WaterFire Ignites Rhode Island Radio Show –
underwritten by National Grid
Hosted by Bronwyn Dannenfelser and guest co-host Barnaby Evans
On this weeks episode:
The first guests on today’s show are Chantal Roche and Gary St. Laurent from WaterFire Providence’s volunteer team. They will be talking about volunteer opportunities at WaterFire Providence and what it takes to produce a full WaterFire event with hundreds of volunteers. They will also discussing some of the other opportunities that occur during the week that make for wonderful team building events for corporations and individuals alike.
Our second guest will be actress and Jazz stylist Rose Weaver, who received the Pell Award for excellence in the Arts in 2000. Currently, Rose is an Artist-In-Residence at Brown University’s Rites and Reason Theatre. She is working with Professor Elmo Terry-Morgan, Artistic Director of Rites & Reason Theatre, Associate Professor, Department of Africana Studies, and Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, to further develop Rose’s Brown U 2000 thesis play, called Skips in the Record, about a family coping with Alzheimer’s disease and memory loss.
Our final guest is Kota Mizutani, from the Japanese drumming group Gendo Taiko, they will be performing on the stage in Waterplace Park during Saturday’s WaterFire lighting.
Podcast:
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Volunteering at WaterFire Providence
WaterFire Providence may only be a seasonal production, but to make it happen, we need volunteers year-round. For more information on how you can contribute your time, skills and talents, email our Volunteer Team.
WaterFire Providence Volunteers are an integral part of the event. They assist in all aspects of event production, special projects and anything else we dream up.
At any one WaterFire Providence lighting, we need at least 150 volunteers to contribute. Volunteers fundraise, research, data base sort, perform, construct, manage, inform, engage, and enjoy! WaterFire volunteers come from all walks of life, and we appreciate the diversity and talents that are among them. Over the years, a network of volunteers has been established, and we are delighted at the community that they have become.
Rose Weaver
With almost 30 years as an actress, singer and playwright, Rose Weaver is the author of several plays, monologues and songs. She has performed on stage, TV and in films and has sung solo, with her own jazz ensemble and with pops orchestras. Dr. Weaver has an MFA in creative writing from Brown University and an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Marymount Manhattan College. Weaver is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Lucille Lortel Playwriting Award, the Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the RI Foundation’s Antonio Cirino Memorial Fellowship and New Works Award 2001. She is member of Screen Actor’s Guild and Actor’s Equity Association and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
Gendo Taiko
One of the earliest collegiate Taiko drumming groups established on the East Coast, Gendo Taiko was constituted at Brown University in the Fall of 2004 by Raiki Machida (Brown ’07) and Joshua Goldner (Brown ’05). Initially dubbed Brown Taiko, Gendo’s musical styles were originally based on those of Wadaiko Gensou, a semi-professional Taiko group based in Miyagi, Japan, with whom Machida had trained extensively. In the summer of 2006, Goldner and Machida hosted Wadaiko Gensou’s founding members Takao Handa and Satoko Nambu at Brown University to expand the group’s repertoire, hone its members’ techniques, and build a new set of drums. As the group grew in membership and developed its own unique musical styles and arrangements, it adopted a formal audition process, developed a Group Independent Study Project (GISP) to explore the history of Taiko, and is now in the course of developing a well-structured program of study for its members.
Episode Sections:
Section 1 – Kota Mizutani, Gendo Taiko
Section 2 – Gary St. Laurent and Chantal Roche, Volunteering with WaterFire Providence
Section 2 – Rose Weaver, Rites and Reason Theatre
Episode 28 – Broadcast: May 20th, 2015 | Featured image by Erin Cuddigan via WaterFire Providence on Flickr.