From my Inbox to you. Virginia Museum of Transportation Director of Marketing informs me there are still a few Sunday slots left open.

The Virginia Museum of Transportation
to give rail fans a chance to operate a steam locomotive

At the Throttle
Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19

Train lovers will have the rare opportunity to operate the
New Hope Valley Railway #17 0-4-0 Tank Steam Locomotive.  

“At the Throttle” sessions will last 30 minutes. A qualified railroad engineer will
be in the cab with participants at all times.
Cost for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is $125.

The Virginia Museum of Transportation (VMT) announces the “At the Throttle” program, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will put train lovers in the operator’s seat of a steam locomotive on Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19.

Participants in the program will be in control of the New Hope Valley Railways #17 steam locomotive, a 0-4-0 tank engine, for 30 minutes. A qualified railroad engineer will be in the cab with participants at all times.

“Train lovers will experience what it was like to run a steam engine during the golden age of railroads,” said Beverly T. Fitzpatrick, Jr., executive director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation. “They can reach up, open the throttle and feel the engine move at their command.”

Participants in “At the Throttle” must be at least 18-years-old and have a valid driver’s license. Clothing appropriate to a working railyard should be worn at all times. Long sleeves, long pants, work boots and gloves are recommended.

Those wishing to participate in the program can register online at vmt.org or in person at the Museum’s downtown Roanoke location. Read more »

“TAKING FLIGHT”
What: W&L Repertory Dance Company in an outdoor aerial performance
When: 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday
Where: Wilson Hall, Washington and Lee University, Lexington
How much: Free
Info: daviesj@wlu.edu; www.wlu.edu/x58321.xml

Washington and Lee University dance students will be bouncing off the walls on Wednesday and Thursday. They’ll swing, spin and flip, too.

Those with memories long enough to recall when W&L Artistic Director and Dance Professor Jenefer Davies was director of Roanoke Ballet Theatre might experience some deja vu at these outdoor performances by W&L Repertory Dance Company, called “Taking Flight.” Music and props will augment the artistic acrobatics.

Davies first experimented with aerial ballet in 2002 while she was with RBT. Her dance classes at W&L sometimes look more like courses on rappelling.

Davies has written articles and traveled to Europe to give lectures on her methods of training college students to handle aerial dance.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Over at their Twitter account, Fighting Gravity says:

If we reach $40,000 by Sunday at midnight, a new supporter will match the $10,000 to bring us home! kck.st/17vLWSF

— Fighting Gravity (@fgravity) May 14, 2013

The Blacksburg-based blacklight illusion group and former “America’s Got Talent” finalists are using Kickstarter to raise $50,000 to fund the workshopping of a full length New York stage show. Click here to read more about their campaign.

Composer Philip Glass and his orchestra, the Philip Glass Ensemble, will kick off the Center for the Arts’ first season held in its newly-built home.

The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech will open its first full season in its new home with a performance by a legendary American composer, end with a multimedia theater performance for children by an Italian troupe, and in between will host professional dance companies, experimental plays, a popular NPR host, a bluegrass festival and even a Pops performance by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra.

Executive director Ruth Waalkes has said one of the goals of the new $100 million institution with its state-of-the-art 1,260-seat performance hall has been to complement, not duplicate, the programming that already exists in the Roanoke and New River valleys . Sure enough, the lineup of 21 acts sports little overlap with the Jefferson Center’s jazz offerings or the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre’s comedians and Broadway in Roanoke shows.

The acts are also chosen based on their potential to involve community members and create opportunities for educational programming, Waalkes said.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Did you attend “The Role of the Arts in Economic Development” panel? What did you think? Do you have further questions, or answers to suggest? Please let me know in the comments. –MikeA

DON PETERSEN | Special to The Roanoke Times. Panelist David Mickenberg, former president and CEO of the Taubman Museum of Art, makes a point at the Executive Discussion Series on Wednesday. Titled “The Role of the Arts in Economic Development,” the forum was attended by many artists, university faculty and regional officials.

The regional arts community wants answers.

The questions, articulated with urgency, weren’t new. How does a community sustain the arts financially over the long term, where does the funding come from, who deserves to receive it? How do you battle the perception that arts aren’t essential? Will localities in Roanoke and the New River Valley band together to promote the arts as part of their brand, and if so how?

