INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Cultural Vision Awards 2007

People in Indianapolis used to actually brag about how nothing new ever got started here. The idea was that this town waited until ideas were tested elsewhere and then, ahem, we took the best ones for our own.

So much for early adopters.

NUVO started the Cultural Vision Awards because we knew that not only was this bad strategy for the city’s future, it wasn’t true. As our writers traversed Indianapolis, we were constantly finding people and organizations that weren’t waiting to hear about what was happening somewhere else — they were innovating on their own.

The only problem was that not enough people were finding out about the good works happening here.

This year, NUVO, along with our media partner WISH-TV Channel 8, celebrates another class of Cultural Vision Award honorees. Their ideas are an inspiration; their stories will make you glad you live here.

The Buselli Wallarab Jazz Orchestra

Mark Buselli and Brent Wallarab, founders

“There’s nothing like 16 real live musicians with blood pulsing through their veins, blowing air through instruments right at you,” says Mark Buselli, co-founder with Brent Wallarab of the Buselli Wallarab Jazz Orchestra. His eyes sparkle when he says this — he’s felt it, he knows.

Buselli and Wallarab met in Bloomington in 1994. Both were writing jazz compositions intended for big bands — and both were restless, tired of playing the same arrangements as everyone else. “We wanted a different approach,” Buselli says, “and we wanted the band to have a different sound.”

So instead of the conventional big band set-up with five saxes, four trombones and four trumpets, Buselli and Wallarab tried a different configuration, cutting the sax and trombone sections by one each, adding a French horn and allowing for a flugelhorn. Then they moved to Indianapolis, where their band has become a mainstay on the local music scene for over a decade.

In a city that claims a rich jazz heritage, the BWJO is a local treasure. Not only have they won themselves an international reputation through their recordings of original tracks, the BWJO has been a leader in jazz education and has also helped to preserve jazz history by resurrecting and performing classic jazz charts through its off-shoot, the Midcoast Swing Orchestra.

At the center of the band’s dynamism are the talented players that Buselli and Wallarab have managed to attract to this project. “Without the players in our band, the music is nothing but notes on a page,” Buselli says. “You can’t take an average musician to play what we’ve written.” And so Buselli and Wallarab take pride in creating a musical platform that allows for everyone in the band to shine. “We’re going to make sure somebody that’s playing for us has every opportunity to express themselves creatively.”

The Buselli Wallarab Jazz Orchestra is trying to do for jazz what the Indianapolis Symphony does for classical music: provide the community with a high quality and consistent source for a culturally vital artform. In the case of the BWJO, this means original big band jazz, a kind of music that’s as American as the stars and stripes. “I’ve been told you’ve got to have three things when you play,” Mark Buselli observes. “Great music, good pay, or you’ve got to have a great hang — good places and people to play with. If you have two of those out of three, you’ve got a good situation. Then every once in a while you get all three and it’s like being in heaven. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

— David Hoppe

 

John Clark

Sagamore Institute for Policy Research

Located next door to a National Guard recruiting station on Indiana Avenue just south of Michigan Street are the annex office spaces of the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research. Stop in on any given day and you will hear a diverse mix of tunes wafting from the office of Senior Fellow John Clark. Gypsy music from the Balkans, Portuguese fado, bebop from Kansas City, Cuban salsa, a Mozart sonata or a current remix of a classic Beatles tune all figure into Clark’s eclectic taste for this universal language, an artform that moves human emotion by transcending time and political, religious, ethnic and national boundaries.
The power of transcendence is something Clark emulates with his superior intellect. Whether he is facilitating a public conversation with visiting journalists from Turkey, mayors from Israel and Palestine, or a group of high school students who have just viewed a current film about Iraq, Clark is a maestro in the Socratic method of engaging people in a meaningful exchange of ideas. Through intensive research Clark has also helped to inform a regional conversation about the impact of Hispanic immigration on Central Indiana.

