July 13th show featuring Composer Audrey Drake and Arts At The Armory, Somerville

AUDREY DRAKE

http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/16926951/The_Bridge_Arts_for_The_99_

Through her inspired guitar playing and classically trained voice, Audrey Drake weaves the story of her life and connects with her audience. A powerhouse of emotion and subtlety of texture will keep you intrigued and raw emotions will draw you into her world. Her spirit will leave you wanting to know the intimate details behind her inspiration.  In this interview, Audrey describes very eloquently, her process as she composes and we discuss the question, why go out to hear live music?

http://www.audreydrake.com/bio.html

ARTS AT THE ARMORY

In the second half of the show I share a retrospection on my favorite Film Director, Ken Loache, and visit Arts At The Armory, in Somerville, MA to check out what is going on at this recently renovated arts and community center
Mission & Vision
Given that artistic expression elevates a civil society, Arts at the Armory seeks to galvanize the creative spirit by providing a space where working artists and the community can come together.

Recognizing that art can bridge cultural, class and generational divides, Arts at the Armory showcases a wide range of visual arts, dance, theater and musical performances. Arts at the Armory is located in an historic armory that also provides studio spaces for artists, a cafe, galleries, two live/work artists units, two performance spaces, and offices for arts organizations.

http://artsatthearmory.org/

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Friday June 22, On The Bridge: Arts for the 99% – Be inspired by the young poets of Books of Hope….

  In his essay Artists in Times of War, Howard Zinn writes    “…it is the job of the artist …to think outside the boundaries  of permissible thought and dare to say things that no one else will say.” * Yes, of course, but where in our current world of standardized testing and limited access to opportunity do our urban youth get the space and encouragement they need to become the artists Howard Zinn envisions? One place is Books of Hope (http://booksofhope-ma.org), a writing and literacy empowerment program located in the Somerville Housing Project that encourages urban and immigrant youth to develop their own voices through writing poetry. The young artists of Books of Hope do more than creative writing however; in addition to writing and performing their poetry, they also publish their own work and sell their books on the Mystic Ink Book Tour, inspiring other young people to read and to write their own poetry.

Listen to Soul Brown, Director of Books of Hope, describe this inspiring project, hear readings of four dynamic and vibrant poems, read by their youthful authors, and listen to a discussion of poetry, life, and art by these four young poets, moderated by Janet Gillespie. The work of these youth is ferociously honest and imaginative, full of life, and yes, hope. Their voices may inspire you to “…think outside the boundaries of permissible thought and dare to say things that no one else will say.”

Let us know what you think!

This program was previously broadcast on The Bridge on May 25, 2012.

*Zinn, Howard. “Artists in Times of War.” Artists in Times of War, New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003. 14. Print.

Listen to Books of Hope on The Bridge here:

Upload Audio | Listen to Audio | The Bridge Books of Hope | YourListen.

 

Friday 6/15 on The Bridge: Political Performance and the Occupy Movement

When we’re “talking politics” we’re talking about power, specifically the power of individuals and structures to make decisions that affect the lives of all of us, often without our input or consent. When we “talk politics” we’re talking about who has this power and benefits from it, and who doesn’t have it this power and is oppressed by it.

What I learned from interviewing our guests for this program on The Bridge is that political performance happens when people go beyond just talking politics and instead gather together in public spaces for the common purpose of focusing on structures and uses of power – whether to solidify power for social change, or to challenge oppressive power structures. People coming together to demand changes in who holds power and often to challenge the power structure itself, perform the idea of resistance in order to achieve social justice.

So the Occupy Movement is basically political performance – groups of people gathering in a public space, performing with our bodily presence the idea that “We are the 99%. We belong here. Pay attention to us. We refuse to be left out. The one percent can’t have it all.”

Of course political performance manifests itself in many ways. Some very effective and exciting ways are discussed on the June 15 broadcast of The Bridge. While both our guests place the Occupy Movement in the long and honorable history of political performance, both men also give us alternative ways of thinking about performance that are unique to Occupy. Traditionally, when we think of performance, we divide people into two groups: the performers, who are active, talking, singing, dancing, and the audience, who just sit there quietly and passively absorb the message of the performers. Both Theater Offensive, with the guerrilla musical 99% Stone, currently on tour in Boston neighborhoods, and John Bell’s examples of political performance in the Occupy Movement, dissolve the barriers between audiences and performers and actively involve all people in the performance of democracy.

Listen to our guests describe political performance and its ability to engage people in enacting democracy in ways that reach beyond just “talking politics.”

