The Missoula Cultural Council – news and upcoming events for the week of January 24, 2004

In Missoula…

The Missoula Children’s Theatre presents Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple January 20-23 & 26-30 at the MCT Center for the Performing Arts. Call 728-PLAY (728-7529) for tickets & information, or visit http://www.mctinc.org

The University of Montana Department of Music presents two performances this week: a Student Recital Series Event featuring Jacqueline Fallon, flute, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, January 28 (Free admission), and a Faculty Recital Series Event featuring Maxine Ramey, clarinet, at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 30. Both performances are in the Music Recital Hall. For tickets and information, call 243-6882.

Clumsy Lovers returns to Missoula on Thursday, January 27, at Sean Kelly’s, starting at 10:00 p.m. Call 542-1471.

Official selections for the 2005 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival are now on-line at http://highplainsfilms.org/festival/selections.html. All screenings will be held at the historic Wilma Theater February 17-23. The festival will showcase over 70 non-fiction films from all styles, formats and production dates. Three separate awards will be presented for the competition films: Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, & The Big Sky Award, which will be given to one film concerning the American West. Judges include visiting filmmakers and Montana industry professionals.

The Montana Natural History Center will once again be sponsoring the popular Community Watershed Education class, open to the community and offered through Continuing Education at the University of Montana. This class explores our beautiful Clark Fork Watershed with local experts and gives participants the opportunity to share their new knowledge with local sixth grade students during the 11th Annual Clark Fork Watershed Festival, April 28 – 29. Participants will gain experience in classroom and field teaching as well as learn stream monitoring techniques. Community Watershed Education will be held on Wednesdays from 4:10 – 7:00 p.m., at the University of Montana, LA 205, beginning January 26. Space is limited. Please register in advance. For more information contact the Montana Natural History Center at 327-0405, or visit http://www.MontanaNaturalist.org.

This week’s Matinees at the International Wildlife Media Center & Film Festival (Roxy Theater): Films for Kids – Thursday, January 27 (3:00 p.m.) & Saturday, January 29 (1:30 p.m.) – Fast Food; Wild Dolphins & Whales of Southern California; Endangered Species. Top Picks – Sunday, January 30 (1:30 p.m.) – Siberian Survivors; Spine Chillers – Scorpions. For more information call 728-9380 or visit http://www.wildlifefilms.org

This year marks the 28th anniversary of Missoula’s International Wildlife Film Festival. The Filmmaker’s Festival, as it’s often known, has evolved into one of the most significant film events; where wildlife on screen means film and filmmaking take center stage, providing unsurpassed opportunities to share ideas, see colleagues’ work and showcase yours. Film entry deadline is January 31. Entry forms and further information is at http://www.wildlifefilms.org

Between 1999 and 2002 as part of First Night Missoula, hundreds of adults and children created colorful tiles showing what Missoula meant to them. The 6 inch square tiles showed everything from the surrounding mountains, the Clark Fork River, to a person’s home. Some of the tiles found a home on the Northside Pedestrian Walkway over the railroad tracks off of Orange Street, but others went left unused and have been in storage at the Clay Studio ever since. Now, however, the Missoula Housing Authority is completing the renovation of the former Uptown Motel into permanent apartments for homeless persons using funds from the State of Montana HOME Program, HUD and its own Development Fund. Part of the construction included seven, large concrete planters in front of the building that will hold flowering Pear, Hornbeam, and Nannyberry trees to shade the building and to add blooming foliage to the Downtown. The planters will be decorated with hundreds of these same tiles. The public will be able to see the tiles for the first time as part of the First Friday Art Walk on February 4, at the corner of Pine and Woody Streets. With the opening of the Uptown Motel Apartments (329 Woody) in the near future, both the tiles and 14 of Missoula’s homeless will have found a “Home at Last”. For additional information about this project, call Peter Hance or Andrea Davis at the Missoula Housing Authority – 549-4113; Mike Kurz at the Clay Studio – 544-5156; or Tom Bensen at the Missoula Cultural Council – 721-9620.

