RSS
RSSNorthland to screen films by regional filmmaker and hip-hop artist for Hulings Lecture series
October 25, 2011
Two short films about the connection between hip-hop and immigrant communities will be screened Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 7:30 p.m. in the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute on the Northland College campus. The films, produced by documentary filmmaker and University of Minnesota Ph.D. candidate Justin Schell and regional hip-hop artist Tou SaiKo Lee, trace the commonalities between traditional Hmong poetry and hip-hop. The event, another offering in the Northland College Community Connections series and Hulings Lecture series, is free and open to the public.
The two films to be presented are "Travel in Spirals" and "We Rock Long Distance." The presentation is co-sponsored by the Northland College Music Program and Hulings Chair. Hip-hop artist Tou SaiKo Lee and filmmaker Justin Schell, along with Northland College Music Instructor Joshua Clausen, will take questions and hold a discussion about the films following the screening.
"I am honored and very excited to bring Justin and Tou to the Northland community to share their vibrant and compelling work," says Joshua Clausen, Northland College Music Instructor. "Their presentation will address ideas such as music and diaspora, collaborative video and audio production and the intersections between global hip-hop and traditional Hmong culture."
Lee is a spoken word artist, MC and community organizer who was born in a Hmong refugee camp in Nongkhai, Thailand. Lee moved to St. Paul, Minn., in his early teens and later founded the first socially conscious Hmong hip-hop group, Delicious Venom, with his brother. Lee has worked in schools across the nation and with nonprofit organizations, such as the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT), Hmong American Partnership, and In Progress.
Justin Schell is a documentary filmmaker, freelance writer, and Ph.D. student based in Minneapolis, Minn., who was raised in the Milwaukee, Wis. "We Rock Long Distance" is Schell's first feature-length documentary film. Other examples of his work have been featured online on The Progressive, CNN, and The Huffington Post. Schell's essay "‘From St. Paul to Minneapolis, All the Hands Clap for This': Hip-Hop in the Twin Cities," can be found in "Hip-Hop in America: A Regional Guide," an encyclopedia of American hip-hop scenes.
This Hulings Lecture event is the first of a series centered on hip-hop music and community. In December, Twin Cities-based MC and activist Guante will present on hip-hop critique and social change at Northland College. The A.D. & Mary Elizabeth Andersen Hulings Chair in the Humanities was established in September 1990 to support a senior scholar in the humanities. The endowment funds promotion and strengthening of the Humanities at Northland College.
Northland College radio station 97.7 WRNC-LP will broadcast a live interview with Schell, Lee and Clausen about the presentation Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 3 p.m. Listeners may hear the broadcast live at www.wrnclp.org.