John Clark is a major proponent of the notion of “glocalization,” or the power of trans-local partnerships, which he describes as a new model of public diplomacy and foreign aid. Central Indiana is rich with organizations and individuals that aspire to change the world through international outreach. International Center of Indianapolis, Franciscan Center for Global Studies, Christel DeHaan, Ambassadors for Children, IU-Kenya Partnership, Rotary, Kiwanis International (to name only a few) — each contributes to a symphony of actors striving for the kind of sustained social change that occurs through an intimate, local-to-local exchange of people, talent, resources and goodwill.

Well-credentialed, Clark received his master’s and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, authored several books and published countless articles; he chooses to share his gifts with the community. “Provocate” is Clark’s latest enterprise designed to connect a needy world with those eager to serve. Visit his Web site at www.provocate.org to learn about the plethora of local opportunities to become a more informed glocal citizen and join in the growing chorus of concerned individuals with a willingness to change the world by thinking out loud.

—Charlie Wiles

 

Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival

Pauline Moffat, executive director

For some, the annual Fringe Festival is a misnomer. After all, what can be “fringe” about an event that basically takes over a significant chunk of the downtown for an entire month — not to mention the monthly FringeFriday events that have proved a magnet for audiences. In just a few years (the original Fringe was in 2005), the IFF has altered the arts calendar itself, moving it up a few weeks — giving patrons and adventurous theater-goers something exciting to look forward to in August (besides elephant ears).

Pauline Moffat, who was born in Melbourne and grew up in Sydney, Australia, took the Fringe reins last year and saw attendance double. Since then she has expanded the vision to include a film festival, while increasing the visibility of the Fringe with the FringeFriday performances. Also on her list of improvements is to increase the number of street performers, so that Fringe can continue to take over Massachusetts Avenue and beyond with weeks of spirited, creative and downright weird activity. Moffat says also that “this year our goal is to return $l00,000 to the performers.”

For those of you not yet familiar, here’s the briefing: Fringe Festival, based on similar festivals held worldwide, features 10 days of theater, along with a VisualFringe program, a 36-show Youth Theatre, the aforementioned short film festival and free public events. It’s an unjuried and uncensored showcase, and if that isn’t egalitarian enough, 100 percent of the admission revenue goes back to the performers ($76,000 last year). Groups and individuals come from all over the world to perform at Fringe. This year, we can look forward to performers from Minneapolis, Orlando, Los Angeles, New York and unique performances from Italy, Israel, Australia, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Canada. Local theater groups will once again participate, including Arden Theatre and the People’s Playhouse. For Moffat, the biggest delight has been that “IndyFringe has moved so quickly from a local festival … buzz about Indianapolis being such a hospitable city has spread so quickly in the Fringe world.”

Another innovation this year is the first Fringe Festival/NUVO new play contest — the results of which will be announced later this month.

Future plans for the Fringe Fest, according to Moffat, include “working closely with the Canadian Fringe Festival Association and U.S. Fringe Festival Association to develop a 2008 regional touring circuit, which would include Columbus, Ohio and new festivals in Detroit, Mich., Windsor, Mich., and across the border to Ontario … we wish to attract the best in the world to IndyFringe so our local performers and audiences can benefit from the experience.”

Moffat and the Fringefesters are still looking for volunteers. See www.indyfringe.org.

—Jim Poyser

 

Indiana Equality

Jon Keep, president

It was a stunning development. An extremely close call followed by a huge collective sigh of relief from Indiana’s LGTB community and other stakeholders when the Indiana House of Representatives Rules and Legislative Procedures Committee voted five to five on April 3 to defeat Senate Resolution 7 (SJR 7), an amendment to the Indiana Constitution banning same-sex marriage. For many, it was also a defining moment for a population segment that has felt marginalized but can now use its growing political clout and influence to overcome its adversaries and empower its own.

Leading the charge to defeat the amendment was Indiana Equality, a statewide, bi-partisan coalition of organizations and individual members, which promotes “equality and justice for all LGTB Hoosiers.” Using a strategic approach, which began in 2005 when the Legislature first passed the amendment, the organization asked members to operate on a grass-roots level to contact their legislators and write letters to editors, formed alliances with domestic violence groups and other allies, and maintained a strong presence in the Statehouse through paid lobbyists who worked with legislators of both parties and other lobbyists on IE’s behalf. Probably the most successful element of the group’s strategy was the education it provided regarding how the amendment as written with unclear language could effect others, such as unmarried couples, the elderly, children and victims of domestic violence.

