[upbeat jazz music] [upbeat jazz music continues] - In this edition of "WLIW Arts Beat," an impactful mural festival.

- It's a very encouraging, just a great sign to see a relatively small town that's embracing the arts in such a way.

[upbeat jazz music] - [Diane] Teaching the dances of India.

- [Padma] I'm constantly demonstrating to my students of how the art should be done and how it should be pursued.

- [Diane] Celebrating Pride through music.

- Our members are all colors and stripes and types and belief systems and that's just one of the things that makes the group really wonderful.

[upbeat jazz music] - [Diane] It's all ahead on this edition of "WLIW Arts Beat".

Funding for "WLIW Arts Beat" was made possible by viewers like you, thank you.

Welcome to "WLIW Arts Beat," I'm Diane Masciale.

In 2022, Mural Fest 66 returned to the downtown area of Miami, Oklahoma.

Since 2017, the Annual Mural Festival has been giving artists the opportunity to express themselves in a big way, and it's been reinvigorating a small town in the process.

Let's take a look.

[gentle music] [gentle music continues] - [Michael] Hello, everyone, local broadcaster Michael Woodruff.

Here's your forecast calling for today, sunny with a high near 75, perfect weather for Mural Fest, coming up at 10:00 here in beautiful downtown Miami.

It's a free event for the entire family, so come on down.

They're gonna be here 'til about 5:00 tonight.

While you're doing that, let's continue to listen to some great music here on KGLC 100.9 FM, Radio on the Route.

[upbeat music] - We're in our fourth year trying this.

2017 was our first try.

This year, we will have 11 new murals put up by 10 artists from around the state and myself.

And then one mural painted by local artists.

So, 12 new paintings.

It's quite a big thing really for a small town.

[upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] We're three local artists.

Jeanette, how long have you lived here?

- Since I was 15, so about 45 years about.

Yeah.

- And I've lived here for about 45 years as well.

Jessica got ahold of us and said, "Hey, we have a wall, would you be interested?"

And we said, "Yeah."

- The Oklahoma Mural Syndicate is a nonprofit that advocates and creates public art throughout the state of Oklahoma.

They were one of the first communities that reached out to us after seeing what we've done with Plaza Walls in Oklahoma City and they were like, "Hey, will you come to our community and paint it all up as well?"

And we said, "Yeah, of course."

You know, in 2017 when we first started this, we had people from the community walk up and say, "Wow, this is so cool what you guys are doing.

We've never seen anything like this."

[upbeat funky music] [upbeat funky music continues] - Our first year, we tried Mural Fest out here, this building was vacant at the time, and since then it got renovated, was sold, and now it's a daycare center.

The Praying Mantis, that that was mine.

Bugs are cool.

- It's really great to introduce modern art to a community that might be used to some more traditional murals.

- But I like to describe my style as colorful, abstract work.

I do a lot of work that references typography and calligraphy.

I think it's like a nice little moment of joy, like not even just today, but like just seeing the murals every day.

It's like just a little moment of happiness or joy or excitement at having a little bit of art brighten your life.

- That's called a doodle grid and it's just another form to put up a big image on a wall.

In this instance, yeah, I mean you just fill up the wall with a bunch of different reference points.

So you just, in order to get the image up on the wall, and then once I have that, then I can kinda just play jazz and improvise a little bit with the color.

- I have painted my whole life.

Six years ago, I finally after years of wanting to try it, started spray painting.

It takes it a lot of practice to really kinda get it down.

Really, it comes down to they say it's called can control is the term.

It's your ability to control the can.

There are options with, you can trade out the caps.

You've got skinny caps, you've got fat caps for fills.

There's stencil caps, which I have never used, but you can get super fine lines with those.

[upbeat guitar music] ♪ Just a lady, won't you give me a call ♪ ♪ I need to know, do you think of me at all ♪ - All right, here we go.

I love the idea of coming to a smaller town.

The lady and her family that just bought stickers from me, her son said that he liked the robots the best and that it inspired him to do some art.

So I think that that's awesome.

That's kinda the goal.

I don't know exactly where the robots came from.

I don't have like some big purpose about why I started painting them, but I think they're cool.

I've always been kind of attracted to like painting things that I would've thought were awesome as a kid.

- You're listening to KGLC 100.9 FM, Radio on the Route.

I'm local broadcaster, Michael Woodruff hanging out with you this afternoon.

Hey, come on down to Mural Fest, here in beautiful downtown Miami.

They got some great stuff and while you're at it, stop by the Coleman Theater and pickup tickets for tonight's music performance.

It's air conditioned.

It's fun.

It's KGLC 100.9 FM, Radio on the Route.

[upbeat carnival music] - Welcome to the beautiful historic Coleman Theater beautiful.

This is, on the stage, where the Marx Brothers performed, where of course, Will Rogers was here, where Tom Mix rode his horse in this stage.

If you see behind me, flown halfway down from the fly space is Miami's very first mural.

