A WHISTLE-STOP TOUR
July 30, 2010
A good few of the artists that make KAF what it is have been in touch with comments, videos, blog posts, songs and more. So we thought we'd give you a cross-section of them, as a kind of whistle-stop tour through the 2010 programme to give you a sense of the variety there is on offer!
Erik got in touch with his piece "Night White" and an insight in to where the inspiration came from for the piece. [Click here to listen]
This is the piece, "Night White" from my Block Ice & Propane show that will be happening on August 8 at 5P at the Set Theater. My show is inspired from memories I have of long, cross-country, camping trips I took with my family every summer until I was 17 years old. My father is a photographer and he used those long summer days, with all that sunlight, to try and make some good pictures. The rest us? We were along for the ride.
We would start our trips on Eastern coast of the US and make our way westward, spending much our time camping in the National Parks like Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, The Badlands, as well numerous, smaller State Parks. After 2 and half months or so of traveling we would eventually turn for home. As we neared the midwest it seemed impatience would take over and my parents would give in to their anxiousness to get home. This meant that we would drive well into the night and my sister and I would spend hours dozing and looking out the high picture window of our camper and the night panorama: oncoming headlights, billboards, the glow of far away towns. A kind of magical cocoon-like feeling would overtake us and this is the feeling I wanted to try and convey with this piece of mine, "Night White" aided immensely by the beautiful, eerie film by Bill Morrison.
Cheers everyone. I hope to see you on the 8th of August!
Erik Friedlander
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New York composer Ellen Mandel got in touch to share a piece of music she has composed to one of Yeats' poems To an Isle in the Water
I'm so excited to come to the Kilkenny Arts Festival!! Can't wait! We're performing songs by two of Ireland's greatest poets: W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney. I've visited Kilkenny before----I have family there----and love the town and the beautiful surrounding countryside. Actually sang as part of a choir at the 800th Birthday Celebration of the Kells Monastery!
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Teresa Ghilarducci, Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research in New York, has developed a radical plan to fund retirement in the US. Her proposal for Guaranteed Retirement Accounts has been described as the reform against which all others must be measured. It has also led to her being dubbed “the most dangerous woman in America”. She got in touch to fill us in some more on what the symposium will be about...
I am Professor Teresa Ghilarducci, leading American expert on pensions (and called by right wing anti-government bloggers- the most dangerous woman in American -- for questioning the fairness of the tax subsidies for 401(k) plans and the tragic fact that most middle aged Americans will have worse relative retirements than their parents and grandparents.
As an economist I show that retirement insecurity hurts business plans, worker's lives, and retiree well-being. In American; it is the next social and economic problem to solve now that we have universal health care coverage. Mandatory add-on accounts will cover over 63 million workers who have no pensions, boost savings rates, increase investment, stabilize labor force participation among older workers, and increase efficiency and security in investment returns. Individually directed accounts have failed; professionally-managed accounts with guaranteed returns will get the most out of every retirement savings dollar -- lower costs and higher returns.
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Susan and Darren got in touch with this great taster video of their show. A word of advice - be sure to sign up for the pre-show dance workshop - trust us - it's worth it!!
[Click here to view, or scroll down to view below]
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PLUS, you can check out some of out artists own blogs to get the inside track on what they are at:
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