Brandon Ragland’s Emerging Leader award and ‘Dance Out Loud’ performance cap an exciting Louisville Ballet season

Brandon Ragland | Courtesy of Brandon Ragland

When the  2019-20 season of the Louisville Ballet got moving, Brandon Ragland’s original work, “Force Flux,” debuted amid an exciting mixed program at the Brown Theatre. Then he was chosen as a member of the 2019 Hadley Creatives.

On Sunday, April 28 — only three weeks after he danced the role of the Prince in Louisville Ballet’s “Cinderella” — he debuts “Within Reach” as a part of ArtsReach’s third annual “Dance Out Loud,” which features performances from a collection of Louisville-based dancers and choreographers, as well as community-based dance programs that ArtsReach runs throughout the year.

Is it any wonder that Ragland also is being awarded the Lift a Life Foundation Emerging Leader in the Arts award at the fourth annual Awards in the Arts on Saturday, April 27, at Churchill Downs?

Insider caught up with Ragland to hear about his weekend plans, his big year, how he plans to lead now that’s he’s “emerged,” and what he feel’s about Louisville’s arts community.

“When I first got here, my intention was not to stay here long term,” he says. “I figured, ‘Oh, I’ll be here maybe three years, four years at the most.’ But now I consider Louisville home, and it’s been a place where it’s fed me as a city artistically, personally and spiritually as well. I’ve grown to love living here.”

A scene from Ragland’s “Force Flux” | Photo by Sam English

The Birmingham native started dancing at 13. After college at Butler University’s respected ballet program, Ragland headed home to dance with the Alabama Ballet for three seasons before he came to Louisville.

“In college, I had always heard of Louisville as being a very reputable company. And it was in close proximity to Butler, so a lot of the graduates from Butler would go on to dance here,” says Ragland.

First, under former Artistic Director Bruce Simpson and then the current Artistic and Executive Director Robert Curran, the company has given Ragland many opportunities as a choreographer, culminating — so far — with “Force Flux.”

“I’m also a teacher in the (Louisville Ballet’s) school. Through that I started to build a network,” he explains. “That was something I always wanted to do, as well as take part in some more community engagement type things.”

He was able to create partnerships and opportunities with organizations like IDEAS xLab and Roots & Wings.

ArtsReach Director Julia Youngblood spoke briefly with Insider about ArtsReach and Ragland’s part in “Dance Out Loud.”

“The main thing that ArtsReach has always been working on is making sure there is a consistent presence in community sites and community centers … and that (students) have a way to be engaged after school that makes them feel engaged in a way that is not just listening to an adult but really creating something that is meaningful to them, and actively doing it in a strong, physical way,” she explains.

Youngblood says Ragland’s role in “Dance Out Loud” isn’t just hit it and quit it, he’s there to lead by example and to inspire.

“Each year we’ve focused on (a guest artist) who’s had a professional life in dance, and have them come in and spend a little bit of time talking to the performers before the event, and then perform a piece,” says Youngblood.

Ragland describes the solo he’s performing, “Within Reach,” as expressing a particular feeling or moment with which the kids in ArtsReach may be well familiar.

“You know, you work so hard for something and you feel like it’s right in your grasp, but you never can seem to attain it — it’s just out of our reach,” he says.

Spoiler alert: Ragland’s work also suggests we can grab and attain our dreams.

Ragland certainly has expanded his reach this year, which has included business training, strategic planning and access to Louisville’s creative leaders through the Hadley Creatives.

Now his year culminates with him receiving the Emerging Leader in the Arts award and the stipend that comes with it — $5,000 — which he can use to forward his art, presumably using the skills, planning and extended network he received through the opportunity.

Brandon Ragland and Christy Corbitt Miller in “In the Upper Room” | Photo by PriceWeber

At first, despite the cache and the cash attached, he didn’t exactly understand the scope of the award. He was too busy dancing and creating.

“Then I started to look up everyone who has won this award before and … I was blown away,” he says. “It’s such an honor.”

Those names include Kristen Renee Miller, Rachel Mauser and Jecorey “1200” Arthur. The awards, hosted by and connected with the Fund for the Arts, are made possible by several foundations.

“My award is sponsored through the Lift a Life Foundation, and that’s another way to help dive into the community engagement part of being an artist,” Ragland explains. “I met them, I hung out with them, I’m hoping that we continue to have engagement.”

As far as being a leader, his plan is to keep up what he’s been doing.

“In my experience of people I look up to as good leaders, they are in the trenches with you. It’s not a dictatorship. Yes, they are delegating, but they are also putting in work,” he says.

Ragland will perform at ArtsReach’s “Dance Out Loud” on Sunday, April 28, at 4 p.m., at the Kentucky Center’s Bomhard Theater. It is free and open to the public, and no tickets are required.

Ragland will receive his award at the Awards in the Arts ceremony, hosted by the Fund for the Arts, Churchill Downs and the Lawrence Family Foundation, on Saturday. The event kicks off at 5:45 p.m. with an “Orange Carpet” before the event begins at 6. The ceremony doubles as a benefit and tickets can be purchased online.

(Editor’s note: This writer also is a member of 2019’s Hadley Creatives.)

Louisville Ballet brings a classic back to the stage and an old friend back to the studio

Helen Daigle as the Fairy Godmother | Photo by Sam English

Few things are more synonymous with ballet than grand fairy tales and stories of magic, mischief and love.

