Power2Give, Death and the Robot, Must Be the Holy Ghost, and Jacob Felder

  Sculpture, written and spoken word, arts council, filmmaking, death, robots, mime, Holy Ghost Authoring Action and the Power2Give. Yep, it's all in a day's work for your Triad Arts Weekend team. We begin with the Arts Council of Winston-Salem Forsyth County. They're supporting their member organizations like never before with web platforms like Power2Give. That means more fantastic arts opportunities right here at home from a public art installation downtown to making a local teen author's feature filmmaking dream come true. Speaking of film, Eddie Garcia puts the spotlight on UNCSA grad filmmaker Austin Taylor. His Death and the Robot is racking up the awards and we'll find out why. Then, history will be made when I actually get a mime to speak. That's right Jacob Felder is here with a special behind-the-scenes peak at the art of miming. And we wrap things up with an artist and album overview: layered rhythms, looping guitars, gripping vocals - Must Be The Holy Ghost.

Power2Give

  Power2Give is an online fundraising platform used by the Arts Council of Winston-Salem to help support a variety of different programs offered by The Council's 19 member organizations. It's a fundraising vehicle that's similar to Kickstarter in which the organization has up to 60 days to raise funds. This year, the Milton Rhodes Innovative Project Grant will provide some matching dollars to help each group meet their goals. One of those projects is funding a feature length film by Authoring Action teen author, and co-director Nonnie Egbuna titled “Day Dreams & Weird Faces”.  And another current example is funding the city's first ever publicly commissioned piece of art by sculptor Vandorn Hinnant. He has created the 10 foot steel monument celebrating our city. “Together We Rise” which will be located in Corpening Plaza downtown.

David Ford also spoke with Dara Silver, Director of Member Services and Grants for the Arts Council of W-S/Forsyth County and Authoring Action Artistic Director Nathan Ross Freeman.  He was joined by former Authoring Action student filmmaker Dionna Daniel.  She is currently a rising sophomore at the California School of the Arts.

You can track the progress of Authoring Action teen author Nonnie Ebula and her film “Day Dreams & Weird Facts” and artist Vandorn Hinnant's sculpture bases created for the Winston-Salem Centennial commemorative sculpture at power2give.org. 

Death and the Robot

  Stop motion is an animation technique where physical objects are moved in small increments, then painstakingly photographed one frame at a time. This creates the illusion of movement when the frames are played in sequence. Some recent examples of this technique would be Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, or Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Recent UNCSA alum Austin Taylor has been inspired by these films and countless others. In his fourth year at the university he created the stop motion animated short, Death and the Robot.

Death and the Robot tells the story of two lonely souls, bored of their dystopian daily grind, that develop a surprising friendship. The film has been in a dozen national and international film festivals including Winston-Salem's RiverRun, to the Tel Aviv International film festival in Israel over the past year, and won best animation at 6 of them.

The score of Death and the Robot was composed by Winston-Salem's Tom Hauser. 

http://youtu.be/0VD3aXl1I68

Jacob Felder

  Jacob Felder is a man of many, many talents. He's a professional dancer, yoga and meditation instructor, circus style acrobatic balancing artist, AND a professional mime. Jacob began mesmerizing audiences as a traditional mime back in 1993.

For the past 12 years his repertoire has expanded to include robotic, living statues and a stilt walking fringe clowns as well. You can catch Jacob the living statue this fall during Raffaldini Vineyard's Fiesta the third Saturday in September. 

http://youtu.be/JA0SppofcS4

Must Be the Holy Ghost

  Winston-Salem based Jared Draughton has been traveling the sonic seas since high school, playing in bands in North Carolina and Brooklyn, New York. His latest musical project finds him playing in a band of one. Surrounded by a wall of amplifiers, a sea of layered vocals, and an army of looping guitars –he calls it Must Be The Holy Ghost.

Jared's album was just released on a deluxe multicolored vinyl. As the record spins you'll be treated to the lush soundscapes of ambient music, the experimentalism of jazz, the rhythmic propulsion of hip hop, and rock n' roll guitars. 

Jared puts on quite a live show, often assisted by psychedelic projected imagery courtesy of Weapons of Mass Projection. You can catch him live on July 4th at the Blind Tiger in Greensboro, and on Saturday, July 12th at the Garage in Winston-Salem. Vinyl copies of “Get Off”  are available at Hippo Records in Greensboro and Reanimator, Earshot, and Underdog Records in Winston-Salem. 

http://youtu.be/GiNulUJWgCg