6 Questions with Wade Sellers whose film ANATOMY OF A FLOOD Premieres at INDIE GRITS

 

JASPER:  The work you've done for Indie Grits this year is untitled in the program literature. Is that intentional? Is there a title or could you give it a title now, if you had to?

SELLERS:  The title of the installation is Anatomy of a Flood. I don't think I had a title for it when they asked for the proposals from the artists. I had a general idea but didn't decide on a title until I solidified the concept.

~

JASPER:  Tell us just a little bit about the impetus for your film.

SELLERS:  I had been asked by a friend if I would be willing to video the interior of a home for insurance purposes that had been damaged by the flooding. I agreed and realized that this was a way that I could offer what I do to those affected. I ended up capturing footage of many homes that were horribly damaged by the flood waters and during the time I spent in each one, the damage and its effect on the owners weighed on me. I though of talking to the owners then and asking about their experience but I couldn't, I didn't feel it was right to do. I wasn't gathering news, I would've asked very personal questions and it was too soon.

When I was asked to participate in the Waterlines project by Seth, I wanted to revisit those home owners and others affected by the flood and have them tell me their personal story of that night.

The narrative of the film is fairly narrow. I asked those that I interviewed to tell me only of their experience the night of October 3rd until the time they left their home the next morning.

 ~

JASPER:  Sometimes Indie Grits films are a work in progress - is yours? (If yes, how so?)

SELLERS:  The project is finished and was originally intended to be a one time screening because of the nature of how it is projected. I've changed my thinking now and think it would be appropriate to be projected as one piece on one wall.

 ~

JASPER:  What was the most challenging part in the process of making this film?

SELLERS:  It is always hard to edit out good parts of a story and Anatomy of a Flood was no different. There were some moments of each person's story of the night of the flood that were extremely engaging, but didn't really fit in the whole of the piece. Since the film is projected on three different walls the timing of each visual was a bit tricky but turned out to be very effective when played together.

The technique I use in editing the interviews is based off of what I developed for a documentary series I directed and edited, where we interview many people about one event. The interviews are then edited together to feel as if it is one continuous story but told by many people and from their personalities in telling the story you get the idea of the makeup of them as individuals and as a community.

 ~

JASPER:  How did making this film affect or change you as a filmmaker?

SELLERS:  The project itself is the first time I have created a film to be projected on multiple screens at the same time. At the heart of it it is a narrative documentary, the only difference is that it has contrasting images projected at the same time on opposite walls. I create films that tell engaging stories. I wanted this to be the same but also wanted to add the element of other possible narratives trying to fight and disorient the viewers attention.

 ~

JASPER:  What do you hope people will take away from having seen the film?

SELLERS:  I don't feel I overstretched my limits with Anatomy of a Flood. Projecting on multiple surfaces isn't new, but I think the project does offer an engaging opportunity for viewers. My goal with it is to have the viewer struggle to watch and listen to the narrative while having the secondary images fighting for their attention as well. It is supposed to illicit an emotional response, to disorient or maybe confuse-much like the events of the night of the flooding or much like diving into water and not knowing, for a split second, which way is the way to the top.

But in the end, I want the viewer to be able to say that they had a shared experience and that they may feel closer to our community.

"If you are someone who creates, then I think it is critical that you push yourself and create something that speaks to your community after your community has suffered. The fact that our community has organizations such as The Nickelodeon and One Columbia that not only support and encourage but commission these efforts puts our city in a position to strengthen the fabric that holds it together in ways we won't realize until the years ahead." - Wade Sellers

Jasper Indie Grits Picks, Day 1: The Color of Fire (4/14, 7pm @ The Nick)

The 2016 Indie Grits Festival is coming at us full steam today (Thursday, April 14th), with a great slate of films, the launch of both the Indie Bits video game showcase the Scenario Collective's The Sweet Spot venue for the weekend, and the riverside performance of eighth blackbird.

While the gorgeous outdoor venue for the latter group is likely to steal most of the thunder of this year's festival, particularly when the day-long festivities there on Saturday culminate with the twerking spectacle of bounce queen Big Freedia, we here at Jasper always have a special affection for the indie film heart of this annual event. In that spirit, each day of the festival we're going to try and highlight a film or two we think is worth your time.

--

The Color of Fire (70 min, dir. by Dorian Warneck; Screening 4/14, 7pm @ The Nick )

While we hate to steer anybody away from eighth blackbird's unique performance next to the Congaree, The Color of Fire was one of the initial film announcements that really caught our eye. Directed by Dorian Warneck, a young Charleston photographer and editor at the Lunch and Recess creative agency, the documentary is an exploration of Dorian's father Diether, who experienced the bombing of his hometown of Dresden, Germany, at the end of World War II and was an enlisted soldier in the Nazi army at the age of 15 for the final month of the war.

The younger Warneck interviews his father as the two travel to Germany to visit Diether's elder siblings and see Dresden "for the last time." Most of Diether's life is filled with "love, family, intrigue, art, and personal accomplishment," but the film's intent on getting at how such a single, pivotal decision at a crisis point in world history can alter the trajectory and meaning of a person's life is heavily poignant, as is Dorian's desire and willingness to dive this deep into such a tragic part of his family history. This has all the makings of an Indie Grits selection to remember.

https://vimeo.com/122779507

Dadaesque Exhibit at 701 CCA

If someone had told me ten years ago that Columbia would be hosting an international exhibit of Dada-inspired art tonight, like 701 CCA is in fact doing, I'd have have smiled and nodded before rolling my eyes enough to make me dizzy, not sure if many of us had even heard of  the Swiss-inspired Dada movement, much less have an appreciation for it.

But such is the caliber of arts interest in 2016 Columbia, SC.  And much of this interest is built on the backs of previous arts intensives provided by Columbia Museum of Art and Columbia College whose exhibitions and attached programs dedicated to the likes of Andy Warhol and Georgia O'Keeffe have stimulated and nurtured what is becoming a passion for arts history and arts appreciation in the city. We are growing in our desire for not only more challenging art, but for the ability to understand what it is that makes some art more challenging.

Kudos to  701 Center for Contemporary Art for presenting Dadaesque, which is the culmination of their 701 CCA's Dada Days in Columbia, a series of programs through which the center has been marking the one hundredth anniversary of the Dada movement, which many art historians recognize as the impetus for most of what we now perceive as contemporary art.

“The exhibition will surprise people in that it shows the scope of Dada’s influence on contemporary art,” says 701 CCA board chair Wim Roefs, who curated the exhibition. “It’ll be surprising to know, for instance, that Columbia mainstays such as Mike Williams and Clark Ellefson create works that are firmly rooted in the Dada movement. While, like many other artists in the show, they don’t see themselves as Dada artists, they would readily acknowledge that it was the innovations of Dada that informs and facilitates at least part of their artistic output.”

The group exhibition period will run from April 13 through June 5 and in addition to featuring Columbia-based artists Clark Ellefson and Mike Williams will also feature Jason Kendall of Columbia and Colin Quashie, whom we'd still like to call our own and Hilton Head's Aldwyth. Our artists will be joined by artists from throughout the US as well as sound poet and 701 visiting resident artist Jaap Blonk and Janke Klompmaker, both from The Netherlands. There will be a Gallery Talk at 2 pm on Sunday, May 15th.

What You Need to Know About Dadaism

Need to brush up on your Dadaism? Here's a very brief primer on how this strange arts movement, which was very much anti-arts movement, fits into the bigger picture.

"Dada was born out of negative reaction to the horrors of the First World War. This international movement was begun by a group of artists and poets associated with the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich. Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition. The origin of the name Dada is unclear; some believe that it is a nonsensical word. Others maintain that it originates from the Romanian artists Tristan Tzara's and Marcel Janco's frequent use of the words "da, da," meaning "yes, yes" in the Romanian language. Another theory says that the name "Dada" came during a meeting of the group when a paper knife stuck into a French–German dictionary happened to point to 'dada', a French word for 'hobbyhorse'."

-- Dona Budd, the Language of Art Knowledge

• Dada or Dadaism was a form of artistic anarchy born out of disgust for the social, political and cultural values of the time. It embraced elements of art, music, poetry, theatre, dance and politics.

• “The beginnings of Dada,” poet Tristan Tzara recalled, “were not the beginnings of art, but of disgust.”

• For Dada artists, the aesthetic of their work was considered secondary to the ideas it conveyed. “For us, art is not an end in itself,” wrote Dada poet Hugo Ball, “but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.”

• Dadaists both embraced and critiqued modernity, imbuing their works with references to the technologies, newspapers, films, and advertisements that increasingly defined contemporary life.

KEY WORDS --> EXPERIMENTAL. PROVOCATIVE. UNORTHODOX.  SPONTANEOUS. IRREVERENT. READYMADE. RADICAL. SUBVERSIVE. VARIED.

 For more on Dadaism click here and here, too.

Carol Pittman at City Art for Artista Vista

City Art announces its upcoming exhibition of new works by Carol Pittman opening Artista Vista, the annual spring Vista gallery crawl, April 21, 2016 with opening reception from 5:00 – 8:00 PM.  The exhibit will continue thru June 2016.