And few things are more synonymous with the Louisville Ballet than Alun Jones, who served the company as artistic director from 1978 until 2002 — a whopping 24 years — leading them straight through a period of time in America that saw a lot of ballet companies shutter.

This weekend, the Louisville Ballet welcomes Jones back to re-stage one of its most enduring classics, Jones’ version of “Cinderella.” He spoke with Insider by phone to share some thoughts on his visit.

“It’s been an interesting experience,” says Jones. “During my time, we did a lot of modern works, but the basis of the repertoire were the classics, which I always thought were very important.”

Some of the cast of “Cinderella” | Photo by Sam English

One of the features of classic ballets are the use of gestures to convey story and dialogue.

“Our production is based on the old English, traditional pantomime,” says Jones.

Another classic element that Louisville Ballet fans might remember concerns the Ugly Step Sisters.

“The stepsisters are guys, which is a very English tradition. The evil characters were always played by men in drag,” he explains.

Jones is very familiar with that drag, and in fact, he is familiar with all the costumes, down to their seams and stitching.

“Before I became a dancer, I went to college and got a degree in design … so often here, when we were doing a new work, the budget would be very restrictive. So they got me on the cheap.”

Jones may have been working with a restrictive budget, but it didn’t keep him from building things to last.

“Some of the costumes have been refurbished, but most of them have been in pretty good shape, and some of them — if you can believe such a thing — are 40 years old,” he says.

You can see those timeless costumes and choreography telling the classic tale of a beautiful but over-worked girl, and the magic that helps her find her Prince Charming, when “Cinderella” steps onto the stage at the Kentucky Center for the Arts this weekend only. Performances on Friday, April 5, at 8 p.m., and Saturday, April 6, at 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets start at $35.50.

‘Just Like Us’ uses a bilingual script to put immigration issues on stage

The cast of “Just Like Us” | Courtesy of Brenda Marie Moran

Recently, stories of immigration troubles dominate the news, including undocumented students and workers as well as people being removed from their homes and torn from their loved ones.

Starting Thursday, March 14, the story four latinx students — two of whom are undocumented — will come to the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts when Teatro Tercera Llamada and Looking for Lilith Theatre Co. present a co-production of Karen Zacarías’ “Just Like Us.” The play uses a bilingual script.

Insider spoke with Brenda Marie Moran, who plays one of those students, as well as Haydee Canovas, TTL producer and co-founder, and Kathi E.B. Ellis, director of this production and co-artistic director of Lilith.

Brenda Marie Moran

For Moran, “Just Like Us” is an extension of her work in Latinx rights.

“I think it’s another form of being an advocate, because you’re also telling the story of other people,” she says. “You’re not just lobbying or rallying, you’re telling a story through theater.”

Theater wasn’t Moran’s focus until recently. An international studies major at Northern Kentucky University, she’s minoring in Spanish, fine-tuning and understanding the language of her culture and her family. Her parents moved to Louisville from Hidalgo, Mexico, just before she was born.

For her minor, she had to take an acting class in Spanish, but she had no intention of being in plays at NKU.

“The professor for the Hispanic drama class and the director of the World Languages department, they reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, we’ve seen you act for your final (for Spanish drama), why don’t you audition?’” says Moran.

She was similarly recruited by Lilith and TTL.

“The director, Kathi Ellis, and Haydee Canovas, both of them went to see me at NKU and apparently that was my audition.”

Moran isn’t likely to change her major — in fact she graduates this year — but she wants to continue doing plays, especially those that speak to the issues facing the Latinx community.

“I want to make sure that all the plays I get into are some kind of specifically Latino play,” she says. “I found out about this play, and it has to do with my life — everything I’ve done, my upbringing, everything I’ve gone through. I guess as a Latina living in the United States, it does mean a lot to me.”

Haydee Canovas

Canovas stresses the importance of the social issues at play on stage and what it means for the Latinx community.

“You don’t realize how important this story is for us,” she says. “This play is based on real lives … It goes over all the dilemmas of the culture and what the culture values, their desires and how some of them are being labeled criminals because they lack documents.”

She also corrects what she believes is a common misconception about the legal status of undocumented immigrants.

“That’s not a criminal offense. It’s a civil offense,” Canovas says.

Social justice gets addressed on stage in “Just Like Us,” but an extra-textual social justice issue comes with the play. Lilith and TTL knew they wanted to tackle onstage representation for the Latinx community, as well as representation behind the scenes.

Ellis agrees that Lilith was very intentional in this partnership and how they interacted with the theatrical presentation of these issues.

Kathi E.B. Ellis

“It was important to Lilith in choosing to produce this script that we partner with artists who can help us to tell the story authentically,” the director says.

As individual artists, members of TTL, Louisville’s Spanish-speaking theater company, have worked with Lilith for several years. So there were prior relationships to help create an official connection.

In addition to concerns about authenticity, Canovas explains there are logistical reasons for the co-production as well.  

“This show is like a monster of a show because it has so many actors and so many characters … (and) Kathy is the mastermind,” she says. “I don’t know if you know this, but she is a mastermind. And she said, ‘What do you think if we do a co-production?’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s a no-brainer.’”

