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Opportunities for Youth in Service and the Arts

National Learn & Serve Challenge: Interest and participation in the National Learn & Serve Challenge continues to grow. Participation has reached an all-time high of 283,932 people. The year-long challenge aims to expand opportunities for youth to serve and promote service-learning, a proven teaching method that harnesses the enthusiasm and skills of young people to solve problems in their schools and communities as part of their academic studies. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of Learn and Serve America, to be observed December 6-10, 2010.

Call for Entries: 2011 VSA International Young Soloists Award: Since 1984 the Young Soloists Program has been seeking to identify talented musicians who have a disability. This award is given annually to four outstanding musicians, two from the United States and two from the international arena. The award provides an opportunity for these emerging musicians to each earn a $5,000 award and a performance in Washington, D.C. Download a 2010-2011 Young Soloist Award application.

The Kennedy Center/National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute: A 4-week summer music program at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, for student instrumentalists. The program is open, by recorded audition, to students who are seriously considering orchestral music as a career and are in grades 9 through 12 or are a college freshman or sophomore. Each student accepted into the program attends on full scholarship, which includes round trip air transportation to and from Washington DC, housing, food allowance, and local transportation during their stay in the Nation’s Capital. Download a NSOSMI Application 2011 [PDF]. The application deadline is Friday, January 28, 2011.

Art, Events, Media, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Xpost to PGF, , , , , , , , ,

Catching up with the Cosmopolitan Review

The Cosmopolitan Review is published by the alumni of Poland in the Rockies, a biennial symposium in Polish studies held at Canmore, Alberta, Canada. Here is a video from last summer’s sessions:

Each Review is a wealth of information on everything from books to politics, history to poetry. The following are links to articles from the Summer 2010 and Fall 2010 editions I thought you might find interesting and enlightening:

Summer 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2

Poland

… And beyond

Art

Essays

Books & Docs

Poetry

From the Past Into the Present

Fall 2010 Vol. 2, No. 3

Poles & Poland

… And beyond

Books, language, poetry…

Art, Events, ,

Art at ASU – “Open for Business”

Arizona State University Art Museum & Downtown Tempe Businesses under curator John D. Spiak presents “Open for Business” from October 8, 2010 through January 29, 2011.

Open for Business calls attention to the importance of local artists, businesses and organizations. Simultaneously taking place in downtown Tempe businesses and an interrelated exhibition at the ASU Art Museum, this project features the work of sixteen Valley artists who address the purpose of each business, providing opportunities for audience members to interact with the physical space of each location and to discover, or rediscover, new aspects of their own community.

Individuals will be guided by maps available at the ASU Art Museum to art installations at downtown Tempe business including La Bocca, Rula Bula, Caffé Boa, The Shoe Mill, Brand X Custom T-Shirts, Monti’s La Casa Vieja, Mood Swings Salon, Fascinations, Cartel Coffee Lab, Buffalo Exchange, The Bicycle Cellar, The Headquarters, and Downtown Tempe Community, Inc.

The list of Valley artists participating in the exhibition include both internationally established and rising stars of our community, including Peter Bugg in collaboration with Ryan Peter Miller, Cyndi Coon, Wendy Furman, Jon Haddock, Saskia Jorda, Tania Katan, Mary Lucking, Matthew Mosher, Adam Murray, Marco Rosichelli, Erin V. Sotak, David Tinapple, Chris Todd, Jen Urso, Nic Wiesinger, and Whitney Zamá.

To insure the success and outreach of the project, the ASU Art Museum has partnered with Tempe Chamber of Commerce, Tempe Convention and Visitors Bureau, Downtown Tempe Community (DTC), Local First Arizona, Valley Forward Association, Creative Connect, Comerica Bank (Tempe, Mill), Scottsdale Public Art, and Volunteer Legal Assistance for Artists (VLAA).

