Artist of the Week
The Jack Straw Artist of the Week Podcast highlights work created through the Artist Residency Programs at Jack Straw Cultural Center.-
D.A. Navoti - Residential School Requiem
“Residential School Requiem” is an audio excerpt from Jack Straw resident artist D.A. Navoti‘s multimedia work O’otham Rhapsode. The work will premiere on June 16th at Jack Straw as part of the event Indigenous Americana: In Words, Song, and Multimedia, and will be exhibited at Jack Straw from June 16 to July 14, 2023.
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Ran Park - A Silkworm's Thread
This recording of an early version of Ran Park‘s “A Silkworm’s Thread” is from her December 2019 Artist Showcase performance at Jack Straw. You can hear the final version of the piece on her new EP, Primer, available on Bandcamp.
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I Wayan Sinti - Gegilak
I Wayan Sinti produced several recordings at Jack Straw as part of a 2004 residency in the Artist Support Program. At the same time, he was in residency as a visiting artist at the University of Washington School of Music, where he taught Balinese vocal and gamelan music. During his time at the University of Washington he also created a new form of gamelan called Siwa Nada, which was constructed with the help of his students. Read more about this project and see images of the instruments at the UW Ethnomusicology Musical Instrument collection online.
Photo courtesy the University of Washington Ethnomusicology Archives.
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Grey Eagle - How Wolf Helped the Sami
This story is excerpted from Grey Eagle’s audio collection Hear the Wolf: Native American & Sami Stories, produced in 1994, the first year of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program. Ken Jackson, aka Grey Eagle, was born April 27, 1923 and died in 2008. You can read more about him and his legacy at the website of his sons’ family business.
From the liner notes of the Hear the Wolf cassette: “Most Native people believe we are actually related to all other creatures. When the relationship is sensitive, respectful, and balanced, it forms a Sacred Circle. We two-legged have received special gifts from our four-legged relative, Wolf. We’ve been given many lessons by Wolf. These lessons are recounted in stories of American Indians and Sami, the Native People of North Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Grey Eagle retells these stories in his own words. It is his way of returning the gifts – the gifts of strong stories and the gifts of lasting lessons. Hearing the stories lets us learn our lessons from Wolf and understand that we can all live together in a Sacred Circle.”
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Story-keeping—the UN-[TITLED] Oral History series
“Story-keeping—the UN-[TITLED] Oral History series” is a soundscape of music and oral histories heard during performances of the UN-[TITLED] Project. As a series of offerings and invitations created in collaboration with theater and community artists and architects, UN-[TITLED] is an immersive, multisite-specific project that centers on the ways in which communities are displaced by gentrification. Guests are guided through a series of engagements and reckonings with community meaning, cultural memory, and healing in the Central and Chinatown International Districts of Seattle.
About the UN-[TITLED] Oral Histories: “This is an Oral History series of Seattle residents as part of the UN-[TITLED] project–a space of reflection on where we all fit on the spectrum of gentrification, and the shifting story of home in Seattle. Over the last 25 years, the historically redlined areas of Central and Chinatown International Districts have weathered widespread rapid development that has economically displaced and culturally dispersed the communities that once occupied these spaces. An intergenerational group of community residents who claim deep roots in these districts were invited to participate in this series—to share their experiences and memories of growing up, living, or working in these neighborhoods. It is a chorus of unique voices who claim multiple cultures and heritages, with varying economic backgrounds, jobs, professions, and identities. They each offer charged and moving contributions as story-keepers for their beloved neighborhoods.This series holds space for listening and reflection on where we fit on the spectrum of gentrification, and into the shifting story of home in this city. We are thankful and honor the generosity of every participant who shared what needs to be said and heard about how gentrification has directly impacted them, their street blocks, their families, their friends, their memories, and their sense of place. Together they offer to us a sacred vessel of legacy-keeping and memory-making for displaced and surviving communities.”
Visit the project website to hear, see, and read more about UN-[TITLED].
Oral History Participants, in order of appearance: JM Wong, Karen Akada Sakata, Brandi Li, JM Wong, Gloria Jackson-Neffertiti, Maisha Barnett, Ruby Holland, C. Davida Ingram, Maria Kang
Audio editing: Berette S Macaulay
Music: Seattle Soundscape Symphony by Benjamin Hunter
Photos: Berette S MacaulayUN-[TITLED] is a multisite socially engaged project conceived and organized by commissioning curator Berette S Macaulay. UN-[TITLED] is a National Performance Network(NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by On the Boards (Seattle) in partnership with BRIC (New York). The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Audio recordings and production made possible through the Artist Residency Programs at Jack Straw Cultural Center.
UN-[TITLED] is also supported by fiscal sponsorship with Northwest Film Forum, and administratively by i•ma•gine | e•volve & Third Rail Projects.
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Nada Rosa - Reversal of Fortune
“Reversal of Fortune” is the first single from Nada Rosa’s upcoming album, Nunca Te Olvido, produced through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program. The song speaks to the natural ebb and flow of life, and the inherent cycle of evolution and destruction that we all experience.
“Reversal of Fortune” is available now on all platforms. Nunca Te Olvido comes out this May.
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MANtrio - It's Simply a Matter of Work
“It’s Simply a Matter of Work” will be included on MANtrio‘s forthcoming album, produced through the Artist Support Program. About it, drummer Melanie Sehman writes, “‘It’s Simply a Matter of Work’ was not something we had planned on recording when we came to record at Jack Straw. While in the studio, we needed a quick break from recording our composed pieces so we decided to do what we most enjoy: improvise. This is an improvisation based on three randomly drawn Oblique Strategies cards, and it turned out to be one of our favorite tracks and will be included on the forthcoming album.”
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LaVon Hardison - Walks with Robert
“Walks with Robert” is a selection from LaVon Hardison‘s new album Brown Girls Dream, produced through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program. Catch LaVon live, and pick up a copy of the CD, at our spring artist showcase on April 1st at Jack Straw.
About this song, LaVon writes, “I wrote ‘Walks with Robert’ in the winter of 2020 and everyone was huddled inside hiding from COVID, and the recent snow seemed to emphasize the stillness and solitude of what everyone was feeling. I remember looking out my front window and feeling the dreamlike state of snowfall. The way it muffles and slows everything down, how it brings everything to a stop. It felt like nothing was happening and I was anxious that I would be put in this holding pattern forever. But looking outside, I was reminded that life was still happening, I just couldn’t see it, and this pause is part of livingness.”
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Artscape - Kofi Anang
This Artscapes radio piece was produced by Jack Straw in 1995 as part of a series highlighting the work of Jack Straw’s resident artists. Jack Straw artist Kofi Anang talks about growing up in Ghana and the inspiration behind his music and performance.
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Tiffany Danielle Elliott New Media Gallery Interview
Jack Straw artist Tiffany Danielle Elliott talks with Carlos Nieto about her Jack Straw New Media Gallery installation I promise I won’t scream.
