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From September 11, 2009

At the Department of Cultural Resources: A Cultural Call to Service

The New Hampshire Department of Cultural Resources is marking September 11 – a National Day of Service and Remembrance under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act – with a call to the state’s cultural organizations to launch their own service campaigns. 

This special initiative is inspired by President’s Obama’s request to Americans to recommit to the spirit of unity and compassion that arose in the wake of tragedy on September 11, 2001. The cultural community has taken up the call. Nationally, Americans for the Arts and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies is asking artists, arts advocates, arts organizations, and volunteers to participate in the United We Serve campaign and share their stories so that others will be inspired to get involved.

Here in New Hampshire, the Department of Cultural Resources is asking cultural organizations – town libraries, historical societies, arts nonprofits, community theater troupes, and the like – to undertake service projects in their own communities. This special campaign will run through the holiday season, when communities are often most in need of support.

Here are a few ideas for how to help:

Cultural organizations can partner with a community service-based nonprofit to help empower the nonprofit in its mission by providing promotional or other support. A museum, for example, could link up with a soup kitchen and then: promote the kitchen on its web site; send museum staff and volunteers to spend an afternoon helping at the kitchen; designate one day or part of a day as “Soup Kitchen Day,” with a percentage of ticket sales going to the kitchen; set up a display table with brochures about the soup kitchen; offer free admission tickets to clients of the soup kitchen; etc.

1. Theater groups can invite unemployed people and their families to attend dress rehearsals.
2. Historical Society volunteers can bring old photos to share with residents of nursing homes.
3. Musicians can perform at homeless shelters.
4. Artists can contact teen centers and ask to be paired up with a young person who has an interest in art.
5. High school choral and music groups can perform at senior centers.
6. Libraries can organize volunteers to read to people who are elderly or have disabilities.

The Department of Cultural Resources will invite organizations to document their efforts and submit photos and narratives so a compilation of cultural community goodwill can be posted on the department’s web site. More information on this will be issued this fall.

Cultural Resources Commissioner Van McLeod outlined the N.H. Call to Cultural Services this morning on the New Hampshire Public Radio show “The Exchange.” The show will be rebroadcast tonight at 8 p.m., or listeners may download a podcast at www.nhpr.org.

At the Arts Council

N.H. Folklife: A Workshop for Teachers

COLEBROOK — Educators at all grade levels are invited to spend a day exploring, discussing, and participating in hands-on activities centered on the New Hampshire Folklife website, an engaging online resource designed for teachers and students to learn about and explore the state’s living heritage.

The workshop will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Friday, September 25, at the Colebrook Elementary School.

New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Traditional Arts Coordinator Lynn Martin Graton will discuss folklife and traditional arts, and will introduce various features of the website. She will also demonstrate folklife interview techniques through a conversation with a local traditional artist.

The program will include a session on “Sketching & Heritage Arts” led by art educator and artist Michele Johnsen, offering basic sketching techniques and an understanding of the ways sketching can enhance student learning across the curriculum.

The workshop is presented by the Traditional Arts Program of the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts in cooperation with the Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire, a regional network that presents, promotes and supports the arts from Plymouth to Pittsburg.  Cost of the workshop is $15 (lunch included).
The flyer and registration form can be downloaded on the Arts Alliance website at www.aannh.org.

Around the State

Frank Wallace Offers Preview Tour

Frank Wallace will perform several local concerts as a preview of his Mexican tour later this month.  Wallace will perform at the V Festival Internacional de Compositores a la Guitarra Pa' lo Escrito and the IV Festival Internacional de Guitarra Clásica Ramón Noble.  He will sing his song-cycle The Game, several songs from Father Said and perform various solos: The Elements, Orientale, and Dreams on a Lullaby and selections from Sketches.

Last spring Wallace, as director of Festival 21 in Boston, brought several prominent Mexican musicians to America. In honor of their considerable contribution to the cultural life of Boston he is performing the Sonata #1 entitled "Las Campanas" by Ernesto García de León.  Wallace has received a Cultural Exchange grant for the N.H. State Council on the Arts to assist in both going to Mexico and bringing Mexican art back to New Hampshire.  Read more at  www.frankwallace.com.

Studio 99, September 13, 3:00pm, Tickets: $10 at the door; students w/ ID $7, corner of Pine Street & Clocktower Place (99 Factory Street), 4th Floor, Nashua, NH, 03060 directions

Hingham Public Library, September 19, 3:00pm, FREE (donations welcome), 66 Leavitt Street, Hingham, MA directions

E-clips

New Hampshire Arts in the News

Green Living: N.H. Institute of Art’s Green Building is almost Ready

http://www.hippopress.com/090903/arts.html

Last updated: September 14, 2009