Free public lectures, conversations and tours throughout the run of the exhibition

  • Lecture: Trademark Law for Arts/Business (VLAA): Thursday, Nov. 4, 6pm @ Monti’s
  • Friday Conversation @ 11: Tania Katan: Fri., Nov. 5, 11am @ ASUAM
  • Panel Conversation: Open for Business: Tues., Nov. 9, 6pm @ ASUAM
  • Friday Conversation @ 11: Mary Lucking, Saskia Jorda & Erin Sotak, Fri., Nov. 19, 11am @ ASUAM

Tours to be scheduled – look for announcements through the ASUAM blog.

Scottsdale Public Art is organizing the store front project IN FLUX in Downtown Scottsdale that will occur during the same time period. Through this collaboration, both institutions will combine efforts to create cross-over audience and awareness. A map showing all participating locations will be available at locations in Tempe, Scottsdale, the ASU Art Museum and online.

This project is generously supported by a grant from the Tempe Municipal Arts Commission, ASU Art Museum Advisory Board, and the Wilhelmine Prinzen Endowed Fund for Emerging Artists. In-kind support provided by Phoenix NewTimes, Ben Franklin Press, Inc., Melissa McGurgan Design, and Mannington Commercial.

The Arizona State University Art Museum is located at Mill Avenue at 10th Street, Tempe, AZ. More information may be obtained by contacting the museum at 480-965-2787 or by E-mail

Art, Events, Xpost to PGF, , , , , ,

Graduate Student Conference — Latino Folk Culture and Expressive Traditions

The NY Folklore Society Graduate Student Conference, Latino Folk Culture and Expressive Traditions will take place Saturday, November 20th at New York University, 20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor, New York, NY.

For over 65 years, the New York Folklore Society (NYFS) has held an annual conference, typically with guest speakers, such as master artists and academic scholars, who have addressed a particular theme. This year, in collaboration with NYU’s Latino Studies and Latin American Studies Departments, NYFS seeks to encourage young scholars to continue their studies and become active contributors to the fields of folklore, ethnomusicology, anthropology and more.

Theme: Latino Folk Culture and Expressive Traditions

Preliminary Schedule (Subject to Change):

9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Registration
9:30 – 10:00 New York Folklore Society Annual Meeting
10:00 – 11:45 a.m. Latino Music and the Negotiation of Identities
1:30 – 2:45 Representations and Depictions
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. A Statewide Community Conversation on Latino Folk Culture with Latino comunity leaders and artists from throughout New York State
4:30 – 5:30 Juan Flores, Director of Latino Studies, NYU “Afro-Latino Perspectives on Folklore”
6:00 Performance by Raquel Rivera y Los Ojos
6:45 Reception

For registration information, please E-mail or call the Society at 518-346-7008.

Registration:

$20.00 for Members of the New York Folklore Society
$25.00 for non-members
Free for Students

Art, Christian Witness,

The Fount of Life is placed in the grave, and the grave doth become the ladder to Heaven

Coptic icon of the Dormition and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Also remember: at many PNCC Parishes, today is the blessing of flowers, vegetables, and herbs. For instance, at my Parish, Holy Name of Jesus in Schenectady at 9:30am and at St. Mary’s Polish National Catholic Church which will have a blessing of the harvest in honor of the Dormition-Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary today before the 8:30 and 11 a.m. Masses at the church, 200 Stephenson St., Duryea, PA. Check with a PNCC Parish near you.

You are invited and encouraged to bring an item from your garden (vegetables, flowers, and herbs) to be blessed as a way of giving thanks to God for the bounty of the Earth.

Art, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Poland’s Hurdy-gurdy builder

From Interia: Najstarszy w Polsce wytwórca lir korbowych (An Elderly Pole Manufacturers Hurdy-Gurdies)

In Haczów, Poland 83 year old Stanisław Wyżykowski has been hand crafting Hurdy-gurdies. He has built more than sixty since 1967.

Mr. Wyżykowski built his first Hurgy-gurdy for the late actor, Wojciech Siemion. It was modeled after an instrument owned by his family.

