Support NPN!

NPN Annual Meeting Attendees

Come early to Knoxville and join the Appalachian Field Trip, a one-day
road trip, featuring on over-night trip to Appalshop (in Whitesburg VA)
and including visits to the Alex Haley Farm and one of
Carpetbag Theatre’s community partners, the historic Green Mackadoo
School. Trip leaves at 2pm Wednesday, December 8 from the
Knoxville Hilton, returns late afternoon the next day (Thursday,
December 9). Trip costs $95 (hotel & transportation); if interested,
contact kdenobriga@mindspring.com, with subject line “Field Trip” before
October 30.

Artist Residency Inspires Vermont Audiences

Last spring Lyena Strelkoff brought her intensely personal—yet
universal—story to the tiny village of Putney Vermont for a series of
public performances and a variety of community activities, presented by
Sandglass Theatre.

Read Lyena’s reflection about the impact on her work,
and Sandglass Managing Director Leslie Turpin’s perspective on the deep
and lasting effect on her audiences

Mark Your Calendars

Next Annual Meeting in Knoxville, TN

December 10-14, 2009

Registration is by invitation only.

News from the Visual Artists Network

Site-specific installation sets Austin Abuzz

California-based artist Megan Geckler made her first installation in
Texas, hosted by Women & Their Work in Austin. W&TW is one of 17
VAN Partners in NPN’s exciting new program for the visual arts.
Geckler creates large-scale, site-specific installations assembled by
stretching thousands of strands of colored flagging tape into the
artist’s signature form of optical architecture. In Geckler’s hands,
flagging tape—an industrial material normally utilized by surveyors to
demarcate space on construction sites—transforms into dazzling, kinetic
structures that mimic the cool, slick look of advertisements, haute
fashion backdrops, and high-design products.

As W&TW wrote, “Her sculptural, translucent plastic designs simulate and
reference our idea of the mass-produced space age while camouflaging the
intricately handmade quality of the work. Completely site-specific and
never duplicated, Geckler’s “drawings in space” flirt with both Op Art
and minimalism while retaining a sense of play and delight.”

www.megangeckler.com

You Tube Video

“What a long, strange trip it’s been…!”
(Grateful Dead)

After 40 years in the cultural trenches, NPN Partner Carpetbag Theatre
has remained exuberant and relevant for its audiences around the
country. And over the last 25 years, NPN has become a solid and growing
force in the field, adding visual arts to its performance resumé. At the
upcoming 2009 Annual Meeting in Knoxville TN, we proudly announce the
launch of NPN’s 25th anniversary year, and celebrate host Carpetbag
Theatre’s 40th anniversary. We’ll be noting other significant
milestones in this 25th Anniversary year—stay tuned!

“Live and On Stage!”

The Annual Meeting performances in Knoxville will be presented
to the public at the historic Bijou Theatre. Two
nights of programming will feature four Creation Fund recipients
performing excerpts from their recently-commissioned works:

• Cloud Eye Control, CA, Multimedia/multidisciplinary: “Under Polaris”
• EDGEWORKS, DC, Dance: “the determining factor”
• Robert Karimi, MN, Theater: “Farid Mercury”
• Universes, NY, Theater: “Ameriville”

Plan to be in Knoxville on December 11-12—it’ll be a unique opportunity
to see four exceptional new works, not to mention the other Showcase
artists selected by the local host committee, under the direction of
Carpetbag Theatre. The NPN Annual Meeting performances are seldom open
to the public, so this will also be a chance to invite your TN friends
and reconnect with colleagues in the presence of fresh and engaging new
work.

NPN was originally able to budget only three artists due to these economic times—but due to an NEA Stimulus Grant, we are able to present four!