The “monster” of a show includes actors who have to play multiple roles. That’s not too uncommon. What is a little more out of the ordinary is that those actors have to play characters in two different languages. All of the actors — half of whom are Latinx, half of whom are white — play characters who are Latinx and white in attempt to truly reinforce the themes of the play.

Whatever ethnicity we claim as our own, the people around us, the myriad of other ethnicities found in Americas citizenry, are just like us.

“Just Like Us” runs March 14-16, 18 and 21-23 at 7:30 p.m., and March 24 at 5:30 p.m. at the Kentucky Center. Tickets are $21 for general admission, or $16 for seniors, students and military. And on Monday, March 18, all ticket prices are $11. 

This post has been updated with the correct date for the $11 tickets.

Kentucky native Kory Caudill brings his Christmas tunes to town

Kory Caudill is from Prestonburg, Ky. | Courtesy of Kory Caudill

Kentucky native Kory Caudill has toured the world with his piano, and on Saturday, Dec. 15, he’ll be swinging by the Kentucky Center’s Bomhard Theater to share his talent with us in “Christmas with the Kory Caudill Quintet.”

Insider caught up with Caudill talk about his influences, his favorite holiday albums and the first song he ever played.

As a small child, Caudill watched the “Superman” movie on repeat constantly, and one day, much to his parents Keith and Kathi’s surprise, he toddled over to the family’s piano and picked out the film score’s iconic theme.  

Caudill has played music professionally since college. | Courtesy of Kory Caudill

In the Caudill home, music was a must, as Keith and Kathi were involved with the educational programs at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonburg, Ky.

Caudill recalls his father’s strong opinions on the subject of arts education.

“Folks would come in and say, ‘Well, we’re pulling our child out of lessons, he doesn’t seem to like it.’ And Dad’s logic was, ‘Well, Kory doesn’t like math, but he has to take it because it’s part of an education.’ ”

Still, Kory Caudill didn’t dream of a musical profession until high school, when he attended the Governor’s School for the Arts.

“It showed me that if I did have to eat, sleep and breathe music all day, well, I would be thrilled,” says Caudill. “After finishing that program, I came away knowing I was going to tackle it head-on, I wasn’t going to have a backup plan, and I was going to play music for a living.”

At 18, Caudill moved to Nashville to attend Belmont University and started gigging at some of the honkytonks there on Broadway and other small clubs.

“My junior year of college, a fellow named Justin Moore came into the Tin Roof,” he recalls. “He had just signed a record deal with Big Machine the day before. He said, ‘I’m going on tour with Skynyrd, you want to come?’”

Caudill did.

“Through that gig and through country music in general, I’ve knocked off just about every bucket list venue in my career,” he says. “I’ve been able to meet folks in the most random walks of life and seen so much that I’ve never dreamed of.”

Caudill brings his Christmas show to the Kentucky Center on Saturday, Dec. 15. | Courtesy of Kory Caudill

Over years of touring with Moore, Caudill says he saw the music business done right. The band — still the same touring band as the one Moore started when he recruited Caudill — plays a diverse range of venues from resort casinos and state fair stadiums to frequent appearances at the Grand Ole Opry.

“But I’ve done it all also knowing that I want to circle back and do this with my own music, on my own terms,” he adds. 

Those “terms” aren’t the Johnny Cashes and Vince Gills of the world, as you might expect from a seasoned country musician. Instead, Caudill’s influences are a completely different list.

“Pat Metheny Group, Billy Preston, Yanni — folks hear the name Yanni and have kind of a preconceived notion of what it is, but I’d encourage those folks to check out ‘Live at the Acropolis,’ because it’s one of the most rockin’ shows or albums you’ll ever see,” he says.

Caudill was able to polish his chops in a variety of genres because of the musicians at the Grand Ole Opry.

“They’re all professional studio players, so they are all well-versed in various styles,” he explains. “They helped me hone my skills and push me in the right direction, and not only be fluent in different genres but sound authentic.”

He now has four albums and an EP under his belt, including two Christmas collections — two volumes of “Christmas with Kory Caudill and Friends.” The selections run from traditionals like “Silent Night” to newer classics like “Run Run Rudolph.”

Caudill in warmer weather | Courtesy of Kory Caudill

The Christmas concerts he plays grew out of a family get-together in Elizabethtown. Caudill’s wife has relatives in the area, and the owner of a small theater asked him if he’d sit in with a group of local musicians for a show.

“The show happened to be in December, and (the band) thought, ‘Well, let’s do what we do,’ and we’ll filter in some Christmas music,” he says.

Caudill returned the next year, and the next, each time playing more holiday tunes until the entire show was dedicated to Christmas songs. It’s a great gig, according to Caudill.

“For us, Christmas shows are a time we can step completely away from (the music business) and focus on being with each other, the real meaning of Christmas, and not worry about making music for any of the wrong reasons.”

His favorite Christmas music to listen to comes from an artist who clearly inspired his jazzier material.

“Anything from that Vince Guaraldi album,” he says.

“Christmas with the Kory Caudill Quintet” will light up the Bomhard Theater stage for one night only, on Saturday, Dec. 15, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25.

Review: Louisville Ballet’s ‘Romeo + Juliet’ presents a glittering and outrageous future

Leigh Anne Albrechta and Mark Krieger as Juliet and Romeo | Photo by Sam English

Editor’s note: Reviewer Eli Keel was granted access to a dress rehearsal performance of “Romeo + Juliet.” 

