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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Dance criticism, RIP?

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Is dance criticism dead? Or, through the migration of displaced print journalists to the Web, is that classic, high-authority form of criticism just hanging on life support? And does anybody out there really give a damn?

Dance bloggers, social media fans and 'Net-savvy dance artists and administrators certainly smell blood. Last evening, Movement Research convened a panel to examine the undeniable new media revolution that is already bringing new voices, perspectives and strategies to the creation, documentation, promotion and discussion of the art of dance. Moderated by Brian McCormick--Executive Director of nicholas leichter dance and former dance editor of Gay City News--the panel included:

Eric Ost, High 5
David Parker, The Bang Group
Doug Fox, Great Dance
Jaki Levy, Arrow Root Media
Laura Colby, Elsie Management
Marc Kirschner, TenduTV
Maura Nguyen Donohue, In Mixed Company
Paz Tanjuaquio, Topaz Arts
Sarah A.O. Rosner, The A.O. Movement Collective

and myself. Although drawing a small audience, the forum offered a lively exchange of views and a useful airing of concerns about the perceived declining quality--not to mention quantity--of dance criticism in New York's mainstream media.

Here's one of the topics McCormick suggested to us prior to the panel, and it's the one that commanded our attention over the two hours:

THE DECLINE OF PRINT MEDIA (THE RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA)


In any event, the age of the dance critic is coming to an end. The print media brands that supply a critic with credentials continue to see their circulations shrink. A simultaneous convergence of artistic focus on PROCESS versus PRODUCT and social media capacities for sharing artistic process and practice are also at odds with a dialectic that focuses solely on one experience of a performative end to the process, which in some cases isn’t even happening anymore. In such an environment, (3) What purpose does dance criticism serve, and (4) can those purposes be achieved through other means? What possible/practical strategies can artists engage in restore some balance to the control of information about their work? [How does career level influence responses?]

As a print emigrant, I've been thrilled to indulge in new media's many resources and opportunities, both as a consumer and a creator. (InfiniteBody blog and Body and Soul podcast represent only a fraction of my online involvement, just as my interest in dance represents only a fraction of who I am as a person.) I'm betting on the new tech communications not only to make it more efficient--and, frankly, more fun--for me to connect potential consumers to the artists I value but also to introduce me to all sorts of people with diverse knowledge, sensibilities and viewpoints that can enrich my experience. As a writer and a reader, I'm psyched to think that mainstream gatekeepers--with their commercial, aesthetic and personal agendas--have been so rapidly, so decisively circumvented by new media with its open-door policy and DIY ethic. Hooray for the cool kids!

But I'm also a little cautious, and I expressed some of those concerns at last night's panel. This is the second discussion of these issues in which I've participated; these forums can easily become focused on the menu of neat tools--Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, dance videos, video blogging--that we should all be adopting right now and lose sight of the original purpose of it all.

The methods of delivery of information are surely changing with the times, but the encounter and engagement with art remains--for me and for writers I respect and cherish--a deeply human and decidedly fleshy one. I still want to read writers whose full-bodied writing entertains me and educates me and dazzles me and frightens me and shocks me, ones who bring the power of their connection with a work to life for me and have taken some time to craft a response instead of dashing off a reaction. (At the panel, I cited Jill Johnston--from the early days of my interest in dance--and Holland Cotter, visual arts critic of the Times as two examples of writers I'd follow anywhere, no matter what they were writing about.) In a similar way, while I can appreciate the presentation of dance on video as an art in itself, I still most often want to feel the energy of dancers in the same room as me, breathing the same air I breathe. All of these things move me, and dance will always be, for me, a transformative power.

Champions of new media argue that wonderful new voices will eventually emerge out of the crowd, hastening to add that this does not mean, of course, a return to hierarchical standards. I do want the usual suspects shaken up, and I'm eager to see who's out there and what they've got. Everyone agrees that we need better dance writing. So, if the new media revolution means we've gotta have more before we get better, okay then.

