Once again, for the 2009-10 academic year, ARTSwego is working with faculty, staff and members of the community to explore a yearlong interdisciplinary theme. Over the course of the year, we will highlight a series of campus arts programs that address or illustrate this theme, The Arts, Identity & Diaspora.
Some of the programs are part of the ARTSwego performing arts series. Others are sponsored by particular academic departments. In all cases, our intent is to encourage closer integration of the arts with intellectual exploration in the classroom, and with the wider conversation on issues and perspectives that characterizes a vital college experience. We invite you to join us by following the thematic thread woven through these outstanding events from September through March.
Last spring, several of the featured artists came to the SUNY Oswego Metro Center in Syracuse to meet with interested faculty and staff from SUNY Oswego and Onondaga Community College. Presentations from that two-day workshop (including vocalist Lorin Skamberg, filmmaker Katja Esson, and choreographer Alex Escalante) may be heard (or downloaded in video format) at www.oswego.edu/itunesu. When these artists, as well as Poet Li-Young Lee, return next spring, they will be available to take part in specially arranged visits to classes or student interest groups. For details, contact John Shaffer at ARTSwego.
2009-10 INTERDISCIPLINARY THEME
The word diaspora is derived from a Greek root that refers to the scattering of seeds. It provides a vivid metaphor for the movement of people away from their original homeland due to disruptive forces beyond their control. Conditions that lie behind these global migrations include war, famine, repression, or economic hardship.
Upon arrival in new lands, these people encounter cultural patterns that may conflict with their traditions, their outlook on the world, and their understanding of themselves. The tensions that accompany this encounter are frequently expressed through art— whether these expressions represent cultural resistance, negotiation of compromise, embrace of assimilation, or bold exploration that attempts to transcend both the original and host cultures.
Examining visual, performing, and literary artworks of diaspora allows us to understand important dynamics in the contemporary world as they are experienced by those most directly affected.
ARTS, IDENTITY & DIASPORA PROGRAMS:
Battlestar Galactica
The journey of the last surviving humans following destruction of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol provides an opportunity to explore the yearlong theme “Arts, Identity & Diaspora” through the abstract lens of science fiction.
Wednesdays, September 2 & 9, 3PM, Campus Center Auditorium (Free)
Battlestar Galactica Screening
Monday, September 14, 3PM, Campus Center Auditorium (Free)
Videoconference Talk by Battlestar Galactica Director Jeff Woolnough
Wednesday, September 16, 3PM, Campus Center Auditorium (Free)
Battlestar Galactica and the Creation of the Science Fiction Universe
Robert O’Connor, Associate Professor of Creative Writing
Home: http://www.battlestargalactica.com
Resources: http://tinyurl.com/Teach-Battlestar
The Holmes Brothers
Rooted in blues and gospel, The Holmes Brothers’ chilling harmonies and inspired musicianship mix Saturday night roadhouse rock with the gospel fervor and harmonies of a Sunday church service. Their ability to perform sanctified gospel, lowdown roadhouse blues, deep soul, authentic country and pure pop all in one set offers a borderless catalog of African Diaspora influence in traditional and evolving genres of American music.
Friday, September 18, WatermanTheatre, 7:30PM (Ticketed Event)
Home: http://www.theholmesbrothers.com
Resources: http://people.uvawise.edu/roots/biblios/afdiamus.html
Laurie Halse Anderson
When Young Adult writer and National Book Award Finalist Laurie Halse Anderson discovered that nearly all of our "founding fathers" owned slaves, she was "rocked to her core"--she had never fully grasped the extent of slavery in colonial America. In her book, Chains, Anderson presents the reader with Isabel, a slave girl owned by wealthy New Yorkers, whose struggles for freedom and dignity parallel those of her incipient nation's Revolutionary War. An upstate resident, Anderson will talk about her book and the local geography it incorporates.
Monday, October 19, Campus Center Audtorium, 3PM (Free)
Home: www.writerlady.com
Resources: http://www.webenglishteacher.com/lhanderson.html
Vivo Flamenco Carlota Santana
Flamenco Vivo is one of the nation's premier flamenco and Spanish dance companies. Artistic director Carlotta Santana believes that the universal spirit of flamenco, a multicultural art form, has the power to build bridges between cultures and inspire audiences from diverse backgrounds. Although details of the development of flamenco are obscure, it is certain that it originated in Andalusia and reflects East Indian, Arabic, and European Roma (Gypsy) influences.
