The Arts in New York City

Yasuyuki Takagi came to New York City from Japan 15 years ago aspiring to become a professional musician. His father’s classical Jazz music inspired Yasuyuki to begin playing the saxaphone at a young age. While studying muscianship, Yasuyuki worked through the day as a social worker. However, after the September 11th tragedy, he lost his job and became a full time performer. He formed his own band in 2002 which he named “Yaz” band. They became an official member of the Music Under New York title after auditioning against other subway performers in the spring of every year at the Grand Central Terminal. They continue to play after 10 years. Yaz Band was featured in Subway Idol hosted by Fox5 news and have played in Lincoln Center. The group consists of Eric Smith on the Keyboards, Sly Geralds playing the Bass, Shinya Miyamoto on Drums, Guitar played by Takeshi Hiwatari with understudies in each position. The group released a CD in 2003. The sound of their music is a combination of jazz and smooth R&B.

Hey graffitti gang, today i spent the day taking pictures of some nice graffitti in queens. Many of the murals reflect NY culture, other are mad random, like animal life lol. ANyways, should i make a slideshow?

I have like 3 clips of subway peformances, how do i upload them?

Here’s my slideshow from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Our group is going to put all of our slideshows together.

http://www.slide.com/r/6LAhZbrN0D9s8_9sCV0HqmeII7LApten?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

– Jenna

I got a reply which states that she is too busy for an interview online but gave me other places to look.

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse. this would be field research, and not
published. You'd have to talk with them - _www.thefoodproject.org_
(http://www.thefoodproject.org) . Food Desert  (did I really write dessert? yikes.)
is a newly
coined term to talk about where  it’s hard to get food in an urban environment.
The organizations that address  this are Added Value added-value.org, and
Just Food _www.justfood.org_ (http://www.justfood.org) . If you want more info on
 culture, you might try NYU Food Studies, if you can get a hold of their
published Masters’ theses. I suspect there is some research there.
Hope that helps.

I did some research yesterday and found that there was a Food Museum, the problem is that it is not a physical one. So I emailed a question about our project and requested an interview and all that and I got this response:

Hi Dmitry,
If I were you I’d contact The Food Project and get their help research “Food
Desserts” - Or Food Change, Added Value or Just Food. All have NYC field
work projects that can illustrate the dynamic of fast food better than I can. I
can give you opinions, but everyone has those…
Sounds interesting, good luck.
Cheers,
Nancy Ralph

I sent the following reply:

Thank you for your reply. I just have a few questions about the content of
your reply. You mentioned the Food Project and some of their research. I
am having trouble finding their research. You wrote: “”Food Desserts” - Or
Food Change, Added Value or Just Food.” Is that one title of a study or
two? Also I just found out that for this project we do not have to get
interviews on video per se, so online interviews are allowed. For this
project, we can probably cite formal studies, but opinions are the best
form. On that note, would you be able to answer some questions about
various aspects of food and New York City through email?

Thank you very much for your time,

Dmitry Kucher

So in other words I want to conduct an interview through email and so I need some questions to ask her. I’m hoping she will agree to this interview and we are going to have to find some way to include this in the video.

Dmitry

Here are the questions Alice and I emailed to Lisa Dinhofer for our interview.

1- Can you give us a background on yourself and the kind of art you do?  When did you start making art and why?

2- How did you get involved with the MTA? Are you working with the MTA now, and if so, what are you working on?

3- How did you start the project “Losing My Marbles”? Did you create this work specifically for the MTA? Did they contact you to do this project?

4- In the creative aspect, what was your inspiration and/or motivation to create “Losing My Marbles”? Did the MTA give you any guidelines, or was everything up to you? Who were you trying to speak to through your art?

5- Who do you think “Losing My Marble”, and other subway art, reaches out to the most?

6- How do you think NYC subway art is unique to the NYC culture?

If anyone wants to work on subway art (commissioned by the MTA), Diana Y and I (Alice) are putting this together.

If you have time, go take pictures/videos/interviews related to subway art. And below is what we’re aiming to get done. —Alice M.

1- A written intro on subway art- how it doesn’t fall under the refined art in NYC (such as musuems, galleries, plays, or operas) or as the illegal/street art (such as grafitti, street art), but it is unique to NYC in it’s own way. This leads into our own exploration of subway art- who makes it, who the art is for, and it’s impact.
2- Email interview with Lisa Dinhofer concerning her piece “Losing My Marbles” and her view of subway art.
3- A trip through a particular subway station (most likely 42nd street), commenting on it and possibly interviewing people about the art. SAT DEC 8th.
4- Going to the Transit Museum to look up the art we found. Possibly interviewing the museum curator. SAT DEC 8th.
5- Connecting everything we did back to the topic of subway art, how it is unique to NYC and its effect on us.

Hey all, does anyone know when this project is due?