Adam Hougland’s ambitious new “Romeo + Juliet” — which premieres Friday, Sept. 7 — presents a glittering and outrageous future, both for its characters and hopefully for the Louisville Ballet.

It combines excellent performances from its cast with Hoagland’s engaging movement vocabulary and stunning design elements to create possibly the most satisfying and engaging full-length ballet I’ve seen.

At rise, we see the two houses — Montague and Capulet — arrayed in opposition, each one standing atop a mound of bodies. That first vision is a bit breathtaking. This “R+J” is set somewhere in a future that is loud, bright and incredibly stylized.

Natalia Ashikhmina as Queen of Verona | Photo by Sam English

Before a single step is performed, the audience knows what they are in for.

Most immediately, the costume design by Christian Squires leaps off the stage. It’s glam rock future chic of ’60s and ’70s sci-fi, and I could not get enough of it. In a lesser production, it would have outshined the performers and choreography.

Hoagland knows we’ll need a second to take this all in, and he gives us a moment to catch our breath.

Just as the first tableau begins to stretch more, the lights dim again. We can’t make out the faces of the man and woman emerging to walk toward each other.

Maybe it’s the titular star-crossed lovers, maybe it’s all the doomed lovers. We are left with stark silhouettes, black against the rosy hued backdrop and the glittering buildings.

The moment serves the same purpose as the prologue in Shakespeare’s text and exemplifies the way good ballet can exchange words for images and movement. In doing so, ballets often alter small plot points in older stories to suit the needs of the medium.

In Hoagland’s version, there are several such small changes and a lot of added subtext.

These liberties are showcased in the first full scene of the ballet, wherein the market brawl between the Capulets and Montagues breaks out. In the five-act structure of Shakespeare, it works to feature servants starting this violent interaction; but in the three-act structure of story ballets, we need to go ahead and meet some of the main characters very quickly.

So the fighting is touched off by a squabble between Mercutio and Tybalt.

Kateryna Sellers | Courtesy

It’s the first moment we get a chance to see Kateryna Sellers take center stage as Mercutio.

The character is often one of the highlights of a theatrical production of “R+J” — Romeo’s best friend has a wit and charm, balanced by a strange hard edge that makes Mercutio one of Shakespeare’s most masterful creations.

Sellers’ Mercutio is by turns prickly and sarcastic, whimsically droll and goofily good-natured. She also plays the sexual subtext of Mercutio’s interactions with Tybalt, Romeo and even Benvolio much closer to the surface. She’s excellent throughout and sounds the full range of the character’s depth.

Her performance left me wishing once again that other companies producing Shakespeare in Louisville would give women the chance to earn those masterfully crafted characters originally written as men. While Hoagland’s “R+J” is set in the future, some companies’ casting practices are stuck in the past.

In this brawl, we also are treated to the first appearance of Mark Krieger as Romeo. He’s a little lost amid the oversized personalities of Mercutio and Tybalt (Phillip Velinov haughtily earning the title “Prince of Cats”). As the evening progresses, we see a deep well of feeling from Krieger’s performance and lyrical fluidity of movement that matches the more athletic feats that are the purview of male ballet dancers.

Krieger is especially effective in smaller scenes and solos. He particularly shines in his duets with Leigh Anne Albrechta’s Juliet, and the two have excellent chemistry.

Leigh Anne Albrechta and Mark Krieger as Juliet and Romeo | Photo by Sam English

It’s hard to describe the beauty of movement and strength of characterization that Albrechta brings to Juliet. Then again, I don’t have to.

She teaches the torches to burn bright.

Albrechta is so engaging, it’s easy to forget how much technical skill and physical virtuosity it must take to seem to float above a stage full of people whose entire job is to seem to float.

“R+J” continues Artistic and Executive Director Robert Curran’s careful attempts to balance the desires of traditionalists who have historically made up the majority of the ballet’s audience against the need to lure in new audiences and court progressive fans more interested in modern or contemporary companies.

Moreover, this production attempts to meld those two worlds. We have the timeless story of Shakespeare and the traditional music of Sergei Prokofiev, but we have a contemporary movement vocabulary coupled with a daring flare for design and a more complex emotional life for the characters.

Progressive ballet fans will love this “Romeo + Juliet,” and if the more reserved patrons will come with an open mind, I think they will love it, too.

As such, Hoagland’s “R+J” isn’t just ballet, it’s also a question. Can these two disparate Louisville audiences merge and move into the future together?

I hope so. Hoagland’s “Romeo + Juliet” represents a future I want to see.

There are just three performances of “Romeo + Juliet” — Friday, Sept. 7, at 8 p.m., and Saturday, Sept. 8, at 2 and 8 p.m. All shows are performed by the same cast at newly reopened Kentucky Center, 501 W. Main St. Tickets start at $35.

Louisville artist Brianna Harlan creates through the lens of ‘radical vulnerability’

Louisville artist Brianna Harlan | Courtesy

When they entered the Kentucky Center for the Arts last week, visitors to the Festival of Faiths — Kentucky’s annual multifaith celebration — were greeted by swirling walls of golden tracery, layered over diaphanous fabric of blues, purples and pinks.

