Event: First Friday at Ong King Arts Center

Time and Place: Ong King Arts Center, 184 N. King St., Friday, January 5th, 5pm-2am (art gallery opening 5pm-9pm, performance 9pm-2am)

Cost: 10$ (art opening free)

Who Can Attend: All Ages!

More Info: www.ongking.com see@ongking.com,
ong king: 306-7823, see’s #: 428-3233

ART GALLERY OPENING…THEATRE PERFORMANCE
DANCE PERFORMANCE..MUSIC CONCERT..SLAM POETRY

FIRST FRIDAY, December 1st at Ong King Arts Center

After 2 years of being away from Hawaii Rachel Kaiser returns. Her nationally collected art, consisting of paintings, and shrines will be featured in Ong King Arts Centers unique First Friday opening, plus evening entertainment including: groove/funk band Quadraphonix, Nationally Recognized SLam Poet kahlil almustafa, Hip Hop Artist Anthem Kentura, Japanese Belly Dance group Yamato Nadeshiko, underground theatre company HUTC, The Jerome James Collective, and DJ Joulz.

ART GALLERY OPENING: “We each have the innate ability to see the grand scheme, to feel a connection to more than just the immediate,” says Rachel Kaiser, a young single mother and nationally collected artist. Her dynamic, multimedia artistic approach has long incorporated her moving, personal experience of relevant modern themes.

communal mind space

Rachael Kaiser’s diverse work includes painting, woodcarving, drawing, and shrine creation. She has received several national and local commissions including St. Francis Hospital in Eva Beach. She has been trained a around the world, at Yale University, the Chicago Institute of Fine Arts, and The School for International Training in Indonesia.

In 2001 Rachael teamed with Ong King founder and local musician Jonathan Heroux to found Chinatown’s On the River. Their combinations of music and art brought a new aspect to the local art scene. This collaboration of performance, art, and music was the foundation upon Ong King Art Center was built.

Motherhood is a deeply personal subject for Kaiser, who found out she was pregnant at 24 while on an art residency program in Vermont. “I didn’t know what to do,” says Kaiser. “I wasn’t married. Things weren’t mapped out for me in my life enough to make that decision. And so I went for a walk and came across some painted rocks outside of a painting studio. There was one directly in my line of vision that said ‘Be Pregnant.’ And that is a recurring theme for me – if you are searching and have the intent to know the answer, the answer appears in some form or another. Somehow, in just a moment, I could fly above the situation and know exactly what I was supposed to do. Now, many years later, it is clear that I made the right decision.”

Her new exhibition draws parallels and differences between human mothers and those in the bird kingdom. “Birds have the innate ability to physically soar above and see the grand scheme, but birds can’t be pregnant,” Kaiser continues. “A pregnant bird woman does not exist; it’s an unnaturally weighted down notion. Humans are weighted down, so we must constantly strive to use our instincts well to connect ourselves to the overall scheme. Only then, ironically, do we find ourselves on solid ground.”

SLAM POETRY: kahlil almustafa the People’s Poet, the 2002 Nuyorican Grand Slam Champion and the author of two collections of poetry: Grandma’s Soup (February 2001) and I’m Crying Everyone’s Tears (August 2002) which has sold more than 5,000 copies internationally. almustafa recently released his highly-anticipated debut CD CounterIntelligence (May 2006).

kahlil amustafa

almustafa has opened for and shared the stage with Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Manning Marable, dead prez, Floetry, Dilated

Peoples, Motown Recording Artist Donnie and tours regularly with the live hip-hop/rock band GAME Rebellion. He has been a featured poet at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, the C-Span televised “March to End Occupation in Iraq,” Columbia, NYU, Indiana, Pacifica Radio, the National Black Writer’s Conference, Afro-Punk Liberation Sessions and many more.

Also 2 local Youth Speaks poets perform a politically charged team piece concerning abortion.

