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(03/02/10 11:00pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the midst of a deadly virus that is often discussed in hushed, concerned tones, musicians, actors and artists are shouting and singing about living positively with HIV/AIDS. They are using the creative arts to educate, comfort and declare their status. Last summer, artist Dr. Lilian Mary Nabulime opened the exhibit “Sculptural Expression: Women and HIV/AIDS” in Kampala, Uganda, with artwork that incorporated food items, baskets, soap sculptures and stone.“Through art you can express your feelings, and through art you can touch other people’s lives,” she said. “People don’t necessarily have to be educated. Once the work object is there and if it is attractive, it draws in people and they start asking questions. As they are asking, the information is being passed on and they are also giving you ideas.” For a topic that is often taboo, she said her artwork was a means to discuss HIV/AIDS and enjoy the conversation. Her exhibit gave “strong messages which hit them right up so they see this is a destructive disease,” she said. In the end, both artists and audiences learn another way of approaching the virus. Dr. Daniel Reed, associate professor of ethnomusicology, said artistic and medical responses to AIDS should not be separated in the African context. “People involve themselves in music and dance to such a great extent in daily life,” he said, “that if you can use that medium as a place to disseminate, it’s likely to have great effect and reach a lot of people.” The “Wake Up! Africa” campaign based in Côte d’Ivoire, used popular artistic forms to disseminate an educational message on HIV/AIDS to urban youth. Reed writes that the campaign used concerts, television and songs performed by major African artists to make a real impact on medical and cultural practices.Many major international and local campaigns incorporate creativity into their mission, said Dr. Judah Cohen, assistant professor of ethnomusicology who is publishing a co-edited book on “The Culture of AIDS in Africa: Hope and Healing in Music and the Arts.” Education can help reduce stigma and make people realize that the virus impacts everyone in the society. “This is a world in which you have people who are trying to express themselves, and AIDS is part of the landscape,” he said, explaining that photographers, musicians, playwrights, visual artists and even circuses address HIV/AIDS. “Health professionals are constantly partnering with musicians. This is a key part of what’s going on. To me, the conversation cannot be had without bringing these in.” Music also goes beyond education. Music and dance are used “as a means of living positively, finding empowerment and solace and hope and life, really, in this music-making,” Reed said. “It’s a means of finding salvation and hope in the midst of what could be defined as tragic circumstances.” In Uganda, the TASO Mbarara Drama Group includes a vigorous dance at the end of its shows to demonstrate how vital it is. The message is clear, Cohen said: “‘Here we are. We may be HIV positive, but we are like you and we also can be healthy. Look at us.’ Everyone who was in that group was HIV positive. They were able to show themselves as HIV positive, but living positively through this form of expression.” The role of music and dance is not confined to Africa. In Trinidad and Tobago, graduate student David Lewis is researching how HIV/AIDS and the arts relate. He said that in prominent musicians’ lives and even deaths, a conversation about HIV is facilitated. The popular calypso musician Merchant was one of the first artists in Trinidad and Tobago to reveal his HIV status, Lewis said. His 1999 death from AIDS helped to generate a public conversation about HIV and normalize the virus. “I think to have some of these very public instances of people passing away from HIV,” Lewis says, “particularly calypso musicians ... for them, it might have made more impact on the general population. It broke the stereotype of who gets this disease.”That stereotype was the one that Lilian Nabulime was trying to break with her exhibit in Uganda. While each sculpture highlighted a different aspect of the disease — some showing its horrors and some showing the tender intimacy that is still needed — the exhibit as a whole was “frank, free and transparent,” as Gen. Elly Tumwine said in the opening ceremony. “What is here is not anywhere else in the world,” he said. “Art expresses what is far from everybody.”
