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Artsline - The return of the Richmond Folk Festival and so much more!

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The Virginia Museum of History & Culture offers a lecture on the Constitution of Virginia this week. (Image Courtesy of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture)

Artsline: Virtual Edition || OCtober 4, 2021

“Music is what life sounds like.” ~Eric Olson

This week RVA sees the return of The Richmond Folk Festival – live and in person – gathering music-lovers from all over the region for three days of free performances and lots of dancing. In addition, as autumn progresses, so does our sense of history and story. There are films and lectures, theatre and dance – telling stories of our diverse culture and complicated histories. Check out all that our community has to offer!


1. RICHMOND FOLK FESTIVAL
Music
October 8-10
Brown’s Island, Richmond, 23219

The Richmond Folk Festival returns to an in-person event as it celebrates its 17th anniversary October 8-10, 2021, inviting fans to downtown Richmond’s riverfront to celebrate the roots, richness, and variety of American culture through music, dance, traditional crafts, storytelling, and food. No registration required and safety protocols in place.


2. EPHRAT ASHERIE DANCE
Dance
October 7, 7:30pm
Modlin Center for the Arts, 410 Westhampton Way, Richmond, 23173
$25, $10/students (free for University of Richmond students)

The Modlin Center at the University of Richmond brings Choreographer Ephrat Asherie in a high-energy, hybrid work layering breaking, hip-hop, house, and vogue. Featuring a group of dynamic dancers accompanied by live music, Odeon creates an entirely original world bringing together the extended legacies of street and club dances and challenging them to inhabit new spatial and choreographic contexts. Purchase tickets online.


3. GATHER
Film
October 11, 6pm
Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market, 4 North Thompson Street, Richmond, 23221

Join Ellwood Thompson’s in The Beet Café on Indigenous People's Day for a screening of Gather, an intimate portrait of a growing movement amongst Indigenous Americans to reclaim their spiritual and cultural identities through obtaining sovereignty over their ancestral food systems, while battling against the historical trauma brought on by centuries of genocide. No registration required.


4. ANSEL ADAMS UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
Photography
Talk: October 8, 6:30pm
Exhibit through January 2
Online and at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 200 N. Arthur Ashe Boulevard, Richmond, 23220
$8

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts brings an intimate conversation about Ansel Adams with Andrea Gray Stillman, former assistant to Ansel Adams and independent scholar. Stillman draws on her experiences managing the sales of hundreds of his photographs, editing his writings, organizing his archive, and accompanying him on extensive travels. She will share anecdotes of Ansel’s early life in San Francisco where he wrestled with the decision to pursue a career as a pianist or as a photographer of America’s wild places. Purchase tickets online. (Streaming option available.)


5. THE NICETIES
Theatre
Through October 16
Thursdays thru Saturdays, 8pm; Sundays at 3pm
The Basement, 300 East Broad Street, Richmond, 23219
$30/general, $20/seniors, $10/student & teachers

The Conciliation Lab brings The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess. Synopsis: Zoe, a Black student at a liberal arts college, is called into her white professor’s office to discuss her paper about slavery’s effect on the American Revolution. Her thesis? “If history is written by the victors, who tells the story of the oppressed?” What begins as a polite clash in perspectives explodes into an urgent debate about race, history, and power. Purchase tickets online.


6. 19TH ANNUAL JAMES RIVER WRITERS CONFERENCE
Literary Arts, Poetry, Screenwriting
October 8-10
Online
Prices Vary, Single-day and Multiple-day options available

Join James River Writers for their 2021 Writers Conference, with annual favorites like Agent One-on-One Meetings, Pre-Conference Master Classes, ShopTalk, Networking Opportunities, and the First Pages Panel. In addition, welcome new elements like Grammartopia® and Never Have I Ever! Award-winning, Latinx author David Bowles to keynote. Register online.


7. BINDLESTIFF FAMILY CIRKUS
Circus Arts
October 9, 1pm & 7:30pm
Perkinson Center for the Arts and Education, 11810 Centre Street, Chester, 23235
$25 Matinee, $35 Evening

Since 1995, the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus has traveled the world, bringing a unique hybrid of vaudeville, circus and sideshow spectacle to theaters, clubs, colleges, and festivals. An evening of jugglers, acrobats, contortionists, plate spinning, sword swallowing, brain twisters and other risk-taking feats set to live music, combine to create an interactive evening of fun for the entire family. Purchase tickets online.


8. IN THE ARENA: A MEMOIR OF LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS
History, Literary Art
October 6, 5:30pm
Library of Virginia, 800 East Broad Street, Richmond, 23219

Please join the Library of Virginia for a conversation with former U.S. Senator and Virginia Governor Chuck Robb about his new memoir, In the Arena: A Memoir of Love, War, and Politics. Former Secretary of Education Anne Holton will join Senator Robb on stage to reflect on his extraordinary life and career. A book signing will follow the talk. Register online for this free, in-person event.


9. THE CONSTITUTION OF VIRGINIA
History
October 7, Noon
Online & The Virginia Museum of History & Culture, 428 N Arthur Ashe Boulevard, Richmond, 23220

Virginia’s Declaration of Rights (1776) declares all men to be “equally free and independent.” But, as to the suffrage, the Declaration speaks in more qualified terms; there must be “sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community.” In the years since 1776, successive revisions of Virginia’s Constitution reflect sharp debate over how we should define the political community. Who belongs? Who doesn’t? The Virginia Museum of History and Culture brings University of Virginia Law Professor A. E. Dick Howard to discuss his books, Commentaries on the Constitution of Virginia and The Road to Runnymede: Magna Carta and Constitutionalism in America.  Due to current limitations on capacity, in-person tickets are available for VMHC members only. The lecture will be also streamed live on Facebook and YouTube for public viewing.


10. LESSONS FROM JAZZ: WHAT IMPROVISATION CAN TEACH US ABOUT LEARNING, MASTERY AND INNOVATION
Music
October 5, 5:30pm
Institute of Contemporary Art, 601 W Broad St, Richmond, 23220

The VCUarts Faculty Lecture Series launched in fall 2020 as an opportunity for faculty to share their research and creative works with the wider community. In this lecture Rex Richardson, Professor of Trumpet and Jazz Studies, will discuss the complicated, years-long process of gaining mastery in the highly structured medium of jazz and explore ways in which jazz improvisation can lend to a broader understanding of learning, achieving mastery, and becoming an innovator. Register online for this free, in-person event.


If you are an arts or cultural organization with lectures, exhibitions, performances, or even book readings, submit your events to Artsline  here.  If you are an artist or an arts or cultural organization in need of resources and tools, check out the  list of local and national resources from Richmond CultureWorks.

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