April 2014

Magpie

Art of Food — Produced by Monica Rogozinski

Coming from a Pennsylvania Dutch background and a long line of bakers, Holly Ricciardi opened up Magpie and started serving up sweet and savory pies. Classics like Apple Pie and Chicken-Pot Pie and more original pies like Butterscotch Bourbon and Macaroni & Cheese Pot Pie are all handmade from scratch. Located on South Street you can come in for a slice of pie and a cup of coffee or for a pie making class offered after hours, to learn a new skill and walk away with a freshly baked pie.
Come join Friday Arts this month as we learn more about the art of pie making at Magpie.

Step By Step

Art of Life — Produced by Karen Smyles

In January, Rider University held an audition for emerging choreographers. The competition was open to any choreographer who was in the early stages of his/her professional career, and the school received over 52 applications from as far away as England. It was very difficult narrowing that number down, but fifteen were invited to audition their works on Saturday, January 18th, before a very prestigious panel of dance artists and professionals. The panel consisted of Edward Villella, former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, Douglas Martin, Artistic Director of The American Repertory Ballet, Dr. Kimberly Chandler, Rider Professor, and Kerry Gallagher Rowan, Curator of The American Dance Legacy Institute.

On audition day, five choreographers were selected and invited to show their works in the Rider University Emerging Choreographers’ Showcase, to be held on May 3rd, 2014. The purpose of the project is to showcase aspiring dancemakers and provide a platform to develop their artistic voices, as well as an opportunity to present and develop an audience for their work.

Art of Life takes you behind the scenes of the audition and returns to watch a few of the finalists in the creative process, preparing for the showcase. We learn about the making of movement and how dance has become a very important part of the extensive arts focus on the campus of Rider University’s Westminster College of the arts.

Art and the Unexpected

Art — Produced by Michael O’Reilly

From the outside, Eastern State Penitentiary looks like the last place you would expect to find contemporary art. For over 15 years , however, this decommissioned prison in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia, in addition to its historical and yearly Halloween haunted house duties, has hosted all manner of art and artists. And the art has often been about prisons, the justice system or incarceration itself. Amenities like electricity and heat within the abandoned structure itself are scarce, so the art needs to take into account the harsh rigors of what is essentially a stabilized ruin. The best art hosted there uses these elements in the artwork itself. Take Nick Cassway’s piece about juveniles in the United States sentenced for execution. He made portraits of these juveniles by treating pieces of steel in a special way so that the portraits of these juveniles only became apparent as the metal, exposed to the elements, started to decay. In the ART segment this month, we talk with Sean Kelley, Senior Vice-President of ESP and head of the committee that adjudicates proposals for artwork sent in every year to the prison. We talk to Nick about making art using industrial materials typically meant for highway signage and we visit with him in his studio as he quickly and deftly fashions art from unexpected things, for unexpected places.