But replacing the once-almighty New York Times with new media's democratization of expression won't necessarily bring about dance reviews that we'll be happy to read. More venues and more voices mean way more opportunities for work to get picked apart by folks whose voices are fresh but whose knowledge might be shaky, who are not your friends and who don't have your back and--I can tell you from years of involvement on the 'Net--people rarely hold back. The level and tone of discourse can be mean. Even irrational. And poorly spelled.

Connection, empathy, consideration, well-crafted, clear communication, thoughtful dialogue and useful, constructive criticism take time. (We won't get into how inadequately, disrespectfully compensated that time is for most dance writers--another topic for another day.) I want to see more attention to these essential qualities in media, both old and new. If new media can bring that to me, then bring it.


Okay, see you on Facebook!


[For Jaki Levy's commentary on our discussion, click here.]

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

New media/new models in criticism

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Join me and fellow panelists at 7pm tonight, at Abrons Arts Center, for a discussion on the impact of new media on old paradigms in dance criticism, presented by Movement Research. Further information available at Movement Research: Performances and Events page.


Sunday, September 27, 2009

I love this essay!

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When Writers Speak
by Arthur Krystal, The New York Times, September 27, 2009

Francis Mason, 88

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Francis Mason, Voice of Dance for over 5 Decades, Dies at 88
by Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times, September 26, 2009

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Diversity in kid's lit

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A World Full of Color
by Elizabeth Bluemle, Publishers Weekly, September 10, 2009

Bluemle's list on LibraryThing

Children's books that feature children of color

Alicia de Larrocha, 86

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Alicia de Larrocha, Pianist, dies at 86
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, September 25, 2009

Friday, September 25, 2009

Mount Tremper Arts to host residencies

Mount Tremper Arts in the Catskills Mountains is currently available to host residencies for

  • performance art companies
  • individual artists in any discipline

Companies have 24/7 access to our 32' x 50' studio with sprung maple floors (some restrictions may apply), shared living room, kitchen, sleeping loft, and bedrooms.

Subsidized Rates are $50/night for performance companies of up to 8 people or $30/night for individual artists. Surcharges apply during winter months for heat or for larger groups.

To apply for a residency, or for more information, email Mathew Pokoik at info@mttremperarts.org; send your company's name, website or place to view work, a short proposal for the purpose of your residency, and the dates requested.

The studio schedule can be viewed online here.

Monthly Residencies

Residencies are available to individual artists or couples as a short-term monthly rental from 1 month to 1 year.  Private bedrooms are provided in a furnished shared apartment.  Please contact us for prices and additional details.

Nestled in the Catskill Mountains, just over two hours from New York City, Mount Tremper Arts supports contemporary artists in the creation and presentation of new works of art. Founded by photographer Mathew Pokoik and choreographer Aynsley Vandenbroucke, MTA fosters an environment of creative risk taking and intellectual curiosity. It does this through an integration of performances, exhibitions, artist residencies, educational programming, and informal gatherings.

Sweeney: Could be

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In This could be it, choreographer-soloist Jillian Sweeney, gives herself a tough assignment. She must fill a fairly unforgiving space--The Chocolate Factory, modest in size, intimate for the audience and raw in aspect--with the stuff of her inner, psychic life. She must also fill an hour and hold it down with the force of her personality. I'm not convinced that she's totally there yet--a compelling performer who can, indeed, hold down an hour and keep it from feeling too lengthy and self-indulgent--but I admire her poise and moxie.

This solo evening--concluding its run tomorrow--hinges on the artist's apparent predisposition to spontaneously go out of body. Through various creative means, it tells of her history with this phenomenon. Now, consider that we're talking about a dancer. The notion of a dancer not being all that tightly wedded to her actual physical form is pretty interesting, and Sweeney's ambitious approach offers a variety of ways to contemplate this state of affairs.

