Charlotte Street Foundation

As part of Third Friday Art Downtown June 18, UCP presents Event Horizons, a touring program of new work by film, video, and new media artists Thomas Comerford (Chicago), and Sabine Gruffat & Bill Brown (Madison, Wisconsin), at Project Space, 21 East 12th Street, 8pm (suggested donation, $5). The event will run approximately 2 hours.

This program includes a screening of Comerford’s The Indian Boundary Line, which follows a road in Chicago, Rogers Avenue, that traces the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis boundary between the United States and “Indian Territory.” In doing so, it examines the collision between the vernacular landscape and the symbolic one, and suggests how this land and its history are an index for the shifting inhabitants, relationships, boundaries and ideas of landscape — as well as the consequences — which have accompanied the transformation of the “New World.”

Also featured is Gruffat & Brown’s Time Machine, a multimedia live performance in which the artists explore new way of telling stories with technologies that are both cutting edge and obsolete, including slide projector, analog video switcher, record player, digital video projector, and computer.  During the performance, the stage becomes the control panel for an immense ship and the projection screen a window through which different spaces and times are visualized, as Gruffat and Brown assume the role of space-time tourists driven by an exploratory urge.

Read full press release.

Voices of Community + Loneliness, on Saturday, May 22, 1pm at Paragraph, 23 East 12th Street, features writers and performers responding to Paragraph exhibition’s themes. The program, free and open to the public, features Gina Kaufmann’s “Status Report,” for which Ron Megee, Rita Brinkerhoff and Kaufmann will stand on soap boxes, shouting real Facebook status updates onto the street to greet visitors. By adapting online behavior to a physical space, visitors will get to see the humor, loneliness and occasional beauty of broadcasting unrelated sentiments into a shared void. Concluding “Status Report,” Pitch Managing Editor Scott Wilson will speak about how people behave differently in the dark. The program also features a presentation of poetry inspired by the exhibition theme and organized by Glenn North, Poet-in-Residence at the American Jazz Museum. Featured poets are North, Robert Brown, Taylor Brown, and Camiel J. Irving.

The evening of May 22, at 8pm at The Brick, 1727 Megee, Gina Kaufmann hosts Storytelling: Community + Loneliness, a night of stories about the unexpected ways in which feelings of loneliness and feelings of belonging can intersect.  Storytellers featured include Rolf Potts, Kaite Mediatore Stover, Beth Byrd-Lonski,  Frankie Krainz, Meshel Cook, Hadley Johnson, and Brian Busby.

On Saturday, May 8, 7:30 pm at la Esquina, 1000 West 25th Street, BD Collier, Founder and President of The Society for a Re-Natural Environment, will give a multi-media presentation titled, “On the Impact of Flying Carp.” The presentation, free and open to the public, will address the natural history of invasive Asian carp, their impact on North American waterways, and possible solutions to the problem. The presentation will focus primarily on the silver or flying carp whose population has been rapidly expanding in mid-western waterways since the 1980’s and the threat they pose to the Great Lakes ecosystem.

BD Collier is a re-naturalist, educator and artist. As Founder and President of the Society for a Re-Natural Environment he gives presentations, creates exhibitions, and engages in sanctioned and unsanctioned public works to increase understanding of and connection to the non-human natural world. He also works to educate people about how humans have shaped the ecosystems they live in. Collier  has exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad including: Neues Museum Weserberg Bremen, in Germany; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art; Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havana, Cuba; University of Houston; 60 Wall Gallery, Deutsche Bank NYC; University of Kansas Natural History Museum and Paragraph Gallery in Kansas City, MO. Collier’s work has been written about in numerous publications including: Art in America, The New York Times, Afterimage, Orion: Nature, Culture, Place, Domus, and Art Papers Magazine. He earned his MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He currently lives and works in Bloomington, IL.

For more about Collier and the The Society for a Re-Natural Environment, visit http://societyrne.net/

Uncover the hilarious secret subtext of your favorite Saturday morning cartoon February 11 to March 7 in the Coterie At Night production of Spooky Dog: A Scooby-Doo-Like Mystery (Plagiarized, improvised and not for kiddies!), directed by CSF Generative Performing Award Fellow Ron Megee and performed evenings-only at la Esquina, 1000 W. 25th St. (On First Friday February 5, 6-8pm, the public is invited to a FREE sneak peak and party with the Mystery Gang. Meet the visual and performing artists and enjoy Spooky Dog’s favorite snacks and beverages. Rah Booty perform as special guests.)

