Wide Angle Lunches- Season XII: Making Community
12:30pm – 1:30pm
Individual Tickets: $20 members, $25 nonmembers
Season Pass: $75 members, $95 nonmembers (To purchase Season Pass, call 843-723-9912)
Editor’s Note— What is a community without creativity? The arts are thriving in Charleston, but it would be folly to assume that they will continue to flourish in these uncertain political times. Too often, whether in word or deed, the arts are relegated to the fringe of what is considered essential to healthy human communities. Many of us feel in some visceral way that this is backwards, but how many of us can articulate exactly how, or why?
In Season XII of Wide Angle Lunches, you will hear from five speakers, each a champion of creativity and community, whose lives and work are distinctly dedicated to the making of community through creativity. Whether through music or architecture, poetry or “artivism”, they are tackling society’s ills in profoundly inspirational ways. We invite you to join us for one or all lunches, and promise that you will leave both sated and hungry: armed with examples and a deepened understanding of how the arts are integral to the health and sustainability of peaceful and prosperous communities, and eager to go out into your community and make it stronger through your own creativity. ~Ceara Donnelley
Leah Suárez
Sacred Ground: The Call of Humanity and Art of Bearing Witness
To purchase tickets, call 843-723-9912 or click here.
Almost two years ago, Charleston musician Leah Suárez found herself in Hundisburg, Germany, at the bucolic new home of Wide Angle founder Caroline von Nathusius. The timing of her visit was fortuitous; the tragic shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston had just occurred, and what began as a bit of respite turned into the genesis of her deeply personal and creative witness bearing to commemorate the lives of the Emanuel Nine. One year later, in May 2016, Suárez returned to Germany, joined by collaborating composer/musician, Alex Collier, for the world premiere of the first phase of Sacred Ground. It was held in the Schinkel double-church at the dedication of an outdoor structure, Charleston Place, which was built by students of the American College of the Building Arts and named in solidarity with the Holy City.
This year, Sacred Ground makes its Charleston debut at the Circular Church on 6 May 2017. Two days before what promises to be a moving concert, Wide Anglers have the privilege of hearing directly from Suárez on the story of how the piece came to be, and the role and responsibility of the artist and citizen to bear witness. As an accomplished musician (multilingual singer, valve trombonist, composer and bandleader blazing her own cool alloy genre that’s jazz tempered with a range of other roots traditions), arts entrepreneur (founder of arts production company De La Luz, co-founder and former executive director of Jazz Artists of Charleston and co-producer of the Charleston Jazz Orchestra), and recent seeker of her own Mexican roots and heritage, few are poised to speak as powerfully to the intersection of creativity and community, both in Charleston and around the world.
*Photo provided by Alice Keerey