Category Archives: The Arts

Multicultural Art and Poetry

About Deborah Levine, Documentary, Movies and Scripts, Liberator Series, Music, theater, TV, dance

TV Pilot Script: The Liberator’s Daughter

June 28, 2022 Editor-in-Chief 2 Comments

LOGLINE

A World War II Liberator’s daughter honors his legacy by battling disabilities, discrimination, and hate in her journey from being disabled and homeless, to repairing our broken world.
6-part TV Series
(c) 2022…Deborah Levine Enterprises LLC

31+ FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS
The Liberator’s Daughter has 31 WINNER AWARDS at international film festivals including:
1) WRPN Women’s International Film Festival, 2) Hollywood Blvd Film Festival, 3) Cineplay International, 4) Dallas Shorts, 5) Indiefare International, 6) Airflix Film, 7) Multi Dimension International, 8) Bright International, 9) EdiPlay International, 10) Magic Silver Screen Festival, 11) Medusa Film Festival, 12) Movie Play International, 13) Red Moon Film Festival, 14) Krimson Horyzon International Film Festival, 15) Cult Movies Festival, 16) Crown International, 17) Swedish International, 18) NYC International Film Festival, 19) London New Wave Cinema Awards, 20 & 21) Indie Cine Tube Awards, 22) 4th Dimension Independent film Festival, 23) Cooper Awards, 24) Tokyo Shorts, 25) 8 & Halfilm Awards, 26) New York Neorealism Film Awards, 27) Golden Giraffe International film Festival, 28) Liber Films International film Festival, 28) Cooper Awards, 29) ASAA Abdolrahman Sarraei Academic Awards, 30) Sofia International Film Festival, 31) Your Way International film Festival

– Also – Finalist at 1) Delta International, 2) Filmfest International, 3) Blackboard International. Semi-Finalist in 12 film festivals + Honorable Mention at 1) Critic’s Choice International, 2) The Filmmaker’s Space Film Festival, 3) Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival

Pilot Summary: ADRIFT Part A

This story of overcoming adversity features a young woman adrift in New York City. She experiences hate and bullying like so many immigrants and wants to return home to Bermuda. Her father, a World War II military intelligence officer, wants the family to experience a Jewish community. Although her fragile health is at risk in America, Deborah uses her genius IQ to attend Radcliffe/Harvard University. Always outspoken, she challenges the university’s status quo while pursuing studies at Harvard Divinity School and in Folklore and Mythology.
Midway through college, she returns home, her body racked with mysterious inflammation. Like so many young women suffering similarly, Deborah is told it’s all in her head and is sent to a psychiatric hospital. Determination drives her back to Harvard, but insufficiently recovered, she again goes home, completing her degree in NYC.
Deborah’s parents are disappointed and insist that she not be a financial burden. Pressured to quickly get a job after graduation, she becomes a file clerk in Manhattan’s Garment District. Experiencing sexual harassment, she joins the first Women’s Liberation March and reconnects with girl friends.
When Deborah finally gets promoted to secretary, her parents relocate to Cincinnati for her father’s job. With no resources of her own, she has to leave with her parents for an unknown future in the Midwest. Discouraged, she almost gives up. But inspired by her friends, she prays for the strength that her father had in the war and aims for a future of fame and power.

Continue reading TV Pilot Script: The Liberator’s Daughter →

Artists, Newspaper Opinion Columns

Culture Wars: Can artists win? – by Deborah Levine

May 22, 2022 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Why do we now say Kyiv instead of Kiev? It’s because Kyiv is the Ukrainian pronunciation and Russia’s invasion is a culture war. Their disputes are old-as-dirt and Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev tried to enable a Ukrainian revival with the transfer of Crimea from Russia. But, Soviet repression went beyond land and sovereignty.

With the USSR dissolution, Ukraine established a new government with its own national anthem in Ukrainian, not Russian. It’s no accident that Putin’s treaty demands include protection for the Russian language. It may seem trivial, but imagine if England suddenly tried to re-establish British control over America and insisted that we revert to British English. If England were like Putin, you might go to jail if you refused to spell “color” as “colour”, the original, British version. Or what about our patriotic song, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”? That melody was originally an unofficial national anthem of England. We wouldn’t tolerate going back to its original title: “God Save the Queen”. We’d fight a new War of Independence.

