- [Jason] Next on "Curate".

- [Xavier] Oh, I really enjoy this, 'cause it is bringing two things I really dig together, motorcycles and art.

(motorcycle revving) - [Rob] In these troubled times, I think culture is good for us, as a way to refresh who we are and be able to deal with what we all have to deal with.

- [Natasha] We're living the literal life, all of us.

The unliteral or the abstract is so much more interesting.

- This is "Curate."

(bright upbeat music) Welcome, I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros.

Thanks for watching, as we join you today from Virginia MOCA, Virginia Beach's contemporary art museum.

Virginia MOCA has long been a showcase for many of the region's brightest contemporary art talents, and we'll talk to the museum director a bit later in the show.

- But for now, we kick off this episode with a unique and original voice in contemporary art.

Xavier Darryl Lewis uses bold colors and dynamic graphics applied to a variety of unexpected surfaces to create art that is a wonderful reflection of an enigmatic artist.

Savant, creator, pop artist, musician, whatever you wanna call Xavier Darryl Lewis.

We'll just call him our 757 featured artist.

(upbeat music) - There's so much bad things going on in this world, it's easy to focus on that, but it's so much more satisfying to see things with a positive outlook.

Just like anybody else, I have the heaviness of life, but instead of having that weight drag me down, it's balancing that weight and that PMA, (music ends) positive mental attitude.

(bright music) My parents were always playing gospel music in the house, so it was a big part of my growing up.

My sister was more into R&B, and my brother, he was into funk.

Music was very powerful, it made me curious, so I just started looking for things that I didn't hear at home.

I remember seeing things about punk music.

I thought, "Oh, these guys look kinda badass.

Most of the kids I grew up with didn't get why I was into it.

Things were a lot different then.

You're a black kid, you listen to black radio, white kid, you listen to white radio.

So I got a lotta, "Why you listening to that white boy music?"

I was like, "It's not necessarily white boy music."

It's like, "Yeah, I don't see any black guys out there doing it."

And honestly, initially I didn't either.

And I remember that all changed with Bad Brains.

(rock music) ♪ You got that right ♪ ♪ We got that right, we do ♪ - And so I was like, "Whoa, this band of black dudes are all playing this music."

And they were playing it better and better than anybody else.

It made me open up about how I felt about this music, and made me wanted to be more of a part of it, 'cause I realized I wasn't that different, (rock music) I wasn't that much of a freak.

(chuckles) (bright music) (rock music) I was working with this dude, Brian Malbone.

I told him my band just broke up and he was like, "Dude, seriously?

My band broke up."

So I was just like, "Hey man, well why don't you bring your stuff for a little jam tonight?"

The first song we wrote was called "Java Man", which actually turned out to be the first song that was on our first album.

♪ He was a fat guy ♪ ♪ He had a glass eye ♪ - We were like, "All right, there's something here.

Let's keep at it."

We will practice for hours on end writing songs, writing songs.

Staple Gun Records took interest in us.

And we met the guy once, he saw his play and he was like, "Hey, I wanna put out a record."

(rock music) We were getting really good reviews, and they were pushing it hard."

And they asked us, "Would you like to do a music video?"

And we were like, "Well yeah."

'Cause that's what bands did back then, you did a music video.

(rock music) It was Buck's idea to approach Norwood Cheek, and he shows up with his crew and a bunch of boxes of costumes and stuff.

He goes, "What do you wanna wear?

And I'll figure out what we're gonna do."

Well of course we saw monkey suits, we were like, "We wanna wear monkey suits."

(chuckles) He was like, "Alright, I got an idea."

He pretty much came up with everything on the spot, had a little story, and we shot this video.

It was a lotta work, but we had a ton of fun doing it.

We got a call from our management saying, "MTV's gonna play your video."

And we all watched it together, and we were just elated.

It wasn't in huge rotation or anything, but at that time it's like, "Wow, I made it."

This is really what I wanted you to do.

We never officially broke up, we just stopped playing.

Things kinda deteriorated, and we said, "Let's take a break," and that break lasts about 30 years.

(soft guitar music) (glass clinking) I've always been into drawing and painting.

But not so much painting, I stopped painting for the longest time.

Of course when I started riding, the first thing I did was like, "Well, I don't want a stock helmet like everybody else, I'm gonna paint something on my helmet."

And it's something I realized, "Oh, I really enjoy this 'cause it is bringing two things I really dig together, motorcycles and art.

