Art Works Podcast: Melissa Walker

May 24, 2012

By Josephine Reed

Artwork by a service member participating in the NICoE’s Healing Arts Program. Image courtesy of NICoE

In this week’s podcast, art therapist Melissa Walker takes us through the Healing Arts program at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. NICoE is a four-week program for service members suffering from traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and other psychological trauma. The state-of-the-art facility on the Walter Reed campus provides an integrated approach to treatment in a holistic, patient-centered environment. And the Healing Arts Program—which consists of the visual arts, music, and writing—plays a central role in the assessment and treatment of these veterans. The NEA is partnering with NICoE to investigate the impact that arts interventions may have on the psychological and cognitive health of these wounded veterans. In fact, beginning this past January, NICoE has incorporated the National Endowment for the Arts’ writing program Operation Homecoming into therapeutic sessions with patients and their families.

As the Healing Arts Program’s designer and coordinator, as well as its sole visual arts therapist, Melissa Walker is an enthusiastic, committed, and thoughtful guide to the role that art can play in healing wounded veterans and their families. From our conversation, it’s clear that Walker felt challenged and stimulated by her work with the service members at NICoE. I was curious to know how it surprised her. [1:16]

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Art Talk with Hung Liu

May 24, 2012

By Rebecca Gross

Hung Liu. Photo courtesy of the artist

In 1984, Hung Liu emigrated from the People’s Republic of China to the United States, becoming one of the first Chinese artists to study in the U.S. An adult by the time she left her native country, Liu had spent four years receiving her “proletariat reeducation” in the Chinese countryside, eventually attending art school where she was trained as a painter in socialist realism style. Since arriving in California to pursue her MFA at the University of California, San Diego, Liu has largely become distinguished for re-working historic Chinese photographs into haunting, visually arresting paintings and mixed media pieces. A professor at Mills College for 22 years, and a two-time recipient of NEA Painting Fellowships, Liu has exhibited her work around the world, including in her native China. We spoke with Liu by phone to talk about the differences between her Chinese and American education, the fluid nature of history, and whether art can be a tool for political and social change.

NEA: What do you remember as your earliest exposure to the arts as a child?

HUNG LIU:  One beautiful day in the late spring of 1954, I went outside with my grandpa, who was a middle school biology teacher. We both loved the outdoors—the wild flowers, the bugs, the birds, and everything we could see in nature. I brought my sketchbook with me as always. I was six years old, and that was the first time I tried to draw trees—there were a lot of them. I had a hard time doing it. Finally, I showed my finished drawing to grandpa—I was quite frustrated with the representation of the trees. Grandpa was like one of my teachers at school – he looked at my drawing, took a moment to meditate, then wrote down my grade—95. I guess he didn’t like the way I drew the trees. As I was just about to take my sketchbook and walk home, grandpa crossed out the 95 and put down 100! I was surprised and speechless. I looked at him, he was serious. In a moment, I realized I was good enough. No, I was perfect! Beginning with the highest point a child could hope for, I’ve been on my journey as an artist since, always trying to reach 100. [From a story written by the artist in 2010]

By the Rivers of Babylon by Hung Liu. This painting depicts war refugees sitting by a river. Image courtesy of Hung Liu

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Chatting with the Champ

May 22, 2012

by Kristen Dupard, 2012 Poetry Out Loud National Champion

2012 Poetry Out Loud National Champion Kristen Dupard recites poetry during the finals round of the competition on May 15, 2012

2012 Poetry Out Loud National Champion Kristen Dupard recites during the Poetry Out Loud National Finals on May 15, 2012. Photo by James Kegley

Kristen Dupard has had quite a busy May! Not only did she go stanza a stanza—so to speak—with 52 other state champions to win top honors at the Poetry Out Loud National Finals, but in the week since she’s gone from high schooler to newly minted high school graduate. We caught up with the champ via e-mail—on the day of her graduation!—to find out her thoughts on Poetry Out Loud and what she has planned next. In her own words, here’s Mississippi Poetry Out Loud State Champion and 2012 Poetry Out Loud National Champion Kristen Dupard…

It feels really great and honorable to be the National Champion of Poetry Out Loud. I’m also so blessed to have all of the amazing opportunities that come with being the champion. I truly enjoyed every second in D.C. for the National Finals! One of my favorite highlights of the trip was when I was able to meet and take a picture with Senator Thad Cochran and Senator Roger Wicker.