His instruments are primarily purchased by music groups, museums, and fans of the instrument in Germany, Sweden, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Hungary, Ukraine, and Slovakia.

Mr. Wyżykowski is a carpenter by profession. For several years he played in folk bands. In addition to Hurdy-gurdies he produces cymbals, double bass, and classic violins which look like sticks. He has also trained several students.

Here is Andrzej Nixon playing the Hurdy-gurdy at a dance workshop (from Maciej Cierliński’s Hurdy-gurdy page)

[audio:https://www.konicki.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/AnrzejNixon.mp3]

W Haczowie na Podkarpaciu żyje najstarszy i jeden z nielicznych w Polsce wytwórca lir korbowych. 83-letni Stanisław Wyżykowski od 1967 roku zbudował ponad 60 lir, które znalazły nabywców w kraju i za granicą.

Pierwszą lirę zbudowałem dla świętej pamięci Wojtka Siemiona. Wzorowałem się na instrumencie, który był własnością mojej rodziny – powiedział Wyżykowski.

Większość wyprodukowanych przez niego instrumentów trafiło do zespołów muzycznych i muzeów.

Wśród nabywców są miłośnicy tego instrumentu z Niemiec, Szwecji, Stanów Zjednoczonych, Nowej Zelandii, Australii, Węgier, Ukrainy, Słowacji. Wielokrotnie liry korbowe Wyżykowskiego były wypożyczane jako rekwizyty do filmów i spektakli.

Wyżykowski z zawodu jest stolarzem. Przez kilkadziesiąt lat grał także w kapelach ludowych. Najczęściej można go spotkać w jego pracowni w Haczowie.

Nie brakuje mi zamówień. Bywa, że pracuję po kilkanaście godzin dziennie. Dzięki Bogu zdrowie dopisuje – mówi 83-latek.

Oprócz lir wytwarza także cymbały, kontrabasy i oryginalne skrzypce. Te ostatnie swoim wyglądem przypominają laski. Wykształcił kilku uczniów.

Lira korbowa znana była w Europie od wczesnego średniowiecza. Jej popularność przypada na X-XIV wiek, później stała się instrumentem muzyków ludowych. Do dziś można ją spotkać w składach niektórych kapel ludowych Ukrainy, Białorusi, Słowacji czy wschodnich regionów Polski.

Instrument posiada gitarowy korpus rezonansowy i skrzynkę z komorą kołkową, wyposażony jest w 1-2 struny melodyczne oraz 2-4 struny boczne. Wszystkie struny pocierane są nie smyczkiem, lecz wmontowanym w instrument drewnianym kółkiem natartym żywicą i obracanym za pomocą korbki.

The Hurdy-gurdy has been present in Europe since the early Middle Ages. It became an instrument of folk musicians. To this day it can be found among traveling folk bands from Ukraine, Belarus, Slovakia, and eastern Poland. It is still is played by professional, often blind, itinerant musicians known as lirnyky. Their repertoire is primarily para-religious in theme, although it includes many historic epics known as dumy and folk dances.

These itinerant musicians were heavily persecuted by Russian authorities up to 1902. The persecution reached its peak during the 1930’s when Soviet authorities deemed Ukrainian traveling musicians who played the Hurdy-gurdy to be an “undesireable” element. They organized an ethnographic conference for the lirnyky, and at that conference the 250-300 lirnyky attending were executed.

Here is Andrey Vinogradov playing and chanting at traditional Russian round dance:

Art, Perspective, Poland - Polish - Polonia,

Historic Moments

The Cosmopolitan Review discusses the Year of Chopin in Poland, marking the 200th anniversary of Frederyk Chopin’s birth, and what he might think of life in today’s free Poland:

There’s much to celebrate, starting with the 200th birthday of Poland’s most famous exile, Frederic Chopin, born in Żelazowa Wola, just outside of Warsaw. We join the festivities bearing gifts of poetry, prose and a guide to Chopin events worldwide. In CR’s first fiction, Eva Stachniak transforms her readers into aristocratic guests at a salon in Paris in the company of Polish exiles, among them, Chopin himself.