The production, true to the Hanna-Barbera time period of the late ‘60s-early ‘70s, incorporates musical numbers, improvisation, and audience participation as it chronicles the uproarious and campy adventures of a dog detective named Spooky, his spaced-out hippie friend, and their gang. The teen-age mystery gang confronts criminals, but what do they do about their own burgeoning sexual desires? Or those tasty dog treats with unexpected side effects?  Or the penchant they suddenly have for busting a move?  This Coterie At Night production is PG-13 for language and sexual innuendo. Individuals under the age of 13 will not be admitted.  Spooky Dog is a co-production with the Coterie and UMKC Theatre’s professional training program.

Tickets  are $12 for all ages; $9 for Coterie season ticket holders. Discount Deal: 10 tix for $10 each – advance phone orders only. Tickets may be purchased by calling (816) 474-6552, online at www.coterietheatre.org, at the Coterie Box Office in Crown Center, or at the door 30 minutes prior to performance time. Read full press release. Watch YouTube clip. Read Kansas City Star review.

Cumulus, a multi-media, multi-disciplinary exhibition featuring select projects developed by current UCP Studio Residents, continues with the addition of new artworks and projects. New features debuting at the Third Friday opening on February 19, 6-9 pm at Paragraph, 23 E. 12th. include The Wizard Ningxt, an eccentric character embodied by Aaron Storck, who will offer stir-fry, drinks, and poetry to gallery visitors from temporary housing structure at the gallery’s entrance, and a rotating exhibition curated by Erica Mahinay within Paragraph featuring works by Storck, Caleb Taylor, Samantha Persons, Lori Yonley, Kat Dison, Luke Rocha, Darwin Arevalo, Erica Mahinay, Charlie Mylie and Timothy Amundson.

In nearby Oppenstein Park, 12th and Walnut, Elaina Wendt Michalski will debut Exit, composed of two life-size figure sculptures, based on homeless youth. Made of unfired clay, these figures, left vulnerable to the elements, are inspired and informed by Michalski’s interaction with members of Synergy Services, a youth homeless shelter in the Kansas City area.  In addition Lori Yonley will welcome visitors once again to Give and Take, an ever-revolving collection of 5×5 collaborative drawings, and on the street Kurt Flecksing and Sean M. Starowitz will again fire up the S’mores Vending Cart, supplying a taste of campfire nostalgia and accumulating funds to award to future artists’ projects.

Additional Cumulus Events:
Saturday, February 20th, 1-2:30pm: Critique dialogue led by Barbara O’Brien, Curator, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Julie Farstad, Painting Professor, Kansas City Art Institute.
Wednesday, February 24, starts at 6pm: Potluck Drawing session, Reperformance organized by Charlie Mylie (7pm), & The Four Seasons, a performance collabioration by Jane Gotch, Tim Amundson, Erica Mahinay.

Read full press release. Read Kansas City Star review. Read KC Free Press article.

See Fox4-TV interview with Elaina Wendt Michalski.

KcEMA KcEnnections brings together world-renowned artists from the region for a night of electronic music and visual art.  The February 5th concert features two movements from Daniel Asia and Kip Haaheim’s “Sacred and Profane,” with video by Janet Davidson-Hues. The texts for portions of this piece are drawn from the sayings of Rabbi Nachman of Bratislav, a leader of the Hassidic movement in 18th century Poland.  Paul Rudy will perform a variety of instruments as he accompanies tracks from his  “2012 Stories” CD series.  Rudy calls the series “a personal journey to come alive during an unprecedented time of awakening on our planet earth.”  Douglass Crockwell’s animations entitled “Glen Falls Sequence,” with a newly composed soundtrack by David Dvorin, bring a startling visual element to the concert.  Created over a nine-year period in the 1930’s, the “Glen Falls Sequence” is the result of numerous experimental and unorthodox techniques of animation, supplemented by Dvorin’s layered electronic music.

The Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance (KcEMA) was founded in 2007 to encourage and develop understanding and appreciation of electronic music and to create an expansive sense of community for electronic musicians and other artists in the Kansas City Area. Doors open at 7pm; $5 suggested donation at the door. UCP Studios at City Center Square, 1100 Main, 5th floor.  Read full press release. For more about KcEMA, visit http://www.kcema.net

Cumulus,  opening at Paragraph, 23 East 12th, on January 15, 6-10pm, is a multi-media, multi-disciplinary exhibition featuring select projects developed by current Urban Culture Project Studio Residents. UCP’s Studio Residency Program for Visual and Performing Artists currently provides free studios for more than 30 artists and groups, who occupy studios in three facilities: Bonfils (125 East 12th Street), pARTnership Place (906 Grand, 13th floor) and City Center Square (1100 Main Street, 5th floor).

