When Erik Williams grabs his camera and journeys through the streets of his hometown of Hartford, he never knows who or what he will encounter. “Street photography is an uncontrolled environment,” says Williams, who also goes by the professional name Eaze. “You have to deal with a lot. The studio is a well-lit space and very controlled. But on the street, out in the elements, the weather can change, anything can happen. It is more of a risk.”

In Williams’ case, the risk has paid off with an artistic reward. On November 16th, Hartford’s Real Art Ways opened Erik Williams: A Sad and Beautiful World, the 33-year-old photographer’s first solo exhibition at the prestigious gallery. For Williams, the show is a special vindication of his career: he traded in the life of a construction worker six years ago to pursue a full-time visual arts career that has spanned fashion, event, and merchandise photography in addition to his fine art output.

The new exhibition offers a stunning display of Williams’ view of the grittier side of Connecticut’s capital city captured through an often-harsh, black-and-white spectrum. “I feel that a good image can get overlooked with too much color or saturation,” he explained on his preference for monochromatic photography. “When you strip away the color, the image comes through.”

Many of the Hartford people featured in Williams’ work clearly face life as a daily struggle, and they view their surroundings in various levels of ruefulness, numbness, bravado, and hope. Some sit in isolation, glued to their iPhones and seemingly unaware of the world around them. Others look beyond Williams’ lens, as if scanning the horizon for a better day. And some give the camera their complete and undivided attention, flashing smiles and finger signals in mute proclamation that they can withstand whatever life hurls at them.

“Ninety percent of my work is taken on the fly,” Williams says. “I just walk up to complete strangers and start a conversation. I see the power and humanity in real life, and I am always out with my camera.”

Williams is proud to see Hartford’s full spectrum of personalities and streetscapes on display. “I had to document it,” he says. “It might not be ideal for most, but it is home to me. I wanted to document the city and show a side of life that does not get exposure.”

After the RAW exhibit runs its course in January 2018, the photographer is considering travel to widen his artistic scope. He also is mulling a turn as a teacher to inspire the next generation of photographers. Citing his own career shift from blue-collar to fine art, he wants to encourage people to go after their creative goals while time is still their ally. “There is no reset button, no second chance in life.” 

Erik Williams–photographer
Hartford, Connecticut
Website
Instagram

All photos by Erik Williams.

The post Taking Aim at Hartford appeared first on Take Magazine.

Even though we at Take get to look at art made by different New England artists all day long, we are still regularly, pleasantly surprised by the work of someone new—or several someones, as you’ll see here in our third annual listing of artists to watch.

We asked curators from esteemed galleries and museums to tell us about artists they’ve been especially impressed by lately who deserve a wider audience, and were thrilled to get input from Trevor Smith, curator of the Present Tense, and Lydia Gordon, assistant curator for exhibitions and research, both at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts; Elizabeth Spavento, visual arts programmer at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine; Lindsey Stapleton, codirector of GRIN in Providence, Rhode Island; Suzette McAvoy, executive director and chief curator at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine; Will K. Wilkins, executive director of Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut; and Alan Chong, director and CEO of the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire.

With such an illustrious panel, we know you’ll want to keep an eye on these artists in the coming year—and beyond.

Nicole Duennebier

Nicole Duennebier, Still Life with Meat Pile, 2017, acrylic on panel, 24 × 30 in. Photo by Christian Skorik

A bona fide New Englander, Duennebier was born in Hartford, went to college in Maine, and now lives in Boston. “Riffing off the formal tradition of Dutch still lifes, Duennebier is obsessed with excess and growing, throbbing masses,” says Gordon. “Yet, she spends a great amount of time on delicate surface treatments, complete with glimmers of gold and super fine detail. They’re repellant and beautiful at the same time.”

Duennebier has been experimenting with making clay models to help her visualize specific forms and textures in her paintings. The results of this process, including a brighter color palette, will be on display in a solo show at 13FOREST Gallery in Arlington, Massachusetts, in May.

Heather McPherson

Heather McPherson, Bupropion, 2016, painted chiffon, cast epoxy, drawing pad, 36 × 20 in. Photo by Karen Philippe

Although she freely incorporates colorful sheets of chiffon, puddles of clear epoxy, and plexiglass sheets into her work, “Heather is a painter inside and out, whether she’s making traditional paintings or animating a video—it doesn’t seem to matter,” says Stapleton. “Her language is recognizable as her own, full of history and self-reference.”

McPherson, who is based in Providence, makes decisions through the physical, experimental process of making, but that’s not to imply her work is only about mixing materials. In the pieces she’s currently creating, she’s exploring the ways art has been used throughout history as a spiritual tool.

“Last time we were in her studio, she had an enviable pile of massive primed canvases on her wall,” Stapleton says. “Something astounding is going to be on those bad boys next time we’re there, I just know it.”

Dell M. Hamilton

Dell M. Hamilton, To Haunt Is To Love: Reina #6, from Fallen Angels: Making Sense Out of Nothing, 2014–present, color film and unique digital scan on paper, 25 × 37 in. Photo courtesy of the artist

A true interdisciplinarian, Boston-based Hamilton has been tackling topics as diverse as the United States’ influence on Honduras and the history of desegregation in Boston through performance, writing, installation, curation, and more. Gordon recalls, “I had the pleasure of witnessing Hamilton perform at Boston University’s 808 Gallery. Sharing a contemporary response to historical narratives steeped in collective trauma and memory, her gestural performance involved thinking, making, and doing at the service of imagining a better future. It was really a transformative viewing experience.”

