- Hi, I'm Christy McDonald.

Here's what's coming up this week on One Detroit Arts and Culture.

The world renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts celebrates a major milestone plus a powerful new exhibition at Irwin House Gallery in Detroit.

Then Detroit punk rock band Cinecyde stake their claim as the first punk rockers in the Motor City.

It's all just ahead on One Detroit Arts and Culture.

- [Announcer] From Delta Faucet to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV, The Kresge Foundation, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

- [Announcer] The DTE foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit DTEfoundation.com to learn more.

- [Announcer] Business Leaders for Michigan dedicate to making Michigan a top 10 state for jobs, personal income, and a healthy economy.

Also brought to you by the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation and viewers like you.

(ethereal upbeat music) - Hi there and welcome to One Detroit Arts and Culture.

I'm Christy McDonald.

Thanks so much for being with me as we share in the exquisite arts and culture scene that we have here in Detroit and across Michigan.

Coming up, we head to Northern Michigan and the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Talented students come from around the world to the fine arts high school.

We will celebrate the completion of a campus master plan that began over 30 years ago.

Plus we'll take you to Irwin House Gallery in Detroit, where three artists joined forces for the exhibition called TRIPTYCH: Stronger Together.

And then how dissatisfaction with rock music brought us Detroit punk rock band Cinecyde and how the DIY rockers have evolved since the '70s.

It's all coming up on One Detroit Arts and Culture.

We're starting off with one of the most prestigious fine arts high schools in the country, Interlochen Arts Academy.

30 years ago, Interlochen came up with a master plan.

16 facility projects to help the school evolve from a summer only, music only organization to the year round multi-disciplinary global arts and education institution that they are today.

This fall, Interlochen celebrated the completion of that 30 year plan in the only way they know how, with performances, readings, and showings by Interlochen students.

I spoke with the president of Interlochen, Trey Devey.

Trey Devey from Interlochen, it's great to see you and what a fantastic celebration this fall, really the culmination of 30 years of 30 year plan.

- Yeah, yeah, thank you, Christy.

We couldn't be more proud of our community and a tenacity to get to this point over these three decades.

- Talk to us specifically about some of the facilities that stand out and how they are state-of-the-art.

- The beautiful thing about each of the facilities is that our faculty and artistic leaders help guide the development of those projects.

So when you are in The Writing House as an example, and if you're interested in creative writing I know every time I go in there, there's the fireplace, there's these small intimate nooks and crannies.

You just wanna write your first novel.

The Music Center was the largest single project in the history of Interlochen.

So that was a $24 million, 60,000 square foot facility rivals anything that you would experience at the collegian or the professional level.

And then some of the more recent projects where the Dance Center, right on the shores of Green Lake, it's essentially this fishbowl, all glass, can see out to the water, can see the work of the dancers from all over campus.

But because we engaged our artistic leaders, we ended up with facilities that were just really purpose designed for those students.

- Talk about the importance of expanding this kind of education, fine arts education for young people.

- Creative education is going to be one that will stand the test of time.

The arts develop this level of resilience that our students are gonna need now and in the future.

We know that about half of our kids will go into the arts in some form and half of them will go into other fields, but they'll take their creativity with them wherever they go.

- So when you celebrated this major milestone, this 30 year master plan, of course, all of the students were a big part of that, and the performance describe what the weekend was like.

- We brought all of our campus together.

We dedicated the final two facilities, the Dance Center and the Dow house, which is the residence hall.

And then we had a series of performances throughout the day on Friday covering all of the disciplines in these various spaces.

So that was amazing.

And then we came together again that evening and this was students, faculty, staff, alumni supporters, and we said, thank you.

We're seven years away from 100th anniversary.

So we talked about how we wanna be even more excellent for our students and how we wanna provide even greater access.

So these two themes are really where we're going in the years ahead.

- I love when you talk about access and being able to expand.

What are some of the maybe specific plans about getting to other areas and seeing this is an opportunity for you to be able to come here to Interlochen?

- We've started programs and various areas around the country.

Detroit is an area focus.

We've got a program called Opportunity Scholars, which is essentially saying if you've got passion and potential and we see that promise in you, we don't want the price of Interlochen to stand in the way.

So there are scholarships that are available for students to come in the summer.

Eventually, what we'd like to achieve is to meet the full demonstrated financial need of every young person who applies.

So if you're accepted, we're gonna meet your family's full demonstrated need.

That's what we hope to do.

So between now and our 100th anniversary, it's our goal.

When we enter our second century of Interlochen, that's the gift that we wanna give to everyone in Michigan and really beyond.

- What do you see on the horizon of how the pandemic has changed the arts and how you have responded to that in Interlochen?

- Well, for one thing, we've begun virtual education.

Over the last 18, 19 months, we've served about 3,000 young people through online education.

