She has directed and created many works for The TEAM, including award-winning and internationally touring plays, such as "Roosevelvis", "Mission Drift" and "Architecting".

(meta data) TITLE: Female Directors, Present, Past and Future - The New York Times

(meta data) PUBLISHED DATETIME: 2013-01-31

Skip to contentSkip to site indexTheaterLog InToday's PaperTheater|Meet the Directors

ImageThe director May Adrales.CreditCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

Some of the more active female directors identify their influences and their aspirations.

PROJECTS Now, David Henry Hwang's "Dance and the Railroad" (Signature Theater); next, Stefanie Zadravec's "Electric Baby" (Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, N.J.).

BEGINNINGS "When I was 21, I wrote some pretty awful feminist diatribes.

Some reviewer saw a show I wrote and directed and commented that 'where Adrales lacks as a dramatist she makes up for as a director.'

MENTORS "My grad school teacher, Liz Diamond, another petite, vertically challenged director, giggled and assured me that while it was perfectly fine to sit on tables and back of chairs to feel a bit bigger in the room, eventually I would command that respect just fine in my 5-foot-1-inch frame."

"The industry is changing because of the leadership of the Women's Project, Paige Evans, Jenny Gersten, Maria Goyanes and all the fearless producers taking chances on women."

DREAM PROJECT Wallace Shawn's "Hotel Play."

ImageJo BonneyCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Recently, Eve Ensler's "Emotional Creature" (Signature); next, Lanford Wilson's "Mound Builders" (Signature).

BEGINNINGS "When I arrived in New York in late 1979, there was a very active downtown scene, it didn't take much money to survive, and I started making short animated films using actors and friends, kind of a punk Monty Python thing (hard to explain).

We needed a writer and someone to do a voice-over for one short, and I was introduced to Eric Bogosian.

He was starting to make his own pieces, and I just became part of the process.

It was Joe Papp who told me I was a director after watching me work with Eric."

[Ms. Bonney and Mr. Bogosian have been married since 1980.]

CHANGING TIMES "I've definitely seen a rise in the numbers of successful female directors.

It just seems obvious that when 50 percent of the population is female that you would want their voices, both as directors and playwrights, to be heard equally and forcefully in the theater."

ImageCarolyn CantorCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Recently, Amy Herzog's "Great God Pan" (Playwrights Horizons); next, Steven Levenson's "Core Values" (Ars Nova).

BEGINNINGS "After graduating from college I had a short stint as an actor and landed in some work with Mabou Mines.

Ruth Maleczech was the first person to tell me that she thought I was a director, and Mabou Mines gave me my first opportunity to actually direct something."

AESTHETIC "I like to think of myself as a director who adapts to the demands of the play.

So, for example, a more stylized text would result in a more stylized production.

But more and more I do see commonalities.

I am very interested in crafting small, detailed moments with actors, and I think really simple, honest acting is a hallmark of my work."

"I am an optimist and like to think that the tides are changing somewhat.

But it does seem to take a lot longer for women, especially in the commercial arena.

We have to prove ourselves over and over before those opportunities come in a way that our male colleagues don't, necessarily.

But there are certainly commercial producers out there who have shown themselves willing to hire women directors, and hopefully those producers will influence the more skittish ones."

DREAM PROJECT An "edgy, sexy, environmental production" of "Little Shop of Horrors."

ImageRachel ChavkinCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Recently, Dave Malloy's "Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812" (Ars Nova); next, a revised version of "Mission Drift" by the TEAM (National Theater in London).

BEGINNINGS "Starting and running the TEAM, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit-devised theater company that creates new work about the contemporary American experience, at 24 years old was a complete immersion in both producing and directing.

That's been the single biggest learning experience in my life, broken into a number of minute (and occasionally brutal) lessons."

AESTHETIC "I love mess, mistakes, the fragility of live performance.

I try to build productions that feel on the edge of spiraling into chaos at any moment, though in fact my work is profoundly controlled."

CHANGING TIMES "I take no issue with being called a woman director.

I would only take issue if someone thought that indicated anything about my work."

DREAM PROJECTS Susan Stanton's "Takarazuka!!!" and Andy Bragen's "Loop Tape."

ImageJackson GayCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Now, Rolin Jones's "Jammer" (Atlantic Theater Company); next, Allison Moore's"Collapse" (Women's Project).

MENTORS "My most surprising and lasting mentor from the Yale School of Drama was and is [the lighting designer] Jennifer Tipton.

She always finds a way to take our discussions away from the business of being a director and puts the focus back on being an artist.

She helps me to remember why I wanted to do this with my life in the first place."

CHANGING TIMES "I don't really think of myself as a female director.

If anything, I think of myself as a director who is a parent of a young child, which, if you look at the statistics, is a much smaller subgroup."

DREAM PROJECT Wedekind's "Lulu," with music by Patti Smith.

ImageAnne KauffmanCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Now, Amy Herzog's "Belleville" (New York Theater Workshop); next, Noah Haidle's "Smokefall" (South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa, Calif.) and then restaging both plays in Chicago.

MENTORS "I had a very influential visiting professor and practicing director at my undergrad, Michael Hackett.

He was the first person to call me a director, and he just announced it, you know: 'How does it feel to be a director, Anne?'

I remember the desire to contradict him — so large was the responsibility — but also feeling giddy and thrilled at his audacity."

AESTHETIC "I'm drawn to plays that are messing with language.

Once a dear producer friend of mine said to me, 'The problem with downtown theater is that there's not enough money for spectacle, so you have to rely on the text to be the theatrical event.'

I mean, he framed it as a negative thing but I recognized it as the precise thing that attracts me."

"I may be Pollyanna about this, but I do think good work prevails, and I think that the number of women directors is increasing exponentially, and the amount of good work that's being produced by these women is increasing, so isn't there some kind of math equation that proves that the presence of women on Broadway will increase based on all of these growing numbers?

DREAM PROJECT Wedekind's "Spring Awakening."

ImageTina LandauCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Recently, Paula Vogel's "Civil War Christmas" (New York Theater Workshop); now, Bill Irwin and David Shiner's "Old Hats" (Signature).

BEGINNINGS "I was like that kid in 'Annie Hall' who says, 'I'm into leather,' except I'd walk around as a 6-year-old and say, 'I'm into directing.'

I was raised on, and fell in love with, Broadway musicals and later fell in love with more experimental forms."

AESTHETIC "I don't gravitate toward new plays set in middle- or upper-class living rooms or kitchens.

I prefer giving voice to the outsider, the minority, the renegade, and I love texts with stage directions like, 'And then they fly to the moon and have a picnic with food that keeps changing color.' "

CHANGING TIMES "I've always experienced Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway as being hospitable to me and other women I know.

That said, I didn't realize there were so many doing so much great work in New York right now."

DREAM PROJECT "My own adaptation (with many collaborators) of Dante's 'Divine Comedy,' with characters and stories transposed to contemporary culture, with music by folks like John Zorn, Ratatat, Janelle Monáe."

ImagePam MacKinnonCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Now, Broadway revival of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"; next,Craig Lucas's "Lying Lesson" (Atlantic).

"I was enrolled in the political science Ph.D. program at the University of California, San Diego; my dad was a professor, and it was sort of like falling into the family business.

But I felt like the questions there were getting smaller and smaller just as the questions I found myself asking were getting bigger and bigger."

AESTHETIC "I'm attracted to writers who really pay attention to the muscular potential of language — not 'people talking smart' plays, but plays that have that language at their core."

"It's hard to believe that it was only 15 years ago that Garry Hynes won the Tony Award for directing 'Beauty Queen of Leenane,' followed seconds later by Julie Taymor winning for directing 'The Lion King.'

[This made them the first and second women to ever win a directing Tony.]

That definitely exploded a glass ceiling, and that is very recent history."

DREAM PROJECT Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class."

ImagePatricia McGregorCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Recently, Katori Hall's "Mountaintop" (Philadelphia Theater Company) and "Hurt Village" (Signature); next, a workshop of Will Power's unnamed musical about Stagger Lee (Dallas Theater Center).

BEGINNINGS "I stage managed for August Wilson one summer at the O'Neill Center [in Waterford, Conn.], and I told him I was thinking of getting out of theater and making some money.

And he said — remember, this is basically the voice of God — he said: 'Your mom doesn't need you to buy her a house.

She needs you to do the dreams she planted in you.' "

"I was in New York for 10 years and assisting everywhere, but it wasn't until I did 'Hurt Village' at the Signature that people were convinced.

