Hermitage artist and Greenfield Prize winner Coco Fusco speaks to Wendy Vogel about her Unlimited presentation, and supporting unpopular opinions. Read the article here.
In 2012, the featured PoetryLife poet was Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the U.S. and founder of the Favorite Poem Project. Pinsky led Sarasota community members in the city’s first-ever Favorite Poem reading – citizens of all ages reading the poetry they have come to know throughout their lives. A Community Favorite Poem Reading has been a tradition in Sarasota ever since.
PoetryLife’s Favorite Poem Reading will be held April 19 at 5:00 pm at The Hermitage Artist Retreat, 6630 Manasota Key Road, Englewood, Florida – on the beach if weather permits.
To apply to be a reader, please email the following information to PoetryLife. You may also drop off your application at Bookstore1Sarasota, which is located in downtown Sarasota at the corner of Main Street and Palm Avenue. Deadline for submissions is March 15.
The poem you select must be one that is published by a recognized poet. It may not be your own poem (published or not) or the poem of a close relative.
Please select a poem that is accessible – i.e. a poem that an audience can “get” when hearing it for the first time. And select a poem that is not overly long – look for one that is no more than two pages in length.
Select a poem that has personal meaning for you. As part of the event, readers are given one minute to explain – without notes – why they have selected that particular poem. PoetryLife is looking for personal reasons, not academic reasons.
Submit the following to PoetryLife:
1. Your name
2. Your email address
3. Your phone number
4. Your occupation or, if retired, your former occupation
5. The title of the poem you would like to read
6. The author of the poem
7. Your reason for wanting to read this poem
8. A copy of the poem
Or drop your submission off at Bookstore1Sarasota, 12 South Palm Avenue in downtown Sarasota.
Deadline for submissions is March 15.
Up to 20 poems will be selected for inclusion in the Favorite Poem Reading. If your poem is selected, you will be asked to present it at the event. PoetryLife will notify you by April 10 and, should your poem be selected, they will call to confirm your availability.
Missy Mazzoli’s “Vespers for Violin” has been nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Classical Composition.
Missy was also recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (The New York Times) and “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out New York). Her music has been performed all over the world by the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, pianist Emanuel Ax, Opera Philadelphia, LA Opera, Cincinnati Opera, New York City Opera, Chicago Fringe Opera, the Detroit Symphony, the LA Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, JACK Quartet, cellist Maya Beiser, violinist Jennifer Koh, pianist Kathleen Supové, Dublin’s Crash Ensemble, the Sydney Symphony and many others.
Photo by Marlene Mey
~ Guest post and photo by Lisa Diane Wedgeworth
I have been reflecting on home, the land of my family. A calling, a tugging at my spirit to return there, if even for a brief visit to set foot upon the land my ancestors toiled, built, walked and raised families upon.
Traveling through Alabama with my mother, visiting civil rights monuments and memorials, a deep kinship with those who endured and survived the Domestic Slave Trade stirred within me and the American South felt as much as my home as any of the places my immediate family and ancestors were called to put down their roots (Los Angeles, Ohio, Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, England and Jamaica).
While at the Hermitage, the water of the Gulf of Mexico – although stained with the stench and destruction of the Red Tide – conjured images within my mind’s eye and whispered new work, The Calling, in my ear.
We’re turning our blog over to Nerissa Street, a teacher, writer, speaker, and all-around amazingly creative person who will be reading and leading on our beach on Friday, Aug. 7. Nerissa is definitely a STAR at the Hermitage and back at home in Fort Lauderdale. But even though she lives in Florida, she’s never seen sharks’ teeth like we have on Manasota Key. Read all about it here and come meet her Friday.
After Rey Pamatmat finished writing a play it just kept writing itself. More and more story kept appearing. It seemed much longer than a play.
After Rey Pamatmat finished writing a play it just kept writing itself. More and more story kept appearing. It seemed much longer than a play.
The idea of writing a book felt fun. Then he discovered how different books are than plays. He had been writing plays or 10 years so he knows the components and how to put them together. “But with a book, I don’t know all the parts, and what it needs” he said.
Plays are collaborative. Directors, even actors fill in between the words of the playwright, but with books you have to write everything down. “In the book I have to make decisions about things with no collaborators. I alone have to decide what people are thinking. And it has so many more words!” he said with genuine surprise. “I asked my manager how many words a book has. The answer was 60,000 to 90,000!”
The story came to a stop one-third of the way through the book because he had play commission deadlines and a revision due. He got too busy to work on the book and couldn’t write it as efficiently as he could section up and write plays in shorter patches of time. He needed an expanse of time to work on the book so when the opportunity of the Hermitage came up it seemed perfect.
Rey’s venture into this new genre isn’t the first time a playwright came to the Hermitage to write a book. While walking the beach with Kia Corthron, I listened as she mumbled and nearly stuttered the word “novelist.” “I’m here as a novelist.” Like Rey, she was struggling with her evolution as a writer. Hers wasn’t a struggle of form and components, but of self-image. She knew herself as a playwright, and her whole image had to morph. When she returned a year later, her novel was nearly done and she had no problem pronouncing the word “novelist.”