This has been a real opportunity for us to break down barriers and bring our faculty to more young people.

- Well, we can't wait to see what happens in these next seven years, Trey.

We fully expect to check-in with you along the way, and then celebrate 100 years of Interlochen very, very soon.

It will be great.

- Thank you, Christy.

It's tremendous to be on your show.

I really appreciate it.

- And for more on Interlochen Center for the Arts, just head to our website at onedetroitpbs.org.

All right, turning now to Irwin House Gallery in Detroit.

A new exhibition begins this week where artist Jonathan Harris introduces emerging artists, Crystal Starks-Webb and Terrell Anglin in the exhibition called TRIPTYCH: Stronger Together.

Our Bill Kubota spoke to the artists to find out the meaning behind the show.

- I had this idea of having a show, Triptych featuring Crystal Starks-Webb, Terrell Anglin and myself at the Irwin House Gallery.

- We're here at Irwin House Gallery, and we've continued to produce shows and programming, and just really try to work with and support as a many Detroit local artist as we can.

We had been speaking with Jonathan about doing a solo exhibition of his work, but he saw this as an opportunity, not just for himself, but to also bring in two other emerging artists.

- I met Crystal first 'cause she participated in an exhibit.

We had curated downtown.

Her work was special to me because it was sincere like painting your children in those powerful positions with Kings and Queens.

It was special and people wanted to see more of it.

Terrell, his work is also sincere and it is different.

The world needs to see it.

- I think all artists inspiring.

You can get something that you love from each piece.

From each artist, we're different, but that energy that comes out of the artwork allows me to use that same energy into my pieces as well.

I'm a pyrography artist so it's totally different.

So use of heat.

I use a blow torch.

And then I use acrylic paint to paint the background.

I actually had to do some research to kinda go with what I wanted to display.

So it took a lot of time, but I was patient about it.

Nelson Davis, Harriet Tubman's husband, her second husband.

And I thought to myself, what kind of guy you had to be to be married to an abolitionist, someone who led our people to freedom.

So my piece is based on that.

This is a piece for my family.

It's my grandmother and she adopted me.

So she was my abolitionist.

- My focus has just telling a story through my art.

My daughter is honestly the one who got me back to painting, 'cause I honestly gave up on it, on art.

But a few years back, she had an incident, an incident at school where they basically said that something about her skin tone and I was hurt by it.

And then she got into this whole thing where she wanted to be lighter.

I wanted to show her that she was beautiful.

So the reason she's in my work is because she inspired me to just show her like, hey, this is how I view you.

I want her to just see that she's beautiful.

When people see it, they're just gonna take whatever they see.

They're gonna see a person, a kid sitting on a bench right now and in a garden, but they're not gonna know the story behind it until you see the other pieces.

But still sometimes a story can be seen in different views.

You can get different points from it, but as far as the artists conveying exactly what it is, I think it's gonna be different for what people see.

- This is a Triptych as well.

These are three pieces that work together to tell the story.

This is at the far left, Hear No Evil, the middle, See No Evil and the right, Speak No Evil.

Especially just telling a story about how I feel in America these days, whereas is so much of a negative influence everywhere.

It can sometimes be difficult to navigate even your own life.

So that's why I had the stars and the real white and blue in the back.

I want it to be beautiful, but still engaging and people try to understand what's going on here.

That's a picture of my friend, Kira, the black and white painting.

That's actually oil enamel that I use on that.

It's a joint painting.

The story behind that is breaking the chain.

It's a series I came up with the idea to express everyday people breaking the cycle that probably contaminated their family throughout the years.

- With this exhibition, I expect that people are gonna be floored.

They're going to be moved by what these artists have been able to portray and express and just the range of their talent, the stories that they're telling through their arts, not only personal stories, but stories about Detroit life - For more information on TRIPTYCH: Stronger Together and Irwin House Gallery, just go to our website at onedetroitpbs.org.

All right, next up, Detroit has never been shy about its pioneering music scene and that includes punk rock.

So much of the music was self-produced and self-released, but rivaled the punk scene in New York and in LA.

One of Detroit's first punk bands is Cinecyde.

They formed in the mid-seventies and they're still making music today, even nominated for a 2021 Detroit Music Award.

We didn't know a lot about Cinecyde until our One Detroit editor, Chris Jordan, punk rock fan in his own right who did some work with the band introduced us.

(punk rock music) ♪ Wanna look, wanna let you see ♪ ♪ Wanna speak, wanna let you say ♪ ♪ We're on a bad state as we fuck ♪ - Punk rock was really sort of a dissatisfaction about rock and roll.

It became one thing or it became a narrower thing.

It was at the exclusion of anything else.

♪ Enemy man, enemy man, enemy Because you were passionate about music, we were passionate about music.

You got angry.