Elsewhere in Montana and the Region…

A new research report, Creative Industries, gives graphic evidence of the scope and economic importance of the arts in Montana, conducted by Americans for the Arts in Washington DC. According to Dun and Bradstreet, as of January 2004, 2,028 companies in Montana are engaged in creative industries, and these companies employ 8,055 people. For more information, visit: http://art.mt.gov/soa/pr.asp?ID=252.

Original poems, stories, and artwork by students are being solicited for a new state-wide literary magazine just for students, Signatures from Big Sky. Contributions are being sought from all grade levels and from all 7 areas into which the state has been divided. Teachers, students, and professional artists from the 7 areas will determine the final selections. The final selections will be based upon excellence for the particular grade level, creativity, and originality. Entries are due by February 1, 2005. For more information, call Jan Clinard, 444-0652 or email [email protected] . Or you may call Shirley Olson, 628-7063 or email [email protected] or visit http://art.state.mt.us/soa/pr.asp?ID=261.

The Montana Repertory Theatre performs Steel Magnolias in several locations over the next few weeks: January 28 at 8:00 p.m. at the Alberta Bair Theater in Billings (256-6052 or 1-877-321-2074 or visit http://www.albertabairtheater.org); January 29 at 8:00 p.m. at the Mother Lode Theatre in Butte (723-3602); January 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Civic Center in Great Falls (453-9854); February 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the Myrna Loy Center in Helena (443-0287); February 4 at 7:30 p.m., at Mainstage Theatre at MSU in Bozeman ( 994-3901); February 6 at 2:00 p.m. at the Fergus Performing Arts Center in Lewistown (538-5488).

The Billings Studio Theater’s annual fund raiser is January 28-29 at the Yellowstone Country Club. The event features all sorts of music – blues, country, folk – with actors and actresses from BST. The event includes a buffet, evening dinner shows, and a matinee luncheon. For more information, call 248-1141.

Men of Worth, an Irish and Scottish folk duo who blend vocal harmonies and diverse instrumentation for contemporary and traditional sounds, performs January 29 at 8:00 p.m. in the Cisel Recital Hall at MSU-Billings. For more information, call 656-2744 or 252-4398.

To benefit Montana’s 20th Race to the Sky, Helena will feature over 35 micro-brews from Montana and the Northwest and the Clumsy Lovers at the XI Micro-Brew Review and Cool Dog Ball on January 28 at 6:00 p.m. at the Helena Civic Center Ballroom. For more information call 447-1535 or visit http://www.downtownhelena.com or http://www.racetothesky.org.

Eden Atwood and the Last Best Band will perform at the Choteau High School Auditorium on Sunday, January 30 at 2:00 p.m. The performance will consist of jazz, jazz-influenced music, bossa nova, torch songs, and dance favorites. Eden will be in residency at Choteau from January 24 through January 29. For more information, call 466-2324 or 466-2857.

The 27th Annual Northwest Bach Festival is from January 29 through February 6 at locations throughout Spokane. The festival includes Organ, orchestra, cello, harpsichord, chorus, violin, tenors, and more. For more information, call 1-800-325-SEAT or visit http://www.nwbachfest.com , or order tickets online at http://www.ticketswest.com .

From the Montana Associated Technology Roundtable…

Western unity – Groups usually on opposite sides of fence congregate to preserve the environment
Dan Kemmis, director of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West, introduced the possibility of a "Western Congress," so new policy directions might be set by those with a future in the preservation of the West, rather than coming from the nation’s capitol.

Willie Nelson Bets on Biodiesel
"I got on the computer and punched in biodiesel and found out this could be the future," said Nelson, who now uses the fuel for his cars and tour buses.