After they took in the initial rush of color, visitors walked through an entrance and were engulfed by vivid pigments as well as cradles in the air created by more fabric, each one holding paper scraps and strips on which words and ideas were written.

Fresh off Main Street, the visitors had stepped into “Oasis,” an installation commissioned by the Festival of Faiths that was created by Louisville artist Brianna Harlan.

“I think I’ve always needed a creative outlet,” Harlan tells Insider.

A Louisville native, she attended college at Hanover and considers her time at the Southern Indiana school to be when her art began. After taking a couple of studio classes as an undeclared undergrad, she picked art as her major.

“What motivated me to make art isn’t really just the technique of it, and that’s kind of what people focus on until you get to college,” she says.

Harlan started with photography and then quickly moved to printmaking. Her current practice now has several facets, including installations and large-scale projects.

“It’s the first thing I really dived into and started to conceptualize,” she explains. “Because I wasn’t the best at drawing, and I’m still not, if I’m being honest. I don’t really have the patience of a painter.”

Artwork in “Oasis” by Brianna Harlan | Courtesy

Harlan’s skills also include large doses of digital manipulation, which she admits is influenced by the time crunch working a full-time job can put on an artist.

“It’s a mixture between needing to blend the profitable side of creativity with my practice, my art practice. That’s going pretty well. I really love some of the work I’ve gotten from that, like ‘The Divided States of Americans,’” says Harlan, referencing an earlier work.

As the title “Divided States” suggests, there is an element of social justice and political expression in her work.

“I came from a social justice family,” says Harlan. “My grandmother is Mattie Jones; she’s in the Civil Rights Hall of Fame, and she’s really well-known in town. But I didn’t ever really find a clear place for me to be in the work, because I was always the quieter person when it came to things like that.”

“What the Dark Knows” by Brianna Harlan | Courtesy

But when Harlan became more comfortable in her art, she found a way to be heard. When she returned to Louisville, she worked with AmeriCorps, and now frequently works with nonprofits like the Center for Neighborhoods.

Wedded to her social sense of justice is an idea central to Harlan’s practice, which she calls “radical vulnerability.”

“I think those are two words that people don’t usually associate, but for me they go hand in hand. The greatest things that we get from life, we have to go to a vulnerable place to get them,” says Harlan. “To fall in love, you have to be vulnerable; to get up and speak to a room full of people … The biggest connections and leaps in life we have come from this radical vulnerableness.”

She conceived and refined this concept throughout college and continued after her return to Louisville. Her attempt to meld radical vulnerability with social justice is one of the inspirations for “Oasis.”

“I wanted to get people involved … to make something that people have to really think about and participate in the way they are experiencing the art,” she says.

This participation, across several projects, takes the role of people completing a prompt or activity, and writing down their reactions or thoughts. Those people then submit their results to Harlan, and she creates from those submissions. For “Oasis,” she asked for words of wisdom.

While “Oasis” and the Festival of Faiths is over, you have loads of opportunities to see Harlan’s work.  

“Unfold” by Brianna Harlan | Courtesy

“The Divided States of Americans” will be on display in Metro Hall beginning next week and will hang through January 2019.

And through IDEASxLab, she’s currently working with students at Meyzeek Middle School to create superheroes to inspire their peers as well as themselves and the entirety of Smoketown, where Meyzeek is located.

Harlan also is one of the 2017 Hadley Creatives, and the group will be featured in an exhibition at KMAC in June. 

Next for Harlan, through the Great Meadows Foundation, is a monthlong trip Michigan, where she’ll attend a program run by the Art Institute of Chicago. 

“It’s like an artist’s retreat, like a summer camp,” says Harlan. “It’s so I can slow down and really think about what’s next.”

Poet Hannah Drake to curate Festival of Faiths’ new ‘After Hours’ program

This year’s Festival of Faiths theme is “Sacred Insight, Feminine Wisdom,” and speakers include Diane Rehm, Becca Stevens and Pat McCabe. | Courtesy of Festival of Faiths

For 22 years, the Festival of Faiths has brought a cornucopia of speakers and artists to Louisville, spreading messages of inclusivity and common goals for all people of goodwill. This year, organizers have announced a series of “Festival After Hours” events that will delve deeper into the festival’s theme: “Sacred Insight, Feminine Wisdom.”

This year’s 23rd annual Festival of Faith runs April 24-28 at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. Guest speakers include local and national artists including Diane Rehm of NPR, Mary Berry, Becca Stevens, Pat McCabe, Lyla June Johnston, Maiden Radio‘s Julia Purcell and many more. 

Each “After Hours” event is organized around a specific idea, boiled down to a single imperative word — listen, emerge and honor.

Hannah Drake | Courtesy

Insider spoke with Louisville poet, spoken-word artist and activist Hannah L. Drake, who was chosen, along with choreographer, dancer and business owner Safiyyah Rasool to curate “Emerge!,” which will be held on Thursday, April 26.

Drake has worked for the festival for several years and took on curatorial duties for a portion of last year’s event. Her approach to “Emerge!” spun off from one of the many topics the festival is tackling in 2018.

“They are certainly going to cover addiction, since the opioid crisis is so big in the U.S., particularly in Kentucky, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, even Louisville,” says Drake.

Conceptualizing addiction as a kind of darkness, Drake chose several works that tackled addiction and other difficult topics.