This is the backdrop that was here on opening night in 1929.

[upbeat street music] - So this is a mural that I painted about the history of commerce and life in Miami, Oklahoma.

Miami's an interesting little town.

The economy of it was really based on local lead and zinc mine.

It was the biggest supplier of lead and zinc for the world really, during World War I and World War II.

And that built the town.

It had also ruined the environment.

[somber music] [somber music continues] Kind of that eternal story of the good and the bad mixed together.

Now when we moved here, there were a lot of buildings on Main Street that were boarded up.

The windows were boarded up, and yet it survives.

And it's building up now.

Downtown's looking good, keeps getting improved.

We have events like Mural Fest.

[uplifting music] - It's a small town just trying to make their downtown prettier.

[uplifting music continues] - It's very encouraging, just a great sign to see a relatively small town that's embracing the arts in such way.

I wish that more small towns in Oklahoma would do the same because I do think that it revitalizes the community a little bit and it gives people something to look at every day.

[uplifting music continues] When we first moved here, we had BF Goodrich and it was a really happening little place on the go.

And then Goodrich shut down.

It was like Miami just lost its will to live almost.

[uplifting music continues] People talk about it.

They see the murals, and they just talk about how happy it makes 'em feel.

[uplifting music continues] We're starting to take some pride in things that we're doing again and it makes me happy to drive down Main and see life.

[uplifting music continues] - [Michael] Well, the Mural Fest is finally coming to an end.

If you get to come down here, it's gonna be open 24 hour 7.

They did such a wonderful job.

We wanna thank them again, for another wonderful year.

[uplifting music continues] - [Diane] And now, the artist quote of the week.

[upbeat jazz music] Born in India, Padma Chebrolu shares the dances of her home country with students and audiences in Ohio.

As the president and artistic director of Cultural Center of India in Cincinnati, she offers dance classes, workshops, and performances for people to enjoy.

Here's the story.

[cultural music] - So I was born in a city called Guntur and I was the youngest of the three.

I had a beautiful childhood growing up there and that's where my dance training had started.

So my dad was into performing arts a lot, so he wanted me to be an artist.

I loved attending the dance studio there.

My heavy training is in the classical dance styles.

Classical dance styles use a classical literature, classical composition, classical music.

And they happen in different languages.

India is very rich in different languages.

So, you need to be knowledgeable in all of that to be able to take what's available in music and put that into the context of the dance and also do the storytelling and entertain the audience who might not be familiar with what's happening with the dance and the music.

And then, when I teach, I need to be able to discuss with the student and help them understand, so they can project that story and music very well.

So within the one genre of style, there's different variations to it.

So this is very common in classical dancing.

So, I learned Kuchipudi, Bharata Natyam, Andhra Natyam, Mohino Attam and also dabbled into other styles.

There's a lot of storytelling in our dances.

The stories are about some mythological stories.

So our mythology is extensive and as you know, this art form comes from Indian culture.

In Indian culture we have a lot of mythological figures and they each have their own stories.

And the poetry and the composers come up with these stories.

So as a choreographer or as a performer, what you do is you take that basic standard poetry and composition and you input all the intricate stories within that.

We as dancers, we don't talk.

We have expressed this story in the same one person, one performer has to do a multitude of characters.

Costuming is extremely important and Indian costuming comes from ancient times.

So for females, we wear something called saree.

And the saree weaving is a very ancient tradition.

And even though British colonized for 400 years, we never let go of our culture.

Our clothing is a representation and identity of our culture.

And also, we have something called temple jewelry that we wear.

These pieces are again, we have the master artist, master jewelry artist, who create this jewelry.

In our family, women go through high school and then they usually get married and become homemakers.

In my case, I was always interested in higher education, so I came to University of Cincinnati and pursued graduate studies.

The community here is very open-minded, so Cincinnati became home.

When I started this Cultural Center for India years ago, it was about passing on what I know as an art to others.

Cultural Center for India is about bringing the culture of our heritage arts to the Ohio community.

So we teach, perform, do workshops, where people wanting to learn more about diversity, inclusion, equality, and all through art, through music, through dance, through expressing ourselves.

I like both being a performing artist and a teacher.

And teaching is so much fun because I have students who are three to adults.

But the teaching processes, you are making a difference in a person's life.

- Padma, as an educator and an artist of classical Indian dance has transmitted her culture through the community.

She loves what she does and she treasures the art form.

Padma is one of those exemplary artists and I think something that's different about her is that she really goes to the community, goes to college dance programs and schools.

And one of the things is, when people think about dance, they think about ballet, modern perhaps.

And they may not think about classical Indian dance, which has been around for thousands of years.

- When kids are growing up here, they go to school and they they understand the mainstream American culture and they enjoy it and they celebrate it.

But at home, their parents are helping them to learn their own heritage.

So we are not a commercial dance studio where hundreds of kids come and go.

That's not what we do.

We are not commercialized.

We go for true artistry.