Continue reading Culture Wars: Can artists win? – by Deborah Levine →

The Arts, Wellness

Integrating the Arts in Health – by Patricia Lambert

May 10, 2022 Patricia Lambert Leave a comment

NOAH Seeks to Professionalize Arts Programs in Healthcare Settings

No person looks forward to a visit to the hospital or other similar healthcare settings. Oftentimes, being in the hospital is a process that is scary, uncertain, and full of anticipation for answers and recovery. Research has shown that healing is made better by the arts, which bring humanity to institutions such as hospitals, elder and hospice care, as well as those living at home with chronic diseases like cancer or Parkinson’s.

Despite research that supports arts in health, many health institutions do not have programs incorporating the arts. This is why the National Organization for Arts in Health (NOAH) has remained committed to expanding awareness and acceptance of the arts as a vital component for healing, public health, and wellbeing.

Continue reading Integrating the Arts in Health – by Patricia Lambert →

Storytelling, The Arts

Vincent Van Gogh and the Art of Longevity – by Martin Kimeldorf

May 4, 2022 Martin Kimeldorf Leave a comment

“Either we all survive or none of us do”
~Vincent Van Gogh

In 2020, I drew together a small collection of lifetime short stories and essays in a slim volume entitled Camping On The Edge. I was facing a medical fork in the road about eliminating my anti-cholesterol pill which caused tremendously painful leg cramps. I felt I was faced with choosing more life in the years remaining versus simply adding years to my life. Or, as I like to say, “Longevity is highly overrated.”

One of the essays was entitled Dear Theo. It is a letter I wrote in the spirit of Vincent Van Gogh based on my readings and lifelong study of his art and letters. Now, after sharing my letter to Theo with our delightful editor-publisher Ms. Levine, I try to respond to her query: How Do You Make Art Come Alive? The next morning the answer was clear and concise: I become them in a letter writing session.

Whether I’m studying playwrights like Eugene O’Neil or Bertolt Brecht, artists like Paul Cezanne or Vincent Van Gogh, I dig deeply into their works and what others have said about them. Over time, I find myself becoming like one of my heroes. When I am full to the brim with Vincent Van Gogh I write a letter as though I were him, addressed to his brother Theo. It is a great way to sum up my learning. My process does not require submission, display, or editing, and I just toss down whatever comes my way as I write the letter.

My letter began in my first round of Van Gogh studies and was marked in my journal with the title: 1/25/12 RX for Reclaiming Life. As a boomer growing up in the 1950s, my parents were intent on educating my entire personality. This included painting, carving, and dancing lessons . Carving has randomly sustained itself over the years in the form of soap carving. Recently, I placed an Amazon order for a palette, paint tubes, brushes, and pallet knives. I am returning to my lifetime lust for life: painting.

In 2022 we were fortunate to attend the spectacular Van Gogh exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. Upon exiting, I spied a book weighing several pounds and running 800+ pages. In my life that would be the equivalent of 3+ books. Never too old to learn a lesson, eh?

This book, by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, turned out to be one of the best three books I’ve ever read. I learned so much about the times and the personalities. On my walls these last few decades I get to view my favorite Van Gogh quote: Either we all survive or none of us do.

Longevity plus Creativity! I am gassed up, tank be full, as I release the parking brake and head back down that acrylic painting highway. With this I present you my slightly edited long lost letter from Vincent to his brother Theo.

Vincent Van Gogh’s Lost Letter

Dear Theo,
The longer I stay in Paris the more my reason dissipates. My life is in jeopardy! Ever since the breakup, it has been like a perpetual funeral in winter. Dark and brooding colors are choking off my very breath. Clouds of burnt sienna shut out all the light, and dull olive-green shadows close in upon my very footsteps.

I am choking on bourgeois snobbery. The dealer you sent me to has rejected my work as the product of an “amusing colorist.” I must flee the cruel passions of an indifferent public.