You can listen here:

http://yourlisten.com/Player.swf?id=133100

 

SlamMaster Simone Beaubien & Poet, Artist and Musician James Caroline on The Bridge Today!

James Caroline Photo by Jeff Robinson

This Friday I talk to Simone Beaubien, SlamMaster at the Cantab Lounge. Simone has been hosting there since 2004 and is currently the reigning Champion of Champions of the venue. She will tell us all about the Slam Poetry scene.

In the second half of the show I interview, James Caroline who is phenomenal! An intense performer, a warm big hearted guy, a delight to be with and an exciting force of nature when he performs. Jamie travels all over America and the world

During the spring of 2004, he directed and performed in Musician and the Muse, a performance of poetry and music at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, featuring Nicole Terez, Tom Daley, Regie Gibson, and Iyeoka Okoawo. He was also commissioned to write the vocal text and act as artistic sound director for the Naked Truths; Voices of Shame, Sexuality, and Eating Disorders in Women, a play performed at HERE multimedia center in Manhattan. Selected publication credits include The Lifted Brow, The Cascadia Review, Quarry, Subliminal, A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry, and Painted Bride Quarterly.

Recently, he became the closing speaker for Join The Impact Massachusetts, performing along side Senators and activists in protests against DOMA, Prop 8, and other Queer issues. He is currently working on a collection of poems, Live, From the Killing Jar, and a novel in verse based on the myth of Dionysus

Listen to the show and share with friends:

You can listen to the new audio here.

 

Danny Bryck performing Occupy play

Danny Bryck will be performing his one-man documentary play No Room for Wishing on June 29 in a one-night only workshop production at Central Square Theater. Danny was featured on The Bridge, in May when we did a show on Political Theater:

Listen to THE BRIDGE – Political Theater episode 3

Written using only the exact words of the people involved in Occupy Boston, No Room for Wishing pieces together the voices and experiences of a variety of diverse individuals into the larger story of what happened over the two months that Occupy Boston held a physical encampment in Dewey Square.

Both personal and political, No Room for Wishing is an up-close look at the sociopolitical climate of contemporary America and the way it affects a broad spectrum of people. Probing the ways that we as a culture perceive and communicate with each other, it asks, “What happens when we try to reinvent society?”

This will be the first fully-staged workshop production of the play, which has been in development for the past eight months. Seating is limited so please reserve your seat in advance. To reserve a ticket please email info@centralsquaretheater.org

For more information, including a sneak preview of the play, go to Danny’s web site.

http://dannybryck.com/noroomforwishing/

 

Listen to the voices of urban and immigrant youth on THE BRIDGE: Arts for the 99%, May 25, 2:30 p.m.

Join us on THE BRIDGE tomorrow, 5/25, at 2:30 p.m. to hear the voices of the BOOKS OF HOPE (BOH) poets, urban and immigrant youth ages 13-25, a segment of the 99% we don’t often hear from. We do hear a lot ABOUT these young people, much of it from an outsider perspective, and much of it negative, but we are rarely exposed to their voices, their ideas, their stories, and we don’t have a very good idea of what the world looks like from their points of view. Books of Hope gives us the chance to hear from them directly, as they read their own poetry, and give us their thoughts and feelings on life and art in a round table discussion. Join us tomorrow on THE BRIDGE where we will also hear from Soul Brown, the inspiring Director of BOOKS OF HOPE.

Under the direction of Soul Brown, the poets of BOH not only write poetry, they publish their own books and sell them on the upcoming Mystic Ink tour – go to their website for info on BOH and venues on the Mystic Ink Tour:
http://www.booksofhope-ma.org

And join BOH for Teen Open Mic night.
Arts at the Armory
191 Highland Ave
Somerville Ma
6-8 pm

 

Join four remarkable young poets on THE BRIDGE:

Next on The Bridge: Arts for the 99%, May 25, 2:30 p.m. Books of Hope, “a dynamic youth literacy empowerment program inspiring the next generation of young authors through writing, publishing, performing, and entrepreneurship.” This program features Soul Brown, Director of Books of Hope, and four young writers reading their poems and discussing their work in a round-table format moderated by host Janet Gillespie.

Most of us are aware of the importance of the arts in expressing and sharing experience and ideas, and showing us new perspectives on the worlds we live in, and we understand the value of arts activities for young people. The young artists of Books of Hope do more than creative writing however; in addition to writing and performing their poetry, they also publish their own work and sell their books.

Without the publishing/entrepreneurship components of their project, I would have never known about Books of Hope.

