- In this edition of Artistic Horizons, the story of a disco legend, - You're gonna come away with her faith and her strength and how she was able to overcome obstacles.

And I hope that it encourages other audience members to face their own challenges.

Head on - An immersive exhibition within a decommissioned prison.

- They have transformed these spaces into gallery spaces.

They're investigating ideas of confinement and incarceration - So that the ankle begun begins a life spent dancing.

- Before you start, I just grew passionate about movement, about creating a scenario, putting a hat on, becoming another character.

Through that, - It's all ahead on this edition of Artistic Horizons.

Hello, I'm Mark Ro, and this is Artistic Horizons.

We traveled to New York City to learn about the film.

I Will Survive the Gloria Gainor story known for such hits as I Will Survive, and I am what I am.

Gaynor's rise to fame is chronicled in this moving biopic.

Take a look.

- I understand that people have heard the song, I Will Survive.

They listen to it.

It's an encourage them and everything, but I think that I need to go a step further in letting them know that my singing, it is not just a song, but it's an experience that I've had to go through.

And that not only have I learned to survive, but to thrive and that they can do it too.

So when they see the difficulties and the struggles that I've been to, they know it's not just something that I'm singing and hoping they'll like it.

They'll know it's something that I experienced that has encouraged and uplifted, empowered me to become the best possible version of me.

And they can do that same thing as well.

And night Like Tonight means to me an opportunity to let my public know that I've got something great and wonderful coming for them, and I'm hoping that they'll love it.

And I been on so many nights and feeling sorry for myself.

I used to cry, but - In love with you.

I'm talking about lyrics that uplift people and make them feel seen more than that.

Make them feel determined unless this nothing can stop them.

- Hold on.

I have this song Friday, and I wrote it two years ago, but couldn't find the right singer to record it.

It's from a woman's point of view.

She's been through a lot.

A guy broke her heart, he comes back, wants her back, and she takes him back.

She doesn't take him - Back.

She doesn't take him back.

That was afraid.

I - Was petrified, kept thinking I could never live without, - Give her flowers while she's here.

She's a phenomenal human being.

She has gotten me.

She's gotten so many people through their challenges and to be able to highlight more and to give her the support that she needs and let people know her story, they'll know that they too not only survive - The music, it's so invigorating and so lively.

I don't think people understand how rare it is to get to portray a living legend, a global icon.

So to have her be an executive producer on this project and get her approval to be able to honor her legacy and work in this way, I'm so thankful and grateful for the opportunity.

You think you understand an artist through the music, but when you discover her story, the woman she is the woman of faith.

She is, how much she's overcome that she's a loving sister.

You know what I mean?

An incredible business woman.

She's so inspirational.

You're gonna come away with the love of her music.

You're gonna come away with her faith and her strength and how she was able to overcome obstacles.

And I hope that it encourages other audience members to face their own challenges head on and overcome them as well.

- Someone holding you back.

You were more than just an assistant, Steph, but you had my back when we first met.

I wanna rebuild my career and you've got the vision, the drive, and most importantly, I trust you.

Will you be my manager?

- Yeah, yeah.

Let's do this.

- I have learned to be me.

I'll make a horrible youth, but I can make a wonderful me because God intends for each and every one of us to be wonderful and he's equipped us to be wonderful and will continue equipping us as long as we reach out to him, hear his voice, respond to his voice with a resounding yes I will.

To become the best possible version of yourself.

- And now for the artist quote of the week, located in the decommissioned Nevada State Prison in Carson City, the immersive art exhibition Far Beyond the Walls aims to increase public awareness around incarceration and humanize those who've been affected.

Here's the story - A man can hope while in prison.

Our children hope we will return One day our wives hope we will return to help support the family.

Our mothers hope we will return to them one day.

Behave and do something positive when you are in there.

I was told - Far Beyond The Walls is an exhibition project that I put together.

My name's Francis Mel Hop.

I am an artist, a curator, and contemporary art gallery director.

Far Beyond the Walls is a series of exhibitions.

It is seven solo exhibitions and two group exhibitions held in the Nevada State Prison, which is decommissioned.

The exhibitions are exploring many different mediums.

There is oil paint, there is ceramic work, there is sculpture, there's photography.

We also have poetry and a soundscape.

- I can't change the past, I can't change me and I can't change the future.

- The artists have taken over different cell blocks, areas like the maximum security, the culinary section, the muster room.

They have transformed these spaces into gallery spaces.

They're investigating ideas of confinement and incarceration through their artwork.

This is the work of Glen Cartilage.

Glen is a former criminal defense lawyer who worked in this prison with people on death row.

Once she retired, she devoted herself to being an artist.

Glen is referring to a cemetery down south where people who've been executed from prison are still treated as numbers.