At press time, Hamilton was in the middle of producing a body of two-dimensional work called Punta: Pregunta (translated as Point: Question). She’s exploring the intricate tangles of family identity, trauma, and personal neuroses through large-scale, flat, mixed-media artwork, though she isn’t sure how two-dimensional they will stay.

Sarah Tortora

Sarah Tortora, Last Bastion of the Loser, 2016, steel, felt, cotton, hardware, 54 × 46 × 72 in. Photo courtesy of the artist

Vermont-based Tortora “is a machine, and her sculptures are the real deal,” Stapleton says. “Her craft and execution is always impeccable. She was making pretty massive work last year, but we’ve seen some small, intimate pieces on her social media that look outstanding.” (Look for her on Instagram.)

Past work includes painted wood wall pieces that resemble letter forms from an unknown language, and full-size abstractions that hint at marching soldiers or classical architecture. “One of my favorite things about her process is how she titles her work,” Stapleton continues. Titles such as Septum, Pallbearers, and Power Bottom “really solidify each sculpture’s identity in a way I haven’t experienced,” she explains. For 2018, she’s developing a new series of sculptures titled Witness Mark, which will reference the way museums illustrate geological time.

Belleau + Churchill

Belleau + Churchill, The Red Ghost, part of Fantasia Colorado, 2016, mixed media, 18 x 132 x 72 in. Photo by Caleb Churchill

This artist pair from Providence was nominated by two members of our panel. Raina Belleau and Caleb Churchill “make interesting work about history and the environment. They are sweet individuals and masterful craftspeople,” says Spavento.

“We are really into how their projects are visually interesting and accessible while ultimately being heavily research-based,” adds Stapleton. “The work is fun, but still challenging.” For a 2016 installation titled Fantasia Colorado, the pair created memorabilia such as “vintage” postcards, handmade rugs, and historic portrait busts to re-create and commemorate an odd piece of American history: a failed attempt by the U.S. Army to use camels as pack animals in the Civil War; the ultimate release of the animals into the wild; and the terrifying, truth-stretching stories of camel–human encounters that ensued.

“2017 has been a lot of residency and research work, and we’re really excited to see what comes out of that time spent in development,” Stapleton says. Indeed; as of press time, the two were planning to study the concept of utopias—and learn Esperanto, a language created in the 1800s in the optimistic hope of unifying the world—at the Wassaic Artist Residency in Wassaic, New York, in October. 2018 will see their second solo exhibition at GRIN in Providence.

Hong Hong

Hong Hong, Passage II, 2017, cellophane, wood, steel, 8 x 228 x 144 in. Photo courtesy of the artist

Born in China, Hong immigrated to the United States at the age of nine and now calls Hartford home. Working with materials as humble as mulberry fiber, mylar, Scotch tape, and fishing line, Hong creates large-scale pieces that suggest, interact with, and (when made with mylar) literally reflect their environment. She’s been making massive sheets of paper—as tall as 12 feet—using buckets and water pistols to manipulate pulp on homemade screens. Far from being precious about her finished pieces, Hong has no qualms about taking work that’s been shown and resoaking it, turning the paper back into a slurry of fiber that can be reused and remade. The work becomes cyclical, self-feeding. Wilkins says, “Hong Hong delves into the mysteries of deep time, even as her work is imbued with the sensuous presence of here and now.”

Hong had a solo show at Real Art Ways that ran from August through October, and she has an ongoing relationship with the Hartford arts organization. “We are commissioning a new work titled Everlasting Ephemera, which she will be working on during the coming year,” says Wilkins. The piece is a yearlong investigation of the temporal nature of human perception, and how those parameters affect our environment and our culture.

Farzaneh and Bahareh Safarani

Farzaneh and Bahareh Safarani, a still from Cocoon, performed at the Boston Center for the Arts, 2015. Photo by Hannah Bates

Having trained as painters at the University of Tehran, twin sisters Farzaneh and Bahareh have been branching out into video and performance while they continue their studies in Boston. The Safaranis use their twin-ness to full advantage, acting as each other’s mirrors or as dual selves on stage. “In their melding of meticulous realistic painting, extraordinary performative discipline, and the most exquisitely subtle use of video, the Safarani sisters create an uncanny sense of intimacy,” says Smith.

And it is truly a melding. The two decide which form their art takes—painting, live performance, both—by determining which will explain their idea better. They’re now hard at work on a series of paintings that each act as a paragraph in a larger story, but performance will certainly be a part of their future. In 2018, you can see their internationally recognized work in Los Angeles, Berlin, Armenia, and Iran.

Emilie Stark-Menneg

Emilie Stark-Menneg, Big Kitty Picture Show!, 2016, acrylic, oil, house paint, and sand on canvas, 70 x 105 in. Photo courtesy of the artist

Stark-Menneg was enthusiastically chosen by two of our curators. Spavento says, “Her paintings are delightful, expressive and totally singular in their vision and content. I would recommend her for everything—I’m so in love with her work.” McAvoy agrees, “Stark-Menneg is one of the freshest and most exciting young painters I’ve encountered in a while. Her work is smart, sassy, inventive, and skillful all at once, plus it is a hell of a lot of fun.”

