Arts & Culture Story Archives - Page 326 of 329 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

The Great Textbook War

Charleston native Trey Kay examines the 1974 textbook controversy in the radio documentary, “The Great Textbook War.”

In 1974, Kanawha County was the first battleground in the American culture wars. Controversy erupted over newly-adopted school textbooks. School buildings were hit by dynamite and Molotov cocktails, buses were riddled with bullets, journalists were beaten and surrounding coal mines were shut down by protesting miners.

Textbook opponents believed the books were teaching their children to question their authority, traditional values and the existence of God.

Textbook supporters said children needed to be exposed to a wide variety of beliefs and experiences, and taught to make their own decisions.

To stream the full piece, use the streaming player at the top of the page.

Man strives to restore Philippi theatre

While the International Film Festival gets underway in Charleston, in another part of the state, a man is working to bring film back to his small town.

Russ Stover is trying to restore the Grand Theatre in downtown Philippi, to make it an attraction to cinema enthusiasts in the area. Stover says in that part of the state, it’s very difficult for film lovers to go see movies.

“I want to open instead of just another theater showing new movies, I want to open a revival theater. I can show what the people want to see, and that is something that isn’t done around here. If you want to see a documentary, you’ve got to go to Pittsburgh or Morgantown if you’re lucky, or you have to wait until it comes out on disc,” Stover said.

Stover would like to screen older movies at the theater, like films from Alfred Hitchcock and other iconic movie makers. But getting it open won’t be easy.

In other parts of the state, older theaters have been demolished, like the two downtown theaters that used to be in Fairmont.

Others are vacant and basically abandoned, like the Warner Theatre in Morgantown. But there is at least one example of what Stover is trying to accomplish, in Shepherdstown, where a restored historic theater shows movies and hosts concerts. Stover is certain a restored Grand Theater, like the one in Shepherdstown, will be successful.

“I’ve seen too many of these wonderful old places turn into parking lots. A place like Philippi that appreciates its history, it’s something you want to save. With the way the college is expanding, I’m surprised other businesses haven’t moved into Philippi,” said Stover.

Stover is trying to raise the money for the theater, and he’s far away from that goal. But he’s hoping he’ll be successful in bringing cinema back to Philippi.

1st annual WV Tattoo Expo kicks off in Morgantown

Tattoo artists and ink-fanatics alike traveled from all over the country to the first ever WV Tattoo Expo in Morgantown Oct. 11-13, 2013.

Tattoo contests, a Miss Tattooed West Virginia competition, and tattooing seminars were among the featured events at the expo.

“Right now we are in the main event room of the Morgantown Event Center. We have over 150 tattoo artists doing their thing,” says Rocco Cunningham, a tattoo artist from Clarksburg and organizer of the weekend event.

“Right now there’re people everywhere looking at artwork, looking through portfolios, sitting in chairs getting tattooed, waiting to get their tattoos. Everybody’s excited. The atmosphere is outstanding.”

Luna Alba travelled from Northern Virginia when she heard about the expo and is getting tattooed for the 10^th time.

“Honestly, I find it pretty therapeutic after a while, because the adrenalin just kind of goes through your whole body. After the first maybe 20 minutes, it’s kind of relaxing,” she says with a wince as the needle starts working. “It’s pretty painful,” she admits. “It’s on my hip. So, yeah. It’s pretty bad.”

Alba’s tattoo artist is well-known. Rick Cherry. He’s been drawing permanent art on bodies for 43 years.

“I got my first professionally-done tattoo in Washington DC, when I was 14 years old,” Cherry remembers. “I was hooked, I had to do it. I was convinced that I was going to have to learn how to do it.”

Cherry also sells his own hand-made tattooing equipment. He says it’s a dying art, but he’s passionate about machining his own drills.

“In my shop at my house I have milling machines, I have lathes, I have welders. I have to cut out all the metal, braise it together. The coils that operate the machine—I cut the cores for them, I hand wrap the electrical wire, solder everything together. Hand-cut springs. The only thing I don’t make are the screws and the washers. ”

Hundreds of people came out to the event in Morgantown. Men and women, young and old.

“What we really wanted to do was try to represent the tattoo community the best we could and also represent the state of WV the best we could,” Cunningham says. “We have the opportunity to meet a lot of great artists and a lot of great people and to promote the art form. Tattooing is the most ancient form of art in the world.”

