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The Arts Connection - January 10, 2008

audio_icon_pos Click here to listen to Part 1

As You Like It opens this week at the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre; it runs through February 3 - 407-447-1700

The Festival of Orchestras will have its first-ever fundraising event - Festival Fiesta - this Saturday, Jan. 12 from 6-9pm at the Church Street Station Ballroom.  It's held in conjunction to the performance next Sunday, Jan. 20, by the State Symphony of Mexico.  Tickets will be available at the door - it's $75 for the fiesta only, or $125 for the event & the concert. Call 407-539-0245 for information.

Swamp Gravy is a folk life play that's been running, in many versions, for 15 years in Colquitt, Georgia. It uses oral histories to tell the story of this rural community, and has been performed at the Atlanta Olympics and the Kennedy Center. The non-profit group Creative Sanford wants to do something similar for the residents of Seminole County. You can see Swamp Gravy this Saturday night at the Helen Stairs Theatre in order to get a better understanding of what a community-based performance is all about. Creative Sanford hopes to gather local stories for a play it will call Celery Soup - for information, call the group's president, Jeanine Taylor, at 407-323-2774.

Mr. Imagination will be back in Central Florida for an exhibit of his sculptures, constructions and installations at Crealde School of Art in Winter Park. He will then build a Memory Wall at the Hannibal Square Heritage Center beginning January 21st - residents are invited to contribute "interesting small waterproof items" for the wall - drop them off at the center between 10am and 4pm. The Memory Wall unveiling will be Friday, February 1st as part of the Zora Neale Hurston Festival.



audio_icon_pos Click here to listen to Part 2

Anna Tomczak was featured on The Arts Connection back in 2004 - in this rebroadcast, she talks about the process of creating Polaroid transfer prints.  That will also be the subject of an upcoming workshop at the Museum of Florida Art, where Anna's exhibit SANCTUARY can be seen through February 10.  She will give a Gallery Talk on Jan. 20 and a Workshop on January 25 & 26.  Call 386-734-4371

Bowfire comes to the King Center in Melbourne tonight at 8 - for tickets call 321-242-2219. 

Dancing with the Opera Stars is Saturday night from 7-10 at the Dr. Philips Center - 1111 N. Orange Ave.  It features waltz lessons and performances by opera members, the Central Florida Chapter of USA Dance and the Orlando Contra Dancers.  There will also be discounts available for Orlando Opera's upcoming production of Die Fledermaus.


audio_icon_pos Click here to listen to Part 3

 CASTING CALL - follow this link to read online
You can also read about auditions and other theatre news on Elizabeth Maupin's blog, Attention Must Be Paid.  Elizabeth is the theatre critic for the Orlando Sentinel.


Poetic Logic producer Sara Schlossman returns with an interview featuring local poet Jose Acosta, and shares these thoughts.... 

Jose Acosta is determined to not be silent about child abuse because the child-victim’s voice is what every abuser is determined to extinguish, even when the victim lives on. Acosta’s two collections of poetry, Life Passion & Patriotism, and From Fear to Hope & Back Again are revealing as he looks at his experience from this side of adulthood and with his perfect recall of a child’s feelings and fears.

In conversation he’s open about these experiences despite a continuing sensitivity to the egregious violation of trust and boundary. While Acosta lives his life at perfect pitch and with the discipline you’d expect from someone with a successful career in the military for almost 20 years, you do get the sense that there’s something shadowy beneath the surface, something that he’ll eventually get around to letting you know whether through one of his poetry readings around town, or in conversation if it goes in that direction.

I wrote to Jose and asked him to expand on an answer he gave during our recorded interview. The question was: What else do you want us to know about child abuse. The answer was: It lasts forever. I want to share Jose’s further comments here, in keeping with saying what needs to be said, giving voice to what wants to get out:

Once you have been abused, it lasts a lifetime. There is no expiration
date to memories or the pain they bring. What I believe many courts and
people do not understand is that you carry those memories for life and
they play an important factor in the person you become.

Some may take [the memories] to their graves and never tell anyone for various reasons. Others may be overwhelmed and never be able to cope with life in a normal way. Some fight it and let the anger drive them to become productive in life
and even help others. Either way you are a victim for life.

I have spoken to criminals, officers of the law, social services personnel,
lawyers, doctors, and even military personnel that have shared with me
their experiences relating to child abuse. So many silent people. Their
silence is deafening. I attended a couple of therapy sessions on this
subject. One therapist kept asking me questions and as I gave more
details I felt frightened as if I was returning to those days and I was
allowing that child to come forth. The therapist himself stopped the
session and I could tell he was shaken by the conversation. I did not
ask him, but felt he knew more about the issue than he would like to
state.

When I speak or read about child abuse, I can look at the
audience and feel that there are people out there who know more about
it. I hear the deepness of their breath or how they swallow hard to hold
back emotions. Once you have been abused, you are no longer the same as
others that have not been. But there is hope, or I would not be here
writing this.

###

~ Sara Schlossman, for Poetic Logic, January 10, 2008 ~