Sweeney's a pleasant, wholesome-looking young woman who starts her show by striking glamour-girl poses, hip jutting in a ridiculous fashion--not how you'd normally think of her. So, immediately, she's showing something of a disconnection, a picture of unreality. Her poses become tense, and her tiny moves quiver as if she's in a silent movie. She's also subject to the psychological lashings of a disembodied voice--her own, recorded--that meets her gentle equivocations with a demand that she "Say it!" and issues instructions, some of them contradictory. I was tickled when Sweeney finally--finally!--figured out that she could simultaneously "Go to the shaft!" and "Stay down!" if she just rolled the hell over to that shaftway!

That unrelenting Voice can be a bit of hoot. For those of you who will go tonight or tomorrow, I won't spoil it for you by revealing my favorite moment. At the risk of sounding like The Voice that she's already got inside her artist's head, I'd like to see her push that wit harder and Say It! Whatever it is, just Say It!

This could be it unfolds, with fine support for Sweeney, in a space created by Brian Rogers (sound and video) and Chloë Z. Brown (lighting). Sweeney collaborated with her director Jeffrey Cranor on the writing and set (which consists of her storytelling props) and with Mary McKenzie on the costumes.

See This could be it tonight or Saturday night at The Chocolate Factory, 8pm. Information, directions and tickets here.

Most powerful Gutierrez

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My review of Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People in Last Meadow (Dance Theater Workshop) can be found on DanceMagazine.com.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Tharp: Taking a chance on love

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A Nightclub. Sinatra Singing. Couples in Love.
by Gia Kourlas, The New York Times, September 20, 2009

Kourlas doing what she does best...and Tharp doesn't sound half bad either.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Back to the source

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Embryological Foundations of Movement:
An Embodied Approach

with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

November 17-23, New York City

It is during our embryological development that our body begins creating its form. As tissues and structures develop, some remain with us, some are transformed into other structures and some fade into the background, no longer existing or recognizable as the original structure. As with all development, though the original processes are no longer with us, they have left us with deep-rooted patterns and templates that affect our movement, mind and spirit. In exploring the embryological developmental process, we discover the primal roots of our structure, perception, respondability and presence. The understanding and integration of these aspects of development give us a doorway into:

· Inner and outer processes (self and other) the embryonic disk and development of the front body (endoderm), back body (ectoderm) and middle body (mesoderm)

· Development of our central vertical axis (notocord)

· Development of the autonomic fluid rhythm

· Development of our organs and glands

· Development of our fluid system

· Development of the autonomic and somatic pathways of our nervous system

· The ground for cellular unity and cellular breathing

This workshop is for movers, dancers, yoga practitioners, bodyworkers, and those from other body-mind disciplines interested in unraveling the mystery of embryological development as it relates to cellular consciousness, movement, mind and spirit.

No prior experience with Body-Mind Centering® is necessary.

Location: Chelsea Studios, 151 West 26th St (between 6th and 7th Avenues)

Fee: $750

To register or get more information:

BodyMind Centering
info@bodymindcentering.com · (413) 256-8615

Monday, September 21, 2009

Singer-songwriter Ganessa James (video)

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Click here for a really nice video clip featuring singer-songwriter Ganessa James who I mentioned in my review of Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX's summer show at Dixon Place. Enjoy!

Silvers and friends advance feminism

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For the closing performance event of the Advancing Feminist Poetics and Activism Conference at CUNY, Sally Silvers will be improvising, creating a live choreography event and collaborating with very special guests:

Alejandra Martorell (dancer)
Peter Sciscioli (dancer)
Julie Patton (poet/vocalist/performance artist)
Marina Rosenfeld (live electronics)

Silvers writes:

"I will be choreographing/directing Alejandra and Peter in a gender focused phrase that I will make live and on the spot as if we are meeting in the rehearsal studio for the first time.

"Marina and Julie will be commenting--musically, vocally--to the development of the choreography as well as interacting with me improvising while the dancers are working things out.

"There are three other poetry, theater, music groups on the program and our group will be going second."

Friday, September 25, 6:30-8:30pm
All events are free and open to the public.

