asheville’s bele chere still captivates…

Marc Broussard performs at Asheville's Bele Chere 2011

Circumstances conspired to put some dear friends in Asheville during Bele Chere weekend — news which might cause locals or natives familiar with the festival (such as myself) to gasp — but feeling adventurous and unwilling to think too long about it, I plunged into plans to actually visit Asheville the last weekend in July and *wonder of wonders* my partner signalled his willingness to accompany me (he usually dislikes crowds.)

Well, Bele Chere was fantastic.  The music, art, and food were all magnificent.  Downtown Asheville was the perfect beautiful setting (as usual.)  We had a wonderful time.  Our only complaint:  the art galleries that most tempted my partner David happened to be closed because of Bele Chere crowds on this particular weekend.  So watch out, Asheville, we’re coming back to my hometown in November!

remembering the first “Ode to Joy”

all grown up in the fifth grade...

Yes, that’s yours truly…(on the left!!!)…all grown up in the fifth grade at my first middle school dance.  Daphne was such a good sport as my date.  I probably anguished over the condition of her corsage more than any other guy attending the dance…I guess that should have been a clue, huh?  Anyway, I’ve selected this picture because it was taken within a few short months of the first time I ever heard a symphony orchestra.  The Asheville Symphony, like many other professional orchestras, had a “Symphony in the Schools” program, whereby they’d perform a special concert on a weekday to an auditorium filled with students who had been bused in on field trips.  I will always remember that trip:  pulling up to the Civic Center downtown, walking into the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, sitting enraptured in the audience as the beautiful orchestral sound washed all around and over me.  I think I remember Benjamin Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” being played, and sure there were light-hearted and airy moments designed to keep fidgety fifth-graders still in their seats…but it was when the Asheville Symphony played excerpts from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, featuring the main melody “Ode to Joy”, when I remember a switch turning on in my heart, and a voice in my head said, “you MUST be a part of that!”

I still giggle and smile when I remember that moment.

Fast forward thirty-four years…to a few months ago.  I sat with the second violins as the Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra played a special “Clown Concert” with a professional entertainer dressed as a clown, to introduce young people to orchestral music.  More light-hearted, airy fare to keep our young audience entertained and interested…and some beautiful music that I could tell had them hooked.  At the end of our concert, some children had come up to the front stage area and were looking at different instruments; a young boy was standing by the timpani and the percussionist was handing him a mallet, demonstrating the different sounds that it can make, encouraging him to try it.  I hadn’t thought about my “Ode to Joy” moment in many, many years, until I saw the look of wonder and complete absorption on that young boy’s face, and recognized it immediately.  What an inspiration!  Not only had I been privileged to help bring something beautiful into the world that day through music, but maybe we had inspired a new generation of musicians whose hearts had grown strangely bigger in just a few hours.  I’ve been pondering this issue ever since, reinvigorated to help spread the message that only music can provide:  yes! you, young or old, practiced or just learning, can play a part in bringing beauty and joy into the world out of nothing; just about the most purely creative act that exists.

I’ve had many “not so great” and frankly, uninspiring moments since fifth grade, and to be honest a few even since our last Philharmonic concert a few months ago, but the most important thing to remember is that this gift of music and the Arts is so inherently Worth Passing On.  It’s Worth Sharing–not just with other aesthetes, or insiders, or season ticket holders, but with children…the elderly…those who may have lost inspiration…those in uninspiring circumstances, or places, or neighborhoods, or socioeconomic classes.  The Arts help make life worth living, and they elevate our moods, our creative energy, and they teach us things that no other medium can:  about our feelings, about what it’s like to be alive.  I will always be grateful to those who planned, funded, and executed that field trip to the Symphony that day.  I’ll always be indebted to the Asheville Symphony for sending out one of their best violinists to provide free violin lessons from fifth grade through the end of high school (thank you Mr. Adams and Mr. Egerstrand!)  All that happened at school, when I was too young to know the value of it, and my parents were not in the socioeconomic stratum that would provide for easy private lessons.

What is the state of Arts Education today?  How many opportunities are being provided to young people today to experience the Arts and their transformative power?  It is vital that we know the answers to these questions, so we can then expand and strengthen Arts education to our youth, for they truly are our future: not only our future citizens, but our future orchestras, teachers, musicians, painters, writers, playwrights, artists, and actors.

-Scott Marler

amazing times we live in…

aloha!