A Massachusetts native, Stark-Menneg was based in Brunswick, Maine, until recently, when she relocated to Providence to enter an MFA program at RISD. At school, she plans to continue to explore ways to depict the shared energy found between people and places, and to examine how technology distorts and relocates our physical bodies.

Wang Yefeng (Frank)

Wang Yefeng, a screenshot from Drifting Stages, 2016, dimensions variable

Wang is a digital media artist whose surreal, disorienting animation should really be seen in motion to be fully appreciated. In one of his video pieces, generic, vaguely Asian MIDI music backs a tableau of Hooters waitresses with C-3PO heads holding meat grinders that cascade blood onto a plastic toy figure of a man in a suit, who’s lying in a bathtub with pigs’ feet, and . . . well, it’s better to visit his website and see it for yourself.

As a Rhode Island–based digital media artist with a sculptural background, Wang has been recently rediscovering his love of working with physical materials, including 3D-printed objects. Over the coming year, he plans to experiment further with mixing multiple disciplines to discover the best ways to make his ideas real.

“He’s making work unlike what we typically see in New England, probably in part because he splits his time between the United States and China,” Stapleton says. “There’s always a narrative—usually a surprising, semi-autobiographical one—behind his work, but it never gets too personal. There’s reservation in his lavishness, and now that he’s back in the States for a while, we’re looking forward to what he will come up with.”

Vivian Beer

Vivian Beer, Forth Bench, 2011, stainless steel, pure pigment, ferrocement, 96 x 48 x 48 in. Photo by Alison Swiatocha

While not unknown to us—Take profiled Beer last December, following her win on Ellen’s Design Challenge, a furniture designers’ competition à la Project Runway—Beer’s work isn’t as well known as it should be. “Vivian Beer is an exciting local artist who is pushing the boundaries of furniture making,” says Chong. “Inspired by various forms, from airplanes to high heels, her industrial chic work is both strong and beautiful.”

The streamlined, retro-industrial shapes in Beer’s work are clearly informed by her 2014 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship at the National Air and Space Museum—a fitting place for an artist working primarily in materials such as steel, cement, and automotive paint. “Her inventive and stylish forms have crossover appeal between functional furniture and sculptural works of art,” continues Chong.

Over the last year, Beer has been sharing her appealing design skills through teaching residencies and public art commissions across the country. She also moved her furniture studio from Manchester to Pembroke, New Hampshire, where she plans to build out a space for holding design workshops. As for the work itself, Beer will be developing a line of limited-production furniture (all of her previous pieces are one-of-a-kind) in the spring.

top image: L to R: Wang Yefeng, Dell M. Hamilton, Farzaneh Safarani, and Bahareh Safarani. Photo by Izzy Berdan; composite image by Aaron Taylor-Waldman

The post Artists to Watch in 2018 appeared first on Take Magazine.

“There is power in art,” writes Connecticut’s director of culture, Kristina Newman-Scott, in the strategic plan she helped create for the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development’s Office of the Arts when she first took over in 2015. “Its power comes in its messages. Its power comes in its ability to agitate for social change. Communities convene because of the power of art. The voiceless find words through the power of art. There is power in the emotional reactions art evokes in people. There is power in the reflective spaces art creates. And there is power in the way art allows people of all backgrounds to relate to each other.”

We asked Newman-Scott to tell us about how she hopes to speak art-truth to power as she implements this strategic plan.

Take: You were an artist in Jamaica. How does being an artist inform your work as director of culture?
Kristina Newman-Scott: In a developing country like Jamaica, you really have to think about how you’re going to use this [artistic] skill set to make a living. Because I was able to invest in my voice and the thing that spoke to my heart, it gave me the confidence about where I could use this skill set. It’s not just the act of painting: it’s about building relationships with people. If you know how to speak “artist,” you know how to go further and deeper. It let me develop programs that I knew—even if I grew up in Jamaica—were relevant to art students in America. No one is teaching us [in art college] about pricing or how to market yourself. I knew those things firsthand. I realized, especially when I got into government, that this wasn’t commonplace.

T: How did becoming a U.S. citizen in 2013 influence your work as an artist and in your job?
KN-M: In America, a lot of our efforts when engaging with immigrant communities are built on American formulas. Because I grew up in a different country, I’m always curious how it works for different people. I created the first human-centered strategic plan for Connecticut. [The plan, known as READI, uses five guidelines—relevance, equity, access, diversity, and inclusion—as required criteria for all policy and programs.] Our population is changing quickly; I want to know what works for us here and how we fit folks into it, but also how we can challenge ourselves about how we think and develop our programs.

We will not be investing any dollars in Connecticut that are not aligned with this plan. Our office is really challenging itself every step of the way. Are we leading by example? How are we responsible for things that are not working well? This comes from my background in Jamaica, being an artist, and my curiosity growing up. My father was a Jewish black; I was raised Roman Catholic. I am quite the mongrel, as we would say in Jamaica. I want to make sure others have a space at the table, not just major thought leaders. The kid who creates art on Saturdays and works three jobs . . . that kid deserves a place at the table, too.