(07/16/09 12:37am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>KAMPALA, Uganda – As the sun sets over the red rooftops in Kampala, Uganda, more than 30 young people gather in a dirt compound surrounded with brick walls still under construction. A young boy climbs the ladder to a water tank to get a bird’s-eye perspective of trombonists, trumpeters and drummers as their initial tuning notes converge into a melodic and energetic piece. “Music has power,” musician Segawa Bosco said. “Everyone loves music. We go on and tell children the beauty that music has. Someone can discover his or her own talent through music.” Bosco should know. He slept in a slum and walked the streets of Kampala, where there were beatings and rough survival until he was 11 years old. That’s when he heard the strains of brass-band music coming from a school compound. It took him a year to find the courage to approach the band, but when he did, he told the German music director he wanted to learn to play. Soon, Bosco and a group of seven other street kids were learning brass instruments. He said their first performance at a wedding profoundly changed him, as people saw them with musical talent doing good things. “From that day my life started changing,” he said. “It was very empowering. I became a good person.” That was in 1996, the beginning of M-Lisada, or Music Life Skills and Destitution Alleviation. From those first days, the group has grown to 70 children, from ages 4 to 22, and Bosco is now the director. They live and sleep in a compound that was purchased for them by a British group. Like Bosco, all the children formerly lived in the slums or slept on the streets. Now they learn and play classical brass-band music together and perform for events around Uganda.M-Lisada’s musical talent has earned it high grades on international music exams, a CD recording project and performances for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Germany’s first lady. Kampala Music School, a hub for classical music instruction, provides teachers and music advising. Tebezinda Malitoli Derrick, managing director of M-Lisada, said music has opened up audiences that would otherwise be closed to listening to poor children. “Music brings people together,” he said. “The rhythm that music has makes people draw near. People join with a full heart.” When people are drawn in, they are more open to share their personal lives with one another, Derrick said. This goes for the musicians as well. They have become more than a brass band. They are a family, with the younger children calling their seniors “uncles” and “aunts.” Ronald Kabuye lived on the streets of Kampala until he was 5 years old. He said life was hard and he could not sleep. But one day he saw the band playing in town and asked “Uncle Bosco” about joining. “Music was my love because I had no parents,” he said.Now he conducts the group with sophistication and grace, clearly in control of the musicians before him. Eye contact is easy to maintain when no one uses sheet music. He has also played the trombone for two years and wants to teach music and be a mechanical engineer in the future. “Music unites people,” he said. “When we play music, we see people uniting.” He added, “If you have any support, you can help us. We want to help Uganda to become famous in the world.” M-Lisada relies heavily on donations from sponsors, yet there are still many challenges, Derrick said. Performance events do not bring in enough income to sustain the home and provide school fees for all the musicians. They have funds for only one meal per day, and staff members are not paid.They lack medical support and deal with issues like prostitution and AIDS in their neighborhood. Some of the girls are more interested in learning woodwind or string instruments, but they simply don’t have the instruments or instructors available. The challenges are pressing and affect these musicians’ daily, but one would never know when listening to the band play Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World,” or when the children crowd around to greet and hug, beaming ear to ear with smiles. As Bosco said, “If you come together, you can produce something that’s good.”
(06/04/09 12:24am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>KAMPALA, Uganda – Hundreds of thousands of Ugandans gathered in Namugongo, Kampala on Thursday in commemoration of Martyrs’ Day, a holiday that remembers the death of 26 Christians killed in 1886. Pilgrims from across the country convened for Catholic and Protestant services, many of them walking from faraway towns in solidarity for the sufferings the martyrs endured. The services featured choirs, dancing, prayers, serving of the Holy Eucharist and a speech by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Though the services were solemn, outside the security gates lay a festival for the senses, with miles of food vendors, entertainers, boys selling Martyrs’ Day paraphernalia and groups gathered to gamble.
(05/04/09 12:24am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Tight harmonies met driving rhythms, a brass-heavy ensemble and flashing colors at the IU Soul Revue concert Saturday night in the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. The performers portrayed a romantic drama throughout the show as part of the theme “Sessions in Love.”Soul Revue, one of three ensembles in the African-American Arts Institute, consists of 11 singers, six horns and six rhythm players. The concert featured songs by Earth, Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan, Beyonce and Alicia Keys, among others.Nathanael Fareed Mahluli, director of the ensemble for the past four years, said the group went straight for the story of love in this concert and invited the audience to experience a romance evolve on stage. It’s also a story of love for music.“What people experience in this show is over 30 years of loving this music,” Mahluli said. He said he hoped the audience would see the “diversity of how the love story is expressed in African-American music.”But Soul Revue is more than a music group. Alumni Alan and Mary Bacon were members in the late 1970s and said the ensemble was a family affair that helped create their current lives.“It gave us structure, purpose and direction,” Alan said. “We learned so many skills applicable to real life.”“We’ve been friends ever since,” said Victoria Clark, another alumna of the group. “We come back and support them.” These alumni and other audience members were on their feet dancing during the performance as the singers urged people to get up and move. At some points, the singers came down to the floor level and danced with audience members, and the remaining singers on stage encouraged them to sing along.“We always encourage people, you know, ‘express it,’ because we’re up there expressing it,” singer and senior Terrilyn Dennie said.This is the “completely different dynamic” that junior and singer Chinyere Cheryl Nwokah said is her favorite part of the ensemble. Rehearsals can be stressful, but when the curtains open and the group performs, they reap the fruits of their labor and feed off the energy of the audience.Portia Maultsby, the first director of the ensemble, which was founded in 1971, said she was thrilled to see the talent of Soul Revue again. This year’s performance style reminded her of the early years of the ensemble. She was also pleased with the song selection that communicated a range of African-American creative expression.“They are preserving the past, integrating early decades into the present,” she said. “It helps this generation understand the roots of the music they hear today.”
