Crosstown Conversations

Justin Ehrenworth, Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, discusses how the financial resources from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and coastal restoration, can benefit the creative industry and cultural economy of New Orleans. Then, author Barbara Sillery discusses her new book, “Biloxi Memories,” and the cultural history of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast from Jim Crow to the present.

Dr. Gary Clark, Chair of the Department of Political Science at Dillard University, joins Jeanne to recap the recent Republican presidential debate. Then Sean Snyder, Director of Marketing and Communications for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, talk about the orchestra’s new home at the Orpheum Theatre downtown.

Barbara Hill Moore, internationally renown singer and Meadows Professor of Voice at Southern Methodist University, and internationally acclaimed opera singer and Louisiana native Leon Turner discuss their new production, “Wading Home,” about a young musician searching for his missing father who stayed behind during Hurricane Katrina.

Jeanne reviews where New Orleans and its communities stands in its recovery 10 years after the storm — and compares the city’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina to its recovery from Hurricane Betsy; with Kim Ford, Executive Director of the L9 Resilience Festival, and Ro Brown, former WDSU sports anchor and Sports Director at WBOK-AM. Then, Monique Moss, choreographer and artistic director at Third Eye Theatre, promotes “9th Ward Improv Opera,” an interdisciplinary performance work to commemorate Katrina 10. Finally, author and New Orleans local Morgan Molthrop promotes a planned art installation in Mid-City to commemorate the storm; and actor and former City Councilman Oliver Thomas calls in to join the panel.

Gia Hamilton, Director of the Joan Mitchell Center, promotes the grand opening of the center, and its purpose in the cultural and even socio-economic life of the city. Afterwards, artist Chelsea “Che” Elisabeth her work, “#DignityinProcess,” which discusses concepts of sustainable activism and intersectional identity.

Callers and artist Robert Tannen weigh in on the proposed removal of Confederate monuments from New Orleans; and Russell Lord, curator with the New Orleans Museum of Art, promotes the Katrina 10 retrospective “Ten Years Gone," which includes Willie Burch’s representations in bronze of the homes of crawfish. Also, Tannen promotes the upcoming “People’s Mural” interactive art project at the Myrtle Banks Building on Oretha Castle Haley.

Lower Ninth Ward resident and community leader Calvin Alexander reminisces about about why he chose to live in Holy Cross, his return to New Orleans after the storm, real estate speculators in his neighborhood, and his public anger with the proposal to turn the Lower Ninth north of Galvez into green space. Also, Kim Ford, Executive Director of the L9 Resilience Festival, shares her memories of returning to the Lower Nine, and progress in redevelopment there.