arts

The Genesee Center for the Arts at Genesee Community College has announced the calendar for live performances for its 19th season at the Stuart Steiner Theatre.

Live Performances in the Stuart Steiner Theatre:

The Forum Players start the spring season with the performance of In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks, a modern interpretation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel, "The Scarlett Letter." The Forum Player's production is set in a post Hurricane Katrina backdrop that follows the daily trials of Hester, an illiterate, single, homeless, African-American woman who must find a way to rise above her situation and care for her five children.

Performance dates are scheduled at 7:30 p.m. onThursday, Feb. 3-5. Ticket prices are: $8 adults; $5 seniors (55+) and students and GCC faculty/staff; $3 GCC students with GCC ID; and a $2 discount for GCC alumni with GCC alumni card.

The Genesee Symphony Orchestra returns to Genesee Community College with its 64th season with two performances at the Stuart Steiner Theatre.

"Love Notes" will be performed at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 13, with special guest Michael Ludwig, violin.

"GSO on Broadway" will be at 4 p.m. Sunday, May 1, featuring the GSO 2011 String Workshop Orchestra.

Ticket prices are: $12 adults; $8 seniors (62+); $5 students (18 & under or GCC students with a valid ID); or $30 per family (parent plus children 12 & under) and are available at the following locations:

Hi-Tek Graphics in Oakfield; Bank of Castile in LeRoy; Roxy's Music Store; GO ART!; The Enchanted Florist; and the Box Office at Genesee Community College in Batavia. Tickets are also available at the door one hour prior to the performance at the Stuart Steiner Theatre.

Two acts of musical talent and originality will perform at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 25. Tony Brown and the Faithful, with opening act Swati.

Tony Brown is a former member of Upstate NY's infamous Ozone, now touring with his band the Faithful -- a gathering of experienced, eclectic musicians hailing from around the globe. Brown's soulful, powerful voice, along with the acoustic world vibe that his band mates bring, creates a sound that mixes blues, folk and alternative rock.

Opening act Swati, a NYC native who began her musical career in the classical world, plays a 12-string guitar that has been fitted with eight. Ticket prices are: $12 adults; $10 seniors (55+); $5 students (18-) and GCC faculty/staff; $3 GCC students with GCC ID; and a $2 discount for GCC alumni with GCC alumni card.

A concert by the Genesee Chorale and Chorale Orchestra, "AElinor, the Oratorio," is also scheduled this spring at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 6 at the Stuart Steiner Theatre. Words and music by Ann Reid, and conducted by Ric Jones with the Genesee Chorale and the Chorale Orchestra.

This concert storyline takes place in 1147, AElinor, Countess of Poitou, Duchess of Aquitaine, and Queen of the Franks leads a band of women on the Second Crusade. In so doing, she learns about earthly love and her marriage to Louis VII, King of the Franks, is annulled. She runs off with Henry Plantagenet, a penniless lord. Six months later, the penniless lord becomes Henry II, King of England.

Developed in the Lehman Engel Workshop, Los Angeles, this project is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a re-grant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered by the Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council.

Ticket prices are: $10 adults; $8 for seniors (62+) and students (18-); $5 GCC student with GCC ID; and $18 family (parent plus children under 17). Tickets are available at the Box Office at Genesee Community College, GO ART! in Batavia, and from all Chorale members.

The Fine and Performing Arts committee is pleased to have Stone Row returning to the Stuart Steiner Theatre for one performance at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 12. Stone Row is a fusion of Celtic, folk, country and rock that combines the local talent of four dynamically versatile musicians. Each band member brings a whole new spin with diversified attitudes and styles.

Ticket prices are: $10 adults; $8 seniors (55+); $5 students (18-) and GCC faculty/staff; $3 GCC students with GCC ID; and a $2 discount for GCC alumni with GCC alumni card.

The Genesee Center for the Arts continues its commitment to introducing performing art to children, families, and schools throughout the Western New York area with Nobody Likes Mordacious (And That's How He Likes It), a stage fantasy by veteran children's theatre playwright Jack Stokes.

The Forum Players and local grammar-school students present the audience with a girl who needs to rescue her parents from the stratagems of a very wicked fellow. On an epic quest laced with humor, she encounters genies, shadows, monsters, and pirates, and enlists the aid of a witch-fighting guide in order to restore her family.

Not everyone can be redeemed; sometimes evil is just plain evil; as always, bullies of any stripe must be confronted. These are just a few of the things Orafu learns on her quest. This show is appropriate for any audience, particularly elementary and junior-high students.