This is why I must use your generous check to strike out upon a new path. I must take leave of this heartless city before the gloomy horizon swallows me up, body and soul!!

The crimson passion, smoldering deep inside me, is about to burst if I don’t find an outlet for my energies! This is why I plan to leave this dreary place for the sunny south lands. I want to use the money to open a deli in Arles. But this will be much more than a bagel-shop. I’ll call it the Post-Impressionist Deli and it will cater to the needs of tortured souls — a haven for my misunderstood brethren.

I have just finished sketching plans for an entire art colony, built around the deli. I know artists will flock to a terrain overflowing with lemon yellow sunshine. Each day gently bids adieu amidst a delicate, purple haze. You must come and see for yourself, dear Theo.

I have already written Gauguin and offered him the upstairs. I know what you will say. You think I am a poor roommate owing to my stubborn and argumentative qualities. Do not worry. I will give Paul complete reign of the upstairs which he can flood with canvas. I will play out my mission below, constructing my themes upon the stove and butcher block.

I realize that my past exploits in the kitchen are nothing to brag about. I ignored the treasures of the tongue because my mind was fastened upon my oils and brushes. But I am now free of that plague! Your “amusing colorist” is driven by a deep and abiding hunger to create for others, and this hunger will catapult me into the ranks of my culinary colleagues. Today I salute the new direction my life has taken!

You should also know that I did not make this decision lightly. In fact, I believe this choice was guided by the very hand of God! Last week I was watching Cezanne painting an open-air market. My eyes were caught up with the colorful array of fruits, meats, breads, and flowers. I suddenly began hearing a chorus of color in my head. Before my eyes a dazzling parade unfolded. I saw starburst yellows cavorting with fruity oranges, celery greens streaked by pure meaty reds. My head was spinning, spinning as my vision dissolved into flecks of pure color!

I found myself stumbling backwards, falling against a bookseller’s cart. The words of a hundred authors cushioned my decent. I reached out for a railing to pull myself up, and providence guided my hand in this divine comedy. I found myself clutching a slim, colorful volume entitled “Recipes from the Impressionist’s Kitchen.”

Surely, dear Theo, this is the sign I have been waiting for all my life! God is urging me to this calling. You will die for the Toulouse-Lautrec’s “Chocolate Upside Down Cake.” And the chapter on “Pointillists Appetizers” is nothing, if not brilliant!

I would write more, dear Theo, but I must hasten to the market before sunset. I’m going to begin with healthy foods, starting tonight with Monet’s “Water Lilly Low-Fat Salad.” I will throw my entire being into this venture!! I will keep at it until I get it right. I don’t care if I must eat a hundred salads by next week! I will rip my tongue out before I quit!!

Yours Forever,

Vincent

Author’s final note: Fortunately, for the history of art, Van Gogh was a terrible cook and never got much beyond a potato eater. As a result, his brother Theo refused to fund the deli and Vincent returned to painting while in Arles. And for those of you who share Vincent’s passions, for whom the art of cooking is no less than the art of writing, painting, playing, or helping others, I ask only that you let me know when you open your own Post-Impressionist Cafe.

Let’s survive and come alive together!

Books, The Arts

WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZES REVEAL 10TH ANNIVERSARY RECIPIENTS

May 1, 2022 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

“I am receiving this award with wide open arms, humbling crumbling with gratitude – calling the names of those on whose shoulders I stand, those that have loved and guided me, those known and unknown who are my champions.”

~Sharon Bridgforth, 2022 Windham-Campbell Recipient for Drama

The Windham-Campbell Prizes recently announced the 2022 class of recipients – including Pulitzer prize-winning Margo Jefferson, the trailblazing playwright Winsome Pinnock, and PEN Pinter prize-winning Tsitsi Dangarembga – marking the 10^th anniversary of one of the world’s most significant international literary awards.

For the past decade, this major global prize has recognized eight writers annually for literary achievement across fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, at every stage of their careers. With total prize money now exceeding $14m USD, each recipient is gifted an unrestricted grant of $165,000 USD to support their writing and allow them to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.