When Hermitage writer Susan Yankowitz talks about the play she’s working on, small crowds gather around her in fascination. I haven’t seen this phenomenon since 2009 when young artists sat on the floor surrounding a chair where Romulus Linney read his entrancing stories. Each story was an encouraging metaphor meant specifically for someone on the floor. But I digress.
When Hermitage writer Susan Yankowitz talks about the play she’s working on, small crowds gather around her in fascination. I haven’t seen this phenomenon since 2009 when young artists sat on the floor surrounding a chair where Romulus Linney read his entrancing stories. Each story was an encouraging metaphor meant specifically for someone on the floor. But I digress.
Susan’s play is about animals in the Middle Ages that were placed on trial when they hurt or killed a human. Over a thousand such trials were documented in France, Ireland, the USA and England.
A horse was assigned a defense attorney when he kicked a man. Bees were tried after stinging a woman in 18th century England. But the bees didn’t show up for the trial. Animals were almost always found guilty but there was an occasional appeal. The main character in the play is a sow, a 400-pound mother pig, who ate a human baby, which apparently was quite common in those days.
Many trials were on bestiality, which always involved a man and a female animal “paramour” who were put on trial together. The most famous was in New Haven. In the 17th Century a man and a Jewish woman went on trial for bestiality because Jews were not considered human.
In fact there are so many of these cases that Susan is faced with the problem of which fascinating stories to cut from the script.
The play is narrated by the first attorney to defend animals, when in 1521 he represented a group of rats who ate crops, causing famine. The rats won on a technicality.
The play asks the question “What kind of justice do we give to those whom society sees as lesser creatures?” Could this pertain to Abu Ghraib, blacks, the poor?
How do you define suffering? Does a fish suffer? as a Swedish animal rights attorney asserted after a fisherman was tried for showing off his catch flailing on the hook? Where do we draw the lines, personally and societally?
Even God makes an appearance in this play. And why shouldn’t he, since most of the defense and the prosecution use the Bible as argument?
Susan’s subject reminds me of when I first read “To Kill a Mockingbird” and had the revelation that justice changes with the decades. Susan’s play magnifies that revelation using centuries. What was seen as just in the 1500s is laughable today. And how will we look back at justice in 2013? Will we laugh or be appalled?
That question can be found deep within Hermitage Fellow Rey Pamatmat’s play based on the trial of Trayvon Martin. But that’s for another blog….
The Hermitage is thrilled to welcome Laura Kaminsky, Artistic Director of Symphony Space in New York City and an accomplished and award-winning composer, to our Board of Trustees. Laura is the first Hermitage Fellow to serve on our Board. “No one can better represent the insider’s point of view – that of the Hermitage fellow – than someone who has that title. And no one can represent the national point of view from outside this community better than someone living in a distant cultural center. As a Hermitage fellow in music, living in New York City, Laura meets both those qualifications,” said Executive Director Bruce Rodgers.
The Hermitage is thrilled to welcome Laura Kaminsky, Artistic Director of Symphony Space in New York City and an accomplished and award-winning composer, to our Board of Trustees. Laura is the first Hermitage Fellow to serve on our Board. “No one can better represent the insider’s point of view – that of the Hermitage fellow – than someone who has that title. And no one can represent the national point of view from outside this community better than someone living in a distant cultural center. As a Hermitage fellow in music, living in New York City, Laura meets both those qualifications,” said Executive Director Bruce Rodgers.
It took less than a minute for the Hermitage to cast a spell on Kaminsky, who came for her first residency with her partner Rebecca Allan, a painter. The two were collaborating on Horizon Lines, a multi-media work. “Driving up the narrow road and seeing the wooden structures and the dunes glowing under the midday sun was confirmation before ever stepping foot on the ground that this was a special place to nurture one’s creativity,” writes Kaminsky. “I could tell that there was going to be the space to be reflective and therefore productive.”
Kaminsky says that the Hermitage meant “everything” to her as an artist. “Time. Quiet. The stimulating conversation among the artist fellows. The closeness to nature. The sound of the waves. The light. All of this created a perfect environment in which to let loose and to reel in, both of which are necessary to making art.”
And she hasn’t wasted any time in making a difference. Inspired by a conversation with Rodgers, Kaminsky conceived the idea for NOVEMBER 21, 1963: THE DAY BEFORE, a multi-media one-night-only performance that will feature contributions from more than 60 Hermitage composers, writers, filmmakers, and visual artists to contribute original work around the theme of life on the eve of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. “Laura’s deep commitment to the Hermitage was obvious from the beginning. The exciting partnership the Hermitage has with Symphony Space, for whom she is artistic director, is an obvious example of this commitment,” said Rodgers.
The performance, taking place at Symphony Space on November 8, 2013, has already attracted tremendous media attention, has sold out and will be a highpoint of the upcoming Hermitage Artist Tour of New York City. “The outpouring of interesting responses to the challenge from the hermitage fellows has been exceptional and I know we have a great evening in store”, said Kaminsky.