“There are these different ‘dark’ issues, like addiction and racism and politics,” she says. “You can’t have an evening and not address politics now.”

But darkness is only one half of “Emerge!”

“I thought, OK, how about we do a night of emerging from darkness to light? And how do we move through that darkness to the other side,” she explains. “So that is my focus, and we’re doing that with dance and singing and poetry.”

Drake speaks at many events around town. | Courtesy of Hannah L. Drake

Originally rooted in the world of spoken word, Drake is excited to continue to combine poetry elements with movement and dance, an experiment she began working on in a recent creative project with Louisville Ballet.

“I wanted to put as many of those components together as I could,” she says. “When I worked with the ballet, I saw how music, dance and poetry were good by themselves but just phenomenal when you put all three of them together to tell a story.”

Drake says she got a really clear image of that story before the curation process even began, which is similar to what happens when she composes solo works.  

“It sounds silly, but I can see it and hear it all in my head — immediately. I knew who I wanted, I knew the music I wanted,” she adds. “Anytime I write poetry or put something together, I tell people I can see it like puzzle pieces in my head. So I hope the puzzle comes together.”

Despite a strong vision, Drake was willing to make alterations in order to engage the creativity and experience of her performers.

“Of course I asked the people singing, do you have suggestions, because you might know a song I don’t know, and some of them did,” she says. “And they fit beautifully with the entire program.”

Diane Rehm will host the “After Hours” program “Honor!” on Friday, April 27. | Courtesy

The poets mostly will perform pre-existing works from their repertoires. Drake says, though she composed it previously, she’s never publicly performed her work.

“It’s a poem about addiction that I never recited anywhere,” she says. “I wrote this poem about my sister being an addict. Now my sister is clean. I told her, ‘I won’t recite this poem ever if you don’t want people to know this story,’ and she said, ‘It doesn’t matter to me if it will help someone.’”

You can catch “Emerge!” on Thursday, April 26, at 7 p.m., and you can take in the rest of the “Festival After Hours” programs “Listen!” and “Honor!” on Wednesday, April 25, and Friday, April 27, respectively.

Tickets for “Emerge!” and other single sessions from the festival are $25. A pass for the entire four-day affair is $300. A full schedule of events is online. 

The Moth’s GrandSLAM features both new talent and seasoned veterans

The Moth GrandSLAM features the best of the best. | Courtesy of The Moth

On Saturday, The Moth’s GrandSLAM Championship returns to the Kentucky Center.

Louisville’s storytelling scene is in full bloom, with an array of events popping up and gaining their own distinct followings. But the undisputed grand mammy of this storytelling boom is The Moth.

The Moth started in New York City in 1997, before spreading to a select few cities. Louisville had its own version back when only 10 other cities were running story slams. Now, dozens of cities host monthly events.

Tara Anderson is a producer for The Moth Louisville. | Courtesy of Tara Anderson

Each month, Louisville’s Moth holds a stellar slam at Headliners Music Hall, but once a year, producer Tara Anderson gathers the 10 best storytellers, all winners from the previous year’s competitions, and welcomes them to the GrandSLAM.

This year’s crop includes previous GrandSLAM winners, certainly storytellers to watch, but it also includes some newbies. One of the glories of The Moth is that everyone has a story to tell.

Insider spoke with two newcomers, both who have been telling stories less than a year, to find out how they got started and how they feel about going to the big game.

Chris Radford is a teacher and Louisville native who’s been telling live stories since February. But he’s been interested in writing for much longer.

“The first interest I had in telling stories would have been (in) middle school, high school — I just started writing little short stories here and there, and I never showed them to anyone, and they weren’t personal, just something funny,” said Radford.

His first interaction with The Moth was three years ago.

Chris Radford returns to The Moth. | Courtesy of Chris Radford

“I attended the GrandSLAM just as an audience member. And from the very beginning of that, I was fascinated,” he said. “So I started to going to the local slam on a semiregular basis.”

For monthly slams, anyone who wants to tell a story puts their name in a hat, and 10 names are drawn at random. After being a fan for several years, Radford decided to put his name in the hat last February, and he got picked the very first time.

The February slam repeats the same theme each year: Love hurts.

“I had, what I consider, an absolutely hilarious breakup that was not funny at the time, but with hindsight being 20-20, it was really remarkable,” said Radford. “And I had some time to heal, so I thought, why not talk about this experience.”

The audience agreed it was quite remarkable.

“I was shocked when I won,” he added.

Radford will square off against nine other competitors, including newbie Bridget Flaherty.

Flaherty, whom I had the pleasure of seeing perform Saturday at Double-Edged Stories, can hardly get through a sentence with out tripping over an interesting story about her life. She used to work in the high-pressure business world before she quit it all and went on the road with her 11-year-old child. She lived as a vagabond for a while before settling back down.

Unlike Radford, Flaherty did not to get tell a story immediately.

“Three different times I put my name in the hat and did not get picked,” she said.

Bridget Flaherty will share her stories on Saturday. | Courtesy of Bridget Flaherty

Flaherty actually lives in Dayton now, driving the two-and-a-half hours to Louisville for each slam. Because she’s willing to drive here, it’s not too surprising to hear she’s attended other Moths all throughout the East. She traveled, in part, because she didn’t feel like waiting to get on stage in Louisville.

