88.5 WFDD - Arts: Recent Episodes
Neal Charnoff
From left: Wake Forest Associate Provost for the Arts and Interdisciplinary Initiatives Christina Soriano, Artistic Director of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company Jackie Alexander, and Dean of the Wake Forest School of Divinity Jonathan Lee Walton. Photo courtesy WFU.
Wake Forest University has received a grant to commission and produce two original plays to be presented during the 2024 National Black Theatre Festival.
The $250,000 grant comes from the Henry Luce Foundation. It will benefit a project called “Finding Holy Ground: Performing Visions of Race and Justice in America.” The effort is a collaboration between the Wake Forest School of Divinity, the North Carolina Black Repertory Company, and Wake The Arts.
According to a news release, the goal is to choose works that encourage community conversations on race, justice, and religion. Playwrights are being asked to address thematic topics such as homophobia, racism, white supremacy, and social inequities.
Jackie Alexander is the artistic director of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company. Alexander says that while his introduction to theater came through the church, he’s troubled by conflicting messages often disseminated through the institution. His hope is that this project can confront those contradictions and inspire constructive dialogue.
The plays will be presented at the 2024 National Black Theatre Festival.
The announcement comes as the community mourns the loss of the festival’s executive producer Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin, who died earlier this month.
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wake forest university #arts #theater #winston-salem #national black theater festival #wake the arts #wake forest school of divinity
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Image courtesy of Fox 8. https://myfox8.com/news/north-carolina/piedmont-triad/producers-of-national-black-theatre-festival-mourn-loss-of-executive-producer/
Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin, who succeeded her late husband as board chairman and executive producer of the National Black Theatre Festival, has died. She was 76.
A news release from the North Carolina Black Repertory Company said Hamlin died on Monday. The family declined to give the cause of death.
Sprinkle-Hamlin took the leadership position following the death of Larry Leon Hamlin, who founded the company and produced its first festival in 1989. Hamlin died in 2007.
Sprinkle-Hamlin worked for 40 years with the Forsyth County Public Library, becoming its first Black and female director. She retired in 2019.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete late Tuesday.
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sylvia sprinkle-hamlin #arts #theatre #winston salem #national black theatre festival
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Left: OnlyFans is hosting some of Vienna's nude artwork. Right: A painting is seen on the stairway of the famous Albertina art museum.
Bloomberg; Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images
OnlyFans hosts over two million creators, some of whom share nude and pornographic content. Now, the Vienna Tourist Board is one of them.
It's posting some of the city's historical 18+ artwork on the subscription service, including pieces by Egon Schiele and Amedeo Modigliani that depict nude or partially nude people.
The board and some of Vienna's museums had previously posted images of the artwork on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok for promotional purposes, but the images were removed and in some cases, the accounts were closed, according to Helena Hartlauer, a spokesperson for the Vienna Tourist Board. That's when it made sense to move to the less restrictive OnlyFans.
"We question this kind of censorship, because we believe it's not a good idea to let an algorithm determine our cultural legacy," Hartlauer told NPR.
"It might lead to some unconscious self-censorship, when artists start to make art differently or collectors assemble their collections in a different way because they know a tool as strong as social media would not show or promote certain types of art," she added. "This is quite frightening."
Art has pushed the boundaries of social media rulesThis isn't the first time social media platforms have found themselves accused of censoring fine art.
In 2011 Facebook deactivated the account of teacher Frédéric Durand-Baïssas after he posted an image of the painting L'Origine du Monde (The Origin of the World) by Gustave Courbet, which is a close-up of a woman's genitals and abdomen as she lies on a bed. Durand-Baïssas sued Facebook, claiming that the company violated his freedom of speech when it deactivated his account, but the social media giant denied his accusation.
Instagram removed images of an exhibit posted by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts in 2017 for violating its community standards.
Hartlauer says the same thing is happening to the tourism board and museums in Vienna. The Leopold Museum was unable to use a video marking its 20th anniversary because of a painting showcasing a partially nude couple, she said, and the Albertina Museum had to create a whole new TikTok account after it promoted an exhibition by a Japanese photographer that included images of partially nude women.
Per their community guidelines, Facebook and Instagram, which Facebook owns, say they allow images of paintings and sculptures that depict nude figures. TikTok bans nudity but says it may permit exceptions for "artistic content."