Hearing IE’s message that the amendment could also effect employee domestic partner benefits were some of Indiana’s largest companies, including Eli Lilly and Co., Cummins, Wellpoint, Emmis Communications and Dow AgroScience.

Indiana Equality may now reasonably lay claim to being the premier political action and lobbying organization representing the interests of Indiana’s LGTB population.

Founded in 2003, IE’s mission is “to secure basic human rights for Indiana’s LGBT citizens,” and has two primary objectives, “amending Indiana’s Civil Rights law to protect against discrimination based on either sexual orientation or gender identity, and ensuring that relationship protections for LGTB couples and families are not outlawed by the amendment [SJR 7] to the State Constitution.” To insure the latter goal, IE has already begun to organize against a referendum on the measure that could still go before the voters in ’08 if lawmakers introduce and approve it next spring.

Led by Jon Keep, Indiana Equality is a nonprofit 501 (c) (4) Indiana corporation. It works with civil rights groups, LGTB organizations and other partners to form regional steering committees across Indiana, representing their community on the IE board of directors.

For more information about Indiana Equality write to ie@indianaequality.org or visit www.indianaequality.org.

—Tom Alvarez

 

Sally Irvin

Indiana Canine Assistant Network

Five years ago when ICAN founder Sally Irvin first approached Indiana prisons, the response was something like, “Who is this crazy dog lady?”

Irvin wanted to start a program modeled after one begun 28 years ago by a nun in Washington state, in which prisoners were put in charge of training service dogs for people with disabilities.

“They finally realized I wasn’t going away,” she says with a laugh.

Now, three area prisons are enthusiastically embracing the Indiana Canine Assistant Network (formerly ICAAN), and over 40 “graduates” have been placed as either service dogs to the disabled or in-home therapy dogs. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. The program is as much about process as product.

Irvin, the nonprofit’s executive director, sees the dogs as catalysts for positive change on many levels. Offenders live with, care for and train their potential service dogs for nearly two years, requiring a level of commitment they may never have known before. The skills required often end up overlapping with life skills.

For example, the handlers learn to use positive reinforcement for desired behaviors, setting the dogs up for success. Each dog has a unique personality, just like people, and the handlers are encouraged to play to their particular dog’s strengths. This approach may be one that the offenders have never before experienced — one that, as Irvin points out, translates handily to interpersonal interactions.

The families receiving an ICAN dog meanwhile undergo an intensive application process. Most ICAN clients are children and adolescents, many with mobility issues. Some have developmental disabilities like autism or Down’s syndrome. Each client is carefully matched with a specific dog that meets his or her needs.

When the training process is complete and the dog is ready, the offender has the responsibility of teaching the recipient family how to handle the dog. Here again, Irvin points to some unquantifiable transformations as the offender and client team up for two weeks before the final handover.

“We see those preconceived notions just get blown out of the water,” she says. The recipients quickly see beyond their stereotypes of criminals, realizing that their dog’s trainer is a decent person who made a terrible mistake.

Handlers in turn begin to understand how fortunate they are to be able-bodied. “They start to say, ‘This person goes through so much just to get here this morning. I have to train the next dog to be even better,’” Irvin says.

The public can see ICAN canine trainee/handler teams in action during monthly prison tours called “If These Dogs Could Talk.” Registration is required a week in advance at www.icaan.net.

—Shawndra Miller

 

Betty Perry

Metropolitan Youth Orchestra

A little over 20 years ago, musician Betty Perry had the idea to create a program using music as a conduit to provide Indianapolis inner-city youth with opportunities to gain life skills necessary for future economic and social stability, prompting her to found the Indianapolis Metropolitan Youth Orchestra (MYO).

