Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Has a Full Schedule of Events, Chief Curator Rachel Adams Discusses on KIOS-FM

The following program was previously recorded. It's time for another episode of Live and Local from the studios at 33rd and Bert. I'm your local host, Mike Hogan. Thank you for joining me today. Beamer Center for Contemporary Arts facilitates the creation, presentation, and understanding of contemporary art. And my goodness, if you go to bema center.org and start looking at their calendar, there is something happening all the time. So. Here to tell us about some of the things that are coming up. It's Rachel Adams, who is the chief curator and director of programs at Beamer Center for Contemporary Arts. Rachel, great to chat with you again. Thanks for having me, Mike. You are going to be very, very busy. Can you explain what low end is? Sure. Low End is our sound art and experimental music venue, which we opened in 2019. So it's been happening for quite a while. And we bring musicians, performers that are focusing on experimental forms of music, composition to the low end stage approximately twice a month for free concert. And on Thursday, August 6th from 8 to 9.30, you've got a... pretty interesting one here. Yes, August 6th, we have Tyler Eschanal coming. This is going to be a little bit more theatrical. He's presenting a piece of like sort of music and theater that explores speech and communication. He was born with a stutter and so he's kind of working on a piece called actions that talks through all of that. So it's going to be really great. And dealing with a stutter. That's an amazing concept to go after and to go after it musically, isn't it? Yes. Yes. You know, I think that, you know, it's one of those things that maybe a lot of people don't necessarily think about being maybe a creative act. So I'm really interested to see how Tyler is going to kind of present that. through this piece actions. Sure, absolutely. The Saturday that precedes that, you have something called territorial practices. Can you talk about that piece? It's kind of a two-part thing. We are presenting the first part from two to four with our current sound art in residence, Warren Real Rider. And at this territorial practices, which is a conversation about art, sound, land, and fire. At Bemis will kind of be a round table with presentations by several visiting artists. Warren is actually a current fellow at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, so we're co-presenting that with them. and specifically Warren and Gavin Krober, who Gavin is also a fellow in Tulsa and Warren's collaborator on this. So this is a

conversational presentation, sort of opening up a wider dialogue with the community about land-based approaches to art and artistic approaches to territory. So it'll be really interesting. There's several people presenting and talking during that. And then that evening, there'll be another event at the church art house. So it's sort of a two-part day. And you will be no stranger to two-part days because by the time we get to Thursday, August 20th, first of all, you've got your curator-led tour. And honestly, Rachel, I can't think of a better way to see everything at Bemis than to walk around with you who curated these displays and get an explanation. I mean, this sounds like kind of a neat event, really. I really love doing the curator-led tours because I get to kind of give a little bit more in depth, you know, to the audience. They get to ask questions about the exhibitions, about specific artworks. You know, there's stories that I kind of share behind the scenes. So it's a really great way to kind of delve deeper into the exhibitions, especially maybe if you feel like you might not understand. Contemporary art as well as maybe others. You know, you may have a background in it, but you're interested. This is a way to really get sort of a little bit deeper of an education about it, but also ask questions and just experience it yourself. So they are really, really fun to do. And usually we have a really nice group of people walking around with us. And sometimes they become even more conversational, which I really like as well. Sure. And then that is actually followed by another event. Yes, super excited to bring Carolees Coverdale back to Omaha for a low-end performance. Carolees was actually our last low-end performance before COVID. So I think it was March 12th, 2020. She played to maybe like 40 people because it was. you know, starting to be weird. Right. It was an amazing show. But she has been super busy over the past seven years, and we're super excited to bring her back to do a performance just with piano this time. It's a perfect night for people to come out, grab a bite to eat, and then come over for the tour, and then come downstairs and have a drink and listen to Carol East play. It's a nice sort of way to experience. a lot of what Bemis has to offer in one evening. And bring your kids because it's super family friendly. You know, we love having kids in the galleries. And we always have kids that are low in performances because they're all agents. Information about all of these events are at Bemis Center.com. She is the chief curator and director of programs at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Her name is Rachel Adams. Rachel, thanks so much for taking the time. And boy, congratulations on just another set of wonderful presentations. Thanks so much, Mike. It's great to talk to you.