- [Announcer] Production of Applause on Ideastream Public media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(cheerful jazz music) - [Kabir] Coming up, a northeast Ohio native with a love for basketball, takes creative control of his favorite team, plus a Columbus dance community takes to the floor with moves from Brazil and the Cleveland Orchestra performs a world premier symphony with a new take on an American anthem.

You're just in time for another round of Applause.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

(laid-back music) Daniel Arsham is a world renowned artist whose passion for pop culture inspires much of his work, including for his favorite NBA team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Let's head inside Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse where Arsham is making his mark.

(music continues) - Rocket Mortgage has a massive art collection that's in the entrance foyer of the building as you walk in, - It hits you in the face right when you walk in and it definitely makes it a more unique place to be 'cause it definitely helps us kind of stylize different areas of the building and make you feel like you're in a very unique setting no matter where you are.

- [Daniel] That's an interesting thing, to put art in the context of sports, people don't go to an arena to necessarily see artwork.

- [Colleague] There's over a hundred pieces of art in this building.

22 total artists.

There's also six plus artists that are also from the Cleveland area, so we wanted to make sure there was a local tie to all of that art as well.

- The Gilbert family has basically loaned their collection to this arena museum.

(music continues) - We always talk about blurring the line between pop culture and basketball and he's definitely helped us kind of put that into hyper speed you over the last few years.

- I'm third generation Clevelander, father and grandfather both went to Cleveland Heights High.

I moved out of Cleveland when I was quite young, but spent the summers here as a kid and you know, was always a fan of the Cavs.

(music continues) - [Colleague] So our collaboration with Daniel Arsham really started with our ownership group in terms of their relationship with him in terms of some other projects they have worked on him with.

So Dan and Jennifer Gilbert and Grant Gilbert, who works, you know, day to day here at the Cavs had this idea to bring 'em in.

- The Gilberts were art collectors, were interested in the art world and were collectors of my work before I came to know them.

So, you know, after the 2016 championship, the arena was renovated and as part of that a number of artworks were added to the building.

They commissioned that moving basketball work, which is in the main atrium here.

And that's sort of how I got to know the family.

- We had an NBA brand, we had a lot of positive stories behind it with LeBron and the championship and so it wasn't necessarily like it was broke, it was just taking a different look at it and trying to make it more consistent, more reductive.

Something that we thought could, you know, last a test of time and something we could all kind of rally around for a lot of years to come.

(music continues) - An opportunity came up a couple years ago through my artwork that was in the building to begin a longer relationship with the team, really through discussions with Grant Gilbert, basically telling him this is what I think we should do for the jerseys next season.

And at some point he said, "You know, maybe it'd be interesting for you to come on board and actually advise us on design."

- Daniel was, he was an obvious choice I think in terms of some of the work that he had done with the Gilbert family previously, but he's, you know, has Cleveland ties world renowned contemporary artist.

It just made sense.

(music continues) - I have a exhibition that's ongoing now at the Cleveland Sculpture Center.

This is an exhibition that includes works around sports and music.

Two core themes that I've worked with in my career.

(music continues) So in a lot of my work I'm looking for links to the present, things that we could associate with this era in time, right?

When I'm creating a kind of archeological object, I want something that looks like it's from now and obviously there's sports, a basketball we can say it's from the last, I don't know, a hundred years, right?

It's not from 300 years ago.

And so these elements of sports are also markers of a particular moment in time, which makes them very valuable within the work to kind of locate the work in a particular era.

(music continues) (upbeat music) This was a new thing for the league.

There were creative departments within all the teams, but there wasn't really an outside visual person that was present in any of the NBA teams.

- We were the first team to ever do it.

A couple teams have kind of followed it in our footsteps off of it.

It's becoming less and less unique I'd say now that people have seen the dividends that Daniel has has brought.

- So I came in in 2020 obviously we redesigned the logo, we kept the original C, but the Cav's logo was redesigned and I am responsible for basically anything visual that the team does.

So all the jersey designs, the court designs our social media, my design firm redesigned the Cav's team shop last year with our great basketball run here.

(music continues) - Last year we relaunched our whole logo set and launched a new set of uniforms, our core uniforms.

