Music and Dance: The Power of Art
Americans Who Tell the Truth and Bagaduce Music partner to bring you “The Power of Art.” How music, dance and visual art can inspire a community to act!
Featuring music performances by Reggie Harris and Bennet Konesni, dancing from Molly Gawler, and portraits from Americans Who Tell the Truth by Robert Shetterly, as well as students work inspired by AWTT’s portraits
Date and time
Thursday June 27 · 7pm EDT
Location
Bagaduce Music
49 South Street
Blue Hill, ME 04614
Refund Policy
Contact the organizer to request a refund.
Eventbrite’s fee is nonrefundable.
About this event
- 2 hours
- Mobile eTicket $sliding scale
- The Power of Art marrying the visual and musical arts to inspire action. This collaborative fundraiser will benefit AWTT and Bagaduce Music as we share music and stories from both organizations and celebrate the power of music to connect community and inspire work for the common good.
- Donations above the cost of the ticket are gratefully accepted via the web and or at the event.
Molly Gawler
Molly Gawler is a dancer, musician and mom. She founded her own company in 2012 called Droplet Dance, a collection of solo dance works with elements of acrobatics and story told by movement created with live music from the folk traditions of Maine. As a youngster, Molly studied ballet with Andrei Bossov in Pittsfield, Maine and furthered her dance training in college with contemporary and modern at SUNY Purchase in NY. She danced with various choreographers in New York City such as Corbin Dances and Nøa Dance. After that, she toured the world with Pilobolus Dance Theater and starred in the lead role of the ‘dog-girl’ in the show Shadowland. While a part of Pilobolus she appeared on Oprah, the Golden Globes, the Royal Variety Show and the Academy Awards. Her life led her to study circus at New England Center for Circus Arts in Brattleboro, VT where she learned Cyr Wheel, Aerial Arts and acrobatics. Molly came full circle, back home to Maine where she performs, plays fiddle, sings and teaches movement of all types. One of her greatest joys is being a mother to four year old, Caspian, and baby Mica.
Reggie Harris
Reggie Harris is a singer-songwriter, storyteller and world-renowned song-leader who is a powerful interpreter of the global music narrative. A passionate, engaging inspirational entertainer and concert artist Reggie is recognized for focusing new energy on the important role of music in the discourse for inclusion and the struggle for human rights using the lessons of history as a base. As an expert on the music of the Underground Railroad and the Modern Civil Rights Movement he is at home on stage as performer, lecturer or leading discussion in seminars or in the classroom.
Known for over 40 years as one-half of the eminently prominent duo, Kim & Reggie Harris, Reggie continues to criss-cross the country, carrying the message of joy, unity, tolerance and peace through the powerful medium of live music. Reggie remains in high demand for concerts, schools, University residencies, community-building, festivals and teaching workshops.
A 2021 winner of both the Spirit of Folk Award from Folk Alliance International and the W.E.B. Du Bois Legacy Award, Reggie is a charismatic community builder who was featured in 2020 on CNN’s “Silence is Not An Option with Don Lemon.” He was recently featured in The New York Times to discuss his familial connection as the descendant of slavery as a great-great-great grandson of confederate General Williams Carter Wickham and his slave Bibhanna Hewlett with his white cousins.
A teaching artist in the Kennedy Center’s CETA program (Changing Education Through the Arts) and a fellow for the prestigious Council of Independent College lecture program, he also serves as Co-President and Director of Music Education for the Living Legacy Project, an advocacy group that sponsors Civil Rights pilgrimages throughout the South and online education seminars worldwide.
His 2018 album Ready To Go ranked as the #5 CD on the Folk DJ Charts and was in the top 30 on the US Folk DJ charts for 5 months of 2018. The title cut was the #1 song for May 2018. In 2019 Reggie and Greg Greenway released Deeper Than the Skin in response to their challenging and insightful presentation of the same name. Reggie is currently a rotating DJ featured on Prisms: The Sound Of Color on SiriusXM’s The Village.
