Phoenix Arts + Culture presents ART BEATS

The Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture has commissioned several Arizona artists and artist teams to create performances and installations through its Public Art and Grants & Community Engagement programs for temporary public art projects. In partnership with the Phoenix Public Library, these temporary works will be presented free of charge at the Pulliam Auditorium at the Burton Barr Central Library at 1221 North Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85004, from October 2023 to April 2024. Many of these pieces were commissioned as part of the IN FLUX program that brought together art, economic development, and property management organizations throughout the greater Phoenix area; however, they have not been publicly shown due to the pandemic.

Up Next:

Passageways

Sunday, December 10, 2023
1:00-4:00 p.m.

Passageways is an interview-based story project that explores what it means to grow up. We all experience moments that make us grow. There are moments that bring a sense of joy or expansion, then there are moments that bring a sense of pain or responsibility, and sometimes, they happen without us even noticing. This project is meant to capture the stories of such moments, display them, and create a sense of acceptance with the complex, dynamic, and ever-changing experience of what it means to grow up. Visit the library to see some of the stories that have been turned into art, do some artmaking, and share your own story.

About the Artists:
Phil Stoesz is a facilitator, educator, and creator who works at the intersection of service and imagination. He is a multidisciplinary artist who has training in theatre direction, science communication, and facilitating community-led projects. He is a certified facilitator of the Critical Response Process.

Thameenah “Ty" Muhammad is an Afro-Caribbean artist and activist. Ty is a producing artistic collaborator with Rising Youth Theatre and a co-founder of RE:Frame Youth Arts Center. They are a multidisciplinary artist whose main mediums include acting, dancing, poetry/spoken word, and visual art.

Learn more about Passageways:
www.whistlingmoon.org

Coming Soon:

The Story of Our Journey: Film Screening

Sunday, January 14, 2024
2:00-3:00 p.m.

The Story of Our Journey is a collaboration by clarinetist Csaba Jevtic-Somlai, composer Dylan Findley, and Their Story is Our Story (TSOS), an international refugee advocacy organization. The musical score and accompanying film merge clarinet, fixed media electronics, and interviews with refugees detailing their extraordinary journeys from homes lost to new homes in foreign lands. Rather than offer commentary or solutions to the crisis, the music allows the refugees to speak directly and personally to each listener.

About the Artists:

Dr. Dylan Findley is a music composer and educator who writes music as a sacred act of expressing truths through emotion, intellect and embodied physicality. As such, he enjoys the interplay between symbolism, the perception of musical space and time, and exploring interesting sounds. His works have been performed in Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and across the United States.

Dr. Csaba Jevtic-Somlai is an avid performer and educator who has performed professionally in Europe, Asia, and North America since 2001. His initial idea of materializing current issues surrounding the refugee crisis into an art composition has yielded much fruit through collaboration with TSOS. Through his artwork, he hopes to amplify the voices of underrepresented groups of people and advocate for positive change and greater understanding.

Learn more about the Story of Our Journey:

www.tsosrefugees.org/projects/the-story-of-our-journey

Afternoon Concert: Camille Sledge

Sunday, February 11, 2024
2:00-3:30 p.m.

Join singer and songwriter Camille Sledge as she shares some of her favorite songs for this afternoon concert at the library. "Sledge is a full tour de force on the stage, whipping her body and voice with every inclination in her spirit to the tribal rhythms brought out by the band." -Java Magazine

Eternal Home: A responsive collaboration between art, dance, and audience

Sunday, April 14, 2024
2:00-3:00 p.m.

Artist Patricia Sannit and choreographer and dancer Nicole L. Olson have mutually created a dance and visual art event that expresses the power of community, its resilience strengthened by migration, shared histories, and cooperation. Eternal Home features Olson in an energetic, elegiac, participatory dance performed amid a sculptural installation created by Sannit. As Olson performs, the art responds, and the audience will be invited to interact within the art/dance setting.

Conveyance into Light: Sculptural Performance with Katharine Leigh Simpson

Sunday, March 10, 2024
2:00-3:00 p.m. and 3:00-4:00 p.m.

Conveyance Into Light is a short, visual exploration of the grieving process and the cyclical nature of renewing life energy. This concept is presented through the visual interpretation of a whale, symbolic of an angel descending from the heavens to gather the souls of the deceased and return them to the stars. The souls appear as birds in the artwork(?). The aspect of reassurance in death, through whatever demise meets a soul, results in this calming transition. Theatrical puppetry, combined with film and visual effects, bring this story to life.