Since 1995, Perry’s vision and her commitment to the young men and women who participate in MYO has provided both music instruction and personal development opportunities to more than 100 Marion County students each year. Every week the students and 10 teachers come together to create a unique learning environment, where communal efforts are rewarded with self-confidence, increased family communication, academic excellence, an appreciation for the arts and friendship.

Perry’s youth in the Bronx prompted both her love of music and her appreciation for how music can lift children out of their circumstances and open doors that are quite frequently closed to families with limited economic means. At a time when most schools are reducing or eliminating their music programs, the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra is filling an artistic and academic gap with Perry at the helm.

Based on the Suzuki method of string instruction, students receive lessons that incorporate instructions (for violin, viola, cello and bass) that develop the physical skills to master the chosen instrument as well as instructions regarding music concepts. Perry also brings members of the community together in collaborative efforts that build connections between the children participating in MYO and the Indianapolis music community as a whole.

In 2004, MYO became part of the Indianapolis Philharmonic Orchestra, thanks in part to the financial and administrative support IPO could provide. Students also work in partnership with Butler University’s Community Arts School. For the past three years, college students from this program have worked with MYO members, teaching private lessons, coaching chamber ensembles, conducting orchestra rehearsals and assisting with recitals, adjudications, set-up and administration.

The diversity of the MYO teachers’ backgrounds is a strong foundation from which many creative ideas and projects, interesting collaborations and healthy friendships have grown. The MYO staff is drawn from a varied pool of professionals, from conductors and solo and orchestral performers to educators and business professionals. With these types of collaborative efforts, Betty Perry and the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of Indianapolis have given thousands of Indianapolis children exposure, training and appreciation of classical music, as well as an appreciation for the kinds of opportunities and rewards skill, practice and diligence provide.

For more details: 317-334-3251 or www.philharmonicindy.org.

—Laura McPhee

 

Bill Ryder

Artist

Along with a world-class football team and motor speedway, Indianapolis is endowed with a world-class sculptor and artist in Bill Ryder. Ryder is an artist and grass-roots activist whose approach to art sets an example for the whole community. He has chosen to live in a stressed urban neighborhood in an attempt to revitalize it from within. Sweeping the sidewalk when young kids embark on the school bus is above all a daily ritual designed to instill pride and dignity and promote a solid work ethic. And he has spared no effort to expose neighborhood youth to art, hoping it will turn into a collective healing experience.

Few of us will ever gain the type of independence achieved by Bill Ryder. Truly a “self-made” man, Ryder has established a lifestyle for himself where he is in control of his destiny. As an artist he controls all aspects of his trade, from the mining of the raw materials for his exquisite “found object” sculptures to the gallery where his work is displayed. His studio, near the corner of 34th and Clifton, is where he lives, creates and exhibits his artwork.

“I try to work the weather,” he said in a recent interview. While most of us are challenged to keep pace with a calendar, e-mail, snail mail, cell phone, Blackberry, etc., Ryder has managed to free himself from constraints imposed by man and takes on the opportunities and challenges provided by the forces of nature, experiencing life on a slightly different plane. He accomplishes this with integrity and has not lost touch with his creative muse.

Much of his work is inspired by jazz, which Ryder describes as a salve that coated his body and helped to relieve the pain inflicted by the racism he experienced throughout his life. His many tributes to the likes of John Coltrane and Charlie Parker as well as “The Unknown Blues Singer” emphasize the unique contribution of African-Americans to the culture of this nation. Ryder’s deliberate decision to produce large-scale pieces can be understood as a search for ethnic visibility and recognition. If his entire life has been a struggle to overcome social prejudices, no wonder his work depicts this important dimension of the black experience.

Ryder’s technique fits into an aesthetic of recycling. One could claim that his interest in found objects originated out of scarcity. The true reason is of a spiritual nature. Such a method is both a ferocious critique of our consumer society and a strong environmental statement — “dead” objects are reincarnated into art while this “scavenger” attitude calls for a change in our worldview.

Bill Ryder’s art depicts a philosophy in action, a true art of living.

