Live Culture | Seven Days | Vermont's Independent Voice
Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Posted By on Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 4:15 PM

click to enlarge Tibetans Honor Longtime Activist at New Year Festivities
Tseten Anak
Grace Spring (center, first row) with representatives from International Campaign for Tibet and Tibetan Association of Vermont, and her daughter, Cassandra Corcoran (far right)
Last Saturday, about 150 people gathered at Faith United Methodist Church in South Burlington to honor  Grace Spring, an artist and a longtime activist and Tibetan supporter. The award ceremony was held in conjunction with Losar — the Tibetan New Year — celebrations.

Spring, 84, is arguably best known for staging a vigil every Friday outside the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., for more than two decades to protest Chinese rule in Tibet. She moved to Middlebury last April, said her daughter, Cassandra Corcoran.

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Friday, February 16, 2018

Posted By on Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 3:02 PM

Museum of Everyday Life Announces New Season, Invites Participation
Courtesy of the Museum of Everyday Life
The Museum of Everyday Life in Glover
Each spring since 2011, a humble barn in the Northeast Kingdom comes to life — not with buds and blooms, but with a riot of ordinary things. Under the direction of artist and veteran Bread & Puppet performer Clare Dolan, Glover's experimental Museum of Everyday Life dedicates itself every year to a quirky and spirited exhibition that sprouts from a mundane but thematically potent object.

Last year's exhibit was on bells and whistles; the year before that, mirrors. Other previous exhibits have focused on such prosaic items as pencils and dust. Dolan has just announced the theme for the coming season at MoEL: locks and keys.

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Posted By on Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 12:43 PM

click to enlarge Waking Windows Announces Initial 2018 Lineup
Brian Jenkins Photography
Waking Windows
Brace yourselves: Waking Windows has just announced its initial 2018 lineup. The three-day music festival in downtown Winooski runs Friday through Sunday, May 4 through 6,  and features over 150 bands, artists, comedians and DJs. The first wave of confirmed acts is just as dynamite as you'd expect.

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Thursday, February 15, 2018

Posted By on Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 2:19 PM

click to enlarge NPR Premieres Caroline Rose's New Album 'Loner'
Courtesy of Caroline Rose
Caroline Rose
The wait is over: You can finally listen to former Burlington singer-songwriter Caroline Rose's long-awaited sophomore album, Loner, in full. National Public Radio offers a first listen to the new record, which marks a stylistic shift from Rose's folksy beginnings to her current pop-rock sound. The release follows of a string of singles and music videos, as well as high-profile coverage from outlets such as Consequence of Sound, Stereogum and Noisey.

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Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Posted By on Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 5:24 PM

click to enlarge Montréal Artists Create a New Mural for the Alchemist
Erik Nelson
Dan Buller, Ola Volo, Jason Bodkin and Jonathan Bergeron of EN MASSE
The Alchemist Brewery and Visitors Center got a new do this weekend. Four artists from the Montréal-based EN MASSE mural project lent their collaborative black-and-white stylings to the vaulted public entrance of the Stowe brewery.

Alchemist co-founder and brewer John Kimmich first encountered EN MASSE's work in Montréal, happening upon one of their murals in a parking garage. He immediately fell for its cacophony of themes unified by stark graphics.

EN MASSE, headed by Jason Botkin and Rupert Bottenberg, brings together (mostly) new artists for each project, whether a high-profile commission or a public, outdoor mural. The artists work collaboratively, each starting with a segment of wall and working outward so their designs mingle. The finished products are varied and unpredictable.

Since its inception in 2009, EN MASSE has worked with more than 250 artists around the world. And it's not the group's first time in Vermont. In 2012, EN MASSE artists, led by Bottenberg, painted a large cube, subsequently suspended from the ceiling, in a now-defunct Winooski gallery space facing the traffic circle.

The Alchemist's new piece — two pieces, technically, on opposite sides of the 768 square feet of ceiling space — was painted by Botkin, Ola Volo, Jonathan Bergeron and Dan Buller. It features a grinning face, a swan, an ornate rose, a rocketship and other items.
click to enlarge Montréal Artists Create a New Mural for the Alchemist
Erik Nelson
Mural by En Masse at the Alchemist Brewery and Visitors Center
Bodkin says the group doesn't usually go into a commission with a game plan, unless the client requests it. In this case, Kimmich just wanted them to do their thing. Bodkin notes that fun things happen when multiple artists work together. "It's an interesting process to watch people paint unscripted — it's contagious," he says.

It seems John and Jen Kimmich have the bug. Artwork has long been essential to the popular beer brand. Alchemist art director Jess Graham says the founders hope that the brewery will be "a feast for the eyes," and aim to continually add new works to their collection.

The mural joins a silo that Graham painted, work by artist Dan Blakeslee on the bright tanks, and sculptural, Dr. Seuss-like trees at the brewery's public entrance.

"The intention and vision [for the building] is [for it] to become full of sculpture and art," Graham says.

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Posted By on Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 4:13 PM

click to enlarge Rick Steves Urges Vermont to 'Take the Next Step' in Weed Legalization
Courtesy of Rick Steves
Rick Steves
If you're only familiar with his travel show, "Rick Steves' Europe," you might not guess that the mild-mannered PBS personality is one of America's most prominent advocates for marijuana legalization.