There's infinitely more trust now, even though these same people have known me for a decade.

There's a tipping point happening, hopefully, and as these successes continue, more and more people will trust that we can captain these ships."

DREAM PROJECT "I'd make my theatrical concert 'Indomitable: James Brown' into a full-fledged musical."

ImageGiovanna SardelliCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Recently, Matthew Lopez's "Somewhere" (Theaterworks in Palo Alto, Calif.); next, Rajiv Joseph's "North Pool" (Vineyard Theater ).

BEGINNINGS "I was a nothing-special actress for about a decade, and I got my M.F.A. in acting from N.Y.U.

While I was there Zelda Fichandler mentored me and finally said, 'Well, darling, you're a director.'

Having this icon of the American theater sort of anoint me as a director — I didn't even question her."

"I've always been aware of the statistics, and believe me, my friends and I are all acutely aware of the work we're not getting.

But at the same time, we're all working.

We're not often in the same room together.

ImageAnna D. ShapiroCreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

PROJECTS Stephen Adly Guirgis's "_____ With the Hat" (which she originally directed on Broadway and, now, at Steppenwolf in Chicago); next, Bruce Norris's "Parallelogram" (Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles).

AESTHETIC "Mere affection for a piece isn't enough.

I always follow my interest and trust my interest, but I also think I interrogate my interest in a piece before I say yes."

CHANGING TIMES "Because my orientation is more regional than commercial, I still think I'm a little naïve about the conditions in New York.

Most of the gals you're talking about, their career is centered in New York.

Where I'm coming from, in the Midwest, there have always been a lot of women."

DREAM PROJECT John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."

ImageLeigh SilvermanCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Now, Liz Flahive's "Madrid" (Manhattan Theater Club); next, Tanya Barfield's "Call" (Playwrights Horizons).

BEGINNINGS "My first internship after college was at New York Theater Workshop, and for the first 10 years of my career they were my artistic home.

It was there that I directed my first (and many subsequent) staged readings, and it was there that I crossed paths and years later began relationships with some of my most frequent collaborators."

AESTHETIC "I am drawn to writers who write plays that feel 'big,' either thematically or stylistically.

I don't think I've ever directed a naturalistic family drama."

"I think for big commercial projects, men are thought of first and taken more seriously, but that too will eventually change."

ImageRebecca TaichmanCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Now, Kirsten Greenidge's "Luck of the Irish" (LCT3); next, "The Winter's Tale" (McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J., and the Shakespeare Theater in Washington).

MENTORS "I spent two years at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in D.C. as associate artistic director.

Part of the arrangement was that Howard Shalwitz, artistic director at Woolly, was required to be my mentor.

He's kind of a wild man, fiercely excited about any new idea whether he agrees with it or not, eager to be challenged.

He encouraged me to dream — big crazy dreams — and he believed enough in my work to give me the chance to direct, to help him choose his season and to get involved on the ground floor with Woolly when it was undergoing major institutional change."

AESTHETIC "I see a play like a tiny planet with its own ecosystem, its own language, its own laws, customs, beliefs, time signature, culture.

I try my best not to impose expectation onto a play, but rather to listen and discover what will best release its most authentic and powerful self onstage."

CHANGING TIMES "There is a growing number of women directors, and they are doing remarkable work.

ImageDaniella TopolCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Now, Lloyd Suh's "Jesus in India" (Theater at St. Clement's); next, Ari Roth's "Andy and the Shadows" (Theater J in Washington) and Jessica Dickey's "Charles Ives Take Me Home" (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater).

BEGINNINGS "Being the artistic program director at the Lark Play Development Center was critical to developing my directorial eye for new plays."

AESTHETIC "There is nothing like directing the first and second production of a new play you believe in.

Or directing multiple plays by the same playwright.

I approach each play as a co-creation between the playwright and myself, and my productions reflect this collaborative vision."

CHANGING TIMES "I am a director who happens to be a woman.

This doesn't mean that I am not grateful to be a part of a strong community of women directors who are ambitious and fierce and inspiring.

And I feel responsible for strengthening this network of women directors for the next generation, just as the previous generation has done for us."

DREAM PROJECT "Sheila Callaghan and I are now in the midst of co-creating 'WATER (A Meditation On ...).' "

ImageGaye Taylor UpchurchCreditChad Batka for The New York Times

PROJECTS Recently, Simon Stephens's "Harper Regan" (Atlantic); now, Laura Marks's "Bethany" (Women's Project); next, a pirate musical to be produced on a sailboat in New York Harbor.

MENTORS "Directing can be lonely — it's such a solitary profession.

Thanks to two and a half years of working as associate director to Sam Mendes on the Bridge Project, he became my go-to mentor and a friend.

He was the first person I heard from when 'Harper Regan' got a good review, even before I heard from my parents."

"Certainly there is strength in numbers.

I know and admire so many female directors that it's difficult to believe we're still considered a rarity."

DREAM PROJECT Tennessee Williams's "Rose Tattoo"

Interviews, conducted by phone and e-mail, were edited and condensed.

(meta data) TITLE: COIL 2012: Rachel Chavkin on The TEAM's "Mission Drift" – Culturebot

(meta data) PUBLISHED DATETIME: 2011-12-31

## COIL 2012: Rachel Chavkin on The TEAM's "Mission Drift"

Dec 31, 2011 by Jeremy M. Barker in Interviews

Amber Gray, Libby King, Heather Christian, Mikaal Sulaiman & Brian Hastert in The TEAM's "Mission Drift."

"When we were working on Architecting, towards the end of our time on Architecting, this was in spring 2008, Naomi Klein spoke.

The Shock Doctrine had come out, and this thing she talks about of 'disaster capitalism' ended up being a major thing for Architecting in terms of Brett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara," Rachel Chavkin explained.

It was earlier this month, and we'd met for lunch at a "bourgie" (to use her term) cafe near NYU, where she was teaching, in order to discuss The TEAM's upcoming US premiere of Mission Drift, a hit at this year's Edinburgh Fringe, as part of PS 122's COIL Festival (Jan. 8-29; tickets $25/$20)

"But it didn't feel like we'd fully gotten to solve it," she continued, "in part because Architecting was so sprawling, and quite deliberately so.

But it just felt like we weren't done with this idea.

And that sort of led me to ask the company the question that Klein talks about but hadn't fully answered for me, which is, 'Why does American capitalism have its particular character? What defines American capitalism specifically and why did it become that way?'"

That's a hell of subject for a play to tackle, but based on my experience catching it as a work-in-progress at the 2010 Ice Factory Festival…well, while I reserve the right to change my opinion based on the final version going up at COIL, I've previously described it as one of the smartest pieces of political theater I've seen in a while.

Fun, engaging, intelligent, non-didactic, and touching in a surprisingly humane way (given the stated subject), it challenges the standard for political theater in America and is one of the shows I'm most excited to see this January.

The TEAM coalesced around Chavkin back in December 2004, mainly consisting of fellow NYU alums.

The name was originally based on Chavkin's college nickname (I did not get that story) but, following the advice of an accountant from the Field who said they'd never be able to incorporate a company named "The Team," the company decided to make it an acronym.

In fact, the first group writing assignment was to come up with what "team" stood for, and the combined result was the portentous "Theater of the Emerging American Moment."

Today, the company has nearly doubled in size, mainly with other NYU-trained artists but also including a couple designers with experience at the SITI Company, owing no doubt to Chavkin's further training at Columbia with Anne Bogart.

Chavkin serves as artistic director of the company and the director of the company's shows, though, given the collaborative nature of the endeavor, she describes herself as an "editor," bringing together the disparate strands developed through the generative process.

The TEAM's Rachel Chavkin and Amber Gray, with the Edinburgh Fringe Herald Angel Award they won for "Mission Drift."

Mission Drift is the sort of play that suffers in description.

Essentially, it tells the story of two couples.

The first is Joris and Catalina Rapelje, a fictionalized version of the couple known proverbially as the American Adam and Eve.

Married in the Netherlands in 1624, the couple moved the North America the same year and ultimately settled in New Amsterdam, where they're credited with giving birth to the first European child in the city; today they count some one million Americans as descendants.

In Mission Drift, the two exist as perpetual adolescents who set out from New Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century and follow the westward expansion until 1890, when the Census declared the "end of the frontier," with all supposedly "vacant" land in the United States settled.

The two find themselves left in the city of Las Vegas, where they set out to create a new frontier through capitalist enterprise.