His April 2021 release On Solid Ground, the number one CD on the FolkDJ Charts for May 2021, is a collection of 13 songs compiled in response to the challenges and changes in American civic circles stirred by the COVID pandemic and years of racial and political unrest that erupted post the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and thousands of others. Reggie’s leadership in racial and interfaith dialogue continues to open opportunities for dialogue and courageous conversation.
Reggie is featured in the “Americans Who Tell the Truth” portrait series by Maine artist Rob Shetterly and a recipient of the 2018 Magic Penny Award for lifetime achievement for his impact in music from the Children’s Music Network. His recordings and collaborative discography contribute to the national dialogue on history, wellness and to the opening of dialogue and courageous conversations.
Bennet Konesni
In addition to farming – focusing on garlic production for seed and table, culinary herbs, and teas – Bennet is an internationally-touring musician, focusing on northern fiddle and dance music as well as worksongs for field and forest, which he uses regularly on his own farm and teaches at workshops. He also creates vivid papercuttings which depict a culture of food that integrates heritage breeds, seeds, songs, stories and dances.
Bennett was raised in Maine and was naturally drawn into the strong communities of old-time music, art, and farming in the area. At thirteen he shipped as a deckhand aboard local schooners, spending five summers sailing Penobscot Bay and learning the traditional work songs of the tall ships as he raised sails and hauled anchors. Later, at Middlebury College, Bennett co-founded the student farm and spent six months studying Zulu farming songs in South Africa. He was awarded a Thomas J. Watson fellowship to spend a postgraduate year in Tanzania, Ghana, Mongolia, Vietnam, Switzerland, and Holland studying worksongs of sea, field and steppe.
More recently Bennett co-founded Sylvester Manor, a 243-acre educational farm on Shelter Island, NY. Though he no longer runs the farm there, he is still involved in long-range strategic planning and outreach for the organization. He also teaches worksongs to the farm crew and directs the annual fall festival “Plant & Sing,” which brings the community to the farm to complete two week’s worth of garlic shucking and planting in a single morning, all while singing.
Bennett has given a Ted talk about his work, and speaks, teaches, and performs throughout North America and Europe as an individual and as parts of several bands.
Americans Who Tell the Truth
Is dedicated to the belief that a profound understanding of citizenship is the only safeguard of democracy and the best defense of social, racial, economic, and environmental justice. Working with our portraits and narratives of courageous citizens, Americans Who Tell the Truth (AWTT) crafts collaborative educational and community experiences that illuminate the ongoing struggle to realize America’s democratic ideals and model the commitment to act for the common good.
For the past twenty years, Robert Shetterly has been painting the series of portraits Americans Who Tell the Truth. The exhibit has been traveling around the country since 2003. Venues have included university museums, grade school libraries, sandwich shops, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City, the Superior Court in San Francisco, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 2005, Dutton published a book of the portraits by the same name. In 2006, the book won the top award of the International Reading Association for Intermediate non-fiction.
Using the power of art Shetterly speaks with children and adults all over this country to illuminate the obligations of citizenship, the importance of sustainability, little known pieces of U.S. history, and how democracy cannot function if politicians don’t tell the truth, if the media don’t report it, and if the people don’t demand it.
Shetterly has engaged in a wide variety of humanitarian work with many of the people whose portraits he has painted. In the spring of 2007, he traveled to Rwanda with Lily Yeh and Terry Tempest Williams to work in a village of survivors of the 1994 genocide there. Much of his current work focuses on honoring and working together with his portrait subjects as they model the commitment to work for the common good.
Bagaduce Music
The mission of Bagaduce Music is to collect, preserve, and lend printed music and to promote the appreciation, knowledge and performance of music. Founded in 1983 as a not-for-profit, one-of-a-kind music library with a remarkable collection of printed sheet music of varying genres, this music collection is the cornerstone of who we are; more recently, our Mission has expanded to include more emphasis on Music Performance and Music Education. Bagaduce Music makes a treasure trove of music available to the public, enabling a number of music organizations to manage costs by borrowing music. We also sponsor beautiful concerts and programs as a way of promoting education and performance as we share our collection with the local community, the State of Maine, with our nation and with the world.