They still don't have their names on their grave sites.

So this carceral cloth, she's made it exactly the size of a a commissary machine.

All of these items are things that you can buy while you're in prison.

She has again used the motif of the black and white tiles.

It is the size of a cell that two people would occupy.

So always she's working with scale as an important factor within these carceral cloths.

Within that, she has made these portraits of formerly incarcerated people.

They are from a series called P two P, which is short for prisoners to paper dolls.

When people come out of prison, they are treated in a very two dimensional manner.

And so each of these portraits is painted as if it's one of the paper dolls that we used to play with when we were little kids.

This area here is, is still the infirmary.

And basically it was three cells that were divided into a larger space where people would recover from injuries or surgery.

The concrete blocks are actually from onsite at the prison.

So because it's a historic building, I've had to use very different installation tactics.

These are more formally incarcerated people that Jennifer Garza Quinn photographed for Glen and then Glen painted them and she's quite an academic painter.

The soundscape that you can hear behind us is by Gia dryer.

Gia has melded their own music with interviews with formerly incarcerated people that Glenn actually recorded.

We are in the bullpen.

It's where people are brought to when they're first incarcerated while the prison is trying to work out where they're going to be housed.

This area is devoted to Jennifer Garza, who is a photographer.

This particular series is called Imprints and Abstractions ruined mugshots that she found in a, an abandoned police station in Detroit.

And so all of these are enlargements of people's identity, mugshots that were scattered all over the floor in this abandoned building.

But you can also see the kind of chemical collapse of the emulsions where in the barber's cell of cell block one east.

This is the work of Lisa Jarret.

Lisa got very excited when I showed her the space because her work is basically very concerned with migration and care.

All of her work is, is thinking about black femininity.

And when she saw this space, she created this installation and it is actually impossible escape plans that are woven from here.

This cell block is devoted to Jamma.

He is from Naples in Italy and this series, he spent 10 years going into the psychiatric criminal prisons in Naples and photographing the spaces and the people in there.

They were closed down in 2014.

But he has a body of work that we've put all through these cell blocks.

These red areas that are on the walls are actually designated spaces that the prisoners were allowed to hang their images and photographs in.

And the rest was supposed to be kept clear.

We're actually in the muster room or we are in the entrance to the muster room, which is where the guards used to get ready rest between shifts.

We have Sean Griffin's poetry, and Sean is currently the Nevada poet Laureate.

- Francis reached out to discuss doing this exhibition.

I thought I was the best thing since sliced bread.

I've been teaching at the prison for 30 plus years teaching a poetry workshop.

And I said, you can, you can have whatever I've done, I hope you use it and it'll give voice to the, to the guys work inside.

- These poems are actually, I see them as portraits of his students.

They found poetry and found a way to focus a creative focus.

And I feel like this is a super important aspect of this whole exhibition.

- When I first started teaching out there, you know, I got so much grief about teaching this poetry particularly gets a bad rap.

But you know, I, it's the most rewarding thing I do.

It's the one thing that grounds me.

It's a time to be real with people and just be straight, be who I am.

They can be who they are.

They lose their back number for an hour and a half.

They're not, they're not a man tied up in denim and, and a crime.

They're a person tied up in what might happen in the future and what they can do with their language.

- He's really made a huge difference to, to their lives.

All of them, basically, you know, they really said Poetry Saved My life, or Sean Griffin saved my life.

- It was a really tough exhibition.

I took one of the guys who was also in the workshop with me, but had been released and it was very hard for him.

It was like having to go back and not being able to get out.

One of the guys, Bob Brown, who's been in my workshop for many years, specifically his poem, moved many people to tears.

And when I told him that, you know, it was like letting him out of jail for that time, he was free again.

'cause his words had moved beyond the prison to to other people's lives.

And that was profound.

- The people that are behind bars are, are completely invisible to us.

I wanted to give them a voice, but also to just start a conversation surrounding this issue because I feel like rehabilitation is not happening that much.

- The recidivism rate is around 60 to 70% on every prison in the United States.

You know, you have an ex on your forehead after you get out because you're, you're a felon.

And so getting a job, getting a house, getting a relationship, anything, it's beyond difficult.

That's why we're getting more of these creative writing classes started in all the prisons.

They support that, that really changes lives and gets people out and helps 'em stay out.

- If we can humanize the people that are incarcerated, then at least it's starting to change the social conditioning that we grow up with.

Art is such a language and it's such a great communication tool.

When you can't use words, you're dehumanized systematically when you're inside and treated as a number and, and being able to hold onto your identity and hold onto your, you know, your self-respect and dignity I think is very, very important.

- I continue to press on and I continue to look at the positive in my life, not on the negative.

It's been a long time since I've had to think about the past, but I want people to know what I went through.