Continue reading WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZES REVEAL 10TH ANNIVERSARY RECIPIENTS →

Books

MODERN VIEWS OF MASCULINITY AND MANHOOD – by David B. Grinberg

April 8, 2022 David B. Grinberg Leave a comment

BOOK REVIEW:
“TALKIN’ TO YOU, BRO!”

James Baldwin, a leading voice of Black America in the 20^th century, once observed: “The American idea of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American idea of masculinity.”

This truism raises complex questions at the dawn of a new millennium. For instance:

What is the appropriate archetype to define masculinity in today’s increasingly diverse demographic construct?

What characteristics most resemble the proverbial modern man according to today’s conventional wisdom?

These questions are posed and answered in a compelling new book by Elwood David Watson, PhD: “Talkin’ To You, Bro! Liberate Yourself from the Confusing, Ambiguous Messages of Contemporary Masculinity” (Lasting Impact Press).

Continue reading MODERN VIEWS OF MASCULINITY AND MANHOOD – by David B. Grinberg →

Neuro-diversity, The Arts, UTC Interns

Inaccurate Depiction of Autism in Film – by Vanessa Willis

April 5, 2022 Vanessa Willis Leave a comment

In a world where diversity and inclusion in popular media is becoming a more commonly discussed topic, the possibilities of meaningful stories being told are endless. The push for diversity encompasses people of all races, abilities, ethnicities, and genders, including people with intellectual disabilities, including Autism Spectrum Disorder. As the push to create media that tells the stories of people of varying backgrounds and life experiences continues and production companies purposefully try to create inclusive content, it is important that these stories are told with grace, truth, and reality.

Continue reading Inaccurate Depiction of Autism in Film – by Vanessa Willis →

Arts & Culture Podcasts, The Arts

Eileen Koteles Podcast: Teaching Through the Arts

January 13, 2022 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Eileen Koteles is an actor and choreographer. Raising her three sons, she realized the gift of teaching through the Arts. Now returning to the stage, Eileen performs as Dr. Ruth, an iconic sex therapist who lost her family in the Holocaust.

Eileen finds she is still teaching through the Arts and urges us to support the arts as a platform for tolerance whether theater, writing, poetry, dance, painting, or photography.

Hear Eileen talk about:

1. How does teaching through the Arts apply to diversity and inclusion?
2. What does the one woman show about Dr. Ruth teach us?

CLICK for Podcast

About Deborah Levine, Books, Levine ADR articles

Books for Peace International Award Ambassador 2022

January 3, 2022 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Deborah Levine:
Silver Ambassador for Culture

Editor-in-Chief Deborah Levine of the American Diversity Report has now been named Silver Ambassador as a humanitarian supporter for promoting culture of the Books for Peace International Award.

Dear Noblewoman Ms. Levine,
I feel embarrassed to write to you because our small prize can never be as great as your culture, as your immense soul, as your immense heart, as your wonderful and immense literary capacity.

You enclose the essence of the Woman, the Friend, the Artist, the Poetess, the Woman of today with the ethical and moral values of other times. You are a unique woman.

THANK YOU FOR EXISTING, thank you for accepting our recognition.

With affection, esteem and gratitude,

Prof. Antonio Imeneo
DIRECTOR UNIFUNVIC EU- (BFUCA UNESCO BRASIL) CEO International Research Center Sport Prevention / Founder BOOKS for PEACE International Award
________________________ Continue reading Books for Peace International Award Ambassador 2022 →

LOGLINE

Pilot Summary: ADRIFT Part A

NOAH Seeks to Professionalize Arts Programs in Healthcare Settings

“Either we all survive or none of us do” ~Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh’s Lost Letter

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-14402 alignleft" src="https://americandiversityreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/TALKIN-TO-YOU-BRO-COVER-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="163" height="245" />BOOK REVIEW: “TALKIN’ TO YOU, BRO!”

Deborah Levine: Silver Ambassador for Culture

Deborah Levine Enterprises LLC

“Either we all survive or none of us do”
~Vincent Van Gogh

BOOK REVIEW:
“TALKIN’ TO YOU, BRO!”

Deborah Levine:
Silver Ambassador for Culture