Feet to the Fire

Busy Weekend in Town (not to mention Graduation)

Much to do around town, either musically, theatrically and comically - read on.

This from Oddfellows Playhouse, courtesy of Susan B:

Oddfellows Playhouse invites the public to celebrate the accomplishments in visual arts, writing, and theater of 17 talented Arts Explorers on Thursday, May 21 from 7-9 pm. Visual arts students in this innovative program will exhibit hand-dyed silk scarves, writing students will offer readings of their poetry, and theater students will give a short performance.

The Playhouse, in partnership with the Middletown Youth Services Bureau, received one of five statewide pilot grants from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism to offer creative, nonschool arts experiences to underserved youth. Arts Explorers, with additional support from The Hartford Courant Foundation, was designed to help middle-school students, particularly low-income and minority youth, experience the arts under the mentorship of a professional artist. Students chose to specialize in the visual, literary or performing arts and then spent the past 9 months working under the guidance of Oddfellows’ artists William A. Foster, III, Renee Soares, and Enza Giannone to develop their skills. This event on May 21 is the culmination of their program, and students will have their colorful scarves and a book of collected writings for sale.

The Playhouse is located at 128 Washington Street. For more information, call 347-6143.

In other OP doings, the Second Stage Players present a mini-production of “Hansel and Gretel and the Big Woods.” Under the direction of Jane Harris, a cast of 13 young actors, ages 9-11, takes on this irreverent twist on the classic tale by the Brothers Grimm. This fun-filled production is appropriate for all ages and runs approximately 30 minutes. Shows are Friday, May 22 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, May 23 at 11 a.m. Call the number above for ticket prices and reservations.

Friday, The Buttonwood Tree hosts newly announced Democratic Senatorial candidate Merrick Alpert (on the left) in a "salon" setting at 5 p.m. Hosting the event will be Fred Carroll and John Kilian. This is an excellent opportunity to meet Alpert, who announced his intentions to run against incumbent and fellow party member this past Tuesday (5/19).

At 7:30 p.m., The Buttonwood welcomes percussionist/composer Tom Monaghan in an evening he's calling "Clams, Scams and Kilograms." Monaghan is an integral member of the local avant-jazz group A Probe Called Gnomes but this "surprise" event goes in a different direction. Call 347-4957 for more information.

The Green Street Arts Center is holding a Benefit Program for its after-school program Friday at 8 p.m. Dubbed "NPR Without the Dignity", the show features Doug Berman (class of '84), executive producer of "Car Talk" and Wait...Wait! Don't Tell Me!" chatting with and about the Brothers Magliozzi ("Click & Clack") from the former and Carl Kasell and Peter Sagal from the latter. If nothing else, this should be a funny event. For ticket information, call 685-3355 or go to www.wesleyan.edu/cfa.

A reminder - guitarist Melvin Sparks (an irrepressible guy as one can see from this older Lp cover) comes to Boney's Music Lounge (above Fishbone Cafe, 106 Court Street) with his constant cohorts, organist Paul Wolstencroft and drummer Bill Carbone. When pressed, Carbone describes the music the trio plays with the title of one of Sparks' CDs, "It Is What It Is!" and what it is is pretty funky. They'll start shaking the rafters at 8:30 p.m.

More funky music on Saturday night at Boney's when drummer Liviu Pop brings his Quartet for an 8:30 p.m. hit. Joining him will be Bill Harris (saxophone), Nick Bariluk (keyboards) and Steve Clarke (bass.) For more information about both shows, call 346-6000.

Saturday, The Buttonwood Tree welcomes Hartford-native Sean Clapis for an evening of jazz and more. Currently studying at the Hartt School of Music, the guitarist is already making a name for himself on the state scene and it won't be long before he'll start making waves on a national and international level. The music starts at 7:30 P.M.

Rice: Funny, Moving, Beautiful and Edifying

When I covered the delivery of 4,000 pounds of rice for Wesleyan's most recent installation of Feet to the Fire, Stan's Cafe, Of All the People in the World, USA. I was, frankly, skeptical that piles of rice, representing world statistics, could actually be "art" worth considering.

I was wrong.

I attended the opening of the installation Friday, and was immediately struck by the simple beauty of the piles of rice, where each kernel represents a single human being, spread on a gallery floor, on white sheets of paper containing compelling statistics.

The first two piles of rice you encounter in the exhibit are one which represents "All the people in the world who died today," juxtaposed with the second pile which represents "All the people in the world who were born today."

(Actress and docent, Charlotte Gregory, of Birmingham England, attends a stray grain on a pile of rice.)


The piles of rice, attended by actors in the role of docents, who measure (each pound of rice contains 27,263 grains), assemble and tidy the piles of rice, are spread through the Zilkha Gallery. Others, mainly with historical statistical significance, can be found at the Olin Library on campus. Several other smaller installations will appear throughout the campus, and the city over the 12 run of the installation. And local restaurants have been cajoled into serving special rice dishes in conjunction with the exhibit.