These new works are an evolution from her tile work into acrylic paintings. Many of the paintings focus on the circular composition as she sees the world as a continuing entity. The colors that she uses are greatly influenced by her love of colorful clothing for herself and other people and from the vivid colors she experiences in her travels to Greece especially. The circular motif can obviously be interpreted as an expression of the flow of life and hers is always one of great optimism. Her joy and vitality of life come thru her works as rendered in the colors that she uses.  Her tile pieces are an extension of her free spirit.

Carol Pittman began her art career at eight years old with her mother “dropping” her off on Saturdays at the Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Va.  She moved to Columbia at sixteen and studied art with Moselle Skinner at Dreher High School.  She has attended universities in various locations, while a navy wife and raising three sons.  Universities include Coker College, Old Dominion University in Virginia Beach, the University of Maryland, The Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples Italy, and finally received her BA in Art History, and MA in Sudio Art and a MAT in teaching art, all from the University of South Carolina.

She taught art appreciation at USC for 25 years and has exhibited at many places, including the Asheville Art Museum, the Columbia Museum of Art, Dorothy McCrae Gallery in Atlanta, Nina Liu Gallery in Charleston, the Florence Museum, USC-Sumter, the Fine Arts Center in Camden, and at City Art in Columbia.

Pittman comments, “Byzantine painters used rhythm and the repetition of elements in order to draw the viewer into the work.  Rhythm is also important in my work.  I use rhythm to draw in the viewer.  Sometimes, I also include dancing and musical instruments to show that my women are not passive, but active.

“My years spent in Naples, Italy and travels each year to Greece are also reflected in my art.  While in these countries, I am surrounded by colorful tile, pottery shards, roman and renaissance frescoes, and other evidence of ancient cultures.  I try to make connections between women in the ancient world and the world in which I live.”

City Art Gallery is located at 1224 Lincoln St. in the historic Congaree Vista area in Columbia, South Carolina.  Gallery hours are Monday – Thursday 10:00 a.m. until 6 p.m., Friday 10:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

On Gender by Ed Madden (as He Prepares Tess Demint for the Vista Queen Stage)

“You learn a lot in drag.” – Panti Bliss/ Rory O’Neill, A Woman in the Making (2014)

~

Last Monday I published a poem online at the Good Men Project, a website devoted to rethinking masculinity—“Translations,” a poem about gender and race and how we like to put people in boxes.  I had been teaching creative writing to some young writers last fall, I was still thinking about the Confederate battle flag and the Black Lives Matter movement, and I had been asked to write a poem for a transgender remembrance ceremony and the GLBTQ student organization’s “lavender graduation” ceremony.  It all came together in this prose poem, maybe more essay—in the old sense of trying out something, thinking through something—than poem.  (I am deeply grateful to my student Caleb for talking with me about non-binary identification—his words are the heart of the poem.)

~

I’ve been thinking a lot about gender, as I prepare for my performance in Vista Queen this coming Monday, because gender is very much in the air, in the cultural conversation—from Trump’s misogyny to Hillary’s candidacy.

On March 24, North Carolina passed a law that has been called “the most anti-LGBT legislation in the country.”  It undoes all local nondiscrimination laws and specifically excludes gay, lesbian, and transgender people from legal protections.

Ironically, International Trans Day of Visibility was celebrated just a week later, on March 31.

Now Senator Lee Bright of Roebuck has proposed similar legislation for South Carolina.

~

Before I entered, I asked my colleagues in Women’s and Gender Studies if it was okay for me to enter.  They said sure.  One said don’t do it—not because she objected, she just said, “You’re already too busy and beleaguered.”  Well, true.

But I asked because drag can be risky business when you work in gender studies.

On the one hand, drag is a central example in the work of theorist Judith Butler and celebrated by folks influenced by that work.  Drag, they say, makes visible that all gender identity is a performance, a repetition of acts and styles and embodied tropes of how we fit—or don’t fit—into the binary gender system: male/female.  (Yes, there’s a Wikipedia page on this.)

But, on the other hand, I suppose there’s that old gay tradition of female impersonation that tends toward misogyny rather than subversion or understanding.  For example, see this really smart essay from a Stanford student which notes, “if drag is to be subversive, then it must challenge or undermine systems or institutions that oppress those performing.”  Yes, I think, as I work on Tess DeMint’s script.  That is, the subversion mustn’t simply reinforce the powers that be, but question them.

I think about those old “womanless weddings” often held in rural Southern churches and segregated high schools in the 1940s and 1950s—often connected, as Brock Thompson notes in The Un-Natural State: Arkansas and the Queer South, to blackface minstrelsy as well. These performances were popular across Arkansas and the South, and, as Thompson points out, had more appeal (and played a more essential function in enforcing behavior) in communities where the racial and class divides were stark.

I think about the fact that, according to Chris Bull and John Gallagher’s Perfect Enemies, an analysis of anti-gay politics, that one of the most effective and prevalent tropes of anti-gay organizing in the 1990s was a male teacher in drag.

The Stanford student also says that “as drag becomes more and more a mainstay of our culture, it is important for those partaking in it—queer or not—to be mindful of and question the origins and implications of the personas we perform.”

~

Over spring break I read the biography of Panti Bliss, the extraordinary Irish drag queen, featured in the recent documentary The Queen of Ireland.  I’ve had the extraordinary pleasure of seeing Panti perform several times when I’ve been over in Ireland—even once attending the low-key and lovely Monday night “Make-and-Do-Do” craft nights at Pantibar, where she assigns a craft project and a bunch of grown men do their best with craft sticks and pipe-cleaners and marla (Irish for Playdoh).  I think our assignment that night was something Brazilian.  Laughter, community, friendship—all of it with the soundtrack of the hilarious Panti and the deeply nostalgic primary classroom smell of Playdoh.

I’ve been thinking about Panti as I work on Tess, about what drag can and can’t do. If you don’t know Panti, you should watch her speech—her noble call—on a Dublin theatre stag about homophobia.  Yes, I’m raising money for an institution that I love, a theatre that has in its very mission statement: “Our success will be measured by our commitment to collaboration and innovation, while our impact will be measured by the creation of a more diverse and vibrant Columbia.”

A more diverse and vibrant Columbia.

~

Tess has been writing a few little limericks in preparation for the performance, just in case she has occasion to recite a poem or two.  While most of them are about herself, as they should be, there’s this one she wrote this morning:

A not very Bright man named Lee wants to police who can and can’t pee. But trans is no crime, so let’s say, no not this time, and fight Mr. Bright’s bigotry.

~

I’m a 52-year-old (yes, really) man who has never done drag (yes, really)—unless you count the bearded college student in a bathrobe who lip-synched “You Can’t Hurry Love” with 3 friends at a church retreat (I don’t).

Panti says in her recently released autobiography A Woman in the Making that, if you can’t quite achieve beauty, you can certainly achieve interesting.

Maybe Vista Queen isn’t supposed to be political, but when I slip on my heels and try to walk and move through the world in shoes that slow me down and make me conscious of my body in ways I’ve never been conscious of my body, I think otherwise.  I think about the annual Walk A Mile In Her Shoes march against rape and sexual assault, the local event hosted by Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands to be held next Thursday, April 14.  (Register here before Sunday!)

I’m still tinkering with my act.  It will be an evening of people doing deeply uncomfortable and outrageous things for a theatre they love.  I hope it’s interesting.  I hope it’s subversive.  I hope it raises lots of money for Trustus.  Mostly I hope I can stay upright on those heels.

You can donate to Tess DeMint online at Trustus, or at her GoFundMe page.  It’s for a great theatre, a good cause.

As Panti says, You learn a lot in drag.

What One Columbia Has Done for You & How You Can Return the Favor - Addresses, Talking Points, and More

(For letter-writing talking points, please skip to the bottom of the page.)

 “A place without a distinctive cultural aura is much less apt to land on visitors’ itineraries than those with such amenities. There is no easy way of accounting for this economic impact, beyond affirming that tourism, a form of direct participatory experience, is one of the world’s largest industries and is closely tied to creative destinations.”

--From “Creative Placemaking”

The Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the United States Conference of Mayors and American Architectural Foundation.

One Columbia's Mission: to advise, amplify and advocate for strengthening and unifying the arts and history community by supporting arts and historic preservation tourism, promoting collaboration, coordinating advertisements, and celebrating the role of arts and history in this community

AMPLIFY

One Columbia creates a Comprehensive Calendar of Arts and History Events that shares information on typically about 150 active events at any given time and over 330 registered organizations that submit events and a weekly email of weekend activities that reaches over 9,000 people both in the Columbia market and beyond and includes social media promotion throughout the week

One Month was a Citywide, month-long celebration of the arts as a whole featuring special events and connections between established events during the month of April. This project was converted to the Cultural Passport program in Fall 2013 which was designed to provide more opportunities for engagement between the over 75 participating arts organizations and their audiences. Over 5000 were distributed in addition to the creation of an application for iPhone

Film Columbia/Capture One Columbia  is an initiative to collect video footage of events throughout the city of all different types for marketing and promotional purposes, resulting in 21 finished videos and over 700 Gb of raw video footage that is available to all arts organizations, media, organizations that promote the city

Public Art is another way One Columbia is creating unique spaces around the city that demonstrate creative talent and establish more vibrant places to live, work and visit. One Columbia formalized a program with the City of Columbia in 2014 that has led to three significant sculptures (two on Main Street, one in the Vista) adding over $55,000 in value to the City’s art collection. The formal program has inspired collaborative efforts with Richland Library (resulting in over $375,000 in value), Kroger Supermarkets (approximately $12,000), Edens (approximately $10,000) and the Columbia Metropolitan Airport (approximately $250,000 over the next 10 years). One Columbia has also developed a community of buskers and street performers to enhance the visitor experience and demonstrate artistic talent. It has also enrolled Columbia to participate in national arts celebrations such as International Make Music Day (June 21) and National Poetry Month (April).

