Arts & Culture
Stories and videos about music, dance, visual and performing arts and film in the Kansas City metro.
Local composer chats with Bach
A local composer has spoken with famous 18th century German composer Johann Sebastian Bach — in his imagination. The work that resulted from this imagined conversation, a concerto piece titled “Dialogue,” will premiere Saturday, Feb. 7, at Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas. The Bach Aria Soloists, a Kansas City–based chamber music ensemble, commissioned a…
‘A Path Appears: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty’
Poverty. Teen pregnancy. Abuse. What is being done to address these issues affecting our communities? From the team behind the groundbreaking “Half the Sky,” “A Path Appears” goes to locations throughout the United States, plus Colombia, Haiti, and Kenya to uncover the harshest forms of gender-based oppression and human rights violations, and solutions being implemented…
‘First of all, I’m an American’
Ryan and Irene Caudillo have three children – Julian, Sophia, and Olivia – all of whom identify as Mexican-American, even though they don’t speak Spanish and don’t have firm roots to the Latino culture. While the children understand that Ryan and Irene focused on teaching them English in order to provide them the best opportunities possible, they wish that they had stronger ties to their Mexican-American heritage. The family talks with KCPT’s Your Fellow Americans team about the importance of maintaining their Latino culture, the impact that learning Spanish has on maintaining that cultural identity, and the fact that the kids don’t feel as connected to the Latino culture as they would like.
Do ride apps decrease drunk driving?
The ride-hailing service Uber and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) released a report today claiming that app-based car services like Uber decrease the number of auto crashes from drunken driving. The study was based on interviews conducted online, not on crash or arrest data. But, four out of five people who responded to the survey…
Local producer focuses on child sex trafficking in KC
Documentary producer Susan Cook was working on a film to educate girls in India about health and sex trafficking when friends in Kansas City told her that she should turn her focus to injustice in her own backyard. Since 2009, Cook has been interviewing, filming, researching and fundraising for “Hope Road,” a forthcoming documentary that…
Immigration is tough. Got a question?
In December of 2014, the Your Fellow Americans team talked with a Mexican-American family in the Kansas City area about their thoughts on race, immigration, and the American Dream. We joined the family around the dinner table of Mac and Velia Salazar, a husband and wife who were both born in Kansas on February 28th, 1925. Irene, one of their nine children, is married to Ryan Caudillo, a third-generation Mexican-American who was also raised in the Kansas City metro area.
Creating a high-tech vending machine, to dispense local art
Chips, Cheetos and peanuts are all things you might expect to find in an airport vending machine. Local art … not so much. But in one vending machine in the Kansas City Airport, you can expect to find locally made art, jewelry, T-shirts and the like. You swipe your credit card and out comes an…
Poet Nikki Giovanni talks space travel, hip-hop and ‘Selma’
Nikki Giovanni — famed and acclaimed poet — doesn’t buy the old adage that great art comes from great suffering. “I think great art comes from great joy,” she said. She pointed to “Selma,” a film about the 1965 march for civil rights from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama, headed by Martin Luther King Jr.,…
Seeking unity amid disparity: KC faith leaders initiate ‘Hope Lives’
Pastor Alan Shelby has lived in the Kansas City area his entire life, and he says the KC he has experienced is different from other cities. “Kansas City is kind of a unique community,” he said. “If you go to another large city like Dallas, you have a rich part, you have a poor part….
Producer’s perspective: A Persian-American family balances assimilation with success
On Sunday, February 9th, 2014, the Your Fellow Americans (YFA) team had their first interview with a Persian-American family in the KC metro. Members of the family were asked to talk about their identity and the American Dream. To talk about issues of race and immigration. And boy … did they talk. We got about halfway into our tagline, “race, immigration, and th…” before Kian Shafé broke in with his experience as an immigrant.