CUNY Graduate Center, Elebash Recital Hall
365 Fifth Avenue (34-35 Streets)

For full conference details, visit the following sites:

http://www.belladonnaseries.org/adfempobios.html
http://www.belladonnaseries.org/adfemposchedule.html



Sunday, September 20, 2009

Keithley's opulent park

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I followed Karinne Keithley down the rabbit hole of Montgomery Park, or Opulence, trying to make sense, until I realized that--as Keithley quotes William James--"the boundary-line of the mental is certainly vague." This multimedia performance isn't vague as much as it is poetically surrealistic and delicately laced with the exquisite opulence of Keithley's musical and movement aesthetics.

How bizarre to witness Lucy Guerin's stunning Corridor at BAC one night then hear two references to a burning insane asylum corridor in Keithley's piece the next afternoon. How bizarre to watch Keithley and Katy Pyle demonstrate a sequence of "Spinozan Calisthenics" (created by Sara Smith) then, later that evening, see Michelle Boulé, Miguel Gutierrez and Tarek Halaby demonstrate something that should really be called Hellaerobics in Gutierrez's outstanding Last Meadow at DTW. This has been a weird--if ultimately rewarding--weekend.

Keithley's show concludes its run at 7pm tonight at HERE Arts Center. Space is limited, but if tickets are still available, you can get them HERE or at 212-352-3101.

Note: My review of Gutierrez's Last Meadow will be featured in Dance Magazine, and I will let you know when that's available.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Guerin instructs at BAC

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OMG! These dancers are doing two shows per night of this…?!

In Corridor--a roughly hour-long piece from 2008, given its US premiere at Baryshnikov Art Center--Lucy Guerin asks a lot of her performers, members of the Melbourne-based Lucy Guerin Inc. All we, her audience, have to do is sit there in two single rows of chairs flanking the long sides of a runway and tuck away our feet and our belongings, since dancers can scarily lunge our way or hurtle by very close to our toes. We do have to shift our gaze back and forth, seeking the next outbreak of imagery--which can feel strained--but if ever there were a dance in non-traditional theater space that kept viewers in their place, this is it. We start off with a distinct THEM-and-US feeling.

Occasionally, some dancers roll a light panel behind our chairs from one end of the room to the other. It's kind of an MRI experience, at least, visually; it doesn't quite achieve a full-on claustrophobic feel, and I don't know if Guerin intended it to do so. But it does give you a sense of being hemmed in and controlled by alien machinery you don't really grok.

At the sneakily-timed onset of the piece, one and gradually all of the six dancers--secretly embedded within the audience--answer ringing cellphones, rise and aimlessly stroll the corridor while conversing with their callers. All looks reasonably normal until one fellow's facial expressions, movements and gestures take on an odd cast that gets odder still. The Ministry of Silly Walks lives!

If the dancers' shoulders were hangers, their bodies would be suits of clothes waggling and flapping in strong gusts of wind.

One guy picks up a cordless mic and offers capsule descriptions of some facet of each dancer's appearance and moves: "She's wearing a little bit of lipstick. She's giving a kick to the side. His shirt is very stripey." This segues into pairings of one dancer with a talker who calls out instructions like--my favorite--"Do snake. Do serpent. Do snake. Do serpent." Guerin then experiments with having the partners in each pair mirror each other's movements.

A stream of little things spliced together with precision and creepiness, Corridor is totally abstract yet resonant with powerful, cartoonish imagery--like slapstick without contact, like wild rebounds from invisible sites of impact. The dancers' superior agility of motion and mood, and their physical abandon and courage, particularly in a few outrageous solos, will exhilarate and terrify you. And you're so close, why, when bodies slam to the floor, you feel it in your own bones, but you have to just sit there and take it.

The final segment, it seems to me, zooms the dancers out of the realm of the personal. A distorted voice from on high now issues the instructions, and these call for global and cosmic missions more appropriate to angels or supermen than men. One by one, the dancers drop the shell-like robes they'd donned and quietly leave the space.

It seems like death. Or it could be a refusal to engage with the instructions. Or maybe it's both. The lights go off, and we're left with only the space's glaring-red EXIT signs to stare at. Brilliant. The final instruction.

