Theme: Creating the Experience

Art can divide us, or unify us. Culture helps us to create a community. This event will explore how the arts and culture can create the experiences that we are looking for.

Chandler Public Library - Downtown
22 South Delaware Street
Chandler, Arizona, 85225
United States

Arathi School of Dance

Dance School

Arathi School of Dance was established in 1981, and reached a milestone of graduating the 100th student in its 25th anniversary year. And, in its 35th year now, the school will be graduating its 200th student! The school feels especially gratified that these, and great many other students, have bonded with our culture, and acquired the fortitude to pass it on to the next generation! Kalashri Asha Gopal is the founder/director of the Arathi School of Dance. Smt. Asha Gopal is an accomplished dancer and a dedicated teacher. She is the disciple of celebrated teachers, Guru Muthiah Pillai, Guru Kittappa Pillai and Professor U S Krishna Rao. Asha Gopal has performed widely in India, USA and other countries, and received many prestigious awards, among them: 'Singar Mani' title from Sur Singar Samsad, Mumbai , NRI Excellence award in London, England), Karnataka Kalashri award from Sangeet Natak Academy (1999), Citizen of the Year award from the Asian American Association of Arizona (2000).

Chandler Wind Ensemble

Musical Group

Blaise Lantana

Musical Director, KJZZ

Blaise Lantana has been a vocalist and musician all of her life. She grew up in Philadelphia and started formal piano lessons at the age of 7. She took up the organ and then the guitar while she was in high school. Blaise left her studies at Douglas College in New Jersey to travel the country and play her original music. She and her bass playing brother landed in Tucson and put together a country swing band called Gypsy Wind which performed around Arizona in the late 70s. She moved to Texas for a better music scene and had a Latin jazz band that played original music at Texas festivals and events in the 80s and early 90s. When the music work slowed down in Texas, Blaise got into radio in Corpus Christi at KEDT, where she worked for 6 years until she came to Phoenix in 1994 to work at KBAQ and then KJZZ as Music Director. While here in Arizona she has found time to play solo and duo gigs and to create several jazz bands.

David Specht

Actor

Dave "Thunderdome" Specht - Dave moved to Phoenix following his improv classwork with the Second City and Improv Olympic in Chicago, Illinois. He has been performing, teaching and directing improv in the Phoenix area since 2001 with such groups as the Jester'z, Ninjprov, Valley Fever Improv, Boomarang, and Travartine.

Laurie Fagen

Serial Entrepreneur

Laurie Fagen is a self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” who has started and operated at least seven different businesses, with half of them related to the arts. She is an artist, creating contemporary wearable art; a classic jazz singer; an art promoter; and a crime fiction writer, with three short stories and her debut novel published. She ran a contemporary art gallery in downtown Chandler for three years until the downturn in the economy, but took the business online after that. For 13 years, she and her late husband, Geoff Hancock, published the SanTan Sun News, a twice-monthly community newspaper, until his death in 2013. The newspaper won a Small Business of the Year award from the Chamber of Commerce. A strong supporter of the arts, Laurie is on the Chandler Arts Commission, and is a board member for the Arizona Polymer Clay Guild.

Stella Pope Duarte

Author

STELLA POPE DUARTE — who was inspired to become a writer by a prophetic dream of her father in 1995 — is described as a “major literary voice in America,” and as an author who “will enlarge humanity.” Her works include: Fragile Night, Let Their Spirits Dance, If I Die in Juárez, Women Who Live in Coffee Shops and Other Stories, and Writing Through Revelations, Visions and Dreams: The Memoir of a Writer’s Soul. She is the recipient of numerous local and national awards including a 2009 American Book Award. She teaches creative writing for colleges and universities in Arizona, as well as presenting at national conferences and working as an artist-in-residence. She is currently working on a biography of civil rights leader, Raul Yzaguirre. She believes that writing, like love, begins within, or it doesn’t start at all.

Tomas Stanton

Poet and teaching artist

A poet, Educator, Teaching Artist, Hip Hop Thespian and community organizer: Tomás is dedicated to advancing the art of spoken word and Hip Hop culture as platforms for youth development and civic engagement. Co-Founder of Phoenix’s premiere literary arts and youth development organization, Phonetic Spit, Tomás uses critical pedagogy to empower young and emerging adults to boldly express themselves – from the margins to the core. His work and teaching style are rooted in his childhood experiences of poverty, single parent household, and learning to navigate violence, identity, masculinity and what it means to love and be loved. Tomás has over 10 year experience in youth development and currently works all across the valley creating Brave spaces for expression. He is also the founder and directing producer of the Soul Justice Project (SJP), which is the resident theatre experience of Phonetic Spit.