And a lot of our students win many awards, many scholarships, regional to a higher level, to national level recognition because it's a total development.

So my job is once I identify their inner artist, I need to unlock that.

These kids are prodigies and they have the talent already built in.

I just have to bring it out.

I'm constantly demonstrating to my students of how the art should be done and how it should be pursued, how it should be celebrated, and how it should elevate the spirits of the audience.

In every performance, there's audience education.

We hear on the news so many things, that people are not getting along, they really should each other.

But when we go perform or when we asked to come and perform, I never see that.

The minute we walk in, we are artists.

So that respect for the artist is there regardless of where I go in Ohio or beyond Ohio.

So it just, I would say diminishes all the barriers people have in their mind.

- [Diane] Learn more at culturalcenterofindia.com.

[upbeat jazz music] Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

[upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] Columbus Pride Bands is central Ohio's LGBTQ+ community band.

When the organization's members gather together to perform, they evoke joy and provide an inclusive, welcoming environment.

Have a listen.

[orchestral music] - I'm Robert Davis.

I am the artistic director of the Columbus Pride Bands.

We're an LGBTQ+ organization, but our members are all colors and stripes and types and belief systems.

And that's one of the things that makes the group really wonderful.

And it brings a lot of people in who might consider us over a maybe a similar community band elsewhere in Columbus.

- I'm Jacob Lowry and I've been in Columbus Pride Bands for going on seven years now.

It's unlike any community I've ever had because we've all dealt with different hard times, the ups and downs.

We have different interests, backgrounds, and it's just like a whole other world of like networking, potential friendships, family.

And I just really have a hard time putting it into words just like how much I love this band.

It's a really big deal for me because I mean, I grew up in a very small town.

I didn't come out until I went away to college.

- The anti-bullying mission of the Columbus Pride Bands is one of our big ideas, if you will for the group.

The group is is of course a community band, but being an LGBTQ+ centered organization, bullying has been such a struggle for members of the LGBTQ+ community for ages.

And several years ago, as that came more to the forefront of the national discourse on kindness and LGBTQ safety in schools and in general public, the group really took that on as something that we care about and want to play a role in helping combat bullying.

- The ribbons for me in a way, are a very exciting way to welcome new members.

I'm the co-section leader for the low brass and getting to give those ribbons out to the new members is a new way of saying, "Hey, you're here with us, we're family.

We're here for you no matter what."

- Having like the little ribbon is so nice because it makes it such a safe space because frankly I am a lesbian who went to high school in the middle of the Georgia Bible Belt and I was the only out person at my school.

And it was really, really rough.

Like I did get bullied quite a lot just for being out and comfortable with myself.

- Our motto is "Uplifting Our Community Through Music", and we really try to do that.

We uplift our own community from within the band, with the music that we play, and by just getting to make music together which is such a wonderful experience in and of itself.

We perform around the community, whether it's in queer spaces or not around Columbus because we want to be available to the Columbus and central Ohio community as a broad space as well.

You have thousands of high school band kids that are members of fantastic music programs throughout the state and throughout the country.

And many of them need a way and place to continue playing without necessarily being a professional musician.

And I think community bands all around the country provide that for people.

Band is inherently a welcoming place.

You'll see that in any band room around the country, which is really great.

So I think the musical mission of the group as an avenue for our folks to continue doing that is really important.

And then also, the queer identity of the group creates a different sense of community within the band as a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

And community is what it's all about.

[upbeat brass music] - When I first started with the band, like I was 20-21, I had just moved up to Columbus.

I didn't really know anybody besides like a couple of people.

It was just so nice because I am not the most outgoing person there.

I'm not really good at making friends 'cause I tend to just like stay in my own little bubble.

So, I'm not really comfortable with getting out there.

So it was kind of like a built-in immediate family, like friend group out of the gate and they were all super welcoming.

[upbeat brass music continues] - So my fiance and soon-to-be husband is actually...

Sorry, is actually in the band as well.

And we met in 2018 after a concert and we found out we shared a lot of common interests and low and behold, here we are.

[cork pops] - I think that's the biggest thing is that it is a band.

But it's so much more than than just that to the folks who are in the group.

And we hope that our audience sees that by the way we play together, by the way we socialize together, and the camaraderie that we have.

[orchestral music] - If you haven't played an instrument in over 15 years, we won't judge you.

Come join us.

You'll learn and grow with us because a lot of us are in that same boat.

So, we're just a pretty fun group of people.

[upbeat brass music] - [Diane] To find out more, visit columbuspridebands.org.

And here's a look at this week's art history.

[upbeat jazz music] [upbeat jazz music continues] That wraps it up for this edition of "WLIW Arts Beat".

We'd like to hear what you think.

So like us on Facebook, join the conversation on Twitter and visit our webpage for features and to watch episodes of the show.

We hope to see you next time.

I'm Diane Masciale.

Thank you for watching "WLIW Arts Beat".

Funding for "WLIW Arts Beat" was made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

[upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues] [upbeat jazz music continues]