Rasa Festival | Music from the East and the West

Thu, 11/14/2019 - 8:39am

Well known Indian and western musicians come together to talk about the concepts behind Indian and western music, and how they collaborate to create new music. This is accompanied by a short concert where they will present music based on these concepts.

This event was held in partnership with the 2019 Rasa Festival, an innovative India-themed multi-arts festival, produced by Akshara. The Rasa Festival is held annually in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti in September and is designed to promote a deeper awareness and appreciation for the effulgent richness and abundance of cultural heritage that stems from India. It is multi-arts and multi-disciplinary, presenting traditional as well as cutting edge work in performing, visual, literary, media/films, and culinary arts, in partnership with prominent Ann Arbor arts organizations.

Participating artists in the festival are local, national, and international Indo-American artists, artists from India as well as those who are highly inspired by Indian culture. It is a collaborative initiative, working through partnerships with key local organizations such as the Washtenaw Community College, Kerrytown Concert House, the Riverside Arts Center, and Literati Bookstore.

Aaron Foley

Tue, 06/18/2019 - 2:09pm

Aaron Foley is an author, editor, Detroit native and current resident. He is the author of the 2015 book How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass and editor of the 2017 anthology "The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook." Currently, he is the chief storyteller for the City of Detroit government. Previously, he was editor of BLAC Detroit Magazine, and a contributor to several local and national news outlets, including Jalopnik, CNN, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed and Reuters. Foley draws on a wealth of knowledge about the city and discusses his life and career through an insightful perspective that is sure to educate and entertain.

"Locomotive/Brilliant Corn" | Miles Okazaki

Thu, 05/09/2019 - 7:48pm

Miles Okazaki is the first artist to record all of Thelonious Monk's music on a solo instrument. In this concert he will be presenting selections from his 2018 album "WORK," a five-hour performance of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar, praised by critic Nate Chinen as “an act of immersive scholarship and exhaustive scope. . . a singular achievement,” and selected by the New York Times as one of the best albums of 2018, a “monumental statement of devotion.”

Check out the Pulp interview with Miles Okazaki. 

Okazaki has released four albums of original compositions over the last 12 years; he has taught guitar and rhythmic theory at the University of Michigan for five years.

Author Event | Bryan Thao Worra

Mon, 03/25/2019 - 10:25am

Experience "Before We Remember We Dream"—a performance from the new book of Lao American speculative poetry by Bryan Thao Worra, a 2019 Joyce Fellow and a 2009 National Endowment of the Arts Fellow in Literature.

Bryan Thao Worra's latest collection draws on over 30 years of writing in the Midwest and around the world, covering diverse subjects from CIA Secret Wars to growing up Asian American on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, meditations on Southeast Asian ghosts and mythology, Blade Runner, Buddhist monks and modern romance. And an occasional dinosaur or two.

Bryan Thao Worra is a Minnesota-based writer and the author of over 6 books. The President of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, he holds over 20 awards for his writing and represented the nation of Laos as a Cultural Olympian during the 2012 London Summer Games. He was appointed by the Governor of Minnesota to the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans to advise the state legislature and has presented work for the Smithsonian, the Minneapolis Institute for Art, San Diego Comic Con, the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, and the national Southeast Asian American Studies Conference, among others.

Nerd Nite #57 - How to Survive Making a Graphic Novel With Your Spouse

Thu, 10/18/2018 - 12:59pm

Navigating a relationship with your spouse or partner can be challenging enough–so why would you willingly work together on a project that can take a year or more to complete? Anne and Jerzy Drozd, authors of Science Comics: Rockets, explore how they handled the creative challenges of making a nonfiction comic about science and answer the most important question facing humanity today: WHO. DID. WHAT.

About Anne:

Anne Drozd is a public librarian by day and a cartoonist by night. She’s an avid space exploration enthusiast and a card holding member of the Planetary Society. Her favorite NASA mission is Apollo 12. Anne helps to introduce people to comics through her work at the Ann Arbor District Library and as co-organizer of the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival. Follow her @ethelfred.

A Conversation With Chef and Writer Tunde Wey

Wed, 07/11/2018 - 8:56am

Nigerian-born chef and writer Tunde Wey opened a restaurant in Detroit in 2013. A year later, realizing that the influx of capital to the city was not contributing to an inclusive revival but to the profit of those already "fluent in the language of privilege," Tunde left the restaurant and moved to New Orleans. 

He now travels around the country holding dinners, using food as a medium to have conversations about race, equity, and cultural values. Recently, the has received national press for Saarti, his lunch counter in New Orleans where white patrons were asked to pay $30 per plate and people of color were charged $12 per plate as a way to call attention to racial wealth disparity. Participants of color could “opt-in” to receive the profit redistribution. 

In this video, artist and Stamps School Professor Rebekah Modrak (whose works, such as Rethink Shinola, critically intervene in consumption) moderates a conversation with Tunde about his work as a chef, his decision to use food as provocation, the possibility of transforming consumptive acts through dinners and pop-up restaurants, discriminatory development, racial wealth disparity, and the importance of self-determination in affecting the outcomes of your life and community.  While in Ann Arbor, Wey also hosted two private dinners for local residents and advocates concerned with equity and race and offered food truck conversations for four nights.

Poetry Event: Marcus Wicker

Fri, 05/25/2018 - 3:22pm

Marcus Wicker is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a Pushcart Prize, The Missouri Review's Miller Audio Prize, as well as fellowships from Cave Canem, and the Fine Arts Work Center. Join us as he discusses his life, his poetry, and his newest collection Silencer.

#46 Ann Arbor Stories: The Battle of Ann Arbor

Thu, 03/01/2018 - 5:34am

Four nights of rioting, dozens of injuries to cops and citizens, and more than 70 arrests—it was an event The Detroit Free Press dubbed “The Battle of Ann Arbor”. What sparked this violence and how did the insane scene play out in the summer of 1969?

Music by FAWNN & ZShipps

#45 Ann Arbor Stories: Highway Snipers

Wed, 02/07/2018 - 5:30am

There wasn't a lot of traffic on M-14 on that last day of August 1981. It was 3am. Semi trucks bound for points in Michigan and throughout the Midwest, cars carrying people headed to work, cars taking people home after long nights. It was at this time on this day on this stretch of highway that more than 200 bullets rained down on speeding cars, trucks and semis, causing mass panic and chaos. This is the story of the 1981 highway snipers.

Music by Michna and Ben Benjamin, courtesy of GhoLicense.

Author M. Joanne Nesbit Discusses Her Book "Legendary Locals of Ann Arbor, Michigan"

Sun, 12/03/2017 - 3:21pm

Graced by the Huron River with an abundance of parks, Ann Arbor offers residents and visitors entertainment, sports, shopping, dining, and of course, the University of Michigan.

Legendary Locals of Ann Arbor, Michigan celebrates its citizens. Many are creative artists, inspiring educators, dedicated public servants, and determined business owners. With the exception of Lewis the cat, who reigned at Downtown Home and Garden, this book is filled with stories about people who have made and are making Ann Arbor one of the best places to live in the United States.

Co-author Joanne Nesbit discusses some of the great stories they discovered while putting together the book and how local legends were selected. With a career spanning journalism and as a public information officer at Indiana University and the University of Michigan, Nesbit has always been fascinated by local history, stories, and people. She is the author of three other books, and is the founder of Knitwits at the University of Michigan.