MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM at the Beck Center for the Arts

MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM at the Beck Center for the Arts
is playing at the Beck Center from January 30 through February 22, 2009. Written by the late, great August Wilson, this play is a powerful theater experience, one not afraid to be as funny and lyrical as it is angry, even enraged. MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM will celebrate you up, make you laugh, and make you cry.
The Beck honors this year's passing of August Wilson and the 25th anniversary of the Broadway production. Website at: http://www.beckcenter.org.


GROUP SALES RATES are available for groups of 13 or more.


SAVE $10 per ticket OR MORE, with larger groups.


Call Linda Hefner at the Beck Center for the Arts at 216/521-2540 or email her at lhefner@beckcenter.org.


Summary of MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM


In the play, Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett Rainey, better known as Chicago blues legend Ma Rainey sets out to record her latest album. The scene is in Chicago in the 1920s, and Ma Rainey and her band are facing the historic exploitation of black recording artists by white producers. Generational and racial tensions escalate among Ma Rainey’s band and producers.


One of the first black singers to get a recording contract, Ma Rainey has become a diva, a temperamental star, and a woman to be reckoned with. In 1923 with “Moonshine Blues”, Paramount billed her as the “Mother of the Blues”There’s good evidence that she did name the style of music “the blues” which she molded out of the improvised music and sung speech vocal inflections known as “bluing the voice”. The play is set in 1927, near the height of Ma Rainey’s success. This is the story of a night in a Chicago recording studio as Rainey, her entourage, and her band members smoke, joke, talk, and fight about the music they play, the music they want to play, and the road they’ve travelled, from church socials and whorehouses in places that are not even small time, all the way to Chicago.


The commercial forces that have made these musicians successful, that have promised them escape, are the same forces that make harsh demands and warp their lives. Every character in Wilson’s plays wants to sing his or her own song, if only metaphorically. Ma Rainey wrote and popularized many standard blues songs, pioneered recording black music, and invented her own stage devices and shows out of the revival tradition. She’s a powerful, successful woman who says:


“White folks don’t understand about the blues. They hear it come out, but they don’t understand how it got there. They don’t understand that ‘s life’s way of talking. You don’t sing to feel better. You sing ‘cause that’s a way of understanding life.”





The Beck Center for the Arts
17801 Detroit Road
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
(216) 521-2540
www.beckcenter.org


Special Group Rates For You!

How does it work?
Get a group of people together to buy 13 or more tickets then Beck Center will knock $10 off each ticket's price.

Here's what you have to do to get group rates:
- pick a show you all want to see,
- collect the money from the people in the group,
- send a check to Beck Center,
- and you've qualified as a group!

Don't have 13 people immediately in mind?
That's ok -- friends, family, employees, employers, strangers off the street - so long as you're willing to collect the money from them and send a single check to Beck Center, you'll get the group rate.

Can't agree on one night for the whole group?
No problem - everyone can come on different nights, so long as they pick those nights ahead of time when they pay you so you can let us know what night they've chosen. That way we can send you the right number of tickets for the right nights.


Where will your seats be?
Your seats will be "Best Available" on the day you notify us you're a group. You can also talk to one of the friendly Beck Center Box Office staff at 216/521-2540 to arrange for your preferred seating.

Got more than 13?
Great! We've got bigger discounts! Our best rate? Bring 251 people and get adult tickets that are normally $31 for only $12!

What are the Group Rates?

Group Size Adult Tickets Senior Tickets Student Tickets
13-20 $21 $18 $14
21-50 $18 $16 $13
Over 50 $16 $14 $12
Over 100 $14 $12 $10
Over 250 $12 $10 $ 8

Regular Price $31 $28 $20
Your Savings $10-19 $10-18 $6-12

After you send in your check, we'll send you the tickets in the mail for you to distribute to your group however you choose.

This offer is good for any show this season.


You can find our season at www.beckcenter.org

Questions?
Call Linda Hefner, Patron Services Manager, at the Beck Center at
(216) 521-2540, Ext.

housing project by Candy Depew

Opening Reception
Thursday, January 22, 2009
5:30 - 8:00 p.m.
The Design Center
Philadelphia University
4200 Henry Avenue
Free and open to the public

housing project runs January 23 - April 3, 2009


This project reflects my itinerant lifestyle over the past five years. During this span of time, I traveled and participated in artist residences, including one at Kohler Kitchen and Bath Company where I designed vitreous china sinks. I also became a professional house sitter for various friends and relatives across the country and around Europe. I tended to the domesticities of their lives, all the while without a place that I, myself, could actually call home.

In this exhibition at The Design Center - now a gallery, but once a home - I explore ideas of house and home, creating a site-specific installation that incorporates designs I developed in my travels, items from The Center's historic textile collection, new fabrics printed at Philadelphia University, and objects made specifically for this show - clothing, a mural, porcelain jewelry, soft furnishings, and window treatments.

Come explore my "latest home within a home" in housing project.

- Candy Depew


candy depew
candy@candycoated.org
www.candycoated.org


the StudioSchool of decorative art & design
@ the candycoated center in old city
118 N. 3rd Street, 4th floor
philadelphia, pa 19106 USA


215.498.2153

Jan exhibition at Asterisk

Jan exhibition at Asterisk
Raw Umber
“raw methodology”
Antonia
Jody Hawk
Joe Day
Bernadette Glorioso
Steve Csejtey
Jan 9, 2009
Show runs through Feb 7, 2009

Hello everyone!

I am sorry for the mass email but I want to get this word out as far and wide as possible.

While on my residency in Dresden I had the fantastic opportunity to get to know Iduna Bohning. Iduna runs the gallery Kunsthaus Raskolnikow as well as facilitates all the visiting artists from Ohio. She was an amazing resource as well as a friend while I was a guest in her city. Now I am hoping to help her in return.

She will be coming to Columbus in June of 2009. Melissa Vogley-Woods (an artist and organizer of the art competition during the Ohio Fair) is trying to bring Iduna over as a judge for the art competition. In order to do this she needs to find other paid opportunities for Iduna to help pay for her stay. Iduna runs a contemporary gallery in Dresden; she writes grants, works directly with artists to help them realize their projects, collaborates with other local and international art organizations on larger projects, and has amazing insights on how to make things happen. She would be a fantastic guest speaker or possibly a guest curator? Any ideas anyone has would be amazing.

If I have not sent this to someone you think could help, please forward this on. You can either contact me or email Melissa directly- her contact information is listed in the trail of emails attached to this message. Iduna's CV is attached.

This woman went out of her way to make my stay in Dresden a fantastic experience and I would really love to help her come visit us. If you could please let us know of anything that she could be involved in Melissa and I would be very grateful.

Thank you so much!! I hope everyone's Holidays have been relaxing and peaceful. Take care and I look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,
Susan Vincent

SPACES provides a venue for newly-emerging artists living and working in Northeast Ohio

For Immediate Release
High resolution images available upon request

SPACES provides a venue for newly-emerging artists living and working in Northeast Ohio

(Cleveland) SPACES presents twelve artists who are in on a secret about the Rust Belt: It is a vibrant place for creative thinkers to work and live. Northeast Ohio offers rare opportunities for exposure; allows artists to play a direct role in the economic vitality of the community; and is an inexpensive alternative to major metropolises outside of Ohio.

SPACES recognizes the talents of artists in our backyard, side yard, front yard, and driveway in Flash Forward, an exhibition featuring Northeast Ohio college graduates who jump creative fences in the contemporary art scene while continuing to live and work in the region. The exhibition opens with a free public reception on January 30 from 6–9 p.m. and will be on view through April 3, 2009. Admission to the gallery during hours of operation is free and open to the public.

The curatorial committee is comprised of Northeast Ohio artists and art educators: Gretchen Goss, Qian Li, Stephen Litchfield, and Laila Voss. The committee selected each artist based on work that displayed great promise of forging the art landscape of the 21st century. The committee writes, “[ … ] we intend not only to provide a venue for this work, but also to give the viewing public a sense of the art-making strategies that will give form to future art work from this region.”

SPACES’ Executive Director Christopher Lynn writes in his introduction to the catalog, “The Rust Belt continues to tighten as industries head elsewhere or disappear and cities fumble for new identities and sources of revenue. By creating opportunities for individuals and valuing their social contributions, a gravitational pull can be instilled into a region. …These artists represent the core around which cultural and economic volume can accumulate to revitalize our region.”

Artists include Jon Nathaniel Cotterman (Cleveland Institute of Art ‘07), Dragana Crnjak (Myers School of Art, University of Akron ’02), Yumiko Goto (Cleveland Institute of Art ’04), Ann Hanrahan (Kent State University ‘07), Mike Jones (Myers School of Art, University of Akron ’04), Jaime Kennedy (The Ohio State University ’06) & Kelly Urquhart (Miami University ’07), Amy Kreiger (Youngstown State University ’06), Peter Philip Luckner (University of Akron ’04), Lorri Ott (Kent State University ’04), Glenn Ratusnik (Kent State University ’03), and Jennifer Schulman (Kent State University ’06).

Flash Forward includes a full-color catalog featuring an essay by guest writer Kevin Concannon, Associate Professor of Art History at Myers School of Art, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio. Funding for the catalog is provided by the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.

Also on view:

SWAP: Leonardo Marz (Monterrey, Mexico) joins SPACES as an artist-in-residence (December 17, 2008 through February 11, 2009) to create a new body of work and engage with the Cleveland community. Marz has worked with a number of professionals and specialists from diverse disciplines, including those outside of the arts field, his own audience, and other artists, to explore issues of production and consumption. Marz’s work is on view January 30 through April 3, 2009.

Marz has won numerous awards, including Young Creators Grants in 2006 and 2008 in Mexico. His work was recently included in the Istanbul Biennale, and he has exhibited all over Mexico. His art has also been shown at the Museo de Las Americas in Denver and Chelsea Gallery Space in New York.

SPACES gratefully acknowledges the National Endowment for the Arts and the Nimoy Foundation for their generous funding.

SPACELab: Eileen Doktorski presents Oblivion (on view January 30 through February 27, 2009), an installation that examines the current state of consumer culture through juxtaposition of the forces of nature versus the will of man. Following Doktorski’s SPACELab exhibition, Yoshiko Kanai transforms the experimental project space into an installation that explores emotions connected to the familial archetype and the inevitability of change experienced in the life of an immigrant. Kanai’s installation, Listen to Utopia, is on view March 6 through April 3, 2009.

Related Events:
Friday, January 30, 2009, 6–9pm
Opening Reception
Free and open to the public

Major support for SPACES comes from The Cleveland Foundation; Donna and Stewart Kohl; Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation; The George Gund Foundation; Kulas Foundation; John P. Murphy Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; Nimoy Foundation; Ohio Arts Council; and Process Creative Studios. SPACES gratefully acknowledges the citizens of Cuyahoga County for their support through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Julia Bunn BFA Show

Hello all, I invite you to come enjoy the exciting opening night of my BFA show! The show will be located at the WE Gallery above Mocha Maiden coffee house and wine bar in historic downtown Akron behind Crave restaurant/bar on the corner of Market and N. High St. The opening will be January 10 from 6-9 pm, so come enjoy all of the very large (5 to 6 feet) paintings I have been working on of female portraits for the duration of my last semester at Ohio's University of Akron. More show information and painting image are on the following attachments. I hope to see you there and have a safe and happy new year! Julia Bunn

Happy 2009 From PINKY'S DAILY PLANNER

Happy 2009 From



PINKY'S DAILY PLANNER!



(can't see our flyer? click here to view it online.)

http://pinkysdailyplanner.com/CALENDAR_PAGE.htm



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