Social media platforms use human content moderators as well as algorithms to identify content that violates its rules.
Still, evenOnlyFans has waffled on whether to allow adult content on its platform. In August the company banned sexually explicit content only to reverse its decision days later after backlash from creators and subscribers.
It's generating publicity and it's a conversation starterUsers who subscribe to Vienna's OnlyFans channel by Oct. 31 will be eligible for a free Vienna City Card or an admission ticket to one of the featured museums, including the Leopold Museum, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Naturhistorisches Museum Vienna and Albertina.
Hartlauer acknowledges that the OnlyFans account is a way to generate interest in the city. "To be honest, of course you can promote a museum or a city like Vienna without necessarily posting exactly these images," she said.
But it isn't just that.
It's also an attempt to spark a conversation about the power social media companies wield to permit or reject all different types of content — and what that means for the rest of us.
"We were aware that this was not going to be a huge community," Hartlauer said of the OnlyFans page, which has about 300 subscribers so far.
"But what we've experienced during the last days is this huge international and global interest in the topic, and this is actually more important to us."
Editor's note: Facebook is among NPR's financial supporters.
Tien Le is an intern on NPR's News Desk.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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news #arts & life #arts #social media #museum #vienna #tiktok
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A special collaborative training session will be held for the arts community at this year's North Carolina Folk Festival. Photo courtesy of Lynn Donovan
The North Carolina Folk Festival is hosting a special session focusing on the evolution of the performing arts in the era of COVID-19.
"The Art Of Mass Gatherings" is being billed as an experiential learning session that will include discussions on elevating the safety, accessibility, and sustainability of community events.
According to a news release, the program will be hosted by officials from the Folk Festival, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the City of Asheville, along with several performing arts consulting groups.
Planners say they are hoping to attract arts administrators, artists, emergency professionals, and event promoters.
Amy Grossman is President and CEO of the North Carolina Folk Festival. She says now is the time for meaningful conversation “to amplify emergency preparedness across the landscape of Greensboro.”
And Asheville city official Jon Fillman says the arts community “must learn new ways to build resilience and purpose into the event production model.”
"The Art Of Mass Gatherings" will be held on September 10 at Triad Stage in Greensboro. Registration for the program is free.
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north carolina folk festival #arts #culture
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Teen bands 2 A.M. at Denny's and Headcase The Band
Caroline McConnico
With music venues closed due to COVID-19, teenage bands everywhere found themselves trying to figure out what this new normal would look like for them. Radio 101 reporter Caroline McConnico spoke with members of local bands 2 A.M. at Denny’s and Headcase the Band about how the pandemic affected them.
The Hive programs' theme song was composed by Alan Poltorak. Additional music for this story by Blue Dot Sessions.
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radio 101 #youth radio #arts #music #teen bands
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The Yadkin Arts Council received the funds for the video switching and streaming system from the Yadkin County Legacy Fund, BB&T Truist Fund, and E.H. Barnard Charitable Trust. Image courtesy of Sarah Smith.
The Yadkin Arts Council has been awarded grant funds to buy a streaming video system to help bolster their arts education and performance programs.
The Arts Council applied for the grant before the pandemic, but the funds will now help it to enhance services in the current environment. While classes in the Willingham Performing Arts Academy and the Junior Appalachian Musicians Program did continue online after the initial coronavirus shutdown, there were limitations.
The new video system uses multiple cameras and a video switching system. It enables groups to record performances with professional quality video, and instructors to record supplemental content for students.
Executive Director Sarah Smith says they’ll be able to fulfill their arts-education mission to students by streaming live performances into classrooms and homes.
“We generally bring them to the theater in person, but if they aren’t going to be allowed to come on field trips this year, we thought instead we would send art to them," she says.
Once live productions in the Willingham Theater resume, audiences will be able to purchase tickets to watch some of the plays from home — which could be a financial boost, as performance venues across the state will likely be opening at reduced capacities.
For the most up-to-date information on coronavirus in North Carolina, visit our Live Updates blog here. WFDD wants to hear your stories — connect with us and let us know what you’re experiencing.
