| |
 |
Global Arts - A Non Profit Organization
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
General Consul of Romania
Pietro Pavoni
|
January 12th 2008 - Presentation at New York colloquium "Mihai Eminescu's Relevance for Contemporary Romanian Culture." Hosted by the Romanian Consulate in New York, the annual celebration by Romanians of their national poet around his birthday combined reading of academic papers with traditional recitation of poetry by (or dedicated to) Eminescu and interpretation of music based on the poet's lyrics.Mr. Sahlean presented a paper on
"Forced rhyming and involuntary comic in English Eminescu translations."
(Romanian title: 'Sunatul din coada si comicul involuntar')
|
NY Colloquium Presenters
|
|
Sapanta Graveyard
|
February 2008 - New York launching of 'The Merry Cemetery of Sapanta' (Cimitirul Vesel de la Sapanta) - Purple Martin Press book, of the unique graveyard in Maramures, northern Romania, featuring humorous epitaphs on colorfully painted crosses.
|
Cross Detail
|
|
|
Cross Detail
|
The book was designed by renowned Dutch designer Tessa van der Waals with photographs by Peter Kayafas and translations by A. G. Sahlean.
The book also features an introductory essay by Sanda Golopentia (read it HERE) and a Translator Note
(click for either English or Romanian.)
A short presentation movie with cross details and sample epitaphs narrated on original Maramures music can be viewed following this U-Tube link HERE.
|
Cross Detail
|
|
|
Cross Detail
|
The Album is not sold in bokstores
Exclusive Global Arts price $39.95!
(sells elsewhere for $55 + S&H)
|
Cross Detail
|
|
Secretary Mihai Gheorghiu, Ambassador Adrian Vierita, Codrina Vierita, Boston Honorary Consul Dan Dimancescu
|
February 2008 - Conference at Romanian Embassy in Washington on Realities and perspectives in the cooperation between the Romanian-American community and the Romanian authorities.
The event was chaired by Secretary of State Mihai Gheorghiu, Head of the Department for Relations with Romanians Living Abroad and moderated by Ambassador Adrian Vierita.
|
Sahlean address at Washington meeting
|
|
|
Embassy of Romania
Washington DC
|
More than 80 guests attended the reunion, including leaders of the Romanian American community, representatives of the Romanian churches and of the Romanian media in the US, academic and cultural personalities, honorary consuls and members of student associations. The Romanian General Consuls of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York also took part in the event.
|
Washington conference
attendants
|
|
Eminescu presentation
at Harvard
|
April 18th 2008 - Harvard presentation and poetry recital "Eminescu - Poet of the Romanian Soul." The event was organized in collaboration with the Romanian Student Association at Harvard, with the lecture focus on why the 'national poet of the Romanians' is relatively unknown in the English speaking world.
|
Eminescu Harvard Poster
|
|
Marjorie Dean Little Theatre
Manhattan, NY
|
June 13th-14th 2008 - New Off-Broadway theatrical production of 'Luceafarul' /The Legend of the Evening Star' at the Marjorie Dean Theatre (translation A.G.Sahlean; the work is one of the main pieces featured in the 'Eminescu - Eternal Longing, Impossible Love' book/cd project featured elsewhere on this site
(see the page and listen to samples HERE).
|
Evening Star set
|
Ion Ionescu
composer / performer
|
The original music score by Ion Ionescu was performed 'live' by the composer, with Terrence Christgau Montgomery, repeating as director as well as off-stage narrator and Voice of Demiurge.
|
Director Terry Christgau &
Patrick Murney /Catalin
|
|
|
Raluca Georgiana
actor/dancer/coreographer
|
The performance featured the talents of the 2005 initial cast members Raluca Georgiana (Catalina) and Patrick Murney (Catalin) with Eric Ortega as the new Evening Star.
