Category Archives: Arts & Humanities Month

Anne Frank Tree exhibit to be dedicated today at Clinton Center

Posted on by

AnneFrankTreeThe Clinton Foundation and the Sisterhood of Congregation B’nai Israel, in conjunction with the Anne Frank Center USA, have joined together to create a new powerful exhibit, The Anne Frank Tree, which will be located on the grounds of the Clinton Presidential Park.  The permanent installation, which will surround the Anne Frank Tree sapling, will open today.

In 2009, the Clinton Center was one of 11 entities in the United States to be awarded a young chestnut tree by the Anne Frank Center USA’s “Sapling Project.” The sapling was taken from the white horse chestnut tree that stood outside Anne Frank’s Secret Annex when she and her family were in hiding from the Nazis during World War II. The young writer cherished and wrote about the tree frequently in her famous diary.

“As long as this exists,” Anne wrote on February 23, 1944, “how can I be sad?” During the two years she spent in the Secret Annex, the solace Anne found in her chestnut tree provided a powerful contrast to the Holocaust unfolding beyond her attic window. And as war narrowed in on Anne and her family, her tree became a vivid reminder that a better world was possible.

Anne’s tree would outlive its namesake by more than 50 years before being weakened by disease and succumbing to a windstorm in 2010. But today, thanks to dozens of saplings propagated in the months before its death, Anne’s tree lives on in cities and towns around the world. The Anne Frank tree saplings provide an opportunity for these sites to tell the story of Anne Frank and connect it to incidents of injustice witnessed in each locale. To date, seven saplings have been planted at locations as diverse as the U.S. Capitol and the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

The Center’s installation consists of five framed, etched glass panels – arranged to evoke the feeling of being inside a room – surrounded by complementary natural landscaping. The two front panels feature quotes from Anne Frank and President Clinton. The three additional panels will convey the complex history of human rights in Arkansas through descriptions of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis of 1957. These panels will feature quotes from Chief Heckaton, hereditary chief of the Quapaw during Arkansas’ Indian Removal; George Takei, Japanese-American actor who was interned at the Rohwer Relocation Center in Desha County in 1942; and Melba Patillo Beals, member of the Little Rock Nine.

In collaboration with the Clinton Foundation, Little Rock landscape architect Cinde Drilling and Ralph Appelbaum Associates, exhibit designer for both the Center and The National Holocaust Museum, assisted in the design of the exhibit. The installation has been made possible thanks to the support of the Ben J. Altheimer Charitable Foundation and other generous partners.

The Center’s sapling is currently housed in a local nursery where it is acclimating to Arkansas’s environment. And although it will be present during the ceremony, it will be returned to the nursery where it will be cared for until it has matured and can thrive in its new home, located on the grounds of the Park. A similar chestnut tree will be temporarily planted in its place until the Anne Frank tree can be permanently transplanted.

Sandwich in History today at the White-Baucum House

Posted on by

ahpp White-Baucum HouseThe monthly architectural history program “Sandwiching in History” visits the White-Baucum House, located at 201 South Izard Street. The program begins at noon today.  A historian with the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program delivers a brief lecture about the church before leading guests on a tour.

This Italianate-style house was built in 1869-1870 for Robert J. T. White, then-Arkansas secretary of state, and was enlarged in the mid-1870s by its second owner, businessman George F. Baucum. The White-Baucum House was recently rehabilitated using federal and state tax incentives to serve as office space.

Sandwiching in History is a program of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.  The AHPP is responsible for identifying, evaluating, registering and preserving the state’s cultural resources. Other DAH agencies are the Arkansas Arts Council, the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, the Old State House Museum, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and the Historic Arkansas Museum.

Creative Class of 2015: Michael Bearden

Posted on by

Michael-Bearden-Arkansan-of-the-Year-220x300Dancer and visionary Michael Bearden is in his third season as Ballet Arkansas‘ Artistic Director.  Prior to that he spent two years as Artistic Advisor to the company.

During his tenure at Ballet Arkansas Michael has brought works to the repertoire by choreographers such as Val Caniparoli, Gerald Arpino and George Balanchine. A native of Searcy, Arkansas, he received his training at the Academy of Ballet Arkansas and went on to have a fourteen year career with Ballet West, in Salt Lake City. As a Principal Dancer at Ballet West, Michael performed leading roles in ballets by some of the world’s greatest choreographers including Balanchine, Ashton, Tudor, Forsythe, Stevenson, Welch, Dove, Tetley, Tharp, Kylian and Christopher Bruce.

As a choreographer, Michael has created or staged his works for Ballet West, the University of Utah, Brigham Young University, the University of Cincinnati, Belhaven University and Texas Christian University. Michael is grateful for the continued opportunity to give back to the community by helping to guide Ballet Arkansas to new heights.

