Southside Arts & Humanities Network

Dear Network Members,

Please save the date of Wednesday October 28th for a Community Discussion on “The State of the South Side Arts Community” with nationally-recognized arts advocate, Arlene Goldbard.

Time: 6:00-7:30 p.m.

Place: South Side Community Arts Center, 3831 South Michigan Avenue

More information below. Hope to see you all there.

Best,

Peter

Two free tickets are available for Network Members who say “Civic Knowledge Project” when they call 773 702 8068. Please call in advance of 2pm on October 23rd to reserve your free tickets.

Chuchito Valdes Quartet
Friday, October 23rd 7:30-9:30pm
Mandel Hall 1131 E 57th

Concert Description:
Displaying the “hell-bent intensity” of his famous family, Chuchito Valdés continues the tradition of spicy Cuban jazz made popular by his father, Chucho, and grandfather, Bebo. With his quartet, Valdés livens up the stage of Mandel Hall in a performance that runs the gamut from bebop to mambo and cha-cha. Hear why the Chicago Tribune calls the Chuchito Valdés Quartet “jazz improvisation of the most sophisticated kind.”

The Humanities, Civic Knowledge, and Chicago’s South Side

Saturday, October 24th, 2009 2:00-3:00pm
Harold Leonard Stuart Hall, Room 105, 5835 South Greenwood Avenue

The Civic Knowledge Project at the University of Chicago aims to make the knowledge of the University of Chicago community available to other communities on the South Side and to draw the wealth of knowledge that exists in other South Side communities into the intellectual world of the University. The long-term goal is to weave together the cultural fabric of the South Side’s diverse communities, among them the University community, and by so doing to enhance democratic practice.

Please join us for a lively, thought-provoking panel discussion featuring representatives from various South Side arts and education organizations – including the Odyssey Project and the Neighborhood Writing Alliance – in dialogue with the CKP about the vital role the humanities can play on the South Side of Chicago, especially for people in difficult circumstances.

The Fall Southside Roundtable has begun and is off to a wonderful start with leaders from the following organization: Little Black Pearl, Hyde Park Suzuki, Special Collections at the University of Chicago, Court Theatre, Hyde Park Art Center, and Kalapriya!  Two members of our last roundtable (Oyekunle Oyegbemi and Irene Sherr) were featured in an article published in the Chicago Chonicle, Chicago Tribune and the Crusader.  Please check out this link.  Article on Roundtable participants

If you are a leader of a small or emerging arts or humanities organization and would like to participate in a peer-mentoring southside roundtable, please contact Joanie Friedman at joaniefriedman@uchicago.edu.

“A New WPA: Why a Sustainable Future Demands Cultural Recovery”

Tuesday, October 27, 4:00 to 5:30 p.m
Lecture Room 142
Harris School of Public Policy, 1155 E. 60th Street

Please save the date of September 26th for the Hyde Park Jazz Festival.  For more information please visit www.hydeparkjazzfestival.org.

Best,

Joanie

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Dear Network Members,

Please save the date of May 15th for an event at the Cultural Center on this project.

You may have heard something about a new service for arts and culture non-profits called the Cultural Data Project. It started in Pennsylvania and next launched in Marylandand then California, and next is Illinois: organizations across the state will receive a letter and/or email announcement on May 1st and then the new system will be highlighted at the Illinois Arts Alliance’s “One State” conference in Peoria on June 1st and 2nd. It sounds like a very exciting development for all of us, a great new tool to help all of us understand our organization better and make good business decisions, without being turned into accountants or having to hire consultants. Imagine being able to generate those quarterly board reports with two mouseclicks, or being able to just point-and-click and compare our organization’s revenues or staffing or attendance to other groups in our area or our discipline or of about our size.

Meanwhile advocates for the arts, such as the Alliance, are very excited that this system will provide them for the first time with real hard data (not samples or surveys) with which to make the case to policymakers about the importance and value of arts and culture organizations. Lots of free training will be offered all over the state starting in May, and starting this summer the new system will start rationalizing those frustrating grant applications: no more filling out the same financial information differently for each funder!

Best, Joanie

Natalie Moore, National Public Radio

Here are some photos from Meet the Press 2009, hosted by the Southside Arts & Humanities Network, Civic Knowledge Project

Thom Clark from CMW