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MUSIC
Atlas Soul is an award-winning band based in Boston performing original music that celebrates and bridge Afro-Mediterranean melodies & grooves with Jazz and Funk and hip-hop thus naturally creating new powerful genres of music one could describe as Maghrebian-Funk, Rock’n Raï and Shaâbi-Jazz.
Their powerful energetic & tight live performance is guaranteed to move any audience and soon have every one sing along (often in a foreign language) up & dancing & sharing the positive energy!
They have played venues such asThe Montreal Jazz Festival, The Kennedy Center, The Festival International de Louisiane, and countless other venues both here and abroad.
“What hits hardest about Atlas Soul’s sound is the natural funk of North African music and also powerful vocals, which span fluid, passionate Gnawa melodies and husky Raï hooks. There is great wisdom in a world-music outfit that embraces divergent genres (but not so many that the sound loses its identity" Banning Eyre- Afropop Worldwide
Atlas Soul sings in French, Arabic, Hebrew and English. The lyrics speak of love, natural wonders, oppression, poverty, and of the melancholy of immigrants.
Their motto is world-music-for-world-peace.
They have won or placed 3 times the Independent Music Awards, the Billboard World Song, The Unisong International, Global Rhythm Magazine, Just Plain Folks Music Awards, Boston Music Awards and many more..
Philosophically and politically, Atlas Soul hopes to inspire world peace through a fusion of music and culture that gets people to the dance floor.
Website: www.atlas-soul.com
LITERATURE
Annie Groovie, is a Quebecois writer and illustrator of children's literature. She is notable for her series of books and comic strips featuring Léon, a young male cyclops.
Adept at gymnastics and circus performance, Groovie was selected in 1997 by the World circus to spend three months in Chile to teach circus skills to street children; she would later go to Africa on a similar mission in 2000.
Her travels took her to several countries around the world, including France, Switzerland, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Cuba, Senegal and the United States.
In 2003, Groovie created Léon, a male cyclops with a shaggy hairdo; she would soon began to write a series of books for children's publisher La Courte échelle surrounding him and his cycloptic friends—Lola, his girlfriend; and Le Chat, the cat. The format of these books were part-comic book, part children's book,in which the adventures of Léon are drawn out in a series of adventures, jokes, riddles, games and fake advertisement parodies.In 2006, she left her advertising career to work full-time on Léon.
Beginning the fall of 2007, Radio-Canada television and CBC Televisions debuted a series of sixty-second shorts featuring Léon and friends, which aired generally between programs during their children's blocks.
A weekly Léon strip is also published Saturdays in Le Petit Journal, a weekly children's supplement included with Le journal de Montréal and associated newspapers. Léon's books have since been translated to Arabic, Korean and Italian. Groovie has been a three-time winner of the Hackmatack Awards, which is awarded to the favourite Canadian children's books as nominated by readers in Atlantic Canada. She was also the Guest of Honor at the 2010 Salon international du livre de Québec in Quebec City.
Links:
- Site officiel de Léon (French)
- Blog d'Annie Groovie (French)
- EDT:Léon (Italian)
Charlot Lucien, founder and co-director of the Haitian Artists Assembly of Massachusetts, has established himself as a master storyteller in Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora, since the release of his three Storytelling CDs, "Ti Oma" (2001), "Ti Cyprien" and "Grann Dede" (2007). His work has been praised by critics in Haiti and in the US Diaspora as a sure continuation of the legacy of famous Haitian storytellers such as the late Maurice Sixto. Lucien’s stories muse on the plight of Haiti’s disfranchised people with depth and wit and poke fun at what he calls “redundancy in absurdity” in some cultural and social quarters. He at times tours the states with his children, offering Haitian traditional folktales and riddles sessions.
As an artist and an illustrator, Lucien has coordinated several large scale art exhibits with various New England partners (Boston Center for the Arts, Museum of Afro American Artists…), participated in group exhibits and several books and newspapers. He is the author of two volumes of political caricatures ("Our Comedians: Surrealism in Haitian Politics" Vol 1 & Vol 2).
As storyteller and a cultural guest speaker, he has presented in cultural and academic venues in the US, Canada, France, Guadeloupe and Haiti, often emphasizing of the historical connections between Haitians, the US and Black Americans. His activities and performances have been reviewed or featured in various print and TV outlets, locally and internationally (Boston Globe, Regards, LeNouvelliste, New York Times, Seattle Times, Journal of Haitian Studies, etc.).
In his professional life, he has worked for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, where he oversees HIV/AIDS programs and health and mental health programs for refugees. He is also a consultant for the French Cultural Center.