Under his leadership with the Ballet, the company has sponsored two Visions choreographic competitions, premiered several new works, and presented the first performance of George Balanchine’s Who Cares? in Arkansas.  He has also been instrumental in the company’s plans to move into the Creative Corridor on Main Street.

Dr. Dan Jones talks about Higher Ed leadership in South tonight at Clinton School

Posted on by

uacs dan jones ole missThis evening from 6pm to 7pm, former Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones MD will discuss “A Personal Journey Through the Politics of Higher Education in the South.”

Dan Jones, M.D. is the Sanderson Chair in Obesity, Metabolic Diseases and Nutrition and Director of Clinical and Population Science in the Mississippi Center for Obesity Research at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He also serves as Professor of Medicine and Physiology and Interim Chair of the Department of Medicine.
He has a 23-year association with the University of Mississippi, serving in a number of capacities including vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the school of medicine from 2003-2009, and as chancellor of the university from 2009 until September of 2015. Under his leadership as chancellor, the University of Mississippi undertook a major initiative to promote diversity across all its campuses, as well as leading the UM faculty, staff, and students to contribute thousands of volunteer hours to causes across the Oxford community, the state, and around the world.
In his first speech after leaving his position as chancellor, Jones will discuss his personal journey through his association with the University of Mississippi over the last 23 years and the difficulty of playing politics for a prominent university in the south.

Two authors feted at tonight’s CALS “A Prized Evening”

Posted on by

prized_eveningTwo Arkansas authors, Guy Lancaster and Davis McCombs, will be honored at A Prized Evening, the annual awarding of the Worthen and Porter Literary Prizes, on Thursday, October 1, at 6 p.m. in the Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) Main Library’s Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street. A book signing and reception will follow the presentation, which is free and open to the public.

Reservations are appreciated, but not required. RSVP to kchagnon@cals.org or 501-918-3033.

The Booker Worthen Literary Prize will be awarded to Guy Lancaster, editor of the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, for his book Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883-1924: Politics, Land, Labor, and Criminality. Lancaster, a native of Jonesboro, holds a Ph.D. in Heritage Studies from Arkansas State University and currently serves as the creative materials editor of the Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies. He edited Arkansas in Ink: Ghosts, Gunslingers, and Other Graphic Tales (illustrated by Ron Wolfe) and, with Mike Polston, co-edited To Can the Kaiser: Arkansas and the Great War, both published by Butler Center Books.

Davis McCombs, director of Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, will receive the Porter Fund Literary Prize in recognition of his substantial and impressive body of work. McCombs has published two volumes of poetry, which have won numerous awards, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and many other publications.

The Worthen Prize was established by the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) in 1999 in memory of William Booker Worthen, a longtime supporter of the public library and a twenty-two-year member of CALS Board of Trustees. It is presented annually for the best work by an author or editor living in the CALS service area. The Porter Fund was established in 1985 by Jack Butler and Phillip McMath in honor of Dr. Ben Drew Kimpel, who requested the prize be named for his mother, Gladys Crane Kimpel Porter.

Noon today – Kent Babb discusses new book on Allen Iverson at Clinton School

Posted on by

UACS iverson bookToday at noon, the Clinton School Speaker Series features Kent Babb discussing his new book: Not a Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson.

Kent Babb is a Sports Enterprise Writer at The Washington Post, which he joined in October of 2012, and has had his long-form sports journalism honored eight times by the Associated Press Sports Editors, including first place in feature writing in 2005 and 2010.

In his new biography, “Not A Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson,” Babb profiles one of the America’s most famous athletes and his rise from a troubled past to become one of the most successful and highly compensated athletes in the world, as well as what drove his failures. Babb illustrates how Iverson was both the hard-charging athlete who played every game as if it were his last, as well as the hard-partying athlete who spent more money than most people could spend in a dozen lifetimes – blowing more than $150 million of his NBA earnings alone.

Through interviews with those closest to Iverson, Babb brings to life a private, loyal, and often generous Allen Iverson who rarely made headlines, revealing the back story behind some of Iverson’s both memorable and darkest moments.

Creative Class of 2015: Susan Altrui

Posted on by

cc15 altruiOctober is Arts & Humanities Month.  This year, the Culture Vulture will be highlighting 31 members of Little Rock’s Creative Class: the Creative Class of 2015.

Up first Susan Altrui.  Earlier this year, Altrui was named Assistant Director of the Little Rock Zoo.  She previously had overseen marketing, public relations and fundraising for the Zoo.  During that time, the Zoo opened the penguin and cheetah exhibits as well as undertaken several other initiatives which involved fundraising and friendraising.

In addition to her work with the Zoo, Altrui is the chair of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute board. She has been involved in bringing Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival back from the brink and returning it to higher visibility.  Altrui also served as an executive producer on the documentary Ann Richards’ Texas.

In 2014, she was appointed to the Arkansas Entertainer’s Hall of Fame board.  Altrui is a member of the Junior League of Little Rock and Rotary Club of Little Rock.  In her “spare” time she plays tennis.