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Alternate ROOTS Newsletter News from the Front!
December 2009
A Season for Love
Carlton Turner, Executive Director

Carlton TurnerThe air is filled with the warm fragrance of gingerbread men, rum soaked fruitcakes, tree shaped sugar cookies and the soulful sounds of Nat King Cole and Donny Hathaway. Houses submersed in miles of strings of colorful lights remind passersby that this is the season for love, the season for giving and 'tis the season for the energy of peace and generosity of spirit to permeate throughout every facet of our lives.

It's funny that during this time of year folks speak when you pass them on the street. Well, this is not so uncommon in the South, but in general during the holidays people everywhere are just kinder. Even without the religious implications, this is such a beautiful time of year.

We celebrate the beginning of the New Year with champagne bubbles, rounds of kisses and personal resolutions to better ourselves. There is fervent optimism of what the New Year holds and the possibility of transcending our past. There is so much hope, so much love, and so much power in random acts of kindness.

Why, when it feels so good to do great things for others and be nice to people, does the urge fizzle out before we even make it to Martin Luther King's birthday?

As a ROOTS member, I can proudly say that whenever I am around a group of ROOTers, it usually feels like the holidays. Warm hugs and sincere kisses, delicious food in abundance, live original music, and sometimes, festive costumes seem to be the norm with this crowd. Always attempting to better the creation and deliverance of our art and improve our relationships through constant investigation of how we pay more attention and respond with the voices in our community.

So in this last newsletter of 2009, I want to thank you all. I want to thank you for having faith in me to help lead this organization through its most recent, but definitely not its last transition. I want to thank you for your unyielding support of my growth since I was introduced to this organization in 2001. I want to thank you for being my artistic and my "for real-for real" family. And more than anything, I want to thank you for your love and the hopes of spreading and extending the joy of a season throughout the New Year.

Together, we are the change we want to see in the world.
Season for Giving
Keryl McCord, Development Director

2009 has been an incredible year for me personally as I began working with a truly amazing group of people here at Alternate ROOTS. This has also been a terrific year for ROOTS as we successfully transitioned new leadership and welcomed a new management team.

 

There are so many positive things happening that it could take up the entire newsletter. Instead I will focus on just one project to complete by the end of the year, a project that cannot happen without your support.


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One thing that ROOTS needs from all of you is your help with our year-end fundraising campaign, AN ATM CHRISTMAS. Please make a contribution of $20 or more, the minimum withdrawal allowed at most ATMs, either on our secure website or by snail mail to our office. Then help spread the word to everyone you know, ask them to join you to support Southern artists; post the appeal on your Facebook page, tweet it, add it to your My Space page, and email to your friends and family.

 

Let's motivate 2,000 people to donate at least $20 to ROOTS by the end of the year. What will we do with this money? Provide funds for our re-granting programs and or support for the Annual Meeting upcoming in August 2010.

 

Together we can make this happen!

 

Wishing you all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

 

Keryl McCord

Development Director
I-Witness Project
Joanna Russo, Mondo Bizarro Company Member

I-Witness logo I met the artist Jeffrey Cook on a windy day in early September 2008.  I was carrying a camera and a tripod, trotting alongside Mondo Bizarro co-founders Bruce France and Nick Slie and collaborator Melisa Cardona as Jeffrey led us to the corner of Carondolet and Felicity St., New Orleans.  "That's the tree," he said and pointed.  We started filming. 
 
Jeffrey was there that morning as the first official participant in the current incarnation of Mondo Bizarro's I-Witness Central City project.  I-Witness Central City is a storymapping project based out of the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans.  While news broadcasts depict this area as a hot spot for drugs and violence, those who live or work here know it to be much more.  I-Witness Central City aids local residents in reclaiming their history and neighborhood through sharing personal, place-based stories.  We film the stories on location wherever they took place and then we tack up a sign with STORY SITE printed on it in big letters above a phone number.  Anyone walking down the street can see one of these signs, call the number and listen to a person's voice narrating a story that happened right there.  The stories can also be seen on our website, mondobizarro.org, or heard at the public celebration which we hold periodically.  For these parties, we commission local artists to create pieces about specific locations within Central City and present their work alongside the stories themselves.  Read more.
They don't train you for this in graduate school
ashley sparks, Alternate ROOTS Board Chair

Ashley SparksI've been wrestling as a director lately in all the things I was left unprepared for - launched with a master's degree into the world at 28. Master's degree is an inherently faulty degree for anyone still in their 20's - cute title, but 'master' of little other then where to find the cheapest beer special, living on less then $15,000 a year, and writing mediocre papers. I came out with ideas I wanted to explore, a strong sense of my values, and a large tool kit. And while every tool is a weapon if you know how to use it right (Ani Difranco) - I'm doing my best not to damage myself or others with the tools I have while I'm trying to figure out how to use them.

I'm working out in the field - directing my 4th major project since graduating and in rehearsal on a 5th. Three of these directing projects have been the same show La Pastorela Yakima written by Jack Bentz. La Pastorela is a bilingual Mexican American Catholic Christmas play performed by a cast of 30-35 community actors and the script is based on their stories. As a director is has been an incredible blessing to direct the same show 3 times. It's been an incubatory time to experiment -fix what didn't work - try solving problems new ways -experiment with staging for a large cast - grow a vocabulary for ways of working with a dear collaborator - and begin to develop an authentic and  deep relationship to a community that I do not live in. I am an outside artist entering a community - that is very different from my own white monolingual Southern Baptist upbringing- and creating an opportunity for a grassroots participatory theatrical performance. It is participatory as actors are not only acting, they are assistant directing, building the sets, fundraising, and handling the publicity. It is a very homegrown theatre experience - that - at this moment, so close, I can't see the full scale of it's beauty.  Read more.
John O'Neal named to 2009 United States Fellows

indian landUnited States Artists (USA) is a grant-making, artist-advocacy organization dedicated to supporting America's finest artists working across diverse disciplines. After decades of dwindling public support, at USA, artists now have a home where they may find significant private funding-unrestricted cash grants-to ignite the creativity that makes this country great.

John O'Neal is a playwright, actor, and stage director. He received a BA from Southern Illinois University in 1962. Upon graduation, O'Neal became Field Secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, establishing the Free Southern Theater (FST) in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963. Founded as the cultural arm of the Civil Rights Movement, the FST toured to predominantly rural, black neighborhoods. In 1965, it moved its base of operations to New Orleans, continuing its touring company, running community engagement programs and a training workshop in black theater. FST closed in 1980, and O'Neal founded Junebug Productions.
2010 Annual Meeting
Don't forget to save the date for the 2010 Annual Meeting. August 10 - 15, Arden, North Carolina. This year Alternate ROOTS is partnering with National Association of Latino Arts and Culture to program the meeting. For more information and to find out how you get involved, please contact Shannon Turner at the ROOTS office.
Alternate ROOTS is supported by generous donations from the gracious members of Alternate ROOTS and the following: Nathan Cummings Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Shubert Foundation, Leveraging Investment in Creativity, National Endowment for the Arts, Appalachian Community Fund, McMaster Carr, City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs of Atlanta, Fulton County Arts Council, and Georgia Council on the Arts.