Joan is a native of present-day Las Vegas, consigned to working odd service sector jobs while engaging in a form of urban archaeology by preserving the ever disposed signage of the strip as a volunteer at the "Neon Boneyard," an amateur museum experiment I was surprised to discover is real.

(Sadly, apparently, others have, too; according to Chavkin, when the company visited a couple years ago it was still below the radar.

Recently though she heard from a friend there that the city's Office of Cultural Affairs had learned of it and, unintentionally echoing a line from the play, the friend told Chavkin that they "looked at the Neon Boneyard and saw dollar signs.")

Joan's erstwhile love-interest is a member of the Southern Paiute tribe displaced by development, forced out of his home by the city pursuing the water rights to his family's well.

What ultimately unfolds is a drama of conflicting interests, with Catalina occupying the role of frontiersman, longing for the possibility of new discovery and in love with power of creation to cultivate the emptiness of the American desert.

Her path is related to the rapacious capitalism Joris indulges, but whereas he's in love with the accumulation of wealth, she's is driven by a different need, and this conflict ultimately draws them apart.

For Chris, the Paiute, either way, the city they've built as developers has displaced him (and whoever said the desert was empty, anyway?) and he rebels against the very existence of Las Vegas.

Joan, a non-aboriginal native of the constructed city, finds herself displaced from her own home through the rapacious development of the Rapeljes (mirroring, of course, the real estate bubble that popped shortly after the TEAM began the project).

Oh, and Mission Drift is also a musical.

With performances and music by the amazing Heather Christian as Miss Atomic.

"I think our endless process–and probably endlessly frustrating process–is one of the things that gives our work the density that I hope people associate with our plays," Chavkin told me.

The TEAM's work is devised through a lengthy and intense process.

I asked Chavkin to describe the process of developing the final work, and for simplicity's sake, she limited her explanation to the character of Joan, by way of example.

Beginning at an early workshop at the Brick Theater in 2009, four of the company members were working on different things.

Jess Almasy was interested in developing a character who believed she was Joan of Arc, envisioning the role as a Wisconsin transplant to Vegas.

Jill Frutkin was interested in the issue of prostitution, and discovered an organization called Hookers for Jesus, comprised of born-again former prostitutes seeking to help others leave the profession.

Libby King was fascinated with Hunter S. Thompson.

And Kristen Sieh was interested in playing a tumbleweed, or desert native.

The name "Joan" stuck, elements of one or another enterprise went into the final character–a Vegas/desert native, volunteer at the Neon Boneyard, and a theme-restaurant waitress–while others went by the wayside or were incorporated into other characters (the Rapeljes became the immigrants to Vegas).

I knew that an important part of the development had taken place in Las Vegas itself, but when I asked Chavkin who had supported their residency and work on the ground, I got an emphatic "No one."

"We fundraised like fucking crazy and we tried for support," she said.

"And now I'm thrilled to say we just got a grant from the NEA to bring the final work back to Vegas."

Ultimately the company paid out of pocket or relied on donations to spend a month in the city, and in her role as director-cum-editor, Chavkin arranged a tight schedule of "field trips" to experience the place in the mornings, followed by intensive work in the theater the University of Las Vegas donated for their use in the afternoons.

In their field trips, they met with and interviewed members of the local culinary workers' union, to get a sense of the labor reality in Vegas.

They visited the Atomic Testing Museum (the testing of the bomb also figures apocalyptically in the play).

Another trip took them to the Springs Preserve, an institution devoted to the history of the desert ecology and sustainable development, which ultimately features prominently into the work's theme.

"Las Vegas–which I actually didn't know before we started this piece–used to be a fertile valley," Chavkin told me.

And that was due to the Springs Reserve, which was the aquifer underground that got destroyed in the Fifties, it was tapped out very, very quickly."

Another exercise took them to the Luxor casino, where each member's assignment was to interview three people: an employee, an apparent non-employee, and then whoever they wanted.

The intense engagement with the city had a profound impact on the story that the company finally presented in Mission Drift.

"The entire way we portray Las Vegas, I can trace it back to a couple interviews we did," she recalled.

"One was with a guy who worked at the culinary union who turned out to have been born and bred in Las Vegas.

He was about sixty, as was the head of the office of Cultural Affairs for the city, also in her early sixties.

Both of them born and raised in Las Vegas.

Very unusual because Las Vegas was a town of about 300,000 for a long period of time.

And we heard from both of them almost the exact same thing, which was, this this used to be a small western town.

It was this phrase we just kept hearing again and again and again.

And when we asked about the destruction that had been wrought by the mortgage crisis, every single one of them said, 'We think growth is good.

And we don't think growth is bad, we think it's good that Vegas is growing as a city.

So I think the entire thesis of the play, that there is something unsustainable about the marriage of capitalism and the frontier, came from right there."

The one caveat I'd really like to add to all this is that, notwithstanding the influence of thinkers like Naomi Klein on the work, the reason I have so much respect for this play is that the TEAM is so decidedly opposed to easy answers.

No matter what you ultimately think of Klein's work, she is rather easily caricatured as a leftist taking potshots at ideological enemies.

Their entire portrayal of the shape of American capitalism through the stories they tell is deeply sensitive and avoids easy answers or taking potshots.

Intelligently, the company appears to have jointly come together in an effort to present the shape of our economy–including its disastrous boom-and-bust destructiveness–as a function of something deeper in the American psyche, the longing for creating things, for expanding the frontiers and filling the empty spaces our European ancestors imagined the deserts and plains and mountains of the frontier to be.

Watching it the first time, I was struck by the thematic similarity between Mission Drift and Cormac McCarthy's remarkable novel Blood Meridian, even as they diverged radically in tone, aesthetics, and politics.

Mission Drift is, as Chavkin also pointed out, a Western, one that links disparate elements together to pose a vexing problem–perhaps the most vexing problem facing our society today.

It was the novelist Chad Harbach, lately the lauded author of The Art of Fielding, who posed it to me years ago in a Seattle bar: "What if growth itself is the problem?"

And beyond all of that is the fact that it's just a damn fine story.

"It is by far and away the most emotional of any of our works.

It's, sort of–separate from the politics for a minute–it's just an incredibly emotional story, because we tell the story of capitalism in this country through the lens of a marriage dissolving, and a marriage that you really love," Chavkin said.

"And now I hope we've done a really good job of allowing you to fall in love with these characters and root for them, in the way you sort of root for this American thing of setting out for the territories.

And then they just become horrible, and monsters of themselves and lost within that."

Tagged with: apap 2012, coil 2012, mission drift, rachel chavkin, the TEAM

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Chavkin has a BFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts (2008).


On a local level, the band worked with groups like the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon to build a new community center, revitalize a neighborhood through economic prosperity initiatives, and voter registration campaigns.

(meta data) TITLE: A Sit Down With The Slants | APANO

Last week, APANO Board Member Simon Tam appeared before the US Supreme Court to present the oral arguments in the historic case, Lee vs Tam.

At the core of the dispute is whether or not Tam can legally trademark the name "The Slants," which is both the name of his band as well as a term that historically has been used to disparage Asian Americans.

For the past week, Tam has appeared on the front pages of The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times Magazine, and virtually every other major media outlet.

On Friday morning, just before Donald Trump was sworn in as America's 45th president, APANO interviewed him about his case and what it has taught him about the US legal system.

You are in Washington DC at a historic time–your band's case is appearing before the Supreme Court and Donald Trump is about to be sworn in as US President.

What has it been like to witness these two things?

Throughout this city, you can sense serious trepidations from everyday citizens who are worried about the president elect (for those unaware, Washington DC voted at almost 94% for Clinton).

The concerns were especially strong among communities of color.

Our country is experiencing such turmoil right now…but the real experiences of the marginalized are often lost in ideological conflicts at times.

It was especially interesting walking out of the Supreme Court and seeing the U.S Capitol Building across the way, where Donald Trump will be sworn in.

As I descended the steps, I kept thinking about the many ways to advance justice and we will need access to as many tools as possible for this incoming administration.

The legal battle over your name has been going on for over eight years.

How has the experience changed your view, if all, of the US legal system?

This experience has showed me the brokenness of our system, a system that doesn't understand nor address the complexities of our communities.

Spending almost a decade in court and having to go to the highest court in our country simply because I decided to start an anti-racist band called The Slants is not an effective government system.

I have spent almost a fifth of my life in court fighting an outdated law.

I wasn't accused of committing a crime, it was just a fairly obscure bit of procedural law that was allowing the government to justify denial of rights based on people's sexuality, gender, religion, or race.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, "The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice."