Corridor continues its BAC run tonight at 6:30 and 8:30 and concludes with a 5pm performance tomorrow, Sunday. Space is very limited. Call 212-868-4444 or purchase tickets online here.

Lucy Guerin Inc. will present a 2006 work, Structure and Sadness, at Dance Theater Workshop, October 1-3 (7:30pm). For information and ticketing, click here.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Look...

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self-portraits (c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Thursday, September 17, 2009

An art park grows downtown

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In Lower Manhattan, an Art Park Sprouts Where Real Estate Was to Grow
by Eric Kronigsberg, The New York Times, September 16, 2009

Mary Travers, 72

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Mary Travers, Singer of Protest Anthems, Dies at 72
by William Grimes, The New York Times, September 16, 2009

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Zakes Mokae, 75

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Zakes Mokae, Distinguished Tony-Winning South African Actor, Dies at 75
by Robert Simonson, Playbill News, September 15, 2009

Help keep "Body and Soul" together!

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If you've enjoyed past episodes of Body and Soul--the dance/performance podcast of InfiniteBody blog--please show your support. A small contribution to help defray monthly hosting/distribution costs will be greatly appreciated.

It's so easy and safe with PayPal!







Thanks! And let's have a terrific new season!

Eva

Patrick Swayze, 57

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Patrick Swayze, Actor With Physical Grace, Is Dead at 57
by Anita Gates, The New York Times, September 14, 2009

Monday, September 14, 2009

Jim Carroll, 60

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Jim Carroll, Poet and Punk Rocker Who Wrote 'The Basketball Diaries', Dies at 60
by William Grimes, The New York Times, September 14, 2009

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Dreaming time

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Highly recommended: Icons of the Desert, a great exhibit of Australian Aboriginal art at NYU Grey Gallery, now thru December 5

Imperiled ground, imperiled body

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Belladonna and CUNY Graduate Center present

a free panel discussion

Is Ground as to Figure as Ambience is to Body? Ec(h)opoetics of the Disfigured 'Land'scape

Fri, Sept 25, 10am

Room 1, Panel 1
CUNY Graduate Center
365 5th Ave, Manhattan

Discussion Organizer and Moderator: Jennifer Scappettone. Panel Members: Marcella Durand, Brenda Lijima, Kathy Westwater, Rita Wong and Linda Sormin

This discussion will sound reciprocal interference between the environment and marked (raced/gendered/polluted) corporeality in the face of landscape's harm-mediation-digitization-withdrawal. Presentations will address a poetics of systemic crisis, stalking solutions, obliging recognition of ambient relations of authority and compromise as compass through a stupefying enormity of damage: Marcella Durand on race and ecological disaster; Brenda Lijima on Agnes Denes's reclamation art; Kathy Westwater on bodily organization within transmogrifying 'nature'; Rita Wong and Linda Sormin on ongoing toxicities.

This discussion is part of the Advancing Feminist Poetics and Activism Conference and is sponsored by Belladonna and CUNY Graduate Center: Center For Humanities, Poetics Group, the PhD Program in English and the Center for the Study of Women and Society. For more info: belladonna

Friday, September 11, 2009

'M-A-S-H' writer Larry Gelbart, 81

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`M-A-S-H' writer Larry Gelbart dies at 81
by Bob Thomas, Associated Press, The Seattle Times, September 11, 2009

Seen Movement Research's new site yet?

Mmmm...ovement! Lookin' good!

A revamping of MR's Critical Correspondence site--much desired--is in the works, too. Stay tuned!

