Join us on February 24th, 6:30 – 9 p.m. for a celebration of African American History Month featuring an artists’ reception for our exhibit Ordinary Dissonance and a presentation on the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks by Professor Quraysh Ali Lansana, Director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University. Prof. Lansana will give a talk about the life of Gwendolyn Brooks and do a reading of her poetry as well as give a reading of his own poetry. A 30 minute Q&A will follow the reading.
The artists’ reception will take place in the gallery and the presentation will take place in the Studio Theater, next to the Addison Center for the Arts Gallery. Entrance is at the NW corner of Addison Trail High School, Door #4. Admission is free, but donations are welcome.
Gwendolyn Brooks
(June 7, 1917-Dec. 3, 2000)
Brooks was raised and educated on the South Side, taught at several local colleges, and set much of her poetry in the city. With the publication of A Street in Bronzeville in 1945, Brooks won a Guggenheim Fellowship, became one of Mademoiselle’s “Ten Young Women of the Year,” and generally triggered an avalanche of praise that would continue unabated until her death. With Annie Allen, in 1950, Brooks became the first African-American to capture a Pulitzer Prize; she was poet laureate of Illinois and the United States; she was named National Endowment for the Arts’ Jefferson Lecturer; is a member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame; and has four Illinois schools and a library named in her honor. In conjunction with her 80th birthday in 1997, Mayor Richard Mr. Daley declared Gwendolyn Brooks Week, at which 80 performers and writers from around the world presented her gifts. (from the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame)
Quraysh Ali Lansana
Quraysh Ali Lansana is author of They Shall Run: Harriet Tubman Poems (Third World Press, 2004) and the poetry collection Southside Rain (Third World Press, 2000); The Big World, a children’s book, (Addison-Wesley, 1999); and three poetry chapbooks, bloodsoil (sooner red) (Center for the American Land, May 2009), Greatest Hits: 1995-2005 (Pudding House Publications, 2006) and cockroach children: corner poems and street psalms (nappyhead press, 1995). He is the editor of Glencoe/McGraw-Hill’s African American Literature Reader (Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2001), and I Represent and dream in yourself, which are two anthologies of literary works from Chicago’s award-winning youth arts employment program, Gallery 37 (Tia Chucha Press, 1996 and 1997, respectively). He is also co-editor of Dream of A Word: The Tia Chucha Press Poetry Anthology (Tia Chucha Press, 2006), and Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art (Third World Press, 2002). His most recent book is Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy & Social Justice in Classroom & Community w/Georgia A. Popoff, (Teachers & Writers Collaborative, March 2011).
His work has been published widely in journals and magazines across the country and internationally, including Callaloo, American Poetry Review, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. He is Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing at Chicago State University, where he served as Director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing from 2002 to 2011. He is a former faculty member of the Drama Division of The Juilliard School and a former Reading/Language Arts editor for Scott-Foresman (Pearson Education), Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, and Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Quraysh was Lead Consultant/Contributing Poet for the Jamestown Reading Navigator Poetry Slam On-line Program and currently serves as a Contributing Editor for The Writer’s Chronicle of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.
Passage, his poetry video collaboration with Kurt Heintz, won the first ever Image Union/Bob Award from WTTW-TV (PBS). He is the recipient of other awards, including: the 2006 Securing the Future Award from ETA Creative Arts Foundation, the 2000 Poet of the Year Award, presented by Chicago’s Black Book Fair; the 1999 Henry Blakely Award, presented by Gwendolyn Brooks; and the 1999 Wallace W. Douglas Distinguished Service Award, presented by Young Chicago Authors, Inc.
Quraysh earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree at the Creative Writing Program at New York University, where he was a Departmental Fellow. He has been a literary teaching artist and curriculum developer for over a decade and has led workshops in prisons, public schools, and universities in over 30 states.
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Join us for a reception on November 10, 7-9 pm to meet the artists from our Addison Art Guild Members’ Show.
There will be a juried competition with ribbons and cash prizes, as well as critiques by the competition judges of the award winning works.
Free admission. Refreshments served. Guests are welcome.
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Join us for a reception on October 14, 7-9 pm to meet the artists from our exhibition “Atelier: Classical Realism Rendered in the Contemporary.” Refreshments will be served.
The exhibition features artists from the atelier system of painting and drawing focusing on the transition from the intensity of the traditions of the Old Masters to the unique aesthetic developed by contemporary practitioners as they move beyond their classical training.
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The Addison Center for the Arts is proud to announce that Lyric Opera in the Neighborhoods is coming to Addison for the sixteenth year. This year will feature “Cinderella” composed by Gioachino Rossini and performed for Addison students in grades four through six. The opera is performed in English making it easier for the students to understand. Prior to the event, every student received a study guide (Backstage pass!) from the Lyric preparing them what to expect from the opera including information about the composer, storyline, how to write a libretto and more. Teachers also received study guides from the Lyric Opera of Chicago which were used to enhance student learning before the performance.
The event will take place at Addison Trail high School in the auditorium on Wednesday, October 12 with two performances: one at 10 am and one at noon.
This program is made possible by the donations from the Addison Center for the Arts, Addison School District #4, Addison Trail high School and by generous and deeply appreciated gifts from Mrs. Herbert A. Vance & Mr. and Mrs. William C. Vance.
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