"War Machine" photo credit: Michael Tullberg

After seven years in development, non-profit organization Overtone Industries is set to launch their site-specific theatricale, Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands, with three weekends of performances opening Thursday, July 8, 2010.  Billed as a contemporary opera, the large-scale, genre-bending production integrates an astounding array of innovative art installation, dance, voice, live and recorded music, projected video, costuming, community participation, and theater. Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands was developed and cultivated by Director O-Lan Jones in an extensive guided collaboration that involves twenty one librettists, eleven composers, Costume and Scenic Designer Snezana Petrovic, Musical Director David O, Instrument Inventor Bart Hopkin, Choreographer Nina Winthrop, twenty performers, a nine-piece live orchestra, dozens of crew members, scores of community volunteers, and many others.

For Immediate Release:   June 25, 2010 (Updated July 15)

Overtone Industries Presents
An Art-Full New Contemporary Opera
Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands
With Performances in a 25,000-Square-Foot Vacant Culver City Car Dealership
Thursday, July 8 – Sunday, July 25, 2010
With Preview Performances Thursday, July 1 – Sunday, July 4, 2010

LOS ANGELES, CA – After seven years in development, non-profit organization Overtone Industries is set to launch their site-specific theatricale, Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands, with three weekends of performances opening Thursday, July 8, 2010.  Billed as a contemporary opera, the large-scale, genre-bending production integrates an astounding array of innovative art installation, dance, voice, live and recorded music, projected video, costuming, community participation, and theater. Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands was developed and cultivated by Director O-Lan Jones in an extensive guided collaboration that involves twenty one librettists, eleven composers, Costume and Scenic Designer Snezana Petrovic, Musical Director David O, Instrument Inventor Bart Hopkin, Choreographer Nina Winthrop, twenty performers, a nine-piece live orchestra, dozens of crew members, scores of community volunteers, and many others. The interdisciplinary production will run from Thursday, July 8 to Sunday, July 25, 2010 with five weekly performances (Thursdays through Sundays, 8:00 p.m. nightly with 2:00 p.m. matinees on Sundays).  Additional preview performances will run the week prior, from Thursday, July 1 to Sunday, July 4, 2010 (matinee only on July 4).   Ticket prices range from $15 – $50 and can be purchased via Overtone’s site at www.overtoneindustries.org/sdtickets.php.  Performances are suitable for mature teen and adult audiences.  Shows will be held in a vacant 25,000-square foot car dealership that is being temporarily transformed into a performance space at 8810 Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232.  Parking lot on site.

The Story of Songs & Dances-
Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands is a contemporary opera that follows Tom and Sue, a couple from different class backgrounds, who have lost their identities.  The couple reclaims their stories by visiting imaginary lands that embody the pivotal experiences of their lives.  They discover themselves anew through the songs, dances, pledges of allegiance, and rituals indigenous to those turning points. The fast-paced kaleidoscope of events range in tone from comic to deeply sorrowful.  Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands is an allegory where the various elements — the sets, costumes, characters, music, audience participation, and modes of collaboration across the production — create the world of challenges and gifts presented by life, love, and relationships.

The Art of Songs & Dances-
Under the direction of Costume and Scenic Designer Snezana Petrovic, the Company has transformed a vacant Culver City car dealership into a surreal performance space featuring a staggering number of colorful, site-specific art installations of the production’s titular imaginary lands, each dramatically different from one another.  An extensive community arts project brought together local artists and volunteers to create textures, props, and various aspects of the sets and costumes for the production.  These eclectic sets and costumes were created primarily from reclaimed and recycled materials that were donated and transformed through community participation.   The design team, with the aid of a small army of volunteers, spindled newspaper and knitted plastic bags into art — essentially turning trash into gold.

“There is something about using simple materials that allows the artistic idea to shine through even more,” says Director O-Lan Jones.

Inventor Gregg Emmel was commissioned to create special “audience transportation” in the form of trains.  Each scene of the production takes place on a separate stage in the performance space requiring the audience to shuffle from set to set to see the action. Some audience members will have to drag their chairs around, while others will be transported in style via train (either luxury or standard) — the different modes of transportation are assigned according to the price of their ticket (a class hierarchy system!).  Some audience members will be upgraded each night based on a lottery system.

The Music of Songs & Dances-
Twenty one librettists and eleven composers have contributed original words and music specifically written for Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands that collectively create an odyssey.  The compositions span a range of musical styles from avant-garde classical to Eastern Bloc men’s choir, from island to rock.  Each captures the character of the imaginary land, or life moment, that it represents.

Twenty eight songs are included in the production, incorporating electronic, traditional acoustic, and invented instruments in the unhomogenized array of recorded and live music performed by an orchestra under the direction of award-winning composer David O.  The live nine-piece orchestra features keyboards, violin, cello, upright and electric bass, electric and acoustic guitar, drums, percussion, clarinet, baritone sax, and instruments made by Bart Hopkin from found materials (slide whistle, lyre, hurdy gurdy, metal signaler, k-scraper, stone pour, +).  To get a taste of this eclectic musical feast, please sample the following Mp3 excerpts from the production recorded during a recent rehearsal:

“Land Before Language” [0:43] – Music by David O
www.overtoneindustries.org/files/EXCERPT-The-Land-Before-Language-SD2010.mp3

“Tassos” [0:44] – Music by Eric Culver, Words by Ruth Margraff
www.overtoneindustries.org/files/EXCERPT-Tassos-Part-1-SD2010.mp3

“Stones Dance” [0:34] – Music by  Bart Hopkin, Words by Leon Martel
www.overtoneindustries.org/files/EXCERPT-Stones-Dance-SD2010.mp3

“Land of People Humbler Than Thou” [0:56] – Music and Words by O-Lan Jones
www.overtoneindustries.org/files/EXCERPT-The-Land-Of-People-Humbler-Than-Thou-SD2010.mp3

Additional details on these music selections, including names of the singers on each track, can be found in the Songs & Dances online media kit at www.overtoneindustries.org/sdmediakit.php.

Overtone Industries has received support from The Ahmanson Foundation, The Annenberg Foundation, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and The National Endowment for the Arts.  Additionally, real estate developer Joseph Miller, owner and president of The Runyon Group, donated the use of the vacant Culver City car dealership for the production. Miller provided the space to Overtone Industries so that it could be used creatively, in a way that would benefit the community, instead of standing vacant before he renovates it for commercial use.

Says Director O-Lan Jones, “The extensive collaboration on the project is a metaphor for the existential point of the opera — in other words, we all make the world that we live in together.”

O-Lan Jones, Director and Choreographer of the “Indigenous” Dances-
O-Lan Jones is an award-winning actress, composer, sound designer, and writer. Her work as an actress, originating female roles in plays by Sam Shepard, Beth Henley, Murray Mednick, and John Steppling, among others, has made her something of a cultural icon. Named for the character in Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth, Jones was raised by a free-spirited mother in various ghettos across America (Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, New York) with stops in London and the jungles of the Yucatan where they lived in a hut in a village of 80 Mayan Indians. She began her professional acting career at 16 in New York’s off-off Broadway scene in the late ’60s and early ’70s. In 1969, Jones married playwright Sam Shepard with whom she has a son. Shepard and Jones divorced in 1983.

Of the more than 80 plays she has acted in, only two have been performed prior to her involvement in them — part of her lot in life is as accomplice to new/experimental projects. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1990, she has had a broad range of roles in film and television. In features, she has worked with directors Tim Burton, Jonathan Demme, Ivan Reitman, Paul Schrader, John Schlesinger, Oliver Stone, Peter Weir, and Paul Bartel who directed Shelf Life, a movie she wrote and starred in. She is perhaps best known for playing Esmeralda, the reclusive Christian organist in Edward Scissorhands, and numerous waitress roles (Seinfeld, Shoot the Moon, Miracle Mile, Natural Born Killers, and The Truman Show). A repeat member of Burton’s ensemble casts, she also played hick trailer-dwelling mama Sue Ann Norris in Mars Attacks! Television credits also include Lonesome Dove and The X-Files; and she was a series regular on CBS’s Harts of the West.

She has composed three short operas; five musicals; created original music, songs, and sound designs for more than 30 theatrical productions; and has scored two short films. She was also the musical director and arranger of Joel Lipman’s rock-’n'-roll extravaganza Celebration of the Lizard, which features 49 Doors songs. Jones is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Overtone Industries, which the Los Angeles Times called “… audaciously experimental entertainment.”

Snezana Petrovic, Costume and Scenic Designer-
A freelance designer for 230 theatrical productions, 22 television series, and eight feature films, Snezana Petrovic is a pioneer in set design using computer-aided technology and she was the first art director to design sets on the FLAIR computer in her native Yugoslavia. In the US, she was the first graduate student in theater design to earn an interactive MFA (from UC Irvine), submitting her thesis on CD-ROM. She has served as resident designer at the Redlands Theater Festival for 15 seasons, and taught theater design and visual arts at the university level for 14 years. She was the recipient of the award in production design at the International Film Festival in Pula as well as six national awards for theater set and costume design in Yugoslavia. Petrovic’s paintings, video, and installation works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally in museums and galleries in Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Belgrade, and Prague. She has exhibited in 34 group exhibitions and had eight solo exhibitions. Currently she is serving as the Fine Arts Department Chair and Professor of Arts at Crafton Hills College.

David O, Musical Director-
David O is an award-winning composer, performer, and musical director.  His work has been featured at Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Mark Taper Forum, and the Hollywood Bowl, as well as other venues in Los Angeles and around the world.  His choral composition, A Map of Los Angeles, was commissioned by the LA Master Chorale with performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2008 and 2009.  Thousands of Los Angeles children and their parents know David as “The Professor” for his six years of performances with Summersounds at the Hollywood Bowl, produced by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  His original musicals include The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip and The Legend of Alex, both commissioned by Center Theatre Group’s P.L.A.Y. Program, and Imagine, commissioned by South Coast Repertory Theater. The Very Persistent Gappers of  Frip was performed as part of the inaugural season of the Kirk Douglas Theater.

David is the musical director, arranger, and co-composer for Disney Creative Entertainment’s new production, Toy Story: The Musical, which will open at Disney California Adventure in 2011.  Some of David’s most unique work includes non-traditional theater pieces for which he served as both musical director and composer.  Most notably, he created an entirely a capella score for Hippolytos, a new translation of Euripides’ tragedy commissioned to inaugurate the Fleischman Theater at the newly-refurbished Getty Villa in Malibu.  In addition, David was the composer, musical director, and on-stage pianist/percussionist for A Noise Within’s production of Ubu Roi, for which he received the 2006 Ovation Award for Sound Design in a Large Theater.

David has musically directed countless musical theater productions in the Los Angeles area, including the world premiere of 13, the new musical by Jason Robert Brown.  He has also served as musical director for the West Coast premieres of Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party and Little Fish.  Other notable productions as Musical Director include The Last 5 Years (Pasadena Playhouse), The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World (Inside the Ford), and Divorce: the Musical (Hudson Mainstage).

Gregg Emmel, Transportation Designer-
For 25 years, Gregg Emmel has been a material guy — a product designer, engineer, artist, entrepreneur, and performer.  Emmel holds over 45 patents in diverse fields, while garnering attention from Interiors Magazine, Home and Gardens, and the Discovery Channel. He is the founder and principal inventor for Cryoport Inc.  In 1987, he also founded Egg, an industrial design incubator facilitating entrepreneurial projects and intellectual property.  In addition to his technical and commercial work, Emmel’s art, sculptures and performances have been featured at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, the Austin International Poetry Festival, Coachella Arts Festival, and Burning Man.  As the Founder and Director of the Solids Gallery, a sculpture collective, he has shown throughout the Los Angeles area. Emmel’s latest endeavor is The Guilds Studios, a professional collective of artists and creators.

Nina Winthrop, Choreographer of the Traveling Lands-
Nina Winthrop formed her company, Nina Winthrop and Dancers, in 1991 and her work has been presented at numerous venues including Brooklyn Academy of Music, Danspace Project, Joyce SoHo, The Flea Theater and Movement Research at The Judson Church. She was awarded a Bessie Schönberg Choreographers’ Residency at The Yard in 2004, a Dancenow/NYC’s Silo Artist Residency in 2005, and participated in the Schönberg Choreographers Lab at DTW in 2005. Winthrop is the curator of the monthly performance and discussion series Dance Conversations @ The Flea and is on the board of Danspace Project and New Dance Alliance. She has danced with Wendy Perron, Susan Rethorst, Yoshiko Chuma, Sally Silvers, and Kei Takei. She studied with Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham, and Deborah Hay.