I got involved in Poetry Out Loud through my Forensics coach Stacy Howell. One day I walked in her class and she showed me the Poetry Out Loud anthology, and it spiraled from there. I must say that poetry enables me to say what’s really on my mind. Before I got involved in the program I thought Poetry Out Loud was a little on the bland side of things.  But I must say that over the past three years I have learned so much about great poets and poems that I wouldn’t have learned if I was not involved in the program. Overall, I feel that Poetry Out Loud is one of the best programs out there.

My advice for anyone who is involved in the program is to take advantage of this opportunity and pick poems that inspire you. If you do these things not only will you inspire others, but you will continue to keep this program alive. Although all of the poems I chose resonate with me, I must say “What Work Is” by Philip Levine truly sets itself apart from the others. I love this poem because for me it describes an inner struggle that I’m sure everyone can relate to.

So what’s next? My future plans are somewhat endless. I will be attending the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. I plan to double-major in Nursing and Broadcasting. After I obtain my undergraduate degree, I plan to attend medical school and become a pediatrician.  Once I have my medical degree I plan to become a health correspondent for MSNBC or CNN News.

Want to hear more from Kristen? Check out her conversation with PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown. Visit the Poetry Out Loud website to learn more about the program. You can also visit arts,gov to hear recitations and see photos from past finals competitions.

 

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Art Talk with Marilyn Chin

May 21, 2012

by Paulette Beete

Poet Marilyn Chin

Marilyn Chin. Photo by Don Romero

“I believe that “innovation” means to be courageous and to get out of your comfort zone and try new approaches.” — Marilyn Chin

Marilyn Chin’s work unflinchingly explores what it is to be both Asian and American, where those worlds intersect and where they are seemingly incompatible. An omniferous artist, the Hong Kong-born, Oregon-raised Chin is a poet, translator, editor, teacher, activist, and, recently, even a novelist. In addition to the novel Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, Chin is the author of three collections of poetry, including Rhapsody in Plain Yellow, which was published by W.W. Norton in 2002. A recipient of two Creative Writing Literature Fellowships from the NEA, Chin has also received Fulbright and Stegner fellowships, four Pushcart Prizes, and awards from the Rockefeller Foundation and the United States Artists Foundation, among many other awards. We spoke with Chin about her version of the artist’s life, how receiving her NEA fellowships affected her life, and her unusual assignment for young poets.

NEA: What’s your artist’s life like these days?

MARILYN CHIN: I’m having a great time in mid-career! My work is getting historicized a bit; some scholars are writing on my poems. I’m getting a lot of invites from Asia. I am getting new love from Chinese fans—it’s time to take my role seriously as a Sage poet! Recently, I crossed genres and published a composite novel called Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen. I’m experimenting a lot lately and am having a wonderful time.

NEA: What do you remember as your earliest engagement or experience with the arts?

CHIN: Very young I heard my grandmother chanting folk songs from the Confucian classics while being strapped to her back. As early as age four, I had memorized verses from the Cantonese opera. I loved hearing and memorizing poetry from the start.

NEA: What decision has most impacted your arts career?  

CHIN: I declared myself an activist poet and never looked back. I think that this was an important promise to myself and to my readers. I grounded my work with a sense of purpose.

NEA: What artistic tool could you not live without?

CHIN: I cannot live without my books! Oh Goddess of Mercy! I can write with a pencil if you take away my laptop, but I cannot go a day without reading good literature.

NEA: You received NEA Literature Fellowships in 1985 and 1993. What did those fellowships make possible for you?

CHIN: They were immensely helpful! The award is about “buying time.” The first NEA fellowship bought me a year off to finish my first book, Dwarf Bamboo, which helped me get my first teaching job. The second NEA gave me a reprieve from the same teaching job to finish my second book. It’s all about buying uninterrupted time. I’m one of those poets who can’t seem to teach and write at the same time. The teaching is all-consuming. I am eternally grateful for those uninterrupted semesters to concentrate on my work.

NEA: In addition to writing your own work, you have also translated work by others and edited anthologies. How do those roles—poet, translator, editor—inform each other? How are they similar? How are they different?

