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The What Cheer Art Company
The What Cheer Art Company is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing support for Rhode Island artists, helping them bring their projects to fruition with production advice and financial assistance. Since its founding in 1994, the What Cheer Art Company has been involved in producing and presenting a wide variety of performing arts events in Rhode Island.
We maintain a presence in the physical world, through work with Rhode
Island artists, helping to produce new work. However, this means we
scant our efforts in the virtual world. This site is therefore slight
by the standards of the 21st century, but is a useful service to some
of our projects. Just call us a little old-fashioned. Actually, call
us whatever you like, but come see some of our projects out there in
the real world.
Major Current Projects
Bright Night Providence, a fabulous New Year's Eve spectacle of local performing arts.
Jelly Fishers,
a video animation by Steven Subotnick. A family of hungry
mole-creatures is saved by the generosity of jellyfish.
A hand drawn and painted animation digitally layered and composited;
inspired by a traditional lullaby from Guernsey.
music by Igor Ballereau, Kenneth Kirschner, Aidan Baker, QQQ
Joan of Arc: An Opera in Three Acts
Joan of Arc will be produced for the first time as a fully staged opera in
May 2010 at the Blackstone River Theatre in Cumberland, RI.
Providence-based composer Steve Jobe will music direct the production and
he will join forces with two RI theatre luminaries: Bob Colonna, who will
direct the staging, and Kevin Broccoli, who will produce. Onstage,
soprano Teresa Wakim — who enjoys an internationally successful career as
soloist in opera, oratorio, and chamber music — will sing the role of
Joan of Arc.
The Legend of the Fairy Melusine,
Steven Jobe has been commissioned by the First Works Festival in
Providence RI to compose an opera, The Legend of the Fairy Melusine. The
French tale of the fairy Melusine — half woman, half serpent
— is filled with
romance, mystery and a surprise ending. Jobe's approach to the musical
setting of the story will emphasize light, airy sounds, and so the opera
will feature, for example, vocalists who specialize in Baroque opera. The
singers will be accompanied by a twenty-piece chamber ensemble consisting
of strings, orchestral harp, and winds (bassoon, oboe and trumpet), as
well as exotic percussion in the form of gongs, tubular bells and glass
bells.
Highlights from Past Projects:
Music for Three
Hurdy-Gurdies was an ambitious multidisciplinary project performed in
Providence in October 2007 as part of the First Works Festival. The
production featured new music by Rhode Island composer Steven Jobe,
and showcased performances on all three of the hurdy-gurdies that Jobe
either plays or has developed, two of which are large-scale,
one-of-a-kind instruments — 7-foot and 10-foot versions of the
normally lap-sized instrument. The Minneapolis-based dance company,
Three Dances provided original choreography and movement for the
event.
The Pan-Twilight Circus, a modern, no-animal tent show that toured Rhode Island and Massachusetts in 1995 and 1997
The Great Gilly Hopkins, the premiere of a musical adaptation of Katherine Patterson's children's novel, produced in the Fall of 1998
Sally Mayo's Wild West, a dance concert by Sally Mayo inspired by stories Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
Other past projects include documentary videos, animated films, and even more theatre. Watch for us!
Contact: info@whatcheer.org
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