Partial List of Awards
Massachusetts State Legislature: contribution to the Boston cultural landscape
Boston City Council" Contributions to the cultural enrichment of Boston
Caribbean Foundation M. L.King Award 2011
Website: www.charlotlucien.com
Contact: Charlotlucien@yahoo.com
Sebastien Lucien, 14, an eight grader at the Hingham Elementary School, is a multitalented child actor, singer, dancer and musician. He has performed with a number of established theater companies, including Revels, the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), the Underground Railroad Theater, the Storytelling group Massmouth, impersonating various characters in English literature and Haitian folklore. He has appeared in TV commercials for Bank of America, TJ Max, the Boston Public Health Commission, has been the principal actor in some short films and video productions and has made cameo appearances in movies featuring Mark Walberg and Adams Sandler.
In 2010, he was awarded the Most Promising Child Actor Awards by the New England Independent Theater Reviewers for his extraordinary 45 performances playing Mamilius in “Best of Both World” an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale by the American Repertory Theater.
Mady (a.k.a Delphine M) discovered the graphic novel wonderland in 2004, when she started working for a French comics magazine in an art studio. There, she learnt a lot from writers and artists exchanging ideas or comments on each other's works. Inspired, she gave a shot at writing, first in a couple collective books (with artists Adrien Floch and Steven Lejeune), then by publishing a short story in a magazine (with artist Girogi Pontrelli).
Her first complete graphic novel, co-written with the rest of GANG and with art from Thomas Labourot, was released in 2008 and there are now 7 volumes available.
She also co-writes two series with art from Philippe Fenech : Ulysse ! and Un Héros Presque Parfait (An Almost Perfect Hero).
Last August, her first novel, Geek Battle, was released.
Links:
Emmanuel Normant est un chercheur français installé à Boston depuis huit ans.
Les textes du recueil «Décalages » ont été initialement écrits pour un petit groupe d’amis résidant en France afin de ne pas tout à fait rompre les amarres, après un déménagement àBoston. Un pas supplémentaire fut ensuite franchi en envoyant certains de ces textes sur un site web de français à Boston, puis à New-York et enfin sur le «wizz » de Télérama.
A l’époque, Emmanuel écrivait sous différents « pseudo » : Humbert Humbert à Boston, puis Raskolnikov à New Yorket enfin Pepe Carvalho sur Telerama.
Décalages est un recueil d’une cinquantaine de ces nouvelles ,s’apparentant à un carnet de voyage "imbibé de diatribes énervées d'un quadragénaire qui se bat avec la vie, les termites, son prêt sur trente ans, les carcinomes à éradiquer au laboratoire" où il est chercheur,"ses fils crispés dans les petits wagonnets des montagnes russes de l’adolescence, et toute cette neige qui s'amoncelle inexorablement chaque hiver sur son trottoir de Nouvelle Angleterre".
La découverte d’un pays passe par une série d’initiations souvent déconcertantes, quelquefois choquantes. Ici, l'auteur choisit de grossir le trait, de sourire de ses déboires.
Catherine Ribes-de Palma is a teacher, French language and literature, at the International School of Boston. In 2009, she founded and has since been writing for Imprevue, a bilingual literary and artistic magazine that aims at uniting authors and artists from France and America. She is the author of two poetry collections, Resurgences (passages of which were published in France in the magazines Passages d'Encre and Triages) and the Ingenue. Resurgences is written in French and translated in English, and this bilingual version will be published in 2013 by Berenice, an editing company in Paris. The Ingenue is created to be a show including poetry, dance and drama. Some extracts are already being worked by a French stage director, Christine Heitzmann, and a young dancer and choreograph, Louisa Harrison. Imprevue magazine will be soon published online with the Kinoscript editing company. Finally, Catherine is the representative, here in Boston, of Printemps des poètes, a French poetry festival that takes place in France during the month of March.
ART
Alain Barsacq, was born in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France. He showed a real gift for drawing at an early age. A first degree in Applied Arts gave him a deep taste for perspective and then on graduating for a BA in Arts at the University of Bordeaux III, he made a decisive encounter with Professor Pierre Garcia, author of Le Métier du Peintre, who gave him a taste for painting “à l’ancienne” by rediscovering the work, the pleasure, the intelligence and the mastery of the matter, i.e oil and pigments, the way painters had always done . After completion of his art studies, Alain has been working for many years as an art teacher, currently being art coordinator and teacher at EFGB. In France he has designed various posters and logos for his university, for stores, sport competitions or associations. In Boston he has designed all the visuals for the Université Populaire, various works for the International School of Boston and the logo and first issue cover of art magazine L’Imprévue.
He has exhibited his oil paintings in France and Boston and received various prizes.
His influences range from the Basque culture and the Renaissance painters to graphic authors such as Schuitten.