CHIN: All those activities are a part of the life and responsibilities of being a poet. One must give back by introducing and blurbing younger poets, and by translating and bringing obscure and neglected poets into the western world. All those activities aren’t just notches on a resume. We must be good ambassadors for our art. Read the rest of this entry »

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Postcard from North Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia (Part Two)

May 18, 2012

by Rocco Landesman

NEA Chair Rocco Landesman and Alternate Roots Director Carlton Turner on stage at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta

Carlton Turner of Alternate ROOTS and I spoke in front of a group of about 450 when we chatted about creative placemaking at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Photo by Jhai James, Georgia Council on the Arts

Here’s part two of my southern arts adventures. (You can catch up on what I did in North Carolina and Mississippi here.) I started my trip to Georgia in Macon. I had lunch with Jim Coleman from the Macon Arts Alliance and Beverly Blake of the Knight Foundation. Where did we have lunch? The Steak ‘n Shake in Macon, of course! (It was delicious, by the way—a first-rate Steak ‘n Shake.) Beverly and Jim were great hosts the entire day, and I was glad they were able to make all the stops with me.

After lunch I delivered the keynote speech at the Georgia Arts Network Conference. The conference was at Macon’s Grand Opera House, which is a beautiful facility. It would be the pride of any city. It’s a gorgeous old opera house built in 1883-84, and it’s just a thing of beauty. I spoke on several topics, including creative placemaking and how we can use the arts to support service members and their families. Wayne Jones, president of the Georgia Arts Network, gave the opening remarks, and my old friend Dennis Scholl from the Knight Foundation introduced me. After the conference I was able to spend some time visiting with Macon Mayor Robert Reichert and Sam Hart, who’s the chair of the Macon City Commission.

Our next stop was the Tubman African American Museum on Walnut Street. We gave them a grant last year to help them extend their after-school arts education program. It’s a powerful museum, and it really chronicles a lot of the African-American experience. I was glad to meet Dr. Andy Ambrose, who’s the museum’s executive director.

Next, I spent some time meeting with a group from the Macon Symphony Orchestra, including Sheryl Towers, their CEO, and several of their board members. The symphony has received a couple of grants from us that they’ve put to good use for music education projects and performances.

My next stop was Atlanta. My first meeting was with Lisa Cremin, who runs the Metropolitan Arts Fund/Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. We began what I think is going to be a very productive discussion about the engagement of the NEA with community foundations and their work. You know, the community foundations are on the ground every day. They know the territory, they know what works and what doesn’t work. And they know which arts organizations are worth supporting and which ones less so. We need to start coordinating with them to really learn from their expertise and their hands-on knowledge. Read the rest of this entry »

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Art Works Podcast: Natalie Merchant

May 17, 2012

By Josephine Reed

Natalie Merchant. Photo by Marion Ettlinger

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that  singer/songwriter  Natalie Merchant began her musical career as the lead vocalist and lyricist for 10,000 Maniacs. Her solo career has been remarkably successful both popularly and critically. She’s known as a wonderful interpreter of song and as a composer whose lyrics demand attention. So perhaps it’s no surprise to learn that Merchant has a passion for poetry. Indeed, she served as a judge for the New York State Poetry Out Loud competition in 2009, and performed at the Poetry Out Loud National Finals in Washington, DC that same year.

She also spent six years working on a project that set 19th- and  20th-century American and British childhood poems to music. Using text from poets as disparate as Edward Lear, Mother Goose, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Christina Rossetti, and Robert Louis Stevenson (to name a few), Merchant composed music that transformed the poetry into songs. The result was a two-CD set called Leave Your Sleep. Leave Your Sleep is an ambitious project: not only do the poems encompass nursery rhymes, lullabies, elegies, fantasies, and so on, but Merchant composed music that moves through more than a dozen genres. Eventually more than 100 musicians took part in performing songs that ranged from bluegrass, klezmer, chamber music, Chinese traditional ensemble, American Indian chant, and Irish music. It was a gamble that paid off; it’s a dream of a project that made many “best of” lists for 2010.

