Pre-Conference Event: Food Policy Talk, March 13th, 2012 at 7pm
Venue; The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, 44 Charlton Street, New York, NY 10014
Annual Conference: March 29-April 2, 2012, NYC

New York City is delighted to welcome The International Association of Culinary Professionals, who will gather on March 29-April 2, 2012 for their Annual Conference - this year entitled The Fashion of Food. Co-founded by Julia Child, the IACP connects creative and talented culinary professionals who inspire, celebrate, and shape the world table. IACP members include chefs, restaurateurs, wine professionals, teachers, writers, photographers, stylists, marketers, and many others. This year marks the first IACP conference in NYC in over 30 years! More information can be found at: www.iacp.com

On Wednesday March 13th, the IACP presents a live event and webcast about food and food policy at The Jerome L Greene Performance Space, 44 Charlton St., NYC. This pre-conference event will take place at 7 pm(doors open 6:30pm).

The evening will feature a panel of notable expertise, including introductory remarks by Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer; Kim Kessler, Food Policy Coordinator in NYC Mayors Office; Michael Anthony, Executive Chef, Gramercy Tavern and Marcel Van Ooyen, Executive Director of GrowNYC. Author Peter Kaminsky will moderate the distinguished panel. Discussion will explore critical food policy issues from school lunches to greenmarkets.

The event will be highlighted by local beer and wine from Brooklyn Brewery and Brooklyn Oenology, as well as mouthwatering food from Jimmy's No. 43. Tickets are $10 for IACP members, $20 for non-members.

Panelist Bios:

 Kim Kessler, Food Policy Coordinator in NYC Mayors Office

A mother and a lawyer, Kim Kessler views her role as Food Policy Coordinator at the Mayor’s Office as one of advocacy, both internally within city government and also more broadly. She believes strongly that everyone should have the ability feed themselves and their families healthfully and that eating healthy food should not be something that takes extraordinary efforts to do; that healthy food should be an accessible, affordable option for everyone.

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Marcel Van Ooyen is the Executive Director of GrowNYC and former Chief of Staff to City Council Member Gifford Miller and Legislative Director for the City Council. Mr. Van Ooyen took leadership of GrowNYC in 2006. Over the last 5 years at Marcel’s initiating, GrowNYC has vastly expanded its efforts with new initiatives including: Fresh Bodegas, Fresh Pantries, YUM, Youthmarket and the adoption of management of the Wholesale Greenmarket, as well as introduction of pilot distribution systems. GrowNYC’s EBT initiative is considered a National model, with $600,000 in EBT sales in 2011. By responding to a diverse community and ramping up efforts, affordable healthy fresh food is getting into the hands that need it most across the city. Marcel has also spearheaded the development of new programs in response to needs in our city, including Grow to Learn NYC: Citywide School Gardens Initiative, a public public-private partnership with the Mayor’s Fund to Advance NYC created to inspire, promote and facilitate the creation of sustainable school gardens in every New York City public school.

Marcel earned degrees in Social Ecology from the University of California Irvine and from the Seattle University School of Law specializing in Environmental Law. After graduating from law school, he worked for the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council in Washington State, where he conducted the environmental review of proposed power plants.

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Michael Anthony was selected to be the Executive Chef of Gramercy Tavern in 2006. Prior to joining GT, he was the Executive Chef at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and earlier the co-executive chef of Blue Hill in Manhattan where he was recognized for his delicious, simple and straightforward cuisine with a vigorous commitment to using local, seasonal ingredients. Before Blue Hill, he served as chef de cuisine at March. In 1991, Mike went to culinary school in France, and then worked at some of the worlds most celebrated kitchens, including Jacques Cagna, Michel Guerard, l'Arpege, l'Astrance and Daniel. He lived in Toyoko working under the guidance of ShizuyoShima at Bistro Shima. Mike grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and graduated form Indiana University with degrees in Japanese, Business and French.

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Peter Kaminsky is the former Underground Gourmet for New York magazine, and his Outdoors column ran for twenty years in The New York Times. He is a longtime contributor to Food & Wine. He is the author of Pig Perfect: Encounters with Remarkable Swine, and The Moon Pulled Up an Acre of Bass. He has collaborated on numerous cookbooks with Sheila Lukins, Daniel Boulud, Gray Kunz, Francis Mallmann, Michel Richard, and others. He is the former Managing Editor of National Lampoon and creator and executive producer of The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song (presented at The White House). His forthcoming book is Culinary Intelligence: The Art of Eating Healthy (And Really Well).