Librettists-
Sissy Boyd, Joe Chaikin, Chiwan Choi, Kathleen Cramer, Erik Ehn, Gilbert Girion, Deb Gwinn, Julie Hébert, O-Lan Jones, Merle Kessler, Quincy Long, Lynn Manning, Ruth Margraff, Leon Martell, Marlane Meyer, Ken Roht, Octavio Solis, John Steppling, Caridad Svich, Sharon Yablon, and Guy Zimmerman.

Composers-
John Ballinger, J. Raoul Brody, Eric Culver, Beth Custer, Jeff Fairbanks, Bart Hopkin, O-Lan Jones, Penka Kouneva, Richard Mariott, David O, and George Sarah.

Overtone Industries-
Emmy and Dramalogue award-winning Overtone Industries cultivates new talent for music theater by providing opportunities for composers, writers, and performers to collaborate in the creation of new musical works. By drawing on artists that spring from the diverse community, Overtone productions speak to and attract a wide-ranging spectrum of people. Overtone believes that culture is enriched and revitalized not only by the differences and variety of expression, but also by the underlying experiences that connect us all. The organization strives to create myths and fables that will illuminate the eternal forces that reverberate in our contemporary lives. By exploring new relationships among words, acting, movement, and music, the nonprofit seeks to make the invisible visible and bring audiences, casts, production crews, and ourselves closer to understanding some of life’s mysteries. Overtone Industries’ work has been performed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and in New York at the Kurt Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall.

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For more information, photos, or to arrange an interview, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at 213.840.1201 and lynn@greengalactic.com

Amy Knoles & Eric Clark; photo courtesy of The California EAR Unit

Rachel Rosenthal Company is excited to feature Guest Artists Amy Knoles and Eric Clark of the acclaimed electro acoustic chamber ensemble the California EAR Unit, at TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theater Ensemble performances in July. The California EAR Unit’s Amy Knoles and Rachel Rosenthal have been friends and collaborators for many years.  As TOHUBOHU! guest artists, Knoles and Clark will be integrated into The Ensemble with their live improvisational music performance. The TOHUBOHU! “total free improvisation” performances featuring the California EAR Unit run Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 9, 10, and 11, 2010.

LOS ANGELES, CA – Rachel Rosenthal Company is excited to feature Guest Artists Amy Knoles and Eric Clark of the acclaimed electro acoustic chamber ensemble the California EAR Unit, at TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theater Ensemble performances in July. The TOHUBOHU! “total free improvisation” performances featuring the California EAR Unit run Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 9, 10, and 11, 2010. Friday and Saturday performances begin at 8:30 p.m., Sunday performances at 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $20. Reservations are necessary to insure seats and can be made online via Brown Paper Tickets at www.rachelrosenthal.org or www.brownpapertickets.com/event/89856. The Rachel Rosenthal Company’s venue, Espace DbD, is located at 2847 South Robertson Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90034. Street parking is available.

The California EAR Unit’s Amy Knoles and Rachel Rosenthal have been friends and collaborators for many years.  Knoles collaborated on Rosenthal’s final full-length solo piece UR-BOOR. She also scored Rosenthal’s 60-performer piece Zone at the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts, as well as performed live with Rosenthal in Pangean Dreams, Timepiece, and The Unexpurgated Virgin throughout the US and Europe.  As TOHUBOHU! guest artists, Knoles and Clark will be integrated into The Ensemble with their live improvisational music performance.

The Unit has performed in respected venues such as the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. They have toured throughout the world: Brussels, Aspen, Kiev, Paris, Cologne, New York, Boston, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Amsterdam, and Reykjavik. They have also been featured in programs on the BBC, Japanese television, National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Danish National Radio, and WGBH.  From 1987 to 2004, the EAR Unit was Ensemble-in-Residence at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Since then, they have been in residence at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) housed in the Walt Disney Hall. Over the years, the Unit has worked closely with many composers such as Elliott Carter, Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, John Luther Adams, Fred Frith, Tod Machover, Julia Wolfe, Louis Andriessen, John Cage, Mauricio Kagel, Michael Gordon, Charles Wuorinen, Morton Subotnick, and Alison Knowles, among others.

In 1999, Rosenthal received an Honorary Doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and in 2000 she was honored by the City of Los Angeles as a “Living Cultural Treasure of Los Angeles.” Critics have called her “a monument and a marvel” and Richard Schechner, editor of The Drama Review (TDR), put Rosenthal into the same category as Robert Wilson, Ping Chong, Richard Foreman, Meredith Monk, and Laurie Anderson.

"Untitled" Roscoe Wilson

Following a successful launch in Beijing, the A&I Gallery in Hollywood will host the North American premiere of Common Ground 2010, an exhibition of fine art digital prints from across the globe, all with an environmental theme. The exhibition of new media work, at the intersection of art, technology, and eco-activism, opens on July 8, 2010 and runs through August 13, 2010. Over 1,000 artists from 40 countries submitted their digital art for consideration. The resulting curated collection contains work from 85 artists. A portion of all proceeds generated from the touring exhibition will benefit non-profit organizations including the World Wildlife Fund, Global Giving, and The Global Environmental Institute.For Immediate Release:  May 25, 2010

A&I Gallery in Hollywood Hosts
Common Ground 2010
An International Touring Digital Art Exhibition
At the Intersection of Art + Technology + Environmental Stewardship

Presented by Hewlett-Packard & FujiFilm

Exhibition Runs from July 8 through August 13, 2010
Eco-Friendly Opening Reception – Thursday, July 8, 2010

LOS ANGELES, CA – Following a successful launch in Beijing, the A&I Gallery in Hollywood will host the North American premiere of Common Ground 2010, an international touring exhibition of fine art digital prints from across the globe, all with an environmental theme. The exhibition of new media work opens on Thursday, July 8, 2010 with an eco-friendly opening reception and runs through August 13, 2010. Over 1,000 artists from 40 countries submitted their digital art for consideration. The resulting curated collection contains work from 85 artists. A portion of all proceeds generated from the touring exhibition will benefit non-profit organizations including the World Wildlife Fund, Global Giving, and The Global Environmental Institute. Common Ground is presented in part by Hewlett-Packard Company and FujiFilm. Join some of the artists for organic edibles, live music, and more on the 8^th from 7:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. at the A&I Gallery. The opening reception and exhibition are free and open to the public. A&I is located at 933 North Highland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038. Lot and street parking are available.  For gallery information, please visit http://www.aandi.com/gallery or call 323-856-5280.  To learn more about Common Ground’s international exhibition, please visit http://www.CommonGround2010.com.

The opening reception for Common Ground 2010’s Los Angeles exhibition of new media work – at the intersection of art, technology, and eco-activism – on Thursday, July 8^th is an environmentally-friendly affair featuring selected Common Ground artists in attendance including Clayton Spada and Victor Raphael from the US, and Duan Jia from Beijing, China.  The Eclipse Quartet will perform live a piece composed especially for Common Ground by classically trained film composer and conductor David Williams, while additional beats will be provided by DJ and local underground artist L.Croskey, a/k/a MrNumberOnederful.

In further keeping with the environmental sustainability theme of Common Ground, Cascade Peak Spirits will be pouring micro-distillery alcohol featuring its handcrafted ORGANIC NATION® vodka, gin, and whiskey, while Sonoma County’s Inman Family Wines will offer the attendees a taste of its world class wines from the Russian River Valley where they utilize healthy soil, employ natural winemaking and following sustainable business practices.

Every aspect of the Common Ground artwork at A&I Gallery has been supported by companies with CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives that focus of the environment.  The LA exhibit includes frames from Larson-Juhl and their Global ReLeaf ecosystem restoration project, having planted over a quarter of a million trees throughout the world since 1991. Also supporting Common Ground is Nielsen Bainbridge, providing the backing, matting, and mounting boards as part of their eco-friendly product range. L.A. Art Exchange has been providing Southern Californian’s the ultimate professional custom framing service for over 25 years and will be handling all of the final framing and presentations for the exhibit.  Read more below about each of these companies.

Exhibition highlights for Common Ground 2010 in Los Angeles:

• A selection of 35 museum quality digital prints from the Common Ground Collection will be on display.
• The prints are provided by FujiFilm, the leading supplier of UV (Ultra Violet) cured inks, driving a positive environmental change in the printing industry. Limited editions of 50 will be available for purchase ($500 – $1000).
• A hardcover, limited edition commemorative book has been published with the support of Hewlett-Packard and will be available for purchase (79 art works, edition of 250, $60).
• A portion of the print and commemorative book sales will be donated to non-profit organizations The World Wildlife Fund, Global Giving, and The Global Environmental Institute.
• Large flat screen high definition monitors will present the entire Common Ground Collection.

Santa Monica-based Common Ground was born from founder Larry Richard’s desire to support artists and technologists to use their artistic talents to communicate with each other – and by extension with the rest of the world – about issues common to every one of us on the planet: A clean environment for our communities and for our children. The Common Ground Collection speaks to this shared concern regardless of nationality, borders, or culture.

“There are a lot of buzz-words out there. Environmental responsibility. Green consciousness. Sustainable practices. We hear the words, but where’s the practical meaning beyond all the rhetoric and posturing? The truth is: We all inhabit the same home: Earth. Common Ground speaks clearly to this shared global experience,” says Richard.

Common Ground International Exhibiting Tour:
Common Ground successfully launched the first leg of its world tour in November 2008 at the Huan Tie Art Museum in Beijing, China to coincide with the Summer Olympics festivities in Beijing. Media coverage from the event can be reviewed at http://www.commonground2010.com/?page_id=6. The Los Angeles exhibition at A&I marks the North American premiere, to be followed by exhibitions throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico through 2011. An open call to artists worldwide for additional digital art will be held in the Spring of 2011 in order to expand the Common Ground collection as it travels to London to coincide with the Summer Olympics in 2012.

Curators:
Nearly 1,000 artists from 40 countries responded in 2008 to a global invitation for contributions to this art meets eco-activism collaboration. 85 pieces from 23 countries were curated into the collection by a diverse group of international artists, academics, and entrepreneurs with extensive experience in new media.
-  Duan Jia, writer, director, animator, and professor at the Beijing Film Academy
-  John & Margie Labadie, faculty at University of North Carolina at Pembroke
-  Amelia Pellegrini, artist in Italy
-  Zhou Ping, artist, professor at University Of China
-  Victor Raphael, artist in Los Angeles
-  Larry Richard, founder of Common Ground in Los Angeles
-  Lu Shengzhang, artist, filmmaker, professor at University Of China
-  Wang Shuipo, professor at Central Academy of Fine Art, China
-  Clayton Spada, artist, curator, teacher, lecturer and workshop leader in Los Angeles
-  Lu Xiaobo, vice chairman at Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Tsinghua University
-  Lu Xuguang, artist, professor at Beijing Film Academy

Common Ground Commemorative Book:
A limited edition hardcover commemorative book featuring 79 digital art works from the collection was sponsored by HP and by A&I Digital Labs. Books are available for purchase at the A&I Gallery, throughout the North American Common Ground tour, and online at http://www.commonground2010.com/?page_id=12 for $60. 100% of book proceeds will be donated to the World Wildlife Fund, Global Giving, and The Global Environmental Institute. The book was printed in Los Angeles on the HP Indigo 5000 press by A&I Photographic and Digital Services.

Larry Richard, Common Ground Founder:
As a marketer and promoter, Richard has produced nationally touring art and technology events for more than 20 years. Gathering together artists, corporate sponsors, and innovative technologies, he has produced exhibitions, conferences, and public events, each drawing thousands of attendees while generating significant media coverage and public awareness. Past projects include Shared Dreams, a collaboration of Cuban and US artists, the touring fine art photography exhibitions The Dezo Hoffman Collection and The Legends of Rock Collection, and Online Expo, a conference focused on internet technologies and opportunities. Since 2004, Richard has turned his attention to leveraging his experience to support his passion for a sustainable environment.

A&I Gallery:
A&I Gallery’s mission is to raise awareness of talented artists in the photographic world and of charitable organizations. A&I began exhibiting photography in July of 2006 and has hosted eighteen exhibits and opening receptions since. The work shown has ranged greatly in content with photography as the common thread tying them all together. A&I Photographic & Digital Services sets the standard for fine art printing. Clients include world renowned photographers whose work is displayed in some of the most prestigious museums and galleries worldwide. The A&I Gallery is open Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Saturday 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

FujiFilm:
Fujifilm is a leading supplier of UV (Ultra Violet) cured inks, which are driving a positive environmental change in the printing industry. Fujifilm’s UV inks are free of harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and are cured using ultra violet light. UV inks also consume less energy in the printing process, eliminating the need for traditional drying systems. Fujifilm has also developed new VOC-free digital inks that have no hazardous air pollutants and allow printers to emit lower amounts of VOCs than conventional solvent inks.