The big elements of that was just more reductive, more elegant, more elevated in terms of the brand.

So everything was simplified.

I think the other big piece was color-wise we went to the more traditional gold versus that mustard gold that we'd had throughout our championship runs.

And you know, for the last maybe, you know, six or seven years before that, coming outta that as well, the uniform set, you can see it's a lot cleaner.

(laid-back music) - Part of my responsibility here is to also design our city edition jerseys.

- And the purpose of city edition jersey is to shine a light or tell a story around something that we have civic pride in or as a cultural gem within northeast Ohio.

- The first edition was based on this collaboration that we did with the metro parks.

So the land was sort of rendered in this geological striations of the grass and the dirt and the earth of the metro parks with references to Lake Erie.

- [Colleague] That's why you had the blue for the water, kinda the brown accents.

That was where that idea came to fruition.

So we partnered with the Metro parks in terms of being a part of people's lives and how impressive it is and is a part of people's general lifestyle here.

(crowd chattering) (audience applauds) (intense classical music) - This year we focused heavily on Playhouse Square, which is the largest theater district in the United States outside of New York.

And so our city edition jerseys this year pay homage to that.

There's details from the curtains in the theater that are on the sleeves and the pinhole lights, you know, on the outside of the land graphic.

You know, I'm trying to think about ways with our city edition that we can shed light on other great things in the city.

- It's been one of those things where there's just so many natural intersections between them who bring a million people downtown every year.

You know, we try to bring as many people down here depending on how many shows we have every single year.

You know, we're trying to accomplish the same thing in terms of bringing people down to Cleveland and entertaining them and making their lives better.

- It's been really exciting obviously to engage both with Cleveland, with the players and the fans.

I think basketball, you know, obviously it's an American sport, but it's something that is really international.

You know, I spend a lot of time in my career traveling in places like Japan and South America, you know, all over Asia and Europe and basketball has this sort of international feeling about it.

It translates everywhere and I think part of that is also the design and the language of the jerseys and it's really just the graphics that surround that.

So I've tried to really bring Cleveland out into the world as well.

- [Kabir] Daniel Asham's work is also on view with the Score and Sound exhibit at the Sculpture Center in Cleveland's University Circle through January 27th.

(cheerful Latin music) While it's been around only a few decades, the dance style known as Brazilian Zouk is bringing folks together with its kinetic movements.

In Columbus, Zouk fever has hit a high with this community of dancers.

(laid-back music) - [Dancer] There is a feeling that you get when you just connect with someone on the dance floor, meeting a dance connection.

It sounds romantic but it's nothing like that at all.

It's just meeting someone that you... You both vibe to the same music, you have the same kind of style and you just understand each other.

(music continues) - Brazilian Zouk is a partner dance that originated from lambada.

- And that was actually called the Forbidden Dance.

And so it was very taboo to do and when they started to hear Caribbean Zouk music, lambada kind of mixed with Caribbean Zouk in order to make what we know as Brazilian Zouk today.

- It's a very smooth flowy dance that's a lot of fun.

I discovered several years ago that Columbus had quite the Latin dance scene when you get introduced to Latin dancing, a lot of people know what salsa is and some people know what bachata is and then there's these other really beautiful dances as well and Brazilian Zouk is one of those dances and as soon as I started trying that, I knew this is the one for me.

This matches my style, my personality.

And it's so much fun that it was contagious.

(music continues) - At the time, Sean had just become an instructor and I knew him previously and so he invited me to come out.

So I brought my best friend and we tried it and absolutely fell in love.

And so he and I immediately just went straight into it and we dove in and now we're both actually instructors for Columbus Zouk.

- One of the beautiful things about it is people dance for different reasons.

There's some people who love the music, there's some people who it's their social outlet, but the reality is, is it really doesn't matter what your reason is.

There's lots of fun reasons to go.

- Columbus Zouk is really special because it's not just a company where Sean and I teach you how to dance Brazilian Zouk.

It's actually more about the people who it's made up of, the community that comes together.

And we've worked really hard to cultivate a place where people feel accepted and welcomed and safe to dance this and to do what they love and to follow their passions and to continue to just grow and learn no matter what age you are, what background you have or how good of a dancer you are.

And that's really special 'cause I feel like that's hard to find.