Here’s Natalie Merchant explaining her decision to compose music for other poets’ work and how the process affected her own relationship with poetry. [2:05]

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Postcard from North Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia (Part One)

May 17, 2012

by Rocco Landesman

Rocco Landesman in Greensboro with Linda Carlisle, sculptor Jim Gallucci, lighting designer Scott Richardson, and Chuck Cornelio of Lincoln Financial Group

Here I am in Greensboro with Linda Carlisle, Jim Gallucci of Jim Gallucci Sculptor Ltd. who designed the gates for the project, Scott Richardson of Light Designs Form who was the lighting designer for the project, and Chuck Cornelio President of Retirement Services for Lincoln Financial Group. You can see one of the new artworks for the greenway behind us. Photo by Jeff Peck

I’m just back from an Art Works tour of some of our southern states. We started Sunday in Greensboro, North Carolina, where we visited Elsewhere, which is this very odd and unique arts space. It was originally a store owned and run by this incredibly eccentric lady, Sylvia Gray, who collected everything. There are dolls and pottery and costumes and mechanical pieces and every kind of fabric and quilt. She collected everything and threw nothing out. When she died, the space fell into complete disrepair and was just closed for many, many years. After a while Stephanie Sherman, the creative director there, and George Scheer, the collaborative director there (and Sylvia’s grandson), went in and just organized everything into stacks and shelves. One shelf has nothing but books, another has pieces of clothing in a huge big pile. And it’s now become a museum, a residency space for artists, and a place for really innovative arts education activities. It’s part of the revitalization of downtown Greensboro and a great example of creative placemaking. During my visit I was glad to meet with Stephanie; George was unfortunately out of town. I also met Barbara Peck who’s the public art consultant for the Greensboro Downtown Greenway.

It was also great to have a chance to chat with Wayne Martin, the new North Carolina Arts Council executive director and Deputy Director Nancy Trovillion. I was glad they were able to be with us pretty much the whole time. And of course I connected again with Linda Carlisle, the state’s secretary of the Department of Cultural Resources. This is probably my third or fourth meeting with Linda; she’s a fantastic state culture person and just a dynamo. Linda—who’s a Greensboro native by the way—is a real leader and absolutely passionate about the arts. I should mention that I have my own personal association with Greensboro because my old friend from high school, Ellen Fisher, one of my best and oldest friends, lives there. She started off my time in Greensboro with a trip to Steak and Shake for a reunion lunch!

After touring Elsewhere, we drove to Morehead Park, which is the site of one of our MICD25 grants. This was a sort of ribbon cutting for the project, which really transformed the greenway that surrounds Greensboro. There’s an abandoned railroad underpass, and now, thanks to the project, as you go through the underpass, you now have works of art in place. I made some remarks there, as did Chuck Cornelio from the Lincoln Financial Group, which I think has been a big patron of this. This is a really neat project, which is now going to be a wonderful walking, biking, and running loop around the town. You know, this used to be a really tough part of town, and it’s now a big part of the revitalization of that part of Greensboro. This is another great creative placemaking example of what the arts can do in transforming a place. Some of the other elements now in place are art benches and also lighting works under these overpasses that are incredibly aesthetic and compelling. It’s just a great, aesthetic setting that you really want to visit.

From Greensboro, I headed to Jackson, Mississippi. Our first outing in the morning was to the Mississippi Museum of Art, which is run by Betsy Bradley, who is a star. She is a very engaging, very passionate, very inspiring museum director. What they’ve done there is they’ve built a public garden outside the museum that connects the museum with the town. And it’s a beautiful, peaceful oasis in the middle of downtown Jackson. Here we met Malcolm White, who is the director of the Mississippi Arts Commission. You know right away when you meet Malcolm that this guy is the real deal. He’s respected everywhere and among all state arts directors as one of their real leaders. He is a dynamo, he is smart, he is passionate, and he has done wonders for the arts in Mississippi. Mississippi is probably—I started to say it’s the greatest arts state in the country per capita—but forget the per capita and think of the long line of writers, musicians, visual artists who have come from Mississippi. I could name a dozen of them and not get halfway there. For writers there’s Faulkner, Richard Ford, Eudora Welty— there are so many. Tennessee Williams is from Mississippi, too, and that just scratches the surface. There’s a tremendous literary tradition in Mississippi. Of course then you have the blues, and the great musicians who’ve come from there, like our own NEA National Heritage Fellow B.B. King. It’s really one of the most arts-centric states there is, if not the most, especially in literature and music. Malcolm has harnessed that energy and that identity and has done a tremendous job.