(05/01/09 3:20am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The African American Arts Institute ensemble, IU Soul Revue, will present its final concert of the year at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. The theme of the concert is “Sessions in Love” and will feature a storyline based on love with African-American R&B, soul, funk, contemporary urban popular music, dance and dialogue woven in.“We go right for the story of love and make it visible,” said director Nathanael Fareed Mahluli. “You’ll see what happens in the game of love between the various people who are in relationships. Those relationships evolve on stage.”This concert is different from past performances because of the incorporation of a plot and storyline, junior and singer Cheryl Nwokah said. The group tried to make the performance more of a production instead of just singing songs because they want to make the evening more engaging and easy to follow.Soul Revue was founded in 1971 and was the first ensemble at the African American Arts Institute, which now also includes the African American Dance Company and the African American Choral Ensemble. Each ensemble is offered as a class and is joined by an audition. Soul Revue is more than just a performing ensemble and a class; senior Terrilyn Dennie said the ensemble is like a family.“If you’re a part of the Soul Revue, you become really close-knit,” she said. “We have this extraordinary thing in common, which is music. We are expressing it, and it binds us together. Our personalities just click.”She added that she loves her fellow members and would do anything for them.Dennie said although the ensemble is challenging and tedious at times, it’s worth all the stress. Learning artists’ biographies inspires her, and she enjoys reading about the backgrounds of the pieces the ensemble learns.Nwokah joined the ensemble her freshman year out of curiosity for a different genre and has been singing with the group ever since. She said learning the music aurally challenges the musicians to work outside of class, but also gives a sense of free musical expression.“We learn everything by ear,” she said. “It gives us more freedom to play around with notes and putting our own spin on the music. We have freedom to learn the music and make it our own.”Nwokah said performing is her favorite part of the ensemble. Once the group is on stage, it’s a completely different dynamic. This spring it has performed in Indianapolis, Bloomington City Hall and as far away as New York. But this Saturday will be the best performance of the year, said Mahluli.“It all comes to fruition here in this concert,” he said. “We want the audience to walk away more in love with themselves, their partners and the people around them.”
(04/22/09 2:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Walk down the new B-Line Trail between Fifth and Sixth streets and the shadows from a colorful “Animal Island” will fall on pedestrians. Cross over to Third Street and a painted signal-box mural with bright blues, reds and yellows, smiling faces and cheerful bees awaits. Head to the Bryan Park Tots Playground and smiling animals will greet children ready to play.These public art displays were all created at Stone Belt, a nonprofit organization in Bloomington that provides education and support to people with disabilities. The art program started four years ago with mixed-media mosaics as a project to engage individuals with the community.“We did large mosaics here based on client drawings,” said Larry Pejeau, director of art-and-craft and business development at Stone Belt. “We took some clients with us and all our materials, and we’d just set up and finish those mosaics in a public spot and invite people to join us. It was really a lot of fun and a great project.”From there, the art projects expanded. They use recycled or donated materials, such as wallpaper and cloth samples, yarn and glitter to fill in the colors of a drawing one of the clients made. Karen Holtzclaw, a full-time art teacher at Stone Belt, facilitates the process. Individuals are paid $6.55 per hour to do the artwork, and paid 33 to 50 percent of the sale price when the item is sold. Sometimes it takes creativity to give participants with various disabilities access to the art materials, Pejeau said.“There’s a woman who has cerebral palsy,” he said. “She’s in a rolling bed, and her hands have a twist to them. We Velcro a paintbrush to her hand and she does some amazing work. ... And there’s someone who never did art.”Kelly Tate is an artist who has participated in a variety of art projects at Stone Belt. She said she spends a lot of time in the art room.“My favorite part is drawing,” she said. “I think it’s fun. I like doing a lot of stuff. I like drawing people and friends around here – co-workers and nurses mostly. I like that too. I feel happy.”The city of Bloomington has collaborated with professional artists and Stone Belt to incorporate the artwork into public displays. Miah Michaelsen, assistant economic development director for the arts for the city of Bloomington, said putting Stone Belt artwork into public spaces exposes the community to the potential and quality of work done by the artists.