However, I think we should remember that the moral arc does not bend on its own: we each play a role in advancing justice.

On Facebook, you often post that media outlets misunderstand your case.

What is the biggest misperception about your case that you wish to correct?

Almost everyone frames my case as if it is only about providing a pathway for Washington's football team to regain their trademark registrations.

They rarely show how the law I'm fighting impacts marginalized communities who don't have resources to file an appeal, a law that often can substantially hurt nonprofits and small businesses.

In our society, we're often taught that the ideal of justice means punishing the evil.

In this case, we've become so obsessed with punishing Dan Snyder and his football team, we're allowing communities of color and LGBTQ people to bear the brunt of that collateral damage by having their own rights denied.

We shouldn't be writing or interpreting our laws around the most privileged members of society – instead, we should think about their impacts on those who have less agency.

That's how you approach equity, especially around complex ideas about basic human rights like freedom of expression.

To call for culturally competent laws is noble, but that also means placing that power around agency and identity in a flawed government that naturally favors dominant groups.

It also requires additional resources from already marginalized communities to fight against false accusations and I believe that furthers injustice.

Some also argue that removing this provision of trademark law would legitimize racial slurs.

That's intellectually dishonest for a number of reasons.

First, racially charged and offensive content already receives trademark registrations on a regular basis – the current system isn't stopping that from happening at all.

Second, it's naive to think that people will treat a trademark registration as a form of cultural approval or government support over the message that someone wants to express.

People don't feel that way about offensive books, music, or films that receive copyright protection…the same goes for trademarks.

Remember, the cure for hate speech isn't censorship – it's better speech.

You have become a role model for Asian Americans, first for your music, and now for your activism.

Many Asian Americans are nervous, especially with Trump's inauguration.

What can Asian Americans do to empower themselves?

I'm not sure if I am a role model, but I can say that ultimately, the choices I make are about my values.

I champion compassion above all else and use that as a driving force to create change.

Of course, that sometimes makes for some very uncomfortable situations.

For example, it's too easy to put ourselves into a bubble and ignore others' experiences or perspectives – many people find it easier to simply delete, block, unfriend, or avoid relationships with those whose views they find repulsive.

The common saying is "ignore the comments section."

I think it's important to sometimes ignore that advice and see what's out there and view it with compassion instead.

Remember, behind those hateful messages is a story of pain or ignorance.

We have to find ways to connect with those whom we disagree with the most, tap into shared values, and build from there.

Using disagreements and flippant comments as a way to further drive wedges between groups only perpetuates the problem.

Love yourself and your community enough to fight for your rights.

Even when members of your own community may turn against you, continue to fight for them anyways.

What advice would you give a young Asian American who wants to get into rock music like you?

Asian Americans who want to get into the music industry need to prepare themselves in ways that many other ethnic identities won't have to.

Not only do you have to develop your music skills and business acumen, but you'll have to face other struggles as well: tokenization, skepticism for your marketability, and outright racism from the entertainment industry who firmly believes that Asian Americans aren't capable of success.

Rock music is often about defiance…and whether you are political or not, know that being an Asian American artist is defiant of social norms, you'll essentially be an activist in your way.

If you embrace that activism, your music will have the ability to change the world in so many other ways!

January 25th, 2017|Arts & Culture, Featured, News & Events|

Since the its origins, The Slants have been involved with social justice organizations across the country to bring more attention to issues pertaining to marginalized communities.


The home video "Live Facelift" was released on vinyl for the first time on November 25, 2016, as part of Record Store Day's Black Friday event.

(meta data) TITLE: Alice in Chains, Prophets of Rage, The Raconteurs & More Releasing Exclusive Vinyl for Record Store Day Black Friday - Music News - ABC News Radio

« Selena Gomez Returns to Instagram with Thanksgiving Message to Fans |

| Rolling Stones, Kinks, Foreigner & More Releasing Exclusive Vinyl for Record Store Day Black Friday »

## Alice in Chains, Prophets of Rage, The Raconteurs & More Releasing Exclusive Vinyl for Record Store Day Black Friday

DayAfter you're done with the turkey, head out to your local independent record store for this year's edition of the annual Record Store Day Black Friday.

The typically eclectic list of releases includes limited-edition vinyl from Alice in Chains, Prophets of Rage and Jack White's band The Raconteurs.

Alice in Chains will be unleashing their 1990 Live Facelift recording on vinyl for the first time.

Recorded at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, Live Facelift includes performances of songs from the band's 1990 debut album Facelift, including "Man in the Box," "Sea of Sorrow" and "Bleed the Freak."

Prophets of Rage will be raging on vinyl with their debut EP The Party's Over, which will be released on 12-inch for Black Friday.

The Raconteurs' debut single "Steady As She Goes" will be coming to emerald green vinyl for Black Friday, as will the band's song "Store Bought Bones."

Other bands releasing vinyl for Record Store Day Black Friday include Anthrax, Iggy Pop, In This Moment, Iron Maiden, Puscifer, The Ramones, The Runaways and Volbeat.

Record Store Day Black Friday will be celebrated in independent record stores across the country on November 25.

Visit RecordStoreDay.com for the full list of releases and participating stores.

Friday, November 25, 2016 at 6:00AM Music News Group Permalink

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History.:2011–2016: "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here".

Asked in September 2013 if Alice in Chains would make another album, Cantrell replied, "It'll be a while. It's [been] four years since we put the last one out, but at least it's not the gap that was between the last one, so that's about right - about three to four years."
 On January 18, 2015, Alice in Chains performed in the halftime show of the NFC Championship game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers at the CenturyLink Field in Seattle. Cantrell is a lifelong Seahawks fan and often attends their games. In August 2015, Bassist Mike Inez said that the band had been "throwing around riffs for a new record" and "taking it nice and slow". The band toured in the summer of 2015 and the summer of 2016, including select shows opening for Guns N' Roses as part of the Not in This Lifetime... Tour. The band finished their 2016 tour with a concert at the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in Reno, Nevada on October 8, 2016.
 In November 2016, Alice in Chains released a cover of the Rush song "Tears", which was included in the 40th anniversary release of the album "2112".


All but two (Dutchman Olivier Siegelaar and American Matthew O'Leary) of the Dark Blue crew were British; Siegelaar won a bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics as part of the men's eight.

(meta data) TITLE: Olivier SIEGELAAR - worldrowing.com

(meta data) PUBLISHED DATETIME: 6/30/2016 11:00:00 PM

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Race report: Junior finals complete rowing's mega championships

### 2016 Olympic Games Regatta - Rio de Janeiro, BRA

### 2016 World Rowing Cup II - Lucerne, SUI

The thing is, it was not a perfect race.

In the end, I wasn't too happy with it, but then you see we're only one second behind the Brits, and 0.5 of a second behind the Canadians.

You have six crews competing for the first three medals.

Junior Men's Coxed Four, Germany, 2016 World Rowing Junior Championships, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Finals, Jan Fleissner (b), Jan Cincibuch, Eduard Bezdek, Jan Zavadil (s), Junior Men's Quadruple Sculls, Magdalena Juzikova (b), Anna Santruckova, Pavlina Flamikova, Veronika Uhlova (s), Junior Women's Quadruple Sculls, Czech Republic

Finals, Armandas Kelmelis, Gold, Lithuania, Anton Finger, Silver, Germany, Lucas Ferreira, Bronze, Junior Men's Single Sculls, Brazil, 2016 World Rowing Junior Championships, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Podium, Junior Men's Eight, 2016 World Rowing Junior Championships, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Podium, Michael Cuellar (b), Gordan Holterman, Walter Taylor, Ethan Seder, Cole Ortiz, Nikita Lilichenko, Charles Turina, Gordon Johnson (s), Jacob Shusko (c), Silver, Junior Men's Eight, United States of America, 2016 World Rowing Junior Championships

Juniors race their finals on Sunday in Rotterdam 2016

Racing photos from the Saturday A-finals for the Seniors at the World Rowing Championships in Rotterdam

Racing photos from the Friday A-finals for the Under 23s at the World Rowing U23 Champs in Rotterdam

The Cambridge crew weighed an average of 93.5 kilograms (206 lb), 3.3 kilograms (7.3 lb) per rower more than their opponents.  Cambridge's number three, James Letten, was the heaviest man in the race, weighing 106.5 kilograms (235 lb).


The cover of the DVD is a replica of the one featured in part 2 of the specials, with a few cosmetic changes, such as replacing "Coming Soon" with "Director's Cut" and the addition of the plot synopsis read by Lister, which was absent on the prop.

