ARTSEDGE: The Kitchen Sink

Proving that hip-hop is where you find it, The Flying Legs Crew passes the time on the New York City subway posing for photos - which is harder than it sounds. More: artsedge.kennedy-center.org/cultureconnect

Like breaking, graffiti art (or tagging) is one of the five elements of hip-hop culture. Graffiti artist Danny ‘Dan One’ Polonco, a self-described “Alphabetical Engineer,” meets with Venezuela's Flying Legs Crew to teach them about graffiti art form as a means for self-expression. More: artsedge.kennedy-center.org/cultureconnect

The space age began on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik-the first artificial satellite. Around the world, millions of people tuned their radios to hear it beeping or waited outside to watch it pass overhead.

Narrated by Roger Launius of the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum, this piece examines the world's reaction to Sputnik. From popular music to visual design; from politics to technology, the space race seemed to define much of the culture of the late 1950s and the 1960s.

ARTSEDGE, the Kennedy Center's arts education network, supports the creative use of technology to enhance teaching and learning in, through, and about the arts, offering free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, media-rich interactive experiences, professional development resources, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment. Visit us at artsedge.kennedy-center.org.

Composer and self-described “musical anthropologist” Tan Dun (perhaps best familiar for his Oscar-winning score to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) creates works that bridge time, place and culture through the fusion of ancient and avant-garde sounds

Celebrating the vocal, instrumental, and environmental sounds of the remote Chinese countryside, Tan explores the minority cultures of Hunan Province, where he was born, and brings it into play with modern instruments and orchestrations.

Expanding on the video and audio field recordings gathered for his multimedia concerto The Map, a Concerto for Cello, Video, and Orchestra, Tan and scholar Joanna Lee discuss the vanishing musical cultures of ethnic minorities in western Hunan and reflect on the creative challenges of preserving cultural legacies while creating new music fusing traditional, indigenous and contemporary sounds.

Continuing our musical journey into the through the 20th Century, this segment explores how America took its place as force in the world of classical music; not so much through its experimental work but through the music of Hollywood movies. Miles Hoffman, Morning Edition music commentator and dean of the Petrie School of Music at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, takes us through the early years of the last century and discusses where we can, sometimes unexpectedly, find new classical compositions today.

ARTSEDGE, the Kennedy Center’s arts education network, supports the creative use of technology to enhance teaching and learning in, through, and about the arts, offering free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, media-rich interactive experiences, professional development resources, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment. Visit ARTSEDGE at artsedge.kennedy-center.org.

This segment looks at some little-known stories about American Classical music like the role of Cuba in Classical Music and the American who made "Carmen" a hit. NPR's Miles Hoffman continues to lead us through the development of a uniquely American take on traditional European music.

ARTSEDGE, the Kennedy Center’s arts education network, supports the creative use of technology to enhance teaching and learning in, through, and about the arts, offering free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, media-rich interactive experiences, professional development resources, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment. Visit ARTSEDGE at artsedge.kennedy-center.org.

Howard Shalwitz, the longtime artistic director of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, co-founded the theatre back in 1980--at a time when the repertory of American plays was limited to academic classics and NYC vogue. With a commitment to new approaches to theatre and a devotion to bringing new playwriting voices into the limelight, Woolly has had not just a tremendous national impact, but has been an important local influence as well as a partner in community development and a force for bringing new audiences to the theatre.

ARTSEDGE, the Kennedy Center’s arts education network, supports the creative use of technology to enhance teaching and learning in, through, and about the arts, offering free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, media-rich interactive experiences, professional development resources, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment. Visit ARTSEDGE at artsedge.kennedy-center.org.

David Ives (b. 1950) attended Northwestern University where he began writing plays. He produced his first play, Canvas, in New York City with the Circle Repertory Company. He later took on a job as an editor of Foreign Affairs and eventually studied drama at Yale University's School of Drama, where he received his MFA. He is known for many successful plays including, All in the Timing, Words, Words, Words, Sure Thing, and Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread. His latest play, Don Juan in Chicago, received the Outer Critic's Circle's John Gassner Playwriting Award and a Drama Desk nomination for outstanding play. Ives also received the 1994 George and Elizabeth Martin Playwrighting Award from Young Playwrights Inc. Ives lives in New York and teaches at Columbia University.

ARTSEDGE, the Kennedy Center’s arts education network, supports the creative use of technology to enhance teaching and learning in, through, and about the arts, offering free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, media-rich interactive experiences, professional development resources, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment. Visit ARTSEDGE at artsedge.kennedy-center.org.

Carlos Murillo is a Chicago-based playwright, director and teacher. He is a Visiting Professor at the Theatre School of DePaul University. His play Mimesophobia (or before and after) was produced at Arielle Tepper’s 2005 NYC Summer Play Festival after previous workshops at J.A.W. West Festival at Portland Center Stage (2004), South Coast Rep’s Hispanic Playwrights Project (2003), the Chautauqua Institution Theatre Conservatory (2002) and A.S.K. Theatre Project in Los Angeles (2002). In NY Carlos’ plays have been seen at the Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, En Garde Arts, Lincoln Center, Soho Rep, the Hangar Theatre, the Chautauqua Institute Conservatory, the Flea,INTAR and Nada, Inc. Regionally his work has been seen at South Coast Rep, Theatre at Boston Court, Circle X Theatre, Son of Semele Ensemble and A.S.K.Theatre Projects all in southern California, Red Eye Collaboration and the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, The Group Theatre and Annex Theater in Seattle, Portland Center Stage, Madison Repertory Theatre, the Sundance Institute, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Boston Theatre Works, Salvage Vanguard and the dirigo group in Austin, and others. In Chicago his plays have been produced at Walkabout Theatre and Barat College of DePaul University. Recently, dark play was presented in the 2006 Latino Theatre Festival at the Goodman Theatre.

ARTSEDGE, the Kennedy Center’s arts education network, supports the creative use of technology to enhance teaching and learning in, through, and about the arts, offering free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, media-rich interactive experiences, professional development resources, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment. Visit ARTSEDGE at artsedge.kennedy-center.org.

While Europe was alive with new, sophisticated works by Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel, America was a backwater. If you looked for classical music in the early days of America, you'd be hard-pressed to find it, even in the big cities and the centers of wealth, commerce, and social sophistication. But it *was* there; in far-flung locations including the backwoods of North Carolina and the Port of New Orleans. Miles Hoffman, NPR Morning Edition music commentator and dean of the Petrie School of Music at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina takes us on a tour of classical music in early America.

ARTSEDGE, the Kennedy Center’s arts education network, supports the creative use of technology to enhance teaching and learning in, through, and about the arts, offering free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, media-rich interactive experiences, professional development resources, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment. Visit ARTSEDGE at artsedge.kennedy-center.org.