(Wesleyan professor and Feet to the Fire director, Barry Chernoff, and Stan's Cafe director, and creator of Of All the People in the World, James Yarker.)

Statistics for the Wesleyan presentation of the exhibit were compiled by Wesleyan biology professor Barry Chernoff's students in an introductory biology and environmental science course. Eleven thousand pounds of rice will be used in the display, all of which will be re-bagged and donated to local charities and soup kitchens.

The simple beauty of the rice piles is framed by the statistics, which can make the piles seem awesome in the way they reveal numbers - McDonald's customers served in the USA today, or hilarious in their perspective - a single rice grain on a sheet of paper and the caption Morgan Spurlock (the director of Supersize Me).

The piles can also have a big emotional impact, as with the piles which represent all the people who died in the Holocaust, or the one which illustrates all the people who heard Martin Luther King's "I have a dream," speech, which is complete with a representation of the reflecting pool (more on that later).

Some of the piles are whimsical, such as The Hartford Symphony Orchestra, positioned on its sheet of paper like a conductor and and an orchestra, while some are instructive as the large pile which illustrates all the people in Connecticut who drive alone to work and some is shockingly tragic as is the enormous pile which represents all Americans without health insurance.

"I created the piece because I wanted to understand my place in the world, and who I share the world with," explained James Yarker, director of Stan Cafe, and creator of the piece. "I can take one grain of rice in my hand and say, 'That's me.'"

In fact, Yarker explained that people often find themselves in the show, but not quite so explicitly as one woman who approached him at a show in New York and claimed she had found herself. Yarker acknowledged the woman's claim, but she was insistent that she show Yarker the pile which she inhabited. She walked with Yarker to the pile which represented the Martin Luther King speech on the mall in Washington DC and she told Yarker she was there.

"'I was standing right next to the reflecting pool,' she told me," Yarker said. "But the remarkable thing was that she told me she had fallen into the reflecting pool, and she pointed to our exhibit pile, where a single grain of rice had fallen into our representation of that pool. She said, 'There. That's me.'"

The exhibit continues through March 3, and admission is free and open to the public. The gallery will hold family workshops on Sunday February 22, and Sunday March 1, during which parents and children will learn about compiling statistics, and how to measure and display those statistics with rice.

Metaphorical Rice

(Kayla Rodriguez, Wesleyan 2011, helps unload rice at the Zilkha Gallery)

Friday marks the opening of Stan's Cafe: Of All the People In the World, USA at Wesleyan's Zilkha Gallery, Olin Library, and in other locations around Middletown.

This installation uses kernels of rice as metaphorical representations of individual humans. The rice is weighed and measured, matched with an unusual and informative statistic, and displayed for all to consider.




The installation is part of the ongoing Feet To the Fire: Exploring Global Climate Change From Science to Art, an 18-month project, and has been customized, using statistics formulated by Wesleyan scientists, to humanize the issues of climate change. Stan's Cafe is a primarily performance-based arts group which formed in Birmingham, England in 1991, and this installation has been performed in Los Angeles, Melbourne, Madrid and New York City.



(Wesleyan student and football player Larry Belotta, with a rice handoff.)


A lot of rice is needed to allow the installation effectively make its point, and Monday volunteers moved 4,000 pounds of rice into position in 25 and 50 pound bags at the Zilkha Gallery and Olin Library. The rice will be used for the installation, and then re-bagged. Wesleyan is donating the rice used in the installation to local non-profits, food pantries and soup kitchens. So far 6000 pounds has been claimed by organizations like St. Vincent dePaul's, the Shoreline Soup Kitchen, Food Not Bombs at Wesleyan and in Hartford and the American Red Cross.


Non-profits who would like to claim one of the remaining 160 twenty-five pound bags can contact Wesleyan's Frank Kuan (fkuan@wesleyan.edu) or by phone at 860-685-2245.

Wesleyan's Center for Fine Arts (CFA) is also still considering local "performers" to act as docents for the installation around town. An application, which details availabilities, can be found at the installation website.

Climate Cycles

The Liz Lerman Dance exchange will be in town this week for a "movement happening" at Wesleyan University.  Cyclists of all types are invited to participate on any bicycle, tricycle or unicycle, there will be ice cream, flame throwers, and wheelies.  

Workshops will be held at Andrus Field, in the center of Wesleyan's campus.

Tuesday, August 26, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Thursday, August 28, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

The performance will be on Friday at 7:30.

The Dance Exchange's previous projects in Middletown have been extremely successful. In early 2006, they presented the world premiere of Ferocious Beauty: Genome, at Wesleyan, which was a critically acclaimed collaboration between molecular geneticists and dancers. Last spring the Dance Exchange participated in the Feet to the Fire Festival in Veteran's Park, which brought together music, arts, a farmer's market, dancers and cows to bring attention to the issue of global climate change.  

This event is also part of the Feet to the Fire project.