Hewlett-Packard Company (HP):
HP has made a commitment to the environment by continuing to develop policies and initiatives that deliver increasingly high standards in all areas of environmental responsibility. “Environmental responsibility is good business. We’ve reached the tipping point where the price and performance of IT are no longer compromised by being green, but are now enhanced by it,” says Mark Hurd, Chairman and CEO.

L.A. Art Exchange
For over 20 years, L.A. Art Exchange has provided its individual and corporate customers with the largest selection of custom frames, moulding and mounting options in Southern California. L.A. Art Exchange’s Santa Monica gallery also features original art and photography from local and nationally renowned artists and photographers, as well as wide variety of fine art prints, giclees, posters, unique jewelry, gifts and home décor accessories.

Larson-Juhl
Larson-Juhl’s broad range of quality custom framing products provide design solutions to suit nearly anything one can have framed. Larson-Juhl offers a number of custom frame moulding collections that have earned PEFC certification as well as a vast selection of matboards which boast FSC certification.  As part of their long range sustainability initiative, Larson-Juhl has partnered with American Forests to begin the Global ReLeaf ecosystem restoration project. Since 1991, Larson-Juhl has planted over a quarter of a million trees throughout the world.

Nielsen Bainbridge
Nielsen Bainbridge is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of high-quality picture framing products. Its designs and innovations are driven by a passion for beauty in the presentation of art, and have helped to defined and – at times – redefined the industry. Nielsen Bainbridge products include high-end metal frames, wood frames, ready-made frame systems, as well as mountboards and matboards in over four hundred colors and textures.

Cascade Peak Spirits
Cascade Peak Spirits, Inc. (CPS) is a micro-distillery creating handcrafted ORGANIC NATION® vodka, gin, whiskey and other organic spirits. It works with local Organic Farmers and local suppliers to create a business that supports the local economy and the practices of Sustainability by “Buying local, Buying Green”. CPS is the first distillery in Oregon with organic certification, offering the consumer a socially responsible alternative.

Inman Family Wines
Inman Family Wines produce small lots of wine made from impeccably grown grapes in Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley. They believe that owning a vineyard and winery comes with more responsibility than just what is required by law and business obligations. They make world class wines that rely on healthy soil, natural winemaking and sustainable business practices including eco-friendly wine labels,  recyclable packaging, reduction of waste, use of renewable sources of energy and a commitment to seeking suppliers that share our vision.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF):
World Wildlife Fund’s mission is the conservation of nature. WWF works to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth and the health of ecological systems, through promoting more efficient use of resources and energy and the maximum reduction of pollution; protecting natural areas and wild populations of plants and animals, including endangered species; and promoting sustainable approaches to the use of renewable natural resources. WWF is committed to reversing the degradation of our planet’s natural environment and to building a future in which human needs are met in harmony with nature.

Global Giving:
Global Giving is an online marketplace where individual and corporate donors can connect to community-based initiatives that need support. Visitors to the site can browse projects to help others around the world, pick philanthropic projects that they are passionate about, and give directly to the solution.

The Global Environmental Institute:
The Global Environmental Institute, established in Beijing, China in 2004, is a Chinese non-profit, non-governmental organization. Its mission is to design and implement market-based models for solving environmental problems in China in order to achieve development that is economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable.

“Artists throughout history have played a key role in shaping the world-view of their day,” says Richard, “Through Common Ground, artists from all corners of the globe can use the expressive language they know best — visual art — to share their concern for the fate of the earth. What’s more, they get to make a contribution in a tangible way since proceeds from the exhibition are donated to vital non-profit organizations such as Global Giving, World Wildlife Fund, and The Global Environmental Institute.”

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For more information, photos, or to arrange interviews, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at 213.840.1201 and lynn@greengalactic.com

For Immediate Release:  May 6, 2010

Overtone Industries Invites the Public to
Extensive Community Arts Project
“Songs & Dances Craftacular Weekend Workshops”
Eco-Friendly Collaborations to Create Props & Costumes
From Recycled Materials for Upcoming Contemporary Opera
Songs & Dances of Imaginary Lands
Weekends in Culver City through June 20, 2010

LOS ANGELES, CA – Overtone Industries is engaged in a massive community arts project, currently underway, to create props and costumes from recycled materials for their July site-specific contemporary opera, Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands directed by O-Lan Jones. In May and June, creative volunteers are invited to Overtone’s “Songs & Dances Craftacular Weekend Workshops,” a series of free public art workshops where donated recyclables are being transformed into sets and costumes for the innovative music theater production. Overtone Industries is looking for crafters, artists, knitters, and the general public of all ages to collaborate on the project by participating in the art-making process via the community workshops. Workshops are being held Saturdays and Sundays, 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., through June 20, 2010 at the Songs & Dances Warehouse, 8840 Washington Street, Culver City, CA 90232 (with the exception of Sunday May, 9, 2010 – there will be no workshop on that date). Free lot parking is available on site. Children must be accompanied by an adult. RSVP is requested, but not required, at songdancesworkshop.eventbrite.com/?ref=ecal. All levels of experience, from beginners to professionals, are encouraged to drop by for the fun. Additional community art workshop and recycling program details are at www.overtoneindustries.org/sdworkshops.php. For questions, please call 323-655-2410 during business hours, Monday through Friday.

Under the artistic direction of Costume and Scenic Designer Snezana Petrovic, with the support of Vibrant Production Management, a vacant 25,000-square-foot Culver City car dealership is being transformed into an adventurous performance space. Through the creation of 21 art installations of the titular imaginary lands, each dramatically different from one another, and wild, native costumes of invented cultures, volunteers will help set the stage for this epic music and dance extravaganza. Participants will create props, textures, and aspects of the sets and costumes for the production while also learning new art-making techniques. Local residents, nonprofit groups, service organizations, and senior centers are expected to take part.

“The community is an essential ingredient to the creation of these lands; everyone’s experience will be literally glued, twisted, and knitted into the environments we create together,” says Director O-Lan Jones, “This collaboration is a metaphor for the existential point of the opera — in other words, we all make the world that we live in together.”

The public can participate in two ways:
-  donate recyclables to the project
-  join in at the community art workshops to create the sets, props & costumes

Recyclables can be dropped off at the Songs and Dances Warehouse on Saturdays and Sundays from 11:00 a.m. to 12noon through June 20, 2010. Overtone Industries is specifically looking for donations of plastic bottles, newspapers, corrugated cardboard, plastic shopping bags, catalogs, junk mail, magazines, can tabs, bottle caps, clean white socks, packaging peanuts, and CDs. For details, see: www.overtoneindustries.org/files/sdrecyclingprogramflyer.pdf

“Songs & Dances Craftacular Weekend Workshops”
Recycle Drop-Off & Art-Making Schedule:

• 11:00 a.m. – 12:00noon – drop off recyclables
• 12:30 – 4:30 p.m. – workshops

~workshop focus/featured materials noted~

Sat. 5/08/10 (Combination)
Sat. 5/15/10 (Combination)
Sun. 5/16/10 (Cardboard)
Sat. 5/22/10 (Plastic Water Bottles)
Sun. 5/23/10 (Plastic Water Bottles)
Sat. 5/29/10 (Metal & Aluminum)
Sun. 5/30/10 (Metal & Aluminum)
Sat. 6/05/10 (Paper Mache)
Sun. 6/06/10 (Paper Mache)
Sat. 6/12/10 (Assembling)
Sun. 6/13/10 (Assembling)
Sat. 6/19/10 (Assembling)
Sun. 6/20/10 (Assembling)

“Songs & Dances Craftacular Weekend Workshops” Video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH-pVrkd4co
(video credit: Halldor Enard)

Real estate developer Joseph Miller, owner and president of The Runyon Group, donated the use of the vacant Culver City car dealership for the production. Miller provided the space to Overtone Industries so that it could be used creatively, in a way that would benefit the community, instead of standing vacant. The development of this production has been supported by The Annenberg Foundation since 2006. Overtone Industries also receives support from The Ahmanson Foundation, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and The National Endowment for the Arts.

Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands
After seven years in development, non-profit organization Overtone Industries is set to launch their site-specific theatricale Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands, with two weeks of performances opening Thursday, July 8, 2010. Billed as a contemporary opera, the genre-bending production integrates art installation, dance, voice, live and recorded music, projected video, costuming, community participation, and theater. Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands was conceptualized by Jones in an extensive collaboration that involves twenty one librettists, eleven composers, Costume and Scenic Designer Petrovic, Musical Director David O, and many others. The performances will run from Thursday, July 8 to Sunday, July 18, 2010 with five weekly performances (Thursdays through Sundays, 8:00 p.m. nightly with 2:00 p.m. matinees on Sundays). Additional preview performances will run the week prior, from Thursday, July 1 to Sunday, July 4, 2010 (matinee only on July 4). Ticket prices start at $25 and go on sale in May on Overtone’s site at www.overtoneindustries.org.

Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands takes the audience on a journey with working class Tom and aristocratic Sue, who have lost their identities. The couple reclaims their story by means of a device that allows them to inhabit the “lands” that hold the pivotal experiences of their lives embodied in songs, dances, pledges of allegiance, and rituals indigenous to those turning points.

“Sounds heavy, but the show is a blast,” says Producer Scott Cargle, “It’s a large-scale extravaganza full of colorful art, an amazing array of music, wild costumes, and innovative choreography – but with a profound story as well.”

O-Lan Jones, Director and Co-Choreographer
O-Lan Jones is an award-winning actress, composer, sound designer, and writer. Her work as an actress, originating female roles in plays by Sam Shepard, Beth Henley, Murray Mednick, and John Steppling, among others, has made her something of a cultural icon. Named for the character in Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth, Jones was raised by a free-spirited mother in various ghettos across America (Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, New York) with stops in London and the jungles of the Yucatan where they lived in a hut in a village of 80 Mayan Indians. She began her professional acting career at 16 in New York’s off-off Broadway scene in the late ’60s and early ’70s. In 1969, Jones married playwright Sam Shepard with whom she has a son. Shepard and Jones divorced in 1983.

Of the more than 80 plays she has acted in, only two have been performed prior to her involvement in them — part of her lot in life is as accomplice to new/experimental projects. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1990, she has had a broad range of roles in film and television. In features, she has worked with directors Tim Burton, Jonathan Demme, Ivan Reitman, Paul Schrader, John Schlesinger, Oliver Stone, Peter Weir, and Paul Bartel who directed Shelf Life, a movie she wrote and starred in. She is perhaps best known for playing Esmeralda, the reclusive Christian organist in Edward Scissorhands, and numerous waitress roles (Seinfeld, Shoot the Moon, Miracle Mile, Natural Born Killers, and The Truman Show). A repeat member of Burton’s ensemble casts, she also played hick trailer-dwelling mama Sue Ann Norris in Mars Attacks! Television credits also include Lonesome Dove and The X-Files; and she was a series regular on CBS’s Harts of the West.

She has composed three short operas; five musicals; created original music, songs, and sound designs for more than 30 theatrical productions; and has scored two short films. She was also the musical director and arranger of Joel Lipman’s rock-’n'-roll extravaganza Celebration of the Lizard, which features 49 Doors songs. Jones is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Overtone Industries, which the Los Angeles Times called “… audaciously experimental entertainment.”

Scott Cargle, Producer
Scott Cargle has been an actor, writer, director, and producer for decades. He was the founder and artistic director of The Shakespeare Project in New York City, where he presented 11 seasons of free outdoor productions in parks and public spaces for more than 40,000 people. He produced two annual Play Outside! Festivals of Free Outdoor Theater, with more than 20 theater companies and performance artists presenting 120 shows in 30 parks, all in the course of 21 days. He served on funding panels for the New York Times Foundation, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, City of LA Department of Cultural Affairs, NY Foundation for the Arts and many others. He teaches seminars on fundraising, grant writing, nonprofit business planning, and project development at the Center for Nonprofit Management and CalArts.

Snezana Petrovic, Costume and Scenic Designer
A freelance designer for 230 theatrical productions, 22 television series, and eight feature films, Snezana Petrovic is a pioneer in set design using computer-aided technology and was the first art director to design sets on the FLAIR computer in her native Yugoslavia. In the US, she was the first graduate student in theater design to earn an interactive MFA (from UC Irvine), submitting her thesis on CD-ROM. She has served as resident designer at the Redlands Theater Festival for 15 seasons, and taught theater design and visual arts at the university level for 14 years. She was the recipient of the award in production design at the International Film Festival in Pula as well as six national awards for theater set and costume design in Yugoslavia. Petrovic’s paintings, video, and installation works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally in museums and galleries in Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Belgrade, and Prague. She has exhibited in 34 group exhibitions and had eight solo exhibitions. Currently she is serving as the Fine Arts Department Chair and Professor of Arts at Crafton Hills College.

