An exciting week!

This is an exciting week at the Skirball Cultural Center as we prepare to open Stan’s Cafe’s Of All the People in All the World! The rice arrived last week–all 15 tons of it! See our Flickr photos at the right, more on the Flickr site.

The company arrived today, and the exhibition will open on Thursday at noon. We can’t wait!

Finally, we still need some volunteers to help out in the galleries during the run of the show, especially in the next couple of weeks! See the Volunteers Needed post below and email us at programs @ skirball dot org if you are interested. This will be an amazing project to be a part of!

And now, a word from our sponsor…

I was recently asked what prompted this donation.  It’s simple. It started with the biggest truck I ever saw in my life unloading more rice than I had ever seen. This at the Skirball?

I made some inquiries and was told it was Stan’s calf.  Who is Stan and why is he bringing a calf and rice to the Skirball?  Further information, led me to the exhibit Of All The People………….

It was Amazing! Impressive! Emotional! Funny! Frightening! Educational! It was a way at looking at the world and all of us in it using a clever tool.  It put a different perspective on a whole lot of things.  It also put a whole lot of things into perspective.  I was enthralled but it was there for way too short a time for the public to even know it had come before it had gone. It had to be shared.

What to do?  Shockingly, I contacted the Skirball. They didn’t call me. I called them. I asked what it would cost to bring the exhibit back for a month.  They told me. I fainted. I had never given even 1/10 of that cost to anything or anyone. I gave it deep thought for about 30 seconds, called the bank and wrote the check.

Now you too can share my experience.

                                                            Nonny (Anonymous Donor)

Volunteers Needed!

Want to get involved with a great project? We’re looking for several volunteers to assist with the load-in, perform with the company, and interact with visitors to the installation. Volunteers must be personable with good people skills; have some local knowledge and an interest in current affairs; willing to collaborate with the company and be involved in the show. Some lifting during load-in required. Adults only, please–college age and above. Volunteers will be in costume and will be part of the performance. Full training provided by the company.

If you’re interested in this unique opportunity, please email programs @ skirball dot org with your name, brief bio, contact information (daytime phone and email), and availability for November 26–December 31.

Video of past installation

Check out this short video from an installation of Of All the People in All the World presented in the UK.

Fun For a Good Cause: Free Rice!

A colleague shared this cool site with me today where you can have fun testing your vocabulary while supporting a good cause. For each word you correctly define, 10 grains of rice will be donated to the hungry. http://freerice.com/

What is this all about?

Of All the People in All the World will feature more than fifteen tons of rice-900 million grains total, equaling the population of the Americas-organized to bring local, national, and global statistics to life. Artists from the innovative British theater company Stan’s Cafe will carefully weigh and pile the staple food to quantify a variety of facts, from the serious and sobering to the lighthearted. Each grain of rice represents one individual. From the few women ever elected to the U.S. Senate to the multitudes who eat at McDonald’s daily to the Southland residents who walk to work, the statistics portrayed will create an evolving landscape of rice, as the artists dismantle old piles and measure out new ones, often in response to the artists’ interactions with visitors.

Shocking, playful, dismal, and hopeful in turn, Of All the People in All the World will inspire viewers to celebrate how everyone counts in our ever-expanding global society.

Suggest a statistic to Stan’s Cafe via its online “Statistics Center” and help the artists determine which facts and figures to illustrate at the Skirball. To submit your idea, visit: http://www.stanscafe.co.uk/ofallthepeople/statcentre/index.html.

Hello world!

We at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, California are starting a blog to share our experience with an amazing performance installation: Of All the People in All the World: The Americas. This performance piece/exhibition presented by acclaimed British theater company Stan’s Cafe, will be on view at Skirball from November 29-December 30, 2007.  

We presented a smaller version of this piece at Skirball for one week in the fall of 2006, and audiences were so taken with the show that we decided to bring it back for a longer, expanded run. Fortunately, there was an anonymous donor who shared our enthusiasm and vision for the piece who kindly made this year’s exhibition possible! We can’t wait to share Of All the People with the Southern California public!

Watch this space as the blog develops. For more information about Skirball and Of All the People in All the World, visit http://www.skirball.org.