T: In a 2015 TEDx talk, you quoted your grandmother saying to you in Jamaican, “What is fi yu cyaan un fi yu,” which means “If it belongs to you, it is yours already.” How have you made this job yours?
KN-M: I came into this job, and there was no job description. I knew there were certain things that had to be done for federal funding. That’s where you start. I‘ve been able to make it mine with things like READI. I’ve given space to my team to push back and come up with ideas that might be horrible—but that’s great. I celebrate risk and failure, because that’s where innovation lives. Just because of that same curiosity, I can push back at my team, too. As you can imagine in government, you do something one way, and that’s how it’s done. I don’t care what we do; I want to know why we do it. I like to unpack and rebuild. I’m not afraid of finding issues and problems.

T: What do you hope to accomplish in your tenure?
K-NM: When I came into this office, there was no social media on the historic preservation side. My staff was swamped. Two years in, we’re on every social media you could want to be on. We do e-newsletters. We host statewide conferences for the arts and historic preservation, too. I’m committed to serving my community the best way I can. The fact that READI is something that is real and tangible and guides how we function—I’m so proud of that. I’m bringing READI to historic preservation, too. We’ve got to think about how all that we’re doing aligns with social justice. It’s all about leading from a human-centered point of view.

T: What is the role of the arts and preservation in our society, especially in times of political crisis?KN-M: We’re not going to be remembered for trash pickup. When people are studying our culture hundreds of years from now, it’s going to be about how we communicated with each other. The culture and the arts are what’s going to continue our story of humankind. Arts and culture communicate in ways that the barriers of languages sometimes fall short in. When you go to foreign countries, one of the first things they’ll ask about is our entertainment. They’ll want to know about Beyoncé or some movie or artists. We go to places to enjoy culture. As we are trying to attract people to our state, they’re going to come because Connecticut is a place of great historical and cultural treasures.

Kristina Newman-Scott | Illustration by Brittany Loar

Kristina Newman-Scott – Connecticut’s Director of Culture
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The post #TakeAction: Power Move appeared first on Take Magazine.

It started as many of life’s greatest moments do: with the smell of bacon. Jacques Lamarre was at a book expo in New York City, browsing the new releases. And there he was, just hanging around in the small- and academic-press aisle—the best aisle—when he smelled it. Bacon.

“I was like, ‘That’s always of interest,’” says Lamarre. He followed the aroma to a feminist-press booth and it was fronted by the mono-monikered celebrity Chef Rossi, with a tray of peanut butter bacon sandwiches. She was signing her memoir, The Raging Skillet: The True Life Story of Chef Rossi, a Memoir with Recipes.

“I was standing in line with the book, reading the back of it,” Lamarre says. “And by the time I got up to talk to her, I said, ‘Would you be interested in seeing this become a play?’”

Chef Rossi, the muse behind Lamarre’s new play, The Raging Skillet.

When Lamarre moved to Hartford in 1990—he’d been offered a job at Hartford Stage—he fell in love with Hartford’s “tremendous art scene,” he says. Since then, he’s become a staple of that scene. In addition to Hartford Stage, he’s worked with the Hartford Symphony, the Mark Twain House, Real Art Ways, The Wadsworth Atheneum, among others. And he’s an accomplished playwright—The Raging Skillet is his 12th full-length play, and his third for TheaterWorks, where it will premiere on July 20.

Photo of (l to r) Ronn Carroll and Harry Bouvy in Christmas on the Rocks, photo by Lanny Nagler.

Lamarre calls his latest play “the first punk-rock, lesbian, Jewish catering show.” The Raging Skillet, which Lamarre worked on closely with Chef Rossi (and which will star Mary Testa and Barbara Rosenblat, whom you’ll recognize from Netflix’s Orange is the New Black), honors the book’s quirky format, with recipes actually being made on stage.

“It’s going to be very fun,” says Lamarre. “There’s going to be a lot of music, cooking on stage, comedy, and mama drama.” Chef Rossi herself is coming to Hartford to see her story on the big stage, too. (“She is beyond excited about this,” Lamarre says.)

Jacques Lamarre

“I love Hartford,” he continues. “It’s been so good for me and so good to me. I’ve been able to make an impact in the cultural scene here that I don’t think I would be able to do in a place like New York. But also I just find the people in the region to be so wonderful. I’m so lucky to have this community.”

Jacques Lamarre–playwright
Hartford, Connecticut
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Top image Antoinette LaVecchia in I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti at TheaterWorks. Photo by Lanny Nagler.

The post A Life in Recipes appeared first on Take Magazine.

With dozens of independently owned and operated movie theaters across New England, no one ever needs to go to the soulless multiplex. Our local theaters have character and a long history that’s unmatched by any Rave Cinemas affiliate. The independent owners care more about lending a sense of occasion to a movie-going experience than just maximizing profit and operating as a personal liaison to the big film studios. Many of these New England independent movie theaters screen classic or important contemporary films, as well as offer exclusive screenings of foreign films and book lectures by notable academics to supplement their on-screen content.

In other words, they’re not just cinemas. They’re galleries or mixed-use performance spaces, and are housed in converted mill buildings or an old town hall. These cinematic spaces are as elastic and diverse as the medium, moving over time from exclusively showing silent films in the early 20th century, to now showcasing local artists, programming performances from world-renowned acts, and screening films using the highest quality digital means imagined.

This summer, when you’re deciding where to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Alien Covenant, or some hard-to-watch-but-strangely-rewarding independent film, use this list of independently owned cinemas in the region to find the one closest to you.