Rafters furloughed: how the federal shutdown impacts the Grand Canyon

Kathy Zerkle is a river ranger for the National Park Service who works in Fayette County in New River Park, and, you guessed it, she’s out of work these days. Furloughed. And while she’s concerned about what that means for the safety and well-being of the New River Park and the public that visit, and her personal future financially, she’s also concerned about how the government shutdown impacts the Grand Canyon—or at least her ability to experience it.

Zerkle says the National Park Service has already been operating in a limited capacity under the government sequestration, and now, what was a staff of about 100 has been cut to 9. She says she’s frustrated by policy makers’ inability to balance matters of public safety with partisan agendas, but moreover, now she’s seeing her dream of rafting down the Grand Canyon dashed as well.

“I certainly didn’t want to see the President give in to the tactics of the Republican Party, just so that I can go on the Grand Canyon, but it sure would be nice to go on the Grand Canyon! We’ve been planning this for over a year.”

Zerkle explains, in order to raft down the Colorado River that carved out the Grand Canyon, you have to pay a fee and enter a lottery a year before you hope to float.

“A year ago, February, I went ahead and put in for this year and was awarded a date, which happens to be October 25^th, and I can take a maximum of 16 people for 21 days down the Grand Canyon.”

Food, gear, transportation—that’s all up to whomever gets the golden ticket—so to speak. Zerkle says she and her friends have been preparing, investing, and there’s a mountain of gear sitting in her home, ready to be driven across the country. But she’s not sure if she and her cohorts can afford to trip-it all the way to Arizona just to be denied access at the gate. She says 22 groups have tried to put-on since the shutdown and they’ve all been turned away.

So why, right? Even though the National Park Service is furloughed, rafting continues in West Virginia. It’s one of the busiest times of the year, in fact. Zerkle explains that it really comes down to access.

“A lot of the properties within our boundaries are owned by private entities, the roads are state roads, there’s private property at the end of the government roads and even at the end of the Park’s roads, so we can’t block access. Plus, I like to think that in New River, our superintendent, coolers heads prevailed and they were able to find a way to say that the New River and the Gauley River are navigable water ways and the only people who can shut down access to navigable waterways is the US Coast Guard.”

But it’s a different story out West. All the property surrounding the Grand Canyon, all the roads, all the concessions, the put-in areas, plus the permitting process, the required check-list that has to be verified, the required orientation procedures that teaches the public how to protect the resource during the three-week excursion—it’s all is under the control and management of the National Park Service.

So Zerkle’s livelihood and her dream of rafting down the Grand Canyon are on hold. While it makes her feel ill, she says her priorities are still in line, and her biggest concern remains the future of the nation. Her opinion of Washington? Her faith in leadership?

“We are really just pons in the Big Game. It bothers me that these people that are elected officials who are supposed to be here for the good of the group are really more concerned about what I feel their personal agendas are.”

In the latest developments, over the weekend, The Grand Canyon and other national parks were opened to the public, but only because states have come up with the money to support them. And while that bodes well for some tourists–and the businesses that rely on them–it’s a temporary deal. It costs in the ball park of $100,000 a day to operate a park like the Grand Canyon. States have only been able to promise about a week to the public which means, Kathy Zerkle and her friends, who are scheduled to visit the canyon October 25th, are still in limbo, hoping legislators will strike a deal, and soon.

Lack of infrastructure challenges W.Va. filmmakers

Miracle Boy, a film about a young boy who is injured in a farming accident and then bullied by other boys, took home Best Short film at the West Virginia Filmmaker’s Festival this past weekend. Producer Jason Brown said he will always be a West Virginia filmmaker despite his Georgia address. The movie was shot in Greenbrier County.

Dialogue is limited in the short film Miracle Boy, filled instead with sounds of West Virginia mountain country.

The movie was featured at Concord University last week. Concord student Cassandra Molchanoff said it brought her new appreciation for film.

“It definitely made me feel at home when I was watching it,” she said.

The storyline follows a young boy who is injured in a farming accident and then bullied by other boys. But more than that, producer Jason Brown said it’s about doing the right thing.

“The story was about a young boy taking accountability for his actions,” he said. “I think at the end of the day what we were trying to get across is the humanity in that one young boy and seeing his mistake and making up for it.”

Bullying has made national headlines in recent years after pushing some children to commit suicide and West Virginia is not immune. Although it wasn’t Brown’s intention, Miracle Boy has been used by counselors and anti-bullying advocates across the country.