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yadkin #arts #video #arts education #theatre #performance #coronavirusnc #live streaming
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In this 2010 file photo, a woman meditates on the beach in Miami Beach, Fla. Mindfulness and meditation can ease chronic pain, anxiety, and depression. Dr. Sam Gladding says journaling or listening to music can also help boost mental health during difficult times. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
2020 has been full of events that could take a toll on a person's mental health. Between the pandemic, racial tensions, natural disasters, a recession, and bitter political battles, is it any wonder that many Americans are feeling down?
Wake Forest University professor of counseling Dr. Sam Gladding spoke with WFDD’s David Ford about this convergence of negative events and its impacts, but also about how to keep moving forward. He says that being overexposed isn't good in photography or life, so limiting yourself to a certain amount of toxicity each day is probably a good thing.
Gladding says spending time outdoors in the fresh air, away from screens of any kind provides some perspective. He adds that hiking, gardening, and walks in the neighborhood all lend themselves to looking ahead, and envisioning where in life you’d like to be in the future.
Interview Highlights On how the arts can combat depression:
One is music. I always say that you can’t listen to good classical music and be depressed because there’s an uplifting beat. You can’t listen to ABBA and be depressed. It’s just got too much of a good beat for you to just be depressed. You can’t. Journaling has also been found to help people move out of fear, depression. If you journal regularly, it clarifies thoughts. Or, if you write letters to people — not email, write letters — you are better yet because you are being thoughtful, you’re being purposeful, and you’re thinking outside of who you are and into who they are and what you can do for them.
On the power of humor:
When you’re laughing, your brain chemistry even changes a bit as well as your physical self. Your lungs are filling up then you’re getting some breathing. It’s a wonderful counterpart to anything that might be occurring that’s negative in your life. So, during this time, my wife and I have been watching a lot of comedy, and we feel better. And it gives us something other than bad news or politics to talk about.
On the need for empathy:
Try to empathize with people that you even disagree with, trying to take their perspective. You may not agree with it — that would not be the point. The point would be to try to see the world through their eyes so that you understand them better and don’t demonize them just because you disagree with them.
For the most up-to-date information on coronavirus in North Carolina, visit our Live Updates blog here. WFDD wants to hear your stories — connect with us and let us know what you’re experiencing.
Editor’s Note:This transcript was lightly edited for clarity.
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sam gladding #wake forest university #counseling #depression #humor #arts
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"Quiet City" is a collaboration between Winston-Salem Symphony, Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance, and John Jordan Films. Dancers Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen move through the film while never touching. Screen capture from Aaron Copland: "Quiet City" courtesy of Winston-Salem Symphony's YouTube page.
With music venues and auditoriums closed for the foreseeable future, many artists have turned to virtual performances. But that makes collaboration tough. In the spirit of working together, the Winston-Salem Symphony created Etherbound, a new series of online performances.
It’s launching with a video response to the COVID-19 pandemic called Quiet City, which brings together the worlds of film, dance, and music.
Composer Aaron Copland originally wrote "Quiet City" for a play in the 1930s. The show was a flop, but Copland reworked the original score as a standalone piece of music.
Winston-Salem Symphony Music Director Tim Redmond has a decades-spanning history with "Quiet City." Years ago he played it as an oboist, and it was the first piece he conducted while at university.
“There’s something about Copland’s music that's just so gorgeously, beautifully appealing,” says Redmond. “I find it endlessly wonderful just to delve into that sound world. It’s a sort of nostalgia for a time that never was.”
As the film begins, you see small sections of the orchestra, wearing face coverings and spaced apart, playing on the stage of The Ramkat, a downtown Winston-Salem music venue that has been closed for months. The lights and the vibe are familiar, but it's different, lonelier, and the music hall is empty.
Amanda LaBrecque is a featured soloist in the symphony, playing the English horn.
“It’s one of those pieces where it's really easy to get into your own head and get into your own personal, inner-emotions. I think the beginning was probably one of my favorites, just because it is so stark. I mean, you’re just completely alone, as far as the English horn just coming out of a string chord essentially; it’s just so naked,” she says.
Musicians in a symphony are used to working together, feeding off each other’s performance, and tuning to each other. But to follow social distancing rules, the players were kept separated until it was time to perform.
LaBrecque says she waited backstage in the green room while she heard her colleagues playing, and it was strangely nerve-wracking and reminiscent of an orchestra audition.
