The Dali Quartet, Kosher USA, Ann Hamilton: habitus

The Dali Quartet: Classical Roots, Latin Souls
Produced by: Karen Smyles

The Dalí Quartet brings its signature mix of Latin American, Classical and Romantic repertoire to stages and audiences of all kinds. The quartet’s passionate energy is poured into everything they do, generating critical and audience acclaim for their Classical Roots, Latin Soul. Based in Philadelphia, the quartet has toured and made appearances for distinguished chamber music and cultural center series in the U.S., Canada and South America.

Trained by world-renowned artists, members of the Dalí Quartet are from Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the US, and have studied at esteemed institutions such as the Cleveland Institute of Music, Yale University, Indiana University Bloomington and the Simón Bolivar Conservatory in Caracas, Venezuela.

The Dalí Quartet is devoted to audience development and to reaching communities of all kinds. The group’s Latin Fiesta Workshops and Family Concerts in both traditional and innovative settings, move listeners – literally! The Dalí Quartet is sought after for master-classes and professional development workshops for students, and opens musical vistas for younger kids with its week-long Any Given Child programs for the Tulsa Public School System.

The quartet’s International Music Festival is an admired chamber music and orchestral program. Founded in 2004, it develops the performance skills of young musicians through the semi-professional level. This past August, Friday Arts visited the camp held during the festival, and had the opportunity to meet many of the young talented participants and staff, and experience the passion they all held for music.

Kosher USA
Produced by: Monica Rogozinski

Roger Horowitz is a food historian and director of the Center for the History of Business, Technology and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware. He is also the author of Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste, Technology, Transformation. His most recent book: Kosher USA- How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food follows the fascinating journey of kosher food through the modern industrial food system.  It examines iconic products such as Coca-Cola and Jell-O and the challenges they faced in securing kosher certification.

Friday Arts meets with Roger at the famous Manischewitz factory in New Jersey, and takes a tour of their varied line of Kosher products. Rabi Hayum explains the challenges that Kosher food production adds to regular food production, and why having high standards of cleanness and close attention to ingredients, puts kosher food production at an advantage in the modern market of food produced for consumers with dietary restrictions.

Ann Hamilton: habitus
Produced by: Michael O’Reilly

Ann Hamilton has been making installations and site-specific work for decades. Her latest installation, habitus, is located at three sites: The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Municipal Pier 9, and on social media. Habitus weaves text, textile, and image together as mediums for an imaginative and tactile exchange between artist and audience.

The museum’s galleries display Hamilton’s selection of historical objects—including literary commonplace books, textile sample books, dolls, and needlework portfolios—borrowed from Philadelphia museums and public collections. Printed passages from published writings referencing the social and material life of textiles, and collected through an open call to the public at a blog on tumblr called cloth-a-commonplace.tumblr.com, will be available free to museum visitors.

In the vast space of Municipal Pier 9 on the Delaware River, visitors can propel a field of gigantic cylindrical curtains to billow to atmospheric proportion. Cloth covers us in sleep, and a folded blanket can tell a story of trade, and a flag can be the symbol of a nation. Cloth is the first thing that touches us at birth, in swaddling clothes, and, in our funeral best, the last thing that touches us at death. Hamilton’s multi-venue exhibition habitus invites us to touch and be touched by the fabric of human experience.