Today’s episode is the second part of a panel discussion that was held this past April as party of our Humanities Bridge programing and that focused on issues raised by Perishable’s production of Hedwig & the Angry Inch. Which, if you missed it, will be making an return performance this coming spring and you won’t want to miss it a second time!
Show Notes:
Matthew Lawrence (Curator, World of Queer Craft)
Matthew Lawrence is a blogger, curator, and pop music enthusiast based in Providence, Rhode Island. In his apartment gallery, Uptown Top Rankin, he has organized several queer group art events, and his most recent show, World of Queercraft, took place in October at Craftland.
Besides queer art events, Matthew also runs Not About The Buildings, a literary events organization founded in 2006 to remind people about the awesomeness of libraries. He has hosted spelling bees and marathon readings of Edith Wharton novels, and every Sunday morning he can be heard hosting a Top 40 pop music countdown on a local community radio station. In 2009, Providence Monthly called him one of the city’s greatest do-gooders.
Matthew writes for the Providence Daily Dose and Carnal Nation, and his writing has also appeared in $pread Magazine. He has exhibited photography in Providence Art Windows, and his video work has appeared at the Homo-A-Gogo festival.
Sarah Kern and Noah Anacleto (Promoters, Paint it Pink)
During his seven years in Providence, self-described “queerdo,” Noah Anacleto has lamented the dwindling number of venues where local artists and musicians can play, perform, and exhibit their work in Providence’s Downcity “Arts” District.
Anacleto was also dissatisfied with the lack of a self-identified local Queer community and culture within his very gay city. Paint it Pink,
spearheaded by Anacleto and Reba Mitchell (Made in Mexico, Blood Sacrifice) was the antidote; a project that has sought to expand the artistic scope of Providence’s Queer arts scene while addressing the absence of performance spaces for all musicians and performance artists.
Anacleto and Mitchell, with the help of Josh Kemp (Mahi Mahi, Chinese Stars), have begun to cultivate a community to unify, celebrate, and
revitalize providence’s Queer culture and independent arts and music scene by curating performances, exhibits, events, and other happenings in under-used spaces.
A hugely small and strange city, Providence has intrigued and embraced Sarah Kern during her past four years as an undergrad at RISD (Illustration ’10). During her time in the city, she revived and revamped the RISD LGBTQ student group, now known as the Queer Student Association, to facilitate a more inclusive community at the college. As a staff member of RISD’s Office of Public Engagement, and as part of the Paint it Pink team, Kern has worked to define her creative practice as one that involves a sense of place and people.
Elmo Terry-Morgan (Producer, The Black Lavender Experience)
Elmo Terry Morgan is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Theatre and Performance Studies, Artistic Director of Rites and Reason Theatre and a faculty member of the Brown/Trinity Rep Graduate Program in Theater Arts. His course, Black Lavender, provided the seed that has become the Black Lavender Experience, a symposium for Black, Queer playwrights and Theater artists. Professor Terry-Morgan’s areas of specialization are African-American Theatre, African-American Folk Traditions and Cultural Expressions, and Playwriting. Before coming to Brown Professor Terry-Morgan was a long time associate director and playwright at the National Black Theatre of Harlem, NY. He also served as writer and director of the AUDELCO Awards show, the Recognition Awards for Excellence in Black Theatre, NYC, for 10 years.
Micah Salkind (DJ/Promoter/MA Candidate in Public Humanities)
Micah Salkind is a Providence Rhode Island-based writer, DJ and sound designer. As Director of Public Programs at The Providence Black Repertory Company between 2005 and 2008, he helped to establish Providence Sound Session, the organization’s free/low-cost Afro-Diasporic music festival, as one of Providence’s most anticipated summer celebrations. Today the festival is widely attended by families and youth from all of Providence’s neighborhoods.
Salkind currently works with the Managing Director of Rites and Reason Theatre at Brown University, where he is pursuing a Masters degree at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage. His scholarly work on Afro-Diasporic cultural production, which has recently included articles South African popular music and global House dance culture, informs the collaborative ethos of his activism.
Show Links:
Mevio’s Music Alley
Digitube
Rhode Island ADDD Fund
Rhode Island Council for the Humanities
Donate through Network for Good
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