- The way that the teachers do the lessons, you don't need a partner.

You show up and they'll teach you some basics and then you'll be partnered with a random person and then they'll rotate partners around and that's the basic style of lesson.

Typically the circle of leads and a circle of follows and you rotate around.

So you get to meet all these wonderful people, people of all ages, people with all sorts of backgrounds, people who are married, single, retired people who are looking for things to do, so you don't need to have a partner going in.

You're gonna get comfortable, you're gonna build your confidence and then by the time, almost all the lessons end with a social, you'll feel really confident, ready to go trying some of the basic steps.

- I actually was pretty fearful of myself, of putting myself out there like dancing with a partner that you don't know.

That sounds really scary, but the community that we have, everyone is just so kind and accepting and we make sure to make sure everyone is comfortable the entire time.

- Zouk dancers across the world, you know, we're not as much all about the fast salsa, but it's about the connection.

And I think the thing that appeals to me about Zouk and I think would appeal to a lot of people is it gives us a moment to slow down and connect with our dance partner whether we're beginners, intermediates, or advanced.

And every dance is a new adventure.

There's something really beautiful that happens when you dance Zouk.

It's like that feeling when you feel so engrossed in music, when the music just moves you, you feel connected to the music, you feel connected to your partner and you feel connected to yourself, just comfortable in your own skin.

When you get those three things coming together at once, it creates this almost like a high, it's like runner's high but with way less work and it's something that's hard to describe, but I want everyone to experience the joy that a well-connected dance can bring.

- When we are bringing in special guests, which we do a few different times a year, we look for people who are not only amazing dancers but really great people.

Like people who are also focused on like building a community and really connecting with people because Zouk is amazing and good for dancing, but it's really about the relationships that you make.

So one thing that's really cool about Columbus Zouk is we just love it so much that we want to share it with everyone and make it as accessible as possible both emotionally and financially.

So in the summer when it's nice out we go by The Scioto Mile and we do Zouk by the river.

So we teach a lesson, people come to dance for like an hour after that and it's really just a fun way for people connect, spend some time outside, learn some dancing and it's just a donation-based event so you don't have to worry about anything like that.

Come enjoy and just be a part of the community.

(laid-back Latin music) - I think about so many adults, we isolate ourselves.

We've got our friend group that we've established and we have our routines that we're well into.

We don't often try new things.

We don't often learn new skills and we don't often step out of our comfort zone and trying dance, whether it's just for fun with some friends or whether it's something you wanna learn to actually like, I wanna learn this new skill to get good at or you just wanna meet some new people.

It was one of the best decisions, one of the best things that happened to me in my later twenties and I think it's something that would interest a lot of people.

(music continues) (cheerful jazz music) - [Kabir] People who collect political buttons, signs and other campaign memorabilia share their wares at a show in Canton.

On the next Applause, learn about this hobby and another popular item people hang on to; postcards, collectors with the Western Reserve Postcard Society show off some of their favorites and enjoy the sounds of Ala Bora, a northeast Ohio group sharing Italian folk music with modern audiences.

All that and more on the next round of Applause.

(exciting folk music) (gentle music) Since 1979, Tiger Lily Press has brought people together through the printing arts, silkscreen, etching, and letter press.

- Tiger Lily Press is a group of volunteer print makers and I wanna stress the volunteer because we've been around for 40 years and we've maintained the fine art of printmaking for all those years with the volunteer group.

We're located at the Dunham Recreation Center in Cincinnati and we've been here since 2001 and they've been very generous to us and the campus is beautiful.

The mission of Tiger Lily Press is to promote, to preserve and to print fine art, hand pulled prints.

We're unique in that way, in that we're preserving this old art.

Our classes are taught by our members.

So we have silk screen, we have collagraph, we have etching, we have relief printings, we have letterpress classes so people can take a class and come in and print and learn.

And if you really enjoy it then you can become a member and learn more.

- I would highly recommend it if you have any interest in printmaking to take a class.

I think people often think that they have to know how to draw or they have to be an artist to take a class.

But that's the beauty of printmaking is that you can have no drawing ability and you can still make incredible work.

One thing that's really nice is that printmaking is a varied art.

There are a lot of different ways to go about printmaking.