“I’ve actually performed on The Moth stage in Chicago, Ann Arbor (Mich.), Pittsburgh and Louisville,” said Flaherty.

But Louisville is her first and most frequent. Her Louisville slam-winning story comes from her time as a vagabond.

“It was a story about picking up a hitchhiker in El Paso, Texas, and driving him all the way to Benson, Ariz. The topic was caution, and I told a story about throwing caution to the wind,” she said.

Every slam has a theme, and the GrandSLAM is no different, so come watch Flaherty, Radford and other Louisville luminaries spill their guts to theme of “Fuel to the fire.”

The event on Saturday, Jan. 13, starts at 8 p.m. at the Kentucky Center’s Bomhard Theater, 501 W. Main St. Tickets are $27.50. It frequently sells out, so get your tickets in advance.

Graham Shelby’s storytelling explores war and his father in ‘The Man on TV’

Graham Shelby takes on a one-man show. | Courtesy of Graham Shelby

Regulars at The Moth Story Slam are already familiar with Graham Shelby. He’s a frequent winner turned sometimes host who was invited to New York to be featured in “The Moth Radio Hour.”

On Friday, Shelby turns his talent for introspection, narrative and deep thinking toward a longer format: the one-person show. The result is “The Man on TV,” a work that springs from Shelby’s complicated relationship with his biological father, Jimmy Godwin.

Graham Shelby

Shelby spoke with Insider by phone, discussing the genesis of the piece, its evolution as a story, and his 25-year relationship with Godwin, a scarred and tortured survivor of the Vietnam War.

“I didn’t know him growing up; I had heard of him when I was a little kid,” said Shelby.

Shelby grew up with his mother and his adopted father.

Though he knew he had a birth dad and had seen a few pictures of him once or twice, his first big exposure to his father came in the form that Shelby describes as surreal.

“My birth father appeared on TV when I was 12,” he recalled. “He was featured on the ‘CBS Evening News’ on Memorial Day. It was a story about him and his efforts to connect with the mother of his best friend, whose body my father had found when they were in Vietnam.”

Vietnam looms large in Shelby’s relationship with Godwin, as well as in his show. He said as a child, war was very confusing to him, and adults didn’t seem to be telling the whole truth.

“This was the early ’80s, and Vietnam was still a touchy thing,” said Shelby. “My parents talked about how war is this awful, awful thing, and I believed that. People talked about it like it was cancer. There was clearly more to it than that. Because there weren’t as many books and and movies about cancer as there were about war. Little kids didn’t get together and pretend to be oncologists, they played soldier.”

After seeing “Platoon” as a teen, Shelby decided to write Godwin a letter, and a few years later they met for the first time.

“And that began a 20-year, very complicated, not always satisfying but also really important relationship between the two of us. One challenge was we had no role model. I think every adoptee and birth parent has to go through this,” said Shelby.

Shelby will talk about his brief relationship with his biological father. | Courtesy of Graham Shelby

A journalism student at the time, Shelby connected to Godwin the only way he knew how — as a journalist.

“I figured out the way to get the answers I wanted from him was to interview him. So I got a tape recorder and interviewed him, and I have, like, hours of him talking on tape. For years, that’s what our conversations were like,” he said.

During that relationship, Shelby also was becoming a grownup, with a career that relied on the written word and oratorial skills. He’s been a journalist, English teacher, storyteller and speech writer.

Just before Godwin’s death in 2007, Shelby began writing stories about their relationship. Godwin only saw one story, and he didn’t care for it.

“His quote was, ‘You’ve made me look like an illiterate, redneck puke … and I’m not illiterate.’”

Graham already had been telling stories professionally, often based around his time in Japan and the folklore of that country, but when The Moth came to Louisville, he started occasionally telling stories about his father, too, and that got him invited to New York.

It was on The Moth stage in the Big Apple that Shelby realized he wanted to tell a fuller version of the story he was sharing, the story that started with seeing Godwin on TV we he was a kid. He started working on the piece, and in addition to the writing and storytelling, Shelby decided to include multi-media elements, starting with that fateful image from childhood.

Shelby has won and even hosted The Moth in Louisville several times. | Courtesy of Graham Shelby

“I wanted to actually show the audience what I was watching in 1983, and since I have all those hours of tape of Jimmy talking, I have excerpts of that I play during the show,” he said.

Another interesting part of his relationship with Godwin makes an appearance on stage.

“Here’s another weird aspect of our relationship. Before we met, he made me mix tapes, like his own personal soundtrack, so I have some of that music in the show.”

“The Man on TV” is about more than its basic story. It takes a metafictional view of how we use stories in our societies and in our personal relationships.

“War is, at some level, largely about storytelling in that it takes a story to turn a stranger into an enemy, to turn a boy into a soldier, to turn a rice field or a cornfield into a battlefield,” said Shelby. “I’m not saying it’s a lie. It could be a true story, or a story that’s based on fact, but it’s a story.”

“The Man on TV” runs one night only, on Friday Oct. 27, so make a space in your calendar. The show also includes a performance by Shakespeare with Veterans, who will examine war and its emotional effects from a very different end of the English language — the works of William Shakespeare.

The show starts at 8 p.m. at the MeX Theater in the Kentucky Center for the Arts, 501 E. Main St. Tickets are $15, $10 for students.

