Find us on the HIGH 5 REVIEW!

heyo,

Quick update on this blog.... and where to go in the future for updates.....

As of today, this blog will remain here to redirect people and as an archive, but we won't be updating it anymore. We are happy to announce the building of our new online arts-paper --- The High 5 Review (www.high5review.org). There will be a TRaC section in the newspaper that will pick up where this blog left off. Expect weekly posts about TRaC ongoings, TRaC reviews, event announcements, and much much more!


Events like first friday Pizza and a Movie Nights will continue to be announced on Facebook (become a fan of High 5 here) and the High 5 Review.   Both will have updates for free tickets to shows, news about special TRaC events, and random posts about random arts opportunities for teens.

And if you're not on High 5's e-mail newsletter, you're missing out on new shows, reviews and event announcements every week! Sign up here to get the inside beat on all things art in the city: www.high5tix.org/mailinglist

We'll see you out there at the shows!
(and on the High 5 Review)

Apply for spring Theater TRaC!

Applications for spring Theater TRaC are now available for eligible high school students at www.high5tix.org/TRaC.

Come together with people from different backgrounds and schools who want to explore the arts and sharpen their critical eye.  Imagine yourself and these 12 peers attending world-class performances, meeting professional artists and critics, and breaking it down in weekly two-hour workshops.  All while improving your writing!

What else will you do in Theater TRaC?

• Attend at least 5 performances
• Experience the NYC arts world with behind-the-scenes access
• Learn from high-profile professional artists and critics
• Expand your critical writing and dialogue skills
• Publish reviews read by thousands
• Meet like-minded peers from all over NY and NJ
• Master New York City’s public transportation system
• Discover more about yourself!

ArtsConnection/High 5 partners with the Public Theater to bring you the best in theater from around the city.  The Theater TRaC schedule is as follows* (subject to change):

TRaC Kickoff Party, 4:30 - 6:15, March 16

8 Classes on Wednesdays @ 520 Eighth Ave, 3rd Floor & 20th Floor, 4:30 - 6:30

March 17, March 24, (off March 31 for Winter Break)
April 7, April 14, April 21 (off April 28 for Spring Break)
May 5, May 12, May 19
+ the 5 or 6 performances TBD

The TRaC Finale, 2:00 - 4:00, May 22

Download a TRaC flier and application today at www.high5tix.org/TRaC.  Or attend our Open House on February 25th to get more information.  Applications are accepted on a first come, first served basis.  (Yes, all former TRaC participants may take another TRaC class.  Yes, you must resubmit an application).


Applications are due on March 4th.

C. West on Music

http://colinresponse.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/cornel-west-on-music/

Music at its best…is the grand archeology into and transfiguration of our guttural cry, the great human effort to grasp in time our deepest passions and yearnings as prisoners of time. Profound music leads us–beyond language–to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial
heights of our silence.

-Cornel West

The Brothers Size - Sunday!

I am SO HAPPY to tell you that we have snagged tix for Part 2 of Tarell McCraney's THE BROTHER/SISTER PLAYS.

SUNDAY DECEMBER 6 at the Public Theater. 425 Lafayette.

Meet there at 6:40 pm.

Clear your calendars and prep your parents. This is our final show of the session, and I could not be more thrilled that they made tix available to us!

Fela!

His Passion Ignited a Generation.
His Music Fueled a Revolution.
His Legacy Inspires the World. 

 

This Wednesday we're in for a treat!  Immediately after class we'll be heading to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre for the brand new Broadway Musical FELA!


To prepare you for the experience of the show, a little bit about the show, the man, and more, all from the show's website.....


What is Fela! about, you ask?  

FELA! is a new musical directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Bill T. Jones, with a book by Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones, in which audiences are welcomed into the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti. Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), FELA! explores Kuti's controversial life as artist, political activist and revolutionary musician. Featuring many of Fela Kuti's most captivating songs and Bill T. Jones's imaginative staging, this new show is a provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theater.

Who is Fela?

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, a pioneer of Afrobeat music, a human rights activist and a political maverick. He is ranked among the world’s most influential musicians.   Read a full bio of the man here.

Where is the theater and how long's the show?

The Eugene O'Neill Theatre
230 West 49th Street (between 7th and 8th Ave)
New York, New York
8pm - 10:45pm

Learn more about the show on the website:  www.felaonbroadway.com

Here's some real footage of Fela playing, his dancers dancing....

Article about Tarell

 

From the New York Times:
Writer Digs Up Gods From the Bayou
by PATRICK HEALY

(To the right:  the playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney at the Public Theater.  Photo by Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times.) 


The article begins:

TARELL ALVIN McCRANEY enters. Miami, 1980s. He is a boy growing up in the Liberty City housing projects, among the nation’s worst. He stays with his father and grandparents on some nights. They feed him peanut butter and jelly, and he is content. They are devout Baptists and fill up the boy with God’s stories, and he is content.

On other nights the boy stays with his mother. She is a crack addict with an abusive lover, with unpaid bills. Now and then the electricity is cut off. Now and then the boy is picked on by other boys for being gentle, shy, quiet. Still the boy is content; he loves his mother. She moves them to another project to give the boy a fresh start. Three years later a hurricane named Andrew hits their home, destroys everything. They return to Liberty City. The mother checks herself into rehab. Some years later, when the boy is a man of 23 and his mother is 40, she dies of an AIDS-related illness.

This is Mr. McCraney’s own story, and this is the kind of language — terse and unsentimental — that has helped make him a playwright of uncommon acclaim. His prose is as raw as his subject matter: children growing up without parents, teenagers searching for their identities, adults holding on to hope. Most of his characters are poor and jobless, and some die suddenly. And their dialogue takes a distinct form: The actors often drop out of character to describe their stage directions aloud — “Ogun Size enters” — to make the theatergoers feel they are not so much watching a play as they are sharing in every banal and beautiful line of a story that the cast and the author are unfurling.

 Continue reading  the article at the New Times website....here.

In The Red & Brown Water

Wednesday, November 4th - our 3rd show......

In the red & Brown Water

 

Meet at the Public Theater @ 7:40 pm

425 Lafayette Street

Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney will speak with us!