The Dissident Arts Festival
In the midst of reactionary fear-mongering, ongoing war, rising unemployment and a right-wing assault on organized labor, progressive artists speak out for social justice. The Dissident Arts Festival is a platform for cultural workers to create, sing, recite, improvise, act and orate against war and inequity and in honor of the struggle of workers and the globally oppressed. Event organizer John Pietaro, a cultural and labor organizer, is proud to present the Dissident Arts Festival in conjunction with the Brecht Forum.
Now a Manhattan mainstay, the Dissident Arts Festival was founded in upstate NY in 2006 with a primary goal of establishing an annual showcase of politically progressive music, poetry and performance art---perhaps the only such vehicle in the nation. This Festival has sought to bring together a wide variety of sounds and styles, tearing down boundaries, bending rules and infusing the arts with the strongest, most radical activism, where folk-protest song meets free improvisation and contemporary composition. Featured among our past performers and speakers were actor/raconteur Malachy McCourt, folk legend Pete Seeger, poet Louis Reyes Rivera, violinist Gwen Laster, revolutionary hip hop group ReadNex Poetry Squad, dissident swing quartet Radio NOIR, parodist Dave Lippman, jazz-poetry band Upsurge, protest/garage band The Last Internationale, labor luminary Henry Foner, poet Steve Bloom, topical singer Bev Grant, ‘anti-folk’ singer Lach, singer-songwriter Jackie Sheeler, saxophonist Ben Barson, filmmaker Kevin Keating (“Giuliani Time”) and the Raging Grannies---from both NYC and Pittsburgh. And we presented tributes to Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Bertolt Brecht and Phil Ochs along the way. As of 2010, the Festival became affiliated with NYC’s Brecht Forum, a center of Left education and culture which has proven itself the perfect host of the Dissident Arts Festival. AND in 2012, the Festival will be two days and two boroughs, located at both 17 Frost Theatre of the Arts (Williamsburg, Brooklyn) and the Brecht Forum. From the modernist heart of revolutionary music to topical folk/acoustic performance, radical film and theatre to rebel poetry and discussion, the cultural workers speak!
Radio NOIR
John Pietaro (xylophone, frame drums, percussion, voice), Quincy Saul (clarinet), Javier Hernandez-Miyares (electric guitar & effects), Laurie Towers (electric bass)
Radio NOIR' was debuted, befittingly, at ‘the Dissident Arts Festival 2011’ in New York City. The ensemble reflects the fervent radicalism and sounds of the 1930s even as it embraces the ethics of downtown New Music and the passion of Free Jazz. Here, revolutionary politics rumpus with daring soundscapes. Their EP, "The Lost Broadcast” offers a new take on a Depression-era standard, a reconstruction of a Woody Guthrie ballad, a recitation of composer Hanns Eisler’s speech against HUAC backed by free improv, and an original modernist blues dedicated to the Harlem Renaissance. The band is now engaging in a series of NYC appearances featuring their unique brand of DISSIDENT SWING and ART DECO-DAMAGED PROTEST SONG……
“The 1930s meets contemporary improv” – The Villager newspaper, NYC * * * * * *
“It’s not just drum circles: Dissident Swing and Protest Song for the O.W.S. era” –NYC Arts
*******Xylophonist/Percussionist John Pietaro’s work reflects the xylophone soloists of the Jazz Age and a century of revolutionary musicians from free improvisers and protest singers to modernist composers and Marxist cultural workers. He is a member of the Karl Berger Stone Workshop Orchestra and has also performed with Alan Ginsberg, Fred Ho, Pete Seeger, John Zorn, Elodie Lauten, Blaise Siwula, Tuli Kupferberg, the Flames of Discontent, and many others. He organizes the annual Dissident Arts Festival (NYC), writes on the arts for the progressive press and has spoken on culture at Left Forum and other venues. By day, Pietaro works in the labor movement. His blog is http://TheCulturalWorker.blogspot.com
*******Clarinetist Quincy Saul is a performer and social activist immersed in a radical vision of his instrument even as he reaches into its rich Jazz heritage. He is a member of and composer for the Scientific Soul Sessions in Harlem, a collective of revolutionary musicians. He is also an editor and research associate for the eco-socialist journal 'Capitalism Nature Socialism', and a writer with a blog at www.smashthisscreen.blogstpot.com . Saul attended the International Climate Conference 2012 in Durban South Africa, naturally, as an activist and reporter. A student of Fred Ho, he performs throughout the NY area.
*******Guitarist Javier Hernandez-Miyares is a performer, composer, producer and writer. Currently he is the creative director of 17 Frost Theater of the Arts in Williamsburg Brooklyn, an alternative radical arts space (www.17frost.com). Hernandez-Miyares performs with Sineparade, The Phonometricians on Cosmic Fire, and Radio Noir, among other ensembles, which reflect his wide range of influences from contemporary music composition to progressive pop, free improvisation to post-Punk. Visit: www.javiermiyares.com for more information
*******Bassist Laurie Towers, a featured soloist with the Flames of Discontent, embraces traditions for the electric bass in jazz, R&B, and rock and has forged a ‘lead bass’ style which is reflective of her influences Carol Kaye, James Jamerson, Jaco Pastorious and Charlie Haden. Towers’ work with Radio NOIR is based in an integral pulse, as the quartet includes no drummer; she carries it all. Towers is a feminist, an activist and an entrepreneur and has served as a mentor to at-risk girls and victims of domestic violence.