The exhibition’s call for proposals encouraged studio residents to “consider collaboration or interactivity in the making and /or presentation of the work,”  resulting in a dynamic group of proposals whose structures are inherently generous – offering room for audience participation, inviting the response of peers, and directly giving “gifts” to visitors of the exhibition. Sepecial vents on January 15 include: The Four Seasons, an interactive performance piece, 7:30-8pm, by Timothy Amundson, Jane Gotch, and Erica Mahinay that will engage and react to the gallery space; Luke Rocha’s Project Porta-Sound, which will employ analog audio/visual formats of the past to create a multi-media experience; the debut of Maura Michelle Garcia’s and Lisa Marie Evans’ video of a multi-media dance performance entitled The Little People, which addresses the reclaiming of a conscious Native identity through exploring the character and personality of the ancient Cherokee fairies; the debut of Kurt Flecksing’s Smores Vending Cart on the sidewalk outside the gallery, and a performance of new compositions by the Black House Improvisors’ Collective at 9pm. Read full press release.

The 2009 Charlotte Street Generative Performing Artist Awards will be celebrated with a free public event featuring live performances by 2009 Awards Fellows Glenn North and Tiffany Sisemore on Thursday, December 10, 8pm at the American Jazz Museum’s Gem Theater, 1615 East 18th Street.  This event is presented in collaboration with the American Jazz Museum.

The evening will feature a “poetic memoir” by spoken word poet Glenn North, reflecting upon how poetry has shaped his personal development.  This retrospective of sorts will incorporate many poems that North performs on a regular basis along with a selection of new pieces.  It will also weave in music, visual imagery, film, and dance, to demonstrate how spoken word intersects with other art forms.   

Tiffany Sisemore will present four short dance works, representational of her personal movement exploration and invention spanning eight years. These include “Time Dilation,” a work built for nine female dancers, loosely representing the growth, disintegration, and redevelopment of a collection of women;”Tumescence,” a quirky duet performed as a whimsical interpretation of seduction; “Our Story Has Always Been Told Through Beats,” a series of solos developed from conversations with Glenn North surrounding the theme “a percussive approach,” which will be performed in tandem with North’s poem “Our Story Has Always Been Told Through Beats,” as well as a fourth work in progress.    

North and Sisemore received unrestricted cash awards of $5000 each from Charlotte Street Foundation earlier this year. A color brochure is being produced in conjunction with the event, featuring images and essays about the fellows by Michael Humphrey, a New York-based writer/journalist, and Mary Pat Henry, Professor of Dance at the Conservatory of Music and Dance at UMKC and Artistic Director of Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company. 

Read full press release.

CSF’s Urban Culture Project  continues its collaboration with the Kansas City Electronic Arts and Music Alliance (KcEMA) by presenting KcEMA Newbie Commissions, a concert of new works on Saturday, December 5, 7:30pm at la Esquina, 1000 West 25th Street. Doors open at 7; admission is $5.

Inaugurating its electronic commissioning program, KcEMA commissioned three Kansas City area composers relatively new to the electronic medium - Zhou Juan, Caroline Miller, and Yaun Peiying -  for Kansas City based performers Jedd Schneider, tenor voice, and Brad Baumgardner, bass clarinet.  In addition to these new works, the concert includes pieces by Jorge Sosa, Scott Blasco, Tim Eshing, and international award-winning composer Jason Bolte.

The Newbie Commissions program features three World Premieres.  Jedd Schneider will perform Zhou Juan’s That night, 195 people were killed, a response to the violence that took place on July 5th in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, where the composer was born, and Caroline Miller’s setting of John Donne’s sensual Elegy XX: To His Mistress Going to Bed.  Brad Baumgardner will perform Peiying Yuan’s Fractal Excursions, a piece structured around the inspiration of fractals.  Read full press release.

CSF’s Urban Culture Project is thrilled to be hosting Let’s Paint TV, a live internet television show starring Los Angeles-based artist and cult phenomenon John Kilduff.  Begun as a public access television show in Los Angeles and now a YouTube sensation, Let’s Paint TV stars Kilduff, who paints, blends drinks, answers phone calls, and completes a variety of other tasks — all while wearing a suit and running on a treadmill.

Let’s Paint TV will be taped and streamed live (at www.letspainttv.com) from Urban Culture Project Space, 21 East 12th Street. Open to the public, live shows are Tuesday November 17 through November 24, from 6-7pm each day. Each show will feature an array of local talents as guest stars. Third Friday, November 20 features a reception from 6-9pm, with a special live show at 9pm.  Read full press release. See the schedule of daily guest stars!