Above is the first half of the two hour broadcast of the radio drama, "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Aired Sept. 14th 2012 on 93.9FM.
Download part two here.

Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the original publication and to herald its place as a seminal work in the American literary tradition, The Greene Space at WNYC and WQXR has been presenting a multiplatform exploration of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

For more videos of this performance and project

The most noted two events among this series is the radio drama adaptation of Hurston's 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, performed on February 29th and March 1st, both sold out shows. Set in the 1920s, Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of Janie Crawford -- free-spirited and in search of life and her authentic self -- as she undertakes an unexpected journey that includes marriages to three different men, challenging the morals and social expectations of the small Southern town that serves as the narrative backdrop.

The play, which can be watched on thegreenspace.org, is directed by Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson and adapted by award-winning writer Arthur Yorinks, who has written and directed for theater, opera, film dance and radio. The exceptional cast included the first African American woman to receive a Tony Award for "Best Performance by a Lead Actress in a Play," Phylicia Rashad. The performance also stars Tony Award Winners Leslie Uggams (Hallelujah, Baby!; Thoroughly Modern Millie) as Grandmother and Chuck Cooper (The Life; Caroline, or Change) as Joe Starks, Roslyn Ruff as Janie, and Brandon Dirden as Tea Cake. The presentation also features original composition by blues master Bill Sims, Jr., with sound design by Ricardo Fernandez and lighting design by Jeannette Yew.

The radio play, which The New York Times notes as a "presentation of Their Eyes Were Watching God that American audiences have never heard or seen before," is highlighted in cross-cultural sources throughout the web including: The New Yorker, The Root, The Millions, Urban Radio Nation, Harlem Views, Playbill and Cherchez la Curl.

Rashad discuss her role in the adaptation in her interview on CNN's Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien.

LISTEN to Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Seven Guitars, Stick Fly), director of the radio play, discuss on The Leonard Lopate Show how teaming up with cultural driving forces such as Indira Etwaroo, Executive Producer at The Greene Space, became a blessing for artists like himself and Zora Neale Hurston, delivering to them a "platform" to produce their creative message.

As part of the series, The Greene Space team produced "A Journey to Eatonville" that explores the Florida town that Zora Neale Hurston called home. There the team unearthed the history of Jim Crowe laws and the lives of African Americans in the deep South. Explore with The Greene Space as they interview the people of Eatonville who helped reveal stories of Hurston's legacy.

LEARN from the brains behind the project how the Zora Neale Hurston 75th anniversary commemoration developed from an idea into a multidimensional celebration. All on Their Eyes Were Watching God video page.

SERIES EVENTS:

WOMEN WRITERS ON THE HORIZON with Alice Walker, Sonia Sanchez and Ruby Dee. Moderated by Zora’s niece, Lucy Anne Hurston. 
Wednesday, March 28 at 7pm

 Watch the Live Webcast. 

 Videos for Their Eyes Were Watching God

JOIN THE CONVERSATION
The 75th Anniversary of Zora Neale Hurston’s
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD

Community Ambassadors:

Cherine Anderson
Brenda Greene
Angie Hancock
Gabrielle Johnson
Troy Johnson
Travers Johnson
Neyda Matinez
Adenike T. Olanrewaju
Clarence Reynolds
Patrick Riley
Tracey Smith
Shay Stevens
Shirley Taylor

The Greene Space hosted an evening with Artistic Director of SITI Company Anne Bogart. To mark the launch of Bogart's new book, Conversations with Anne, a document that captures the series of interviews with major artists and free-thinkers for over twenty-five years, she has a live conversation with two playwrights: two-time Pulitzer Prize-finalist and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Sarah Ruhl (The Clean House, Eurydice, Dead Man's Cell Phone) and her mentor from Brown University, Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive, The Baltimore Waltz, The Mineola Twins).  

