ART ON THE EDGE
ARTSTUFF: A cross-cultural festival
By Karen Feldscher
Powerful hip-hop monologues. A klezmer Nutcracker. Interactive community
art. In August, the week-long cutting-edge festival Artstuff brought a
variety of exciting events to the Northeastern campus.
Now in its second year, Artstuff offered not only public performances,
but opportunities for Northeastern and local high school students to work
with visiting artists.
Headliner Danny Hoch (above)--a performance artist whose vivid characters
(including a corrections officer, a white gangsta-rap wannabe, a black
hip-hop star, and a Cuban street vendor) Esquire magazine called "heartbreakingly
nuanced"-presented his one-man show Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop.
And there were a host of other arts events. A mix of poetry, theater,
and music by Patricia Smith and Paradigm Shift Brass Band. Spain Chang,
an interdisciplinary work on the lives of the elderly and the homeless.
Staged readings of six new plays.
Music concerts included "Reinventing Tradition," a freewheeling
Sunday afternoon affair in the Krentzman Quad.
A "percussive get-together" hosted by the Community Drumming
Circle. A Klezmer Nutcracker, featuring WGBH radio host Ellen Kushner and
the klezmer band Shirim.
An evening dance performance teamed The Art of Bla
ck Dance and
Music with Capoeira Camara Angola. The Roxbury Film Festival highlighted
nearly twenty new works by local filmmakers of color. And the Revolving
Museum organized the installation of a sixteen-foot head made up of community
residents' art.
In the week before the public portion of Artstuff, would-be student
artists spent time in a "summer camp," working with Northeastern
faculty and visiting artists to train and rehearse, and explore new creative
ideas.
In other words, in the best tradition of Northeastern, they got the
chance to learn by doing.