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

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.

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 additionm 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.

Sofa Kingdom in the Valley of Comic Sans, a new, site-specific installation by Kansas City based artists Timothy Amundson and Charlie Mylie, opens at Urban Culture Project Space, 21 East 12th Street, Friday February 19, 6-9pm.  It runs through March 6, 2010.

Amundson and Mylie, both artists in UCP’s Studio Residency Program, are generating “an interactive, performative space of play.” This multi-media environment is envisioned as a platform for “improvisations, cooperations, and transformations,” whereby “actors become sculptures, performative games become improvisational dance, paintings become platforms, drawings become instructions, objects become tasks, formal sculptures become architectural interventions, and viewing becomes experience.”  Over the course of the evening, such array of transformations will unfold, with such materials as wood, fabric, guitars, electric fans, fermenting wine, pedestals, lights, plants, paint, play-dough, diverse found objects, and human beings as cast as active players in a real-time theatrical event. Read full press release.

Charlotte Street Foundation is planning its first benefit party ever and, of course, wants artists of all disciplines to be at the center of it! For one night, *you are HERE will transform a downtown parking garage into an urban destination.  Individual parking spots will serve as the sites for art installations, live performances, and other artist-driven projects, as well as for food and drink stations, cocktail lounges, picnic areas, and other mobile elements. Our vision is of a high-energy party spreading throughout the parking garage, where guests of all walks of life mix and celebrate amidst and among a series of wildly diverse installations, destinations, happenings, and experiences. At the end of the night, everything packs up and drives away.

Proposals are invited from artists and creatives of all kinds interested in producing a *you are HERE destination for the benefit. You may submit a proposal as a solo artist or on behalf of a collaborative group. Download application info HERE. Deadline is March 15, 2010. The event is October 2, 2010.

Detailed guidelines + the 2010 Rocket Grants application may be downloaded here. (Scroll down the page to download guidelines and application form.) Application deadline is April 2, 2010.

A series of information launch & question sessions are planned for January through March at a range of sites in the Kansas City and Lawrence areas; potential applicants are strongly encouraged to attend. 

First sessions are: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 6pm at H&R Block Artspace at KCAI, 16 East 43rd Street, KCMO 64111; Saturday, January 23, 10am at Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1301 Mississippi Street, Lawrence, KS 66045; Saturday, January 23, 1pm at Haskell Indian Nations University, 1555 Indian Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66046; Thursday January 28, noon, at Operation Breakthrough, 3039 Troost Avenue, Kansas City 64109;  Saturday, February 6, 10am at Artist INC Training Room at UMKC Small Business and Technology Development Center, 4747 Troost Ave. Room 114, Kansas City MO 64110; & Saturday, February 20, 7pm, Shane Evans Dream Studio, 711 East 31st Street, Kansas City, MO 64109.

Commodity, Commotion, Communication, an installation of new work by Kansas City based artist and Urban Culture Project Studio Resident Samantha “Sammy” Persons, opens at Urban Culture Project Space, 21 East 12th Street, with a Third Friday reception on January 15, 6-9pm; artist remarks at 6pm.  

A manipulator of signs more than a producer of art objects, Persons constructs “paintings” and interactive sculptural environments  from materials drawn from her own lifetime and which signal the difference between Art and non- art identified objects—her materials palette includes house paint, vinyl letters, art books and catalogs, bendy straws, , air fresheners, life-sized Hanna Montana Stickers, highlighters, and glitter, among much else.  In part, Persons’ calculated barrage of fragments and collaged images signifies the saturation of text/media in contemporary culture. At the same time, this field of partial and re-contextualized information is meant to position the viewer as an active reader of messages rather than passive contemplator of the aesthetic or consumer of the spectacular.  Further, by appropriating traditionally gendered materials, such as 2 by 4’s, which she paints bright pink, as well as by building up the surfaces of painting with stickers, which have a long historical correlation to femininity and decoration, the artist seeks to heighten tension between masculine  support and feminine façade, destabilizing our standard readings of familiar products and materials. 

Also upcoming:  Tea Party – Conversation, an open dialogue with Sammy Persons, Kurt Flecksing, Lynley Farris, and Robert Heishman at Project Space on Wednesday, January 27, 7pm. Free & open to the public. Read full press release.

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.

 As part of the 2009-10 Mary Atkins Series, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art hosts New York-based art critic and independent curator Gregory Volk for a conversation with three Charlotte Street Visual Artist Award recipients. Volk will kick off the evening with an introductory presentation featuring images of the work of David Ford, Elijah Gowin and Peregrine Honig, and a discussion of general themes and personal observations relative to their work. This will set the stage for a lively discussion with the artists about their work, practices, and experiences as artists based in Kansas City while frequently working and exhibiting elsewhere.

Tickets are $10 for members, $15 for non-members, $5 for students. Call 816.751.1ART or buy online at http://www.nelson-atkins.org/calendar/. This event is made possible through the generosity of Charlie and Jeanne Sosland, Brad and Linda Nicholson, Suzie Aron and Joseph Levin. Very special thanks to Mary Atkins Trustees Mary Lou Brous and Grant Burcham. Read full press release.

Deadline: Friday, January 29 Urban Culture Project invites proposals from artists, curators, and culture producers working in all disciplines for projects to be presented at its Paragraph, Project Space, and la Esquina venues. These may include, but are not limited to, visual art exhibitions, installations, original live performances (dance, theater, music, performance art, spoken word), film and video screenings, literary readings, lectures, public programs, and hybrid forms thereof. Deadline is Friday, January 29, 2010 for proposals to be considered for fall 2010 - spring 2011, plus one-night and short-term events/projects to occur sooner as schedule allows.

Download an application here.