April 2007 were marred by violent clashes, corruption allegations and widespread electoral irregularities. "Nigeria is mired in a crisis of governance," said Human Rights Watch in October 2007. "Eight years since the end of military rule, the country’s longest-ever stretch of uninterrupted civilian government, the conduct of many public officials and government institutions is so pervasively marked by violence and corruption as to more resemble criminal activity than democratic governance." There is no information on the Web about the conference. CAN learned about it through an e-mail to CAN writer Jan Cohen-Cruz from her colleague Jenks Okwori of ABU's Department of Theatre and Performing Arts. Okwori invited her to come to the conference and asked her to circulate the news to CAN, adding, "We will be very grateful if you can send us some thoughts or even a provocative goodwill message." Anyone wishing to send "some thoughts" on the theme of the conference may communicate with Dr. Okwori at: drjenks123@yahoo.com. There are a number of references to popular theater in Nigeria on the Web, locatable through Google.
January 16, 2008 U.N Guiding Principles ignored pre-&-post-Katrina, says studyLinda Frye Burnham / 05:55 PM Before and after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government failed to live up to the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, adopted by the United Nations in 1998 to protect the rights of people uprooted by conflict and calamity, says a new study by the Institute for Southern Studies. The government's insufficient efforts to prevent families from being uprooted, its inadequate emergency response and the still-lagging recovery are at odds with internationally recognized human-rights principles that the Bush administration has promoted in other countries, says the study.
January 15, 2008 Worldwide Letterboxing!Linda Frye Burnham / 01:44 PM Forwarded from the Arts and Healing Network Newsletter Worldwide Letterboxing by Alec Finlay When I first read about Alec Finlay’s Worldwide Letterboxing project in the journal, PRACTICE, I was struck by how simple and yet wonder-filled this project is. Over the next few years, Alec is placing 100 wooden boxes, each containing a rubber stamp of a “circle poem” in various locations around the world. Each box has a keeper, who plants the box in nature, records its location, creates clues/map, and maintains the box. On his web site, you can find details of how to find each of these boxes and journey to them yourself, collecting the circle poems. ...[T]his artistic act shares with guerilla art both the transformation of one’s relationship to the public environment and the sense of art as a surprise, free gift. In Alec’s own words,
January 14, 2008 Imagining New EnglandLinda Frye Burnham / 05:49 PM IAnews #9, the Fall 2007 issue of the newsletter of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, sports an informative column called "Imagining New England," downloadable on the IA Web site. It offers thumbnail sketches of university-community arts partnerships of the consortium's members in that region, where "arts and culture are increasingly looked to as resources for re-imagining local economies." For example, there's a nice profile of IA member Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and its Harvard Center for Continuing Partnerships, headed up by IA Board Chair David Scobey, who analyzes local history and needs and talks about the center's involvement with its shifting populations. Such programs at other IA member schools are profiled: Boston College, Brown U., Clark U., Dartmouth, Eastern Connecticut State, Emerson, Hampshire, RISD and Wesleyan.
Hidden New York Linda Frye Burnham / 02:22 PM We've just added a fabulous book to the CAN Bookstore: "Hidden New York: A Guide to Places That Matter" by City Lore's Marci Reaven and Steve Zeitlin (Rivergate Book/Rutgers U. Press, 2007). City Lore is an organization dedicated to preserving New York City's living cultural heritage. The book documents 60 irresistible places, most of which you (I) never knew existed: The Magic Table at the Edison Hotel, Stickball Boulevard and the Stadiums of the Street, Chess Havens, the Lemon Ice King of Corona, Liz Christy Bowery-Houston Community Garden and more. Artists are throughout the book ("How To Catch a Flyball in Oncoming Traffic," a poem by Annie Lanzillotto, p. 94). The whole thing is delightful. Every place should be so lucky.
January 11, 2008 Sounds like a job for community art!Linda Frye Burnham / 02:32 PM "The problem is how to restore intimacy, curiosity, trust, and play into the happenstance encounter of citizens, in an era when the happenstance and the unpredictable are a threat," said Toronto’s Poet Laureate, Pier Giorgio DiCicco at the Walk21 conference in October in "a blistering speech" (according to Spacing magazine). "We will not save the environment until we have found a reason for living together. Until we discover civic care in each other, until we restore the city to its definition as a place of unexpected intimacies, not just as a place of amenities, convenience, business, and entertainment, we will not have sustainability. ... It is not cars that are the enemy of the pedestrian. The enemy is the absence of civic communion, the lack of empathic citizenship, our inability to see cohabitation as that place where we enjoy ourselves, by enjoying others. ... If all we want is clean and well-designed cities, it will likely come to pass. But in the long run, to save the environment means that we will want to save the environment not just for ourselves, but for each other. And to reverence each other means that we will have to discover each other." For what it's worth, DiCiccio is a Catholic priest. I hope everybody rebuilding New Orleans reads this. (Thanks, Centre of Expertise on Culture and Communities, Vancouver.) The whole speech is here.
