For some, the analog and the digital exist in separate boxes. Analog denotes outmoded, painstaking and inflexible, qualities that run contrary to the speed and ease of creating in the digital realm. For Sun Xun, the world-renowned mixed-media artist from China, the analog and the digital are equally useful tools to be employed in pursuit of a desired effect. In Time Spy, Xun’s experimental film exhibited at The Ringling’s Asian Art gallery, he has managed to chisel away at the line between analog and digital to create a piece that is bold, bursting with life and unlike anything ever produced for the screen.

Trained in printmaking at the China Academy of Art, his work favors a more utilitarian, graphical aesthetic. His approach to film was also dictated in large part by circumstance. Unable to afford a camera while at the Academy, he chose to make his early films with a combination of hand-drawn animations and, in later projects like Time Spy, with woodcuts. “What gives him his individual style,” says curator Rhiannon Paget, “is a combination of his particular set of experiences.” The use of woodcuts gives this animated film the look of frenetic, stop-motion stamps, and in spite of the meticulous process of creating individual frames, the film bursts with movement.

The film lacks an obvious narrative, relying instead on surreal imagery to give viewers the impression that the fantastical often lurks just beneath or beside the real. Birds and tigers take flight, cogs and machinery churn, men in suits seem to pontificate on a world they appear to control—these all contribute to a message on power that is more meditative than moralistic. “He’s not so literalistic that he’ll criticize the Chinese government or call out Western imperialism,” says Paget, “he’s raising questions about how power and the formulation of history intersect, and how people’s lived experiences differ from the historical narrative.” As if to mirror this theme of subjective reality, the film requires the use of old-school 3D glasses, another filter through which reality is distorted. 

This mind-activating exhibit features a collection of woodcuts used in the film as well as a few of Xun’s ink illustrations. It runs through February 16th. 

Photo courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York

“The tracks of the lions led along the bank and then they turned and cut down into the river. In that moment I could feel myself more in the feeling than in the rational expression of it. I was totally in tune with those animals. Now, along the upper bank the terrain is fairly open, as you cut down into the river it gets thick and reeded. There are tunnels where hippos have made their way to the central channel of the river. Down there it’s dark and it’s scary and you can’t hear anything and you might find a sleeping buffalo, and there are lions in there. And we all paused, and we looked at each other.”

The audience in the Ringling College auditorium is utterly silent with rapt attention. The storyteller, Boyd Varty, author of “The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life”, has spent almost half an hour taking his audience on a detail-rich journey into the South African bush veldt on his family’s land, the Londolozi Game Reserve. We’ve learned how to tell from a lion’s paw prints if it is fat and happy, or being cautious and careful. And we are hearing now how Varty’s life-long love of the African wilds has informed the way he sees all of life’s challenges. At this point in the story, he and his fellow trackers are hot on the trail of a pride of four lions, a male and three females. To continue the track, they will have to follow the trail into the lions’ territory.

“I’ve come to believe that anyone who decides to make big change in their life-you're going to arrive at this moment," says Varty. "You're going to ask yourself, how committed am I really? How much do I really want to do this? Because it’s going to scare you.”

Varty is in Sarasota to share his passion for the animals of his native South Africa, and to raise money for the The All Heart Fund and The Good Work Foundation of South Africa, a charity that brings modern educational opportunities to rural, South African students with limited access to schooling otherwise. Five schools are already up and running, and there are more to come. 

It’s a local, tragic story that brought this great cause to life. In 2011, a young Sarasota girl named Leanna Knopik traveled with her family to the Londolozi Game Reserve owned by the Varty family. Leanna fell in love with the place and the people, telling her parents she wanted to return someday as a volunteer. Unfortunately, less than a year later, while traveling between her home in Florida and a church mission camp in West Virginia, she contracted a rare viral infection that attacked her heart. Leanna would eventually succumb to the terrible illness, but her parents, Beth and Steve Knopik have made sure that her dream of bringing help to rural communities in South Africa is still being realized to this day.

