The truth will set you free

April 21, 2008

CONTACTS:
Email: media@caedefensefund.org
Edmund Cardoni: (716) 854-1694
Lucia Sommer: (716) 359-3061

JUDGE DISMISSES MAIL FRAUD CASE AGAINST BIO-ARTIST KURTZ

Buffalo, NY—A process that has taken nearly four years may be coming to an end. On Monday, April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara ruled to dismiss the indictment against University at Buffalo Professor of Visual Studies Dr. Steven Kurtz.

In June 2004, Professor Kurtz was charged with two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud stemming from an exchange of $256 worth of harmless bacteria with Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

Dr. Kurtz planned to use the bacteria in an educational art exhibit about biotechnology with his award-winning art and theater collective, Critical Art Ensemble.

Professor Kurtz' lawyer, Paul Cambria, said that his client was "pleased and relieved that this ordeal may be coming to an end."

The prosecution has the right to appeal this dismissal. How the prosecution will proceed is unknown at this time. If an appeal were undertaken the case would move to the New York Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.

Lucia Sommer, Coordinator of the CAE Defense Fund, which raises funds for Kurtz' legal defense, said, “We are all grateful that after reviewing this case, Judge Arcara took appropriate action.” She added that "this decision is further testament to our original statements that Dr. Kurtz is completely innocent and never should have been charged in the first place."

BACKGROUND ON DR. STEVEN KURTZ AND CRITICAL ART ENSEMBLE

Critical Art Ensemble (which Kurtz co-founded in 1987 with Steven Barnes) has won numerous awards for its bio-art, including the prestigious 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Grant, honoring more than two decades of distinguished work. The group has been commissioned to exhibit and perform in many of the world's cultural institutions—including the London Museum of Natural History; The ICA, London; the Whitney Museum and the New Museum in NYC; the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, DC; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; der Volksbüne, Berlin; ZKM, Karlsruhe; El Matadero, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Museo de Arte Carrilo Gil, Mexico City and many more.

For more information about the case, please visit: caedefensefund.org

Interactive and Improvisational Drama book

Announcing the publication of the new book Interactive and Improvisational Drama: Varieties of Applied Theatre and Performance edited by Adam Blatner (with Daniel J Wiener).

In this unique anthology, thirty-two innovators share their approaches ways people can use nonscripted and interactive drama in community-building, education, personal and social empowerment, therapy, and recreation.

For drama students, their teachers, educators, actors, community workers, therapists, and even those in general population who like theatre. This may be the most dynamic cutting edge of the theatre arts today! In this book, drama can be discerned as a medium that expands the nature of discourse beyond the linear transmission of information, to include also imagination, spontaneity, vitality, involvement, emotional sensitivity and amplification, empathy, the power of group dynamics, and emotional supportiveness.

In addition, this book has a website that contains many supplementary papers, further references, anecdotes, and resources, and as such, you get twice as much for your money! You can also look over the table of contents of the book.

Order it for your college or university library, local public library, and for yourself, too! Please pass this along to other colleagues who may share an interest - teachers, educators, theatre artists, improv actors, drama therapists, and many others.

Playback in the Academy

CALL FOR PAPERS

PLAYBACK IN THE ACADEMY CONFERENCE
FRIDAY JUNE 8 TO SUNDAY JUNE 10TH

at the School of Dramatic Art
University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario

Playback Practitioners and Drama Researchers
are invited to make a submission
to be part of a cutting edge conference


The focus is the investigation of Playback Theatre
in Education, its scope, its relation to community
practice, its future, and research models to assess
the effectiveness of Playback Theatre

Proposal deadline April 1, 2007

Use the following link to submit proposals:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=26723278558

On-line registration will be available shortly.
For further information, contact:

Gail Campbell
Drama in Education and Community
School of Dramatic Art
University of Windsor
ofc: (519) 253-3000 x4623
fax: (519) 971-3629
gailc@uwindsor.ca

Vacancy: Applied Theatre Practitioner, Reading (UK)

Are you a drama practitioner passionate about the potential of applied theatre?

Do you think that drama can be used as a learning medium, for young people and adults alike?

Would you relish a long term opportunity to expand your practice with a professional theatre company?

C&T Theatre Company has a growing national network of schools, each hosting a resident drama practitioner who works across the local and school community. We are currently recruiting for a practitioner to be based in a Reading performing arts school, joining existing centres in Worcester, Walsall, York and London.

The network is facilitated by C&T’s innovative new media technologies – practitioners are collaborating on the development of an entirely new medium: meshed applied theatre.

The successful applicant will have experience of using drama in a wide range of contexts including schools, a confidence to work independently and be looking for new creative challenges. Appointment is conditional on a satisfactory enhanced CRB check.

For further information visit www.candt.org

For an application pack e-mail jill.francis@candt.org or phone +44 (0)1905 855436.

Application deadline: Monday 6 November

C&T is an Equal Opportunities Employer.
Reg. Charity No. 1085653

C&T is a funded client of Arts Council England.