News_and_interest

Baha’is know the New York City Baha’i Center as a place to convene for Study Circles, devotional gatherings and Holy Day celebrations. Thanks to New York City Baha’is Mike and Dorothy Longo, organizers of the seven-year-old concert series Jazz Tuesdays, musicians and music lovers have come to know the Center as a unique venue for jazz. Each Tuesday night, fans can see two sets of jazz in a smoke and alcohol-free environment for the affordable admissions fee of $15 and $10 for students with ID.

Dorothy Longo, James Jabbo Ware and Mike Longo ©2010 Scott Friedlander

In recognition of work on Jazz Tuesdays, which has brought hundreds of jazz fans to the Center, the Longos were named the recipients of the 2010 Friend of the Family Award, which is given by Y’All of New York, Inc., a prominent jazz organization, to “special folks who are indispensable to the life and vitality of the jazz community in the region and beyond.” They received the award at an Awards Concert featuring James Jabbo Ware and the Me We and Them Orchestra held on October 16^th in the Living Room at Saint Peter’s Church. William Lowe, a trombonist and member of Y’all of New York Inc.’s Board of Directors, opened the evening by saying, “When you enter the Baha’i Center, you are always greeted warmly and made to feel welcome. Everyone is so friendly and supportive.”

Jazz Tuesdays performances are held every Tuesday night in the cozy John Birks Gillespie Auditorium, which was named for the great jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, a longtime Baha’i who died in 1993 and who, the Longos say, inspired the series. Performers have included many musicians who played with Gillespie, including trombonist Benny Powell, drummer Charlie Persip, and Mike Longo himself. A pianist and composer, Longo worked as Gillespie’s pianist and musical director exclusively for 9 years, and then another 16 years on a part time basis until Gillespie’s illness and death.

Saxophonist Bob Magnuson, who has played Jazz Tuesdays several times, believes that the concert series is one that Gillespie, who cared deeply about building community, would have appreciated. “To do anything in jazz is hard. Rents are high. No one wants to come out. No one wants to pay. There’s no alcohol and food here. For fifteen dollars, you get two sets. And you get community. We see faces of people who would never go to concerts come to this series. That was Dizzy,” he says.

If you took a trip down to Tisch School of the Arts to watch dance classes, you might be surprised to find a red head teaching Chinese dance to a class of mostly Asians. Aly Rose is a well known dancer and choreographer based in New York who honed her skills in China. Having lived there for over 12 years, is fluent in Mandarin. She is also the first Westerner to graduate from the Beijing Dance Academy, Asia's finest dance institution. 

Her art is called "human architecture" and her most recent piece is called ONE.Thirty harnessed dancers, suspended by pencil thin, moving, computer operated cables, perform in mid-air. Together, the dancers create one immense - and constantly shifting shape in the sky. Yet, as Rose points out, "There's never one person who's moving the same as another. It's a symbol of the relationship between the individual and the collective. Just as we are on this planet, together. Not only are we interdependent, but also our actions and beliefs affect others. As a Baha'i, the concept of oneness is something I wanted to explore."

ONE is scheduled to have its premier this July, at the Shanghai Expo.

The situation for Bahá’ís in Iran is still dire, but you can make a difference. A resolution condemning the Islamic Republic for its treatment of Bahá’ís just passed the House of Representatives, and The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is currently reviewing a related bill. One of our senators, Kirsten Gillibrand, is a member of the this committee.

Please write her a letter, urging her to pass the resolution. A sample letter, recognizable by most word processing programs, is available for download right HERE.

Feel free to alter the text – the more individualized and personal your letter is, the more impact it will have. Just keep in mind it’s always more effective.

Most guests on Oprah Winfrey’s shows leave the questions to their famous host. Not Rainn Wilson, the actor famous for playing the eccentric paper salesman, Dwight Schrute, on NBC’s hit comedy “The Office.” During his recent spot on Winfrey’s Soul Series radio show, Wilson pulled a list of questions from his back pocket and started interviewing his host.

His questions for Oprah included these:

• What does your soul look like?
• If you could ask God one question, what would it be?

They’re the sort of questions – “life’s big questions” – that Wilson, a longtime Baha’i, posts on his new website, Soul Pancake. Anyone who visits the site can post an answer – or questions of their own. Winfrey’s favorite question of Wilson’s was, “What do you miss most about being five years old?”

“I like that,” she said, and promised she’d eventually come up with a response.

When she does, she can post it on Soul Pancake, a place where she – and the rest of us – can share our own answers to life’s big questions with people from all over the world.