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Missouri Humanities Council e-News | June 2009 | View Online | ||||||||||
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In this issue:
New Harmonies Smithsonian Exhibit Opens in VandaliaWe are so fortunate to be in the second decade of a thrilling partnership with the Smithsonian Institution. We're able to arrange the distribution of exhibits designed for small venues and to provide program support, volunteer training, and expert consultants to assure that each sponsoring town creates a memorable experience. Tomorrow, "New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music," opens at the Vandalia Area Historical Society, 112 South Main Street, in Vandalia.
The exhibition will run June 27 through August 8, 2009. For more information about the opening and other special events during this exhibit, visit the Vandalia Area Historical Society online at http://vandaliaareahistoricalsociety.org/Main.html or call 314.724.2010. A Leap of Faith in St. Louis
We've just entered into a partnership with a new group of museums in downtown St. Louis. The "Downtown Museum Collaborative" is a new organization of three lively institutions. The project we encouraged them to undertake involves, probably, a year of joint effort to enhance programming, outreach to schools, and audience development. This extent of collaboration has not been attempted before. Every party to the project is making what I hope is a small leap of faith. Read details about the three downtown museums and their project. "A Christmas Carol" for Victorian House MuseumsDolores Kane's Etc. Senior Theatre company got its start in the archives of the Robert Campbell House Museum. The group creates historical dramas within house museums. Last September I saw their standing-room-only show about the wedding of Champ Clark's daughter in Bowling Green, Missouri. Clark took out ads in all the Missouri newspapers and invited the entire state to the wedding. The town was overwhelmed by the crowd that may have gotten as large as 12,000 people. Etc. Senior Theatre dramatized what various members of the family and the servants might have discussed in the many rooms of the house. The group has created an hour-long adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and is looking for sites throughout Missouri to offer the program during the coming November/December season. The program is staged in multiple rooms. Guests move from room to room to experience the drama. Interested house museums should contact Dolores Kane before the end of August if interested. To preview a DVD of this performance, please contact Dolores at Julie Douglas on Family ReadingI once started to make up a story in which the neighborhood lay sleeping and "the world was quiet as an egg." Now I discover in Julie's article that there is a book about the quietness of an egg, and about many other things in the "factual world" that kids discover at some point. She mentions several wonderful titles for the enterprising parent or grandparent!. Bates County Dig on YouTubeWe've mentioned previously that there's a hotbed of lively activity in the Border War Network in western Missouri. Carol Bohl sent along this note about a new video on the archaeology project in Bates County. "Please follow this link to the two new videos taken Sat. June 13 at the Bates County site of the archaeological dig being conducted by Ann Raab and her team uncovering a Border War homesite. It is fascinating to see and hear. In one she states that an article on the project will appear in the Nov. Dec. 2009 Archaeology News which is a national and international publication. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTncOm2c4aA&feature=channel_page Carver Day Festivities in Diamond, July 11The George Washington Carver National Monument in southwestern Missouri has just released details of the festivities for Carver Day. You can download a PDF from our site. Touring Classroom on Missouri's French Colonial Heritage
Two weeks ago the National Frontier Trails Museum brought a group of teachers on a study tour to the French Colonial heritage region that includes the towns of Bonne Terre and Ste. Genevieve. They timed the arrival in Ste. Genevieve to coincide with the French Heritage Festival. Richard Edwards sent me a note about the benefit of this grant-funded program. On Luck, Thought, Ice, Flowers, and Time Thus, with the passage of time, earth time, human time, my time, and flower time on my mind, I wrote a blog yesterday that fails to mention my chorus audition, though it does mention nearly every other possible subject. Support the Council
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 Published monthly by the Missouri Humanities Council, a tax-exempt, non-profit organization
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People, not objects, are the lifeblood of museums. People create more interest and involvement for visitors than objects do. That's because the number of visitors who are happy to have a solitary experience in a museum is a small fraction of the number who respond to interaction and hands-on experience.
When I reauditioned for the symphony chorus last month, I sang a Handle aria about the speedy passage of beauty. The piece is from a cantata, Apollo e Dafne, and the aria is titled "Come rosa in su la spina." Apollo is having trouble wooing Dafne, and in this piece he says, "like the rose on its stem, quickly arriving and quickly going away, so with frightful speed goes the flower of beauty." Dafne will hear none of it and escapes Apollo's intent through the intercession of her father, who turns her into a laurel tree. Apollo then vows to commemorate his love for Dafne by wearing her as his crown. That is the mythical source of the "laurels" that celebrated people wear. 