Overtone Industries
Emmy and Dramalogue award-winning Overtone Industries cultivates new talent for music theater by providing opportunities for composers, writers, and performers to collaborate in the creation of new musical works. By drawing on artists that spring from the diverse community, Overtone productions speak to and attract a wide-ranging spectrum of people. Overtone believes that culture is enriched and revitalized not only by the differences and variety of expression, but also by the underlying experiences that connect us all. The organization strives to create myths and fables that will illuminate the eternal forces that reverberate in our contemporary lives. By exploring new relationships among words, acting, movement, and music, the nonprofit seeks to make the invisible visible and bring audiences, casts and production crews closer to understanding some of life’s mysteries. Overtone Industries’ work has been performed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and in New York at the Kurt Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall.

Vibrant Production Management
Vibrant Production Management works with artists of various disciplines to create and manage original, vivid artistic experiences. Vibrant offers comprehensive production services from concept to completion. Beginning with a shared vision or need, the firm assembles teams of artists and managers to provide energy and movement to a project. The firm handles logistics, allowing the artistic product to be presented as high-quality, seamless entertainment. Recent projects include: Ecosystems Gala at California Science Center, Meet Me @ Metro for Watts Village Theater Company, Shakespeare by the Sea’s 13th season and ensemble strategic planning for Impro Theatre.  Vibrant Production Management is a partnership between Sara Adelman and Michelle Magaldi. Adelman and Magaldi are experienced producers and managers of live events working in and around Los Angeles for over a decade as independent contractors and employees of award-winning arts organizations.

“This is not just an opera. It’s an event,” says Cargle in summing up Songs & Dances of Imaginary Lands, “It asks the artists and the audience to reconsider: What is theater? What is opera? Where does it happen? What does it look like? Who makes it happen?”

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For more information, photos, or to arrange an interview, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at 213.840.1201 and lynn@greengalactic.com

image from "North Horizon" by Thomas Freundlich and Valterri Raekallio

Dance Camera West (DCW), recognized internationally for its month-long presentation and celebration of dance on screen, announces the programming for its ninth annual Dance Media Film Festival screening at venues throughout Southern California in June 2010.  Dance on screen, or “screendance,” is a unique cinematic experience that focuses on the intersection of cinematography and choreography.  The festival includes this as well as all forms of dance media.  “The hybrid screendance medium is diverse, encompassing a broad range of cinematic styles, exhibition formats, and subject matters traversing global perspectives,” says Dance Camera West founder and director, Lynette Kessler… For Immediate Release:  April 26, 2010 [revised 05/26/10]

Dance Camera West
Announces Program Schedule For
Ninth Annual Dance Media Film Festival
Throughout Los Angeles – June 2010
–
REDCAT, Downtown Art Walk, Hammer Museum, Screen Actors Guild,
Cheviot Hills Recreation Center, Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Grand Performances

LOS ANGELES, CA – Dance Camera West (DCW), recognized internationally for its month-long presentation and celebration of dance on screen, announces the programming for its ninth annual Dance Media Film Festival screening at venues throughout Southern California in June 2010.  Dance on screen, or “screendance,” is a unique cinematic experience that focuses on the intersection of cinematography and choreography.  The festival includes this as well as all forms of dance media.  “The hybrid screendance medium is diverse, encompassing a broad range of cinematic styles, exhibition formats, and subject matters traversing global perspectives,” says Dance Camera West founder and director, Lynette Kessler, “The festival includes everything from experimental shorts to documentaries – ranging from surreal visual abstractions to strict narratives.”  Once again DCW partners with the city’s most prominent venues in offering a host of screenings, installations, and panel discussions with visiting international artists. Please visit DCW’s website for continuous updates at www.dancecamerawest.org.

Dance Camera West’s ninth annual Dance Media Film Festival opens at REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in downtown LA, with its celebrated opening night party on Friday, June 4, 2010.  The opening weekend, entitled “Dance Media Screen Innovations,” will captivate audiences on Friday and Saturday night with three separate programs of screendance short films from around the world.  On Thursday, June 10th look for a DCW media installation as part of the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.  The following weekend DCW will present two days of programming at the Hammer Museum’s Billy Wilder Theatre – “Weekend at the Hammer” – which will feature iconic Pina Bausch films on Saturday, June 12^th (three West Coast films premieres in two programs: Pina Bausch [2006], and A Breath with Pina Bausch [2004] at 4:30pm and then at 7:00pm Dancing Dreams [2010]), and on Sunday, June 13th experience “SurREEL Moves: Weird & Wonderful Experimental Dance Shorts.”  Join industry insiders at the 4th installment of the Choreography Media Honors on Wednesday June 16th at the Screen Actors Guild for “Choreographers In Media: A Panel Discussion.”  On the evening of June 19th, DCW showcases work from Los Angeles-based creators in its “Local Makers” program with an entertaining outdoor, community event at the Cheviot Hills Recreation Center.  The final weekend wraps up with “Movement Media Installations” on Saturday June 26th, a closing reception in Beverly Hills at Timothy Yarger Fine Arts.  Then on Sunday evening DCW presents Dzi Croquettes, a lively Brazilian documentary at Grand Performances.

Known as one of the world’s premiere presenters of dance media, Dance Camera West aspires to awaken and infuse the public mainstream with critical creative programming.  DCW has expanded the audience for dance in Southern California with the presentation of more than 1,000 dance films from 45 countries since its inception in 2002.  The West African country Burkina Faso was added this year.

“Dance media is pushing art in a new direction as choreographers and directors continue to fuel innovation and impact the way we perceive art and life,” says Kessler.

Dance Camera West founder and executive/artistic director Lynette Kessler is an accomplished dancer, choreographer, and media artist with an MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and a BFA in Dance from York University in Toronto.  Known for her innovative collaborations and dance work for the screen that have been shown in film festivals worldwide, Kessler has received numerous awards including a Lester Horton Dance Award, Alden B. Dow Creativity Fellowship, and an artist residency at Headlands Center for the Arts. She is a founding member of Media & Dance Network (MAD), has served on dance film review committees for EMPAC (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center) Commission, American Choreography Awards, Dance on Camera Festival in New York, Moving Pictures Festival of Dance on Film in Toronto, and is a guest lecturer at UCLA, UC Irvine, and Cal Arts.  Kessler sits on the board of directors for the following organizations: Buckminster Fuller Institute, Dance Channel TV, and the California Ear Unit.  She is an active member of the advocacy groups: Arts for LA, California Arts Advocates, and Americans for the Arts. And she’s also on the Media Arts Advisory Committee to guide the new Media Arts initiative creating a fifth arts discipline for Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Dance Camera West is a nonprofit organization committed to fostering and promoting the vibrant art of dance media from around the world.  DCW aims to bridge the unique mix of film and dance communities in Los Angeles through the exploration of this hybrid genre.  DCW also strives to create a broader and more engaged audience for dance and dance media by merging both performance and cinematic aesthetics.  DCW is one of only a handful of organizations in the world that present dance media and the only one of its kind on the West Coast.  The 2008 and 2009 festivals were featured in FOX News segments, Los Angeles Magazine selected Dance Camera West as its “Pick of the Month” for the June 2008 issue, the Los Angeles Times selected the Dance Camera West Media Film Festival as one of the “Ten Best” dance events in Los Angeles for 2006 and 2007, and DCW was voted one of the “Top 25 Dance Organizations to Watch” by Dance Magazine in 2005 and 2006.

In addition to the planning of the upcoming June 2010 festival, Dance Camera West is also preparing a special 10-year anniversary event for 2011.  In celebration of this milestone, the organization will host an international Dance Media Symposium in downtown Los Angeles next year, bringing together artists, dancers, educators, and film/television industry professionals.  With a working title of Dance Media: The Active Spectrum, 2011 conference participants from the dance and media worlds will come together for a conversation on the exciting opportunities for expansive growth, creative expression, and innovation offered by new media. In addition to a full program of evening screenings, the 2011 anniversary event will also include a unique series of daytime panel presentations, guest speakers, and networking opportunities. A steering committee for the conference is being formed with notable artists and leaders from the international dance media community.

This year’s 2010 Dance Camera West festival is supported in part by Mortimer Levitt Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, Chora, a project of the Metabolic Studio, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

See below for DCW’s June 2010 Festival Schedule:

➢    Fri. June 4 [8:00pm] and Sat. June 5 [6:00pm & 8:00pm] at REDCAT [downtown LA]
“Dance Media Screen Innovations” (contains adult content)

Opening night screening and party on Friday followed by two different screening programs on Saturday. In three unique experimental shorts screening programs, held during the first two days of the festival, this collection of innovative dance films represents a survey of what’s happening in the current state of screen dance from around the world, which explores the intersection between movement and cinema.  The “Dance Media Screen Innovations” program includes 24 films – three of which are world premieres, the other 21 are all West Coast premieres and most are U.S. premieres – from 14 different countries including France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, China, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Belgium, USA, Canada, Ireland and Brazil.  Audiences should be warned that some films contain adult content.
- Fri. June 4 – 8:00pm – Screening followed by Opening Night Reception
- Sat. June 5 – 6:00pm – Screening
- Sat. June 5 – 8:00pm – Screening (all three screenings different)

REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in Walt Disney Concert Hall complex
631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (213 237-2800; www.redcat.org)
- Tickets $15 opening night, $10 for other screenings
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➢    Thu. June 10 [5:00 – 9:00pm] [downtown LA]
DCW Installation at Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk

DCW will take part in the increasingly popular Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk. DCW presents the media installation “Body/Traces,” a commission from EMPAC (Jaffe Foundation Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center), in the basement of the Los Angeles Theater Center (LATC).  The LATC is an historical building, formerly Security National Bank dating from 1916, whose marble walls enclose the Center’s Grand Lobby.  The installation will be in the former vault!

“Body/Traces” by Lisa Parra and Sophie Kahn
“Body/Traces” is a fascinating media installation that examines the body by reducing it to lines through the interaction of three-dimensional media, movement, sound and the environment.  The tranquil piece about perception presents an interesting juxtaposition as it exerts itself within the context of the legendary art walk masses.

The Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk is a free, self-guided tour of the many art exhibition venues in Downtown LA.  It takes place on the 2nd Thursday of every month.  It began in September 2004 and has grown enormously since, with many thousands of people attending every month (50,000 in March 2010).  More than 40 galleries and museums participate throughout the central downtown area, within the walkable districts between the Grand Avenue/Disney Hall/MOCA area, Little Tokyo, and the Financial District, centered around Gallery Row on Main and Spring Streets in the Historic Core.

Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk – www.downtownartwalk.org
Los Angeles Theatre Center
514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90013 (213-489-0994; http://thelatc.org)
- FREE admission, no reservations required

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➢    Sat. June 12 [7:00pm] and Sun. June 13 [2:00pm & 6:00pm] at the Hammer Museum [Westwood]
“Weekend at the Hammer” – three programs over two days at the Hammer

- Saturday – “Pina Bausch Celebration”
Pina Bausch, a master of transformative theater, surreal stagings and an incomparable brand of neo-expressionist dance, was one of the greatest dance artists of the last 40 years. Join us for a celebration with three West Coast film premieres taking an in-depth look at the work and life of Pina Bausch.  Co-presented by the Goethe Institute.
- Sunday – “SurREEL Moves: Weird & Wonderful Experimental Dance Shorts”

Saturday – 4:30pm -
Pina Bausch (Germany, 2006, 45 min.)
From confused and irritated audiences to standing ovations worldwide, Pina Bausch shares stories of her journey in this documentary starting with forming her company Tanztheather Wuppertal in the early 1970’s to creating over 30 astonishing works. Directed by Anne Linsel.  Co-presented by the Goethe Institute.

A Breath with Pina Bausch (Turkey, 2004, 45 min.)
Award-winning director Huseyin Karabey’s high-caliber documentary provides unprecedented access into the creative process of one of modern dance’s most compelling minds. A Breath with Pina Bausch was inspired by the city of Istanbul, the cosmopolitan center that the Byzantine, Roman and the Ottoman Empires all called home.

Saturday – 7:00pm -
Dancing Dreams (Germany, 2010, 89 min.)
The documentary centers around a group of high school students rehearsing for a performance of one of Pina Bausch’s signature pieces, “Kontakthof” (Comfort Zone), a stylized presentation of the entanglements of the sexes. Directed by Anne Linsel.  Co-presented by the Goethe Institute.