Intimate like all conversations with Anne Bogart, the discussion revealed how and why the two playwrights learned from each other, among thought-provoking ideas and observations shared between Bogart, Ruhl and Vogel. The evening concluded with Anne Bogart signing copies of her upcoming publication Conversations with Anne, and Paula Vogel and Sarah Ruhl signing copies of their plays, all available from TCG Books.

The Greene Space has partnered with Theatre Communications Group to present TCG Playwrights in Conversation.

Get the latest version of Flash to view this video.

Excerpt from The Greene Space radio drama, "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Scene, Janie Returns to Eatonville.

Part of the 75th Anniversary celebration of Zora Neale Hurston's novel.

Marc Primus, curator and historian, speaks on the legacy of Langston and Zora and the role they've played in African American arts and social justice in America.

Primus provides insight to how Langston and Zora clashed over the collaboration Mule Bone despite their common ideologies.

Both writers sought to represent the voices of Black "folks" and in a Literary canon Primus describes as Black folklore. Primus states, "Whoever we are, we are acceptable to [Langston]...We are beautiful and ugly too." Zora was also capable of hearing someone's message with such clarity that she could represent and reflect the speaker voice with pure accuracy.

However, they ultimately failed at "Bone of Contention," a story began by Zora and Langston as co-writers that should have told the "real story" of Black folklore. Primus also describes how a wealthy, white patron of both Zora and Langston named Charlotte Mason became a catalyst to the two artists' failed partnership.

Watch the video to hear more.

Whether or not an artist should compromise their values in order to fund their work was a main source of contention between Zora and Langston. Participate or join the conversation when this topic will be discussed in modern day context with Leonard Lopate at Artists and the Business of Art.

Excerpt of Marc Primus was recorded during All Ears with Terrance McKnight, live in The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WQXR.

Part of the 75th anniversary commemoration of the original publication Their Eyes Were Watching God. To herald its place as a seminal work in the American literary tradition, The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC and WQXR presents a multiplatform exploration of the novel by Zora Neale Hurston. Learn more about the full series here.

To mark the 75th anniversary of Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Greene Space transformed into a Harlem Renaissance-style salon with live music and readings.

Award-winning actor and poet, Carl Hancock Rux and and award-winning actress, writer and director, Patrice Johnson read excerpts from Zora Neale Hurston’s writing. Singers Toshi Reagon, Nona Hendryx, Martha Redbone, Marcelle Lashley and KimberlyNichole performed blues and soul music for a sold out crowd.  

Nona Hendryx debuted her song "Foot Prints in the Sky", which was inspired by Their Eyes Were Watching God.  

The Greene Space presented a conversation on the new take on Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire. Joining us were two-time Golden Globe nominee Blair Underwood, in his Broadway debut as Stanley, Daphne Rubin-Vega (Rent) as Stella, Nicole Ari Parker ("Soul Food") as Blanche, Wood Harris ("The Wire") as Mitch and Director Emily Mann (Artistic Director of Princeton's esteemed McCarter Theatre). We also heard from Executive Producers Stephen Byrd and Alia Jones of Front Row Productions, which presented the hit 2008 Broadway revival of Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Streetcar brings a whole new rhythm to Williams’ enduring portrait of sex, class and secrets in one of America's most fascinating and diverse cities.

What is the life of an artist really like in New York City?

WNYC’s Leonard Lopate convened with two panels of gallery owners and artists to discuss the ecosystem of the New York art world in 2012. The award-winning arts and culture host continued his tradition of interviewing tastemakers, creators and innovative thinkers outside his regular studio and in the station’s downtown, street-level live venue, The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space.

The first panel included Sean Kelly, a top gallery owner, Carter Foster, a curator for the Whitney Museum of American Art, and artists, Pat Steir, and Fred Wilson. They explored a wide range of topics that included: the current state of the art market in light of the economic downturn and the impact of the exponential growth of art fairs.

The second panel consisted of four artists at various stages of their careers: Peter Campus, Joan Snyder, Ryan McGinness and Jean Shin. They compared notes on surviving as an artist in expensive New York. Topics included things like having to take a non-art job to pay the bills, studio space hassles and the politics of sustaining a career in NY.

Q2 Music celebrates America's great iconoclastic composers when San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas brings his "American Mavericks" tour to New York. In anticipation of their Carnegie Hall concerts, composer John Adams and Meredith Monk, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, pianist Jeremy Denk, and other guests joined Tilson Thomas for an evening of performance and conversation around the music of Charles Ives, John Adams and other maverick composers. WQXR's David Garland and Q2 Music's Nadia Sirota hosted.