- When you do what I do for a living, you have to have a positive mental attitude.

- As a kid I was a huge fan of Evel Knievel, but I never had a motorcycle.

(chuckles) Then I started getting a little bit older, so I was like, "You know what, it's time to get one."

I immediately fell in love with riding, and I had no idea it was gonna be so life-changing.

♪ And I'm dying to be surprised ♪ - One of the things I found is how quiet my mind would get when I ride.

I would think much clearer on my bike than any anytime else.

And I started realizing like, "You love art, why aren't you painting more?

You love music.

Hey, that's cool, still do your band."

And that's one thing that never faded for me, that desire to play loud music.

(rock guitar music) I've been lucky over the years of finding people who I respect and love, and were able to play music with.

♪ I only have one life ♪ - The cool thing about Song of Praise is someone will come in with an idea, and in their head thinking it's gonna sound this way.

But somebody else will hear it, and the way they approach music gonna do something completely different, but it makes us sound the way we do sound.

That's the beauty of three people adding their flavor to this soup.

Now I'm playing a punk rock band again and I love it.

It's very gratifying to still be able to play music that I feel honest about playing.

I'm not seeking anybody's approval, just doing what I wanna because it's what I wanna do.

(rock music) ♪ You only have one, one life ♪ - I've found over time, if I'm doing anything creative, it feels more rewarding to me if I share that with somebody.

And it's not sharing it with somebody to get a compliment, it's seeing," Oh wow, they find joy out of that as well."

I feel maybe this is part of the equation of why you're here.

All of these creative outlets that I do day in and day out really are the root of that PMA I've been talking about.

My music, my art, the motorcycles, all of it.

that's me, that's my gift.

(rock music) - Want more "Curate"?

Find us on the web.

See this show again, or any from our now seven seasons.

Navigate over to whro.org/curate.

(atmospheric) As we mentioned at the top of the show, we are here at Virginia MOCA in Virginia Beach, and joining us to tell us more about the museum is Director Gary Ryan.

Gary, thanks for having us.

Can you tell us about Virginia MOCA, and your mission?

- Yes.

Well, Virginia MOCA's a non-collecting, contemporary art museum, and our mission is really to bring the community together through a shared experience of art.

And art that is about the issues that we're experiencing today.

- That's great.

And you know, this really kinda leads into "More Than Shelter", your current exhibit.

Can you tell me about that?

Virginia MOCA committed a couple of years ago to exploring kind of basic human needs through art expression.

We focused on food a year and a half ago, and now we're focusing on shelter.

What we do is take issues that we all experience.

We all need homes and appreciate being out of the weather or the cold.

But how do we dimensionalize the issues associated with that for people who don't understand those challenges?

So we've paired artists from the Eastern Seaboard with shelter subject matter experts, and they've become the inspiration for the art that's on the walls now.

So it's a whole range of organizations and not-for-profits that think about shelter.

- And the exhibit, it's leaving shortly.

So when does it leave?

- We've got a couple more weeks.

- [Heather] Okay.

- It wraps up the end of the first week of February, February 5th.

- Okay, February 5th.

And coming up next, what exhibit do you have?

- A next exhibit we have opening up is an exhibition of the work of Carol Walker.

She's an African American artist who focuses on the legacy of slavery.

The work is challenging, and what we've done is we worked very closely with members of our community to help unpack the work.

Because the work is very weighty, and it's weighty because one of the things we're wrestling with is the fact that slavery began in Virginia.

As part of that exhibit, were doing a lot of programming, and one of the key program pieces is that we've invited Harvard Law professor, Annette Gordon-Reed, to come and discuss her perspective on slavery in Virginia, and the work of Carol Walker.

She sits on the board of Monticello, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History for her book that she wrote about the Hemmings and Jefferson.

And we are really excited to have her come and share her thoughts with us at the museum.

- And when does that exhibit open?

- The exhibit, which is "Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick from the Collections of Jordan Schnitzer and his Family Foundations", open March 11th.

Last year you had world renowned artist, Maya Lin, here at the museum.

Can you tell us what that was like?

- It was fantastic.

She loves the Chesapeake Bay, and therefore really explored that in the exhibition, and it drew record numbers of visitors.

And we were a little worried because her work is quiet but impactful.

But the galleries were packed, and we had a ton of interaction in our hands-on art lab.

- For the past couple of years you've been offering free admission, how has that been going?