Sunday – 7:00pm -
“SurREEL Moves: Weird & Wonderful Experimental Dance Shorts” (85 min.)
From poetic to peculiar, this collection of recent award-winning international dance shorts presents both kinetic and immobile bodies in space, defying traditional notions of dance. Sushi, reindeer, and a bright pink wig triumph in this program of smart, cool and LOL dance media.

Hammer Museum – Billy Wilder Theater
10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024 (310-443-7000; www.hammer.ucla.edu)
- FREE admission, no reservations required; seating is first come first served
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➢    Wed. June 16 [7:00pm - 9:00pm] at Screen Actors Guild [Mid-Wilshire]
Choreographers In Media: A Panel Discussion
Presented by Dance Camera West and held in association with Screen Actors Guild and Career Transitions for Dancers

This years Choreography Media Honors will be presented as a panel discussion featuring today’s working choreographers. Dance makers continue to create iconic moments that shape film history for audiences all over the world.  The panel will discuss how they create work for the camera and the role they play at the intersection of dance on screen.

Panelist’s include:
Chuck Maldonado is an award-winning choreographer and performer whose credits include Stomp The Yard (1 & 2), You Got Served, Dancing With the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew, an Apple iPod commercial, and the 1996 Olympic Opening Ceremonies.   He has worked with many top artists including P. Diddy, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Fergie, Missy Elliott, Kanye West, Usher, and Pink.

Kim Blank appeared in seminal ’80s music videos such as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Lionel Richie’s “Dancin On The Ceiling,” and Steve Winwood’s “Roll With It.” As a choreographer, she earned an Emmy nomination for her work on Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, starring Halle Berry, and she created dances for Madonna, Keri Russell, Walter Matthau, and Raven Simone.  Credits include Frankie & Alice, Ray, Evita, The Mambo Kings, and That’s So Raven.

Award-winning choreographer Lula Washington is the founder and artistic director of the Lula Washington Dance Theater, a modern dance company founded in 1980 in South Central Los Angeles. Her work on the 2009 blockbuster Avatar with filmmaker James Cameron brought acrobatic life to the avatars on screen.  She also coined the wildly popular Avator line: “eye see you.”  Washington’s dancers have performed at both the Lincoln and Kennedy Centers and she has received the prestigious Minerva Award for Women’s Achievement in California.

This is the fourth installment of the Choreography Media Honors.  All are welcome – dancers, choreographers, industry leaders, and dance aficionados – to celebrate and strengthen LA’s dance community.
-  Moderated by Larry Billman
-  The panel will be followed by a reception.

Screen Actors Guild – James Cagney Room
5757 Wilshire Blvd., 7th Fl, Los Angeles, CA 90036 (323-954-1600, www.sag.org)
- FREE admission, no reservations required
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➢    Sat. June 19 [8:00 – 10:00pm] at Cheviot Hills Recreation Center [West LA]
“Local Makers – LA Choreographers and Directors” – Outdoor Screening

DCW will host over 25 local makers of media and dance in an outdoor screening event in the park behind the Cheviot Hills Recreation Center.  The landscape will be transformed into a cinematic cross-cultural display with five different screening areas.  Each screening area will run the gamut of local talent from established artists such as Mitchell Rose, Morleigh Steinberg, Roberta Shaw, and Cari Ann ShimSham to emerging artists and students from LAUSD middle and high schools.  For this family-friendly evening please bring a flashlight and a blanket, and join in the fun under the stars.

Cheviot Hills Recreation Center
2551 Motor Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90064 (310-837-4233)
- FREE admission, no reservations required
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➢    Sat. June 26 [7:30pm-9:00pm] at Timothy Yarger Fine Art [Beverly Hills]
Movement Media Installations

Timothy Yarger Fine Art of Beverly Hills will host DCW’s closing weekend reception. Join DCW for a collection of select media installations with an emphasis of body and movement.

An internationally recognized art gallery exhibiting modern and contemporary art, Timothy Yarger Fine Art is grounded in the historic artwork of the Modern Masters and pop icons of the 20th Century, alongside established contemporary painters, printmakers, photographers, and new-media artists.

Timothy Yarger Fine Art
354 N Bedford Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 (310-278-4400; www.yargerfineart.com)
-  6:00pm – open to VIP and DCW members
-  7:30pm – 9:00pm – open to the public
-  FREE admission, reservations ARE required
-  Please RSVP: 310-278-4400 or info@yargerfineart.com
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➢    Sun. June 27 [8:00pm] at Grand Performances in California Plaza [downtown LA]
Dzi Croquettes (adult content)

Dzi Croquettes is a revealing Brazilian documentary that explores the legacy of the daringly original, all-male dance and theater group by the same name resembling a late-20th-century version of the Ziegfeld Follies.  The cabaret group – Dzi Croquettes – used an empowering sexuality to counter Brazil’s military dictatorship and revolutionize the gay movement worldwide during the 1970’s.  The documentary is Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez’s pleasure-packed exploration of the group’s impact, using a multitude of talking heads and period footage to chronicle the troupe’s seminal influence on their time and today’s culture.
-  Best Documentary Jury Award and Audience Award Rio de Janeiro Film Festival
-  Portuguese with English subtitles
-  Brazil 2009, 95 minutes
-  Co-director Raphael Alvarez will be in town to introduce the film

Grand Performances at California Plaza
300 – 350 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90013 (213-687-2190; www.grandperformances.org)
- FREE admission, no reservations required
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Please visit DCW’s website for continuous updates regarding Dance Camera West’s ninth annual Dance Media Film Festival – www.dancecamerawest.org.

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For more information, press passes, photos, or to interview DCW’s founder Lynette Kessler, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.

Illustration by Snezana Petrovic

After seven years in development, non-profit organization Overtone Industries is set to launch their site-specific theatricale Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands, with two weeks of performances opening Thursday, July 8, 2010.  Billed as a contemporary opera, the genre-bending production integrates art installation, dance, voice, live and recorded music, projected video, costuming, community participation, and theater.   Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands was conceptualized by Director O-Lan Jones in an extensive collaboration that involves twenty one librettists, eleven composers, Costume and Scenic Designer Snezana Petrovic, Musical Director David O, and many others.

For Immediate Release: March 26, 2010

Overtone Industries Presents
A New Contemporary Opera
Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands
With Performances in a Vacant Culver City Car Dealership
Thursday, July 8 – Sunday, July 18, 2010

~With Preview Performances Thursday, July 1 – Sunday, July 4, 2010~

LOS ANGELES, CA – After seven years in development, non-profit organization Overtone Industries is set to launch their site-specific theatricale Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands, with two weeks of performances opening Thursday, July 8, 2010.  Billed as a contemporary opera, the genre-bending production integrates art installation, dance, voice, live and recorded music, projected video, costuming, community participation, and theater.   Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands was conceptualized by Director O-Lan Jones in an extensive collaboration that involves twenty one librettists, eleven composers, Costume and Scenic Designer Snezana Petrovic, Musical Director David O, and many others. The performances will run from Thursday, July 8 to Sunday, July 18, 2010 with five weekly performances (Thursdays through Sundays, 8:00 pm nightly with 2:00 pm matinees on Sundays).  Additional preview performances will run the week prior, from Thursday, July 1 to Sunday, July 4, 2010 (matinee only on July 4).   Ticket prices will range from $25 to $65 and go on sale in May on Overtone’s site at  www.overtoneindustries.org.   Shows will be held in a vacant 25,000 square foot car dealership that is being temporarily transformed into a performance space at 8840 Washington Street, Culver City, CA 90232.  Parking lot on site.

Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands takes the audience on a journey with working class Tom and aristocratic Sue, who have lost their identities.  The couple reclaims their story by means of a device that allows them to inhabit the “lands” that hold the pivotal experiences of their lives embodied in songs, dances, pledges of allegiance, and rituals indigenous to those turning points. The fast-paced kaleidoscope of events range in tone from comic to deeply sorrowful.  Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands is an allegory where the various elements — the sets, costumes, characters, music, audience participation, and modes of collaboration across the production — create the world of challenges presented by life, love, and relationships.  This pastiche of seemingly incongruous elements, with a postmodern aesthetic that is simultaneously complex and accessible, comes together in one organic event.  Just like life!

“The indelible moments that make up the through-line of a life come alive in the form of twenty one imaginary lands that embody the terrain of this couple’s experience,” explains O-Lan Jones, adding, “We’re creating a journey that goes beyond a purely mental narrative of a life story to connect with the way memory is held in the body and feelings; memory at its most primitive that touches upon the mythic.”

Auditions for the production are being held in mid-April in Culver City.  Overtone Industries is currently accepting submissions; details are available at www.overtoneindustries.org.

Under the direction of Costume and Scenic Designer Snezana Petrovic, the Company is transforming a vacant Culver City car dealership into a surreal performance space featuring site-specific art installations of the production’s titular imaginary lands, each dramatically different from one another.  An extensive community arts project, bringing together local artists and volunteers in a series of free public workshops, is set to begin in May in order to create textures, props, and some aspects of the sets and costumes for the production.  These sets and costumes will be created primarily from recycled materials that have been donated and transformed through community participation. Culver City High School’s Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA) is among the organizations that have agreed to participate in the ambitious undertaking.  Local residents, service organizations, nonprofit groups, and senior centers are expected to take part as well.  Additional details on the workshops will be posted online soon.

“The community and collaboration aspects of the production are key to the philosophy of the project,” says Jones, adding, “If I had to boil everything down to one word, I’d have to go with ‘connection.’  It’s all about connecting.”

Twenty one librettists and eleven composers have contributed original words and music specifically written for Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands that collectively create an odyssey.  The challenging compositions span a range of musical styles from avant-guarde classical to choral, from island to rock, with each capturing the character of the imaginary land, or life moment, that it represents.  Electronic, traditional acoustic, and invented instruments are all incorporated in the unhomogenized array of recorded and live music performed by an eight-piece orchestra under the direction of award winning composer David O.

Performances are suitable for mature teen and adult audiences.

Overtone Industries has received support from The Ahmanson Foundation, The Annenberg Foundation, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and The National Endowment for the Arts.  Additionally, real estate developer Joseph Miller, owner and president of The Runyon Group, donated the use of the vacant Culver City car dealership for the production. Miller provided the space to Overtone Industries so that it could be used creatively, in a way that would benefit the community, instead of standing vacant.

“There are some forward thinking owners of vacant property that recognize that they have a tremendous opportunity to make innovative community projects possible by providing small organizations and creative individuals free or low-cost short-term access to these empty buildings,” says Jones, “This project wouldn’t have been economically feasible for us without the generosity of someone like Joseph Miller.”

Coming to a Ghost-Box Near You!
Overtone Industries has plans to tour the production after the Culver City run, hoping to utilize other vacant commercial properties as site-specific performance spaces in cities across the US and beyond.

O-Lan Jones, Director and Co-Choreographer
O-Lan Jones is an award-winning actress, composer, sound designer, and writer. Her work as an actress, originating female roles in plays by Sam Shepard, Beth Henley, Murray Mednick, and John Steppling, among others, has made her something of a cultural icon.

Named for the character in Pearl Buck’s “The Good Earth,” Jones was raised by a free-spirited mother in various ghettos across America (Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, New York) with stops in London and the jungles of the Yucatan where they lived in a hut in a village of 80 Mayan Indians. She began her professional acting career at 16 in New York’s off-off Broadway scene in the late ’60s and early ’70s. When she was 19, she married playwright Sam Shepard with whom she has a son. Shepard and Jones divorced in 1983.

Of the more than 80 plays she has acted in, only two have been performed prior to her involvement in them — part of her lot in life is as an accomplice to new/experimental projects.  Since moving to Los Angeles in 1990, she has had a broad range of roles in film and television. In features, she has worked with directors Tim Burton, Jonathan Demme, Ivan Reitman, Paul Schraeder, John Schlesinger, Oliver Stone, Peter Weir, and Paul Bartel who directed Shelf Life, a movie she wrote and starred in.

She is perhaps best known for playing Esmeralda, the reclusive Christian organist in Edward Scissorhands, and numerous waitress roles (Seinfeld, Shoot the Moon, Miracle Mile, Natural Born Killers, and The Truman Show). A repeat member of Burton’s ensemble casts, she also played hick trailer-dwelling mama Sue Ann Norris in Mars Attacks! Television credits also include Lonesome Dove and The X-Files; and she was a series regular on CBS’s Harts of the West.

She has composed three short operas; five musicals; created original music, songs, and sound designs for more than 30 theatrical productions; and has scored two short films.  She was also the musical director and arranger of Joel Lipman’s rock-’n'-roll extravaganza Celebration of the Lizard, which features 49 Doors songs.  Jones is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Overtone Industries, which the LA Times calls “… audaciously experimental entertainment.”