January 08, 2008 Performing Communities on SaleLinda Frye Burnham / 05:41 PM New Village Press is offering CAN's book "Performing Communities:Grassroots Ensemble Theaters Deeply Rooted in Eight U.S. Communities" at a special price of $15 right now. The book by Robert H. Leonard and Ann Kilkelly, edited by yours truly, has an introduction by Jan Cohen-Cruz. To order, go to the New Village Press Web site. New Village Press:
January 07, 2008 Working in Partnership: Meaningful Art IntegrationLinda Frye Burnham / 05:12 PM Here's an interesting course being offered by the Art in Education Teaching Institute, a year-round professional-development program for San Francisco Bay Area K–12 educators and teaching artists. It's a program of California College of the Arts in collaboration with the Alameda County Office of Education: "Working in Partnership: Meaningful Art Integration," 12 sessions, January 17-April 10. Registration deadline is January 16. Here's the 411:
January 04, 2008 L.A.: Get your arts tune-upLinda Frye Burnham / 03:25 PM The L.A. County Arts Commission will sponsor an "Arts Tune-Up" event for individual artists and small-budget organizations. It's designed to put them in contact with arts consultants, working artists, and administrators who can provide information and answer questions on cultural and community outreach, fundraising, how to market and publicize their work, new loan-fund programs, benefit opportunities, training programs, board development, arts-education resources, and more. Co-sponsors are L.A. Plaza de Cultura y Artes, First District Supervisor Gloria Molina, L.A. Stage Alliance and Arts for L.A. That's the kind of infrastructure that keeps community-based arts alive. (Thanks, Jill Burnham.)
Six_Events: You Be the Artist Linda Frye Burnham / 01:09 PM London conceptual composer/artist Matthew Lee Knowles invites us all to take part in "Six_Events," worldwide, January 21-27, 2008, and document our actions for an exhibition in London. "SIX_EVENTS," says Knowles, "allows us to reflect on what we do in our daily routine, looking for examples where there might be elements of ‘art’ in our own lives, rather than being the passive consumers of ‘art’ created by others." We do however, have to follow directions and complete certain tasks, ranging from clapping hands once, to simply not thinking about the length of time one will ride a bus. Events call for certain times and durations to be recorded and sent to the composer; these timings and durations will go to writing a new piece of music in late 2008. So far there are hundreds of planned individual and group performances in 23 countries and 13 U.S. states. "Performers should constantly listen to the sounds around them, they are hearing a very unique composition. Also, anything at all of interest should be documented, if something happens (someone accuses you of acting suspicious, a pigeon sits on your head, you fall asleep, you trip up....) please write this down and email" to Knowles. Details are on MySpace.
January 03, 2008 25th Re-Rooters Day, Jan. 7, ProvincetownLinda Frye Burnham / 04:48 PM Forwarded from the IRS (International Re-Rooters Society), Provincetown, Mass.: Following a tradition begun in 1983 when discarded Christmas trees were stood up in the Provincetown dump, the 25th Annual Re-Rooters Day Ceremony, led by IRS (International Re-Rooters Society) Director Jay Critchley, will take place on schedule on January 7, 2008 in Provincetown Harbor. With yearly themes that purge the previous year’s cultural and political landscape, environmental degradation and the excessive consumption of the holiday season − such as Where’s the Beef (feeB eth s’erehW, 1985), Oil My Lips (spiL yM liO, 1991), and Mad Kowtow Disease (daM wotwoK esaesiD, 2004) − participants are invited to bring things they wish to discard and burn on the tree/boat.
January 02, 2008 Under the Zipper during Arts Presenters, NYCLinda Frye Burnham / 10:40 AM Sforwarded from Strike Anywhere: trike Anywhere is proud to host UNDER THE ZIPPER a showcase of Ensemble Theater designed to coincide with the 2008 Arts Presenters Conference. UNDER THE ZIPPER will feature 6 Ensemble Theaters: THEATRE OF YUGEN, STRIKE ANYWHERE PERFORMANCE ENSEMBLE, SANDGLASS THEATER, NACL THEATRE, M.U.G.A.B.E.E. and BOND STREET THEATRE. For one night only, ensemble theaters from around the country will converge at a new underground space at the Zipper Factory to offer a sneak-peek of current work. Featuring an eclectic menu of puppetry, hip-hop/jazz, American Noh Theater, and Brechtian vaudeville this evening will highlight some of the tastiest treats from the Network of Ensemble Theaters (N.E.T.). Post-show cocktails at Zipper Tavern upstairs. |
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