February 12, 2012, 7pm

3rd Ward (map)

Parents. These two projects turn their cameras on the stories, knowledge and insight passed down from the people who brought us into this world. Every Day Is A Holiday follows Theresa Loong’s quest to find out about her father’s journey from Malaysian teenager to Chinese POW in a Japanese camp to US citizen. And Cooking By Heart shares the joy that happens when family recipes find their way from one generation to the next. Cooks from the Cooking By Heart videos will prepare a special plate from two distinct traditions: a masala from India and a joloff rice recipe from Nigeria. With a special collaborative performance from Moviehouse’s own Shantell Martin’s work with a live cellist.

Featuring

Every Day Is A Holiday by Theresa Loong

Growing up, filmmaker Theresa Loong knew that her father, Paul Loong, was older than most of her friends’ parents. Throughout her youth and young adulthood, Theresa recalls a cheerful father who loved to laugh and play pranks on his kids. But underneath all that laughter, he would show occasional flashes of anger and sadness.

One day, young Theresa asked him innocently about a curious scar on his back. “Everyone has secrets,” he would say.

She knew this much: His road to becoming an American citizen was anything but direct. As a Chinese Malaysian teenager serving in the British Royal Air Force, he spent three years at hard labor as a
prisoner of war in Japan. But it wasn’t until Theresa discovered a hidden diary her father kept while imprisoned, that she uncovered other family secrets.

This work-in-progress showing of “Every Day Is a Holiday” draws upon his experiences to explore contemporary issues of war, immigration, and family.  It celebrates the freedom that comes with confronting the past and facing the future with resilience, forgiveness, and love.

Cooking By Heart by Alana Lowe and Paul Helzer

Cooking by Heart is a series of short videos that document recipes as they are shared across generations. We are learning from extraordinary home cooks as they prepare family favorites with a loved one in the comfort of their own kitchen. We preserve food traditions and document family stories. Or you could say we are telling recipe stories and recording kitchen memories.

MNP

Without giving so much of the performance away… we make a strong point that we and you are HERE, unlike a lot of shows that want to take you on a journey or an escape to a distant place, we want to create the opposite space. We start with an image of a door that we all walked through and slowly bring in some sound, some recorded conversation that was going on before the show – so people are like – hang on, I know that door/space I came through it to get here, hang on that’s thingy bobs voice…. People are instantly but in a very subtle way brought into that place called now and here - then we really begin. I will start with my voice looper repeating some spoken words, normally a question I heard someone say or the longitude and latitude of our current location …… I/my noise fades out Anna with her awesome cello come in and the live drawing also begins…

March 11, 2012, 7pm

3rd Ward (map)

A very special presentation of a fascinating poetry/video/trace your roots kind of show from our friends at vvitalny. Join us for an evening of re-invention, interaction and some really good poetry. Oh, and there will be borscht. Because you can’t host a remotely Polish event without it.

Featuring

Po Prostu Milosz by vvitalny

“I am a problem…I am problem. Like the bear and the shark and the wind.”

– Bob Holman

Po Prostu Milosz is a series of videos in which vvitalny explores the politics of writing and the “Polish school of poetry” through conversations – about legendary Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz – with leading American poets Bob Holman, Jane Hirshfield and Robert Pinsky. These videos form the nucleus of a larger multimedia project where the anxiety of influence is a legacy we celebrate. It begins with the poetry of Miłosz, which echoes in the work of following generations of American poets. Their work, in turn, informs our work in video, as well as the work of Warsaw Philharmonic’s Tomek Januchta, whose original music accompanies these videos. The project itself is actually an online “art game”, which serves as a platform to explore the use of (new) media to remix these influences, and to create collaborations were none existed before.

December 11, 2011, 7pm

3rd Ward (map)

Join us for a sneak peak at the amazing documentary about the potential death of the acoustic by Josh Granger, Maxine Trump, & Kurt Wallin. Plus catch a live acoustic performance by Halina Larsson mixed with Shantell’s visuals and some yummy kale, apple and Parmesan or roasted duck with orange ricotta ravioli from Holland & Grey Ravioli.

If the overlogging of the world’s forests continues, countless species face extinction and our carbon emissions will skyrocket. But there is about to be another casualty in this war on wood…the acoustic guitar. If things don’t change, in less than 10 years the guitar as we know it will be no more…

Musicwood follows a Coalition of the world’s foremost guitar makers as they attempt to save the old-growth trees of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. To do this they will have to deal with a logging company of Native Americans who have been in the area for 10,000 years. Native Americans who’ve notoriously been given a raw deal from the US government. So cultures will clash. To get them to change won’t be easy; it’s their livelihood that’s also at risk.

Musicwood tells this story by joining the Coalition on their journey to Alaska, getting behind the scenes in the negotiations, and framing it all with a soundtrack of major acoustic guitar performances. Interviews with leading experts, a rare chance to hear the Native American perspective, and some of the most dramatic scenery in the United States. Musicwood is an ecological investigation, a cultural history and an adventurous journey to the heart of primeval forest.

Halina Larsson

Halina Larsson has a diverse sound and a variety of influences including Janis Joplin, Nina Simone, Erykah Badu, Feist and Elliot Smith. She is a trained jazz vocalist who on this ep (Fires & French Horns) falls somewhere between indie folk songstress and new soul chanteuse.