One Columbia is hosting an Art-o-mat, a former cigarette machine that has been converted to dispense $5 pieces of handmade art, which will help engage the public in art by making it accessible, but also encouraging Columbia’s artists to participate and get their name in one of the over 100 active machines throughout the country.

Established the position of Poet Laureate for an individual to bring awareness of the city as an arts hub outside the city and create projects that enhance Columbian’s daily lives through the arts. Ed Madden, the inaugural poet laureate, has created a project to display poetry on the bus system and to celebrate National Poetry Month by putting poetry on coffee sleeves

ADVISE

One Columbia provides basic resources for arts organizations and artists, including office/meeting space, permanent mailing address, video and still cameras, easels, copies and prints and Notary Public services.

It brings together organizations to increase the size, scope and level of awareness of events including the 150th Anniversary of the Burning of Columbia (nearly 30 participating organizations) and the creation of the city’s first cultural district in the Congaree Vista as part of a program offered by the South Carolina Arts Commission

It facilitates leadership transitions for events such as First Thursday on Main, Deckle Edge Literary Festival to replace the SCBF, and adding artistic elements to Artista Vista, Indie Grits, Hip Hop Family Day and others.

ADVOCATE 

Identifies strategic needs of the arts community through meetings with arts leaders.

Utilizes opportunities to determine and share key data points that benefit arts organizations and make them more competitive for support from regional and national sources of support including a Creative Industry Report completed by WESTAF and the upcoming follow-up to the Arts and Economic Prosperity study with the Americans for the Arts  - Where are we going from here?

One Columbia will continue to work toward a more unified arts community and will assist in connecting the city’s arts and historic preservation communities to regional and national resources.

More emphasis will be placed on developing a long-term vision for the arts in the city.

Public art projects will expand through work with private partners and more emphasis will be placed on the improvement of public and quasi-public spaces under the principles of creative placemaking.

More collaborative activities under unified themes will be developed that bring together all art forms and create greater recognition of the city throughout the region, nation and globe

What You Should Know

In a memorandum from City Manager Ms. Teresa Wilson dated September 3, 2013, the City determined “that One Columbia’s proposed mission and budget are activities that constitute advertisement and promotions related to tourism development under the Hospitality Act and as such, operating activities of One Columbia are eligible expenses to receive funds under the Act.”

One Columbia for Arts & History was supported with 2015-2016 Hospitality Tax funding at the level of $167,600. The organization has utilized these funds to continue work toward the mission of the organization to advise, amplify and advocate for strengthening and unifying the arts and history community by supporting arts and historic preservation tourism, promoting collaboration, coordinating advertisements, and celebrating the role of arts and history in this community.

In the past year, the organization has taken great steps in accomplishing this mission. To better amplify the arts community’s work and based on the principle that passports provide access to new experiences, One Columbia has continued it’s cultural passport program for Columbians to utilize when attending events and venues in our city. With over 100 organizations and venues participating, passport holders collect unique stamps across various genres of art and history. As they collect stamps, they become eligible for perks including gift cards, art supplies, t-shirts, and event tickets. Passports come in the form of printed booklets or a free iPhone application to make the program as accessible as possible. This program amplifies awareness about the extent of the arts community and allows arts organizations to connect with their growing audiences. Thus far, over 5,000 passports have been distributed at a full range of cultural events.

The organization has made significant progress in establishing its process for public art and has installed the first works created as a result of the process. Pieces created as part of this formal process are privately funded and publicly owned and maintained. One Columbia installed two new pieces of public art on Columbia’s Main Street in 2014 and one new piece on Lincoln Street in the Congaree Vista in 2015, equivalent to approximately $55,000 new public art investment in the City. One Columbia has adapted the program to assist in projects that are sponsored by private property owners or developers and has initiated projects with the Richland Library, Kroger Supermarkets, and the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. By working with the Richland Library, One Columbia will have coordinated artist identification and project selection of pieces of art for nine renovated locations of the library representing over $375,000 of public art investment in the Midlands in the next year.

In June 2015, in collaboration with Rice Music House and WXRY FM, the city of Columbia participated in international Make Music Day. The day featured free, live, outdoor concerts in various districts of the city, as well as a central event where 100 free harmonicas were distributed to participants.

One Columbia has also worked with Indie Grits in expanding its arts component, including the coordination of a mural space on the corner of Main and Taylor streets that changes annually. For the 2015 Indie Grits, One Columbia coordinated two major outdoor art installations and hosted an artist-in-residence that focused on the City’s history and monuments.

One Columbia has also started the development of a true community of buskers to bring the arts out onto the streets an into the daily lives of the city’s citizens.

To get more art in the hands of more people and inspire citizens to start art collections in an affordable and fun way, One Columbia has become a host of an official Art-o-mat. The converted cigarette machine vends small pieces of unique art. The machine will be placed at various venues throughout the city. One Columbia partnered with Izms of Art to create Art Linc, a celebration of chalk art in the Lincoln Street Tunnel that was held on November 7.

To further celebrate the artistic identity of the Congaree Vista, One Columbia worked with the Vista Guild to bring together a plethora of stakeholders in order to develop a strategic plan and application for the creation of a formal cultural district as recognized by the South Carolina Arts Commission.

In conjunction with the goals of offering Columbia’s citizens ample opportunities to engage with art, the organization has worked with the City of Columbia to establish the Gallery at City Hall.

One Columbia for Arts & History again served as a major partner in carrying out the One Book, One Community program. One Book, One Community seeks to engage the community in a reading project by selecting one book to read together during the month of February. This year’s selection was The Stone Necklace by Carla Damron, and programming was strongly connected with the activities of the Deckle Edge Literary Festival.

New partnerships were forged including one with The State Newspaper, which serialized the chapters One Columbia has also partnered with Jasper Magazine, the Richland Library and the USC Press to distribute Fall Lines, a free literary journal featuring the writing of Columbians and South Carolinians.

In an effort to increase Columbia’s profile as an artistic city, One Columbia worked with the Mayor and City Council to establish the office of poet laureate for the city. In Resolution R-2014- 081, City Council permitted One Columbia to carry out a process for identification and selection of a poet laureate to serve a four-year term in order to represent the city’s rich literary tradition and to carry out activities that engage citizens with poetry and language. Ed Madden began his term as the City’s inaugural poet laureate in January 2015 and since then, One Columbia and Dr. Madden have worked together to create a project with The COMET bus system to feature poetry themed around life in a city on each of the buses in the system. They also created a chapbook of the collected poems and the poems about transportation are featured on the printed bus schedules. This project will continue in 2016 with the theme focused on rivers.

One Columbia has put great effort into commissioning and collecting video footage of various arts and cultural events throughout the City. The collected footage is freely available to arts organizations, tourist organizations, promotional groups, and media organizations to feature the vibrancy and diversity of Columbia’s cultural life and can be viewed as part of our Film Columbia initiative at https://vimeo.com/onecolumbia.

In association with the Americans for the Arts, One Columbia will be collecting over 800 surveys regarding the spending of attendees at the diverse arts events throughout 2016. This data will result in an economic impact study of the arts of the greater Columbia area including Richland and Lexington counties and builds on a similar study that was done in partnership with the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington Counties in 2010. This data will be important in giving arts organizations necessary context for their impact and help them when applying for grants and donations for future programming.

In 2013, the City of Columbia lost a highly respected and valued citizen upon the passing of Mr. Steve Morrison. Mr. Morrison had been a visionary of the arts community and the chair of the One Columbia board of directors. To honor him, One Columbia established the Steve Morrison Visionary Award to recognize an individual in our community that has brought foresight and ambition to the development of Columbia’s cultural life. This past year, the organization selected the recipient to be Mr. William Starrett, the executive director and artistic director of the Columbia City Ballet. The presentation took place in front of a full house at the fall concert of the SC Philharmonic.

One Columbia has led the way to transition First Thursdays on Main to new leadership made of Main Street’s important stakeholders ensuring the continuity of a vital activity that brings a significant amount of visitors out to the City’s main thoroughfare 12 evenings a year. One Columbia assists with planning and connecting organizations and artists that can create unique and interesting content to each month’s activities.

And, at the announcement of the cancellation of the South Carolina Book Festival by the Humanities Council SC, One Columbia has worked with partners to develop a new replacement literary festival to fill the void. This event saw a successful inaugural year featuring over 70 authors bringing nearly 1000 participants to Columbia’s Main Street.