The Rainbow Arts Review has a Twitter account (RainbowArtsRevu) and from time to time I do searches on twitter and find like-minded groups or individuals to follow.  Other “twitterers” do the same, so occasionally I’ll receive a notice that the Review is being followed.  It’s during these moments that the breathtaking power of the Internet comes into play.  We follow several different GLBT choruses and arts groups, arts organizations, visual and performing arts organizations, and arts and GLBT activists.  The cross-pollination begins…as followers of those groups see who’s following them, and then when they follow you, their followers learn about you, etc etc.  Inevitably some twitter accounts based on commerce start following, going after the rainbow dollar…and some individuals will follow you as a quiet sub-surface method of keeping abreast of events they may not even be open about.  About a year ago our twitter account was followed by Gay Mongolia.  Mongolia!!!  Translated in English and Russian!  A few days ago our account was followed by the Puna Men’s Chorus in Hawai’i (pictured above.)  Imagine the distances that have disappeared.  Through the Internet, thoughts, connections, discussion, support, and yes even junk mail and spam, can leap from one side of the globe to the other at the speed of light.  Isolation is now, in some ways, optional.  One of the most amazing characteristics of human beings is our ability to build and maintain complex, intelligent and emotional relationships, and through these socializations, to accomplish amazing things.  If you happen to be GLBT or an advocate for our community, and if you happen to have experienced the communicative power of the Arts, then you realize we are surfing at the very top of this powerful wave that’s changing history.  How do we harness this power?

-Scott Marler

12th annual gay and lesbian art exhibit opens today in philly

Philadelphia’s University of the Arts is sponsoring the 12th Annual Gay and Lesbian Art Exhibit under the auspices of the Equality Forum 2001 Summit.  During a reception on Wednesday April 27th, visitors will have the chance to meet the likes of Connie Imboden and Lorenzo Triburgo, a few of the artists on display in the exhibit.  The show is free to the public and lasts all week.  If you’re in the Philadelphia area, check it out!

GFEST opens call for 2011 entries in London

Here in the States, Tax Day may be looming around the corner with a dreaded deadline, but today we’ll discuss a much friendlier subject and deadline “across the pond” for our friends in Europe.

The fifth annual Gaywise Festival (GFEST) announced this week their call for entries for the November 7-20 event.  This premier event for GLBT artists is well-known for its innovative art and exhibits, and is sponsored by such high profile organizations as Arts Council England, Prime Minister David Cameron, actor and producer Stephen Fry, the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Entry submissions are through the GFEST website and the deadline is June 27, 2011.  So, if you happen to owe US Taxes and be in London this November, you still have time to prepare for both events!

-Scott Marler

the atlanta gay men’s chorus goes to the opera again

Those of you who may remember the first time the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus went to the Opera back in 2008 are in for yet another treat!  The rest of you “Dear Listeners,” as Dame Edna would say, have no idea what fun can be had when a gay men’s chorus performs some works from the wildly popular European ancestors of today’s Broadway greats.  Bizet, Wagner, and Mozart were even more popular in their time than Sondheim, Lloyd Webber, and Johnathan Larson of today, for opera had a higher social stature than Broadway musicals…but the high human drama is clearly recognizable throughout the centuries in either genre.

The Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus will take the venerable Conant Performing Arts Center stage (the home of the Georgia Shakespeare Festival) and perform intimate, grandiose, visually appealing and high camp music all in one night for the 500-seat house with an aim to please using the rich repertoire of Opera.

The spectacle begins April 29th for three shows: Friday at 8pm, and Saturday at 2pm and 8pm at the Conant Performing Arts Center at Oglethorpe University, 4484 Peachtree Rd NE in Atlanta.  Tickets range from $15 to $40 and can be purchased either at the door or through the chorus website.

a trip to the booth museum

Roosevelt, by Steve Penley, collection of the Booth Western Art Museum

Yesterday a small but intrepid group of Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra members made a 40-mile drive north of town to Cartersville, Georgia to visit the Booth Western Art Museum–the largest permanent collection of Western Art in the country.  A current exhibition, Ansel Adams: a legacy is running through March 13th, featuring several dozen gorgeous prints by the world-renowned photographer.  It was a beautiful day for a little road trip, and the Museum’s permanent collection as well as the Ansel Adams exhibit did not disappoint!

If you happen to be in the Atlanta area and have the time and affinity for Western Art, I highly recommend the short drive north on Interstate 75 to check out the museum and its great collections.

-Scott

thousands of bars, only the second museum: a call for vision

I discovered recently that there was a grand opening of a GLBT history museum in San Francisco last month (the second such museum anywhere.)  Granted, recent spellbinding developments with North America’s winter weather and the political upheaval in the Middle East have held our attention, but still this museum opening is really big if you think about it.  That’s the rub: we aren’t thinking about “it” much these days.

There have been so many breathtakingly-fast advances in the cause of GLBT rights in the past ten years that we may have become a little jaded to the advances that have been made in our own communities.  Ten years ago it was such a struggle to conceive of a statewide or nationwide debate on government-sanctioned civil unions, much less MARRIAGE for gay and lesbian couples.  Now there are several states where marriage rights are conferred by a state!–and “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” rules for the military were eliminated by a Congressional majority!  All these advances are substantial and exhilarating…and they shift the playing field to our advantage.  However, our optimism might cause us to forget some of the darker days of the past. Most of us are happy to forget the main points of that past!  However, history museums document the past in a permanent way that no other institution can.  Without reminders of that past, younger generations lose sight of the depth and breadth of our gains.  We have made incredible gains as a sexual minority in most first-world countries!  Current social sympathy is deluding us into thinking that our opposition has given up, the battle is over and it’s better just to forget those dark days and assimilate.  It’s already happening with our bookstores.  In the last few decades, GLBT Community Centers in most major enlightened world cities have been a great way to provide the more comprehensive support we need as a stigmatized minority.  I submit we should be ready everywhere to take these next steps as soon as we’re ready, as San Francisco has recently done.  I know we’re not ready to build marble buildings with static exhibits just yet, but each year so much of our heritage  is lost without concerted efforts to document and fundamentally support our continuing struggle for equality.  Do you remember how wonderful it was to discover your own “family” when you came out?  The wealth of resources (until recently mostly underground) that you had no idea existed?  Well, we’re losing those resources to time and the “GLSEN generation” has no need for validation (FOR NOW.)  Motormouth from Hairspray said it well:  “I know where I’m going, and Lord knows I know where I’ve been.”  We will always need to know where we’ve been.

