Sunday, July 11, 2010

The Elephant Project Comes to Brattleboro, Wednesday, July 21

Ele-Phantom: Twenty Films/Twenty Questions

Wednesday, July 21, 7:00 PM, Library Meeting Room

Please join multi-media artist and filmmaker Miranda Loud on her Work in Progress Tour and screening of The Elephant Project.

Ms. Loud will show 6 of her planned 20 films. The Elephant Project will interest a wide range of people curious not only about elephants, but how artists are making a difference in connecting people with nature.

At the current rate of decline, the Asian elephant will face extinction within our lifetimes. Wild elephants are a 'keystone' species which means that many other species depend on them. Many of the stresses for Asian elephants are indicators of stresses on humans.

Through a multimedia performance, tour, and series of 20 short films, award-winning Rialto Arts Artistic Director Miranda Loud shares the power of human and elephant connections--seen through a musical, visual, narrative and symbolic lens.

Miranda LoudArtistic Director Miranda Loud has been passionate about reconnecting audiences with nature since 2005 when she founded the not-for-profit organization Rialto Arts - Where Nature Takes Center Stage, now known as Nature Stage. Since 1998, her thematic concerts produced in New York, Providence and Massachusetts using visuals, dance and narration have been at the forefront of more experimental and contextual concert programming.

Her multi-media works involving film with live performance on environmental themes have been hailed by the Boston Globe as a new genre; her latest work about the relationship between honeybees and beekeepers won a Gold Star Award in 2009 from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Loud has lectured at Berklee College of Music, been a panelist on environmentalism and the arts in New York City and interviewed in Boston local press, as well as the UK journal Nature about Nature Stage and the role of the performing arts in addressing environmental stewardship and challenges around climate change.


She began exploring the astounding and often heart-rending accounts of elephant companionship, loyalty, emotions, intelligence and endangered status in 2005 with her multi-media performance combining short films with a pipe organ recital to raise awareness for the majesty of both the king of mammals and the king of instruments. She now revisits this project with a new lens to explore current themes around this intelligent and magnificent keystone species, the Asian elephant.

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