DISSIDENT FOLK & ARTS FESTIVAL
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Dissident Folk & Arts Festival 2008
Male
47 years old
BEACON, New York
United States
Last Login: 7/27/2008
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| General | The Dissident Folk & Arts Festival is a forum to bridge the arts and progressive activism in New York State's Hudson Valley. Performers who have been presented may walk in as artists, but they leave as Cultural Workers.
THIS YEAR'S FESTIVAL occurs on Saturday October 11, from 6PM till 11PM. It will again be housed at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon NY. The theme this year is a celebration of the twilight of the Bush criminal conspiracy! But much more so, its a call to arms for audience members and performers alike to become decidedly more active. Voter registration will be available at the event, as well as progressive networking. PERFORMERS INCLUDE Bev Grant & the Dissident Daughters, The Flames of Discontent, Hope Machine, Chris Ruhe (in a special Freedom Song set with Gospel artists TBA), The Hudson Valley Playback Theatre, the Slink Moss Orchestra, Zenote Sompantle, Hip-Hop poet Ol Soul, radical poets Addision Goodson, Lawrence Soebel, Robert Milby and Sana Shabazz and guest speakers from the Pennsylvania-based Grassroots Coalition and the Hudson Valley Obama supporters organization. The program will close with a song-circle tribute to the late Utah Phillips. This event is organized and hosted by John Pietaro, labor organizer and cultural worker. | | Music | While the Festival began as a showcase of folk-oriented protest song, in subsequent editions its goals were expanded to celebrate a much wider spectrum of protest arts. Many of the performers involved offer a broad selection of genre as well as culture, gender and age, as well as Left philosophy. | | Movies | | | Television | | | Books | | | Heroes | |
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Hippies!!!!!!, STOP THE RACISM, OPEN_YOUR_EYES, Bob Marley Fan Club, the SHAC 7, Liberal Media, Anti-War Youth of Central Florida, Not In Our Name
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DISSIDENT FOLK & ARTS FESTIVAL's Details
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| Status: | Married | | Here for: | Networking | | Zodiac Sign: | Cancer |
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DISSIDENT FOLK & ARTS FESTIVAL's Networking
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Music - Performance - Other
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The Dissident Folk & Arts Festival seeks to network with left-wing musicians of protest
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Music - Production - Producer
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The Dissident Folk & Arts Festival seeks to network with left-wing musicians of protest
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Music - Performance - Other
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THe Dissident Folk & Arts Festival seeks to network with all cultural workers
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THE DISSIDENT FOLK & ARTS FESTIVAL 2008 -
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-Presented by John Pietaro and the Howland Cultural Center-
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The third Dissident Folk & Arts Festival--returns to Beacon's Howland Cultural Center on Saturday October 11 of this year, 6PM - 11PM. This festival celebrates a diverse view of protest song and poetry, offering works of social change, labor, peace and pride through many genres. Special segments this year include A TRIBUTE TO UTAH PHILLIPS to close off the evening, but prior to this expect a series of powerful performances by the likes of celebrated topical songstress Bev Grant, alternative protest music duet the Flames of Discontent (presenting a mini-trib to Bertolt Brecht), the Hudson Valley Playback theatre, folksinger/activist Chris Ruhe in a special Freedom Song segment, the notorious Slink Moss, hip-hop poet Ol Soul, folk expansionists Hope Machine, Mexican revolutionary musician Zenote Sompantle, radical poets Robert Milby, Addison Goodson, Sana Shabazz and Lawrence Soebel, folk artists, gospel singers, more spoken word performers and of course guest speakers from various progressive and radical organizations. In the period just prior to the presidential election, the cultural workers must speak out--- Let's begin the end-of-Bush celebration early!
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Our first Dissident Festival, in 2006, featured brilliant sets by the likes of Malachy McCourt, Pete Seeger, Bev Grant and numerous others from acoustic music to the edge of avant folk, to pop, blues, world music and more. There were also special tributes to both Woody Guthrie and Paul Robeson.
The 2007 edition of the show brought back some topical favorites and ended with an explosive salute to Bertolt Brecht, with the songs of Brecht and Eisler and Brecht and Weill performed by two ensembles--the Flames of Discontent and Jennie Litt & David Alpher.
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The organizer began the Festival as a means of presenting cultural workers--artists who focus on activism through their art—in a large-scale setting. This is the only such Festival of its kind and it is scheduled to be an annual event at least through the end of the Bush Administration. Our progressive mission is not covert; we are promoting peace, equality, labor and immigrant rights. Another goal of this Festival is to break the image of the protest singer as a “white guy with an acoustic guitar” exclusively. The Dissident Folk & Arts Festival insists on bookings that are never homogenous in sounds, look, age, culture or style. The imagery onstage is as expansive as the content of the songs and poems. The cultural workers speak!