For more about the Montana Associated Technology Roundtable, visit http://www.matr.net

Nationally…

The New Jersey State Council on the Arts has announced a dynamic initiative to document arts education in every school across New Jersey. Created in partnership with the NJ Department of Education, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey and spearheaded by the Music for All Foundation, the New Jersey Arts Education Census Project will create a 360-degree view of arts education in New Jersey schools. http://music-for-all.org/index.html

From the National Business Committee for the Arts…

Verizon, New York, NY, has recently announced that it will sponsor the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) 2005 Jazz Masters Initiative. This Initiative includes nationwide touring performances and associated educational activities, television and radio programming and a commemorative publication. In conjunction with this sponsorship, the Verizon Foundation is providing a $100,000 grant for NEA Jazz in the Schools – an educational resource for high school teachers that uses a Web-based curriculum and DVD toolkit. For information, http://www.nea.gov, http://www.verizon.com or http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=4971

The University of Alaska Museum of the North, Fairbanks, AK, due to re-open in September after a long renovation process, is hoping to have the same effect on tourism to Alaska and the state’s cultural image as the Guggenheim has had in Bilbao. The renovated Museum will be double its original size and will include a research center, The Rose Berry Alaska Art Gallery, the Learning Center, a multimedia auditorium and an expanded Museum store. For information, http://www.uaf.edu/museum.

To learn more about the National Business Committee for the Arts, visit http://www.bcainc.org

From the Center for Arts and Culture….

An Obsession With Peace That Fires Creativity
New York Times, 1/19/2005
"Jeremy Gilley is making a sequel to his ‘Peace One Day,’ the documentary film that led the U.N. to establish the official day of peace, a day celebrated but not observed. Now Mr. Gilley, a British actor and filmmaker, wants his next documentary to take the process further, to induce a real cease-fire."

Culture Montréal has commissioned Dr. Richard Florida to undertake a study on Montreal
Canada NewsWire, 1/18/2005
"Culture Montréal, an independent organization dedicated to promoting culture as a development engine for Montreal, has commissioned Dr. Richard Florida, the world-renowned American scholar and best-selling author of the The Rise of the Creative Class, to study Metropolitan Montreal’s economic growth potential in relation to its cultural distinctiveness, and the increasing importance of its creative sector."
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2005/18/c4149.html

Measuring Literacy in a World Gone Digital
New York Times, 1/17/2005
"The Information and Communications Technology literacy assessment, which will be introduced at about two dozen colleges and universities later this month, is intended to measure students’ ability to manage exercises like sorting e-mail messages or manipulating tables and charts, and to assess how well they organize and interpret information from many sources and in myriad forms."

PBS bows to specter of FCC
Monterey County Herald, 1/18/2005
"Bowing again to the specter of government censure, the Public Broadcasting Service has decided to edit out the scene of a nude woman in the upcoming television movie ‘Dirty War’ rather than expose its member stations to complaints of indecency and Federal Communications Commission fines."
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/living/10671144.htm

To learn more about the Center of Arts and Culture, visit http://www.culturalpolicy.org

Internationally…

Athens Olympics Chief Fumes at U.S. Lewdness Claims
New York Times – Reuters, 1/17/2005
"A clutch of complaints by U.S. viewers that the Athens Olympics opening ceremony featured lewd nudity has incensed the Games chief, who warned American regulators to back off from policing ancient Greek culture. . . . ‘Greece does not wish to be drawn into an American culture war. Yet that is exactly what is happening,’ she said."
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/sports/sports-sport-olympics-indecency.html

After the Tsunamis: the Museum Community Responds
Art Daily, 1/18/2005
"In the wake of the devastating tsunami that caused destruction, havoc, and terrible loss of life on coastlines around the Indian Ocean, reports of damage to museums and historic sites are beginning to trickle in. The world museum community is mobilizing to assess the needs of museums and cultural sites in the area and respond with assistance once their immediate requirements are known. "
http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=12354

Finally…This just in from the Onion…

A Columbia University study released Tuesday suggests that viewing fewer than four hours of television a day severely inhibits a person’s ability to ridicule popular culture.

http://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4103&n=3

Visit http://www.missoulacultural.org and e-mail [email protected] with submissions for this newsletter.

Thanks for your comments & corrections

Tom at MCC