Michael Klauber, of Michael’s On East, has been instrumental in supporting the cause, organizing a three day fundraising effort called Safari Sarasota that included speaking engagements with Varty and an interactive dinner at Michael’s On East yesterday and a “bush dinner” under the stars at Selby Gardens and more this coming weekend.

If you want to learn more, get involved, catch the end of Varty’s Sarasota tour, or consider taking a safari yourself, a good place to start is https://bestfood.com/safari-sarasota 

Pictured: Boyd Varty speaking at the Ringling College of Art and Design

Gulf Coast Community Foundation has awarded a $50,000 Arts Appreciation Grant to The Ringling to support the museum's Art of Our Time initiative during the 2019-2020 season. The foundation's Arts Appreciation Grants provide unrestricted funding to cornerstone arts and cultural organizations in the region to help them pursue their artistic missions. Sine its launch in 2011, The Ringling's Art of Our Time initiative has played a vital role in an international network of living artists whose work moves beyond traditional practices into visual and performative art. Gulf Coast Comunity Foundation has been a committed sponsor to the Art of Our Time initiative, supporting visual arts exhibitions, Ringling International Arts Festival and New Stages performing arts series. 

Shopping, prosecco and treats—not sure what else you need for a Sunday funday. Discover Sarasota Tours will launch a delightful new tour dubbed Boutiques & Bubbles every Sunday, starting October 27. That means, grabbing your girlfriends and jumping on board the iconic trolley (yes, it is air-conditioned) for a personal shopping and escorted cruise around downtown. Trolley-goers will enjoy an entertaining, interactive neighborhood tour, guided by Discover Sarasota Tours owner Tammy Hauser, who happens to also be a certified shopping expertt. Boutiques & Bubbles visits three local retailers offering clothing, purses and gifts, including the Vintage Sarasota gift shop. Attendees will also gain access to special discounts, as well as complimentary wine, or bubbly, and treats at each boutique. 

The first Boutiques & Bubbles Tour will run from October 27, 1pm-3pm. Tickets are $35 per person + tax and fees. Must be 21+ to attend. Private groups start at 10+ passengers. For more information, email tammy@discoversarasotatours.com or call 941-260-9818. 

Book Discover Sarasota Tour here.

Michael Schandorf-Lartey, MD, MMM, FACP, SFHM is the new Chief Medical Officer for Doctors Hospital of Sarasota. Dr. Schanford-Lartey replaced Thomas Trincetto, MD, who recently retired. Dr. Schandorf-Lartey has been an internal medicine hospitalist for nearly 16 years and has been at Doctors Hospital for 12 years. During this time, he has also been involved in several leadership roles including Chief of Medicine, President-Elect and President of the Medical Staff. Dr. Shandorf-Lartey is fro Ghana, West Africa. He completed his medical traiing at the University of Ghana Medical School. He worked as a general practitioner in various rural and urban hospitals in Ghana before completing his internal medicine residency training at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, where was he was Associate Chief Resident. 

The first American in three decades and youngest musician ever to win First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition (considered by many to be the “Olympics of classical music”) in the Cello Division, Zlatomir Fung is poised to become one of the preeminent cellists of our time. In a first for Sarasota, Fung and pianist Angie Zhang pay homage to Beethoven’s 250th birthday with two distinct programs covering the composer’s complete works for cello and piano. Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota presents cellist Fung, the first of three rising young stars coming from Young Concert Artists International. As a chamber musician, Fung performs around the world, opening this season with IMS Prussia Cove on tour to London’s Wigmore Hall, Cornwall, Cambridge, West Sussex, and Somerset. He closes the season at Dresdner Musikfestspiele. His April recital in New York at the Morgan Library made the New York Times "10 Months of Classical Concerts You Won't Want to Miss!" 