—Frédéric Allamel and Charlie Wiles

 

Tonic Ball

Ken Honeywell, founder

When Ken Honeywell and some friends founded Tonic Ball in 2002, the concept took a little explaining: Local performers in rock and related genres are invited to set aside the Friday night before Thanksgiving for a revue-style tribute to a pre-selected songwriter, with proceeds benefiting a food-rescue charity.

“The first year, we had to beg people to play,” Honeywell says of that inaugural event at Fountain Square’s Radio Radio nightclub, which featured the music of country-rock cult hero Gram Parsons and raised $4,600 for local not-for-profit Second Helpings.

By the time of last year’s fifth edition, the music had expanded to a 30-act, dual-venue smack down: Talking Heads covers at Radio Radio vs. Prince covers at the neighboring Fountain Square Theatre Building. The accompanying Tonic Gallery visual arts auction, begun in 2003 and overseen by graphic designer Paul Wilson, had become an attraction all its own at the nearby Wheeler Arts Community. Together, the activities attracted more than 1,000 visitors to Fountain Square and raised more than $25,000 for Second Helpings.

The intervening years have seen Tonic Ball grow into a mark-your-calendar night for the Central Indiana music scene, with local luminaries like Jennie DeVoe, Otis Gibbs, the Vulgar Boatmen, Extra Blue Kind, Arminta, Ann McWilliams and the Zero Boys showing up to pay homage to global luminaries like Elvis Costello, Neil Young and the Rolling Stones.

The idea was inspired by the Losers Lounge, a New York City performance series that organizes musicians into tributes to various artists. Honeywell, a music lover who otherwise is an author and a partner with Well Done Marketing, wanted to do something similar in Indianapolis, so he went in search of a cause.

“At the time, I couldn’t think of anything more important than feeding people,” he says, citing statistics about hunger and waste — one pound of food thrown away each day for every man, woman and child in the United States.

Thus, he discovered Second Helpings, with which he had no previous connection. The organization collects about 100,000 pounds of unwanted food each month from restaurants, groceries, caterers, food distributors and the like, and reformats that food into 50,000 free meals that are provided six days a week to hungry children, adults and senior citizens at shelters, day care centers, schools and other facilities around the city. At its business and kitchen facility on Southeastern Avenue, Second Helpings also conducts a job training program that prepares underprivileged people for careers in the culinary field.

Thanks to Tonic Ball, Second Helpings has gained donors and supporters in segments of society that are often overlooked by charity fund-raisers. Even some of its full-time staffers have gotten involved in the planning and execution of the annual music event.

“It’s been a huge labor of love for a lot of people,” Honeywell says.

—Scott Hall

 

Joe Vuskovich

Yats Restaurants

In a city of people who keep their personalities in check, Joe Vuskovich is a big guy, larger than life. He comes by his stature honestly, and I don’t mean just his height, his compelling personality or his wildly popular restaurant, Yats. No, everybody knows Vuskovich because Vuskovich is good to everybody. When we called up this year’s CVA winners, the one person almost everyone knew was Vuskovich. ICAN even has a dog named Yats.

A former NUVO restaurant critic says an encounter with Vuskovich “is like a brush with a small tornado.”

As business partner and friend John Byrne puts it: “Yats, like Joe, doesn’t put on airs. It feeds the masses [350, sometimes 450, people a day and with not one off-street parking spot!]. A chicken in every pot? How about a plate-full of soul-healing goodness that will stick to your ribs for hours and might just help restore your faith in mankind. And all for $5.50 a plate.”

Vuskovich, who hails from New Orleans, first got into the restaurant business when he was 19 when he and his brother opened a four-table oyster bar and named it Visko’s, after their grandfather. Visko’s soon grew to a 700-seat restaurant. Vuskovich recalls, “We were one of the biggest restaurants in the city — one of the biggest restaurants in the country, you might say.” By the time he was 30, he says, “I screwed up by wanting to retire and playing polo — and just burned out.” His next stop was Lexington, Ky., where he opened Jozo’s, Lexington’s first Cajun joint. He was the cook at Jozo’s, relying on recipes gleaned from his mother and her friends. There, he met his wife-to-be, Regina, with whom he collaborated on a quick-freeze technique that Vuskovich hoped he could use to sell his dishes across the country. The two were on their way to Chicago in hopes of finding a distribution center when, by chance, they stopped in Indianapolis. They soon realized that Indy would make a better base for them, and soon Yats appeared at the corner of 54th and College, a place Vuskovich calls, “The best corner in the world.”