Molchanoff plans to show it to other students at Concord.

“I am so passionate about anti-bullying because I see it here at Concord’s campus,” she said. “The fact that it goes from that age and it just continues to build even into college; this film is a definite example that you can use to show that it’s not what you want to do.”

“Bullying is so hard and it really puts a damper on someone’s life so I’m definitely going to use this film as an RA to do anti-bullying.”

Miracle Boy premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2012 and won the Top Grit prize for best overall film at the 2013 Indie Grits Film Festival.

Brown is a native West Virginian and Concord graduate. He currently teaches communication courses at Valdosta State University in Georgia, but stays true to his roots by encouraging West Virginians to see past and beyond the mountainous borders.

“We often don’t fulfill our own sort of possibility because here in Southern West Virginia a lot of times we get sort of stuck in the mountains,” Brown said. “We don’t’ see what’s really possible and you have to believe in what’s there. You have to see it and then believe yourself. And then the other half of that really I believe is create your own opportunities.”

States across the country offer different levels and types of tax incentives to filmmakers. While states like North Carolina are debating whether to continue giving tax breaks and how big they should be, West Virginia’s program is relatively underused.

The director of the West Virginia Film Office, Pam Haynes, said just last year Governor Earl Ray Tomblin spearheaded an effort to reduce the amount of money offered through the Film Industry Investment Act- which was originally $10-million.

“Our program had yet to surpass $5-million in any of the tax years since it was implemented,” Haynes said, “than it made sense to have that reduced to $5-million.”

The program offers about a 30 percent tax credit to filmmakers based on the cost of a film, with a minimum spending requirement of $25,000. The filmmaker can also file for a four percent bump by hiring 10 or more West Virginia residents.

Jason Brown is familiar with filmmaker tax credits in several states and said West Virginia’s is one of the most competitive.

“This is a good thing,” he said, “but it tends to be like everything else; why would we put this much aside if not enough people are actually using it.”

“We need to be using it. It’s a great opportunity. It’s a great resource. I’m not thinking we’re going to have the Walking Dead show up in Buchannan or anything but it could. Why not?”

Brown hopes more people will realize the opportunity for filmmaking in the mountains of West Virginia.

“The two best things we have going for us with “Miracle Boy” it’s pretty and the sound is amazing,” he said. “But I’ll tell ya what, it was real easy. All we had to do is just point the camera because so much of Greenbrier County is beautiful you just had to point the camera in the right direction and turn the microphone on.”

Still Brown suspects the biggest challenge or barrier for filmmakers in the state, is the same as it is for him … infrastructure.

“So much of the industry anymore you don’t have to be in Hollywood,” he said, “but if we don’t have the internet, we don’t have the air flights.”

“If there is the investment here I will stay. I will come running back.”

“We have a lot of people who can do things from here and touch the world. They all want to come back and make movies but what they need is investors, they need support. Gosh just in general we need West Virginians to support West Virginia, more and more.”

Bringing broadband to the mountain state is a work in progress. The West Virginia Broadband Deployment Council exists and now has a website meant to help bring affordable broadband to unserved areas of the state.

The festival run of Miracle Boy is expected to end after two more screening. The short film will show in California on Sunday. An announcement for the location of the final showing has not been made yet.

Miracle Boy was based on the short story by writer Pinkney Benedict. Jake Mahaffy was the director.

A conversation with West Virginia Filmmaker of the Year, John Nakashima

For more than 30 years, John Nakashima has made documentaries at West Virginia Public Broadcasting. But he’s also done more.He co-edited the cult classic…

For more than 30 years, John Nakashima has made documentaries at West Virginia Public Broadcasting. But he’s also done more.

He co-edited the cult classic film “Chillers,” and worked on animated films, like “The Griffin and the Minor Canon,” which is based on a book of short stories penned by Frank Stockton. Nakashima is now being honored by his filmmaking colleagues with the state’s award for Filmmaker of the Year.

Here is the 26 minute documentary, Clifftop:

1009Naka.mp3

This 6:05 feature aired on West Virginia Public Radio.

JohnNakashima.mp3

This audio is the raw and uncut interview Ben Adducchio conducted with Nakashima.

Here are some clips from Mountaineer:

Here are clips from Different Drummer Documentaries Your Public Servant, and The Final Accounting