Bridget Gray performs an excerpt from her one woman show: Naked Words, playing at Ong King on Friday January 12th

Bridget Gray

MUSIC CONCERT: Quadraphonix returns to Ong King, this unique local groove band includes, Shree Sadagopan, drummer Jonathan Heroux, double bass player Susan Cropp, and percussionist Eli Clemens.

quadraphonix

Hip Hop Artist Anthem Salgado, arrives from San Francisco. Salgado’s spoken word is backed by Russian musician/composer “Ace Kentura” Oshmansky, a classically trained artisan and electronica music enthusiast. Combined, this unique duo create a rich sonic experience, a film score kind of ride that draws comparisons from beat poetry, hip hop, and future jazz.
http://anthemsalgado.com http://myspace.com/anthemsalgado

anthem salgado, ace kentura

The Jerome James collective arrives. Jerome James is a local percussion prodigy, his original music creations combine the technology of computers with organic beats and vocals.

jerome james

DJ Joulz corrals the evening with original beats and collaboration with live musicians.

DANCE: NEW Japanese Belly dance group, YAMATO NADESHIKO exhibits a unique blend of Turkish, Egyptian, American Cabaret, and American Tribal Style belly dance. Yamato Nadeshiko means pure and ideal woman in ancient Japan.

yamato nadeshiko

THEaTRE: H.U.T.C. (Honolulu Underground Theatre Collective) returns with See directing and writing a New Year Spectacle.

HUTC

logo designed by jessica hatch

TeaSinG SOurce

syntax is a vortex in context of touch,
to hand,
to face,
the story conducting,
the glory instructing the allegorical allegiance…
all even eventually,
even now, even us, even easter springs inkling letting, tempting a total tempest,
tide turn of offer of oars towards war,
earth war, man war,
take more core, take core, bore, take bore, take gore,
guelish gaps gratify,
grateful of security secretly sold
old ties-barren mold,
molten morose morality,
making miniscule ridicule ride:
ride of reason, ride tide of treason,
treasure. pleasure, prayer, or progress?
prohibit habit happening,
hats off two three ready resonate resplendent independent ends to means to meaning made material, material made meaning,

we may have to read the paper,
they got up, and we may have and to say all these words at the same time:
did die do died, did dead do dyen,
item ‘A’ for apocalypse,
and ‘A’ for birth,
indentured teens screaming for meaning blaspheming
fiending for fellowship, inherit heritage
homage adage, of old age aiding deities, teasing seen source,
sound resounding advice, isolated in nepharious niceties
neither needed, accidental, with an acumen to accentuate the dominate drive of eight tons of try me.

truth trickles, so sickle of a cycle seers serenity,
tin enemy envisioned vice violated,
collated, culture, suture,
spurn churn burn
sunk song of soul
lift levy Eve, elicit elixir, reseed Eden

goddess rips

intro: the trail seeks mastering and the task is to do much more than enough.

(1) the bluff called she reached for the signing papers,
and I may bespeak to you, that word once know…
that once you knew, that we would be so wanton too,
that two could dream forgotten,
flinch and flicker,
believe and beleaguer,
boast and bespeak,
bemoan and be released from all the tricks of the past,
its mask lasts on your face, your fickle,
your so urged on to be so much, you reach but a bit,
you seek but a kiss, or drop a penny in a well
and dare under take a deep bellied significance?

(2) deny the vile pile of ignorance!
uplift the cast task of arrogance!
lay waste on the rocks the subterfuge of approval, of conquest, and habit, of grab it up, and scarf it down just to keep your fire burning,
connect through turning the mirror about face,
by connecting the prayer and the giver of grace to….
you are intelligent as god!
to…
you are you again, to…
you sitting naked behind the leviathan,
the worldbridger hears you harbinger for caress, conversational distress leaves a lonely loon listless,
don’t add me to the pride, to your fortress,
I am a dot, a celestial object in orbit, absorb it,
I gravitate you to eschew the significance of me beyond me.

