Family is theme of inaugural Storytellers Institute

Family will be the theme of the inaugural Storytellers Institute scheduled June 1 to July 2 and sponsored by the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS) at Skidmore College.  The institute is an academic-artistic summer program for the documentary arts in which invited professionals work alongside Skidmore faculty and students.

Family matters. Whether a person was born into, chose, or was chosen by a family, that unit is a major force that shapes individual identity and social structure. According to MDOCS director Jordana Dym, “The importance of family to self and community is universal, although what makes a (good) family and a family’s role in society are always changing. There’s an amazing body of work by scholars and artists about family matters that institute members will mine in seminars, master classes and projects.”  

Throughout the month, the institute’s accomplished storytellers will engage the Saratoga area with films, exhibits, and interactive events.

Highlights of the month-long series will be keynote programs featuring award-winning film director Thomas Allen Harris on June 8 and 9 and sound documentarian Jim Metzner on June 15 and 16. In addition, institute fellows will lead four Friday evening programs and one Tuesday evening gallery opening showcasing their engagement with family matters (details follow). All events are free and open to the public. For details about the Storytellers Institute at Skidmore College, please visit this web site.

Family Photos:  A Source for (Hi)stories

Finding family stories that matter is as easy as opening a photo albums. The public is invited to join Harris at 7 p.m. Monday, June 8, for a screening and discussion of his new documentary Through a Lens Darkly:  Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People in the Payne Room of Skidmore’s Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery.

The first documentary to explore the American family photo album through the eyes of black photographers, Through a Lens Darkly probes the recesses of American history to discover images that have been suppressed, forgotten, and lost.

Harris will explore Capital District family stories in two interactive events that highlight MDOCS’ and Harris’s commitment to community engagement.

On Tuesday, June 9, from 2:30-4:30 p.m., Harris and his team of interviewers invite Saratoga-area community members to share their family story by bringing their photos to the Payne Room of the Tang Teaching Museum. (Please email if you would like to participate; interviews last 15-20 minutes.)  (Note: A separate team will partner with Grand Street Community Arts/Youth FX in Albany to hear Albany-area stories from 10am-12pm on Tuesday morning).

At 8 p.m. June 9, Harris and families from the Capital District will participate in a Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Road Show in the Payne Room of the Tang Museum. The event brings to life area stories – and those gathered from the audience during the evening—in an interactive performance that builds connections among neighbors, friends and relatives.

This filmmaker and project demonstrate the power of documentary film to reach an audience and reshape a story.  Relying on individual, personal archives, Harris’s work both corrects a traditional media message AND builds new tools (the archive and roadshow) to empower people to understand the power their stories have, the connections they create, and the importance of preserving and sharing them.

Sound and Story:  Hearing a New World

Jim Metzner’s “Magic of Sound” gets under way at 7 p.m. Monday, June 15, in Filene Recital Hall. Known as the voice of Pulse of the Planet, a syndicated public radio program, Metzner has for 40 years searched for and shared sounds that enlighten, inform, and celebrate life. Using examples from his recordings, radio series, and longer format work, Metzner will demonstrate how he continues to explore the soundscape. He will explain how sounds can convey a sense of a place, an activity, a mood, a person, or a family.  (For more information on Metzner and his work, please visit this web site.)

On Tuesday morning, June 16, early risers are invited to join Metzner at 7 a.m. on a sound walk in Skidmore’s North Woods.  After a brief introduction, participants will do some sound recording of their own (bring your smartphone!) and then discuss what they heard over lunch.  Space is limited so email if you’d like to participate.

On Fridays in June institute fellows will round out the public programming with presentations of their own work centered on family. The schedule is as follows:

June 5,Yvonne Welbon kicks off the Storytellers Institute with a showcase mediating on the role of family in her films, 7 p.m., Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.  Welbon’s more than 20 films showcase autobiography and family.

June 12, Carolyn Macartney screens her documentary film Wanda the Wonderful at 7 p.m. in Davis Auditorium. Wanda the Wonderful is a mixed-genre documentary Western that tells a story about sacrifice, family, the American West, what it means to forge your own way, and the realities behind a glamorous and exciting lifestyle.

June 19, Evan Roberts—Roberts is a filmmaker and educator based in Austin, Texas, and the founder of Audio Heirlooms, an oral history production company. He is the writer/director of award-winning short films (33 Teeth, Yeah, Kowalski!) and the short documentary Arvind, which received an Austin Film Society grant.  Roberts will screen the film at 7 p.m. Friday, June 19, in Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.

June 26, Jonna McKone—McKone is a radio producer, documentarian and artist. As a journalist, she has worked on stories ranging from efforts in eastern Kentucky to put former coal mines to economic use to the intersection of youth graffiti culture and galleries in Washington, D.C. She is currently at work on a film that explores the relationships between memory, artifact and her own familial history.  She will host an opening of an exhibition of her work in Skidmore’s Case Gallery at 7 p.m. Friday, June 26.

In addition, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 16, institute associate fellows Chris D. Moore, Nicky Tavares, and Adam Tinkle will have an opening exhibition of their work in Case Gallery.

The John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS) at Skidmore College is an interdisciplinary center presenting the stories of the human experience in documentary media and technologies: old and new; visual, oral and written; analog and digital. Providing resources for and fostering collaborations between Skidmore's academic programs and documentary practitioners, MDOCS invites students, faculty and staff to learn and use the documentary arts for critical inquiry, discovery, civic engagement, and exposition. Please visit this web site for more information about MDOCS at Skidmore.