September 1 Meet the Artists: “Becoming Documentary Filmmakers”
Two documentary film collaborations, conducted by Lee Quinby, Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College, and Daniel Cowen, a film studies major at Macaulay at Hunter who graduated May, 2011. They will show clips from their first project as well as give a sneak-peak of their latest collaboration and talk about the struggles and benefits of working in a creative team.
Their first film, “Facing the Waves,” focuses on Bobby Vaughn, a fast-talking surfer/entrepreneur with a violent past in Los Angeles, including a murder charge.
Their second film has just been finished. “True Delta” centers on the Mississippi Delta and the effort in that region to pass the Blues torch to a younger generation. It features yet-unseen performances by aging Blues legends, interviews with leading blues historians and experts and reveals what the future of this timeless American genre may look like.
September 19 Meet the Artist: Clinton Curtis
Clinton Curtis grew up between the islands of Key West and Jamaica. The son of musicians and reggaehall owners, he was always surrounded by music. As a child, he helped sound-check all the acts that appeared at his parents’ legendary Club Kokua on Negril Beach. He played with and learned from some of the Jamaican giants — including Gregory Issacs and Desmond Dekker.
He was a classical pianist at 8, and formed his first group – a 10-piece R&B band at 13. Around that time, he started making self-produced studio recordings of original songs, playing all the instruments himself. He left Key West for Greenwich Village at age 17 to study acting at NYU. It was there, in the West Village nightclubs that defined so much of music history, that Clinton realized he wanted to write and perform original music. He began working his way up in the downtown acoustic clubs- earning a little money as a classical musician on the side. It was during this time that he wrote the songs that would later become the album, Smoldering Youth.
From Brahms to Muddy Waters, Van Morrison and The Band to Bob Marley and The Mighty Diamonds, Clinton’s many influences converged seamlessly in his songwriting. In order to home in on this unique sound, Clinton teamed up with producer Matt Stine, and signed to Stine’s indie label 27 Sound. With Clinton’s first full length album, Smoldering Youth, “21st Century Rock and Roll” made its debut. For more information, go to www.clintoncurtis.com.
October 12 Meet the Artists: “Courting Risk: Blackout”
At the intersection of poetry and performance art, “Courting Risk: Blackout” engages both the artists and the audience in the co-creation of writing, sound and visual art in a multimedia setting. Participants are asked to bring an open mind and wear comfortable clothing.
Natasha Marin is a poet and conceptual artist, whose recent work involves creating dynamic sites of genuine exchange and encounter. She trusts her intuition and desire to connect others, creating sacred moments with the assistance of strangers. And, she is a “tea person” the way some people describe themselves as “cat people” or “dog people.” Her written work has been published widely and translated into other languages and media including video, audio and site-specific installations. Find her latest project on the web at www.mikokuro.com.
Artist and writer Khadijah Queen is the author of two poetry collections: Conduit (Black Goat/Akashic Books 2008) and Black Peculiar, a genre-bending project which won the 2010 Noemi Press Book Award. Her poetry, three times nominated for the Pushcart Prize, appears or is forthcoming in jubilat, Eleven Eleven, Best American Nonrequired Reading (Houghton Mifflin 2010), and many other journals and anthologies. The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Norman Mailer Writers’ Colony, she has performed and exhibited nationally. http://khadijahqueen.com/home.html
October 17 Meet the Artist: Michael Gutierrez
Miguel Gutierrez, a dance and music artist based in New York, has been called “one of our most provocative and necessary artistic voices” by Eva Yaa Asantewaa of Dance Magazine. He makes solo and group pieces with a variety of artists under the moniker Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People. His work, characterized by the immersive quality of the attentive state that it imposes on the audience, centers around enduring philosophical questions about desire, longing and the search for meaning.
His work includes: enter the seen (2002), I succumb (2003), dAMNATION rOAD (2004), Retrospective Exhibitionist and Difficult Bodies (2005), myendlesslove (2006), Everyone (2007), Nothing, No Thing (2008), Last Meadow (2009), HEAVENS WHAT HAVE I DONE (2010), I SAY THE WORD, a collaboration with visual artist Jenny Holzer at ICA Boston (2010), and he instigated the performance/protest/meditation freedom of information (2001, 2008 & 2009).
His work has been presented at several festivals and venues nationally and internationally, most recently the American Realness Festival in NY, and the Festival D’Automne in Paris. Others include Antipodes Festival in Brest, France, TBA/PICA in Portland, Oregon, Out There Festival at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and ImPulsTanz in Vienna, Austria.
He has received support from Creative Capital, Jerome Foundation, Rockefeller MAP Fund NYFA, NEA and NPN. In 2010 he received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Art, and United States Artists. He is the winner of three New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) awards. WHEN YOU RISE UP, a book of his performance texts, is available from 53rd State Press. He also invented DEEP AEROBICS, an absurdist workout for the radical in all of us. www.miguelgutierrez.org
October 24 Meet the Artist: Alicia Hall Moran
ALICIA HALL MORAN, mezzo-soprano, brings diverse influences and passions together in a rich, quintessentially modern artistic brew. Balancing performances in the realms of musical theater (currently understudying Bess/Audra McDonald in The Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess directed by Diane Paulus), opera-cabaret (currently the motown project @ The Kitchen, Le Poisson Rouge, Regattabar, etc.), art performance (currently with visual artists such as Joan Jonas, Adam Pendleton, Simone Leigh, Liz Magic Laser), and jazz (most frequently with husband and pianist Jason Moran), while consistently finding outlets for her other love of dance (music for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company’s award-winning Chapel/Chapter) and writing (in her weekly classical music column, Suite Sounds, for the New York Amsterdam News). Upholding the traditions of her great, great uncle Hall Johnson (legendary choral director, composer and preserver of the Negro Spiritual) and her greatest teachers (Shirley Verrett, Adele Addison, Hilda Harris, David Jones & Warren Wilson), without being tethered to the classical repertoire,Alicia’s performances transcend expectation. Her singing and theatrical sensibilities lead purely into a sensual, musical world where the lyricism of Marvin Gaye and the high drama of Puccini collide. For more information, go to www.aliciahallmoran.com.
November 1 Meet the Artists: “Performing Langston Hughes”
New York based actor David Mills brings Harlem Renaissance icon Langston Hughes to life in an inspiring, entertaining one-man show that combines theatre, poetry, and song.
David Mills, a cum laude graduate of Yale University, received an MFA in creative writing/poetry from New York University. He lived as writer-in-residence in Langston Hughes’ home and has been a VCCA fellow twice. He has won fellowships from Breadloaf and NYU’s Henry James Fellowship and had poems published in Fence, Jubilat, Callaloo and forthcoming in Ploughshares. He has also written for Rollling Stone, The Washington Post, the Boston GLobe and has recorded some of his poetry on RCA jazz saxophonist Steve Coleman’s album “Black Science.” Mills’ new book “The Dream Detective”, is a small press bestseller.