Art Beats Ad (3 × 3 in).png

For More Information

For more information on the ART BEATS series, please get in touch with the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture at 602-262-4637 or arts.culture@phoenix.gov.

Burton Barr Central Library is located on Central Avenue just south of McDowell Road. Parking is available, and Visit Valley Metro for public transportation routes serving the library.

poac.logotype.gr.png

PPL_Logos_300dpi (1) (002).png

‭(Hidden)‬ Barbershop

Parade of Barbershop Quartets: Musical Performance

Sunday, November 12, 2023
2:00-3:00 p.m.

Join us for a delightful afternoon musical show featuring nearly a dozen quartets. Songs will include numbers from the Roaring Twenties to the Big Band Era and beyond.

You will hear hits made popular by artists from Al Jolson to Frank Sinatra and from Rickey Nelson to Louie Armstrong. Songs will be performed in the rich Barbershop Harmony style. The program also includes the International Seniors Champion, High Priority.

About Barbershop Harmony:

Barbershop harmony is generally considered to be one of the few uniquely American-born musical styles, alongside jazz, with which it shares origins. The simplest definition of barbershop centers around relatively simple melodies sung in four-part harmony without instruments (a cappella).

Learn more about the Barbershop Harmony Society: www.barbershop.org

‭(Hidden)‬ Erin

Convo Station: Community Engagement Performance with Erin V. Sotak

Saturday, November 4, 2023
11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

This presentation is located outside the Main Entrance to the Burton Barr Central Library

The Convo Station is a designated spot to engage in conversation with strangers or perhaps with someone you already know but want to get to know better. Look for the Convo Station sign just outside of the main entrance to the Burton Barr Central Library and be at ease to converse. Artist Erin V. Sotak and her convo team will engage with passersby and library visitors by using a set of conversation starter questions to get people chatting.

About the Artist:

As a storyteller, photographer, and performance artist, Erin enjoys creating opportunities for strangers, friends, communities, and individuals to engage in shared aesthetic experiences. She believes in grand romantic gestures, epic failure, endless absurdity, aesthetic gasps and always, hopeless optimism.

“It is my daily goal to create that hiccup in the mundane, the rupture in the awkward silence, to elevate the ordinary and illuminate the forgotten.”

“Embedded in narrative, we move through our lives compelled to recount, reveal, reshape, and invent our personal and collective stories. We transform ordinary experience, elevate the everyday, and amplify the mundane. We fabricate narratives to interrupt reality, engage the fantastical and forge connection.”

Learn more about Erin V. Sotak: www.erinvsotak.com

‭(Hidden)‬ Tatiana Crespo

Afternoon Concert: Tatiana Crespo

Sunday, October 22, 2023
2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Tatiana Crespo.jpg Join singer and songwriter Tatiana Crespo as she shares some of her favorite songs in both English and Spanish to celebrate and honor those who have passed. She will also perform some of her original compositions inspired by Halloween, Dia De Los Muertos, love, and loss with her accordion and guitar. It will be an afternoon full of storytelling, laughs, witchy cackles, and heartfelt moments for English and Spanish speakers alike.

About the Artist:

Tatiana Crespo is a Costa Rican Singer-songwriter and accordion player residing in Phoenix. She blends genres like cumbia, bossa nova, boleros, old-world French Swing, and huapangos to create songs that reflect the migrant experience. From the tropics to the deserts, from the forest to the city, her music transcends borders to express the stories surrounding her that emerge from deep within her imagination. Listen to her new single, Sacrificio De Amor, now available on all platforms.

Tatiana Crespo es una cantautora y accordionista costarricense viviendo en Phoenix. Tati mezcla géneros como la cumbia, la bossa nova, los boleros, el antiguo Swing francés y huapangos para crear canciones que reflejan la experiencia de Latinx migrante. Desde los trópicos hasta los desiertos, desde el bosque hasta la ciudad, su música trasciende fronteras para expresar las historias que la rodean y las historias que emergen desde lo más profundo de su imaginación. Escucha su nuevo sencillo Sacrificio De Amor en todas las plataformas.

Learn more about Tatiana Crespo: @taticrespoarte