Were the composer alive today, would he accept an invitation to give a concert at Warsaw’s Soviet-built Palace of Culture and Science? Would he dance in the Palace’s hip club Kafe Kulturalna? Or would he side with Minister of Foreign Affairs Radek Sikorski, who is suggesting Poland “demolish its own symbol of communist misrule”?

This year also marks the rehabilitation and reburial of Copernicus, labeled a heretic long before Galileo was ever hit with that charge. From the AP via Yahoo! News: Astronomer Copernicus reburied as hero in Poland

Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer whose findings were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as heretical, was reburied by Polish priests as a hero on Saturday, nearly 500 years after he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

His burial in a tomb in the cathedral where he once served as a church canon and doctor indicates how far the church has come in making peace with the scientist whose revolutionary theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun helped usher in the modern scientific age.

Copernicus, who lived from 1473 to 1543, died as a little-known astronomer working in a remote part of northern Poland, far from Europe’s centers of learning. He had spent years laboring in his free time developing his theory, which was later condemned as heretical by the church because it removed Earth and humanity from their central position in the universe.

His revolutionary model was based on complex mathematical calculations and his naked-eye observations of the heavens because the telescope had not yet been invented.

After his death, his remains rested in an unmarked grave beneath the floor of the cathedral in Frombork, on Poland’s Baltic coast, the exact location unknown.

On Saturday, his remains were blessed with holy water by some of Poland’s highest-ranking clerics before an honor guard ceremoniously carried his coffin through the imposing red brick cathedral and lowered it back into the same spot where part of his skull and other bones were found in 2005.

A black granite tombstone now identifies him as the founder of the heliocentric theory, but also a church canon, a cleric ranking below a priest. The tombstone is decorated with a model of the solar system, a golden sun encircled by six of the planets…

I had visited his home in Toruń, Poland, and the church in which he was baptized. I found the juxtaposition with the on-going closings and desecration of historic churches throughout the United States to be amazing. The R.C. Church was wiping out churches 100 to 150 years old, and here I stood in a church that predated 1473. I will never be able to show my children the churches their grandparents were baptized in. They have all closed.

Art, Events, ,

From the NY Folklore Society

Gallery of New York Folk Art open Sundays

Beginning on May 3, 2010, the Schenectady Green Market moves outdoors to Franklin and Jay Streets, alongside Schenectady’s City Hall.

While the Green Market is outdoors, the New York Folklore Society’s Folk Arts Gallery will be open on Sundays from 10:00 – 2:00 p.m. We continue to be open weekdays 10:00 – 3:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:00 – 3:00 p.m.

NYFS to Sponsor Gatherings for Latino artists

The New York Folklore Society will be sponsoring three gatherings for Latino artists in New York State. Supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the gatherings will take place on three locations on three separate dates:

  • October 24, 2010 at Long Island Traditins, Port Washington
  • March 19, 2011 at Go Art!, Batavia
  • May 14, 2011 at Centro Civico, Amsterdam

Designed for musicians, dancers, craftspersons, and others who are practicing a traditional artform with its origin in any of the Spanish-speaking communities of North and South America, the gatherings will assist artists in sharing resources and experiences. They will provide an opportunity for future collaborations and technical assistance. For additional information, or to find out how to become a “delegate” for the gatherings, please contact Lisa Overholser at the New York Folklore Society.

Art, Everything Else, ,

Fisherman’s Friends Chorus – local boys make good

No Hopers, Jokers & Rogues from Ben Woolnough on Vimeo.

Fisherman’s Friends, is an emerging vocal group from Port Isaac in Cornwall. The group of 10 includes former or current fishermen, coast guardsmen and marine rescuers. For nearly 15 years they have gathered on evenings by the shore or in local pubs to have a few beers and sing sea shanties.