“Public art in and of itself is a great thing,” she said. “Being able to provide visibility for those that people don’t necessarily define as artists opens people’s eyes. Yes, they can create art, and yes, it can be beautiful.”An exhibit of colorful insects is currently on display at the WonderLab Museum of Health, Science and Technology. Gallery operations manager Mike Voyles said the art highlights the joy and beauty in the natural world. Approaching science with an artist’s eye opens science up to constantly changing perspectives, he said, as well as being fun. “Their work, just looking at it, makes you smile,” he said of the Stone Belt artwork. “All the insects and subject material is all very happy. It’s all colorful.”But the art-and-craft unit of Stone Belt goes far beyond these public displays and exhibits. On the lower level of Stone Belt is a woodworking shop where staff and clients produce Adirondack-style chairs, wine boxes and custom orders. Down the hallway is an expansive room where large machines cut leather for belts, coasters and bookmarks, and where individuals use leftovers from other projects to create new work for exploration art projects. Nothing gets thrown out. This is not a small operation. Last year, Stone Belt produced all the belts for the U.S. military police, along with belts for the Navy, U.S. Postal Service and IU personnel, bringing the number to 30,000 leather belts, Pejeau said. They’re also working on a job to assemble 120,000 greeting cards.“This is an infinite source of revenue for the agency,” Pejeau said. “It creates wages and a little bit of profit, all of which gets dumped back into this. Same with the art program. All the money we make on the art program goes into buying materials.”For individuals at Stone Belt, the art-and-craft program opens a space for creative artisans to contribute beautiful artwork to the community. That, Pejeau said, is a powerful act.“With art, they get to express themselves,” he said. “It’s been very transformative. You see people really, really blossoming, and they start doing stuff and they get their own vision. ... They’re so proud of themselves.”
(04/20/09 1:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“Hammer and Nail,” performed this weekend at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, was not just a concert of new music written and played by musicians from the Jacobs School of Music, nor was it simply a display of virtuosic dance choreographed by students in the IU Contemporary Dance Program.“Hammer and Nail” was both: a unity of artistic talent and technical precision and a marriage of music and dance. Its fourth year as a collaboration between the Student Composers Association and the IU Contemporary Dance Program, the show’s aim is to create and perform new works of art and to get students working outside their departments.“It’s a rich interaction for both the choreographer and the composer to go through the process of collaboration,” said Selene Carter, visiting guest lecturer in the Contemporary Dance Program. “The forms are different, but are quite linked.”Four performances Saturday and Sunday comprised 14 works, each one featuring a different combination of instruments and dancers. “A Strange Peace” brought four dancers on stage, accompanied by soprano, viola, cello, percussion and piano. “Complex Variables” had four dancers and one marimba player. “TRIbal Fury” featured seven dancers with trumpet, horn, trombone and percussion. The performance was the product of months of work that began last fall. Composers met choreographers to discuss general ideas in October, and then the Student Composers Association matched up pairs of two. Composers wrote and recorded their pieces by February, choreographers held auditions and created the dance and musicians rehearsed together. Finally, audiences crowded the theater and applauded for each work of art this weekend.“We take these two different schools in IU and put them together and show the audience we’re capable of doing this collaboration on a very high level,” said association officer David Werfelmann. “We’re conveying what’s on our mind.”For junior Utam Moses and graduate student Jonathan Sokol, that meant a piece about melancholy hope based on a poem by Gunnar Ekelof. “A Strange Peace” speaks of trauma, absence, longing and how one’s feeling of the world can begin to change, Moses said.Sokol’s music conveys that mood with what he called a “stagnant, still ambiance” with a “singable, childlike melody.” The music gave Moses space to create a dance that reinforced the mood.“The music kind of hangs like a fog, a tangible pressure to move within,” Moses said. “It can be still but also incredibly detailed at the same time.”This kind of collaboration takes trust, Moses and Sokol agreed, and the audience was delighted with the outcome.“I thought they were amazing,” said Lisa Paul, whose daughter Joanna choreographed a piece. “My daughter had a great experience with her composer. She was thrilled with the creating process. It was awesome to see all the hard work.”