Passion, anger, there's punk rock, there you go.

(punk rock music) ♪ Here comes one thing that we wanted ♪ ♪ Coming to you come over the way ♪ - [Narrator] Formed in 1976, the same year that the Sex Pistols and the Ramones released their first singles.

Cinecyde were, depending who you ask, Detroit's first punk band.

- We thought we were completely alone.

Detroit was filled with cover bands, just doing rock and roll covers.

It just wasn't what I was looking for.

It wasn't a good enough kick.

- We decided to make a record, "Gutless Radio", which is sort of any anthem against radio at the time.

(punk rock music) ♪ We are rocking now gutless radio ♪ ♪ We don't like the things we did ♪ - As we discovered that there were some other things going on in other parts of the country or other parts of the world, you would get wind of some sort of underground band or something.

There was just no possibility that they would play any of that stuff.

I mean, it was sort of brash, I mean, most bands in rock and roll would be, I wanna be signed, I want the industry to love me.

In our case, it was we were sort of just slamming, slamming the industry.

With the idea that we would do it yourself, we would issue our own records and things.

(punk rock music) - [Narrator] They were one of the central bands in what became by the early '80s, a thriving, galactic, fiercely, independent punk scene in Detroit.

- All the clubs and there were a lot of them that were doing punk.

They were full like every night.

It didn't matter who played.

In fact, a lot of kids would go to the bars just because they knew something was gonna go on there.

- It was an eclectic scene.

So, you know there's a nice spectrum of bands.

It wasn't one thing.

It could be bands that were very roots oriented or could be bands that were more rock and roll, a little electronica kind of stuff was sneaking in there.

But you what?

I seem to the commonality was, it had to be a little raw, have a little bit of an edge.

(electronic guitar music) - [Narrator] 45 years later, Cinecyde are still going strong, are still totally DIY and just released their eighth album with the pop sci-fi inspired title track, "Vegetable or Thing".

("Vegetable or Thing" by Cinecyde) - This is a project that we worked on for a while, actually before the pandemic, and then finished it up during the pandemic.

Chris Gerard was in the band and played bass with us and we recorded a lot of that with him in the band.

And then he had health troubles and Chris went on his hiatus and we always thought that he would end up back in the band, but things did turn for the worst and he died.

Just an amazing guy, a beautiful soul, a great creator.

He always had an innovative and interesting way to look at things.

Maybe 2/3 of the record was with Chris or something was close to being done, but we kept putting it off and putting it off.

We were mixing and things during the COVID thing.

So essentially, we just stayed safe and tried to be safe, but I thought we have to release it.

We're not gonna not release it and we're just gonna have to try different things.

- Maybe we could do our re-release.

(people chattering) (punk rock music) - So being in the independent music scene, the Detroit punk scene for just about 45 years, how have you seen the scene change and how has your approach to making punk rock change?

- I don't know that I can say anything about a scene.

I'm always interested in what's going on in Detroit.

There's a load of great musicians, load of great people, creating and making music and stuff.

I mean, all these different eras through the '80s, '90s, 2000s.

Now I think that Detroit is sort of underplayed.

It doesn't get the exposure that it should.

- Has your approach to writing punk rock changed?

Is it still the same sensibility, the same spirit?

- I mean, Cinecyde is Cinecyde.

It has a specific kind of sound, but I would say we evolve every time, every song.

(electronic rock music) - To me, hope was just about getting back to our roots.

Stripping music down and being, well, being fun, yes, being aggressive it could be, but also, respecting and understanding those roots, and those roots could be anything from a...

Some of the garage band sounds from '65, '66 or it could be rockabilly from the '50s, X, Los Angeles or so I always appreciated The Cramps or it could be Hank Williams or Johnny Cash.

It could be any of that kind of stuff that you're bringing to a simplicity and a more directness.

The music is just, for me, it just plays in my head.

So he plays in your head and then you just kind of, okay, try to work it out on an instrument and then boom, there it is.

Maybe, for us, maybe for me, it's my personality.

(punk rock music) ("Vegetable or Thing" by Cinecyde) - For more on our arts and culture stories and our live performances, just head to onedetroitpbs.org for more, as well as on social media at One Detroit.

That is going to do it for me this week.

But before we go, let's head to the Marygrove Theatre stage for a moving performance art piece by Sabrina Nelson, it's called Molting.

And you can find out more about the piece on Detroit Performs - Live from Marygrove.

I'll see you next week.

Take care.

- [Announcer] From Delta Faucet to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV, The Kresge Foundation, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

- [Announcer] The DTE foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit DTEfoundation.com to learn more.

- [Announcer] Business Leaders for Michigan dedicate to making Michigan a top 10 state for jobs, personal income, and a healthy economy.

Also brought to you by the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation and viewers like you.

(ethereal upbeat music) (piano music)