Performance dates are scheduled for Wednesday, March 23 and Thursday, March 24, by invitation only, and there will be one public performance at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 25. Ticket prices are: $8 adults; $5 seniors (55+), students, and GCC faculty/staff; and $3 GCC students with GCC ID.

The last live performance at the Stuart Steiner Theatre this spring is Blood Brothers by Willy Russell, performed by the Forum Players. Blood Brothers is one of the longest-running musicals in London theatre, with the 1988 West End production still running.

It is a musical that has a contemporary nature vs. nurture plot, revolving around fraternal twins who were separated at birth. The twins' different backgrounds take them to opposite ends of the social spectrum, leading up to a tragic ending.

Performance dates are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 7 through Saturday, April 9. A matinee is set for 2 p.m. Sunday, April 10. Ticket prices are: $8 adults; $5 seniors (55+), students, and GCC faculty/staff; $3 GCC students with GCC ID; and a $2 discount for GCC alumni with GCC Alumni card.

For more ticket information or reservations, contact the Genesee Center for the Arts Box Office at 585/343-6814 or by email at <http://boxoffice@genesee.edu>. All seating is general admission.

The Genesee Center for the Arts Box Office accepts cash and checks only, credit cards are not accepted. For door-to-door directions, sent via email, visit http://www.genesee.edu/

Go Art! presents “A Prelude to a Winter Solstice” at its 10th annual Community Arts Awards Gala Dinner & Auction at 6 p.m on Saturday, Oct. 2 at the Batavia Party House, 5762 E. Main Road (Route 5), Stafford.
 
Each year, GO ART! recognizes the extraordinary contributions in art and culture made by individuals and organizations in the Genesee-Orleans region at this unique event. This year’s honorees are:

• James Catino ~ receiving a Community Arts Award as a lifelong musician and songwriter who has provided entertainment and musical instruction in the community for more than 50 years.
• Cobblestone Society Museum ~ receiving a Community Arts Award for the organization’s preservation and promotion of Orleans County’s heritage and its restoration and care of eight historic cobblestone buildings on Routes 104 & 98 in Childs. The organization is also celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year.
• Genesee County Master Gardeners ~ receiving a Board of Directors Award recognizing the group’s contributions to the historically appropriate gardens on the grounds of Seymour Place and the “Paul’s Field” container garden.
• Rosalind “Roz” Hayes, posthumously ~ receiving a Community Arts Award as a talented local artist whose “passion for painting came from her passion for life.”  She participated in many local arts organizations, was a prolific creator of her unique and popular paintings, and also wrote two children’s books.
• Brad London ~ receiving a Community Arts Award for his promotion of music and local musical talent in Orleans County through his now-closed business Wiggly & Jiggly’s and his successful efforts at the Orleans County 4-H Fair.
• Evelyn Lyman ~ receiving a Community Arts Award for her passionate contributions to the cultural life in the community and for her preservation efforts at the Swan Library.
• Bob Terry ~ receiving a Board of Directors Award recognizing his volunteerism for GO ART!, specifically acknowledging his expertise and labor in assisting with historic preservation efforts at Seymour Place.

Tickets are $25/person, and advance reservations are required. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres and a fabulous buffet while local band Buffalo Road Show with Bill McDonald provides musical entertainment. A Silent Auction and other drawings will be held all evening. Dress is Business Casual.
 
This year’s Gala Raffle features three Grand Prizes:

• 18K Diamond & Sapphire Ring (TW: 1 CT Sapphire, 1 CT Diamonds), compliments of Lambert’s Design Jewelers; Value $5,000.
• One-Year Full Gym membership to Next Level Fitness, compliments of Ken & Andrea Mistler; Value $265
• $250 Gift Certificate from Roxy’s Music Store

Plus, your raffle ticket enters you in drawings held throughout the evening for a variety of valuable prizes from area businesses such as Pudgie’s Lawn & Garden Center, Shirt Factory Café, Pauly’s Pizza and more.

Raffle Tickets are $5 each or five for $20, and are available at GO ART! and various other locations in Genesee and Orleans counties; call GO ART! for a list at (585) 343-9313 or check online at www.GOart.org. Raffle tickets will also be available at the event. For more information, call (585) 343-9313 or email info@goart.org.