Thursday, November 5, Waterman Theatre, 7:30PM (Ticketed Event)
Home: http://www.flamenco-vivo.org
Resources: http://www.centroflamenco.com/history.html
Imani Winds
Imani Winds has established itself as more than a wind quintet. Since 1997, the Grammy nominated ensemble has taken a unique path, carving out a distinct presence in the classical music world with its dynamic playing, culturally poignant programming, genre-blurring collaborations. Residency programs examine the influence of the African Diaspora on classical music, tracing rhythmic and melodic elements through North America, South America and Europe.
Wednesday, November 11, Campus Center Auditorium, 12:40PM (Free)
The African Influence on Classical Music
Wednesday, November 11, Sheldon Hall Ballroom, 7:30PM (Ticketed Event)
Imani Winds in Concert - Pre-Concert Talk at 7PM
Home: http://www.imaniwinds.com
Resources: http://www.africlassical.com
Li-Young Lee
Through the observation and translation of often unassuming and silent moments, the poetry of Li-Young Lee gives clear voice to the solemn and extraordinary beauty found within humanity. By employing hauntingly lyrical skill and astute poetic awareness, Lee allows silence, sound, form, and spirit to emerge brilliantly onto the page. Driven from Indonesia with his Chinese family at an early age, his poetry reveals the joys and sorrows of home, loss, exile, and love. Li-Young Lee is the author of four critically acclaimed books of poetry, his most recent being Behind My Eyes (W.W. Norton, 2008). His earlier collections are Book of My Nights (BOA Editions, 2001); Rose (BOA, 1986); The City in Which I Love You (BOA, 1991).
Tuesday, March 2, Poetry Reading by Li-Young Lee, Location TBD, 7:30PM (Free)
Wednesday, March 3, College Hour with Li-Young Lee, Location TBD, 12:40PM
Home: http://www.blueflowerarts.com/li.html
Resources: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/291
The Klezmatics
The Klezmatics are globally-renowned world music superstars — and the only klezmer band to win a Grammy award. The Klezmatics emerged out of the vibrant cultural scene of New York City’s East Village in 1986 with klezmer steeped in Eastern European Jewish tradition and spirituality, while incorporating contemporary themes and eclectic musical influences including Arab, African, Latin and Balkan rhythms, jazz and punk. In the course of over twenty years and nine albums they have stubbornly continued making music that is wild, mystical, provocative, reflective and ecstatically danceable.
Wednesday, March 10, Location TBD, 12:40PM (Free)
Tradition in Transition, Frank London of the Klezmatics
Wednesday, March 10, Waterman Theatre, 7:30PM (Ticketed Event)
The Klezmatics in Concert
Home: www.klezmatics.com
Resources: http://tinyurl.com/d72hjk
Katja Esson
Katja Esson is an independent filmmaker based in New York City who mixes documentary and narrative genres. She has directed a variety of award-winning documentaries, short films and commercials. Born and raised in Germany, Esson brings a unique European sensibility to the distinctively American subjects she chooses. She is now completing Poetry of Resilience, a film about six poets who survived human atrocities, and their stories of transformation, for which she received the Simons Fellowship for the Humanities at Kansas University in 2007.
Wednesday, March 24, Screening: Poetry of Resilience
Location TBD, 12:40PM
Home: http://www.blueflowerarts.com/kesson.html
Resources: http://www.poetryofresilience.com/
Alex Escalante
The son of Mexican immigrants, choreographer Alex Escalante explores the struggle to maintain one’s culture independent of borders, boundaries, and passports. Escalante was a 2007-2008 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence. Escalante's new multi-media dance work--"Clandestino"--pays tribute to his Mexican heritage, his immigrant parents, and the courage of undocumented workers, living in the United States, who, in the spring of 2006, turned out for massive rallies for their human rights. At a time when illegal immigration has become an often-exploited political flashpoint, Escalante asks audiences to confront their own feelings and opinions on this issue.
Tuesday and Wednesday, March 30, 31, Waterman Theatre (Ticketed Event)
Alex Escalante’s Clandestino
Wednesday, March 31, Location TBD, 12:40PM
College Hour with Alex Escalante
Home: http://tinyurl.com/c4bya8
Resources: http://tinyurl.com/cpblct
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