Erik Howard brings the corner and the community together in unlikely ways through The Alley Project
To read the abundance of news coverage coming out of Detroit over the last few years heralding the downtrodden city as a hotbed of creativity and innovation, attracting young creatives and start-up entrepreneurs from all over the country – the Detroit-is-what-you-make-of-it, "blank slate" narrative – one might be tempted to think that there was no such social activism or creative energy there…
The Nix Bros. are weaving web of laughter in Denver
By their own admission, and even though they're three years apart in age, brothers Evan and Adam Nix -- the imaginative forces behind Nix Bros. Films -- became movie nerds at roughly the same time.
"That was definitely something we bonded over as kids," says Evan, the older of the two siblings. "Adam is extraordinarily smart and graduated early, so when we ended up in college together -- and…
Denver’s itchy-O Marching Band: Chaos of the best variety
Imagine this: It's late on a weekend night and Denverites are out and about. Maybe they're hanging out at the latest hipster bar along South Broadway or enjoying an adult beverage at a popular downtown watering hole.
There's a rumble in the crowd and the mood shifts. The commotion builds and, before anyone has time to question anything, they're all are dancing to the driving rhythm of a drum…
It takes a ballet company: Thomas Armour Youth Ballet teaches life skills along with dance
The Thomas Armour Youth Ballet (TAYB) was established over 60 years ago in 1951 by renowned classical ballet dancer, Thomas Armour. Originally called the Miami Ballet, the for-profit school and nonprofit performing company changed its name in 1996 to honor the founder and reduce the confusion between their organization and the much newer Miami City Ballet.
In 1988 Ruth Wiesen, now director of…
Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert are the power duo behind Power House Productions
The first time most people heard the words "Power" and "House" attached to the names Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert was in fall of September 2008, when the artist/architect married couple wrote a piece in the Metro Times about their neighborhood sustainability project on a street corner just north of the Hamtramck border.
In retrospect seen as their Power House manifesto, Cope and…
Hunter Franks leads simple steps of creativity to inspire big change in Akron
This story was originally published on Knight Blog here.
Artist Hunter Franks uses people as his medium to break down barriers and make neighborhoods more neighborly.
It’s simple, really. He invites people to come together – most recently in Akron, Ohio – and they create public, amateur art for the neighborhood to take part in and enjoy.
Franks has taken his participatory art on a…
How the arts inspire change in Detroit
In April of 2014, Damian Woetzel and the Aspen Institute Arts Program convened a Strategy Group in Detroit. This convening brought together local and national experts: artists and leaders in arts, policy, community development and education. The group spent a thrilling morning at Spain Elementary School where Yo-Yo Ma, Damian Woetzel, Lil Buck, Aaron Dworkin and Cristina Pato conducted an…
Terry Blackhawk teaches Detroit kids the power of poetry through the InsideOut Literary Arts Project
InsideOut Literary Arts Project started out as so many other well-intended projects do: as an idea that didn't quite seem realistic enough to become reality. Until it did.
It is worth quoting InsideOut founder and director Terry Blackhawk at length here, when she explained the origins of InsideOut in an op-ed for Huffington Post Detroit:
Seventeen years ago, on an otherwise unremarkable…
Experimental performance group The Hinterlands explores the outer limits of identity
In contemporary usage, "hinterland" is defined as "an area beyond what is visible or known." And this is why Richard Newman and Liza Bielby named their experimental performance group, headquartered in a former drug house located on the outskirts of Hamtramck, "The Hinterlands."
"'Hinterlands are the areas at the edge of the map just beyond civilization, but you can still see them on the map,"…
Annabel Manning’s work as a participatory artist gives voice to the silent, suppressed, invisible
In September 2001, Annabel Manning had been living in New York for over 15 years. After 9/11, she decided to move to Pennsylvania and work on a farm. That was 12 years ago, and she speaks haltingly about this even now. "I went to a farm and was raising chickens and sheep and a one-year-old," she says. "We had to chill for awhile." The New York Times has previously reported that at least 10,000…