|
Eric Ortega
actor/dancer/coreographer
|
Raluca Georgiana
Veronica / Catalina
|
The production included an additional scene inspired by the original correspondence between Eminescu and Veronica, the poet's life-long love. The two appear in the opening scene as real life characters, played by Eric Ortega and Raluca Georgiana.
|
Eric Ortega
Eminescu / EveningStar
|
|
|
Eric Ortega
Eminescu / EveningStar
|
Both Eminescu and Veronica shed their personae in the play to become The Eve Star and Catalina, respectively, the main characters in The Legend. The two actors/modern dancers also shared the production choreography.
|
Raluca Georgiana
Veronica / Catalina
|
|
|
Curtain Call
A.G.Sahlean-T.Christgau
|
You can follow this link here to see details of the 2005 Legend of the Evening Star Off-Boadway production. The page also features an abridged version of the Eminescu poem in both Romanian and English.
The Evening Star is also featured in the Book/CD "Eminescu -Eternal Longing, Impossible Love"
(project details are presented on this site here)
BOOK SOLD OUT! Exclusive CD Offer here $19.99
Amazon price $ 23.00 each!
|
Patrick Murney
Catalin / messenger
|
|
Cross Detail of founder
Ioan Stan Patras
|
June 2008 - Boston exhibition and book launching of 'The Merry Cemetery of Sapanta' (see book details above at the New York book launching.) Here's excerpts from the July 15th Boston Phoenix review of the event "Grave matters -The MerryCemetery of Sapanta":
"Entering the small back room at Gallery Kayafas you feel you’ve been transported into the shadowy pages of a small, mysterious book... /The book/...celebrates the riveting and crude carved wooden grave markers in an isolated village in northern Transylvania. It also chronicles the germination and fruition of a real folk art.
A carver of gates and crosses, Ion Stan Patras (1908–1977) eventually began carving the likenesses of his fellow villagers for their tombs.
|
Sapanta Graveyard
|
Cross Detail
|
Over time, the likenesses became representations of a central theme in the life of the deceased (a woman who sang in her church choir, a man who loved his oxen) or, more dramatically, a re-enactment of the moment of death. Lightning strikes one ill-fated farmer; a rabid horse spits in the face of another; vehicular accidents abound; a youth meets his end rollerblading in a Paris subway; the shepherd Saulic Ion was shot and beheaded by a Hungarian....
But the enchanting power of these colorfully painted scenes is only partly explained by Patras’s carving. Below each portrait or tableau, a poem has been etched into the wood, and thanks to a linguistic device that’s as simple as Patras’s sculptural style, The Merry Cemetery of Sapanta casts a hypnotic spell. Each poem is delivered in the first person, the voice of the dead.
|
Cross Detail
|
Cross Detail
|
All are terse, idiosyncratic, and utterly personal — you’re delivered into the frequent sorrows, occasional joys, and continuing passions of a people.
The poems’ translator, Adrian G. Sahlean, has rendered the rhymed trochaic couplets of the Romanian into English that’s earthy, uncomplicated, and direct. The result reads as uncompromised and strange..."
The Album is not sold in bokstores
Exclusive Global Arts price $39.95!
(sells elsewhere for $55 + S&H)
|
Sapanta Graveyard
|
|
WIT recital
|
July 24h 2008 - Eminescu presentation and poetry recital at Romanian American Academy annual conference hosted by Boston's Wentworth Institute of Technology.
The 'Evening of Music and Poetry' also featured singer Miho Sato with Opera Songs and Art Songs, Sunie Kaneko performing at koto (traditional Japanese instrument) and Tanya Shrago with piano pieces by George Gershwin.
|
Wentworth presentation
|
|
|
Wentworth Institute of Technology
|
On the lighter side, the evening's surprise came after Miho Sato engaged the audience with a Romanian folk song: Adrian Sahlean stepped in and sang along the artists the traditional Japanese song Sakura (Cherry Blossom.)
(the cherry blossom is Japan's national symbol)
|
Sunie Kaneko, A.G.Sahlean
and Miho Sato
|
|
|
|
|
|
.jpg)