Stunning new visual art by Vera Klement at the Kentucky Center

Vera Klement’s “Hedge” and “Trace of Day” at the Kentucky Center | Courtesy of the Kentucky Center

The Kentucky Center for the Arts is best known for performances by the Louisville Ballet, Louisville Orchestra, StageOne Family Theater, and a whole host of touring and local theater, music and dance.

But from the beginning, it also has featured world-class fine art and sculpture. The Kentucky Center’s collection has just grown, adding three paintings from Vera Klement, a renowned painter with a fascinating history and a prolific and varied output.

Insider spoke with the Chicago-based artist by phone and also caught up with Diane Tobin, special assistant to the president of the Kentucky Center, who helped secure the new paintings.

Additions to the venue’s collection are rare.

Diane Tobin | Courtesy of Kentucky Center

“This happens every once in a blue moon,” said Tobin.

She added the center doesn’t take just any kind of art — additions to the collection must be from important artists, recognized on the international scene. That demand for quality has guided the acquisition of art since the venue’s inception.

“They are 20th century modern art pieces from the top artists in the world,” said Tobin

The new Klement paintings took a circuitous and lucky path to Kentucky.

Klement is closing in on her 90th birthday and has chosen to start finding homes for her personal collection of her work. She’s placing those paintings in public buildings.

“My niece is an aspiring visual artist, and she was in Chicago and was talking to a particular gallery owner, and he had introduced her to Vera Klement, whom he represents in his gallery,” explained Tobin.

This chance meeting led to a conversation about the Kentucky Center.

“And my niece had mentioned to her, ‘Well, my aunt works in a public building …,’ and after several conversations, Vera became interested in the Kentucky Center,” said Tobin.

Tobin eventually traveled to Chicago to meet Klement, and after a process of review, Klement gave the Kentucky Center three paintings: “Hedge,” “Midnight Birds” and “Trace of Day.”

Klement spoke about these paintings’ meanings, but started by saying that direct interpretation is difficult.

“It’s very hard to say exactly what a painting is about,” said Klement, “because I work with subconscious and I don’t question it, and whatever it offers me I feel fortunate that I’ve got something to work with. So I just feel my job is to do the best I can.”

Vera Klement | Courtesy of Kentucky Center

She was able to discuss the inspiration and process of the three paintings.

“Hedge,” an oil, wax and graphite work on a canvas measuring 84 inches by 60 inches, was inspired by the film “Shoah.”

“It’s about the Holocaust. What’s remarkable about it is there’s no creepy footage — no corpses, no violence shown,” said Klement.

The film, which Klement said we must watch despite its nine-hour length, instead uses long interviews intercut with present-day images of the sites of the Nazi atrocities.

“Then you see the camera showing a meadow, with grass gently blowing in the wind, where we know a certain thing took place. But he doesn’t show that certain thing, he only shows the pleasant landscape. So I thought that landscape changes and covers and hides malignant events,” she said.

Klement took a less conceptual approach in the work “Trace of Day,” another large canvas with oil paint and wax.

“My friend has a property with a lot of trees, and something about trees just intrigues me,” she explained. “I think maybe because when I was a child, we had a forest near our house, and I have a passion for trees. I like the way they look, the way they have girth, the way they stand there. I think of them as witnesses to history.”

The difference between a heavily conceptual piece and a more representative work bespeaks a larger idea in Klement’s practice.

“One of my rules is I have to make something different each time, otherwise I’d be cranking out a product. So I put all these rules in the way to prevent myself from cranking,” said Klement.

While the three paintings coming to the Kentucky Center vary in methodology, they also show the artist’s ideas of how canvas should be approached and how her subjects should be framed.

“I play with the notion of silence because my canvases are unpainted — they are white, and I don’t touch the white in the areas where I don’t have something going on,” she said.

Vera Klement’s “Midnight Birds” | Courtesy of Kentucky Center

This is a sharp contrast to many artists who will prep an entire canvas, painting a base layer before they ever begin to work on a painting.

Klement also removes what she paints from scene and context.

“I don’t try to — let’s say if I do a figure — I don’t put a figure in a chair in a room in a house. I paint the figure, period, as though it is a sculptural object in space.”

There are definitely recurring themes in her work, and the third painting, “Midnight Birds,” illuminates her frequent contemplations of the tragedies of despotic regimes. These themes are likely influenced by Klement’s childhood. Her family fled Europe in 1938 just ahead of the Nazi occupation.

While “Hedge” examines larger ideas about history and horror, “Midnight Birds” is one painting in a series, each of which reflect on a single soul snuffed out by totalitarianism.

She chose poets as her inspiration, reading and translating their work.

“They had to have lived in totalitarian regimes,” she said. “They had to be harassed, or murdered, or sent off into exile, or quieted — they were not able to write — so those kind of artists. And there are plenty of those, of course, in the Hitler and Stalin regimes.”

Klement talked about the poet represented by “Midnight Birds.”

“That painting came from a Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam, who was murdered in the gulag, and he had a poem that had that image, that he called midnight birds, and how they flew in utter silence.”

Klement’s works can be seen at the Kentucky Center whenever the building is open, but do yourself a favor and take a guided tour of its collection, a mere $2. The Kentucky Center is located at 501 W. Main St.