Posted via email from Eva Yaa Asantewaa's posterous

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Hoppers

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Churr-churr Ziz Ziz Ziz
by Julia Oldham, Bee Sting Brose, September 7, 2009

The Foundry's magical history tour

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A tour bus, owned and driven by Mary Wallace (top, mirrored),
makes its way through the South Bronx in The Foundry Theatre's
production of The Provenance of Beauty. Photos: courtesy of The
Foundry Theatre



Innovative performers try all kinds of ways to shake up and engage audiences, breaking through the fourth wall and messing with the environment in which audiences think they can safely hide and objectively judge. Some of these approaches aren't terribly fresh; others seem gimmicky; still others can backfire--but not in the case of The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue, the latest production of The Foundry Theatre. Taking a tour bus filled with people on a poetic, eye-opening tour of the neighborhoods, history and contemporary social, economic and environmental issues of the South Bronx turns out to be powerfully effective and, yes, beautiful theater.

This travelogue, written by poet Claudia Rankine, created by Rankine with Foundry's founder Melanie Joseph, and directed by Joseph and Shawn Sides, runs for 90 minutes, during which the audience sits in air-conditioned comfort and separation from its object of attention--just as if it were safely tucked away in a darkened proscenium theater. But, here, the audience is on the move, in a bus, through the huge, winding geography of an unorthodox performance space that lives and breathes. The South Bronx plays itself. Bus owner/driver Mary Wallace maneuvers this unusual route; her driving is a skillful, sensitively-timed dance.

Our journey takes us out of one borough (from the curb in front of an East Harlem church) into the streets and past the landmarks of another (the Bronx neighborhoods of Hunts Point and Mott Haven), both home to predominantly poor and working-class people of color. On the day that I took the tour, the bus riders were mostly white theater-goers. Rankine's narration--voiced live by Sarah Nina Hayon and on recording by Raúl Castillo and Randy Danson--addresses the fraught relationship of gazer and gazed-at, desire for acquisition of land, the complicated nature of development and gentrification in old, storied neighborhoods, "the beauty of a place pulled out of the abandonment of another."

"What you look at will look back at you," Hayon says, as we roll towards the Willis Avenue Bridge and contemplate the moment at which it became amusing to New York's rapidly-assimilating white immigrants to shake their heads as they remembered their Latin-izing neighborhoods and quip, "The Bronx? No thonx!" I spied a sign reading, "The Bronx--All-American City," just as Hayon evoked memories of Howard Cosell's 1977 declaration, "There it is, ladies and gentlemen: the Bronx is burning."

Truly, much of what the audience sees, beyond its ironic, glass-enclosed captivity, is grim and worrisome. There's the prison barge and the gate where families enter to visit their loved ones; the Duane Reade colonizing a distinctive building that once housed a bustling dance hall; the Giuliani-bestowed green space sitting at the lip of a poisoned river, between a rock (a fertilizer plant) and a hard place (a waste water treatment plant). Even cheerful memories of La Lupe--"the woman with the devil in her body"--are compromised by the story of how this vivacious singer ended her days in poverty.

But let me assure you, there's life, and there's beauty. The bus windows subtly mirror each other. Each one creates not only a view of whatever and whoever is actually moving past your window but also a continuous, ghostly, kaleidoscopic stream of imagery from the opposite window. Well, you have to see it to believe how dazzling--and disorienting--this overlapping of actual and reflected human, vehicular and architectural imagery can be. Rankine's text sometimes hits (and hits hard) and sometimes misses (in fuzzy poetic musing) but often informs and challenges. She's at her best when she makes us think and when she conspires with the South Bronx to make us feel.

We roll along, unable to speak to the people we see outside our windows, people who rarely look toward us to make eye contact. I came to doubt that our contact would be welcomed. (A big tour bus? Filled with mostly white people?) By the time Mary Wallace momentarily pulled the bus into a somewhat spruced-up sector bearing the ominous name of SoBro, this confinement and isolation was beginning to hurt my heart. Then, to make matters worse, Hayon got off the bus and slipped away, melting into the landscape, rejoining the South Bronx in the act of being itself. I watched her go and keenly felt her absence.

We powered up and took the Third Avenue Bridge back to Manhattan.


East Harlem's Elmendorf Reformed Church.
The pickup/dropoff point for The Provenance
of Beauty. Photo: (c)2009, Eva Yaa Asantewaa


The Provenance of Beauty rolls now through late October. Get on the bus. For complete schedule information and ticketing, click here.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Here's to "scragglier" dance!