One Columbia for Arts & History is very grateful for your recognition of the enduring value of the arts and historic preservation in advancing Columbia’s standing as a vibrant community where creativity and preservation can be fostered to the benefit of residents and visitors alike. 

_____

If you would like to express your appreciation of One Columbia and your desire that the organization continue to be fully funded by the City of Columbia please write to the following individuals:

Mayor Steve Benjamin

skbenjamin@columbiasc.net

Councilman Sam Davis

sdavis@columbiasc.net

Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine

tidevine@jilawfirm.com

Councilwoman Leona Plaugh

lkplaugh@columbiasc.net

Councilman Moe Baddourah

mobaddourah@columbiasc.net

Councilman Howard Duvall, Jr.

heduvall@columbiasc.net

Councilman Edward McDowell, Jr.

ehmcdowell@columbiasc.net

Talking Points:

• One Columbia’s structure and line item, H tax-funded budget were designed, voted upon, and approved by City Council in 2012.
• It should not be incumbent upon the employees of a city office to create the funding for their own salary and operating expenses.
• One Columbia cannot carry out their mission if they also have to compete for funding with the arts organizations and individual artists they serve.
• One Columbia has become an integral and indispensable part of the Columbia arts community. (Please consider using examples of ways you have been impacted by the work of One Columbia from the comprehensive text above.)
• The issue boils down to whether Council understands that the city needs an organization to work as an objective office of cultural affairs charged with helping the entire arts community and that it can be funded in a variety of ways.
• Members of City Council should not use the arts and One Columbia as weapons in a power play against the mayor.

Call for Artists - Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County

The Bassett Gallery at the Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County (FAC) is currently accepting artist materials for consideration for exhibition in the Bassett Gallery to be scheduled from September 2016 through May 2017. All submissions will be considered for both solo and group exhibitions.

Artists must submit samples via email, linked to a “cloud” portfolio (Drop Box, Google Drive,) or by sending a CD or flash drive with at least 10 images. These images should encompass the artists’ methods and styles. A resume, submission form, description of the style of work, its size and medium used should all be included. Submissions must also include a brief artist statement and be representative of the work that will be on exhibition. All forms of artistic mediums will be considered.

Submission forms can be found on the Fine Arts Center website at www.fineartscenter.org/gallery, or you may drop by the FAC Box Office to get a copy. Materials will not be returned unless requested.

Materials will be accepted through May 20, 2016. Send to:

Bassett Gallery Exhibits Committee

Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County

810 Lyttleton Street

Camden, SC  29020

Please email your submissions to jpeterson@fineartscenter.org. For questions regarding submissions, contact Jane Peterson at jpeterson@fineartscenter.org or by phone at 803-425-7676 ext. 305.

Artists are responsible for load-in, hanging, and tear-down of the exhibit. Any expenses incurred by the artist(s) for travel, set-up, tear-down, etc. of any exhibition are not covered by the FAC. The cost of exhibiting in the Bassett Gallery is the full responsibility of the artist(s.) Artists should be willing to allow some or all of the pieces in the exhibition to be available for purchase. The selected artists will be notified by the FAC no later than June 30, 2016.