David O, Musical Director
David O is an award-winning composer, performer, and musical director.  His work has been featured at Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Kennedy Center, The Mark Taper Forum, and the Hollywood Bowl, as well as other venues in Los Angeles and around the world.  His choral composition, A Map of Los Angeles, was commissioned by the LA Master Chorale with performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2008 and 2009.  Thousands of Los Angeles children and their parents know David as “The Professor” for his six years of performances with Summersounds at the Hollywood Bowl, produced by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  His original musicals include The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip and The Legend of Alex, both commissioned by Center Theatre Group’s P.L.A.Y. Program, and Imagine, commissioned by South Coast Repertory Theater. The Very Persistent Gappers of  Frip was performed as part of the inaugural season of the Kirk Douglas Theater.

David is the musical director, arranger, and co-composer for Disney Creative Entertainment’s new production, Toy Story: The Musical, which will open at Disney California Adventure in 2011.  Some of David’s most unique work includes non-traditional theater pieces for which he served as both musical director and composer.  Most notably, he created an entirely a capella score for Hippolytos, a new translation of Euripides’ tragedy commissioned to inaugurate the Fleischman Theater at the newly-refurbished Getty Villa in Malibu.  In addition, David was the composer, musical director, and on-stage pianist/percussionist for A Noise Within’s production of Ubu Roi, for which he received the 2006 Ovation Award for Sound Design in a Large Theater.

David has musically directed countless musical theater productions in the Los Angeles area, including the world premiere of 13, the new musical by Jason Robert Brown.  He has also served as musical director for the West Coast premieres of Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party and Little Fish.  Other notable productions as Musical Director include The Last 5 Years (Pasadena Playhouse), The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World (Inside the Ford), and Divorce: the Musical (Hudson Mainstage).

Snezana Petrovic, Costume and Scenic Designer
A freelance designer for 230 theatrical productions, 22 television series, and eight feature films, Snezana Petrovic is a pioneer in set design using computer-aided technology and was the first art director to design sets on the FLAIR computer in her native Yugoslavia. In the US, she was the first graduate student in theater design to earn an interactive MFA (from UC Irvine), submitting her thesis on CD-ROM. She has served as resident designer at the Redlands Theater Festival for 15 seasons, and taught theater design and visual arts at the university level for 14 years. She was the recipient of the award in production design at the International Film Festival in Pula as well as six national awards for theater set and costume design in her native Yugoslavia.

Petrovic’s paintings, video, and installation works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally in museums and galleries in Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Belgrade, and Prague. She has exhibited in 34 group exhibitions and had eight solo exhibitions. Currently she is serving as the Fine Arts Department Chair and Professor of Arts at Crafton Hills College.

Nataki Garrett, Assistant Director
Nataki Garrett is the Co-Head of Undergraduate Acting at CalArts School of Theater and the Co-Artistic Director of Blank-The-Dog Productions, a Los Angeles-based ensemble theater company. Currently she is co-writing and directing Carolyn Bryant – about the white woman for whom the 14 year old Emmit Till was brutally murdered in 1955. Garrett  recently directed the world premiere of the opera Sucktion (libretto by Doug Kearney, composed by Anne Lebaron) which premiered at the REDCAT NOW FEST in 2008. She has worked as a director and producer in Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, Dartmouth in New Hampshire, Bellagio in Italy, Edinburgh, and in East Africa, and beyond. She is a recipient of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program, 2005-2007.

Nina Winthrop, Co-Choreographer
Nina Winthrop formed her company, Nina Winthrop and Dancers, in 1991 and her work has been presented at numerous venues including Brooklyn Academy of Music, Danspace Project, Joyce SoHo, The Flea Theater and Movement Research at The Judson Church. She was awarded a Bessie Schönberg Choreographers’ Residency at The Yard in 2004, a Dancenow/NYC’s Silo Artist Residency in 2005, and participated in the Schönberg Choreographers Lab at DTW in 2005. Winthrop is the curator of the monthly performance and discussion series “Dance Conversations @ The Flea” and is on the board of Danspace Project and New Dance Alliance. She has danced with Wendy Perron, Susan Rethorst, Yoshiko Chuma, Sally Silvers, and Kei Takei. She studied with Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham, and Deborah Hay.

Producer
Scott Cargle for Overtone Industries

Production Manager
Sara Adelman

Librettists
Sissy Boyd, Joe Chaikin, Chiwan Choi, Kathleen Cramer,  Erik Ehn, Gilbert Girion, Deb Gwinn, Julie Hébert, O-Lan Jones, Merle Kessler, Quincy Long, Lynn Manning, Ruth Margraff, Leon Martell, Marlane Meyer, Ken Roht, Octavio Solis, John Steppling, Caridad Svich, Sharon Yablon, and Guy Zimmerman.

Composers
John Ballinger, J. Raoul Brody, Eric Culver, Beth Custer, Jeff Fairbanks, Bart Hopkin, O-Lan Jones, Penka Kouneva, Richard Mariott, David O, and George Sarah.

Overtone Industries
Overtone Industries cultivates new talent for music theater by providing opportunities for composers, writers, and performers to collaborate in the creation of new musical works. By drawing on artists that spring from the diverse community, Overtone productions speak to and attract a wide-ranging spectrum of people. Overtone believes that culture is enriched and revitalized not only by the differences and variety of expression, but also by the underlying experiences that connect us all. The organization strives to create myths and fables that will illuminate the eternal forces that reverberate in our contemporary lives. By exploring new relationships among words, acting, movement, and music, the non-profit seeks to make the invisible visible and bring audiences, casts and production crews closer to understanding some of life’s mysteries.  Overtone Industries’ work has been performed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and in New York at the Kurt Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall.

“At its core, Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands is a love story,” says Jones in summing up the production.

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For more information, photos, or to arrange an interview, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at 213.840.1201 and lynn@greengalactic.com

Photo by Jesse Freidin

Inspired by Polaroid’s newest spokesperson, Lady Gaga, award-winning Bay Area dog photographer Jesse Freidin – with the help of The Impossible Project (TIP) – created The Doggie Gaga Project, which has become a viral sensation.  Freidin dressed his canine models in five of Lady Gaga’s most celebrated outfits, and photographed them using two packs of Polaroid film from the last remaining supply in the world.  For Immediate Release: March 20, 2010

With Supplies of Polaroid Film Dwindling Worldwide,
The Impossible Project Graciously Provided Two Packs to
Award-Winning Bay Area Dog Photographer Jesse Freidin.
Inspired by Lady Gaga Fashion
“The Doggie Gaga Project” is a Viral Hit

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Inspired by Polaroid’s newest spokesperson, Lady Gaga, award-winning Bay Area dog photographer Jesse Freidin – with the help of The Impossible Project (TIP) – created The Doggie Gaga Project, which has become a viral sensation.  Freidin dressed his canine models in five of Lady Gaga’s most celebrated outfits, and photographed them using two packs of Polaroid film from the last remaining supply in the world.  The resulting photos went online the next morning, and within three days, have been tweeted by Perez Hilton, linked online by Entertainment Weekly, MTV, TMZ, and The Sundance Channel, and on 3/18/10 it was featured on ABC’s Live! with Regis & Kelly.  To view all the images please visit www.jessefreidin.com or http://www.facebook.com/pages/San-Francisco-CA/Jesse-Freidin-Photographer/97942918610.

Freidin proposed his idea for The Doggie Gaga Project to Netherland-based Impossible Project who has taken on the impossible: to re-invent and re-start production of analog integral film for vintage Polaroid cameras.  They graciously donated two packs of original Polaroid film (20 prints total).  Freidin and his small team went to work creating the custom-made, Gaga-inspired canine fashions for a Boston Terrier, a Mexican Hairless, a Shiba Inu, and two Pit Bulls.  Shooting in his San Francisco studio, Freidin employed a Horseman field camera with a Polaroid back using the increasingly rare T-669.  During the photo shoot, no animals were harmed – or even irritated.

More on Jesse Freidin:
Jesse Freidin, a traditional film photographer who characteristically photographs dog portraits with a Hasselblad, recently won Beast of the Bay’s 2010 award for “Best Dog Photographer.” With years of experience as a fine-art photographer and professional dog-handler, Freidin has a unique approach to animal photography that captures the deeply emotional tie that people have with their pets. As one of the last surviving traditional photographers in the Bay Area, he creates museum-quality black-and-white photographs with unbeatable richness and tone, that are produced, from start to finish, entirely by hand. His true passion for animals and loyalty to analog photography made it only natural that he would create “The Doggie Gaga Project.”

More on The Impossible Project:
By re-inventing a new analog integral film for vintage Polaroid cameras, The Impossible Project is saving analog instant photography.  They plan to release a new instant film for vintage Polaroid cameras in 2010.  The new licensee of the Polaroid® Brand – The Summit Global Group – will re-launch some of the most famous Polaroid Instant Cameras. Further details will be disclosed by TIP on Monday, March 22, 2010 at a press conference in NYC.  Please visithttp://www.the-impossible-project.com for more information.

In December 2008 Polaroid ceased production of its iconic instant film.  In early 2009, Impossible B.V. leased the former Polaroid production plant in Enschede, Netherlands, acquired the machinery, and engaged the most experienced team of Integral Film experts worldwide. The concrete aim is to re-invent and re-produce analog integral film for vintage Polaroid cameras.

The mission is therefore not to re-build Polaroid Integral film but to develop a new product with new characteristics, consisting of new optimized components, produced with a streamlined modern setup for an innovative and fresh analog material, sold under a new brand name that perfectly matches the global re-positioning of Integral Film. Polaroid is fully aware and supportive of this goal.

In the words of Edwin Land, the Inventor of Instant Photography, “Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.”

The Impossible Project’s Executive Director of Marketing and Business Development is Florian Kaps, who in 2001 championed the magic of analog photography as the leading manager of the Lomographic Society, developing their worldwide online community and shop platform. Since his childhood, Kaps has been attracted by the exercise of running in the opposite direction: he reacted to the digital revolution by founding a strictly analog company, establishing what is today’s biggest network of everything correlated to instant photography.

Lady Gaga was recently named creative director for a specialty line of Polaroid products.  Asked if he has met Lady Gaga, Freidin replied, “Not yet, but I’d love to. I hope she enjoys the pictures.”

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For more information, photos, or to set up interviews with Jesse Freidin please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at lynn@greengalactic.com or 213-840-1201.  To learn more about The Impossible Project please contact Marlene Kelnreiter at 212-219-3254 or marlene@the-impossible-project.com.

NextAid

NextAid, LIFEbeat, The Loud Minority, Dubspot,
Turntables on the Hudson, CityDeep, and Mixology
Present BEATS BUILD HOPE
At Miami’s Shore Club
During the 25th Annual Winter Music Conference
Friday, March 26, 2010

LOS ANGELES, CA – NextAid, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit harnessing the power of dance music to affect change in the lives of orphaned and vulnerable children in Africa, returns to the 25th annual Winter Music Conference (WMC) in Miami with a mega-benefit, “Beats Build Hope,” at the Shore Club on Friday, March 26, 2010. Partnering with LIFEbeat, The Loud Minority, CityDeep, Turntables on the Hudson, Dubspot, and Mixology, this official WMC event will run from 8:00pm Friday night to 6:00am Saturday morning and employ NextAid’s mantra of using the beats of our generation to provide hope for the next. Over twenty top international DJs have agreed to graciously donate their time and talent such as The Crystal Method (DJ Set), DJ Rap, and Mark Farina. Tickets for the fundraiser cost $15 pre-sale through Want Tickets or $20 at the door (FREE for WMC badge holders). The funds raised at Beats Build Hope will directly benefit NextAid, SOIL (Haiti), LIFEbeat and Green Wave. All four nonprofits are engaged in worthy causes, which help communities in need around the world (see additional details below). The Shore Club is located at 1901 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139. For more information please visit http://nextaid.org/beatsbuildhope and http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=299847426894&ref=ts. To purchase tickets: http://www.wantickets.com/EventDetail.aspx?e_id=103663.

A two-hour VIP Industry Mixer hosted by Mixology will precede the main event from 6:00 – 8:00pm in the Red Room of the Shore Club featuring Mark Lewis. Admission to the VIP Mixer will cost $40 (in advance or at the door). VIP attendees will gain early access to the whole event, as well as complimentary food, and a Love Fatigues canvas bag filled with t-shirts, CDs, and other goodies. The entire 12-hour benefit is an Official WMC event, as such, admission is FREE for those wearing a WMC badge. NextAid kindly requests that attendees consider making a minimum donation of $10, as this is a fundraiser and all talent have donated their time for free. Sponsors for this night of unforgettable beats include industry heavyweights Fusicology, Love Fatigues, M-Audio, and San Francisco lovEvolution .