“Which actually was really kind of hard to get out of my own head and be like, ‘ok this isn’t an audition, I have nothing to be nervous about, I don’t know why my adrenaline is starting to pump,’ you know?” says LaBrecque.
The music was being recorded in a truck outside of the venue and streamed to Tim Redmond in London, where he conducted the symphony via video conferencing.
“Anything collaborative like this has to have flex,” he says. “There’s got to be flow in how the thing is put together. That was key to this whole project. And one of the fascinating things about this is it highlights that in each of our disciplines, we have a slightly different approach to how we view the art that we make.”
The visual storyline of the work comes via a pair of dancers. They move through some iconic locations in Winston-Salem, mirroring and reacting to each other’s movements, but never touching — almost like magnets of the same polarity, pushing together but always apart. This concept points to our inability to make physical contact with those outside of our most intimate circles during the coronavirus pandemic.
The dancers, Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, a married couple from Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance, improvised their movements. Heather Maloy is the company’s artistic director.
“They are remarkable improvisational artists,” Maloy says. “We liked this idea of having the two of them be close to each other with this connection, but lacking the ability to be able to touch, like so many of us. So that final moment where they touch was so beautiful.”
Indeed, at the culmination of Quiet City, the dancers hands touch, ever so briefly, but the effect is electric. That moment was captured by John Jordan, who shot 17 hours of dance and music footage for a film that clocks in at just under ten minutes.
“My biggest challenge was filming all those different sections of the music in a way that was as cinematic as possible. I wanted it to be immersive, I wanted it to feel like you were in the room with those people, experiencing that as it was happening. I wanted to bring them to life,” Jordan says.
According to Music Director Tim Redmond, when the early cuts of the project were shared with others, people had an emotional reaction to the work.
“Everybody who looked at it said they were blinking back tears at what it represented,” he says. “And that’s one of the things that art can do. Without the need for words, it reassures us, it challenges us, it soothes us, somehow it comforts us.”
For the most up-to-date information on coronavirus in North Carolina, visit our Live Updates blog here. WFDD wants to hear your stories — connect with us and let us know what you’re experiencing.
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symphony #quiet city #etherbound #arts #winston salem #dance #film #terpsicorps #aaron copland #performance #covid-19 #coronavirusnc
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The UNC System Board of Governors appointed Cole as chancellor on May 20, 2020. He previously served as interim chancellor at UNCSA since August 2019. Image credit: Wayne Reich
The UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem has a new chancellor — sort of. Brian Cole was recently elevated to the permanent position after having served as interim chancellor since August of 2019. He takes over his official duties amidst a pandemic, leading an educational tradition built around artistic collaborations done in close proximity. Cole spoke with WFDD’s David Ford.
Interview Highlights On the unique challenges UNCSA faces from COVID-19:
So much of what we do in the arts is predicated on a certain proximity to each other and contact in some cases. And so, it might have been an easier transition for other kinds of institutions. For us it was a difficult one, but it's amazing how smoothly it went. Certainly I don't mean to indicate that there weren't a lot of difficulties for people and for our students in terms of not just the experience, but, you know, going back to their homes. And there's a lot of equity issues of being able to — just an Internet connection or accessing online things — so, we worked really hard. A lot of the early part of this was figuring out the difficulties that individuals had — helping students and parents deal with the very difficult sudden departure from the campus. But then once people got back, what do they need to be able to access all these things? So, in some cases, it was pushing out technology and devices to people. There's a lot of different things. And then, of course, supporting the faculty in the same way. They're creating that content and having to get that out to students.
On remote learning in a conservatory setting:
UNCSA Chancellor Brian Cole leads the school orchestra. Photo credit: Ken Bennett.
From a music standpoint, hooking up at a given time with cameras is one thing, but then there's also the audio. And how do you create audio connections on both sides for the teacher and the student to where you can really hear each other? And in terms of dance, which would seem to be one of the most difficult things because of the space involved, just what the dance faculty and under the leadership of Susan Jaffe have done is just extraordinary — some through video assets that teachers will record and send to students so that they at any given time kind of asynchronously can watch and take on their own. Students recording themselves and sending that to teachers. And then there's times where it's synchronous feedback, whether it's technique, classes or style or in some cases, you know, warm ups throughout the day. I think some of the most interesting examples were in things that are more asynchronous. It kind of makes you to ask the question, what are the things, the core things that we absolutely have to be together for? You know, there's no substitute for. And of course, we would like everything to be. But when you ask the question of how am I going to do this, how are we going to do this, what are the things that we absolutely have to be together for? And let's figure out a way to do that synchronously. And then what are the things that we don't have to be together for, the things that are processing information or reading or viewing media, things like that. And let's figure out a way to do that and support people.