(04/16/09 1:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Composers from the Jacobs School of Music and dancers from the IU Contemporary Dance Program have been working all year to present this weekend’s performance of live music and dance at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.“Hammer and Nail” features two evenings of original compositions performed live by musicians and set to modern dance choreography. Everything is composed, performed and directed by IU students, both undergraduate and graduate.Two separate programs will feature seven pieces each. Between the programs, the audience is encouraged to use dinner coupons from participating downtown restaurants, which attendees will receive after donating food items to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank. The event advertises two evenings of “Dance-Dine-Donate,” according to posters.“It’s about building community,” said Selene Carter, visiting guest lecturer in the Contemporary Dance Program. “Artists don’t exist in a vacuum.”The collaborative process began at the beginning of the fall semester.The students met in a “speed dating” event, where they had less than five minutes to meet one another, discuss general ideas about the tempo and mood of their work-to-be, share their outlook and interests and move on to the next “date.”When the event was over, officers in the Student Composers Association played matchmaker.David Werfelmann, one of the association’s officers and a graduate student, said there is a long history of collaboration between composers and dancers through operas and musicals, but the music school does not provide many opportunities for working together directly.“The idea of ‘Hammer and Nail’ is to combine the composition department with another department,” he said. “Part of the SCA’s objective is to get the composer’s work outside of the music school.”Once composers and choreographers are matched, the composer has until early February to finish the piece. Meanwhile, choreographers hold auditions for dancers in their works. The composer then gives the choreographer an electronic copy of the piece, and the choreographer works on putting the dance together.Throughout the process, the two meet to discuss the progress of the work and the essence of what they want to communicate.In her book “The Art of Making Dances,” Doris Humphrey writes, “The ideal relationship (between the choreographer and music) is like a happy marriage in which two individuals go hand-in-hand, but are not identical twins.”This is the kind of relationship that Utam Moses, a junior dance major, and Jonn Sokol, a graduate student in composition, have formed this year. The pair will perform “A Strange Peace,” a work about melancholy hope based on a poem by Gunnar Ekelof.“It developed organically,” Sokol said as he explained how he met with Moses while composing and discussed the emotions they wanted to convey. Those conversations helped him see the poem with more layers and create what he calls a musical “barren wasteland of metallic resonance.”“We were influencing each other all the time,” Moses said. “Trust is a big part of it.”This notion of true collaboration, Carter said, is what they want to communicate in “Hammer and Nail.”“There’s something so beautiful to be had with two people coming together for a common goal,” she said. “The whole is greater than the two halves. This is not just one person’s vision, but coming together.”
(04/14/09 12:17am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Graduate student Christopher Renk, winner of the Musical Arts Youth Orchestra Composition Competition, will see his piece “Through Doorways Between Dreams” performed publicly this Sunday. Ninety musicians ages 8 to 18 from around the world will play Renk’s piece at the IU Auditorium as part of the International Youth Orchestra Festival.Renk said he began composing the piece two years ago, but set it aside until he heard about the competition.“The piece started as a fragment of music,” Renk said. “It had an ethereal, subtle character like dream imagery.”He began by playing the fragment on the piano and thinking about the instrumentation and the mood he wanted to evoke, he said.“I’m trying to get at certain mystical, ethereal, dark and sardonic heroic feelings,” Renk said.Once he got those feelings written into the orchestral parts, he submitted the piece to the competition. The orchestra played through the works of four finalists before finally selecting Renk’s piece.“It has all the things we were looking for,” said Don Freund, professor of music composition at the Jacobs School of Music. “It’s a very attractive, expressive piece. It has a lot of interesting orchestral colors and a rhythm that gets into your system as you listen to it.”Freund added that Renk knew what kinds of sounds fit well for each instrument and how to make the piece together as a single organism.“It has an engaging accompaniment,” Freund said. “There’s a flow to it, the way all the voices are doing something interesting. It’s engaging to the listener.”Jose Valencia, the music director of the competition, echoed similar sentiments.“Chris Renk’s piece has this driving motor that the kids dig,” he said. “It goes through instrumental parts and is married with percussion. I think it’s more emblematic of our times.”The process of rehearsing “Through Doorways Between Dreams” was exciting for the orchestra as well, Valencia said.“The musicians liked it a lot,” he said. “It’s a good thing to have people exposed to new music that’s written right now, by people who are alive right now.”Renk attended some of the rehearsals of the piece and was on hand to answer questions.Valencia said Renk gets to have an immediate impact on what Renk is hearing and what he was hearing in his head when he wrote the new piece.Renk said he is impressed with the response of the orchestra.“This is serious music,” he said. “It would be challenging for a lot of groups. This orchestra is wonderful. The orchestra students are very serious and talented.”The concert at 4 p.m. Sunday is just one part of the International Youth Orchestra Festival this week, which also includes masterclasses, workshops and rehearsals, said Julia Copeland, executive director of the competition.“All week we have guests here, young musicians,” she said. “It’s a very intense week for us.”