I think it's a great way for people to figure out what they like and I think there's probably some form of printmaking for everybody.

- I first became aware of Tiger Lily Press when I was in graduate school at DAP.

I was first drawn to the organization by just the love of printmaking and knowing that there were common minded people that enjoyed the same thing.

I think what sets Tiger Lily apart from other printmaking studios is that it is a fine art printmaking studio.

You can go to another printmaking studios and maybe do silk screen, but you'd have to go to another institution to maybe learn intaglio and then another institution to maybe learn relief.

Well, here at Tiger Lilly we have all aspects of printmaking.

Not only do we have classes here that you can sign up and take a part in, but we've done outreach classes to local communities and high schools that might have a smaller arts department or arts funding.

So I think we fulfill our mission that way by trying to bring printmaking out to the wider audience.

One thing that really helps Tiger Lily be an integral part of the community and something that I think in general is lacking when you're an artist and you get out of school.

Places like this I think are very integral in that transition period.

You can come here and work in our studio and have access to the presses.

Here at Tiger Lily, we do the working artist program and it basically lasts a year and there's a little bit of a money stipend to it, but it's mostly about having complete and utter access to the facilities and the working artist program.

For me it was a really nice way to dive deep back into printmaking.

It really helps to give you that dedicated and supported time to explore your work.

- Almost all the inspiration for my work comes from my walks.

I take photos when I'm out and usually it's of a weed or a plant and so I usually work from a photograph that I've taken and I'll blow the photograph up pretty big 'cause I like to work large.

And then I usually do a pencil drawing from my big photo.

Once I've done a giant pencil drawing, I transfer it to my plate and then once I have the image transferred to the plate, I start carving and the carving can take me anywhere from two weeks to six weeks.

And then once I have it carved, I print.

I remember when I would pull the print up for the first time, like with the very first time, even though it wasn't a perfect print, I was like, I love this.

It's kind of a magical moment that only really happens in printmaking because it's a surprise.

You don't really know what you're gonna get until you lift that paper up for the first time.

It's a magical moment.

It's really fun.

- We're having our 40th anniversary show at Kennedy Heights Art Center.

We will show our history in a timeline so that you can see when we began with some of the portfolios that were developed over time.

And we also have what we call a working artist program.

So we'll have those artists work on a wall and then the other rooms will be filled with the current members' artwork.

- Tiger Lily has been here for 40 years, which is credit to them.

That's a long time to be a volunteer ran organization.

- Tiger Lily has been such a great influence on me.

There's such a community at Tiger Lily Press, when I first started, I had so many questions, how do I clean my instruments when I'm done?

What's the best paper to use?

I just had a million questions and there's such a community here of people who I can ask.

- It's amazing to watch people in classes when they actually pull up their first print.

I mean, the look on their face is amazing.

Gives you chills just even to think about it.

- I think by taking classes, people are able to find out how to go through the process of making art and just finding what makes you happy.

I think everybody has some kind of talent and we just have to find it.

- Tiger Lilly's one of those little hidden gems.

And I think right now as we're transferring out of that into like a 501C3 and being more public, our role is only gonna increase in Cincinnati and how we help the community at large.

I think in general, if you kind of look at your arts community as like a tapestry, right, and the more designed and the more detailed, the more color, the more interested it is to look at arts institutions are integral to the community.

Just to expand what we see as beauty and to bring maybe disparate groups together that necessarily wouldn't meet and hang out.

You know, art does that sometimes, like we're all here to make a print, but you know, in essence we're getting to learn about each other and be in that community.

- [Kabir] Hey, we're nearing the end of the show, but here's a reminder to email artistic ideas from around northeast Ohio for us to consider.

Please send your pitch via email to arts@ideastream.org and thanks.

So like I said, we're winding down this edition of Applause.

(chaotic orchestral music) I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia, leaving you with a world premier performance by the Cleveland Orchestra.

Franz Welser-Most is at the helm with a work by acclaimed Chicago born composer and the orchestra's current composing fellow Alison Loggins-Hull.

Here she transforms and critiques the Star-Spangled Banner with her new symphony, Can You See?

(chaotic orchestral music) (bright music) - [Announcer] Production of Applause on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.