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Please contact John Pietaro with all inquiries-- leftmus@earthlink.net and watch our website's Calendar section for updates--- www.flamesofdiscontent.org
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Press about the 2006 Dissident Fest…
1) THE POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL
Friday, October 13, 2006
"Festival Celebrates Social Protest, Music"
By JOHN BARRY
The one-two punch of music and social protest, its impact on society and relevance today will be probed this weekend at a two-day event set for the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon.
John Pietaro of Beacon, a musician and labor organizer for a union representing state workers, has organized The Dissident Folk Festival, which is set to feature protest songs and poetry and speakers.
Pietaro, whose own band, The Flames of Discontent, will perform Saturday, hopes to spotlight the role regular folks can play in demanding action from political leaders of all parties on a wide range of issues. Pietaro said action can range from stopping the Iraq war to cleaning up the environment.
"I'm not against all politicians and I don't think this is against the concept of a political party," Pietaro said. "There needs to be a resurgence in people's sense of mission on worker's rights, the rights of the environment, the rights of immigrants."
Pietaro has lined up several speakers who could leave a powerful impact.
GUTHRIE'S SONGS INVOLVED
Anna Canoni, the granddaughter of folk music and protest icon Woody Guthrie, is scheduled to speak Saturday night. A film about Guthrie will also be shown and a "Woody Round Robin" featuring Guthrie songs performed live will be held.
"Woody is the prototypical protest singer," Pietaro said. "Woody Guthrie spent his entire life going out and working with unions, working with farm workers, working with poor families. His entire career was based on doing that. This guy was so selfless. If he had $2, he would give away $1.90. Woody had to be a part of this event."
Another presence that will loom large over the Dissident Folk Festival is that of the late athlete and actor Paul Robeson, a world-renowned singer, Broadway actor and international activist called to testify before the House of Representatives Un-American Activities
Committee in 1956. Robeson, honored in 2004 with a U.S. Postal Service stamp, was blacklisted by the entertainment industry.
ROBESON WORKS
On Sunday, Henry Foner, president of the Paul Robeson Foundation, is scheduled to speak. Following Foner, vocalist Kenneth Anderson will perform songs made famous by Robeson.
Also scheduled are Arianna DeJesus, a 16-year-old poet from Wappingers Falls; Zenote Sompantle, who will perform Mexican revolutionary songs; and author Malachy McCourt, the Green Party candidate for New York governor. These three will appear Sunday.
"I want this to be folk music in the broadest sense," Pietaro said. "It's the people's music. I don't care what people you are."
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2) CHRONOGRAM Magazine, October 2006:
'Folk Flame Burns in Beacon'by Rebecca Wild Nelson
Take your concept of the traditional folk festival and twist it even further to the left. The burgeoning art scene in Beacon will be the backdrop for the first-ever Dissident Folk Festival on October 14 and 15 at the Howland Cultural Center. But don't expect to see only a bunch of white men playing acoustic guitars. The festival is an attempt to redefine folk music by featuring younger musicians like anarcho-feminist punk-folker Holly Goanarchy and New York anti-folk pioneer Lach while still paying appropriate homage to radical greats Woody Guthrie and Paul Robeson.
"Nobody at this festival is concerned about being 'too radical,'" said John Pietaro, the festival's organizer and singer-banjoist of the Flames of Discontent, one of the acts set to appear. He sees the event as an attempt to wake folk music of complacency and back into the radical roots of Guthrie and Robeson. Speakers, musicians, and activists—ranging in age from the 16-year-old political poet Arianna Dejesus to the tellingly named Pittsburgh Raging Grannies protest-performance group—will sing and speak out about labor rights, social justice, the upcoming congressional elections, and about leaving those taboos against radicalism behind.
The Hudson Valley continues to form its identity as a worthy hotbed for the radicalist folk movement. Beacon is also home to Pete Seeger, who assisted in selecting musicians for the festival. In 1946, members of the KKK and the American Legion incited a riot in nearby Peekskill, preventing a scheduled concert by Paul Robeson. Robeson promised to return to the valley, declaring, "My people and I won't be frightened by crosses burning in Peekskill or anywhere else." (The concert was rescheduled, and more rioting followed.)
The event is open to all ages, because, as Pietaro says, "Usually, most of the audience [at folk festivals] is over 60. But we're breaking that down."
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