(04/13/09 12:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>From African a cappella songs to classically arranged pieces and jazz-infused medleys, the African American Choral Ensemble proved its vocal versatility in a concert Saturday evening at the John Waldron Arts Center.The performance’s theme was “From Africa to Ellington” and featured a Nigerian folk song, a spiritual medley, a South African and Swaziland praise song, contemporary gospel sets and “Tribute to Ellington,” arranged by director Keith McCutchen. Guest performers included the IU Jazz Ensemble and Tap Casual, which closed the evening with energetic tap dancing.McCutchen said he selected the diverse songs to “help reconnect to those aspects many students would not have had a chance to articulate.”“We utilize classical techniques but are also always rooted to oral expressions, to traditions that are rooted in the African-American musical experience,” he said.He said he also includes spiritual elements to incorporate a “historical time period that has become part of the American and universal choral canon” and as a “catalyst to the new genres.”“What we haven’t done before is perform African song,” McCutchen said, “so we start with a Nigerian song that speaks of home.”Another piece, “Psalm Shout,” was written by IU alumnus Robert Morris, Ph.D. It was classically arranged with gospel shout and jazz elements in the accompaniment and harmony, McCutchen said.Xan Jennings, a graduate student in voice performance, was most excited about “Tribute to Ellington,” especially after taking a Duke Ellington history course this year.“It’s really exciting to have studied that music and now to be able to perform it,” she said. “This is something that since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen before. To actually do that Duke Ellington suite is really something special.”McCutchen said he arranged the “Tribute to Ellington” to show the breadth of Ellington’s genius in his sacred writing. “I was trying to capture the beat of Ellington in the orchestration for something similar but different,” he said. “It’s a beautiful ballad, the exuberance of praise that erases the boundaries between sacred and secular.”Graduate student Justin Merrick said he enjoyed being part of the ensemble this year.“It’s definitely an interesting experience,” he said. “This is a special art form of the African diaspora. It’s a way for me to stay connected through my music.“It’s like family,” he added. “It’s a very nurturing environment. It’s very diverse. I would recommend it for someone looking for a different music experience. It’s culturally enriching too.”Ed Marshall, IU vice president of diversity, equity and multicultural affairs, attended the concert and echoed similar views.“I think it’s very energetic,” he said. “It’s lively. It’s a bridge between cultures with different genres. It’s very inspiring.”
(04/06/09 2:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Colors swirled around energetic dancers as the African American Dance Company took the audience on a journey through the African diaspora Saturday night at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. The spring concert was the company’s 35th performance and fused dance forms and styles from the Caribbean and Africa, modern dance and other traditions.The theme “Looking Back, Pressing Forward” was chosen by the African American Arts Institute to “look at what our predecessors in music and dance have done, have been about, have created, how those developments have changed over time and how they fit into contemporary music and dance,” said director Iris Rosa. “My choreographed pieces deal with the human conditions of the African diaspora,” she said. Most of the dancers have been in the dance company all year, while some have been dancing in it for several years. The performance featured four sets of collaborations – dances choreographed by the students themselves.“The students selected their theme for the collaborations,” Rosa said. “They had a discussion about the Constitution. They started asking questions – ‘for whom it was written back in the day?’ And so their collaborations deal with questioning and how they feel about the Constitution and the African diasporic experience.”Charles Sykes, executive director of the African American Arts Institute, praised the students for their dedication.“It’s wonderful,” he said. “What’s really inspiring to me is the way the students have worked and done extra work outside of class.”The concert opened with “Danzas Animadas,” a piece choreographed by Rosa that looked at the influence of Moorish culture and expression throughout the diaspora. Modern dance was merged with Caribbean- and African-derived movements along with the sounds of Flamenco and Bomba and a speech by Che Guevara. “We the People(s),” also choreographed by Rosa, opened with the voice of Christopher Columbus telling his version of the American story. Spoken word artist Derrick Slack followed with a re-interpretation of the story.“Please listen to me,” he said. “All the black people dead. All. Dead ... Listen to the sound of the street and stand to your feet. Say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud.”Other pieces included “It Comes from the Root,” “The Remixed Root,” and four student collaborations.More than 230 people attended the show, the house manager said, and they applauded the dancers enthusiastically. “This is one of their best concerts,” freshman Shakira Bell said. “I am really, really excited and ecstatic about it, especially as a dancer myself.”