Why aren’t there more history museums to the GLBT cause by now?  Our community’s strange dichotomy of “wanting to fit in and co-opt privileges” and “remaining true to our unique secrecy- and shame-based subculture” has always kept us from forming a unified and self-affirming voice.  If we supported these community centers and historical museums like we as a community supported the trendy corporations that pinpoint our consumer dollars, we’d have vibrant support networks everywhere!  We need to progress from the mind-set of hunting for “the town gay bar(s)” in the conurbations of the world, and claim our rights to better focal points for our community, don’t you think?

For those who disagree that a real, “on the ground” historical museum is something we need more of, I leave you with two last points:

1.  In many parts of the world, members of our community are targeted for execution (and worse.)  They deserve remembrance and assistance by those of us who are more fortunate and empowered.

2.  Historical museums surpass monuments in that programming can serve to aid and stimulate our memory and show us how far we’ve come (and not only to ourselves!) If we forget our achievements, we are in danger of losing gains based on mis-perceptions that ignore those gains and question our identity apart from persecution.  We have come too far now to worry about “fitting in” at the expense of history.

Does our community provide unique and valuable worth to society and history?  Yes!  Where would one discover more?

how (glbt) times have changed at the academy…

I couldn’t resist this casual observation about one of the Academy Award nominees this year:  I’m glad that the main GLBT character(s) in a well-liked nominated picture remained happy, healthy and alive throughout the entire film plot.  Off the top of my head, I’m reminiscing about some of the previous memorable (or controversial) pictures that brought GLBT issues to the spotlight:

Philadelphia (very bad ending!)

Transamerica (sad ending)

The Boys in the Band (bitter, party of nine! –and it was only nominated for a Golden Globe in ’71 but then that was an incredible accomplishment)

Brokeback Mountain (just awful ending)

Milk (need I elaborate?)

And the list goes on, I know.  Those are just a few titles off the top of my head!

Well, this year, the movie title of the nominee carries the “vibe” of the picture, and it’s a big relief:  “The Kids Are Alright.”  And amazingly the lesbian Moms are happy and survive too.  I think that’s progress!–and a direct social reflection on the GLBT community’s acceptance by the overall American community (as represented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as they try to represent the critical movie-going public without undue influence.)

I’m glad “The Kids Are Alright” because although my life is certainly NOT a nicely packaged film, it helps to know that the public is getting one more message that I could be alright too.  We still need many more positive examples.

Do you have either a favorite or loathed GLBT-themed motion picture that carries a strong reaction when brought to mind?

protest today at the smithsonian

Today members of the group “Art Positive” held a protest outside the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, over Institution Secretary Wayne Clough’s decision to censor part of the GLBT-themed exhibit “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” at the National Portrait Gallery.  You may remember his decision a few months ago to remove artist David Wojnarowicz’s video “A Fire in My Belly” which depicted (for a few seconds) ants crawling over a crucifix.  Mr. Clough maintains that his decision to pull that one piece was an attempt to preserve the majority of the exhibit from undue attack and a right-wing outcry that could have shuttered the entire exhibit through controversy.  Approximately 30 marchers held today’s protest on the Mall outside a Smithsonian Board of Regents meeting, calling slogans like: “No more censorship — Clough must go.”

For what it’s worth, I feel that Clough’s decision may have been penny-wise but pound foolish.  Why assemble an exhibit if it can potentially be picked apart by focused, surgical controversy on individual components?  if you truly believe in the message and the strength of an art exhibit, you have to be ready to defend each exhibited item as a necessary sentence or paragraph in the exhibit’s story.  This is the first example in recent memory of an art exhibit that was actually proactively “redacted” by the exhibitor.  Remember, when you see a redacted document, in a television news show for example, that doesn’t mean that nobody knows what’s behind the blacked-out areas;  it means instead that someone else knows but has already decided that you don’t need to know.  Redaction may be appropriate for sensitive confidential documents, but not for a public art exhibit by one of world’s most well-respected and powerful art institutions, right?  Would you as an artist want an exhibitor who’s prepared to strengthen the entire chain of your message, or one who’s ready to pull links out of your exhibit at the first whiff of controversy?

One last thought:  those groups who complained about “A Fire in My Belly” got exactly what they wanted, and why wouldn’t they try this now-functional strategy again?