Beats Build Hope will take over the Shore Club with 3 areas of music: on the Terrace, in the Red Room and Poolside. The musical styles will range from deep and tech house to Afro-Latin, broken beat, electro and drum-n-bass. The amazing lineup includes The Crystal Method (DJ Set), DJ Rap, Mark Farina, Heather, Colette, Ultra Naté, Andy Caldwell, Gene Farris, D:Fuse, Jazzanova, Anané, Chuck Love, Jay-J, Michael Anthony, Marissa Guzman (vocals), Adam Gibbons, Kervyn Mark, Brent Crampton, DJ Kamala and a very special appearance by the Queen of House Music, Barbara Tucker. The CityDeep Lounge – setting up shop in the Red Room – will feature Halo, Jamie Thinnes, and Luke McKeehan as well as South Africa’s Black Coffee and Culoe de Song. Out on the Terrace find Turntables on the Hudson with Nickodemus, DJ G OV, OBaH, Wiseacre, Jeremy Sole +Amon (percussion).

The evening is made possible with promotional support from AfrodesiaMP3, Agency Sounds, APT Entertainment, Electronic Music Alliance, Green Galactic, Groove Cruise, Morgan’s Hotel Group, The Melting Pot, The MML, Nitevibe, Outloud Agency Group, Roots Media, and suppperclub.

Dubspot will be conducting music and technology educational workshops from 12noon – 6:00pm with partners Native Instruments, M-Audio, Pioneer, Rane/Serato, Mono Cases and Ableton. Find more information at http://www.dubspot.com.

Beneficiaries:

NextAid
NextAid’s mission is to improve the lives of children and youth in Africa by promoting and implementing sustainable solutions. NextAid raises awareness for, and partners with, community-based projects and grassroots organizations in Africa and believes that an integrated approach is the best formula for establishing real and lasting change.

NextAid’s current priority project is the building of an ecological facility in Nairobi: The Kawangware Vision Center. NextAid has partnered with the inspiring community-based organization to build a “green” workshop and multipurpose facility for their youth programs and micro-business that strive to get youth off the streets by offering economic and performance activities, such as constructing gift bags to sell to the safari tourism industry. The profits enable the youth to support themselves, as well as, the vulnerable and orphaned children in the community. To learn more please visit www.nextaid.org.

LIFEbeat
LIFEbeat is dedicated to reaching America’s youth with the message of HIV/AIDS prevention. LIFEbeat mobilizes the talents and resources of the music industry to raise awareness and to provide support to the AIDS community.

LIFEBeat’s Outreach Programs and PSAs connect with approximately 70,000 young people in New York each year to raise awareness. Its Hearts and Voices Program provides live music and entertainment to patients in HIV/AIDS treatment facilities throughout the New York metro area every week. To learn more please visit http://www.lifebeat.org.

Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihood (SOIL)
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihood (SOIL) believes that the path to sustainability is through transformation, of both disempowered peoples and discarded materials, turning apathy and pollution into valuable resources. They are empowering communities, building the soil and nourishing the grassroots in Haiti. SOIL attempts to nurture collective creativity through developing collaborative relationships between community organizations in Haiti and international academics and activists. Funds will go towards earthquake rebuilding efforts in Haiti. To learn more please visit http://oursoil.org.

Green Wave
Green Wave is a dynamic, environmental nonprofit organization founded and run by “Green Girl” guru, Janine Johnson, dedicated to establishing precedents for change and redefining activism. Green Wave’s mission is to inspire waves of change by creating living examples focused on living consciously, peacefully and harmoniously with the environment and with each other for the well being of our planet. Green Wave has partnered with NextAid to raise funds for the Green Wave Sanctuary in Kawangware, Kenya.

The Green Wave Sanctuary will be an earth-friendly, safe and loving facility fulfilling early childhood development needs (day-care, enrichment activities and health and nutrition programs) for orphaned and vulnerable children in the Kawangware community. To learn more please visit http://www.greenwaveent.org.

Partners and Sponsors:

The Loud Minority
The Loud Minority is a Miami-based, music-related lifestyle marketing and event company. Drawing on extensive experience working with progressive companies, brands, artists and publications, The Loud Minority helps clients big and small impact the cultural landscape. The company is built on a rich network of adaptive resources and partnerships, and designs a personalized hands-on approach to actualizing concepts. They are constantly pursuing fresh ideas in the fields of art, music, design, food and fashion. To learn more please visit http://theloudminority.net.

Love Fatigues
Love Fatigues is a humanitarian organization determined to bring our world together through its love camouflage clothing. Love Fatigues seeks to revolutionize camouflage fashion with infused images of Love and Peace, as opposed to traditional military camouflage patterns. The company’s innovative line of eco-friendly love camouflage clothing gives people a choice of a camouflage that offers a positive message. Love Fatigues is driven to empower individuals to make a choice and give new meaning to camouflage and change what it represents. Love Fatigues is an active supporter of a number of charities that promote love, awareness and progress for humankind around the globe. To learn more please visit http://lovefatigues.com.

San Francisco lovEvolution
San Francisco LovEvolution exists to produce a celebration of the highest forms of electronic music culture and technology, in the belief that dance promotes peace, love, unity and respect. Dance music has always had a special ability to bring people together in the shared beauty of a universal vibe.

The purpose of this organization is to serve the electronic dance music community by organizing public events, presenting electronic art forms, generating funds to support artistic development, advancing music education and production, as well as the right to dance and educating the public regarding the rights and contributions of our community. To learn more please visit http://www.sflovevolution.org.

CityDeep Music
Since its debut in 2004, CityDeep Music has enlisted some of the finest events and producers that represent dance music today and into the future. CityDeep is a label dedicated to urban dance music that ranges anywhere from deep house to AfroBeat, and souland techy rhythms. Join Halo and guest DJs/producers from around the world for vinyl and digital releases, weekly radio shows/podcasts and events – Mature Music for the Deeply Minded. To learn more please visit http://citydeepmusic.com.

Dubspot
Dubspot is an innovative electronic music production and DJ institute in New York City. As one of the first Ableton Certified Training Centers in the world, Dubspot has become the premier music school for both experienced and aspiring artists alike. Most importantly, Dubspot is a growing community of musicians, DJs, visual artists, audio technology professionals, industry veteran producers, and enthusiasts of all genres who all have one thing in common — a passion for music. They partnered with NextAid in 2009 to release Funk Aid for Africa, a charitable compilation mixed and compiled by DJ OBaH, with 100% of the proceeds benefiting children in Africa. To learn more please visit https://www.dubspot.com.

Turntables on the Hudson
When Nickodemus and Mariano started the Turntables on the Hudson (TOTH) parties in 1998 it was one of the first late night outdoor events in NYC. With the addition of Groove Collective founding member Nappy G on percussion, the party became an adventurous, young, free-spirited community known for its eclectic musical blend.

In the past ten years TOTH took its beats from parking garages, lofts and boats to residencies at renowned NYC clubs and venues like The Frying Pan, Opaline, Shelter, The Brooklyn Loft, Cielo, Element, Hiro Ballroom, SOB’s, and Spiegelworld. After ten years, the TOTH parties are now taking place Fridays at the Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City overlooking Manhattan and the East River. To learn more please visit http://turntablesonthehudson.com.

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For more information, photos or interviews, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.

event details:

Friday March 26, 2010
6:00pm – Sat. 6:00am

BEATS BUILD HOPE
A Benefit for NextAid, LIFEBeat, SOIL (Haiti), and Green Wave
Presented by NextAid, LIFEbeat, The Loud Minority, Dubspot, Turntables on the Hudson, CityDeep, and Mixology

The Shore Club
1901 Collins Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33139

Over twenty top international DJs have graciously donated their time and talent to raise funds for communities in need around the world!

Poolside Entertainment:
The Crystal Method (DJ Set), DJ Rap, Mark Farina, Heather, Colette, Ultra Naté, Andy Caldwell, Gene Farris, D:Fuse, Jazzanova, Anané, Chuck Love, Jay-J, Michael Anthony, Marissa Guzman, Adam Gibbons, Kervyn Mark, Brent Crampton, DJ Kamala
Special Appearance by The Queen of House Music – Barbara Tucker

in the Red Room:
The CityDeep Lounge with Halo, Jamie Thinnes, and Luke McKeehan as well as South Africa’s Black Coffee and Culoe de Song

on the Terrace:
Turntables on the Hudson with Nickodemus, DJ G OV, OBaH, Wiseacre, Jeremy Sole +Amon (percussion)

Main event – 8:00pm – 6:00am
$15 pre-sale / $20 door
Free with WMC Badge

VIP mixer – 6:00 – 8:00pm
Mixology VIP Mixer in the Red Room with Mark Lewis
$40 pre-sale & at door
Free with WMC Badge

Purchase Tickets: http://www.wantickets.com/EventDetail.aspx?e_id=103663

Beats Build Hope is an OFFICIAL WMC EVENT
NextAid kindly requests that attendees consider making a minimum donation of $10, as this is a fundraiser and all talent have donated their time for free

SPONSORS:
Love Fatigues / Fusicology / M-Audio / San Francisco lovEvolution

PROMOTIONAL SUPPORT:
APT Entertainment, AfrodesiaMP3.com, Agency Sounds, Nitevibe, Nordic Trax, Rootz Media, Supperclub, The Groove Cruise, The Melting Pot Global, The Outloud Agency Group, Green Galactic, The MML, Traxsource, Wantickets.com, Morgans Hotel Group, and Winter Music Conference

event page – http://nextaid.org/beatsbuildhope
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=299847426894&ref=ts

For Immediate Release: January 11, 2010

New Book from Award-Winning Filmmaker Jon Reiss
Think Outside the Box Office:
The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era
To Be Released in Print on March 15, 2010

LOS ANGELES, CA – Award winning filmmaker Jon Reiss is set to release his new book Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era on March 15, 2010. The book is a primer for filmmaking in the digital era covering distribution of all types of media content – feature films, shorts, webisodes, transmedia, vblogs, etc., and is the first to address the new distribution and marketing landscape facing filmmakers today. For more information please visit www.thinkoutsidetheboxoffice.com and the director’s blog, www.jonreiss.com/blog.

The book is a step-by-step, nuts and bolts guide to distributing and marketing a film. Each chapter addresses an essential aspect of a film’s release and offers specific techniques so filmmakers can take control of their distribution and marketing destiny.

Jon Reiss, an award-winning filmmaker himself, spoke with countless filmmakers, distributors, publicists, web programmers, festival programmers and marketing experts to create this ultimate resource of up to the minute information. Throughout the book, Reiss redefines the process from a filmmaker’s point of view empowering the reader to create unique strategies for their individual films.

“Open this book! Eat up every morsel Reiss provides. Internalize it and make it your second skin,” said Ted Hope, Producer (Adventureland, The Ice Storm, In the Bedroom, and 21 Grams).

Jon Reiss is a critically acclaimed filmmaker who has produced and directed feature films, documentaries, shorts and music videos in a career that spans nearly 30 years. Named one of the “10 Digital Directors to Watch” by Daily Variety, Reiss also teaches in the Film Directing Program at the California Institute for the Arts.

The independent film community continues to redefine itself with the collapse of the traditional independent film distribution model. Just as the digital revolution created a democratization of the means of production, a new hybrid approach to distribution has created a way for independent filmmakers to take control, combining the best techniques from each distribution arena, old and new.

Reiss will travel in the U.S. and to Singapore in the next three months. He will close out the Filmmaker Summit at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, UT on January 23, 2010. Other participants at the Summit include Steven Soderbergh, Brian Newman, Jamie King, Timo Vuorensola, Khavn de la Cruz, Lance Weiler and Peter Baxter. Reiss travels to NYU’s Singapore campus in February as well as to SXSW and Miami International Film Festival in March.

Jon Reiss’ Upcoming Appearances & Book Signings:

January – Park City, UT –

Sat. January 23, 2010
Slamdance Filmmaker Summit
Part V Workshop: Jon Reiss workshops an existing documentary and narrative film and creates new strategies for distribution in conversation with the filmmakers and the participants.”
11:00am to 2:00pm (US Mountain Time)
Treasure Mountain Inn
255 Main Street
Park City, UT 84060
Book Signing from 2:00 – 2:30pm
http://www.slamdance.com/summit

Sun. January 24, 2010
Book Signing
Dolly’s Bookstore Park City
510 Main Street
Park City, UT 84060
3:00 – 5:00pm
http://dollysbookstore.com/2010/01/sundance-2010-author-signings

February – Singapore –

Wed. February 17 – Thu. February 25, 2010
NYU Singapore Producing Workshop
Jon Reiss will be giving a ten day workshop on producing independent film with an emphasis on reel world survival skills, distribution and marketing.