As an artist and Fellow, Kaminsky believes she can bring a unique perspective to the Hermitage Board. “Having lived the artist’s life there I hope I can speak directly to the board from the perspective of one who has benefited from a residency in ways that can lead and inspire the board to continue its good work.”
Laura Kaminsky’s works are frequently performed across the U.S. and abroad; Kaminsky has received numerous commissions, fellowships, and awards. She has received four ASCAP- Chamber Music America Awards for Adventuresome. She currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Chamber Music America and has been a board member of the American Music Center and a member of the Artistic Advisory Council of the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is Artistic Director of Symphony Space in New York City. From 2004-2008, she served as dean of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College/SUNY, where she is currently professor of music and faculty-at-large for the School of the Arts
In February 2011, the directors of the theater production company Phantom Limb, Jessica Grindstaff and husband Erik Sanko, came to the Hermitage exhausted after their successful run of 69° South at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Their work has been described as a series of dynamic tableaux vivants, narrative installations in motion that meld theatrical performance, puppetry, photography and film with unconventional original music. 69° South was a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet inspired by Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition.
In February 2011, the directors of the theater production company Phantom Limb, Jessica Grindstaff and husband Erik Sanko, came to the Hermitage exhausted after their successful run of 69° South at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Their work has been described as a series of dynamic tableaux vivants, narrative installations in motion that meld theatrical performance, puppetry, photography and film with unconventional original music. 69° South was a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet inspired by Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition.
Three months later at a sunset dinner on the beach to welcome them back for the second part of their residency, they surprised us with a bottle of champagne and an announcement. We had the privilege to be the first to hear their news (even before they told their own parents). Jessica was three months pregnant. Now they are back again with their daughter Freya, a true daughter of the Hermitage, as part of the Hermitage’s new family residency program.
While here for the third time they are writing the second of a trilogy that started with 69° South. The piece, Memory Rings, uses the oldest living tree in the world as the center of its narrative.
“The trilogy is united by the theme of ecology and the human relationship with nature through poetry and image. We are exploring the psychology of a collective future using history, legacy, and cultural memory,” said Erik.
They returned to the Hermitage following a residence at Harvard with global warming expert Dan Schrag, head of the Harvard Center for the Environment. Dr. Schrag had been impressed by their work because it moves people into the topic in a way they aren’t used to. Their plays touch audiences at an emotional level with a refreshing absence of the usual didactic lecturing.
Erik described audience reactions as unconscious at first. Then the slow burn of realization sets in. He and Jessica see attitudes change when they tour places like the Midwest where people are not yet convinced to take action on global warming. “Art has the ability to help people see the long arc of 40 to 80 years it may take to recover from climate change,” he explained.
They each have beautiful studios in New York City but they say their work benefits from the open mindedness and wide horizons that come with a place like the Hermitage where there are no expectations, no obligations, and the only distractions are the sea and nature (which is what their play is about).
Jessica said “After 10 days of hard work on Memory Rings at the Hermitage, suddenly, the play wrote itself!”
Learn more about PhantomLimbCompany.com
Tropical Storm Andrea hit Manasota Key last week, and as named storms go, she was noisy and a bit persistent, but aside from tearing a screen and relocating a couple of deck chairs, Andrea mainly served as nature’s entertainment for our artists in residence.
Tropical Storm Andrea hit Manasota Key last week, and as named storms go, she was noisy and a bit persistent, but aside from tearing a screen and relocating a couple of deck chairs, Andrea mainly served as nature’s entertainment for our artists in residence.
For us, Andrea served another purpose. This is the time of year when our National Advisory Committee chooses the artists they want to invite for a residency. They give us the names and we send the invitations, which the artists aren’t expecting, always with a single, perfect shell from our beach, which they really aren’t expecting.
Part of my job is to scour the beach for those shells. I know, life is tough.
Lately the shells have been scarce, and the perfect ones that fit into our clear round box, even more so. But the day after Andrea hit – Shellapalooza!! Right in front of the Hermitage. At lunch time I threw off my sandals, grabbed my beach pail and hit the beach. Then I got to “work” (Hey it’s an assignment) and started sifting through the layers to find as many perfect shells as I could.
After a few years, I’ve gotten pretty good at sizing up the shells but I bring a sample box with me to make sure they fit. From the looks I get, I can tell my fellow shell seekers think it’s a bit odd that I make my finds pass a test before I toss them in my pail.
I left the beach after, well I’m not sure how long I was there, with about 60 “artist shells” and one extra cool, “I should keep it for myself but I won’t” shell.
Usually I decide where the shells end up since I put the mailing together. In order to make the process more entertaining, I’ll say, choose a more interesting shell to send to a writer in the Midwest because, I figure they don’t get to see that many (until they come here of course). If I notice on an artist’s website that they use a lot of color, I’ll pop them a more colorful shell. And sometimes I just shut my eyes and leave it up to shell destiny.
So, if you’re reading this and you get a shell in the mail in the next, let’s say 2-4 weeks, or if you are a Hermitage Fellow and still have your perfect shell in the box (and I hope you do), now you know how it got there. And if you are on this year’s list of Fellows and your name happens to be Andrea, have I got a shell for you!
