Valerie Ghent
featured artist at
Nick Ashford’s “Nuttin’ but the Blues”

Reservations: 212.579.0222

Powerhouse recording artist VALERIE GHENT wows audiences with her emotive, evocative voice, piano chops to match, and “soul-stirring, uplifting songs full of vitality and joy.” With her bluesy, funky piano style, stunning 3 ½ octave vocal range, stellar production and engineering skills it’s no surprise that she has toured with music legends Ashford & Simpson and Debbie Harry, and worked with artists as diverse as Dr. Maya Angelou, Nina Simone, Sir Cliff Richard, Defunkt and Billy Preston.

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Susan L Berger
Two Pages Before My Yearbook Entry (Boys and Girls), 2017

White Columns Online : “Wise Child” curated by Zhoe Granger runs to 12/21/19.

Visit the Gallery and see Susan Berger’s work HERE

The theme is based on Monica Furlong of her book: Traveling In and for her thoughts on exploring a more spiritual of consciousness.

Monica Furlong states on the inside cover of Traveling In – part diary, part rambling LSD trip, “the religious man is the one who believes that life is about making some kind of journey”. Throughout Traveling In Furlong explores how a (widely) varying spectrum of Poets, Artists and Philosophers have metaphysically asked, “what is the journey and where does it take us”.

Transformation is an overarching theme throughout Furlongs’ oeuvre. Her biographies include the medieval Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and the 60’s counter culture revolutionary Alan Watts. Her book Visions & Longings: Medieval Women Mystics revolts against a biblical legacy on women. Later in Furlongs life she wrote the Wise Child trilogy – a fantasy world set in medieval Scotland. Not only does transformation take place within her books through subject matter, but on a wider level, the reader feels part of her internal transformation.

What stood out about each of the selected artworks chosen for this project was a resonance with Furlongs’ thoughts on exploring a more spiritual level of consciousness. Each work feels like an inquiry or a break “mid-journey”, not a neatly completed thesis. What I love so much about each work is the courage to Travel Inwards when most of us are constantly trying to distract ourselves with stuff, the consumerist journey through activity.

Boy with Knife photo by Arlene Gottfried, courtesy of of Daniel Cooney Fine Art

Arlene Gottfried’s Mesmerizing Photographs of New York in the 1970’s

by Miss Rosen
Feature Shoot
Nov 5, 2019

…. the ragged, jagged edges of the city didn’t frighten Gottfried. Rather, like a moth to the flame she found herself drawn to the people living on the margins, whose lives often fell between the cracks, and made it her business to create some of the most sensitive, compelling portraits of an era that has all but vanished.

“New York City street photography is genre of photography itself. How many photographs of New York have been made?” gallerist Daniel Cooney asks. “What makes Arlene’s work special is Arlene herself. We see New York as Arlene sees it. It is not the subject matter, because the subject matter is not new. It is Arlene. She was an original.”

Cooney organized Arlene Gottfried: After Dark, which was recently on view at the gallery, spotlighting the artist’s work made in some of the most legendary outposts of the late 1970s and early ‘80s. Whether hanging out at Studio 54, cruising through Times Square, kicking it at Empire Roller Disco, lounging in the ladies room at the Roseland Ballroom, or walking down Christopher Street during Gay Pride, Gottfried captures the beauty of people who persevere against the odds, defying state-sponsored oppression by simply remaining alive.

Read full article HERE

Don’t Act Your Age
by Kate Walter
Oct 26, 2019

Actor/director/teacher Nancy Gabor, 78, has devoted her life to theater. Now she’s sharing her wisdom with fellow seniors through teaching an acting class called “You’re Never Too Old to Play.”

Now in its third year, the three hour class meets weekly in the community room at Westbeth Artists Housing, in Manhattan’s West Village, where Gabor is a resident. The 23 current participants range in age from 60 to 95. The multi-cultural members come from all over New York City– the Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem, Upper West Side, Greenwich Village, and even New Jersey.

Classes with a theater professional
Gabor received training as an actress at Carnegie Mellon and has directed more than 50 off Broadway productions, from new original plays to the classics.

Read entire article Here

Image by Abby Walsh

Beth Soll presents Beth Soll & Company, an ensemble of dancers and musicians, in Dances of Passion and Peace, A Concert of New Dance, Music, and Poetry. This evening of dance premieres will also feature new music by composers Thomas Addison, Nuria Divi, Wendy Griffiths, Josh Rosen, and Stan Strickland, and poetry, both sung and spoken, of Robert Frost, Lin Haire-Sargeant, Langston Hughes, Rumi, and Walt Whitman. Poems will be recited in English, French, Catalan, German, French, and American Sign Language. The 11 dances will be performed by Janet Aisawa, Abby Dias, Kristen Hedberg, Lindsey Miller, Hannah McClean, Marisa Post, and Beth Soll. Singer Eliana Berrean and pianists Wendy Griffiths, Elizabeth Rodgers, and Alex Wu will also perform. Lighting Designer James Kolditz will illuminate the event.

PERFORMANCES
November 22 & 23, 8 PM, at University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street.
General Admission: $18
Tickets at https://passionandpeace.brownpapertickets.com, 1.800.838.3006 or at the door.

Presented by Dance Projects, Inc and co-presented by The Performance Project @ University Settlement

Inspiration for Dances of Passion and Peace came from Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, and his interest in spiritual enlightenment within the context of contrasting, potentially transcendent ways of life: in this case, a life of power, love, and conflict versus a life of supremely quiet meditation.

“Gentle, unusual, luminous…iconic purity…thoughtful, beguiling dance.”
Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice

“This is dance at its most magical, mystical, mysterious.”
Cerina Survant, Chicago Reader
Beth Soll founded Beth Soll & Company in Boston in 1977, presenting regular concerts there and in other US venues (including Westbeth) and internationally, while directing the dance program at MIT for 20 years. After earning a Ph.D in the History and Theory of Modern Dance from the University Professors Program at Boston University in 1999, and a teaching stint at UCSanta Barbara, Soll moved to New York. Now in her seventies and still dancing, Soll’s very individual style has earned enthusiastic praise throughout the years. After 17 years on the waiting list, Soll happily joined the Westbeth community.

More information: bethsollandcompany.org