(meta data) TITLE: Back To Earth DVD Cover Art | News | Red Dwarf - The Official Website

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Life mirrors art with the sleeve to the new release.

Fulfilling the hopes of every poster who hit our

insisting that the cover for the DVD release just had to be

the same as the one in the show, 2entertain have revealed the box image and... well, you'll

Admittedly we've replaced the 'Coming Soon' lettering that appeared on the original prop with 'The Director's Cut',

plus a couple of logos, but we think you'll agree it's a pretty good match.

The back cover, however, is a bit of a cheat.

There was no text on the prop, despite the characters reading

a plot synopsis from the box, so we've worked a little magic there, incorporating a version of the words Lister

reads in the show (seriously, we're breaking through, like, the seventeenth wall by now - who knows what reality

we'll end up in!) plus a couple of iconic images

The interior is also a close match, adjusted to include chapter information that otherwise would have been missing.

You'll notice a yummy list of bonus content on the back cover, too...

We're going to be bringing you fuller details on those in the coming weeks - but one thing you might spot is the

'5.1 Audio' symbol in the bottom corner.

Yes, it's true - Back to Earth: The Director's Cut

It was actually played this way at the premiere, and it's a stonking job.

The diving bell sequence, in particular,

sounds fantastic - it's like you're actually in the room with a robot, an evolved feline and a huge aquatic beast

Be prepared for the first Red Dwarf sounds to be coming from behind you

Red Dwarf: Back to Earth is released on DVD in the UK on June 15th.

"Back to Earth" was released on DVD on 15 June 2009.


An additional $25 million Series B round in October 2015 included additional investments from Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, Thrive Capital, and Sway Ventures, as well as new investors Glynn Capital, Scott Cook, and Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures.

(meta data) TITLE: OpenGov Picks Up $25 Million More And Adds Marc Andreessen To The Board – TechCrunch

(meta data) PUBLISHER: https://www.facebook.com/techcrunch

# OpenGov Picks Up $25 Million More And Adds Marc Andreessen To The Board

OpenGov announced the close of a refreshingly sized $25 million in additional financing today.

The startup initiative to provide government financial data closed its Series B round of $15 million, led by Andreessen Horowitz, a year-and-a-half ago.

A16z, along with previous investors Formation8, Thrive Capital and AITV, has now padded OpenGov with another shot of financing to help scale the sales side of the business.

The new round pulled in some new and noteworthy investors, too.

Glynn Capital, Intuit founder Scott Cook, as well as Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary's new outfit Sound Ventures all jumped in.

Also, notably, OpenGov has added Marc Andreessen to the OpenGov board.

"The company definitely has good potential as a business, but I also think it has potential to affect outcome, particularly in how government spends money, which is a central issue for government and taxpayers," Andreessen told TechCrunch in an interview.

Watching the democratic debates, these are very abstract debates about all this money getting spent.

The Libertarian-leaning Andreessen has reason to take an interest in an organization that tracks government spending.

Some might even call the co-founder of one of the most well-known VC firms in Silicon Valley a Republican.

Andreessen supported Mitt Romney's bid for president with $100,000.

But those conservative tendencies were once affiliated with the Democratic party – he supported both Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and even Barack Obama, before flipping to Mitt.

The Andreessen Horowitz co-founder shifted political gears a few years back, telling CNBC, "I turned 40 last year and so I figured it was time to make the switch."

Andreessen sees his investment in and board seat participation with OpenGov important for both sides of the political isle.

As he explained over the phone, "Democrats want to highlight government spending because they want to show that it's productive.

And then of course Republicans tend to want to do the opposite.

They want to shrink the spending, expose it in a way that makes it clear to taxpayers how much is being spent and if it's wastefully, they need to shrink the spending."

OpenGov works on the local city and county government level for now.

Those in Palo Alto can access budget and finance data, for example, on OpenGov's Palo Alto portal.

The platform has grown at a rapid pace in the last year, doubling its customer base to provide financial intelligence and transparency tools in more than 500 governments in 44 states, according to OpenGov.

Part of that was a major push in Ohio to open the financials up in every city and county this September.

Andreessen foresees growing OpenGov on a national scale, too.

"Watching the Democratic debates, these are very abstract debates about all this money getting spent.

I think it would be much more helpful to everyone involved if they were actually looking at the data and understanding the data and I think OpenGov could help with that."

OpenGov plans to use the money to hire more in sales and other areas and continue scaling the company in local governments for now, as well as further developing and improving the platform.

OpenGov has raised $47 million from venture capital and angel investors. A $3 million Series A round in 2012 included venture funds 8VC, Founder Collective, Valiant Capital, and "a number of high-profile angel investors." In 2013, the company raised $4 million in further investment from 8VC and new investor Thrive Capital.
 On May 15, 2014, OpenGov announced a new $15 million Series B round of funding including investments from Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, SGVC, Streamlined Ventures, Sway Ventures, and Thrive Capital.


Both the men's and women's volleyball team also won the national student cup in 2019.

(meta data) TITLE: Essex volleyball teams win double national success | University of Essex

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# Double national success for Essex volleyball teams

Essex's volleyball teams have secured a clean sweep at the national finals.

Both the men's and women's team took Volleyball England National Student Cup this year building on their achievements in 2018 when the men's team won the trophy and the women's team was a runner-up.

The men's team was victorious against the University of Reading and the women's team defeated the University of East Anglia.

Volleyball Performance Coach Alex Porter said: "This is one of the most successful weeks in the Performance Volleyball Programme's history.

"The women's had won three silvers in the last four years and this was the first gold in the University's history, the men are now joint record holders after winning the title three years in a row."

The Most Valuable Player Awards both went to stars of the Essex teams as Logan Zotovich won the men's prize and Katarina Raicevic received the honour in the women's competition.

Read the full report on the Voleyball England website

Both teams have also just played their final BUCS Premier League fixtures in the Essex Sport Arena against Bournemouth University.

In front of over 130 fans the women won 3-1 and the men won 3:2.

These results crowned the men BUCS Premier League South Champions and the women were joint 1st but finished 2nd on sets difference.

Both teams will now be taking on the University of Nottingham in the play-off quarter finals at Essex Sport Arena on Wednesday 27 February.

### Royal accolade for Essex excellence in political science

### "Brilliant and inspirational" professor celebrated at Regius Professorship Lecture

Student sports teams are known as the Essex Blades and there are 40 clubs covering a range of sports including football, rugby union, netball and cricket, as well as in non-traditional sports such as korfball, ultimate frisbee, pole dancing and cheerleading.
 Essex invests significantly in three 'focus sports', volleyball, basketball and rugby sevens. National successes in these sports include winning the men’s team winning the Volleyball England National Student Cup in 2017 and the women’s basketball team winning the Basketball England National Cup in 2016. The men’s basketball team won the Basketball England National League Division 4 and the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) National Trophy in 2017. In 2019 the men's volleyball team became the first Essex team to win the British University and Colleges (BUCS) national final.


In 2014 she returned to the Freer and Sackler Galleries, where she is currently the Melvin R. Seiden Curator of Chinese Art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C.

(meta data) TITLE: Jan Stuart | Freer|Sackler

(meta data) PUBLISHER: https://www.facebook.com/FreerSackler/

### Melvin R. Seiden Curator of Chinese Art

Jan Stuart is the first Melvin R. Seiden Curator of Chinese Art.

She assumed the post when she returned to the Freer|Sackler in 2014, after serving as Keeper of Asia (department head) at the British Museum since 2006.

There, in addition to senior management responsibilities and supervising and curating exhibitions, she took the lead on creating new galleries for the Sir Percival David collection of Chinese ceramics and for Chinese paintings.

Previously, Stuart had served as a curator of Chinese art at the Freer|Sackler, where she came after holding a Mellon Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

She earned degrees from Princeton and Yale Universities, specializing in Chinese art, language, and culture.

Today, Stuart works broadly in the area of Chinese art, with a special focus on ceramics, decorative arts, textiles, and court arts, including paintings, from the Song through Qing dynasty.

Her Freer|Sackler exhibitions and related publications (some coauthored) include Challenging the Past: The Paintings of Chang Dai-chien (1991), Joined Colors: Decoration and Meaning in Chinese Porcelain (1993), Worshiping the Ancestors: Chinese Commemorative Portraits (2001), Return of the Buddha: Qingzhou Sculptures (2004), and Red: Ming Dynasty/Mark Rothko (2017).