Wednesday morning, those question were posed to and raised by the five panelists at a roundtable discussion, part of the ongoing Executive Discussion Series co-sponsored by The Roanoke Times and Cox Business. The panel, “The Role of the Arts in Economic Development,” attracted the largest crowd in the two-year history of the series, with about 135 attending the breakfast meeting at the Sheraton Roanoke Hotel and Conference Center.

Moderator Connie Stevens of public radio station WVTF-FM noted that the audience was made up almost entirely of stakeholders: artists, representatives from nonprofits, government officials, university faculty.

The panelists were Roanoke City Manager Chris Morrill; former Taubman Museum of Art CEO and President David Mickenberg; Ruth Waalkes, executive director of the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech; Amy Moorefield, director of the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University; and Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission Executive Director Wayne Strickland. These heavy hitters didn’t have specific answers to many of the sweeping questions placed on the table, though often they brought up issues of their own.

“I hope this is the beginning of a broader conversation on why we support the arts and what it takes to support the arts,” Mickenberg said.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

This past Sunday, we published a preview of the roundtable in which the five panelists provided written answers to questions about the role of the arts in regional economic development. Click here to read those interviews.

Jeff Goldberg/Esto Photographics

From Sunday’s column:

A Virginia Tech architecture professor and her students created a technologically interactive art installation modelled on Japanese lanterns at the Smithsonian.

Part of a series called “The Lantern Field,” the installation consisted of swaths of paper folded into flowery shapes hung from bamboo poles. Motion sensors caused the lighting to change colors and electronic bamboo chime sounds to change rhythm as people moved through the space beneath the “lanterns.”

“The Lantern Field” was on display at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art during the National Cherry Blossom Festival in April. The seeds that grew to become the installation were planted before Aki Ishida joined the Tech faculty.

The project was inspired by the lantern festivals Ishida saw while growing up in Japan.

“Public parks would transform overnight into magical landscapes,” she said. Yet that magic was ephemeral. “These were paper lanterns that would go away after the days of the festival.”

“The Lantern Field,” too, was ephemeral. The installation went up April 5 and came down two days later after the gallery closed.

Ishida, 42, came to the United States when she was 11. By 2004 she was a New York architect teaching part-time at the Rhode Island School of Design. Japanese architecture has a tradition of using paper to modify lighting.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

(Here as promised in Sunday’s column is the video of the making of “The Lantern Field” at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art.)

At today’s media day, Kathleen Fort, Center in the Square’s new Volunteer Program Manager, says she still needs volunteers to help with the Grand Affair gala on Saturday, May 11 and the Family Day of Discovery event Saturday, May 18.

Volunteer for a shift and you get in free (admission to Grand Affair is $75, admission to Family Day is $15, children 3 to 17 $10.)

Call Fort at 224-1216 to learn more about what she needs for both events.

No, this isn’t about a politician. Staff writer Rebecca Holland interviewed a bona fide Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus clown.

Courtesy Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey. Clown Dean Kelley leads the All Access Pre-show.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey kickoff shows at Roanoke Civic Center
By Rebecca Holland

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey have rolled into town and will be presenting “The Greatest Show on Earth” tonight through Sunday at the Roanoke Civic Center.

Clown Dean Kelley, 32 and a Kansas City native, joined the show in November 2002. The veteran performer took a break from clowning around to answer our questions.

Q: How did you get involved with the show?

I went to my very first circus as a child and I saw the clowns, and there was just something about them. I said “that’s what I want to do when I grow up,” so I started practicing.

Ringling Brothers used to have a clown college, but it closed in 1997 . I would’ve been eligible to join in 1998. Then they had a posting for an open audition for clowns, and it was the first time they had done that in over 30 years. I auditioned in Anaheim [Calif.], and they offered me a contract that day.

Q: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen happen during a show?

It is live entertainment, so lots of things can happen and sometimes do.

One time one of our little horses, Goodies, got out of his cage during a show. So everyone back stage was trying to keep him from running onto the floor during the show.

Click here to read the rest of the interview.

Click the picture to see Rebecca Barnett’s photo gallery: