The
Form of Matter is our second annual collaborative art and writing project
with The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art in Peekskill. Sponsored in
part by a grant from the Westchester Arts Council, it is being chaired by stage
director Mara Mills, who will co-direct January performances of the writers'
works along with Tom Kramer. This project follows the successful Image
& Script performances of last year.
The Form of Matter presents six 5-10 minute short poetry performances inspired by works of art in Origins, a group exhibition of art made with natural materials such as clay, ash, fiber, wood and soil. The 30 participating artists include Richard Long, Zhang Huan, Kiki Smith, and Daisy Youngblood. A call went out for poets to visit HVCCA in December to view the Origins exhibition, and those poets were asked to choose one of the sculptures to use as the inspiration for a poem or poems for one or multiple voices. Three poet-judges (Suzanne Cleary, Cindy Beer-Fouhy and Barbara Fischer) reviewed the submitted writing anonymously and selected poems to be performed on January 24 and 25 at HVCCA.
Performances
only:
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| Performance
with formal reception:
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Admission to performances is $15 for Writers’ Center and HVCCA members; $20 for the general public. Admission to the 6:00 pm January 24 performance with formal reception is $25 for Writers’ center and HVCCA members; $35 for the general public. For tickets, call 914-788-0100 or e-mail info@hvcca.org |
Each respective work of art will serve as a backdrop for each performance. The audience, which is limited to 30 people per showing, will move from one art work to the next as the performances progress. Seating is on the floor or standing. The performance schedule follows (additional performances will be added by demand.)
Daisy
Youngblood: Foreign Monkey, 1989 / Low fired clay 12 x 10 x 14”
Courtesy
of Collection Lisa and Stuart Ginsberg
Project
organizer and stage director Mara Mills has been a professional storyteller,
stage director, producer and arts educator for more than twenty years. She is
the author of Rites of Passage, an integrated curriculum on script writing
(National Middle School's Association Journal, February 1990), and a chapter on
children as storytellers in the text Integrating Curriculum through the Arts,
as well as a book of poetry, Ashes and Tea. Recently she worked with domestic
abuse survivors to create a choral script. Mara created drama departments for
The Mead School in Greenwich and The Learning Community in Westport and was the
artistic director of the successful Herbert Mark Newman Theatre from 1991 – 2004.
She received the 1996 award for outstanding service to theatre from the national
theatre association and the 2007 Cab Calloway award for her work in theatre in
Westchester.
Stage director Tom Kramer has directed numerous performances including Our Town; 1776; Gypsy; The Grapes of Wrath; Sunday in the Park with George; Chicago; A Little Night Music; Love, Valour, Compassion; The Miracle Worker, and Fiddler on the Roof. He has also acted in various roles and is playwright of Ain’t Murder a Drag with Jamie Whitfield and Celluloid Ghosts.
Programs and events of The Hudson Valley Writers' Center are made possible, in part, by grants from the Bydale Foundation, the David G. Taft Foundation, the Morgan Stanley Foundation, the Orchard Foundation, the Thendara Foundation, and the William E. Robinson Foundation; with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and by the Basic Program Support Grant of the Westchester Arts Council with funds from Westchester County Government.