For the Freer|Sackler's 2017 reopening, she was responsible for new displays of artworks from the Song through Qing.

Currently she is cocurating and coediting with Daisy Wang the exhibition and book Empresses of China's Forbidden City, 1644–1912, coorganized with the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem) and the Palace Museum (Beijing)

Actively involved in museum acquisitions, Stuart also publishes regularly and serves on editorial boards for Ars Orientalis and Arts of Asia.

(meta data) TITLE: At Work with Artwork Discussion Series to Feature Jan Stuart | News | What's On | Princeton University Department of Art & Archaeology

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#### At Work with Artwork Discussion Series to Feature Jan Stuart

The next "At Work with Artwork" discussion will feature Jan Stuart, the Melvin R. Seiden Curator of Chinese Art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C.

At the Freer/Sackler, Stuart oversees the collection of Chinese decorative arts, one of the finest outside of China.

The collection contains more than ten thousand objects dating from Neolithic times to the present, covering nearly every medium and category of Chinese art.

From 2006 to 2014, Stuart led the British Museum's Asia Section, supervising a staff of curators, technicians, administrators, and research specialists; she oversaw a collection of 125,000 objects, ranging from prehistoric to contemporary.

During her tenure the museum created two new Asian galleries—including the Sir Joseph Hotung Centre for Ceramic Studies, which houses the celebrated Sir Percival David Collection of Chinese art—and updated a third.

She also supervised and contributed to a number of exhibitions, including The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army, Xu Bing: Background Story, Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art, and Ming: 50 Years That Changed China.

In her previous tenure as curator of Chinese art at the Freer and Sackler galleries from 1988 to 2006, Stuart was instrumental in bringing greater attention to the fields of Buddhist sculpture, Chinese portraits and court paintings, and the later decorative arts of China through her research, original publications, and thought-provoking exhibitions and catalogues.

Stuart has advanced degrees in Chinese art and archaeology and East Asian studies from Princeton and Yale, and is fluent in Mandarin.

She has been a consultant, partner, jury member, and producer for a wide range of international educational and curatorial initiatives, including art fairs, films, and conservation projects.

Join us on February 27, 2015, at 4:45 in 105 Chancellor Green for a discussion with Jan Stuart.

Stuart worked at the Freer and Sackler Galleries for more than 20 years (1988-2006). She then took the position of Keeper of the Department of Asia at the British Museum (2006-2014). During her time at the British Museum, she was responsible for a collection of 125,000 objects, ranging from prehistoric pieces to contemporary art, a team of curators and support staff, and the creation of the Sir Joseph Hotung Centre for Ceramic Studies, which houses the Sir Percival David Collection of Chinese art. She also supervised and contributed to a number of exhibitions, including "The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army", "Xu Bing: Background Story", "Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art", and "Ming: 50 Years That Changed China".


Daktronics was founded in 1968 by  Aelred Kurtenbach and Duane Sander, professors of electrical engineering at South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD.

(meta data) TITLE: Daktronics Plays Outsize Role as Giant Scoreboards Proliferate - The New York Times

(meta data) AUTHOR: http://www.nytimes.com/by/ken-belson

Skip to contentSkip to site indexPro FootballLog InToday's PaperPro Football|New Dimension in Scoreboard Watching

Teams like the N.F.L.'s Jacksonville Jaguars have installed huge video displays in an attempt to lure fans away from their big-screen TVs and into stadiums and arenas.

CreditRick Wilson for The New York TimesSlide 1 of 14 1/14

CreditRick Wilson for The New York TimesSlide 2 of 14 2/14

When LED displays were introduced about two decades ago, the red, green and blue diodes cost about $1 apiece.

Now that they cost pennies, sports teams have been able to buy larger and more advanced displays for less.

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York TimesSlide 3 of 14 3/14

Partly assembled panels await the insertion of red LEDs in the Daktronics (the name is a combination of Dakota and electronics) plant in Brookings, S.D.

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York TimesSlide 4 of 14 4/14

Partly complete LED panels that will be part of displays 362 feet long and 60 feet tall that will tower over the end zones at EverBank Field in Jacksonville, Fla.

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York TimesSlide 5 of 14 5/14

Daktronics' vast warehouse in Brookings, S.D.

The company was founded by Al Kurtenbach and a fellow electrical engineering professor at nearby South Dakota State in 1968.

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York TimesSlide 6 of 14 6/14

Shahid Kahn, the owner of the Jaguars, toured the Daktronics factory in May.

This year, he and the city of Jacksonville have spent $63 million to renovate EverBank Field and add two of the world's largest video displays made more than 1,500 miles away in South Dakota.

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York TimesSlide 7 of 14 7/14

A worker transports a completed section of a LED panel that will be part of a videoboard in the Jaguars' stadium.

Daktronics made scoreboards for many of the events at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., but it did not enter the pro sports market until 1988.

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York TimesSlide 8 of 14 8/14

"What we're doing is upgrading the experience for our fans," Khan, center, said.

"This is another step in the arms race to get the fans back into the stadium."

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York TimesSlide 9 of 14 9/14

LEDs on a demonstration board in the Daktronics plant.

Pixels were often 16 millimeters apart a few years ago; now they are often 8 millimeters apart.

The company has also designed modules so displays are easier to read outdoors.

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York Times.Slide 10 of 14 10/14

A demonstration board, similar to one of the new scoreboards at the Jaguars' stadium in Jacksonville, Fla.

Fans will get their first look at them on July 26 when Fulham, the Premier League soccer team owned by Khan, and D.C. United of Major League Soccer play an exhibition game.

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York TimesSlide 11 of 14 11/14

Fifty-foot trailers at the Daktronics plant in Brookings, S.D., are used to transport the finished products to stadiums and arenas around the United States.

CreditAaron C. Packard for The New York TimesSlide 12 of 14 12/14

A welder at work at EverBank Field in preparation for the installation of one of the new scoreboards, this one in the north end zone.

CreditRick Wilson for The New York TimesSlide 13 of 14 13/14

The Jaguars' game-day producer, Clay Greenhaw, in the control room as he ran tests on the new scoreboards at EverBank Field on July 18.

"This display technology really punches through the sun," said Mike Kempany, a sales manager at Daktronics.

"There are other technologies out there, but they don't give the wow factor that this does."

CreditRick Wilson for The New York TimesSlide 14 of 14 14/14

One of the new scoreboards installed recently at EverBank Field.

One reason Daktronics has thrived in a town of about 22,000 has been its proximity to South Dakota State in Brookings.

At any one time, about 300 students work at the company as engineers, in marketing and sales, and in graphic arts and other departments.

CreditRick Wilson for The New York Times

BROOKINGS, S.D. — The seemingly endless prairie that blankets this part of the United States would seem to be an unlikely place for one of the largest makers of sports video displays, Daktronics.

After all, the nearest big-league ballpark is a four-hour drive from this town, which has barely enough residents to fill any of the arenas and stadiums where the high-tech screens are fixtures.

Yet in the nearly half-century since its founding, the company has become a global giant in sports entertainment, and though the quiet, tree-lined streets may not show it, business is good.

Revenue grew by a healthy 6.5 percent last year, largely because of demand from the N.F.L.

For months, hundreds of the 1,600 workers in the sprawling Daktronics complex off the interstate that runs between Omaha and Fargo, N.D., have been building gigantic video displays for N.F.L. teams in cities like Charlotte, N.C.; Cleveland; and Jacksonville, Fla., where two screens the length of a football field were installed behind the end zones and will be unveiled this week.

Smaller screens will end up in the baseball, basketball and hockey homes of professional and college teams.

The new orders are a result of a paradox: As teams reap billions of dollars from television networks that carry their games in increasingly vivid detail, fans are finding more reasons to stay home, especially as the costs of tickets, parking and food escalate.

So in a twist that would make Marshall McLuhan proud, teams are trying to recreate the living room experience in stadiums.

In recent years, they have installed televisions in suites, boosted Wi-Fi and cellphone signals, and created lounges where fans can track their fantasy football teams.

They are also installing high-definition video displays made by Daktronics, Mitsubishi Electric and others, providing a sensory punch that can be appreciated only in person.

"We see the living room as our biggest competitor," said Al Kurtenbach, a Daktronics co-founder and its chairman.

"Our job is to help the venue manager with fresh content.

Teams have always tried to draw fans to stadiums.

They have hired mascots, given away merchandise, and put on free concerts and fireworks shows.

Fans can run the bases, throw out the first pitch and meet players and coaches.