New Hampshire Independent Movie Theaters

The Colonial Theater
2050 Main St.
Bethlehem, New Hampshire

The Colonial is a great example of the New England cinema that’s more than a cinema. Moviegoers can catch a current foreign or American-made independent feature, or catch a diverse lineup of live performers. Become a member for exclusive updates about their upcoming performances including Aimee Mann and Kat Wright.

The Wilton Town Hall Theater
40 Main St.
Wilton, New Hampshire

Perhaps the oldest building on the list, this theater has a long history of film and live performance. Once a space for traveling vaudeville acts and at one time the only place in town to see WWII newsreels, the Wilton Town Hall Theater now offers two rooms for screenings of contemporary blockbusters and independent features.

Maine Independent Movie Theaters

Railroad Square Cinema
17 Railroad Sq.
Waterville, Maine

In addition to claiming to have “the best popcorn in the known universe”, this cinema offers its members and regular Mainers several independent features running each day in addition to one-off screenings of must-see films from all over the world.

Movies at The Museum
Portland Museum of Art
7 Congress Sq.
Portland, Maine

Movies at The Museum shows more than just educational films paired with lectures. The cinema operates as a fully sussed movie house with very strong supplemental content, events and series with the support of the Portland Museum of Art.

Connecticut Independent Movie Theaters

Cinestudio
300 Summit St.
Hartford, Connecticut

Cinestudio has long been the place in Hartford to see all sorts of first-run blockbusters, independent films, classics, and foreign films. In addition to screenings, the 40+ year old theater at Trinity College offers various film fests and special events throughout the year.

Real Art Ways
56 Arbor St.
Hartford, Connecticut

Go for the movies, stay for the innovative fine art exhibitions, creative cocktail hours and performance art. Be sure to check RAW’s schedule throughout the year to catch the many special screenings and Oscar Nominated Short Film Fest.

Bantam Cinema
15 Bantam Lake Rd.
Bantam, Connecticut

As “Connecticut’s oldest continually operating movie theater,” Bantam Cinema has gone through a lot of changes since opening in 1927 as The Rivoli except for this one major one: it remains a reliable place to catch films of all kinds.

Massachusetts Independent Movie Theaters

The Brattle Theater
40 Brattle St.
Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Brattle Theater has the most extensive and diverse set of screenings on our list with exclusive Boston-area premieres, discussions with directors, and even a special screening series of David Lynch films leading up to Twin Peak‘s big return on May 21.

Amherst Cinema Arts Center
28 Amity St.
Amherst, Massachusetts

Amherst Cinema has been an invaluable and enriching presence in the western Massachusetts film scene since re-opening its doors to the Amherst community in 2006. Be sure to head to Amherst Cinema for their Filmmaker Visits and the Science on Screen series.

Vermont Independent Movie Theaters

Latchis Cinema 
50 Main St.
Brattleboro, Vermont

Perhaps New England’s largest and most ornate location to catch a flick, Latchis Cinema offers four rooms to see everything from the next big blockbuster to that lengthy German comedy you keep hearing about. Want to make an evening of it? Stay at the Latchis Hotel.

Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center
60 Lake St.
Burlington, Vermont

Main Street Landing, the sustainable development organization located at Burlington’s shore, offers, “a free event open to the public on a first come first served basis.” Show up early to catch a screening of North by Northwest or Trainspotting. Now that’s diverse programming.

Rhode Island Independent Movie Theaters

Avon Cinema
260 Thayer St.
Providence, Rhode Island

Cable Car Cinema 
204 S Main St.
Providence, Rhode Island

Avon and Cable Car are less than 10 minutes from each other and offer stellar films, concessions, and exactly the kind of atmosphere you want with an indie cinema. So how do you choose between them? Can’t help you there, but either way you’ll avoid the mall.

Jane Pickens Theater & Event Center
49 Touro St.
Newport, Rhode Island

JPT boasts being the only spot in Newport to see a film, and uses this position to bring great programs, parties, and other film-oriented events to the city. Added bonus? JPT members can use their membership from Amherst Cinema and vice versa to capitalize on benefits from each theater.

Top photo The Colonial Theater in New Hampshire | Photo courtesy The Colonial Theater website

The post 13 New England Indie Movie Theaters Not to Miss appeared first on Take Magazine.

In a performance space in the furthest corner of Housatonic Community College, Arien Wilkerson steadily paces towards the middle of a darkened set. Red, white, black, and silver chains hang from beams out of sight. Black and white buckets litter the floor, while above them, two strangely familiar red gas cans seem suspended in mid-air.

Wilkerson lies on his back and tugs at one of the chains, struggling to pull himself up while an ominous symphony of brass and string instruments meld with a cacophony of insect noises, the kind of bugs that chirp and whine during the hottest days of summer. By the end of EQUATORS, Wilkerson has changed outfits five times, rearranged the buckets according to a mysterious map projected above the set, and nearly seduced each audience member with several sexually charged spotlighted dance solos.

Through movement, sound, film, and conversation, Wilkerson and his team want to explore how the most marginalized populations on the planet will experience the adversity associated with climate change. Additionally, they want to lend dignity to the spaces where young black men are murdered by police, the same places rogue politicians characterize as “hell.” “[We are] taking weather and environment and transposing that upon a dark feeling of exhaustion and death,” says Wilkerson, “not just losing people. but the way that environment feels during that loss.”

