subscribe: Posts | Comments

Audio for IMAG’s ‘Man Playing Flute’ now live on Otocast

0 comments

Posted | 0 comments

The audio for the Edgardo Carmona sculpture Duo Sinfonica or Man Playing Flute is now live on Otocast. Man Playing Flute is one of two Carmona sculptures that have been moved to IMAG History & Science Center in the City’s third ward. Man Playing Flute leans against a stone pillar that anchors the wrought iron fence running along Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.

With Man Playing Flute, sculptor Edgardo Carmona captures a moment in time during which a flutist and his beautiful tunes attracts a chirping bird to sing in tandem with him. This artwork was positioned to look across the street towards McCollum Hall on purpose. That’s because from 1938 through the ‘60s, McCollum Hall was a stop along the Chitlin’ Circuit that hosted such iconic and internationally-renowned musicians as Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, Lionel Hampton, Otis Redding, Lucky Milliner and Duke Ellington and his orchestra. The new audio tells that story, which is also reproduced on the 17-panel Buck’s Backyard Mural that adorns the wall behind McCollum Hall.

When you listen to the audio, you’ll hear the new voice of Fort Myers public art, Bill Taylor. A long-standing member of the City of Fort Myers Public Art Committee, Bill Taylor is best known in Southwest Florida as a producer, director, actor and founder of Theatre Conspiracy at the Alliance for the Arts.

Since founding the latter company in 1984, Bill has produced more than 120 shows, directed 40 productions and performed in over 50 others including three one-man shows, Sex, Drugs & Rock and Roll, Barrymore and Tru. His favorite shows include A Tuna Christmas, The Katy and Mo Show, and whatever play he is working on currently.

Among the many initiatives Taylor has launched at Theatre Conspiracy are its perennial New Play Contest, an emphasis on productions written by female playwrights and providing strong female characters, and programming that provides opportunities for area actors of color and discourse on the Black experience in America (in shows like George C. Wolff’s A Colored Museum, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, August Wilson’s King Hedley II, Joe Wilson’s Come and Gone, Seven Guitars and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Lydia Diamond’s The Bluest Eye and Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf).

If you haven’t yet used Otocast yet, pull out your smartphone and go to your app store right now. When you land there, type Otocast in the search bar and then hit download. It’s free!

The app works with geo-mapping, which means that when you tap on the green Otocast icon, the app will automatically call up the Fort Myers Guide.

Tap on the Guide and you’ll see an aerial map of Fort Myers that displays a number of green pins. Those pins signify the location of most of the public artworks that are interspersed throughout Fort Myers.

Notice the banner that runs along the bottom of your screen. It contains thumbnail photographs of the particular artworks identified by those green pins. Tap on any one of them and it will take you to written information about the artwork; historic, installation and other photos; and an audio like the one that Bill Taylor just recorded for Man Playing Flute or the other IMAG art piece, Boy Fishing from a Bucket.

At present, 30 of the City’s 41 outdoor public artworks are included in the Fort Myers Guide. Work is under way to not only add the other eleven, but more than 30 historic points of interest located throughout the City.

Don’t just use Otocast to learn more about the artworks see about town. Be sure to share Otocast with everyone you know. It’s a real conversation starter.

September 23, 2022.

RELATED POSTS.

Comments are closed.