The group has recorded two CDs with their own interpretations of shanties. A vacationer recently came across them at the pub where they normally gathered and saw the potential. That vacationer was record producer Rupert Christie who brought them to Universal’s attention. The group signed with Universal this March.

The group’s prior two CD’s will soon be joined by a third. Their first album was recorded in a fifteenth-century church in St. Kew, Cornwall (the video above). They have also been invited to sing at the Glastonbury summer music festival.

Art, , , ,

Forged Power at the Arizona State University Art Museum

Forged Power is an ASU Art Museum Moving Targets Initiative featuring the work of Ferran Mendoza, Alvaro Sau and William Wylie. The exhibit will be at the Arizona State University Art Museum from February 20 —“ May 29, 2010.

Friday Conversations @11 series, Feb. 19
Spring Season Reception, Feb. 19 from 7-9pm

Ferran Mendoza & Alvaro Sau, Outdoors, High Definition Video, 2009
William Wylie, Carrara series, Cavatori, The Block, Dust, Friction, Digital Video, 2006

In the digital age, the way we engage with physical work has shifted drastically. Such shifts are not new and have occurred over the course of human history – from the invention of simple tools, to the industrial revolution, to our current digital society. But as technologies continue to advance, our control and power appear to diminish, not only in our work, but also of our bodies. The body’s relationship to work continues to be less physical. We use mechanical arms to lift both heavy and light objects into place, and vacuums now roam floors on their own. A document that once took the entire use of one’s arm to handwrite can now be created with light touches of computer keys. With voice activation and eye-tracking technologies entering the mainstream consumer market, the hand may soon be removed altogether from the process of work.

Spanish artists Ferran Mendoza and Alvaro Sau traveled the Basque-French border region. The artists refer to it as —this kind of frontier land which we call the outdoors,— a territory of Europe where the —most archaic ways of living coexist with the omnipresent industrial world.— Using their cameras, Mendoza and Sau captured, in high definition video, the residents of this seemingly isolated region in their daily routines and surroundings. The result of their journey is the video OUTDOORS (2008), a 56-minute work that delivers a composition of portraits. These portraits provide fleeting glimpses of individuals who take pride in their independence, work and knowhow. Their knowledge of their tools, their environment and how their bodies interact with each is clear and poetic; they perform their tasks as if every specific activity or action has been choreographed.

In the historic quarries of Carrara, Italy, the cavatori (stonecutters) have worked for centuries excavating large slabs of white marble from the earth. Through a fellowship exchange, artist William Wylie was provided the opportunity to spend time observing the everyday operations and interactions of the men who work in these famous quarries, the very quarries used by artists from Michelangelo to Louise Bourgeois. What at first appears to be a focus on machinery is soon realized to be a study of human activity and control. While trucks and machinery within these digital videos appear to struggle and battle to complete tasks, the cavatori work with their hands – making precision measurements and chiseling slight grooves. The artist captures in his Carrara series, Cavatori, The Block, Dust, and Friction (2006), the gestural engagements of the hand and body as the stonecutters work together, using signals and whistles, to coordinate their movements within the noise and chaos of the industrial site. Together these four videos demonstrate that the actions of work can be perceived as beautiful in and of themselves.

The individuals captured in these videos control their own actions by working with their hands and bodies. They do more than just push a button; they exert human energy and create an effect through the power of their own body. Retaining the capability of doing work or accomplishing tasks with the use of the physical body, their forged power is a reaffirmation of human capability.

William Wylie will be in attendance at ASU Art Museum to present a free lecture on a yet to be determined date. He will also meet with students and classes while in Tempe.

Curated by John D. Spiak, Curator, ASU Art Museum.

The exhibition and programs are generously supported by Helme Prinzen Endowment, ASU Art Museum Advisory Board, ASU School of Art and the Department of Photography, and Northlight Gallery at ASU.

Arizona State University Art Museum
Mill Avenue @ 10th Street
Tempe, AZ 85287-2911

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