(03/27/09 4:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As part of the IU Energy Challenge to minimize energy consumption in dorms and greek houses, Earth Hour is a global initiative to turn off lights and other electrical appliances from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday.Mike Steinhoff, intern coordinator for the IU Task Force on Campus Sustainability, said IU’s involvement began with an e-mail from the provost and president to make IU a “flagship campus” with the Earth Hour event.“It was really great to have the administration commit and say, ‘hey, something’s going to happen,’” Steinhoff said.The Office of Sustainability has coordinated with the Physical Plant to turn off decorative lights around campus during that hour, Steinhoff said. The library, Sample Gates and fountains around campus will all be darkened. The athletics department will also turn off lights on intramural fields.At the same time, students with IU Volunteers in Sustainability will travel throughout campus to check classrooms, hallways and public areas for lights that are burning needlessly.“Lights are the easy thing to do,” Steinhoff said. The action is a “symbolic event designed to engage people from all walks of life in the climate change discussion to send a strong message to our political leaders that we want them to take meaningful action on climate change,” according to the Earth Hour Web site.This event occurs during the month-long Energy Challenge, which coordinator Mckenzie Beverage said is geared toward spreading awareness about conservation.“You’re hyper-aware of what’s going on,” she said. “That will be a big message to the University that students do care about conservation, and they’ll notice.”Michael Hamburger, co-chair of the IU Task Force on Campus Sustainability, said the Energy Challenge is “all about recognizing the scope of major global-scale issues and seeking solutions that involve a series of small-scale decisions that we all make in our everyday lives.”
(03/24/09 3:20am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Honor! Festival, a celebration of the African-American cultural legacy, has drawn full audiences at Carnegie Hall this month.A three-week comprehensive survey of African-American expressive arts curated by singer Jessye Norman, the festival drew extensively from the knowledge and resources of IU professor Portia Maultsby. “From a scholarly, historical research angle of the festival, Norman relied on my presence,” Maultsby said. “I wanted to do what I could to assist in carrying out her goals and objectives of the festival. She was wonderful to work with... It was a perfect opportunity for me to apply my knowledge of the tradition and the various skills that I have as a scholar.”The festival showcased creative artists in literacy, music, art, dance and theater. More than 100 artists participated, including Cornel West, Toni Morrison, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Imani Winds, Gwen Ifill, KEM, The Roots, Maya Angelou, James Carter and Ray Chew.Events included concerts from a range of musical genres, panel discussions, interviews and neighborhood participatory concerts. A curriculum for middle schools and a permanent Web site, www.carnegiehall.org/honor, with a history of black music, were also developed as part of the festival.“Festivals are cultural performances par excellence,” folklorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett wrote in “Destination Culture.” They have the “practical advantage of offering in a concentrated form, at a designated time and place, what the tourist would otherwise search out in the diffuseness of everyday life, with no guarantee of ever finding it.”The Honor! Festival is no exception.“The Honor! Festival showcases the diversity of African-American musical expression,” said IU professor Mellonee Burnim, who wrote program notes for two of the concerts. “At the same time, it highlights the unitary threads that bind the genres together as cultural expression.”To Maultsby, a great aspect of the festival is the potential interaction between the attendees and performers.“It also puts the audience in direct contact with a lot of the artists and a lot of the great works that they might’ve not heard,” she said.Maultsby’s involvement began as an editorial assistant for the middle school curriculum and artistic adviser for the opening concert. But Norman wanted regular access to a scholar who could help clarify some of the historical information and guide the framing of the festival.Maultsby became the general consultant for the festival and developed a permanent visual display on the Web site, providing text for each item on a timeline and identifying audio clips that represented each genre. She was also a panelist on two discussions at Carnegie Hall and Apollo Theater.“It was very, very intense,” Maultsby said, as her involvement became like a full-time job. “I worked on that day and night for over three months.”Burnim said that dedication paid off.“Dr. Maultsby’s engagement with the project was infectious,” she said.Burnim and Maultsby have collaborated on several academic and performance projects, and the festival was a “wonderful opportunity to translate my academic research for a broad public audience and increase awareness and understanding of the cultural and historical meanings embodied in African-American religious music,” Burnim said.“It was a lot of work,” Maultsby said. “It took a lot of time. It was intense, but it was absolutely enjoyable.”