I also met Jim Barksdale, the founder of Netscape and one of the very prominent citizens of Jackson. Jim’s currently the Interim Executive Director of the Mississippi Development Authority, and his wife Donna is a board member of the Mississippi Arts Commission. She and Jim are both very dedicated to the arts. They get it about the role the arts play in the revitalization of a city. They’re very committed to the arts, and they’re the kind of people that, immediately when you meet them, you want to spend a day with them. I’m looking forward to getting to know them better as time goes on. It was also terrific to meet Roy Campbell, who’s the museum’s board chair.

After breakfast I was able to tour the museum’s Art Garden, which is beautiful. Very aesthetic. Very artful. They received an Our Town grant that will support educational and performance activities in the garden area. Michael Raff who works for the city as the director of human and cultural services also joined the tour, which was great. Read the rest of this entry »

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Inside the NEA: Getting to Know Michael Orlove

May 15, 2012

by Paulette Beete

Michael Orlove NEA Director of Presenting and Artist Communities

Michael Orlove. Photo by Drew Reynolds

“‘Art Works’ and is, in my opinion, the most effective democratic egalitarian system we have in the world.” —Michael Orlove

As Michael Orlove celebrates surviving his first week as the NEA’s new director of presenting and artist communities, we thought it’d be a good time to get to know the native Chicagoan a little better. Orlove leaves the city having founded Chicago SummerDance and World Music Festival: Chicago as well as having overseen the music programming for Millennium Park, a signature Chicago attraction. Twice named Chicagoan of the Year in Music by the Chicago Tribune, Orlove was also selected as a Chicago Matters Global Visionary by Chicago Public Radio and named one of “Seven Samurai” at the 2009 World Music Expo in Copenhagen, Denmark. Over e-mail this week, we chatted with Orlove about how his parents instilled in him a love of the arts, what “Art Works” means to him, and the childhood secret his mom once confided in Yo-Yo Ma.

NEA: In five words or less, who is Michael Orlove?

MICHAEL ORLOVE: Honest, curious, hard-working, compassionate, family

NEA: What do you remember as your first/earliest engagement in the arts?

ORLOVE: Growing up in Chicago, my parents did their best to expose my brothers and me to the arts. Music festivals, museums, theater—we did so much as a family. I fondly remember going downtown half a dozen times each summer to hear the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra (FOR FREE) at the old Petrillo Band Shell. We would picnic—sometimes with other friends or relatives—and by the time the music started my brothers and I were off horsing around on the grass. What I remember most is watching the crowd of people, from all parts of the city, huddled on blankets and sitting in the seats enjoying the varied classical repertoire with the Chicago skyline in the background. It left a real impression on me—something I took with me to my professional life. Music is an incredible vehicle to bring people together.

NEA: What are you most looking forward to about living in the Washington, DC metro area?

ORLOVE: Exploring DC and the metro area together as a family. I was born, raised, and lived my entire life in Chicago. And my wife Rebeca is from Granada, Spain, and came to Chicago 10 years ago. Our kids Alvaro and Lola are five and three so we all get to experience a new environment together as a family. I think that is very special. New house, new school, new neighborhoods, new museums, new friends—we all get to explore together. Family!

Also having lived in the Midwest my entire life I am now starting to get overwhelmed with how much is accessible from DC: New York City, Philly, Delaware coast, the Carolinas. My head is spinning.

NEA: What will you miss most about Chicago?

ORLOVE: Family and friends. After being in the same city since birth you forget how lucky you are to have so many people in your life. Can’t ever take that for granted. I hope they will all come to visit. Just not at the same time, of course.

And I am going to miss simple navigation. Too many angle streets and turnarounds in DC. I know DC is significantly smaller than Chicago, but I seem to get lost daily with all these angle streets.

NEA: What do you hope to learn while you’re at the NEA?

ORLOVE: I am humbled by all the incredible talent in this agency and hope to learn from all my colleagues here at the NEA. I am anxious to better understand how the other disciplines work and how I can contribute to other fields. Just reading through the NEA blog every morning is somewhat overwhelming—so much exciting work going on within this agency.

NEA: What do you hope to accomplish while you’re at the NEA?