The Community Arts Gala is generously sponsored to date by: National Grid; CY Farms/Batavia Turf; O-AT-KA Milk Products Cooperative; Tops Friendly Markets; The Batavian; Dick Seymour; ESL Federal Credit Union; Lawley-Genesee; Max and Jane Mason; GCASA; Janice Cummings and Delores Johnson.

The annual Ramble Arts & Music Fest returns to Batavia from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, July 3 at Jackson Square.

This year’s reunion of past and present musicians and artists sees performances from more than 25 bands including: The Ghost Riders, Red Creek, Penny Whiskey, and Old Hippie Reunion.

In addition, a raffle for a Yamaha acoustic electric guitar will be drawn during the Ramble. More information can be found at www.ramblemusic.com.

Joe and Carol at Mardi Gras World

~Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.~

John Lennon

Recently I attended the Imagine RIT Innovation and Creativity Festival at the Rochester Institute of Technology. My son Peter, my grandson Joey and his friend Kevin went with me. Thirty thousand other people also showed up. So did two thousand RIT students and faculty, presenting several hundred exhibits, live performances and demonstrations.

On my first visit with Joey two years ago, I saw my first e-book reader, an early model which reminded me of and Etch-a-Sketch. Not much advantage over a book. Joey immediately took to the robots, one wheeling its way through the crowd and another busy assembling hot dogs with choice of catchup or mustard.

Before this visit I happened upon the RIT website describing the hundreds of attractions and where to find them. I had a plan for exhibits and activities I thought would be interesting to visit. However we found ourselves in the quad in line for free ice-cream and drawn to the two foot electric and gas race cars speeding around a makeshift track. Singers, dancers, drummers and art hummed in the quad background.

Without especially knowing where we were going, we wandered into one of the buildings. We encountered a blue room. Leaving their shoes behind, Joey and Kevin frolicked on blue cubes while backgrounds were added to make it appear on the monitor that they were swimming in the ocean or flying though the woods.

In another room, arrays of computer stations displayed computer games students had designed. The boys set to work immediately, exploring the new games under the tutelage of the students who had created them.

Down the hall a classroom awaited us. A storyboard filled one wall. I recognized it from my writing experience. Elementary cartoon graphics showed the layout for an animated film. Several students demonstrated how they progressed from the storyboard to a polished animated sequence.

As fascinating as I found all this, what happened next floored me. Eight year old Kevin and Joey asked sophisticated questions about the process at a level I had not imagined. They connected with these college students in a way which reminded me of the story of Jesus and the Temple elders.

The rest of the day was just as fascinating. The technology and imagination were spectacular. Even more impressive was the humility, sense of humor, and openness of every student and teacher we met. As if that was not enough, one student ambled through the crowd with his placard offering free hugs. I came home encouraged by the endless creativity of the RIT community and the infections enthusiasm they shared with the rest of us. Maybe there is still hope for the world.

Life lab Lessons

• How often do you tap your creative resources?
• Do your ideas sometimes surprise you?
• Encourage others to share their creative ideas.
• Merge your creativity with that of others in a spirit of cooperation.
• Create ways to build a better sense of community.

~A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language~ W.H. Auden

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. Glad you remembered.
JOE: How could I forget that you are the muse of epic poetry and that this is National Poetry Month?
CALLIOPE: Bravo. What are you doing to celebrate my month?
JOE: I have never been much of a poet, but I did organize an open reading at GO ART! this Friday in honor of you and your sister muses. Norm Davis, editor of Hazmat Review and a poet, will host the event.
CALLIOPE: Tell me more.
JOE: Area poets are invited share their work with others seeking poetic inspiration.
CALLIOPE: Tell me about Auden's quote.
JOE: I chose it because I don't feel I have the patience to concentrate fully on poetry, I do appreciate the care poets take with their words. That much has been an inspiration to me.
CALLIOPE: Glad we could brighten your life a little.
JOE: Thank you. Talk with you later.

Standing on one leg

JOE: Good afternoon, Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good afternoon, Joe. You were going to tell me about your next project.
JOE: A literary one, but a bit out of my league. It being National Poetry Month, I was asked to develop an appropriate program at GO ART!.
CALLIOPE: What did you come up with?
JOE: I invited a prominent poet of my acquaintance to make an appearance, but alas he was too busy this month.
CALLIOPE: And your plan B?
JOE: I decided on an open poetry reading toward the end of the month hosted by Norm Davis whom I have known for many years.
CALLIOPE: What do you expect to happen?
JOE: I’m not sure. I don’t recall one ever taking place in Batavia before.  It should be an interesting experience.  Talk with you Friday.