(03/11/09 3:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The first in a series of “webinars” administered by Americans for the Arts will be held at 2 p.m. today in City Hall. The webinars, part of Bloomington Entertainment and Arts District’s initiative to offer entrepreneurial and educational opportunities to the creative community, are free and open to the public.“This is part of what BEAD is about, to strengthen the arts and cultural community,” said Miah Michaelsen, the city’s assistant economic development director for the arts. “We heard, ‘We need additional learning opportunities,’” she said, adding that this is a good opportunity to provide this service.Webinars are “90-minute online seminars on a current topic, issue or trend,” according to the Americans for the Arts Web site. “This new media platform enables a high level of interaction with the presenter, other attendees and the content.”The seminars feature field experts who showcase the best practices and illustrate innovative models.Susan Sandberg, program coordinator for arts administration at the School of Public Environmental Affairs and member of the city council, attended a webinar on the arts. “The information was great, and I’m always happy to chat with anyone who’s facing the same dilemmas we all are,” Sandberg said. “It’s a good substitute for anyone interested in learning more about what other arts professionals and arts administrators around the country are doing.”The webinars offered this year touch on a variety of topics, including “Arts & Civic Engagement: Policies and Actions for Strengthening the 21st Century Community,” “Organizational Planning for Local Arts Agencies,” “Arts Marketing through Web,” “Basics of Budgeting in Local Arts Organizations” and “Fundraising for Local Arts Agencies.” “This is another great resource for anyone interested in the arts,” Sandberg said.The webinars are applicable to a variety of people, Michaelsen said. Because they are held locally and don’t require travel, the “bite-sized information” sessions are easy to work into a busy schedule. For more information on the webinars, go to www.bloomington.in.gov/bead“We’ll have people on the panel from all over the country,” Michelaelson said. “It’s an opportunity for us to provide access to cutting-edge education.”
(03/10/09 3:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bloomington’s Commission on the Status of Women has announced three awards for local women leaders. The commission named Christine Glaser as Bloomington’s Woman of the Year, posthumously gave Anne Reese the Lifetime Contribution Award and gave Melissa Britton the Emerging Leader Award.Glaser and Reese will be honored at the Women’s History Month Lunch on Wednesday at the Bloomington Convention Center. Britton will receive her award at the Women’s Leadership Development workshops on March 30. “It’s important for us as a community to recognize the work these women do,” said Sue Owens, program specialist in the Community and Family Resources Department. “We like to recognize women’s exceptional contribution.” The Commission on the Status of Women started in 1973 to “enhance the quality of the individual’s life in community,” Owens said. “They wanted to promote gender equality in different areas. They wanted to make sure women got equal benefits as men.”This year’s theme, set by the National Women’s History Project, is “Women Taking the Lead to Save our Planet.” A founder of the Center for Sustainable Living in Bloomington, Glaser has been involved in an abundance of green projects, including the Community Bike Project and the Simply Living Fair. She is a coordinator with Bloomington Peace Action Coalition, works for GreenFire Consulting Group and is an active member of Earth Care, an interfaith group concerned with environmental practices in churches.“Christine really exemplifies what women should be acknowledged for,” said selection committee member Jillian Kinzie. “Her work has a long-term benefit. All of our futures are dependent on it.”“I am guided by the principle of nonviolence, which is love – pure and simple,” Glaser said in an e-mail. “I strive for nonviolence, for an expansion of love, in my thoughts and actions ... I am motivated by a vision of a better world ... If you are outraged about something, it is probably because you love and you care. Act on that love. Don’t be silent. Seeds for peace can be planted here. No need to wait.”Reese worked at the IU Health Center, joined various women’s organizations and was a health educator on issues of family life, sexual health and AIDS awareness.“She left a legacy,” Kinzie said. “She really was an expert in reaching out to young girls and did a good job creating materials and training. Her program ended up being a model.” Britton, recipient of the Emerging Leader Award, works for the city of Bloomington as the Latino Outreach Coordinator. “I enjoy bringing groups together for a common goal and creating sustainable programs,” Britton said in an e-mail.She works particularly with low-income families, women and new community members to make them feel welcome in Bloomington and access the resources they need.“She’s someone who is really concerned about how new community members make it and are successful towards our communities,” Kinzie said. “She’s really an outstanding young woman and has done an incredible amount in a short time.”