Exhibitions in the Bassett Gallery normally change every four to six weeks.  The Gallery is free and open to the public.  Hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday-Wednesday andFriday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday.  The Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County is located at 810 Lyttleton Street in Camden.  For more information about the FAC, please visitwww.fineartscenter.org or call (803) 425-7676, ext. 300.

~~~~

Poems Flow with Your Cup of Morning Joe via River Poems from One Columbia and the office of the Poet Laureate

 

Local poets come together to create coffee sleeve poems about the historic flood and rivers of Columbia for national poetry month this April.

In conjunction with One Columbia for Arts and History, Ed Madden, the city of Columbia’s poet laureate, has created a project titled River Poems. This project will focus on bringing poetry to the people of Columbia during the entire month of April. Since 1996, April has been national poetry month, and one of the tasks of the poet laureate is to promote the literary arts. “As a project for the poet laureate, last year and this year both, we put poems on the buses. We had already decided the theme this year would be the river, because it is the theme for Indie Grits, but I think the flood added additional urgency to the theme,” says Madden.

Along with the bus project, the second project this year was to put the poems on coffee sleeves. “We’ve been trying to think of ways to promote poetry in unexpected places, so coffee sleeves felt like a really obvious place to put poetry,” says Madden. “You can drink your morning cup and read beautiful literature.”

Seven local writers came together for this wonderful opportunity to spread literature around the city. The writers include, Jennifer Bartell, Betsy Breen. Jonathan Butler, Bugsy Calhoun, Monifa Lemons Jackson, Len Lawson, Ray McManus, and Madden himself. After sending out a limited call to those artists to create a piece of poetry eight lines or fewer, each poem was then stamped on thousands of coffee sleeves that will be distributed at independent coffee shops around Columbia. Including both Drip locations, and the Wired Goat.

“I think the idea of the coffee sleeves is so smart. Columbia has a healthy relationship with the arts, especially the performing arts. But the city gives a lot of love to the fine arts, the design arts, and the literary arts that has thrived here for quite some time.  You’d expect that from a capital city to a certain extent. But what is unique in Columbia is that the art scene is so diverse, and there is a growing respect for that diversity. The literary scene is no exception. There is a little something for everyone here. I hope that resonates,” says Ray McManus, poet and author of the poem Mud.

Each of the eight poems centers around the idea of the river that runs through Columbia. This idea ties in with the theme of this year’s Indie Grits Festival, which is Waterlines as well as The Jasper Project’s multi-disciplinary project Marked by the Water, which will commemorate the first anniversary of the floods in October. There are also a few featured poems that represent the voices of people effected by the historic flood which ran through the city last October. Overall, each poems creates a sense of what the rivers mean to each poet, and how in many ways people are still mending together the pieces almost six months later.

When writing her poem titled What Stays, Betsy Breen was thinking back to a particular image she recollects from the flood. “I was thinking about the flood in October, and all the debris that washed up during that time. I have a particular image in my mind of a part of Gills Creek that I pass every morning on the way to work. The week after the rain stopped, it was filled with both keepsakes and trash. I was thinking of that when I wrote this poem,” says Breen.

It was almost opposite for McManus, who says most of his inspiration almost always comes from books and projects. “I love exploring directions that I didn’t otherwise intend. I’ve always been drawn to rivers; the way they perform; the way they’re always moving. And we depend on them more than we realize, especially in the most basic of functions. We grow from rivers, from the mud of rivers. At some point they become a part of who we are,” says McManus.

National poetry month begins on April 1. Columbia is sure to be celebrating all month with something to read as people drink their coffee and travel to work. “We are always looking for more ways to promote the arts, and I believe this year that includes a pretty unique project,” says Madden.

Don’t forget to pick up your cup of morning joe this month to feel the inspiration of poetry. Breen reminds us that “National Poetry month is much larger than this poem or project, of course, and I do hope people pay attention to all the different kinds of poetry around them.”

-- Alivia Seely

More From Tess DeMint: Ed Madden Compares Notes with Former Vista Queen Participant Jason Watkins (Tess Tickles)

This is the fifth in a series of blogs written by Tess DeMint (aka Professor Ed Madden), a contestant in the 18th annual Vista Queen Pageant, a fundraiser for our beloved Trustus Theatre.

Please support Tess by visiting Trustus Theatre. Each vote costs $10 and all money goes to Trustus Theatre.

You can also donate to Trustus (and support Tess!) at Tess’s donation site:  https://www.gofundme.com/fxudjbhs

“Just have fun,” he said.

Last week Bert and I had dinner with Jason and Katy Watkins–Jason is also known as Tess Tickles, the 2014 Vista Queen. I wanted to know what the experience of Vista Queen was like for someone who had been through it, what advice he might have for me, drag novice and VQ newcomer.

When we walked in the restaurant—one of their favorites—the wait staff welcomed Jason by name, circling around us almost like courtiers for royalty. Jason made his way between tables, shaking hands with other regulars. We got a special corner table—one apparently usually reserved for another regular patron and his wife. It was made available to us. The waiter already knew what Jason wanted.

In another corner, I saw Jim and Kay Thigpen. A good sign. This was the place to be.

Katy is an old friend (we tied for “most liberal” when we went through Leadership Columbia together, ages ago), so there was some catching up, new jobs and old acquaintances. But then we quickly got down to business. I asked about costumes, about practicing in heels. I asked about talent.

Jason didn’t have a fitting with a costumer, he said. No fake hips. Katy laughed, “He’s a perfect size 6.”  Both of them talked about particularly beautiful queens, particularly memorable acts, particularly drunken contestants.  She said Tess/Jason was hilarious, though she occasionally wanted to crawl under her seat.

Jason wrote a song for his talent. He pulled out his phone at the table, read me the lyrics.  That year, the sixteenth contest, the theme was “Sweet Sixteen,” so Jason wrote a song about being 16—a boy at a military school, rebellious, desperate for sex, the chorus emphasizing that he could never have dreamed, when he was 16, that he might be a Vista Queen.

“Just have fun,” Jason kept saying, telling me about the madness of backstage. “And just remember, they’re all drunk,” as if that might temper my stagefright. I wasn’t sure.

Tess Tickles and Tess DeMint. It was the old Tess and the new, and their faithful consorts. It was instruction in local knowledge and vernacular practices of drag—what to expect, what to avoid. There at a corner table over sushi and salmon, royal counsel, advice from a queen.

Avoid Arts Fatigue: Jasper Pop Up Release at The Whig

This is the time of year when the abundance of arts events in the Soda City become almost overwhelming and, if you're not careful, arts fatigue can set in and you end of missing out on some fine opportunities to see some important art just because you've ingested all the great films and fashions and studio tours you can handle. You are done. Sated. Nothing more than a blob of a person trembling on the sofa mumbling terms like diagesis, denouement, and iconographic, groping blindly for a bag of Doritos and the remote and listening for the soothing tones of the intro score to Sanford and Sons.

Jasper decided that rather than adding to the overflowing cup of cultural activities availing themselves to us in the calendar days ahead we'd just keep it simple this month.

Come on out to The Whig tonight anytime after 7 and pick up your new copy of Jasper. Will Green is whipping up a batch of Jasper Juice with herbs fresh from the Muddy Ford garden. The mag is lovely this time around with features on Meg Griffiths, Roni Nicole Henderson, and the Prairie Willows, some nice poetry, an essay by Susan Lenz, a guest editorial by O.K. Keyes, and a piece on Tamara Finkbeiner's favorite films, and more.

So stop by. It'll be chill.

Why I Said Yes - Tess DeMint (aka Ed Madden) Explains Love of Trustus

This is the fourth in a series of blogs written by Tess DeMint (aka Professor Ed Madden), a contestant in the 18th annual Vista Queen Pageant, a fundraiser for our beloved Trustus Theatre.

Please support Tess by visiting Trustus Theatre. Each vote costs $10 and all money goes to Trustus Theatre.

You can also donate to Trustus (and support Tess!) at Tess's donation site:  https://www.gofundme.com/fxudjbhs

I know my favorite row in the theatre.  I know my favorite seats.

I remember when Trustus Theatre staged Angels in America, one of the first if not the first regional theatre in the nation to do so.  I had seen the original New York production as a graduate student, and I taught the play at USC, so I was inclined to be critical.  But Trustus overwhelmed me with a beautiful, profoundly moving, and memorable production.

I remember Lonesome West and The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh and other crazy Irish plays at Trustus.  The playwright was savagely funny, and the local production amplified his ability to make violence simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.

Which one of those plays was it that Alex Smith as the suicidal priest broke my heart?

I remember the rocking productions of Spring Awakening (yes they did that here and it was fucking amazing) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch—and being so tickled when Hedwig clearly directed the song “Sugar Daddy” to a couple of dear friends in the front rows.  (I won’t call out your names, Gordon and Doak.)

I remember taking my honors seminar to see Standing on Ceremony last spring as the semester began.  A collection of one-act plays about same-sex marriage, the performance introduced most of the very issues we were about to discuss.  The Trustus production (and talkback after) helped to set a tone for the rest of the semester as we began our own serious study of marriage politics.  I usually give students the option of a creative final project rather than a traditional research paper, and a couple of students wrote their own one-act plays, adding to the political and emotional complexity of what they had seen at Trustus.

More recently, I remember Chad Henderson’s haunting and gorgeous production of The Brothers Size.  The extraordinary acting (my Vista Queen fellow contestant Bakari Lebby and his colleagues were amazing), the minimal but strangely beautiful and convincing staging.  The intimacy of the sidedoor theatre.  The fireflies.

I remember Jim Thigpen—and later Larry Hembree—introducing a play and reminding us that we could always trust the theatre (trust us), even if we didn’t know the play or the playwright, because it would be good and it would be done well.  And I remember Kay’s smiling face at the ticket window, her easy laugh.