Despite the artistic examination of the clash of climate, human-made boundaries, police violence, bodies and our environment, EQUATORS is a legitimately entertaining piece. Wilkerson is an expertly expressive dancer. He’s been dancing since age 12 and has been traveling the world, honing his talent, since he was 16. His decade-plus experience studying movement is on full display here, as he steps, pops, and strides through the buckets, chains and hanging gas cans with the purposeful movement of a mountain cat or a busy New York City commuter.

When away from the props on the set, Wilkerson is moving in almost complete darkness, save the special lighting for solos done in key parts of the set, “I can roam in the darkness throughout the entire piece or I can step into the light,” says Wilkerson “We wanted to light the show like a work of art and not a dance piece.”

Though the performance as a whole is a thoroughly collaborative production, (set design by David Borawski and lighting design by Jon-Paul Lorroco), it’s Wilkerson’s queer aesthetic that makes the performance unique. “It’s queer as fuck,” says Wilkerson. “This is the queerest thing I’ve ever done. I wear a lot of dresses, I wear a lot of platform heels, I want to just take it there. I was feelin’ some type of way after Moonlight, and just wanted more of that proper representation of queer people.”

Unorthodox lighting techniques, transgressive gender expression through costuming, and the practiced movement of a queer body stand out in EQUATORS, asking audience members to interrogate their expectations of someone like Wilkerson, a young, black, queer person presenting himself not as a disenfranchised minority identity category but as an individual within a fertile creative climate asserting his expertise and wielding his kinetic power.

Wilkerson plans to expand the performance and stage EQUATORS in different locations throughout Connecticut via an upcoming sponsorship from Real Art Ways.

Arien Wilkerson – dancer, artistic director TNMOT AZTRO
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Top photo Arien Wilkerson performing EQUATORS at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, Connecticut | All photos by Brittany Solem

The post Crossing Equators with Arien Wilkerson appeared first on Take Magazine.

Matthew Towers did not imagine clay would be his muse. Originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, he studied theater at New York University, where he received his BFA. An ardent lover of the stage and deep history of classical performance, he originally pursued the flooded industry of acting in NYC in the 1990s. Finding more frustration than inspiration in that scene, Towers began taking classes to pique his interest in other creative fields; that’s when he discovered the visceral, malleable, and erotic motions of clay. “For me, when clay and porcelain are very wet, it has this ability to fall, to crumple in unexpected ways like hair or clothing on the floor,” he says. “I was taking these classes and fell in love with how it moved and felt. And later on, when I began to learn more about the science of it, glazing, firing, etcetera, I felt inspired and fascinated.”

Towers did not compromise his love for classical theater for pottery and sculpture—he fused them. His current body of work, Catastasis, is named after the third act of a Greek play, in which the climax of the play surrenders itself into a series of complications that set up the fourth act, the catastrophe. “I like that pottery and sculpture have this sort of long, mediated history like the theater,” he says. “During the Sung Dynasty, considered the golden era of ceramics, the Chinese were the only ones who knew how to fire and glaze porcelain. It took Europeans hundreds of years to figure it out.”

Catastasis Vase, Porcelain, 24 inches, 2015 | Photo by Nathan Carnes

The Catastasis series consists of sculptures that fold and bend in lines that are visually textural, but unexpectedly smooth to the touch. Towers sees them as the expressions of carefully manicured wigs, discarded clothing, and the body in motion. His sculptures reflect his interest in male sexuality, especially the ways that hair has historically represented changes in culture. In early European culture, for example, long hair represented male virility; later, men began wearing flamboyant wigs as an expression of wealth and fashion. For Towers, these shifts in hairstyle mark a subversive and historically relevant change in cultural perspectives about gender and sexuality. His use of soft pastel glazes, countering bold red, and rusty oranges, coalesce into something beautifully erotic, bold yet somehow fragile.

Outside of his sculptures, Towers also creates beautifully ornate and functional pottery such as bowls, cups, and plates that reflect his stylization that is both contemporary and classical. “I view making functional pottery as an extension of my need to decorate and ornament my surroundings—as a testimonial about who I am, who I want to be, and how I view the world,” he explains. His work stretches away from pottery as a traditional craft and highlights its capacity as functional fine art, believing that pottery has the capacity to be subversive, to reflect culture, and to challenge it via humor and hyperbolic expression. “I employ decadence, sensuality, humor, and flamboyance to toy with identity as well as the meaning of function.”

Catastasis Vase Form, Porcelain, 2016 | Photo by Matthew Towers

Matthew Towers is currently an Associate Professor of Ceramics at the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford, where he teaches a range of classes including traditional pottery, abstract sculpture, and clay and glaze chemistry. His upcoming show, Reaction Bubble, opens at Real Art Ways in Hartford beginning March 4th, and is a collaborative project between Towers, interdisciplinary duo LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus), and choreographer Deborah Goffe.

Matthew Towers, sculptor
Hartford, CT
Website

Top photo Crush Bowl, porcelain, 15-inch diameter, 2015 | Photo by Roger Castonguay

The post From Clay to Catastasis appeared first on Take Magazine.

This article originally ran in our November 2015 print issue. 

When he was a little younger, Peter Reynolds worked in the mail room at the Hartford Steam Boiler building, one of the tallest office buildings in downtown Hartford, Connecticut, abutting I-91. He often worked solo at the end of the day, and he says that if you could have watched him, between organizing stacks of packages and envelopes, you might have seen him popping, locking, and vibrating, working on dance moves during the downtime at the end of his shift.