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Bill T. Jones Salutes His Friend Lincoln
by Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times, September 6, 2009

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Journalist Bergen on Afghanistan

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Peter Bergen lecture on Afghanistan Today

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
(Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium)

Thursday, September 17 (6pm)

Admission: $23 (Ticketing)

Years of war and much foreign intervention have had a profound effect on the traditional way of life in Afghanistan. Peter Bergen will shed light on the country’s recent history, drawing on his personal experiences during his many visits to the region. To augment his discussion of the Bamiyan Buddhas and their significance in the rich cultural heritage of the Afghan people, the film The Giant Buddhas will be screened following the lecture.

Peter Bergen is a print and television journalist, an author, and an adjunct professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

This lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, June 23–September 20, 2009.

The Bronx is up

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Busing Audiences to the Bronx
Alexis Clements, The L Magazine, September 2, 2009

Next? Fotheringham

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The Next Ones: Julie Fotheringham (dancer)
by Benjamin Sutton, The L Magazine, September 2, 2009

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

New HIV/AIDS literary anthology seeks writing

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A multi-cultural, multi-national, and multi-community anthology of literary criticism, critical essays, poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction, creative writings, and visual art on HIV and AIDS.

Edited by Kelly Norman Ellis and M L Hunter

A project of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing at Chicago State University

Published by Third World Press

Scheduled to be released World AIDS Day 2009


SUBMISSION DEADLINE: September 25


There have been great strides implemented in the research, treatment, care, and social awareness (both nationally and internationally) of HIV and AIDS. However, the critical dialogue needed to eradicate this disease seems to have dissipated. This anthology seeks to push this life-threatening issue into the consciousness of not only America, but also the world. The current climate in America, under the Obama administration, is hope and change. So what does that mean for a disease that is tied to human sexuality, morality, and the need to feel love and acceptance?

The editors are seeking creative writing in the genres of poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction, memoir writing and journaling as well as vi sual art that explore the intersection of the human condition with HIV and AIDS. The editors are also seeking artwork in the mediums of photography, fine and graphic arts. We are particularly interested in a vast array of literary criticism that provides social commentary and theoretical and pedagogical models that assist in understanding HIV and AIDS past and present. We also are interested in interviews with survivors and non-survivors of HIV and AIDS.

Submissions should be sent by email attachment to hivaidsanthology@gmail.com:

· A short biography including ethnic heritage and country of origin should be submitted along with your work.

· Fiction submissions can be short stories or novel excerpts, and the nonfiction section is open to personal narratives and essays.

· Scholarly essays should be no less than 5,000 words, and should not exceed 8,000 words. The length of other submissions may vary. We encourage authors to make the writing style of their submissions accessible to as wide a readership as possible, without sacrificing scholarly intellect.

· Poetry submissions are limited to five poems maximum. We will accept re-prints of some poems. Please note if poems have been published elsewhere in cover letter.

· Artwork submissions are open to all mediums, but pieces must be submitted electronically. Winning pieces are selected based on composition and originality.

Annual John Cage event to honor Cunningham, too

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17th Annual John Cage Birthday Event
Saturday, September 5 (7:30pm)
St. Mark's Church Parish Hall
Free admission. Reservations are not necessary.

This year we honor the personal and artistic partnership of John Cage and Merce Cunningham and their profound influence on generations of art makers. In the video "Cage/Cunningham," filmmaker Elliot Caplan traces the history of their collaboration through tour footage, archival interviews, and their associations with key figures in art, literature, dance, and music. Join us for this celebration of two iconoclasts who help revolutionized art, music, and dance.

Information

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

The wrong way to motivate readers

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Reading by The Numbers
by Susan Straight, The New York Times, August 30, 2009

London's recycled spaces

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Pop! An Empty Shop Fills With Art
by Julia Werdigier, The New York Times, August 31, 2009