I remember working so hard for years with gay and lesbian organizations in South Carolina, and the way that Trustus would open their doors to us, the way they’d let us buy out the final dress rehearsal for a show as a fundraiser for our local community center.  The way the place filled with GLBT folks and their friends, laughing through The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, laughing at Hunter Boyle as the bitchy Santa Claus, laughing through tears at the end as the lesbian couple gave birth to a child and the gay couple resigned themselves to the new HIV drugs not working.  I remember a room full of people I loved laughing and feeling giddy and connected to one another, giggling at the silliness of When Pigs Fly, or stunned by the professional production of Take Me Out.

It was the Jim and Kay Thigpen School of theatre and aesthetics and collaboration and community and inspiration and love.  It was and is the theatre’s mission: “a safe space for exploration of the political, the personal, and all things human.” It was and is the theatre’s artistic mission: to produce works “that start and nurture dialogues.”  As they say on the webpage: “Our success will be measured by our commitment to collaboration and innovation, while our impact will be measured by the creation of a more diverse and vibrant Columbia.”

I remember that fundraiser at Most Fabulous, the huge spread of food Bert prepared, and the enormous bouquet of flowers—mostly from our yard—and a potted night-blooming cereus Bert put on the table, the large prickly arm of it reaching over the spread, ending in a tight white blossom.  I remember that it opened up during intermission, the incredible smell filling the bar.  A magical night.

I know my favorite row in the theatre, my favorite seats.  I know Bert and I will order a bottle of white wine, and he will have to get the basket of popcorn refilled at intermission.  I know it feels like home to be there.

So when Chad Henderson walked up to me at the Deckled Edge literary festival’s opening night and asked me to be in Vista Queen, I said yes.  I didn’t think about it: I said yes.  I was immediately terrified at what I had agreed to (though Bert was clearly delighted), but I said yes.

Why?  Because I love this theatre.  Because of so many good memories and so many amazing plays.  Because of the community Trustus makes possible and the community it enables and sustains.  Because Chad asked me.  Because I know which seats are my favorites.

Not Drama Queen?! More from Vista Queen Contestant Tess DeMint (aka Ed Madden)

This is the third in a series of blogs written by Tess DeMint (aka Professor Ed Madden), a contestant in the 18th annual Vista Queen Pageant, a fundraiser for our beloved Trustus Theatre.

Please support Tess by visiting Trustus Theatre. Each vote costs $10 and all money goes to Trustus Theatre.

You’ve never been back here? she asked, smiling.

No, I hadn’t.

I followed Brandy into the back room, a door just beside Chad’s office, upstairs at Trustus.  Racks and racks slam-packed with costumes, dresses, jackets.  Shelves of labeled plastic bins.  Military hats.  How far did it go? I couldn’t see the other end. The long-suppressed theatre queen in me starting trembling, giddy, overcome. (Theatre queen, not drama queen.)  I ran my hand down a rack of jackets and fur.

It was my meeting with Brandy, who is helping with costumes for Vista Queen.  We met upstairs, in a small sitting room filled with a couple of rolling racks of dresses.  I had a couple of selections set aside from my first meeting with T.O., but Brandy was helping to augment and complete the look.

I had pretty good luck at my first drag consultation, and I even found something crazysexycool (and a little assymetrical) while shopping.  But we weren’t set, we weren’t certain.  There was one incredible black and blue metallic beaded gown that looked like Tammy Faye Bakker meets Loretta Lynn.  It was heavy.  It was tempting.  It was too small.

And anyway, was it really the right look?  Brandy and I talked about Tess, who she is, what she’s like.  I said ebullient and awkward.  We agreed: not church lady (that’s been done), but religious, perhaps awkwardly so.  Brandy described a character from the movie Blue Like Jazz, someone she said was almost uncomfortable to watch.  Uncomfortable.  Was that Tess?

Earlier in the day, over coffee at Drip on Main with Cindi Boiter, we talked about Vista Queen.  I showed her a photo of one costume selection.  She thought Tess should be sexier.  Should she?  Showed the same photo to another friend: he burst out laughing.

Also ran into Phil Blair from The Whig.  He’s sending me dates for Tess to do a Vista Queen fundraiser night at the bar.  (Watch for more info! Also a donation site up soon!)

Tess is still a work-in-progress.

So when Brandy said, “Let’s see what we can find back here,” and opened the door to that magic back room of props and costumes, I wondered: Is Tess back here?

We looked for a while, laughed a lot, found a cow outfit, but didn’t really find anything that said Tess, found ourselves back in the sitting room with the same selections I’d already tried on.  We talked about hip pads and bras.  Brandy jotted down some notes, about how to alter and accessorize what I had already to make it more fitting (literally and figuratively) for the Tess we imagined.

Bert said that one item we found really really really needed a little brooch of some kind.

I’ve got just what you need, Brandy said.  She pulled out a tiny heart-shaped pin with pink and blue gems out of her purse.

Perfect.

More from Tess DeMint -- TOO MOTHER-OF-THE-BRIDE: ON SHOPPING

This is the second in a series of blogs written by Tess DeMint (aka Professor Ed Madden), a contestant in the 18th annual Vista Queen Pageant, a fundraiser for our beloved Trustus Theatre.

Please support Tess by visiting Trustus Theatre. Each vote costs $10 and all money goes to Trustus Theatre.

Last weekend we decided to go shopping.

At that first consultation with T.O., I had tried on things from the theatre wardrobe, and settled, I think, on a couple of possibilities.  But no shoes there, and still in need of at least one more getup.  T.O. suggested visiting thrift stores, if only to get a sense of what I liked, what might work.

When we were in Arkansas during spring break, we ran across a booth of formal dresses in an antiques mall, all the dresses marked down to $30 and $40.  Maybe a formalwear shop closing up.  Some crazy things, mostly prom dresses.  We decided to check it out.  I slid a big jacket on: too small.  I found a chart for size translation on my phone: it included waist and jacket sizes for men and the corresponding women sizes.  We looked through all the sizes.  Nothing for me there.

That was, of course, before the consultation, before I’d even settled on a name or a persona.  Now I have a better sense of who I could be, what I might look like.

Goodwill, where we started shopping, was full of many things, but not much that seemed useful.  Way too many outfits that looked like tired professional women at work.  I did find a choir robe for $6, which seemed maybe worth buying.  The shoe rack had some scary-cool things, but nothing in my size, nothing in an interesting color.  I noticed my own shoes were dusted yellow—pollen, that film of yellow coating everything right now, the air filled with the sexual life of plants.

At one consignment shop, somewhat high-end, filled with furniture and bric-a-brac, as well as racks and racks of clothes, we had a little more luck.  There was a ruffled pink thing that looked promising.  (I texted Tio a photo. “Drama,” he wrote back approvingly.)  A large woman in orange seemed annoyed we were in her section, and practically pushed me aside with her cart.  She was perhaps unamused by two men giggling over the options on the plus-size dress racks, which could mostly be dismissed as (as Bert put it) “too mother-of-the-bride.”  Not the look for a Vista Queen.

At another consignment store, Second Chances, when we mentioned Vista Queen, the woman behind the counter brightened up, walked us through the store, determined to help us find the right thing.  When I told her what I thought my size should be (based on that internet research and the things I pulled on at the first consult, encased in my fake hips and bosom), she laughed, oh honey you don’t need something that big.  She pulled out a lovely beaded black size 16.  Just pull it on over your clothes, she said, to get a sense of how it fit, how it looked.  It was breathtaking—and breath-taking, too tight.

We checked our watches.  We had dinner plans.  It was our wedding anniversary—eleven years after being unlawfully wed, as I like to say, that long-ago ceremony filled with family and friends, but unacknowledged at the time by state law. While we searched the consignment shop, our minister, who now lives in the Upstate, sent a text of well-wishes from himself and his wife.

One more.  Behind the desk was a flouncy white ruffled dress that slid maybe too easily over my head.  Bert suggested a slit up the side to make it a little less matronly.  We texted a pic to T.O., me in the middle of the shop, the dress pulled over my jeans and green shirt.

He agreed with Bert: too mother-of-the-bride.

I hope T.O. deleted that picture.

Gravedigger’s Tale, Interactive Retelling of Hamlet, Performs at Longstreet Theatre April 21-23

The 40-minute one-man show is presented as part of the celebration of Shakespeare First Folio exhibition at the University of SC

The UofSC Department of Theatre and Dance will host Gravedigger’s Tale, an interactive retelling of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, April 21-23 at Longstreet Theatre. Show time is 6pm nightly and admission is free, with seating available on a first-come basis.  Longstreet Theatre is located at 1300 Greene St.

In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, the Gravedigger appears briefly in Act V to perform a comic exchange with a fellow gravedigger before speaking to Hamlet and presenting him with the jester Yorick’s skull.  In this production, the Gravedigger arrives with a trunk and a book and answers “questions” from the audience with pieces of text from Hamlet. 

Conceived and directed by Robert Richmond (Folger Theatre’s Julius Caesar, Richard III, Henry V and more) and performed by Louis Butelli, this forty-minute interactive audience experience combines the text from Hamlet with some original and traditional music.  The short run-time makes it a perfect companion piece to the University’s production of The Tempest, being presented at Drayton Hall Theatre at 8pmnightly during the run of Gravedigger’s Tale.  Tickets for The Tempest can be purchased by calling 803-777-2551, beginning Friday, April 8.

Gravedigger’s Tale is being presented as part of the celebration of the Shakespeare First Folio exhibition at the University.  The University of SC was chosen as the only location in SC to exhibit the First Folio, which is on a nationwide tour sponsored by Washington DC’s Folger Shakespeare Library (owner of the largest collection of surviving Folios in the world).  The First Folio will be on display at Thomas Cooper Library from April 14-30.  More information on the Folio exhibition can be found online at http://library.sc.edu/p/firstfolio.

Butelli is no stranger to the University theatre program, having most recently directed the Moliére adaptation Scapin, which ran at Longstreet Theatre in February.  He is currently on a national tour withGravedigger’s Tale for the Folger Shakespeare Library.  Butelli has appeared in several productions of Shakespeare’s works for the Folger Theatre, winning a prestigious Helen Hayes Award in 2012 for his work in Henry VIII (directed by Richmond).  Cyclops: A Rock Opera, an original musical co-created by Butelli through his production company, Psittacus Productions, received a Pulitzer Jury nomination in 2012.  

For more information on Gravedigger’s Tale, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu. 

Ed Madden is Tess DeMint in the 2016 Vista Queen Pageant

It's the 18th annual Vista Queen pageant at Trustus Theatre and, this year, Jasper will be bringing readers a behind-the-scenes look at the tucking and taping and general mayhem that accompanies the only kind of pageant we could ever support - a mockery!

Meet Tess DeMint, (aka Ed Madden).