Peter Reynolds (left) and Jolet Creary grew up dancing in Hartford and founded Studio 860 in 2012.

“I was the last one to leave, so by five o’clock I was in there jamming out,” says Reynolds.

Reynolds, 31, also known as P-Boogie, is a dancer and an educator, and one of the co-founders of Studio 860, a dynamic studio that teaches young people the arts of hip-hop and street dance. Reynolds helped launch Studio 860 in 2012 with Jolet Creary, the artistic director, in Hartford’s Parkville neighborhood. The second-floor studio is in a converted mill complex, a few buildings up from Real Art Ways, an arts and performance space with a movie theater and gallery; just a block or so away from a new CTfastrak rapid transit station; and up the road from thriving Puerto Rican, Portuguese, and Brazilian communities.

The area code for most of Connecticut is 860, and, as the name suggests, those behind the studio take pride in its connection to the region and particularly in its Hartford roots. Reynolds and Creary, who both grew up in Hartford, have put a lot of themselves into the studio—pulling up carpets, scraping off glue, and making the floors ready for the stomping and sliding of dancers’ feet. Their lives have been transformed by dance, and they work to inspire transformation in the dancers they teach and share the stage with. Their instruction focuses on fitness, artistic expression, community, and self-possession.

Dashawn Davis is part of Studio 860’s teen competitive dance team, Elite 860.

Creary started dancing when she was a toddler, at the feet of her grandmother, who danced around the house and at practically any time. From there, Creary studied Caribbean dance traditions at Hartford’s venerable West Indian Social Club, a cultural hub in the city’s North End. Soon she was watching Nutcracker videos and taking ballet lessons as well. Videos of Michael Jackson and Paula Abdul left their mark too.

Reynolds had formative exposure to hip-hop dance as a kid at summer camp. “I had an instructor—his name was Tommy Hill, so even his name I thought was cool, because of Tommy Hilfiger,” he says. “And he was from England, so he also had an accent and everything. He was real cool.”

Reynolds remembers Hill demonstrating some moves as the two were up early one morning waiting for the day’s events to start. The counselor broke out some eye-catching tricks, isolating body parts and letting the movement ripple through his arms and shoulders like a visible energy current. “He had all these chains and bracelets on, and I remember him vibrating and ticking,” he recalls.

Street dance, hip-hop dance, contemporary African American vernacular dance—this genre has been steadily dominating mainstream American culture for decades now, maybe just slightly behind its musical counterpart. Think of the Fly Girls dance troupe from TV’s In Living Color or the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, about the largely gay and black New York City voguing scene that inspired Madonna. More recently, look to Rize, the 2005 documentary about the LA krumping scene, or to the high-profile status of Memphis jookin’ dancer Lil Buck, who has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, at a TEDx conference, and with the New York City Ballet. Or just watch hit shows like Dancing with the Stars or So You Think You Can Dance.

The increased prominence of dance means more people are interested in the subject, but it may also mean there’s a greater gap between pop culture representations and real-world connections. “Over the years, dance has become a lot more commercialized,” explains Creary, “but there’s still a lot of dance that hasn’t been seen on television in its fullest form. There’s been a lot of commercialization of hip-hop, and not just hip-hop, but also jazz, modern, ballet—everything—and even African dance.”

Creary teaches West African dance at Trinity College in Hartford. She is also the choreographer and artistic director of EQuilibrium Dance Theatre, Connecticut’s first hip-hop dance company. Though it’s only three years old, Studio 860 has evolved into a spawning ground for regional dance talent, a hub for traveling dance instructors and performers, and a supportive community of creative young people.

In late summer, student dancers gathered at the studio before heading down to an open-air jazz series at Bushnell Park, the majestic park abutting the state capitol at Hartford’s center, to raise funds for a trip to Atlanta for World of Dance, an international dance competition. Twenty-two student dancers performed on the team. Sixteen-year-old Jasmine McPherson of Hartford was one of the competing dancers, and one of the fund-raisers. The 11th grader, who’s been studying ballet since she was five, plans on pursuing a career in dance. McPherson appreciates the perspective she gets at Studio 860, the ways in which Creary and Reynolds and other instructors orient dance within culture, and how the studio is a model of a viable livelihood within the arts.

Twenty-two of Studio 860’s student dancers competed in the international dance competition World of Dance in Atlanta in August.

“It’s not that we’re just taking a class to dance; we also do a history lesson on how things started and how things progress,” says McPherson. “I’m not just learning about dance, I’m learning about the business aspect, about how you run your own studio. What it takes to fundraise, what it takes to get a business off the ground.”

Those bits of history might come in the form of a mini-lecture from Creary on the origins of some of the traditions taught at the studio, but it might also come in the form of firsthand exposure to guest artists who are foundational dancers within the genre. “Because hip-hop is so young, in reality a lot of the people that invented the style are still around,” says Creary. “So it’s easier for us to access it, to actually get some type of oral history.”

History aside, students at Studio 860 are learning serious dance. Rooted in street dance and hip-hop, the movements demonstrate a grace, control, and creativity that helps explain why this art form is captivating new audiences. Hip-hop dance, like the music, pulls from unexpected sources. Hip-hop music was built on a foundation of funk and soul rhythms, deconstructed—chopped into pieces and reconfigured with added elements. Everything from jazz, classical, film soundtracks, rock, and found sounds got stitched in, with percussive rapping in complex phrasing layered over the top. It’s an avant-garde collage of sly and high-contrast reappropriations.