March – Austin, TX –

Sun. March 14, 2010
SXSW Film Festival Panel
The Main Event: Finding an Audience for Your Film
Specific Location TBD
3:30pm
Book Signing Immediately After
http://sxsw.com/film/talks/panels

While in Austin and South East Asia Jon Reiss will be continuing production of Bomb It 2 for Babelgum (http://www.babelgum.com). Bomb It 2 will be a further exploration of graffiti and street art throughout the world in areas not covered in Bomb It. For Bomb It 2, Reiss will be exploring other U.S. cities such as Chicago, Austin, and San Francisco. In Asia he’ll be covering Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and perhaps Malaysia. In Europe, Denmark and Italy – both hotbeds of graffiti – will be included and a trip to the Middle East is in the works.

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For more information, photos, or to arrange interviews, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at 213-840-1201 and lynn@greengalactic.com.

CREDITS:

Author: Jon Reiss
Foreword by: Ted Hope
Title: Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era
Published by: Hybrid Cinema Publishing a division of Hybrid Cinema
Distributed by: SCB Distributors
Publication Date: March 2010
# ISBN-10: 098257620X
# ISBN-13: 978-0-9825762-0-5

Content: 354 black and white pages
Cover: Paperback
Size: 6” x 9”
Language: English
Subject: Filmmaking
Price: $24.95

First Printing: 2010
Copyright: c. Jon Reiss 2010 All Rights Reserved

Book Layout and Design: Will Hays
Cover Design: Justin Van Hoy
Book Title by: Susan Graves
Cover Photographer: Jay B Sauceda
Assistant Editor: Stephanie Bousley
Copy Editor: Jennifer Hoche
Website Programmer: Kazuha Torisawa

Online:
Book site – http://www.thinkoutsidetheboxoffice.com
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/ThinkOutsidetheBoxOffice
Author blog – http://jonreiss.com/blog
Twitter – http://twitter.com/Jon_Reiss
Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Think-Outside-Box-Office-Distribution/dp/098257620X

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint the following copyrighted works:
- Lance Weiler’s Culture Hacker column on Piracy and Torrent Sites and Lance Weiler’s Hope is Missing MIG both originally published in Filmmaker.

Cover photo is from a B-Side screening of Before the Music Dies, Republic Square Park, Austin, Texas June 5, 2006.

Photo credit: Eric Gillet

San Francisco-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and singer Mark Growden is set to release his ninth album, Saint Judas, through Porto Franco Records on March 16, 2010. The national record release party will take place in Los Angeles on the same day at Hotel Café in Hollywood. Saint Judas, an intoxicating mix of roots music with a postmodern aesthetic, features 13 tracks of ‘Americana noir’ with an overarching theme of redemption. For Immediate Release: February 12, 2010

San Francisco-Based Multi-Instrumentalist
Mark Growden
Set to Release Ninth Album
Saint Judas
Through Porto Franco Records
March 16, 2010
~
With National Record Release Party at Hotel Café in Los Angeles 3/16/10
+ Additional U.S. Southwest Tour Dates Scheduled – February, March, April

LOS ANGELES, CA – San Francisco-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and singer Mark Growden is set to release his ninth album, Saint Judas, through Porto Franco Records on March 16, 2010. The national record release party will take place in Los Angeles on the same day at Hotel Café in Hollywood. Saint Judas, an intoxicating mix of roots music with a postmodern aesthetic, features 13 tracks of ‘Americana noir’ with an overarching theme of redemption. Hotel Café is located at 1623 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028. Doors will open at 8:00 p.m., ages 21+ allowed. Tickets will cost $10.00 at the door or $7.00 in advance. For more information on the venue please call 323-461-2040 or visit http://hotelcafe.com. For more on the artist please visit http://markgrowden.org and http://www.myspace.com/markgrowden.

Growden’s eclectic body of work is a challenge to categorize, though, as a musician, he is often compared to songwriting icons Nick Cave and Tom Waits. Additionally, Growden has been described as a wordsmith on par with the legendary Leonard Cohen – who he fittingly covers on Saint Judas with a reworked version of “I’m Your Man.”

Recurring themes in the intensely personal new album include love and loss, sin and faith, perseverance, compassion, and, most significantly, redemption. There is a darkness that haunts Saint Judas, though not without a glimmer of hope. Growden explains that, for him, the resurrection theme that surfaces throughout the work isn’t of the magical rise-from-the-dead variety, but rather that, “it takes some grieving to get through to the joy.”

His soulful music reinterprets older, pre-rock forms such as blues, jazz, cabaret, gypsy, and folk with a contemporary edge. While Growden cites the likes of Howlin’ Wolf, Nina Simone, and Kurt Weill as influences, the new album should appeal not only to roots music enthusiasts, but also to fans of indie darlings DeVotchKa, Beirut, Rasputina, Devandra Banhardt, and Andrew Bird.

Growden is captivated with old American music, mainly African-American, recorded by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in the 1930s and 1940s; several tracks on Saint Judas are reworkings of these songs. Album opener “Undertaker,” based on a Lomax field recording of the prison work song “Rosie,” introduces the theme of resurrection. “Dig me a grave, in the open plain. Lower me down, and pull me up again,” sings Growden, over a howling guitar and trumpet. And the closing banjo-and-voice only “All the Pretty Little Horses” is a version of an old spiritual Growden calls “one of his favorite songs ever” which was written, according to legend, by a woman watching horses pull her child’s hearse through the streets.

The title track on Saint Judas – a cabaret rocker with its refrain of “bottoms up to you, buddy, ’cause somebody had to take the blame” – honors the biblical “Saint of Sinners” often vilified as the traitor who turned on Jesus. The song is a call to acknowledge and accept the worst that lies within everyone while finding the strength to forgive and carry on.

The biblical references that pile up throughout the album are no accident – Growden’s father was a preacher in the northern Sierra Nevada town of Pinetown, California, where he was raised. But Growden is less interested in religious iconography than he is in seeing biblical stories as universal themes. As an example, “Delilah,” with its plaintive accordion and cello, references the story of Samson and Delilah, but as a metaphor, he says, “of the death of ego, of the illusion of yourself, for love.”

In perhaps the most moving piece on the album, “The Gates/Take Me To the Water,” Growden asserts that “every soul is welcome,” in a line that sums up the overarching theme of Saint Judas, “be you a virgin, a whore, a sinner or a saint.” This adaptation of an old spiritual delicately builds from a percussive accordion-heavy opening to a rousing choir-fed climax before launching into a rollicking New Orleans-style version of the traditional song. “Everyone assumes that it’s about Katrina, says Growden of the track, “but it was written before Katrina. It’s about walking in Oakland and seeing the pain in people’s eyes.”

Saint Judas track listing:

1. Undertaker (6:20)
2. Delilah (6:13)
3. Saint Judas (3:25)
4. If the Stars Could Sing (3:48)
5. Been in the Storm so Long (7:05)
6. I’m Your Man (4:25)
7. Faith in my Pocket (3:58)
8. Everybody Holds a Piece of the Sun (2:29)
9. Coyote (7:20)
10. Handlebars (3:01)
11. Inside Every Bird (5:36)
12. The Gates/Take me to the Water (9:22)
13. All the Pretty Little Horses (3:57)

All songs on Saint Judas were written by Growden except track #5 (traditional as sung by Mary Pickney, adapted by Growden), track #6 (adapted from words and music by Leonard Cohen), track #9 (words by Deke Weaver, music by Growden), track #11 (words by Growden and Angus Balbernie, music by Growden) , track #12 (“Take me to the Water” – traditional with new words and music by Growden), and track #13 (traditional adapted by Growden).

Saint Judas is Growden’s first studio album of songs in eight years.  The gap is significant and reflects a period of some turmoil in Growden’s life that surfaces in the themes of redemption and forgiveness that run through the album’s 13 songs. His extended break from music was largely due to a drug addiction that he needed time and space away from music to overcome. Now clean for over two years, Growden says the strength and perspective he has gained from kicking his habit have given him a renewed focus on music.

The album was recorded live, with almost no overdubbing, in the studio. Growden’s seductive vocals and accordion skills are showcased, with the voraciously talented musician also contributing on the baritone saxophone, banjo, and 10-speed bicycle handlebars. Guitarist Myles Boisen, acoustic bassist Seth Ford-Young, percussionist Jenya Chernoff, cellist Alex Kelly, and trumpeter Chris Grady (Boisen, Ford-Young, and Grady all long time Tom Waits sidemen) provide an energetic complement to Growden. The group, aka the Mark Growden Sextet, gathered at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Northern California for a 4-day rehearsal retreat to prepare for recording live in the studio with producer/engineer Oz Fritz (whose resume includes working with a range of folks from Waits to Caetano Veloso).

The resulting music on Saint Judas is an evocative set of sultry ‘Americana noir’ that matches the energy and intimacy of Growden’s live shows. “I want to touch people’s hearts instead of their heads,” says Growden when summarizing the ultimate goal for his creative efforts.

More on Mark Growden…
As a composer and performer, Growden has released several critically acclaimed albums and performed at venues such as the Fillmore and Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, and Tonic and The Knitting Factory in New York. He has performed and collaborated with a wide range of musicians and artists including members of The San Francisco Opera, Bob Weir, Hamza el Din, Kid Congo Powers, John Santos, Omar Sosa, Remy Charlip, Faun Fables, and Stan Ridgeway. He has composed original musical scores for a number of dance and theater companies including Joe Goode Performance Group, The Crucible, and Alonzo King’s LINES Contemporary Ballet with whom he and his collaborators won the Isadora Duncan Award for Best Original Score for a New Dance Piece. He has scored several films including 2005’s Blood Tea and Red String, which won Best Animation at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival and at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. Growden also co-produces San Francisco-based COVERT – a site-specific concert series with famed artist John Law.

After initially establishing himself as a jazz/new music winds player and composer in the mid-1990s, Growden began playing accordion and banjo when all his other instruments were stolen from a theater where he was accompanying a dance performance. He is currently writing an opera based on Saint Judas, is working on an educational film about how the harmonic series works, and leads singing workshops in various cities. In October 2009, Growden and Porto Franco Records signed the recording deal for Saint Judas. The team is now getting ready to produce two more albums to be recorded with his Los Angeles and Tucson ensembles, in those cities, respectively.

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For photos, a copy of the album, or to request an interview, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Hasty at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.

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Calendar of Live Performances

Sat. Feb. 13, 9:00pm – Echo Curio – Los Angeles, CA
Wed. Feb. 17, 10:00pm – Redwood Bar & Grill – Los Angeles, CA
Fri. Feb. 19 2010, 7:30pm – The Steynberg Gallery – San Luis Obispo, CA
Sat. Feb. 20, 12:00pm – Secret Location T.B.A. – Gypsy Camp the Fourth – Los Angeles, CA
Wed. Feb. 24, 10:00pm – Redwood Bar & Grill- Los Angeles, CA
Thu. Mar. 11, 8:00pm – Porto Franco Art Parlor – San Francisco, CA
Fri. Mar. 12, 8:00pm – Porto Franco Art Parlor – San Francisco, CA
Sat. Mar. 13, 8:00pm – Porto Franco Art Parlor – San Francisco, CA
Sun. Mar. 14, 2:00pm – Porto Franco Art Parlor – San Francisco, CA
Sun. Mar. 14, 8:00pm – Porto Franco Art Parlor – San Francisco, CA
* Tue. Mar. 16, 8:00pm – Hotel Cafe – National Record Release Party – Los Angeles, CA *
Sat. Mar. 20, 7:00pm – The Kessler Theater – Dallas, TX
Sun. Mar. 21, 10:30pm – The Saxon Pub – Austin, TX
Wed. Mar. 24, 8:00pm – AvantGarden – Houston, TX
Thu. Mar. 25, 8:00pm – AvantGarden – Houston, TX
Sat. Mar. 27, 9:00pm – East Side Showroom – Austin, TX
Fri. Apr. 9, 8:00pm – The Screening Room – Tucson, AZ
Sat. Apr. 10, 8:00pm – The Screening Room – Tucson, AZ

Additional Artist Information
Artist site: http://markgrowden.org
Porto Franco Records: http://www.portofrancorecords.com/album/12
Press kit: http://markgrowden.org/press-kit

Social Networking
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/markgrowden
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Mark.Growden.Music
Twitter: http://twitter.com/markgrowden