You'll be learning more about Tess in the weeks to come.

In the meantime, Tess and Ed have started doing the work that it takes to be a woman. As Simone De Beauvoir  says, "One is not born a woman, but becomes one." Here's a bit of what that involves -- 

I’m wearing high heels as I write this.

I’ve been wearing them the past hour or so as I move about the hotel room, putting away things, washing my face, answering emails.  I’m trying to get used to them, used to how I walk in them, used to how I should walk in them.  On Monday, when I met with Tio for my first drag consultation, he told me I walked like a gorilla, told me that I needed to let my hips and arms move.  He had helped me into hip pads and a dress, after I’d pulled on the obligatory three sets of stockings and tights, after I’d tucked myself best I could.  When he asked me if I knew about “tucking,” I said that I had read about it.  I’m an academic: it’s what I do.  He laughed.  I was the first person, he said, who had ever told him they read about tucking.  It was actually a little scary to read—especially when you see, “This may cause damage to the genitalia.”  Tio assured me that I didn’t have to use tape.

I walked around the room, best I could.  A gorilla.  He said I seemed to be getting better every time he turned around.  Bert said it was a little scary.  Tio told me to wear the heels around the house, to practice walking in them.

A video I found online tells me to look up and straight ahead, not at my feet.  Yes, I have been watching videos on how to walk.  I also watched some Yanis Marshall videos—more inspiration than aspiration, nothing I could imagine doing myself.  (I also think Arnaud Boursain—the tall bearded one—is sexy.)

So I’m sitting in a hotel room in Spartanburg, after attending Bodies of Knowledge, a gender studies conference at USC Upstate, in a pair of very black and very shiny high heels, about two inches high.  (Wishful thinking? Maybe I exaggerate?)  The rest of me looks like the rest of me: khaki pants, a green button-down shirt, some green striped socks.

I’m thinking about gender and heels and movement.  At the conference, I participated in a “queer movement” workshop with the enthusiastic performance artist Leigh Hendrix.  I hadn’t intended to stay for that last session, but I asked Leigh if it would help me be a better Vista Queen.  She assured me it would, if only to think about how my body moves.  We curled on the floor in fetal position.  We moved through the room with our six limbs (arms, legs, head, tail).  We did what felt comfortable; we stopped if it didn’t.  Make a heroic shape, she said.  I stood like the statue of an orator.  Make a male shape, she said.  Arms crossed, legs spread, aggressive stare.  Someone else sat on the floor, manspreading.  Make a female shape.  I stood legs slightly crossed, my hip out, one arm loosely crossing my chest, the other lifted, my wrist bent, my hand curled loosely back, a finger pensive against my chin, a downcast but withering gaze.  Honestly, I felt more Tim Gunn than female.  Leigh looked at me, laughed: you’re ready.

But we weren’t wearing heels.

-- Ed Madden/Tess DeMint

To vote for Tess, um, Ed, please visit Trustus Theatre. Each vote costs $10 and all money goes to Trustus Theatre.

REVIEW: Trustus Theatre's Peter and the Starcatcher

Trustus Theater’s production of Peter and the Starcatcher, by Rick Elice, based on the novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, is a fantastic voyage through the imagination and it’s absolutely not to be missed.  After a hugely successful run on and off Broadway, the adult prequel to Peter Pan is skillfully brought to the Trustus stage by director Robert Richmond. In the age of sequels, prequels, and reboots, Peter and the Starcatcher truly adds to the ethos of Peter Pan, painting a portrait of a boy that longs for a home, a family, and a chance to enjoy a childhood.

The cast of pirates, lost boys, savages, and mermaids is made up of favorite local veteran actors as well as newcomers. Johnathon Monk gives us a tender and melancholy orphan in the boy who will become Peter Pan. Despite being a grown man, Monk is able to convincingly convey a childlike look of innocence and wonder, especially via his evocative eyes. This is a very physical show and whether he is pantomiming running through a jungle or doing the back stroke in the sea, Monk is a delight to watch. Grace Ann Roberts is wonderful as Molly, a plucky 13 year old over-achiever that craves adventure. Roberts gave a very natural and poised performance; I look forward to seeing her onstage again. Hunter Boyle hilariously plays Molly’s nanny, Mrs. Bumbrake. Kevin Bush plays Bumbrake’s love interest, a salty seaman named Alf. Boyle and Bush are both very funny, especially in their scenes together. The standout performance of the night is given by Paul Kaufmann as Black Stache the Pirate. The role seems written for the veteran Columbia actor. Kaufmann’s impeccable comedic timing, voice range, and general joie de vivre are all able to fully shine here. He creates a villain you can’t help but love. The ensemble as a whole is strong and does a great job of creating the world they inhabit.

Much like children at play, the actors create extraordinary places and things with ordinary everyday objects. A rope forms a doorway, a plastic glove becomes a bird. A little imagination goes a very long way here. Richmond proves you don’t need pricey special effects or elaborate costumes to leave your audience dazzled. Though not a musical, we are treated to a few very entertaining numbers under the musical direction of Caroline Weidner. She and Greg Apple provide live accompaniment throughout. The set, designed by Baxter Engle and constructed by Brandon Mclver, opens up the Trustus stage like I’ve never seen before, transforming the space into a massive ship, along with ropes and pulleys that are used to great effect throughout the show. The back wall of the stage looks directly into the dressing room, which I was afraid might be distracting, but wasn’t in the least. In fact it was a nice touch that added to the idea that this show has nothing to hide, that we’re all on this journey together. I enjoyed Matt "Ezra" Pound’s sound design, particularly before the show started where creaking ship and sea noises set the mood nicely. Jean Lomasto’s costumes are reminiscent of children playing dress-up, inventive and interesting to look at.

This is a charming tale, appropriate for children and grownups alike. It tells us an entertaining story of how Neverland became a magical island and why Peter Pan never wants to grow up. It’s sometimes hard to trust people with beloved characters from our childhood for fear we might be let down. I urge you to trust Richmond and his cast, to take their outstretched hand, leave your grownup problems behind you, and go on an adventure. You won’t regret it.

- Jennifer Hill

Photos by Richard Kiraly

Columbia City Ballet’s Body and Movement Explored Returns featuring Caroline Lewis Jones & more

 

Body and Movement Explored is a unique collaboration showcasing the works of Columbia City Ballet dancers and several guest choreographers who have created a mixed repertoire of works for the professional members of the Columbia City Ballet company.

Among the guest choreographers is Columbia-based, but internationally known dancer and choreographer Caroline Lewis Jones. Lewis-Jones has been dancing for over 27 years. At the age of 18 she moved to New York City where she performed for six years. Her credits include the VMA’s with NSYNC, the Latin Grammy Awards, WNBA National Commercial, Commercial work, Disney Industrials, Britany Spears “Me Against the Music” video, MTV’s Body Rock Fitness Video, and more. Although successful as a commercial dancer, her true passion lies within contemporary company work, where she has had the opportunity to work for Mia Michaels Company R.A.W, Dee Caspary’s IV Dance Company, Notario Dance Company, Rhapsody and Company, A.S.H Contemporary, and Justin Giles’ Soul Escape. In 2001 she traveled to Seoul, Korea where she performed for Jason Parson’s and POZ Dance Theatre.  In July 2010, Caroline performed with Sonya Tayeh from “So You Think You Can Dance” with her company in Chicago. She also choreographs for studios around the country, and teaches for  Adrenaline Dance Convention and The Dance Sessions.

Other guest choreographers include Rachael Leonard from Florida, Jerry Opdenaker, who performed with the company in Nutcracker, technical artist Ryan Stender, and local favorites Journy and Anna Wilkes-Davis.

During Jerry Opdenaker's 22-year dancing career, he worked as a principal company member for ballet companies such as Pennsylvania Ballet, Kansas City Ballet and Ballet Florida. As director of the nationally recognized STEP Ahead, Ballet Florida’s choreographic workshop, he was declared as a “Jewel of the Palm Beaches.” He has choreographed for the New York City Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, McKnight Foundation Ballet, Gamonet, Ballet Florida National Choreographic Initiative and Florida Grand Opera. For the past five years he has served as the dance discipline coordinator for the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts  YoungArts program and directed his own company, O Dance, in West Palm Beach.

Rachael Leonard is co-founder and artistic director of Surfscape Contemporary Dance Theatre (SCDT), an adjudicator for the American College Dance Festival Association, a master artist in residence for Very Special Arts and an internationally published author of dance articles and papers. Leonard has choreographed throughout the US and taught at College of Southern Idaho, University of Utah, Alma College, Jacksonville University, Rowland-Hall Saint Marks School, Lowell Elementary School, Stoneleigh-Burnham School and Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Never seen before by any audience this year celebrates the fourth year of the Body Movement series. Performed at the CMFA Arts Space March 11^th and 12^th at 7:30p.m.

“At the helm of the state’s largest dance company I felt it was extremely important to create the Body & Movement series to help foster the talents for young modern, contemporary and classical choreographers," says William Starrett, Artistic and Executive Director of the company. "Not only from the midlands area but throughout the southeast so they could gain the experience of working with top professional dancers and simultaneously give the dancers opportunity to dance original works created for them with a wide range of creative styles, dance genres and artistic viewpoints.”

A total of twelve mixed repertoire pieces will be performed set to a variety of not only classical but popular music. Dancers include Anna Beavers, Madeline Foderaro, Katie Heaton, Courtney Holland, Laura Lunde, Bonnie Boiter-Jolley, Philip Ingrassia, Abby McDowell, Reinaldo Soto, Denis Vezetiu, Regina Willoughby, Claire Richards, Camilo Herrera, Rebecca Bowles, Maurice Johnson, Emily Carrico, Ashley Concannon, Jordan Hawkins, Brandon Michaels, Ian Samuels, Autumn Hill, and Amanda Summey.

In addition to the performance, company member and gifted photographer Ashley Concannon will open an exhibit of her collection of work on Columbia City Ballet dancers.

According to Concannon, "The BME series was highly influenced by recent works done by Photographer BAKI, particularly those with dancer Friedemann Vogel. I love the movement and lighting of his photography, the balance of strength and grace. I wanted to imitate his work, with just a bit less of a whimsical look. I studied other works created by photographers Rachel Neville and Steve Vaccariello, and ultimately came up with this new collection of my own."

Body and Movement Explored will be held at the CMFA Art Space at 914 Pulaski Street in the Vista on Friday, March 11th and Saturday, March 12th at 7:30 p.m. The end of the performance will have an open mic discussion where the audience is invited to explore and discuss on their experience directly with the choreographers. Tickets are $25 in advance at www.brownpapertickets.com and $30 at the door. For more information or for help with ticketing call the Columbia City Ballet offices at 803.799.7605. A Facebook event revealing more information about the choreographer line-up can be found online here, https://www.facebook.com/events/685877574887978/