The same is true of the dance. So many of the genre’s eye-grabbing moves involve a marked juxtaposition of near-stationary body parts with other body parts isolated in extreme motion, or a tendency to cultivate a series of dramatic slow-motion movements jammed against a few fierce and rapid articulations: a jutting of the head, a pivot of wrists and hands, a quick sideways bend of the knees and ankles to approximate a kind of broken-boned slump. Other moves seem to depict powerful surges of energy coursing through the body, making it ripple and bulge at the edge of what can be contained by muscle, bone, and skin. And virtuoso variations on timeless moves like the moonwalk, the wave, and the robot can still astonish audiences.

Though it’s only three years old, Studio 860 has evolved into a spawning ground for regional dance talent.

Creary and Reynolds point out that hip-hop dance uses a vocabulary of movements plucked from sources outside of dance. Elements inspired by silent films, mime, sci-fi, martial arts, animation, and stop-motion flipbooks have all worked their way onto the dance floor.

Beyond the physical skills, the sense of cultural history, and the insight into arts administration, many of the students at Studio 860 experience something deeper and more basic, notes Creary.

“A lot of our students are getting a sense of self-confidence out of this,” she says. “It’s definitely therapeutic. We have some people that come in here . . . whatever’s going on outside, when they come in here they feel an acceptance. We have a lot of people that say this is their family. There’s a sense of belonging. Even if they’re not going to become professional dancers, they’re given that opportunity to perform. They’re given that opportunity to be seen being taken out of whatever their environment is. I always say that you can do whatever you want when you’re dancing. It’s a crazy high that you get from dancing.”

Top photo Linda Miller is part of Studio 860’s teen competitive dance team, Elite 860 | All photos by Ian Barnard

The post Fly Moves appeared first on Take Magazine.

They say that the pen is mightier than the sword. On January 15, writers across New England and the United States will join forces with Writers Resist to prove just that. Coinciding with the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr, a staunch believer in the power of using words over violence to combat social injustice, literary literati will be gathering at libraries, bookshops, and galleries to “re-inaugurate” their commitment to the fundamental principles of democracy through readings and spoken word pieces. The brainchild of poet and founder of the Writers Resist movement, Erin Belieu, these gatherings were created in response to this year’s election and the lack of factual, public discourse. “Writers are acutely aware when the uses of language are empty. Whether you live in a red or blue state, or another country that cares deeply about the American experiment, there is no more important battle than our right to truth.”

While the flagship event will be taking place in New York City, many local New England cities are hosting functions. Additionally, some are using the day of activism to raise money for progressive non-profits. Jen McClanaghan, the Rhode Island host and Salve’s Writer in Residence,  is “very excited to bring Rhode Islanders together for a reading by local writers, including our state’s poet laureate, followed by an open mic. This free event is one space in which to assert our shared values of democracy, equality, and compassion.” Although Writers Resist may have come together quickly, this day of action is just the opening salvo. “This event is to lay the foundation for future events, as well as establishing a regional network of writers and activists who care about the preservation of free speech and democracy,” states Gian Lombardo of the Southeast Connecticut contingency.

The following information will be updated as needed.

Image from a series by photographer Frank Poulin, titled “Sanctuary City.”| Courtesy Writers Resist Hartford

Connecticut / Hartford
Writers Resist–Public Works: Our Voices are Bridges
Time: 630-9 pm
Location: Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street, Hartford, CT
Contact: Brent Terry, bterrible@earthlink.net
Facebook Event

Connecticut / New London / Southeast Connecticut
Time: 2-4 pm
Location: New London Public Library, 63 Huntington St., New London, CT
Contact: Gian Lombardo, lombardo@quale.com
Facebook Event

Maine / Blue Hill
WRITERS RESIST: Listening to Our Histories
Time: 4-6 pm
Location: Blue Hill Public Library, Parker Point Rd., Blue Hill, Maine
Contact: Beatrix Gates, Beax@earthlink.net
Facebook Event

Massachusetts / Boston
Time: 130-430 pm
Location: Boston Public Library, Copley Square, Rabb Hall, 700 Boylston St Boston, MA
Contact: The Critical Flame
Facebook Event

Massachusetts / Boston / South End
Time: 2 pm
Location: Boston Sculptors Gallery, 486 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA
Contact: Margaret Zamos-Monteith, zamosme@gmail.com
Facebook Event

Image courtesy Writers Resist Great Boston

Massachusetts / Gloucester
Time: 130-330 pm
Location: Rocky Neck Cultural Center, 6 Wonson St. Gloucester, Ma
Contact: JoeAnn Hart, JoeAnn@joeannhart.com
Facebook Event

Rhode Island / Newport
Time: 2 pm
Location: DiStefano Lecture Hall, Salve Regina University
Contact: Jen McClanaghan, jenmcclanaghan@gmail.com
Facebook Event

Vermont / Brattleboro
Time: 2-5 pm
Location: 118 Elliot St, Brattleboro VT
Contact: Sandy Rouse, bookcell@svcable.net
Facebook

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The post Take Action: Write Our Democracy appeared first on Take Magazine.