Upcoming events

Note: Sunday Heritage Afternoons, funded by the Norwich Sachem Fund, is a three-part series of performance events that reflect local cultural traditions and experiences.

Alternative Norwich

March 5 – March 30, 2010 at the Norwich Arts Council
Reception: Friday, March 5 from 6 – 9 PM

A group multi-media show that examines qualities and characteristics of the City rarely explored in local art. Show participation is partly by invitation and partly through proposal.

October, 2010:

In collaboration with the Disabilities Network of Eastern Connecticut, the Project will present an exhibit on the history of the disability rights movement in the eastern section of the State.  Eastern Connecticut produced many of the most significant (and colorful) leaders of this social movement. The exhibit will celebrate and commemorate their contributions.

 

Past Events

Geretenish (Harvest): Gershon Camassar and the Jewish Agricultural Presence in Eastern Connecticut

October 4 – December 5, 2009 at the Otis Library
Reception: Sunday, October 4 from 2 - 4 PM

Landscape paintings by Gershon Camassar (1908 - 1995) punctuate an exhibit on Jewish farming families east of the river. Documentary materials, photographs, and oral histories will bring alive these rural Jewish communities and the individuals who established them. Mr. Camassar's paintings were influenced by his own birth into an agricultural family in Columbia.

Distances Traveled: Young Immigrant Lives in Collage

Artistic Co-Directors: Christelle Lachapelle and Lyndsay Meiklem
June, 2009 at the NAC Gallery

Norwich Free Academy students from five different countries translated their experiences as cultural newcomers into the medium of collage. Photographs of the students, as well as oral histories and preparatory collages, accompanied the major pieces. Amplifying the theme was art by younger students whose parents and grandparents arrived from other countries. A total of 23 countries were represented. Providing entertainment was the Andean ensemble Mestizo Manta.

Funded by the Norwich Sachem Fund.

Sunday Heritage Afternoon

The Klezical Tradition Klezmer Ensemble

March, 2009 at the Donald L. Oat Theater

This all-woman klezmer group, led by flutist Adrianne Greenbaum, presented a concert of songs based on women's experience. Students from the NFA Cape Verdean Student Group helped lead dancing and also presented original readings in homage to their mothers. The concert was a touching and powerful event that drew a highly diverse audience in celebration of women's power, authority, joy and struggles.

Sunday Heritage Afternoon

Legacy of Learning: The Harris Sisters of Norwich and Prudence Crandall's School

November, 2008 at the Otis Library

Poet Marilyn Nelson and Singer/Songwriter Sally Rogers

This performance of poetry and music paid homage to Sarah and Mary Harris, as well as the other students at Prudence Crandall's School, the first African-American women's academy in the United States. Ms. Nelson, a winner of numerous awards for her powerful poetic renderings of African-American history, read from the book of sonnets she co-authored with Elizabeth Alexander, "Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color," as well as from other works. Ms. Rogers sang from her extensive repertoire of abolitionist songs, both traditional and original. We hope to establish, in conjunction with the Otis Library, an annual Harris Sisters Day in Norwich.

Funded by the Norwich Sachem Fund.

Re-Blooming: Sowing the Seeds of Culture in Norwich Home Gardens

Photographs by Candace Grabel and Beth Troeger

October - November, 2008 at the Otis Library

Through photographs and text, the exhibit explored the intersections of culture and horticulture in the Norwich area.  Participating were local gardeners with roots in Bangladesh, the African-American South, Italy, Greece, and Ukraine. A cookbook with recipes from the gardeners was available at the reception. Playing during the opening was a CD of culturally specific music mixed by NFA student Nick Beasley.

A Life in Stone: The Cape Verdean Stone Masonry Tradition in Eastern Connecticut

Photographs by Peter J. Crowley and Richmond Jones

January, 2008 at the Norwich Arts Council

The exhibit documented, in photographs and reminiscence, the people, their work, and their values. It focused on Fred Gonsalves (and his late father, Julius); Belmiro "Junie" Rodrigues (and his late father, Belmiro Rodrigues); and craftsman Jose Santos who, in his early 80s, still works as a mason every day. Part of the exhibit was a stone wall especially built for the occasion by Fred Gonsalves. Members of the Norwich Free Academy Cape Verdean Student Group provided an introduction to Cape Verdean culture.

This exhibit traveled to Hartford’s Institute of Community Research in April, 2008 and will open in October, 2009 at Rhode Island College in Providence.