I first became aware of Books of Hope in 2009 when I attended the Mass Poetry Festival in Lowell MA. There, among the crowd of adult, mostly white poets and their shiny books, I found three vibrant young women of color at a table displaying an impressive number of slim books of poetry. They told me about their project, which involves not just writing poetry, transforming their experiences and ideas into art, but also publishing their work, creating and selling the books I was holding in my hands. As I leafed through their books, I was caught up in their vision and their voices, their imagery, their ferocious honesty and, yes, their hope. I bought three books and used them in a writing class I was teaching at the Boston Campus of Springfield College. My students loved the poems and stories and clearly resonated with them as art and as social commentary.

Join us on The Bridge: Arts for the 99 % on May 25, 2:30 p.m. to meet Soul Brown and the remarkable young poets of Books of Hope.

To learn more about Books of Hope, visit http://booksofhope-ma.org

 

Meet Abe Rybeck, Founding Artistic Director of The Theater Offensive, Friday, on The Bridge

I’m so happy to be working with Linda on this radio project and thanks to Sarah at Occupy Boston Radio for teaching us so much and being incredibly supportive with our first efforts at radio programming & production. The Bridge: Arts for the 99% is truly a collaborative project.

Developing the next program on The Bridge, an interview with Abe Rybeck, Founding Artistic Director of The Theater Offensive (broadcasting on Friday May 11, 2:30 p.m. on Occupy Boston Radio) has been exciting and enlightening for me. I had begun to think of the 99% only as an oppressed group, victimized by the political/economic power purchased by the obscene wealth of the 1%. However, hearing from and about Theater Offensive’s Out in Your Neighborhood strategy, the True Colors Out Youth Theater, and TO’s upcoming production The Secret History of Love, gave me a new perspective. Of course the 1% are having a devastating impact on our lives and the lives of our neighbors, but the youth who make up True Colors, young, queer, people of color who come, for the most part, from the lower levels of the 99%, are definitely not victims. Their energy, their creativity, their thoughts and ideas, have been supported and developed through the guidance of the Theater Offensive into vibrant theater productions; their vision is fierce and clear as they show us the world through their experience, and their joy and positive energy are contagious as they welcome us into a truly inclusive community. The Boston Stonewall Generation folks whose stories and voices are a major force in the East Coast premier of The Secret History of Love also inspire us with their courage, their humor, their integrity.

Please join Abe Rybeck and me on The Bridge: Arts for the 99% on Friday May 11 at 2:30 and let us know what you think.

 

First episode of THE BRIDGE tomorrow!

Radio | Occupy Boston

We are thrilled to be broadcasting on-line the first episode of, THE BRIDGE, Arts for the 99% tomorrow May 4th at 2.30pm Boston time, 7.30pm UK time. I’m Linda Carmichael and my friend, Janet Gillespie is the Co Host, fellow producer and editor of this 1/2 hour arts program.

We look forward to your comments and suggestions for future programing.

The line up for May:

Episode 1 May 4th Interview with musician/composer, Dave Kobrenski from The Black Bear Moon Project. He will talk about what it is like to be an independent musician in the corporate climate of today’s music scene, his travels in West Africa to learn that country’s traditional music, and we will hear some truly spectacular Afro Funk Jazz.

 

 

Black Bear Moon Cultural Project: West African Djembe, Dunun, Fula flute – Performances and Workshops, New Hampshire

 

Episode 2 May 11th Interview with Abe Rybeck Executive Artistic Director of The Theater Offensive. The Theater Offensive’s mission  is to form and present the diverse realities of queer lives in art so bold it breaks through personal isolation and political orthodoxy to help build an honest, progressive community. This show is incredibly moving with some spectacular pieces of theater from their up-coming work.

Home | thetheateroffensive

 

Episode 3 May 18th  Explores Political Theater with interviews with Oscar winner Ernest Thomson who wrote ON GOLDEN POND. He will talk about his recently written series of plays collectively entitled Political Suicide, and Actor/writer Danny Bryck, who is working on his one man show, No Room For Wishing, based on his interviews with the Occupy Boston inhabitants of Dewey Square.

 

Whitebridge Farm Productions LLC – Ernest Thomson’s company

http://dannybryck.com/about/

Episode 4 May 25th We spend time with BOOKS OF HOPE, a dynamic youth literacy empowerment program inspiring the next generation of young authors through writing, publishing performing and entrepeneurship. We will have some of their work in the second part of the show.

http://booksofhope-ma.org/about.html