On surpassing its $65-million capital campaign goal and future fundraising efforts:
Now we're presented with an entirely extra new set of needs related to not just the institution and resources we'll have to plan for in the fall and beyond, but the needs of students, which have changed in a lot of cases. Scholarships have always been incredibly important, but they're even more important now because the financial situation of students has changed because of what's happened to their parents potentially and their employment status. There are other technological things that we want to increase our infrastructure for the future. Once we get past this, down the road, something else that happens, you know, all of our lives are going to be different in terms of how we approach things and how we approach cleaning and sanitizing and disinfecting things, not just in terms of the pandemic, but from now on. I think we're all we look at things differently and those all have a cost, not just money, but other kinds of resources that we have to find and people and expertise to help us do it. So, we're in a good place. The campaign has helped us go a long way in addressing some of those needs and challenges. But there are more. We're going to keep going and then we're working very hard to address all these new challenges that have come up because of COVID-19.
Editor's Note: This transcript was lightly edited for clarity.
For the most up-to-date information on coronavirus in North Carolina, visit our Live Updates blog here. WFDD wants to hear your stories —connect with usand let us know what you’re experiencing.
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coronavirusnc #uncsa #arts #remote learning #dance #music #theatre #brian cole #chancellor
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Ellis Greer stitched this costume for the Utah Shakespeare Festival's 2019 production of Hamlet. A survey found 95% of artists like Greer have experienced income loss as a result of COVID-19.
Ellis Greer
Ellis Greer is a theatrical costume artist who was all set to start work at the Utah Shakespeare Festival when she learned the summer season would be "abbreviated," according to a call she says she received two weeks ago from the artistic director. While the festival is still scheduled to continue, the show she'd expected to work on was canceled. So her contract was canceled as well.
"Working here is a sign of excellence in my profession," Greer wrote in an email to NPR about her summer job. "Lots of people in all aspects of theater-making return again and again to the Festival. In many ways it feels like a family. Now this summer, most technical theater artists who were going to work at the Festival will have neither a source of income that we planned on nor a valued team to work with."
Greer is among the millions of artists and creative workers whose economic security has become utterly derailed by COVID-19. The advocacy group Americans for the Arts has spent much of the past month collecting data on how artists like her are faring; in a new study of more than 10,000 working artists and creatives, it finds that nearly two-thirds of artists report having become unemployed since the start of the pandemic. Perhaps they're improv teachers, wedding photographers or lighting designers; the survey, which is ongoing, says 95% of them have experienced income loss as a result of COVID-19, with an average decline in estimated income for the year amounting to $24,000.
According to the National Endowment for the Arts, the arts contribute more than $760 billion annually to the US economy. That's more than sectors such as agriculture or transportation. But only $250 million was set aside to support the arts in the congressional emergency aid bill passed in March. Even so, the allocation drew the ire of some politicians, including Nikki Haley, who tweeted, "How many more people could've been helped with this money?" (Haley, a Republican, has served as ambassador to the U.N. and governor of South Carolina; the arts business in her home state annually supported 115,000 jobs and generated nearly $300 million in tax revenue, according to the South Carolina Arts Commission.)
"Even as the creative backbone of the United States is breaking financially, creative workers stand ready to be part of the recovery — often whether they'll end up being paid to deploy their creativity or not. However, they do indeed need to be paid," Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, said in a statement.
Greer does not expect to get paid for her expertise in the arts soon. "Because the whole point of theater is to come together for shared storytelling, I don't know when I'll be able to go back to work," she told NPR. "But I predict it won't be before we have herd immunity or a vaccine." For now, she intends to finish her graduate thesis while living at home with her parents in Tennessee. Sometime, eventually, she hopes to pursue her dream of working in a costume shop in New York City, currently a hotbed of coronavirus infections.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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