“Zlatomir Fung is an astoundingly gifted young cellist and is already being hailed by many as the next Yo-Yo Ma,” says Joseph Holt, Director of Artist Programs for Artist Series Concerts. “This is a real coup for us, and for Sarasota, to have Zlatomir and Angie here from Young Concert Artists International performing the complete body of Beethoven’s works for cello and piano. This is truly a one-of-a-kind opportunity to hear a rare, challenging and transcendent program performed by a young musician on the cusp of major stardom.”

The two performances, sponsored by Artist Series Concerts FRIENDS, take place on November 2, 7:30pm and November 3, 3pm at the Historic Asolo Theater, 5401 Bay Shore Rd., Sarasota. Tickets are $25 - $45. Those interested in purchasing tickets for both performances can call 941-306-1202 to receive a 15% package discount.            

Photo courtesy of Artists Series Concerts

Tickets sold here.

The GEICO Skytypers Air Show Team, the leading vintage airshow performance squadron, will be performing at the Florida International Air Show. The team’s six WWII-era aircraft will perform a dynamic 18-minute, low-level precision-flying demonstration. “We are excited to reveal this season’s 20-maneuver demonstration,” said Larry Arken, squadron commander and team flight lead. “Airshow attendees will see first-hand what these ‘warbirds’ are made of.”

The GEICO Skytypers “skytype” by creating giant messages in the sky with five aircraft flying in a tight, line-abreast formation. The planes skytype by coordinating dot matrix-style messages with environmentally friendly puffs of white smoke. A computer located in the lead aircraft sends radio signals to the other planes and their white puffs of smoke create the “skytyped” messages that are often as tall as the Empire State Building and seen from a 15-mile radius.

Friday - Sunday, November 1-3 at the Punta Gorda Airport, Challenger Blvd., Punta Gorda, 33982. 

Photo courtesy of The GEICO Skytypers Air Show Team

Florida International Air Show

Making its Sarasota debut, The Rock ‘N’ Roll Dream Tour comes to the Van Wezel this November—starring Grammy Award winners and Rock & Roll Hall of Famers, Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly. Accompanied by a live band and back-up singers in this cutting-edge, multi-media holographic performance with remastered audio, the duo will transport the audience back in time for an evening of their greatest hits. BASE Hologram brings two of the greatest song catalogues in music history to life in this immersive experience. Orbison and Holly’s holograms interact with the audience and the musicians on stage using innovative digital and laser technology in this groundbreaking live concert event, featuring hit favorites such as “Peggy Sue,” “Not Fade Away,” “That’ll Be the Day,” “Cryin’,” “Only the Lonely” and “You Got It.” 

“Buddy and Roy were Texans who shared a mutual respect and admiration for each other’s creative musical genius and brilliant songwriting abilities," said Maria Elena Holly, Buddy Holly’s wife. "Their longtime fans and a new generation of fans will now have the opportunity to see these great legends perform together in a unique setting, showcasing two of the finest, most influential and beloved artists in music history."

The show is Monday, November 4 at 8 pm. Tickets are $66-$99. Purchase at VanWezel.org, the Box Office or by calling 941-953-3368. This performance is sponsored by Wilde Lexus Sarasota. Pre-show dining is available at Mattison’s Bayside located in the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. 

Photo courtesy of BASE Hologram.

This Wednesday, October 23, 2019 SRQ MEDIA hosted the Modern Education Symposium, which explored local private and charter schools in Sarasota and Manatee Counties. Representatives from The Out-Of-Door Academy, NewGate School, St. Martha Catholic School, Sarasota Christian School, The Pinnacle Academy and Island Village Montessori School engaged in a lively moderated panel discussion that covered topics ranging from curriculum and educational programming to guidance for parents on how to choose the school that is best for their child.

A thank you to our fantastic Modern Education Symposium panelists for their insightful contributions to the conversation and to Mattison's for catering the evening! 

Photos are available here