The prevailing wisdom among sports executives now is that younger fans raised on smartphones are less willing to attend live events because they are cut off from the online content they find compelling.

Giant scoreboards, they hope, will quench that digital addiction while generating new advertising revenue.

They can also become attractions like the enormous video screen in the Dallas Cowboys' stadium, which opened in 2009.

James Ricchiuti, who covers Daktronics for the investment bank Needham & Company, said, "There's real pressure on teams to do something, because with large-screen televisions in the home, they have to do something to attract fans to come to the arenas and stadiums."

After buying the Jaguars in 2011, he realized that Jacksonville, one of the smallest N.F.L. markets, was a hard place to sell tickets.

The team has not made the playoffs since the 2007 season, and college football is wildly popular there.

A transient population and a struggling local economy did not help.

So Khan cut ticket prices, added club seats and party zones, and refurbished the locker rooms and training rooms.

This year, he and the city have spent $63 million to renovate EverBank Field and add two of the world's largest video displays, made more than 1,500 miles away by Daktronics.

Towering over each end zone, the displays are 362 feet long and 60 feet tall — taller than almost every building in Brookings.

Fans will get their first look at them Saturday when Fulham (also owned by Khan), a prominent English team, and D.C. United of Major League Soccer play an exhibition at EverBank Field.

"What we're doing is upgrading the experience for our fans," Khan said.

"This is another step in the arms race to get the fans back into the stadium."

The Cleveland Browns have not had problems selling tickets, but they felt their 15-year-old stadium needed an upgrade.

A big piece of their $120 million renovation of FirstEnergy Stadium was the installation of Daktronics displays, which are three times larger than their predecessors.

"We feel like we had to improve the fan experience," said Alec Scheiner, the Browns' president.

"And when we get better on the field, we feel like it will translate into more revenue, too."

Khan has a keen interest in the displays because his main business, Flex-N-Gate, makes auto parts, including headlamps with light-emitting diodes.

He visited Daktronics in May to see the displays being made.

In a large showroom in a vast warehouse, Khan and the team's president, Mark Lamping, saw a display 38 feet long by 14 feet tall that was crammed with about 300,000 red, blue and green diodes, each the size of a pinkie fingernail.

A 40th of the size of the displays to be installed in Jacksonville, it showed graphics of the Jaguars' logo in stunning clarity.

The density of the pixels correlates closely with the resolution of a display.

Pixels were often 16 millimeters apart a few years ago, but they are now often 8 millimeters apart.

Daktronics has also designed modules so displays are easier to read outdoors.

"This display technology really punches through the sun," said Mike Kempany, a sales manager at Daktronics.

"There are other technologies out there, but they don't give the wow factor that this does."

In laboratories near the showroom, Khan and Lamping were shown how the displays were tested to ensure they could withstand strong sunlight, downpours and other extreme weather conditions for at least a decade.

A 14.4-inch-square module, the type used for outdoor displays, has sat in a vat of water and blinked for three years.

In the Highly Accelerated Life Testing chamber, the temperature ranges from minus 166 degrees to 392 degrees to see if displays can tolerate cold and heat.

Other displays sit under banks of infrared lights that simulate the intensity of the sun in Phoenix.

Other tests replicate freezing rain and salty mist.

"We have a goal for our products to last the same amount of time regardless of where they are," said Paul Gilk, who runs the reliability lab.

Eric Johns, Gilk's colleague, put it another way.

"We're trying to break them to see their weak points," he said.

VideoShahid Khan is the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, a team that hasn't made the playoffs since the 2007 season.

He is spending $20 million of his own money on the biggest end-zone video displays.

The heavy lifting of making modules — the building blocks of the displays — occurs in an adjacent building.

With all the big orders Daktronics had received, the production line was running near capacity in two 10-hour daily shifts.

The 13-step process to make a module starts with millions of red, green and blue diodes.

When LED displays were introduced about two decades ago, the diodes cost about a dollar each.

Now that they cost pennies, sports teams have been able to buy larger and more advanced displays for less.

To generate extra revenue, Daktronics and other manufacturers have been developing software for teams to use on their displays.

In addition to creating tailor-made graphics, Daktronics hosts seminars for programmers who operate scoreboards in Major League Baseball and N.F.L. stadiums.

The scoreboards would not be possible without the hundreds of modules that come off the line every day.

The process of making a module starts with a blank circuit board that runs through machines that attach drivers, chips, resistors, capacitors and other components.

Three radial machines insert red, green and blue diodes.

(The factory uses about 3.9 million of these LEDs in an average week.)

After the LEDs are soldered to the circuit board, signal connectors, capacitors, coils and other components are inserted manually, then soldered as well.

The boards are washed and dried to remove contaminants and placed in hard plastic casings.

Any modules with malfunctioning LEDs are repaired.

Silicone is applied to waterproof the modules, which are dried in an oven for six minutes.

A robot drives screws into the modules, and power supplies are added.

In all, it takes about 30 minutes to build a module, and one module comes off the line every 65 seconds.

The precision and speed are results of an overhaul in production that took place in recent years.

Neil Andal, who is in charge of improving production processes, said: "Our customers want to do something bigger and better, so if we didn't improve our manufacturing, we couldn't keep up.

No one ever said, 'I want a smaller scoreboard.' "

The process, which is based on many Japanese techniques, is far more efficient than it was when Kurtenbach and a fellow electrical engineering professor at nearby South Dakota State started the company in 1968.

They were more interested in biomedical instrumentation than scoreboards.

But an early investor in the company who was active in collegiate wrestling asked Kurtenbach to design a new scoreboard.

With help from their students, Kurtenbach and his partner built a four-sided, four-foot-high tower with incandescent bulbs.

As orders came in, Kurtenbach realized that there was a market for other scoreboards.

Daktronics made voting tally boards for nearly every statehouse in the nation, then scoreboards for high schools and colleges.

Later, they created scoreboards with basic video displays made by Sony, Mitsubishi Electric and others.

To offset the unpredictable nature of the sports market, Daktronics expanded into traffic signs, commercial displays and other more stable businesses.

That year, Daktronics made a scoreboard for the Buffalo Bisons, a Class AAA baseball club.

At a Bisons game, Kurtenbach met Joe Spear, the stadium's architect, who invited him to work on a new ballpark in Baltimore.

Camden Yards opened in 1992 and touched off a frenzy of construction that emphasized throwback designs, better sightlines, fan-friendly concessions and prominently placed scoreboards.

Orders poured in, and sales expanded overseas.

Daktronics — an amalgam of the words Dakota and electronics — was listed on the Nasdaq stock market in 1994.

Today, nearly every N.F.L. stadium has some Daktronics equipment, and the company's scoreboards are in many well-known venues, including Madison Square Garden and Citi Field.

College stadiums are a growing opportunity, too, particularly at Division I universities whose wealthy donors are willing to pay for a display.

At any time, about 300 students work at the company as engineers, in marketing and sales, and in graphic arts and other departments.

Kurtenbach recognized that employing students was crucial to grooming the next generation of workers without having to persuade people elsewhere to move to South Dakota.

"They are a heck of a supplier of talent for us," Kurtenbach said of the university, where the engineering school is in Daktronics Hall.

David L. Chicoine, the university president, said: "It's fantastic to give students an option.

When I went to school in South Dakota, if you had a tech background, you had to leave."

Daktronics's closest competitor in the roughly $800 million market, Mitsubishi Electric, has focused on marquee locations.

With displays designed in Japan and assembled in Pittsburgh, Mitsubishi contends that its advanced technology provides higher resolution and seamless displays.

It has displays in Yankee Stadium, AT&T Stadium outside Dallas and elsewhere.

"We are focusing on the higher end of the market," said Todd Stih, a national sales manager at Mitsubishi Electric's scoreboard division.

The workers at Daktronics would disagree.

They fasten modules into metal-frame cabinets that are 8 feet 4 inches tall and 7 feet 2 inches wide.

Fans are attached in the back, and the modules are run hard for an hour to ensure that no LEDs burn out.

A fully installed cabinet comes off the line about every five minutes.

"The displays are so large," said Amber Peper, a master scheduler, "it's not feasible to build them all at once because they're not going to install them at once."

The Jacksonville display required 416 cabinets.

Crates of eight cabinets were shrink-wrapped and loaded onto flatbed tracks, which were parked at loading docks before their four-day ride to EverBank Field.

Each crate, weighing about 2,800 pounds, was numbered to indicate its place in the display's frame.

