July 2024 News
July 31, 2024 • 3 minute read
Cosmic Wisdom: How a Channeled Poem Inspired Nejla Yatkin to Create the Solo Piece Ouroboros
“It was as if the universe itself spoke to me, delivering a message that would shape my artistic vision,” the choreographer and dancer Nejla Yatkin explains in this month’s Voices From the Network. The message in question, a “channeled poem,” helped to inspire and guide the development of Yatkin’s solo piece, Ouroboros, which “celebrates interconnectedness, transformation, and my nomadic heritage from Anatolia.”
Read more about Nejla Yatkin’s work and the inspiration behind it.
Build Power through a Culture of Interdependence
Two of the most important actions we can take in challenging times is to find our folk and clarify our center. This is also true for community arts institutions: to be powerful and resilient, they must be woven into the fabric and culture of the local community.
How do you deepen your connection to community in times of crisis? Pages 142-148 of the Mixed Metaphor Workbook offer some insights and exercises.
Explore the Mixed Metaphor Liberatory Infrastructure Workbook
Announcements
Su Teatro’s New Home Brings Power and Healing
Chicano theater company Su Teatro is expanding its footprint in Denver with the purchase of a local landmark known as the Blue Building. “To a company like Su Teatro, ownership represents independence, stability, power – and the potential for healing old cultural wounds.” The 4,400 square-foot space, located a block south of Su Teatro Performing Arts Center, is the first stage of a multi-year plan to develop a “cultural campus” in the neighborhood; in the coming years, the organization plans to purchase an additional 10,000 square-foot building located between the Performing Arts Center and the Blue Building.
Learn more about Su Teatro’s expansion and its plans for the new building.
CD Forum Celebrates 25 Years of the Arts in Seattle’s Black Community
From the Seattle Times: “A quarter century ago, while working at a University of Washington science laboratory, Stephanie Ellis-Smith had a hypothesis. […] Her hypothesis was simple: The community would embrace a public organization that centered the Black experience through artistic expression.”
That idea led Ellis-Smith to launch the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas, aka CD Forum, which this year is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. To mark the occasion, the Seattle Times has published a history of CD Forum’s evolution over the past two-and-a-half decades, from an experiment in community engagement to an established center for the arts within Seattle’s Black community.
Read more about CD Forum’s history and silver anniversary here.
2024 Berresford Prize Awarded to Miami Light Project’s Beth Boone
Beth Boone, the Artistic & Executive Director of NPN Partner Miami Light Project, has been awarded the 2024 Berresford Prize–an unrestricted $50,000–in recognition of “her deep commitment to the artistic community of South Florida [and] enduring investment in building community for artists in her region and providing resources for them to make and share their work.” Congratulations, Beth!
Learn more about the Berresford Prize at United States Artists.
NPN’s Former Director of Operations Steve Bailey Interviewed on New Orleans’ Hatched Podcast
Last month, our recently retired former Director of Operations, Steve Bailey, appeared on Mondo Bizarro’s New Orleans-based podcast Hatched, which talks to “creative makers of all kinds” about theater, dance, traditional arts, community and more.