Jackson Square

~The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.~
Albert Einstein

Recently I attended a planning meeting for this summer’s Batavia Ramble. I once thought this was a gathering of Country-Western bands. Then I discovered that bands plan to grace us with all sorts of music. As those who attended the meeting shared their excitement and ideas, I learned of other possibilities as well. I was suddenly more interested in the whole undertaking.

Artists will be showing their works. Children will explore craft projects. Crafters will share and demonstrate their skills and wares. Other artists will be invited to sketch the festivities live. Street performers may well dot the landscape.

The discussion captured my imagination. I envisioned our community coming together to share our collective creativity. Many creative efforts these days are geared toward advertising and efforts to get people to part with their money. I learned that attendance at the Ramble will be free of charge. None of the organizers or performers will be paid for their efforts. Everyone involved is motivated by their love of their particular art and their wish to share it with others rather than an interest in making money.

For days after the meeting, I thought again and again about the growing tendency to grab what we want for ouselves despite our neighbor’s needs. Here is a group of people sharing their creativity with no expectation of financial reward. Perhaps the world community situation is not as dire as I thought.

These days I see a great gulf between creative people and their audience. We listen to music on CD’s or MP3 players, buy books on the Internet, find craftwork in catalogs and dine in chain restaurants. How often do we have a chance to meet artists face to face? Can we even imagine it? I wonder how much creative energy stirs in people or remains dormant around the world. Once people shared their stories, music, crafts and meals with each other for the pure joy of doing so. My guess is that they still do, at least to some extent.

The potential remains for artists to share freely of themselves and for the rest of us to encounter them in person at least until they become famous. See how you can express your own creativity and get in touch with others’ creativity.

Technology has allowed us to connect with the world and with each other much quicker than we could in the past. But it has made our communication more impersonal in the process. Perhaps it is time for us to reconnect with each other on a fully human level.

Life Lab Lessons
 What is your talent?
 How often do you freely share it with others?
 What talents of others do you appreciate?
 Find a way to share more of yourself.
 Make sure you show your appreciation of others’ talent.

Bird Feeders

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE:  Good morning Joe. How is this week going so far?
JOE: For the first time in a while last Monday, I woke up feeling some stress with all I had to work on during the week.
CALLIOPE: And this morning?
JOE: No stress. I accomplished all I set out to do last week and feel quite relaxed today.
CALLIOPE: What’s going on in your writing world?
JOE: I finished reading two of Nancy Kress’s novels and got a good sense of how she puts into practice what she writes about construction and characters in fiction.
CALLIOPE: And next?
JOE: I found three of her books on the craft of writing and will start delving into them in more detail.
CALLIOPE: Sounds good. And GO ART?
JOE: All is well. My first program with Sybil Reisch is in order and I have started working on a poetry program for April, National Poetry Month. Talk with you on Friday.

Characters

March 12, 2010 at 8:02 am (Uncategorized) · Edit

Nineteenth Century Press

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. Is it Friday already?
JOE: It is. It’s nice to have some leisure this morning.
CALLIOPE: What have you been doing all week?
JOE: I am in the midst of developing four programs. The first is a conversation with Sybil Reisch, whom I mentioned before. Everything is finalized including publicity distribution.
CALLIOPE: What about your column?
JOE: The one on characters in our lives? That’s ready too.  I combined two meanings of character.
CALLIOPE: You mean an unusual person and the quality of stability?
JOE: Yes. I had no trouble writing it after the topic inspired me last Sunday.
CALLIOPE: When do I get to see it?
JOE: I’ll post it for you tomorrow. Until then.

Cellar Window

~There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you~ Maya Angelou

Joe: Good morning Calliope.
Calliope: Good morning Joe. You must be busy these days.
Joe: Indeed I am. But here I am. GO ART! is keeping me on my toes.
Calliope: Doing what ?
Joe: I started by helping out with small tasks and eventually got involved with redesigning our website.
Calliope: Mostly support work it seems.
Joe: Not entirely. I am also developing several projects. I alluded to one on Monday,  A Conversation with Sybil Reisch.
Calliope: How is it coming?
Joe: The basics are in place.  Now it’s time to work on publicity. I have a flyer and media release ready. Next is distribution.  I’ll get started with that on Tuesday.  I’ll get to work catching up on everything else this weekend. Talk to you on Monday.