Before he left, Khan was given a Sharpie and asked to sign a cabinet numbered 53313.

An article last Sunday about Daktronics, one of the largest makers of sports video displays, contained an outdated reference to Fulham, the English soccer team that shares an owner with the N.F.L.'s Jacksonville Jaguars, who have two new scoreboards from Daktronics.

Fulham was relegated to the Football League Championship after last season; it is no longer in the Premier League.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section SP, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: New Dimension in Scoreboard Watching.

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After "The Sunday Times" branded his speeches "racialist", Powell sued it for libel, but withdrew when he was required to provide the letters he had quoted from because he had promised anonymity for the writer, who refused to waive it.

(meta data) TITLE: Right or wrong, the legacy of Enoch Powell's speech lives on | Express & Star

(meta data) PUBLISHED DATETIME: 2014-01-20T06:59:55Z

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# Right or wrong, the legacy of Enoch Powell's speech lives on

Wolverhampton | News | Published: Jan 20, 2014

'The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils'.

There is little anyone could find wrong with that line.

It is a reminder to those elected by the people that they are there to make things better and to use their authority and skills to serve their country.

But what if we were to tell you that the quote is actually the opening line of the infamous Rivers of Blood speech made by Enoch Powell?

The former Conservative MP for Wolverhampton had a Parliamentary career spanning 37 years.

But his legacy will forever be associated with a speech on mass immigration made one Saturday afternoon in 1968.

This week, the Express & Star is going to examine immigration and look at the predictions and claims made by Mr Powell all those years ago to see how they relate to today.

Recently sections of the speech were read out on Sky News to the UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, to trap him into saying how he agreed with some of what Mr Powell had to say.

And Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, faced calls to quit after effectively comparing his Tory coalition colleagues to Mr Powell over their stance on immigration.

Mr Powell's legacy has, quite literally, become a case of black and white.

Those who claim that anything he had to say was right sometimes find themselves cast out as racists.

Those who ignore all he was trying to say are also ignoring growing concern over mass immigration in the 21st century.

Recently border controls in Britain for Romanian and Bulgarian migrants have been relaxed in line with their right to travel anywhere across the European Union for work.

Prime Minister David Cameron is now trying to renegotiate Britain's place in Europe and further restrict access to benefits for migrants.

A three-month ban on EU migrants claiming UK out-of-work benefits came into force earlier this month.

In his speech, Mr Powell warned of a an inflow of 'dependants' and said it was like watching a nation 'busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre'.

The speech prompted huge protests with some people even waving banners saying 'disembowel Powell' or portraying him as a Nazi.

People who were close to Enoch Powell stress that he was absolutely not a racist.

His critics point to passages in the speech that were undoubtedly hugely controversial.

He said that one of his constituents, a 'decent, ordinary fellow Englishman' had complained that the country would 'not be worth living in', because the time was coming when ' the black man will have the whip hand over the white man'.

He prophesied that would happen within 15 to 20 years of the speech in 1968.

And yet one only has to look at the sea of white faces among chief executives or MPs to see that, at the very least on that point, Enoch Powell was wrong.

Angry protesters take to the streets with placards in opposition to Powell's words during the late 1960s

He said that people in Wolverhampton were becoming strangers in their own country, that their wives could not get hospital beds in which to have their babies or that children would not get school places.

He warned of race wars, leading to the most famous passage of the speech: "As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; Like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'."

And there is much debate over whether he was saying riots would happen, or simply fearing that they could.

At the time of the speech, in April 1968, he was the shadow secretary of state for defence under the then Tory opposition leader Edward Heath.

He was certainly well qualified for that front bench position having served in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and the Intelligence Corps.

He had been angry at the appeasement of Nazi Germany by the Government of Neville Chamberlain and, shortly before the outbreak of war, purchased himself a Russian dictionary, believing that the country ruled by Stalin would be crucial to Britain's victory.

During his military service he was posted to India, where he is said to have deeply wanted to become the viceroy – the then ruling British government's chief official.

He learned Urdu but was against the idea of the country governing itself, noting that each of the various political parties were dominated by one particular minority group – Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and so on.

He brought this thinking with him back to England in 1946 when he advised the Conservative party against immigration from India, believing it would in some way undermine the people already living here.

Mr Powell became further convinced of his views when in 1947, under Labour leader Clement Attlee, the government pressed ahead with Indian independence.

Violence ensued and Mr Powell began receiving confidential reports including from a former Indian civil servant he knew, Frank Bayne, about the bloodshed.

In a report from Lahore in 1947, Brayne wrote: 'Quem deus vult perdere prius dementat'.

Powell translated it in his notorious speech 21 years later: "Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad."

The fallout from the speech saw Mr Powell sacked by Edward Heath and eventually ousted by the Tories from his seat in Wolverhampton.

He ended up representing the Ulster Unionists in South Down, Northern Ireland.

Those who seek to rehabilitate Mr Powell's reputation point out that in 1959 he condemned the Conservative government cover-up of the Hola Camp massacre, in which Britain killed 11 Mau Mau rebels.

He had nothing but contempt for parliamentary colleagues who called the Mau Mau 'sub-human'.

Denis Healey, who would go on to be Labour's Chancellor, called it 'the greatest parliamentary speech I ever heard', with 'all the moral passion and rhetorical force of Demosthenes'.

Even those who would oppose Mr Powell, such as former Labour leader Michael Foot, use this speech to claim that he was no racist.

There was also little to suggest he harboured such views prior to the famous speech.

In 1960, as minister of health, he had presided over the recruitment of West Indian nurses.

In his speech he referred to a woman he knew who 'worked hard and did well, paid off her mortgage and began to put something by for her old age'.

"Then the immigrants moved in," Mr Powell said.

"With growing fear, she saw one house after another taken over.

"She is becoming afraid to go out, windows are broken.

She finds excreta pushed through her letterbox.

When she goes out to the shops she is followed by children, charming wide-grinning picaninnies."

Journalists from the Express & Star and Fleet Street tried to find her, to no avail.

Then six years ago, after her death, the woman was revealed to be a Druscilla 'Trudy' Cotterill, at the time a 60-year-old childless war widow who was deeply troubled and frightened at the changes that she saw around her.

She lived in Brighton Place, not far from Mr Powell's Merridale Road constituency home.

In 1950 every property had been occupied by British-born families.

By 1967 Mrs Cotterill was the only English person left, flanked by Asians and West Indians.

At the time of the speech, Mr Powell had been accused of making up her account and by keeping her identity a secret he was forced to drop a libel action against the Sunday Times.

Whatever his motivations or views, the Rivers of Blood speech was an enormous boulder dropped in a lake and its ripples have been felt for 46 years.

And Mr Powell knew that it was going to be a big deal.

Prior to the speech he had been friends with the then editor of the Express & Star, Clem Jones.

He had asked for advice on how to get the best possibly publicity for his speeches and had chosen a Saturday afternoon, knowing that it would make the evening broadcast bulletins, the Sunday national newspapers and, if it was significant enough, the Monday papers as well.

He said to Clem Jones: "Look, Clem, I'm not telling you what is in the speech.

But you know how a rocket goes up into the air, explodes into lots of stars, and then falls down to the ground.

Well, this speech is going to go up like a rocket, and when it gets to the top, the stars are going to stay up."

Today, the things he feared would happen – the riots, immigrants having the 'whip hand' – have not come to pass.

On that, at the very least, we can be certain that Enoch Powell was wrong.

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National figure.:"Rivers of Blood" speech.

The Act would prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race in certain areas of British life, particularly housing, where many local authorities had been refusing to provide houses for immigrant families until they had lived in the country for a certain number of years.
 One feature of his speech was the extensive quotation of a letter he received detailing the experiences of one of his constituents in Wolverhampton. The writer described the fate of an elderly woman who was supposedly the last White person living in her street. She had repeatedly refused applications from non-Whites requiring rooms-to-let, which resulted in her being called a "racialist" outside her home and receiving "excreta" through her letterbox.
 When Heath telephoned Margaret Thatcher to tell her that he was going to sack Powell, she responded: "I really thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis". Heath sacked Powell from his Shadow Cabinet the day after the speech and he never held another senior political post again. Powell received almost 120,000 (predominantly positive) letters and a Gallup poll at the end of April showed that 74 per cent of those asked agreed with his speech and only 15 per cent disagreed, with 11 per cent unsure. One poll concluded that between 61 and 73 per cent disagreed with Heath sacking Powell. According to George L. Bernstein, many British people felt that Powell "was the first British politician who was actually listening to them".