Youth Arts Month at Kershaw County + Winnie the Pooh

The Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County (FAC) is gearing up for another Youth Arts Month with its annual Community Youth Production, as well as the annual Youth Art exhibition—“You Gotta Have Art” in the Bassett Gallery. This year’s Youth Production, Disney’s Winnie the Pooh Kids, a musical production that features more than 100 local children from grades first through eighth, will open in the Wood Auditorium at the FAC on Thursday, March 17. With so many children involved, director, Jami Steele (FAC’s Director of Education & Theatre) has created two separate casts, allowing all of the children to enjoy a more fulfilling experience of participating in live theatre. The play runs through Sunday, March 20. Performance times will be 7:00 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday. Winnie the Pooh Kids is sponsored by Modern Turf and Target Distribution Center. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for students, seniors and military.

Disney's Winnie The Pooh Kids is a delightful new show based on the beloved characters of A.A. Milne and the 2011 Disney animated feature film. Featuring  favorite songs from the film as well as new hits by the Academy Award-winning Robert and Kristen Lipez (Frozen,) this honey-filled delight is as sweet as it is fun. The play takes place in Pooh’s home, the Hundred Acre Wood, where Winnie the Pooh is once again in search of honey. Along  the way, he meets his pals Tigger, Piglet, Rabbit and Owl but soon discover that Christopher Robin has been captured by the mysterious Backson! As they prepare for a rescue operation, the animals learn about teamwork, friendship, and sharing snacks.

There are two separate casts performing in this year’s production. The Pooh Cast will perform on March 17 and 19 and include Tyler Follmer, Gabrielle Mason, Alexandra Bernier, Allison Wert, Laurel Taylor, Casey Blair, Riley Brazell, Tyler Truesdale, Thomas Portee, Sam Lawing, Julianna Willoughby, Elizabeth Jordan, Brianna Lloyd, Alyssa Reckelhoff, Alexia Ramy, Abby Grace Knafelc, Mary Baxley Shuler, Erin Watts, Taylor Harrop, Bailey Sue Rabon, Millie Rollings, TC Truesdell, Reagan Crocker, Liza Watkins, Alannah Futch, Olivia Drakeford, Camden Kimpton, Mary Elise Drakeford, Cailin Cokley, Leigh Thomas, Syriana Wright, Maci Kimpton, Jakob VanZant, Samantha McCutchen, Brianna Follmer, Roman Lawing, Cooper Rollings, Zoe Turner, Nahra Anne Joseph, Julia Ann Rushing, Asa Orr, Phoebe Jordan, Brianna Ratcliff, Lily Futch, Hailey Barnes, Ellen Shuler, Ella Palmer, and Priscilla Brice Chivers.

The Tigger Cast will perform March 18 ad 20 and include Keaton Heitger,  Corey Thomas, Colin Clay,  Hank Tarte,  Chloe Morgan,  Brenna Yeary,  Autumn Barkley,  Lucas Wilhelm,  Sofia Wilhelm,  Ethan Irizarry, Alex Matthews,  Emilia Robinson,  Hailey Dallas, Elissa Stockman,  Emma Richburg, Amilia Wilhelm, Emory Gunter,  Cabot Brunson, Caleb Clay,  Gaby Aponte, Matthias Fox,  Laila Houser, Carmen Scott,  Lucy Moore, Addie Stegner,  Kate Moore, Cergio Rivera,  Jordan Johnson, Montana Fuller,  McKinley Dutcher, Brynna Nedderman, Craig Jeffers, Laine Redfearn, Eliana Collins, Lucy Houser, Dalton Sharpe,  Maggie Long, Sebashtian Sharpe, MacKenzie Melton, Harris Fuller,  Blair Gunter,  Kaitlyn Brannen, Aurelia Kopans, Mae Stegner, Hailey Scott,  Lily Ann Sharpe,  JoeAnna Parnell,  Lillian Chmiel, Bella Barkley, and DéSaussure DuBose.

Bryant Herring will act as producer and technical director. Margaret Buckelew takes on the job of stage managing this large production, and several local teens are fulfilling backstage roles including Mason Freiburg, Bailee Gurley, Zac Willoughby, Courtleigh Cobb, Jesse Morgan and Bryce Lail. Musical directors are Amanda Britt and Brianna Grant, both of whom were recently seen in CCT’s production of Little Shop of Horrors.

For more information or to purchase tickets call 803-425-7676, extension 300 or visit the FAC website at www.fineartscenter.org.  The Fine Arts Center of Kershaw County is located at 810 Lyttleton Street in Camden. Office hours are Monday through Wednesday and Friday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. and Thursday 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

Exclusive: South Carolina Filmmakers Chris White & Emily Reach-White Premiere Teaser for New Project

by: Wade Sellers

Greenville filmmaker Chris White likes to keep busy. White, along with his wife and filmmaking partner Emily Reach-White, were fresh of their city-by-city filmmaking tour of their award winning feature film Cinema Purgatorio when they decided to move full speed ahead with their current production. “As my wife Emily and I wait to secure funding for our next feature, we thought it’d be fun to make a series of short films with our family, friends, and favorite collaborators” says White. The result is Unbecoming, a five-film anthology shot over the summer of 2015. The teaser premieres online today.

The project navigates an assortment of narratives that revolve around themes of personal devolution and change. They include a retired U.S. Senator with a dark secret, an in-school suspension that leads to a teacher with a captive audience of one, two lost souls’ unlikely meeting at a roadside diner, the stomach-churning memory of True Love lost, and a father’s last will and testament passed on via workshop mixtape.

White began raising funds for Unbecoming through an Indie Go-Go campaign in June of 2015. On June 22^nd of 2015 the film was fully funded. “There is no commercial objective with Unbecoming,” he explains. “It was meant to be a playground to try an artistic endeavor, but there were still expenses. The Indiegogo campaign was a way for me to go to friends and long time supporters of my work and ask for their support and let me play with this idea.”

Additionally, White had a growing desire to work with veteran actors on a project. “I had worked with a number of known actors on other people’s projects but not my own. You realize why these actor’s have and continue to work—because they are really good at their craft.” As a result, Chris and Emily reached out two to veteran actors who they had previous relationships with.

The film stars Andy Warhol discovery Patti D’Arbanville, who got her start career in the art pop pioneer’s Flesh and L’Amour. Her long career features a mix of television and film credits that include Modern Problems, Real Genius, Miami Vice and Woody Allen’s Celebrity. Starring with D’Arbanville is Michael Forest. Forest may be remembered as the Greek god Apollo in the Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonis?” His 60 year film and television career spans such notable projects as The Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, Amarcord and Cast Away.

Chris and Emily had a previous relationship with D’Arbanville, so they approached her about starring in the film during a visit to North Carolina. Forest was a tougher get, as he had largely been retired from television and film, only visiting fan conventions for his Star Trek connection, although he did take a recent turn appearing in Vic Mignogna’s Star Trek Continues series. “I had met Michael while working on Star Trek Continues” says White of the connection. “He was interested in the project but wanted to be talked into it.” Additional cast includes Aaron Belz, Teri Parker Lewis, Bill Mazzella and Lilly Nelson. All five films were shot and produced within a short drive of the White’s home in Greenville.

Unbecoming’s theatrical premiere is Sunday, April 3^rd at the wonderfully historic Tryon Theater in Tryon, North Carolina. Future screenings will be announced as they are scheduled.

UNBECOMING \ Teaser from Paris MTN Scout on Vimeo.

To buy tickets to the Tryon premiere:

http://unbecomingtryon.bpt.me/

Q&A with Lucas Sams on Future Fest 2016

by: Ami Pulaski

The inaugural Future Fest will be taking place this Saturday, March 5^th at Tapp’s Art Center from 2p.m.-until. Future Fest 2016 is the first music festival being presented by Tri City Rec, Columbia’s premiere international DIY record label.  We caught up with Lucas Sams, founder of Tri City Rec and the prolific musician behind Pray for Triangle Zero, to see what this music festival of the future is all about.

What is the Future Fest? What can we expect to see and hear?

Lucas Sams: Future Fest is a multimedia music micro-festival presented by Tri City Rec showcasing artists on the forefront of experimental and future music (future music being DIY produced music of varying genres, often Internet boon genres like vaporwave, future funk, nu disco) locally, regionally, and even internationally. There will be music videos from Uruguay's Lila Tirando a Violeta, accompanying visuals by Grawlix (who did work for Scenario Collective recently) and Obligatory Kaliedoscope (OK Keyes, a frequent collaborator with Ritual Abjects).

Which artists are going to be involved in the festival?

LS: Malls (one of Lucas Sams's vaporwave side-projects) Autofighter (media artist and p4t0 collaborator O'Neal Peterson's side project), local media artist and filmmaker Drew Baron's ambient noise project This Cave is Creepy (for the first time ever live), AUTOCORRECT, Pray For Triangle Zero, インターネットファクス M A C H I N E (future funk project of Vivian Penny, from NC's first live show as this alias. She will also be performing as 3ternal at the fest), L i l i n (ambient chillstep from AL's Logan Bush, who will also be performing as Depravity.),A h o m a r i, RITUAL ABJECTS, 3ternal / Depravity (Vivian and Logan performing their solo deathstep projects as combined act), Sandcastles. (Kari Lebby), and GARDNSOUND (Gardner Beson's experimental EDM project from Atlanta / Fayettville, GA.

Where can we preview the artists and their work before Saturday?

LS: The artists can be all found at their respective Bandcamp or Soundcloud pages, and many of the artists have releases that can be downloaded and streamed from tricityrec.bandcamp.com.

I see that the Future Fest is hosted by Tri City Rec. What exactly is Tri City Rec and how did it come into being?

LS: Tri City Rec is Columbia, SC's premiere DIY label of the future. All of our music is free to download (but pay if you want to), and we feature artists from SC, regionally, and all over the world, with several artists from Japan, one from Brazil, and another from Uruguay. I started Tri City Rec originally as a label for releasing my friends and my own music, and during the past year [it] has developed into a full-on international net label. I created it to promote and curate a collective of artists working on the fringes and creating interesting music outside the boundaries of convention.

When I began creating music, it was hard to find my niche, and dealing with people who didn't take what I was doing seriously, mostly locally, was disheartening. I decided not to wait until other people would help me release my music and release it myself. As I kept doing that, I wanted to help other artists doing the same thing as me have a platform to share their music, to promote collaboration and dialogue of diverse artists from all over.

What do you guys see in the future for the label?

LS: In the future, expect more physical releases (although we are so much more than a boutique tape label), more events like this, including a Future Fest 2017, if there's a world left to have it in, more artists, and more collaborations.

We believe that what we and labels like us are doing is the future of music distribution and record labels in general, so expect great things and unique experiences both real and digital.

Future Fest 2016

Tapp’s Art Center (1644 Main St.)

2 p.m.-until

Admission: $8 in advance/ $10 at the door

More info is available at the Future Fest 2016 Facebook Event page here.