ORLOVE: I am following in the footsteps of a respected colleague and friend, Mario Garcia Durham, who made some incredible strides in his post over the past eight years. I hope to continue his vision and passion within the presenting and artist communities fields and do the best I can to be a leader at the national level. This includes helping to bring new voices, visions, and ideas to both the presenting and artist community fields. Innovation is something that we all need to embrace, and I hope we can find interesting ways to incorporate new ideas, methods, and best practices in order to see these respective fields continue to flourish and have maximum impact throughout the country. And I am counting on my colleagues within the agency and so many remarkable contemporaries throughout the United States to work on this together. Very excited!

NEA: What are you most proud of accomplishing while you were at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs?

ORLOVE: Having spent close to two decades at the Department of Cultural Affairs I have so many great memories, experiences, and events to look back at with pride. It would be difficult to select one particular concert or event, impossible in fact. I look back, however, and can’t help but take great satisfaction in the work we collectively did to make art accessible to all. The vast amount of performing and visual art programs at the Chicago Cultural Center, Millennium Park, Chicago SummerDance, and World Music Festival all succeeded in reaching the people, the community, the lifeline of the city. I know people who met their spouses at SummerDance, friendships that began by sitting beside one another in the Cassidy Theater at the Chicago Cultural Center, entire social networks that formed on the lawn of Millennium Park. This is what makes me most happy. ‘Art Works’ and is, in my opinion, the most effective democratic egalitarian system we have in the world.

NEA: Which contemporary artist do you secretly hope you run into in the elevator or the halls while you’re here? (And why?)

ORLOVE: I know this will sound trite, but I really want to run into someone in the elevator or hallway unknown to me and make a discovery. Don’t get me wrong—there are so many incredibly interesting artists out there who I would love to meet. But, technology allows us to get such a close introspective look into people’s lives you feel like you already know them. And through my former position with the City of Chicago, I had the great fortune of meeting so many unbelievable artists. But wouldn’t it be great to meet someone completely unknown to you who just knocks you out? It has happened to me so many times in my career. Seeing Doc Watson solo at the Old Town School, seeing Junior Wells for the first time at the Checkerboard Lounge in 1989, hearing Tinariwen in the Sahara Desert in Mali, listening to the great Maqam singer Alim Qasimov on a friend’s Walkman. I could go on and on. There is so much creativity out there. I guess the lesson here is eyes/ears wide open.

NEA: What would most people be surprised to learn about you?

ORLOVE: That I am from Chicago?

Seriously, I think people are always surprised to hear that I have no formal training in music. In all the commission projects I was involved in the musicians would always show me the score. It was like reading hieroglyphics. I was always into sports as a kid. Never lasted more than a week on any instrument.

Funny story: several years back when the Department of Cultural Affairs was celebrating the Year of the Silk Road in Chicago there were a number of meetings with Yo-Yo Ma and his staff. We were walking out of the office and I mentioned that my mother volunteers every Wednesday at the Chicago Cultural Center. Because Yo-Yo is such a mensch, he immediately approaches her without me being in clear view and says, “Sarah Orlove what a pleasure to meet you.” She was shell-shocked and—as only a good Jewish mother would do—she quips back and says, “What an honor to meet you. You know, Mr. Ma, I tried so hard to get Michael interested in taking music class and he just never took any interest.” So I guess it’s not a big secret. Even Yo-Yo Ma knows!

NEA: What does “Art Works” mean to you?

ORLOVE: Art Works to engage and bring people together. Art Works to inspire people young and old, rich and poor. Art Works to encourage curiosity, develop community, and give us a better understanding of the world and of each other.

NEA: Any last words?

ORLOVE: Just saw this quote by Twyla Tharp today—an appropriate way to end the interview, I think. “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”

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Turning the Dance Floor on its Side

May 11, 2012

By Rebecca Gross

Project Bandaloop performs on the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City. Photo by Atossa Soltani

Anyone who lives in or has visited Washington knows the Old Post Office Pavilion. Built in 1899, the building is a major city landmark, renowned for its gorgeous Romanesque revival architecture and 315-foot clock tower. It’s also home to several federal agencies, including our very own NEA.

