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Past Programs | Directions to Casa Libre

Edge: a Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers

Curator: Melissa Buckheit

A note from the curator: I have often wanted to listen to authors who are in the same place in their careers as myself, emerging, published in journals or with a chapbook, but without a major book, still growing but full of passion, new ideas, and an edge. But there has been little opportunity for this; in fact I have often felt disappointed in the lack, that such an otherwise open community might often be so circumscribed in its programming. Additionally, featuring emerging writers engages other young as well as established writers, to support, frequent and attend Casa Libre and other writing events. This cycle creates the foundation for a writing community which self-generates, remains true, open, and allows many voices the opportunity for visibility and being heard. I want Tucson to be an artistic community which includes and features many voices and peoples. Literature is the province of communication, but also reflectivity, the reflection and representation of all our narratives and of new narratives and ideas, voices which are challenging and also challenge us.

Simmons B. Buntin and Invisible City Artists
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
7:30 p.m.
Suggested Donation: $5

Come to Edge: A Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers. Edge is a series of local and national writers and cross-genre artists, emphasizing diversity of narrative, identity and literary source. Its purpose is to create community, visibility and voice for emerging and younger writers. Broadsheets of the authors' work will accompany each reading. Books and journals will be available for purchase and signing by the authors. Refreshments will be available after the reading.

Readers:

Simmons B. Buntin is the founding editor of Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments and writes an online editorial for Next American City magazine. His first book of poetry, Riverfall, was published in 2005 by Ireland's Salmon Poetry. His second book will be published by Salmon Poetry in 2010 (assuming he can get the poems done by the end of the summer...). Recent work has appeared in Mid-American Review, Weber Studies, Isotope, Orion, Whiskey Island Magazine, The LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Ars, South Dakota Review, and Verse Daily. Catch up with him at www.SimmonsBuntin.com.

 

Invisible City: Lisa Bowden & Kimi Eisele, Directors, with TC Tolbert and various artists

Photo Credit: Krista Niles

Women writers, dancers, artists and musicians from the IC project will collaborate for an additional performance/lab of Invisible City at Casa Libre's Edge Reading Series.

In the fall of 2008, NEW ART collaborated with Kore Press, the 15-year-old Tucson-based feminist press, to create The Invisible City, a 5-week, site-specific, experimental arts lab exploring public space in Downtown Tucson.


For four weekends in mid-October, New ART dancers joined a collection of women writers to create texts and dances within the downtown urban environment in response to constraints, prompts, or thematic ideas put forth by the project directors and fellow artists. Also on the team were Beth Weinstein, a professor of architecture at the University of Arizona, whose research focuses on the intersections between architecture and choreography; multi-instrumentalist, Vicki Brown; and documentary filmmaker, Jamie Lee, who filmed all the lab sessions.

Working collaboratively, the multi-genre ensemble collected the “results” from each lab experiment in the forms of writing, movement, sound and video. Lab experiments are shaped by artists’ ideas, interdisciplinary discoveries, public involvement, and the site itself.  

Re-Visioning Downtown Tucson: The Invisible City project seeks to contribute to current conversations about the changing downtown landscape and the role of arts and culture in creating economic growth and regional identity. As urban growth in Tucson prioritizes highways and tract housing developments over central plazas, affordable live/workspaces, and desert landscape, public space becomes decentralized, dehumanized, and “invisible.” Given the lack of literal pathways for human contact and communication, the project asks women to offer a new perspective of “city” through participation, engagement and collaboration.

Some guiding questions are:
What new perspectives can women artists offer a city in flux?
How might cross-genre artistic collaboration offer a model for creative diplomacy?
How does artistic practice and performance influence how we experience public space?
How does our relationship with public space and one another influence how we move through and experience city?

For artist bios, artist photos, and additional information about Invisible City please visit: http://invisiblecityproject.wordpress.com/

Next Edge Reading will be held in March.

Past Edge Readings:

January 2009

December 2008

November 2008

October 2008

September 2008

July 2008

June 2008

May 2008

April 2008

March 2008

February 2008


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