Indeed, the affable TV host and guidebook author has made legal weed a personal crusade, personally donating hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to legalization efforts across the country, including in his home state of Washington.

But his push for legalization in the U.S. isn't rooted in a particular personal affinity for kind bud. Rather, his stance on marijuana stems from his extensive travels overseas and the "pragmatic harm reduction" approach that many European countries take towards the drug. For Steves, who sits on the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), marijuana legalization is not a recreational issue, it's a matter of civil liberties.

This week, Steves' travels take him to Vermont. On Thursday, he'll appear at the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier for a news conference with legislators advocating for Vermont to "take the next step" in its legalization process by taxing and regulating a commercial cannabis market. Earlier this year, the state legislature legalized possession of certain amounts of marijuana, but it is still illegal to sell or purchase weed.

On Friday, Steves will give a free lunchtime presentation at the Skinny Pancake on the waterfront in Burlington. The event is cohosted by Heady Vermont, which will livestream the talk on its Facebook page. Later that afternoon, Steves will take part in an interactive livestream hosted on the Marijuana Policy Project's Facebook page

Seven Days caught up with Steves by phone ahead of his Vermont visit.

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Posted By on Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 2:17 PM

click to enlarge Cultural Mosaic: Tchatching Ngunga to Bring Rwandan Music to Vermont
Kymelya Sari
Tchatching Ngunga
Tchatching ("Cha-ching") Ngunga has a message for Vermonters: "Very soon, they are gonna be discovering a new African culture."

Ngunga, who also goes by the name Richard, sings and composes traditional Rwandan songs. So far, he has performed mostly in Canada. "That's where I feel like my music is being valued because my community is there," he said.

But, as a Vermonter since 2011, he's ready to take his music to more audiences, Ngunga continued. "Somebody told me: 'No, music doesn't have a barrier. People just love any music,'" the Burlington resident said.

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Saturday, February 10, 2018

Posted By on Sat, Feb 10, 2018 at 11:21 AM

click to enlarge Chip Appeal: UVM Students Mock 'Doritos for Her'
Seanlockephotography | Dreamstime.com
Woman with Doritos.
Remember when Kendall Jenner brought the revolution with a can of Pepsi? In an era when big brands seem especially desperate to prove they're woke, PepsiCo has again ignited ridicule, this time for CEO Indra Nooyi's comments in a January 31 interview with Freakonomics.  Speaking with interviewer Stephen J. Dubner, Nooyi described how  PepsiCo has been working to develop female-friendlier versions of their snack-food. Among the considerations, she said, were that women "don’t like to crunch too loudly in public. And they don’t lick their fingers generously and they don’t like to pour the little broken pieces and the flavor into their mouth."

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Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Posted By on Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 7:46 PM

click to enlarge Luis Calderin Presents 'Space Time Magic' at Champlain College
Courtesy of Luis Calderin
Luis Calderin
Luis Calderin had a front-row seat to the spectacle that was the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Burlington-based marketing specialist, designer and DJ served as the director of arts, culture and the youth vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) presidential campaign. From curating nationally touring political art exhibits to managing celebrity endorsements from the likes of rapper Killer Mike and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it was a role that uniquely suited Calderin's varied interests.

Since the campaign, Calderin has continued working at what he calls "the intersection of youth, culture and politics." He spent time with Rock the Vote, the national nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that aims to get youth to the polls. Currently, he's running his own boutique marketing firm, Okay Okay Creative. And he's writing a book, PoliticArts, that examines the history of campaign art.

Calderin's latest endeavor is a new multimedia presentation, "Space Time Magic," debuting this Thursday, February 8, at Champlain College's Alumni Auditorium in Burlington. Fusing music and design, Calderin recounts his unlikely story, from moving to Burlington from Miami as a teenager — and the first American-born son of Cuban immigrants — to the experiences and influences that led him to Sanders' campaign and to his current projects. Think of it like a hip-hop TED talk. The event's  program is designed to look like a vinyl album cover.

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Posted By on Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 2:43 PM

click to enlarge Stowe Tango Music Festival Artistic Director Wins Grammy
Stowe Tango Music Festival
Left to right: Héctor Del Curto, Pablo Ziegler and Claudio Ragazzi
Like American jazz, Argentine tango music was born of multicultural interaction. Africans, Europeans and South Americans, thrown together during Argentina's economic expansion at the turn of the 20th century, created tango from the percussion of drums, the lilt of waltz, the poetic banter of the plains. Tango and its American cousin continue to evolve, and a skilled group with local ties has combined the forms to award-winning effect.

On January 28, the Pablo Ziegler Trio won the Best Latin Jazz Album Grammy Award for Jazz Tango. The trio is composed of Ziegler on piano, Claudio Ragazzi on guitar and Héctor Del Curto on bandoneon, the instrument that makes the accordion-like sound commonly associated with tango. The recording includes original works by Ziegler and modern classics by legendary bandoneonist Astor Piazzolla. This Grammy marks the first time a tango recording has taken the top award in the Latin jazz category.

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