Will the Real NPR Please Stand Up?

Neighborhood Public Radio

Monday April 14 | 8 pm

@UnionDocs
$5 suggested admission.

Meet the new NPR on the block: Neighborhood Public Radio. An artist run radio project now broadcasting live from a former shoe storefront at The Whitney Biennial, NPR provides an alternative media platform to community artists and musicians, activists, and local residents. By opening up the channels of communication through both internet streams and a micro-powered signal, Neighborhood Public Radio creates a kind of open radiophonic space: one free of FCC rules and regulations, corporate underwriters, and, well, any editorial involvement whatsoever. The motto for NPR is: “If it’s in the neighborhood and it makes noise .. we hope to put it on the air.”

For their current production, titled “American Life” in association with the Whitney Biennial, NPR broadcasts live from the Madison Avenue storefront and invites anyone passing by to tell stories, perform, interview, or just talk. They have also developed boxed broadcasting kits that they will distribute in cities across the country. NPR founders Lee Montgomery and Jon Brumit will be on hand to discuss their project, recall some memorable locally-produced radio moments and respond to a piece about them recently aired on that other NPR . They’ll also play audio from other recent community-based transmission arts projects including State of Mind Stations and Talking Homes.

After the presentation there will be a casual collaborative talk in the yard over snacks and beer about the future of transmission arts with free103point9 in Brooklyn, NY.

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Thanks to Lily for the edit, Molly for the art and animations, and Best Fwends for the music!

The flower talk (event description):

Ahhhhhhh, Spring time - a time for sprouting, budding, chirping, hopping, birthing, drinking, frolicking, skipping, romping, and general happy-to-know-you interactions.

How do YOU Spring?

UnionDocs is calling all you Springers to express yourself through your art in our show-and-tell style event. Whether you are a filmmaker, photographer, painter, dancer, singer, actor, bird watcher, puppeteer, tai chi master, or idiot savant UnionDocs wants to give you a moment in the sunlight to express yourself.

After the event there will be a keg in the backyard. Need we convince you further?

The nitty-gritty (submission guidelines):

Submit your work or presentation proposal for the UnionDocs Spring Symposium Fever event, to be held at the end of April.
UnionDocs is a non-profit event space that hosts a variety of documentary expressions. The collective has curated events with renowned filmmakers, photographers, and bands. http://uniondocs.org/projects

Work for this Symposium event can be of any genre, but should be able to be presented in a medium sized room, and for ten minutes or under. UnionDocs is equipped with a projector, mixer, sound system and backyard for warm weather banter.

SUBMISSIONS due by April 16th.

Email lily@uniondocs.org
or send your submissions to:

Spring Symposium Fever
C/O UnionDocs
322 Union Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Submit your work.
Spring into action….NOW.

We all got just a taste of these moving stories of immigrants and refugees when Judith presented a few weeks back. It was really great to see so many people staying after to talk with Judith. She and this project has been very inspiring to us all.

I HIGHLY recommend that you go see this performance!

Save the Date!

Sunday March 30, 3pm

Crossing the BLVD performance of monologues, sounds and images of new immigrants and refugees with Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan.
Post show discussion moderated by Brian Lehrer, talk show host WNYC radio and wnyc.org

Goldstein Theatre, Queens College
All seats $12. Order online at http://www.kupferbergcenterarts.org/ or call: 718.793.8080.

About the Performance: As immigration policy is being hotly debated around the country in terms of national, economic, and cultural security, Crossing the BLVD presents the very human stories of why new immigrants and refugees have migrated to the United States and what their experiences have been since they came here pre- and post-9/11. Writer and artist, Warren Lehrer is the tour guide providing commentary and perspective as actress and oral historian Judith Sloan “channels” many of the people they interviewed on their three-year journey around the world through the borough of Queens. Sloan’s vocalization work and movement bring these characters to life. Their performance is illuminated by projections of Lehrer’s stunning photographs of the subjects, urban landscapes, objects they have carried with them from home to home, and Queens’ landscapes, along with soundtrack of original music, sounds, and voices. [Soundtrack includes music by Scott Johnson and Gogol Bordello.]

“Immigrant life as told in the intimate, rich, comic, ironic and sad stories so often seen but not heard in America’s big cities…” The Washington Post

“A turbo-driven Eyewitness guide…BLVD is a demonstration of the way you can explore the world without leaving home.”
The Guardian, London

“An offbeat ethnic tour of one of the country’s most ethnically diverse counties. Riveting stories…”
The New York Times

“Crossing the BLVD boldly carries the tradition of oral history into the 21st Century… Electrifying!
Eve Ensler, author, oral historian, performer The Vagina Monologues

Winner Brendan Gill Prize, Municipal Art Society of New York 2004

The performance is held in conjunction with Lehrer and Sloan’s Multimedia Exhibition of the same name at Queens College’s Godwin-Ternbach Museum. The exhibition includes 90 portraits, story excerpts, 14 sound stations, and an interactive Mobile Storybooth. It runs through June 28 and will be on view before and after the performance on March 30th.

http://www.crossingtheblvd.org

http://www.earsay.org

Congratulations to Judith for winning First Place in the Narrative Essay category for her piece “Sweeping Statements”
in the Missouri Review Audio Competition

Sweeping Statements is a 7 minute first-person narrative about Sloan’s experiences working with incarcerated youth.
Written, Produced and Voiced by Judith Sloan
Music by Taylor Rivelli

REMINDER: Judith will be at UnionDocs March 2nd at 7pm presenting Crossing the BLVD. In addition, she will give us a sneak peak of this honored piece!

Hey all,
Thanks for coming out and being a part of this enlivening evening. A suggestion was made to me at the end of the night that we should have other kinds of symposiums in a similar programming style. If you have any ideas for other symposiums please let us know!

In the mean time: If you liked what you heard from singer/guitar player Julia Haltigan (and WHO wouldn’t??) she is preforming TONIGHT (President’s day) at 8:30pm at OTTO’S SHRUNKEN HEAD (533 E 14th and Avenue B).

Thanks to Julia, Karen Sorensen, and C.Whatness for their great performances!

Below is the evening’s rundown and links to the pieces available for viewing/listening online:
- Plato’s Retreat: the Documentary
- Semiotics of the Bedroom (up on YouTube soon!) By Lily Henderson
- Waiting…for love By Nicholas Longstaff
- Julia Haltigan
- Missed Connections By Sally Herships
- Filled with Water By Elka Kerkhoff
- Out of the Bedroom…and into the Chatroom By Kara Oehler and Ann Heppermann
- Guys and Dolls by Nick Holt
- How to break up with your girlfriend in 64 easy steps By Lev Yilmaz
- Pretending By C.Whatness
- The Love Research Lady - Karen Sorensen

There are so many stories from our amazing weekend with Bill Daniel. We’ll do a post soon about what it was like to work with this powerhouse… the man just don’t stop making things happen!

For now, click below to see a bunch of great photos from the installation/screening/rowdy bonfire.

From June 10th screening of “State of Fear”

Edited by Gabriela Duran

Shot by Stephanie Morales

From June 3rd screening of “Brooklyn Matters.”

Edited by Jesse Shapins

Shot by Christopher Allen

Atlantic Yards Simulations by Jonathan Barkey

Compiled from fragments of the Patriot Act and interesting stuff said during the post-screening discussion with the filmmakers involved in “Charged in the Name of Terror,” screened May 20th as part of the Documentary Bodega Series.

Edited/Shot by Johanna Linsley.