- Now here's a look at this month's fun fact, dancer and choreographer.

Martin Speez, impressive decades long career has led him to working in regional theater and on the Broadway stage and across other media, including opera, film, and television.

Up next, we find out more about his career and his work in the production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Porthouse Theater in Ohio.

- Dance found me, it kind of plucked me as a, as a young kid, as a young, I would say like 15, 14-year-old kid.

It was something that was all around.

If you go to a Latino family gathering, there's music and there's dance and there's food and there's, my uncle was an incredible at the time and he recorded in the fifties, so it was al always around me.

My mom's an exquisite singer.

She came from Puerto Rico.

My dad came from Mexico and they met in New York City and that's where we grew up in the Chelsea area of New York.

I can remember one of the earliest things that introduced me to dance was a guy named Jacque Deis, who's now not with us, but he would go to elementary schools and he would pick kids.

But how he did it was clever because he had us doing athletic drills at the time.

He was retired from the New York City Ballet.

He was one of the premier American ballet dancers.

And he started this group of dance classes and it was called American Dance.

From there, I just grew passionate about movement, about creating a scenario, putting a hat on, becoming another character Through that, and that slowly arced and I went into a concert dance television opening for the Bee Gees opening for Earth Wind and Fire dancing in concert companies in Denver.

And then from there I zoomed into musical theater.

But at the same time I was working on operas.

I was doing a minor choreography, fight stage choreography, and I was in the operas, and at the same time, on the off season, I would go and audition for musical theater tours.

So it kind of never stopped for me.

It's always been a movie, Viola that kept going.

And I think the love I, I think the monumental love I have for theater itself was the fact that I can do it in all these different styles and mediums.

You know, I was asked once, a friend of mine asked me, what was the most influential piece of art that you saw that kind of catapulted you or moved you into the land of illusion, so to speak?

And it was me being able to watch West Side Story on reruns.

And it was late, it was late at night.

My mom let me stay up old TV and I'm listening to the traffic behind the tv, which was almost like watching it in multidimensional.

And I'm watching George Chikara flying through the air, hitting this beautiful, it's called the Stake Position, which was the three sharks going in the air and lifting themselves, which was symbolic of saying that's the first time Puerto Ricans had a stake in the neighborhood.

There was three firsts, and by the end of the summer there was 12.

That story.

And seeing a guy who looked like me, who was dancing in jeans and, you know, dungarees and sneakers and jumping over garbage cans and were tough and we're strong and vibrant, that that just said to me, man, there's a door there for you.

There's somewhere you can go.

I'm based now outta Cleveland, you know, knowing the city, knowing I can get to the, when I have to, if I'm hired to work on any new projects, any workshops, you know, I'll get to New York.

But I'm based here.

I love being here now.

And the Porthouse Theater has given me a home as a director choreographer.

I'm a man penny scheduled quarter to Sundial.

We're, we're attacking Jesus Christ superstar so that the ankle begun begins here before you start.

You know what I mean?

As opposed to bending it just straight, straight down.

Yeah.

- I wanted to do the show for a long time.

I grew up with the double album on my living room stereo as a kid, wrapping all of my brothers in sheets, you know, directing the play when I was, you know, 7, 8, 9 years old.

The show touches me deeply in that it brings the humanity to Jesus, which is sometimes just more relatable, especially for a young person.

- It, it is a perfect, wonderful synergy to work with Terry because she, she's a professor.

She, she approaches it in a very professorial way where I was a working gypsy for years and years and years.

So I'm coming at it from, you know, I'm, I'm dipping my hands in the paint to the elbows, and I'm Jackson polling and she's looking at the overall lighting, the creatives taking care of this costume, the, the, the storytelling of the actor's spoken word.

- Martine and I, this is one we've been hoping to do for probably the last four or five years, - You know, and that's the joy.

It's not someone who is, who works on my level, but we work in compliment of each other's.

- Our company is consists of students from Kent State University and other programs across the nation, combined with professionals, some of which are union members, some of which are not.

So the purpose is for the students to learn firsthand by working side by side with seasoned professionals who also serve as mentors to the students.

- You know, the things that a lot of people don't understand about musical theater choreography is that the musical director has the score.

You know, the director has the script.

You know, I have, I have nothing.

I have the architecture of the human form.

Get, - Get, get - Now.

No, this is the deal.

You can't act vulnerability.

You can't act vulnerability.

You can't choreograph vulnerability.

That has to be, that has to be in you.

That has to be an embodiment that you carry with you.

Wonderful.

- You're not you.

And now here's a look at a few notable dates in our history, and that wraps it up for this edition of Artistic Horizons.

For more arts and culture, visit wpbs tv.org.

Until next time, I'm Mark Ro.

Thanks for watching.