Q2 Music celebrates America's great iconoclastic composers when San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas brings his "American Mavericks" tour to New York. In anticipation of their Carnegie Hall concerts, composer John Adams and Meredith Monk, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, pianist Jeremy Denk, and other guests joined Tilson Thomas for an evening of performance and conversation around the music of Charles Ives, John Adams and other maverick composers. WQXR's David Garland and Q2 Music's Nadia Sirota hosted.

After 75 years, Zora Neale Hurston's novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God," still resonates in the hearts and minds of contemporary audiences, but it had particular significance for black women writers and artists who were working at the time of its rediscovery. The Greene Space convened three luminaries who are all intimately connected to the novel -- Alice Walker, Sonia Sanchez and Ruby Dee -- to share their stories and describe how they saw Janie and Zora's horizons on their own journeys. Zora Neale Hurston's niece Lucy Anne Hurston, author of Speak, So You Can Speak Again: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, served as the evening's moderator.

Ana Gasteyer performed her song "I'm Hip" which pokes fun at the ever changing crowds in her Brooklyn neighborhood. 

Andrew Bird's brand of indie rock doesn't sound like anyone else's. The multi-instrumentalist, singer and composer uses digital delay and electronics to blend the sounds of pop and chamber music. Recently, Bird composed his first-ever film score for the movie Norman (hailed as a probing, thoughtful score by The New York Times), contributed to the soundtrack of The Muppets, and collaborated with inventor Ian Schneller on Sonic Arboretum, an installation at New York's Guggenheim Museum and Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Our audience was treated to a special, once in a lifetime, experience during the Knights performance in The Greene Space.  Sitting arms length from the musicians, the audience was able to feel a part of the orchestra.

The Knights sat not on our stage, but directly on the floor where audience members could immerse themselves in the music from one of New York's most innovative and acclaimed new chamber orchestras.  

Hosted by Jeff Spurgeon, The Knights presented a varied program including Copland's beloved Appalachian Spring; selections from Peruvian composer Gabriela Lena Frank's Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout; and Debussy's orchestral arrangement of Satie's Gymnopédie, as featured on the ensemble's new album, The Knights: A Second of Silence.

Watch as The Knights perform their piece "Coqueteos" from Gabriela Lena Frank's Leyendas below and click here to watch the full performance.

The epic tale of Janie Crawford, whose quest for identity takes her on a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life's joys and sorrows, and come home to herself in peace. When first published in 1937, this novel about a proud, independent black woman was generally dismissed by male reviewers. Out of print for almost thirty years, but since its reissue in paperback edition by the University of Illinois Press in 1978, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD has become the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the original publication and to herald its place as a seminal work in the American literary tradition, The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC and WQXR will present a multiplatform exploration of the novel and its influence with “The 75th Anniversary of Zora Neale Hurston’s THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD,” reaching audiences around the corner and around the world. This series aims to honor and explore this seminal work in the African American literary canon: the second-wave of African American female writers artists; and Hurston’s contemporaries during the Harlem Renaissance, including a focus on the relationship between Hurston and Langston Hughes.

The results are in. VOTE HERE!

The top three musicians from the Bronx Battle of the Boroughs are:

• Tape Deck Museum (BX1)
• Chris Santiago (BX4)
• BODOMA Garifuna Cultural Band (BX5)

View their performances, as well as the entire battle, below. Who do you want to see represent the Bronx in the Ultimate Battle? Vote by clicking here or by texting the band's QN code to 69866. Voting closes at 11:59 PM on Sunday, April 22nd and the winner will be annouanced on Monday, April 23rd.

Tape Deck Museum (BX1)

Chris Santiago (QN7)

BODOMA Garifuna Cultural Band (QN8)

Watch All 5 Bands:

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the original publication and to herald its place as a seminal work in the American literary tradition, The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC and WQXR will present a multiplatform exploration of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

This video is part of a longer documentary being created by The Greene Space team.

Cameron Carpenter performs his transpired version of Percy Grainger's "Colonial Song" live on Q2 Music in The Greene Space.