Current NUVO food critic Terry Kirts says, “Thank your lucky stars for Yats. Bart Peterson should give them a plaque or something.”

Instead, Vuskovich gets a CVA. Byrne knows how Vuskovich would respond to this award in his Nawlins patois: “What, what, WHAT?!? Whaddyatawkinbout? I’m no bettuh than any-baady else ...!”

For more on Yats: www.yatscajuncreole.com. Note their new location at 8352 E. 96th St.

—Jim Poyser

Sandy Reiberg

Lifetime Achievement Honoree

Ask a group of successful adults at the top of their respective careers to name the most influential person in their lives, and it’s a safe bet many, if not most, will cite the influence of a teacher who helped open their eyes to life’s possibilities and their own potential. Ask successful graduates of any Indianapolis Public School arts magnet program to name the most influential person in their lives, and it’s a very safe bet they will name Sandy Reiberg.

An Indianapolis native, Reiberg received her bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in French and Spanish and her master’s in dance from Butler. After a brief stint working at the Art Institute of Chicago, Reiberg and her husband moved to the Virgin Islands, where they both found jobs teaching. During their seven-year stay on the islands, Reiberg danced with the civic ballet company of the Virgin Islands and began teaching dance to children in the community, in addition to a full-time job as a high school French teacher. Returning to Indianapolis in 1978, she continued to dance, with Dance in Progress from 1978-1984, and began her teaching career with IPS.

“The arts are the most essential part of learning and growing,” Reiberg says, a difficult philosophy to have in an age when most public schools have all but eliminated the arts from their curriculum. Reiberg acknowledges the challenge of providing arts education in this day and age: “It’s a constant struggle for the arts to be valued as part of a child’s education.”

Despite these challenges, or perhaps because of them, Sandy Reiberg has been at the center of arts education for children in the IPS system for nearly 25 years. “I don’t know why we don’t value arts education more in this country,” she states. “Perhaps it’s part of the American Puritan work ethic. Americans seem to be afraid to have work be joyful.”

After a 13-year stint teaching dance at Shortridge Middle School, Reiberg moved to IPS School 70 when it became the first arts magnet at the elementary school level. There she implemented the three-year grant from the federal government that made the arts magnet possible, and she remained at School 70 for six years as its arts program coordinator. Since 2001, she has been teaching at Broad Ripple High School, the IPS arts high school.

Reiberg’s passion for the arts and her commitment to education was inherited from her parents. She credits her mother for arranging the dance, art and music lessons that inspired her and her siblings. In addition to her own dance career, Reiberg has a sister who now operates her own small film company. Another of her many siblings, Mike Read, is a well-known and successful musician who came to fame as part of the local band Roadmaster in the early 1980s, and now performs with the crowd favorite Zanna Doo.

Her father-in-law’s passion for the arts manifested itself in his performances with local opera groups, as well as his commitment and support of a variety of arts organizations. This passion led the family to establish the Rufus Reiberg Reading Series at IUPUI, providing funding that has supported a variety of literary events and projects for the city. 

“Our parents loved the arts, and passed that passion down to all of their children,” she says, and it’s a tradition she passed along to her own son and daughter, who are both artists in their own right. “My son Eric, my daughter-in-law Carrie and my daughter Julia are my real heroes,” she admits. But it’s her grandson Lucas, who turns 1 this month, who really calls the shots in the Reiberg family and will most likely carry on the arts tradition.

“Children have always brought tremendous joy to my life, but Lucas is now my deepest joy!” says Sandy Reiberg the dancer, teacher, mother and now grandmother. “And, yes, we are already teaching him about the arts.”

—Laura McPhee