- It's been wonderful.

We want to remove any barriers of access to the museum, and free admission certainly helps us with that.

That said, we really rely on the generosity and support of members and donors.

And so we think that's gonna continue into the future, we have people committed to it, but we really need support as well.

- Well, Gary, it's been such a pleasure coming to Virginia MOCA and speaking with you today.

- Thank you so much, Heather, we love having WHRO here.

(bright upbeat music) - Rob Fisher made his fame in New York, but he never forgot where he was from.

The Norfolk native and Norview High school graduate, Rob has worked with Broadway's biggest stars and on some of the biggest shows.

But he still brings it all back home, collaborating frequently with the Virginia Arts Festival who honored him last year with their Ovation Lifetime Achievement Award.

WHRO's Rebecca Weinstein got Rob in the studio to talk about the award, and his most recent work for the Arts Festival.

(upbeat big band music) - [Rebecca] So first I wanted to ask you a little bit about what your new role with the festival entails.

I know you've been collaborating for a long time, but it's official now, you are officially the advisor in this new position.

- Yes, and I'm thrilled to say the entire title, because it's the Goode Family Artistic Advisor for Music Theater and the Great American Songbook.

It's way too long to write down, but I love every part of it.

- The Goode Family, everyone should know, David and Susan Goode, are supportive of all kinds of culture.

And then it has a lot to do with my relationship with Rob Cross and the festival.

Super proud of my hometown.

And he's asked me often about ideas and how to reach people, and what should we do next year and the year after that and the year after that.

And it was just an acknowledgement really of what I've been doing and what they'd like me to continue to do, it feels great.

- I was really excited to see a full scale production of a classic musical.

And I wanted to ask, with this new role, is that something that's going to be more frequently brought to the region?

- We hope so, but this has been under discussion for a number of years.

And it's a collaboration of the Arts Festival and Virginia Opera.

- [Rebecca] Right.

- And it takes a lot to put on a musical.

It's always been a mission of mine with the festival and Rob Cross's with the festival, to bring music theater in various forms to the festival.

My years doing encores, I see a lot of those CDs are from encores.

And that was the intention there, was to let people hear great scores with enough of the book so they understood the context of the songs, but didn't have the investment that a full production requires.

- [Rebecca] Yeah, absolutely.

(piano music) - I'm happy to be here, happy to be in my hometown.

Part of it is my parents are no longer with us, but they were here throughout their lives and it gave me extra reasons to come every year, to come down here and perform.

And they were certainly proud.

Part of it has to do with my pride in what's going on down here, because this arts festival, this doesn't exist in other places of this size.

There's so many things about the success of this that just makes me want to do anything I can.

It's hard to believe the Arts Festival has the kinds of names it has.

This is a major festival right here in my hometown.

It's really a complex community interested in many different kinds of culture.

And in these troubled times, I think culture is good for us, music is good for us, all these things are good for us.

Not just as a distraction, but as a refreshment.

A way to refresh who we are and be able to continue to deal with what we all have to deal with.

(cymbal crashes) - Natasha Tsakos is a show maker who combines technology with live performance to create a new dynamic experience.

In her work, she reimagines what theater can be.

(upbeat music) - Here, I wanna show you something.

My name is Natasha Tsakos, and I am... Are you ready?

A show maker.

(upbeat music) I went to New World School of the Arts for college.

I realized very quickly is that I didn't want to just be an actor, I wanted to tell my own stories.

I was excited about the potential of theater, but not so much about its execution at the moment.

(upbeat music) And so I think naturally when I graduated I realized well, I wanna write my own shows and I started doing that, and the result was so rigid and linear, you know.

What I was imagining was shapeshifting, it was like a drug trip.

I don't do drugs, but I feel like I naturally trip.

And I feel like that is how I want to express the stories and the journeys that I want to share.

(bright music) As I realized that I didn't wanna produce the shows, those linear rigid shows, I had this epiphany and realized the words were the very problem.

Because the words grounded us in the literal instead of lifting us up to another level, and that is what's interesting.

So I stripped the words from the equation and I said, "Well, where do I go from from there?"

"UPWake" tells the story of Zero, who's a modern day toon character going to work with his life in his suitcase, stuck between dream and reality and not able to make altitude.

And it's definitely a commentary on modern day life in a way.

We're living the literal life, all of us.

The unliteral is so much more the abstract, right, it's so much more interesting.