(3) oh! that the earth would ripen of its own volition,
and through its gift we could ease into health,
but claustrophobic concubines, corroded caretakers,
contorted carnival of cackling crows we pull,
and the undertow is mapped on our psyche-
I want, I like, I need, I need thee to tell me that I am, that I can, that I would, that I have,
oh! longing lingers lately, and I’m naked someone take me!
but I am mother and baby,
I am father and fortress, I am all and one.
when all you ever have is you,
and all you ever know is that: from U by U,
goodness comes apace,
a lineage linked to love,
linked to longevity,
linked to listening,
lingers in this liturgy,
it’s in the silence behind everything,
and in the focus where your heart sings
and in your next offering

Currently listening :
Raise Your Voice
By Sweet Honey in the Rock

[07 Dec 2006 | Thursday]

comfortable APocaLypse

eyes of authority would be so heaven spent,
spent from juggling without poise of patience,
the lead balls greasy from hands chipping dry and
muscles teaming hot weary connected to the mind and thus indistinct from the machines noisy gears, ragging lunatics of energy that gnaw at the life force,
crunch my veins and sacrifice my colors and fall beneath the sheets of solace that I would tend, with the little where with all I have left,
let the fragrance of my boyhood mingle with the pine,
..that one that is spoken in story books by candle light,
oh! that these dream images had not worn out so fast,
that the days of simplicity had become the fad and
that the people had taken to what they had with ample hands.
ungreed me..greet me..no more..
sing soft..no more-
now the twinkle is boxed the serenade is in the formula of bottled this and that,
now we are wired, and shut eyes are mellowed and rusted, good bye, good bye to our children, our childhood,
our adult hood and our obligations, now we are missed muddled, every role, every part and parcel of every day,
on and on

[18 Oct 2006 | Wednesday]

fOOLiSh CaKaling 2

your flesh radiates
my togue tip
lays, loquatious lists, listless
serenity, sardonic, selected
and then up against the door
and down upon the floor
and up into a..

I remember when this all began
I remember your scent
your womaly scent
breaking, making parrallel paths perpendicular
Illuminating my conch shell
our particulars
our particles
our particulars
fit don..t they?
I want you, I need you to say ..yes..
..yes.. let these cries fall
shattering skies of hopeless
into sighs of ..right, yes..
all is, I am, in every inch of
pore of, taste of…
your majesty I will never speak for you,
But I will call out
for these moments eliminate doubt
eradicate fear,
elucidate inumerable motions
hip motions, hand motions,
unifying dripping,
grip these moments with photographic breathe
that these fragements may awaken awe at life
and agency in planting your essence in its every arrival

[12 Oct 2006 | Thursday]

fOOLiSh CaKaling

and what would one wield when wells wink at discord
then only answer to flatter the scattering folly
to gestated impregnate the term
the terms of this are set in hopelessness
the items in question are bid to discontent
our answer in this arraignment is to falter none and sustain all
to crack, divide and none is no ones concubine
she is merely, merry, a misconstrued malevolent miss
who despite my joy, and or, cadence, passionate skill of touch,
still she would rather have lunch than fuck
so shit me out of this skin, shell me over
drag me under, asunder,
crack
make my walls anew
renew my faith in disbelief
and cast me as the clown
mired in color, painted open
fuck that, its what I am,
and so I will bring it,
just not to you,
not tonight
not tomorrow
not the day after either
or even the day after that
TRah-LAH-Laa!

[08 Sep 2006 | Friday]

Future Memory

(she staggers, lucid to the stone)
we had been so thankful, we had been so full.
we woke the day in thinking, knowing that this would come because! And the because before that, that one because that sparked our existence! Was often LOVE. And so, being of love, with foresight! Predicting: possibility, action. (from far off the sound of wind across a dry carcass) This hallow shell, this bit of rotting paper, I write on to no one at all, a weery drunken foolish understanding has come over me, the dirt is pink with uranium,
the sand is near the beach, and the beach is somewhere,
waves lap, overlapping desperate cries,
too far away too encumber the sweet swhish swhish, echoing now, memory, we had memory… no, we had imagination! seagulls, squak!, squak! (laughter) laughter, crowds of laughter, sharing choices like candy, this is the end of this time, of my time too, I thank you, I am thankful.

a thunderous roar of silence uplifts her into death. a lonley buzzard goes about the bussiness. and another apocalyptic story is underway, the setting scene, the character, the world vanquished of format, resonating with emptyness, whose eye is watching?
whose ear is listening? it doesnt matter, theyres no one to sell too, to satisfy, to pleed, plege, or purge the poetry, from practice to process, everythng is clean, its too clear to be distracting, and too distant to be relevant, its to soon to be, its too soon to be.