Global Education Center birthday concert

This Saturday (2/24), the Global Education Center is putting on a 10th Anniversary performance with a bunch of their groups -- mostly dance groups from various world cultures, plus a djembe ensemble and a steel drum band, maybe some other music more than dance stuff. The concert is 7:30 at Father Ryan. GEC runs classes from their building on Charlotte, they train teachers, do performances in schools, and you can count on seeing one of their groups at almost any festival, especially one that wants to make some acknowledgement of the ethnic diversity in the city. They're sort of a one-stop shop for that if you're programming an event.

You've got to figure these have been good years for GEC, as the city takes in immigrants from everywhere and takes on a more visibily internationalized character. That's got to translate into more interest in what they're doing, more people with something to teach, and institutions in town placing more importance on what GEC has to offer. I hope that's right.

Here's a list of the groups performing from an email I got on the performance. Don't ask me what most of these are:

Bodhicitta Tribal Dancers
Deep Grooves Steel Drum Group
Djembefole Percussion Ensemble
Dynamic Movcement Hip-Hop Ensemble
Fiona, An American Hoop Girl
Hispano Americas
Kala Nivedanam South Indian Classical Dance
Linda Reed, Middle Eastern Dance
Malone Dance Studios
Nashville Chinese Culture Club
Pacific Xpressions
The Bosch Institute
Thywill Amenya Trio from GHana
Xenia, Modern Egyptian Dance

Jay Bolotin At Vandy

Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery and the Sarratt Gallery are getting together on what should be a great show, prints by Jay Bolotin and a film he's done from his woodcut images. The opening is tonight (Thursday), from 5-7, with a screening of the film at 7.

The film, the Jackleg Testament, is a reworking of the Eden story, although this time a jack-in-the-box figure gets into the picture, and I think Eve leaves Adam, heads off with Jack, they go to a big city to see God, called Nobodaddy. Perfect family tale for the Easter season. Vanderbilt bought a portfolio of prints from the film, a purchase that fits right in with their strategy of focusing on multiples. The Fine Arts Gallery will show this, Sarratt has some other images and they are going to show the film in the theater.

Bolotin's film has been compared to William Kentridge, who animates drawings, a process that is similar to working with prints like Bolotin does. Bolotin uses computer software to work with those images. That's not the case so much with Kentridge. And of course it's different body of images. The images I've seen are drenched in dark colors, with the strong, heavy lines you expect from woodcut technique.

This is a pretty big deal -- I was first aware of Bolotin when the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati did a big thing with him.

Here's some more stuff on the Jackleg Testament and an interview with Bolotin.