And that is sort of the realm in which I like to live in.

(techno music) The story always comes first, and then the technology needs to support that process, but then there's sort of a feedback loop.

Because as we then start to go into production, technology will also inspire possibilities that I might not have thought of.

♪ Super Intenso ♪ (techno music) - I'm not trying to do anything with the stage, I'm trying to do something to people.

And that leads me to "Humanode", which is what I've been working on for four and a half years nearly.

So I went to a program called Singularity University based in NASA, in Moffett Field, California.

we are tasked to come up with an idea that will positively impact the lives of a billion people.

How can we convert the emotions and energy generated during a show into tangible actions that have positive impact, and then scale that?

"Humanode" tells the story of the last human brain kept captive in a surreal scientific traveling show led by a demented headmaster.

And tonight the brain escapes into people's phones as it tries to make sense of the world.

We're going through this extraordinary ride, right, that highlights and raises awareness on some of the most important causes.

And then at key moment, your phone is being triggered to do something about it if you wanted to.

You'll actually get to donate, sign petitions.

(techno music) It will be a live, epic production when the time is right, but it can also be an interactive reality movie.

(techno music) I push the envelope by asking, "What now, what next, and what if?"

- Expanding, accelerating.

I am imagination (cymbal crashes) - Isamu Noguchi was one of the most significant artists of the 20th century.

In 1985, he founded a museum in Queens, New York, dedicated to his work.

The Noguchi Museum features the artist's sculptures, drawings and models.

(bright music) - Noguchi was born in 1904, he was born in Los Angeles, California.

His mother was an Irish woman from New York, she was born in Brooklyn, his father was a traveling poet from Japan.

Noguchi wasn't even named until he was almost three years old.

His mother just called him, "Boy," or, "Yo."

His identity was complicated from the very first moment of his birth.

He was biracial, chose to be multicultural his whole life, but at a time when it was much harder.

He enrolled at Columbia in pre-med.

His mother felt that he was destined for bigger things than being a doctor, and by that she meant being an artist.

He was a spectacular academic sculpture at 19/20, and then very quickly realized that he was becoming the poster boy of a passe art form.

(soft bright music) He really wanted to change sculpture in a way that made it a force for civic good.

He wanted to make it an active part of our everyday lives.

That's why he never stopped making furniture, his Akari lamp series.

He made playgrounds, he made playground equipment.

He made sets for theater and dance, he had long collaborations with people like Martha Graham.

(soft music) The museum was founded in 1985, Noguchi had been here for almost 10 years.

He bought a derelict factory building which is the red brick building behind me, and started using it for storage and staging.

Sculpture is all about physical inconvenience.

Everything is big and heavy and takes up space and requires equipment to deal with, so sculptors always need more room.

He decided that in order to encapsulate his perspective or his point of view, his way of thinking of things, that the best thing to do was to build an institution.

And so he began to turn his private garden and space into a display space.

When the museum opened it was seasonal.

When Noguchi would be here himself, you could ring the bell, and he'd come down and walk you through.

The museum is really about a direct and intimate relationship with these objects and these things.

And more important, the larger sense of an environment that they create.

They really produce an atmosphere.

And we're standing in this garden which isn't even two thirds of an acre.

It's teeny-tiny, it's a postage stamp.

He called the museum an oasis on the edge of a black hole.

The black hole is New York City and the urban maelstrom.

And as small as it is, you come here and you just soak it in, and you soak it in through osmosis.

It's like visiting a forest, not like going to the museum.

(bright music) Some of these sculptures are eroding, but the trees are growing.

Their relationship to each other is changing constantly over time.

He planted all of the trees.

So the magnificent katsura tree that provides the canopy that dominates the garden, it really was a sprig.

It was a quarter-inch sapling, and now you see what that's become.

And that's why the heart and soul of the Noguchi Museum is this garden.

(soft music) - [Heather] You can get more "Curate" on WHRO's social media streams.

Follow WHRO public media on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, where you'll find lots of fresh "Curate" content in the feeds.

- [Jason] And don't forget the web.

"Curate" is online at whro.org/curate.

(cymbal crashes) That's gonna do it for not just another episode, but also another season of "Curate".

- We promise we'll be back soon with our eighth season.

Before we go, we wanna say thanks again to Virginia MOCA for having us here, and to Gary Ryan, for spending a few minutes of her day with us.

Until next time, I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros, and we'll see you soon on "Curate".

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