But tonight at 9 p.m., the historic Old Post Office will transform into a vertical stage when frequent NEA grantee Project Bandaloop dances, leaps, and twists along the façade as it performs its aerial production of Bound(less). Mixing intricate choreography with the rigor of rappelling, the company was founded in 1991 by Amelia Rudolph, who continues to serve as Project Bandaloop’s artistic director. Since then, the company has performed on such unusual spaces as the Seattle Space Needle, a Norwegian fjord, the Oakland Museum in California, cliff and mountain faces, and a 180-foot billboard in Times Square.

Tonight’s free performance is part of the Kennedy Center’s “Look Both Ways: Street Art Across America” festival, and will feature musician and composer Dana Leong performing on the wall alongside the dancers. In anticipation of the event, I spoke with Amelia Rudolph about her incredible, perspective-bending company, the most memorable space she’s ever danced on, and what it feels like to fly.

NEA: How did you initially dream up the idea for Project Bandaloop?

AMELIA RUDOLPH: I’ve danced my whole life. In 1989, I started to climb for the first time in the Sierra. At that time, there actually weren’t that many indoor climbing gyms like there are now; most of the climbing took place in the mountains. As I was climbing one day, high on a ridge in the Sierra, in this absolutely gorgeous place, I wondered what it would be like to create a site-specific work, or dance, in a site like that. How could you dance high in the mountains, on rock, or on a cliff? At the same time, I realized all my dance fed into climbing, and many things about climbing felt like dance to me inside my body.

At the same time, I was doing my master’s thesis as a performance, and writing about why I was doing a performance. So I wrote a master’s thesis, but I also danced it. This was all happening at the same time and out of that came a group of people, and an idea, and a new indoor climbing gym was opening. I asked the owner, Peter Mayfield, “Hey, do you think we can come into your gym and experiment with the idea of cross-pollinating climbing and dance?” He was extremely supportive. We did a show there in 1991 in the climbing gym, and people really, really responded to it. I think it was so many things: the re-framing of dance, seeing sport and art together—so many things came together in that first performance. And for 20 years now, I’ve been putting dance in unusual urban and natural places. We’re a dance company that’s rigorously performing contemporary dance, complex choreography. We are very not circus-like. We just do it in unusual spaces and on a vertical dance floor.

NEA: How do you rehearse for “stages” that are as unique as the ones you perform on, particularly when you have to take weather into account?

RUDOLPH: We treat our studio space, which is the performance space, as a cross between a stage and a rock climb, or a hike. You have to be prepared. We actually will rehearse in some drizzle and some rain; we will rehearse in wind up to a point. We’ve rehearsed in Dayton, Ohio, in 18-degree weather. You have to do what you have to do, and you have to be really prepared and mentally tough to be able to do it.

So there’s that. Then we’re bringing a complex, full-length work to the Old Post Office that we’ve done in Oakland on a flat wall, in Miami on a Frank Gehry building that was also a flat wall, and we’re adapting it to the Old Post Office. There are several sections that I’m going to completely change; you just cannot do it on this building. I’m really looking forward to finding out what that building brings out in this piece. We have four days on the building prior to show, and we’ll be rehearsing as much as they let us.

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Art Works Podcast: Maxine Hong Kingston

May 10, 2012

Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston. Photo by Michael Lionstar

This week’s podcast focuses on author, Maxine Hong Kingston. Kingston is a pioneering author who in many ways cleared the path for both ethnic and women’s literature. In language that is lyrical and poetic, she looks at the complications of leaving one country for another, often weaving strands of Chinese folk stories and myths—like the tale of the great woman warrior Fa Mu Lan—throughout her work.

A recipient of two NEA Literature Fellowships,  Kingston won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award in 1976 for her first book, The Woman Warrior;  her second, China Men, won 1981’s National Book Award. Kingston’s greatest legacy, however, is her lasting impact on literature. As author Julia Alvarez has said, “I think Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior really was a moment in which the mainstream culture said ‘This is beautiful. This is lyrical. This is American literature…. This is part of who we are, these stories of people that have come from somewhere else, and along with everything else that they’ve brought they brought their stories.’”

Although today, ethnic and immigrant writing fills the bookshelves, that was not the case in the 1970s when Kingston began writing The Woman Warrior. She had to figure out how, as a Chinese-American woman, to write herself and an Asian oral tradition into American culture. [2:57]

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[transcript]

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