Jersey City, PROOF, The Moth and More Set for CUNY TV's ARTS IN THE CITY This Weekend

THE MARCH 2015 edition of CUNY TV's ARTS IN THE CITY, hosted by Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson from The Salmagundi Club near Union Square, begins Friday, March 13 (2015) at 10am, 3pm and 8:30pm on CUNY TV*. The Salmagundi Club, a center for American art since 1871, features a variety of art exhibitions and musical performances each month.

ARTS IN THE CITY reports that Jersey City is undergoing an ambitious artistic makeover. Ernabel Demillo visits Mana Contemporary, a vast 35-acre campus of art galleries and workspaces, with over 100 working artists and artist residency programs housed in a renovated tobacco factory. Artists Yigal Ozeri, Mana's founder, and Eugene Lemay, its director, talk about a new model of interaction between artists and the public there. Demillo then goes to the burgeoning Jersey City Theater Center to talk with Olga Levina, the Center's artistic director, to learn about its residencies and renovation of a nearby meeting hall soon to become a performing arts center.

Carol Anne Riddell profiles PROOF, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of acts of moral courage through visual storytelling, with Leora Kahn, executive director. Kahn talks of PROOF's traveling exhibitions and her meeting people around the world who have risked their lives to save others from genocide and torture. Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson tours an exhibition at The Museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) of 1970s fashions designed by legendary designers Yves Saint Laurent and Halston, showing a dazzling array of gowns and women's leisure wear with Emma McClendon, Assistant Curator of Costume at the Museum, as her guide. On West 29th Street, Tony Guida visits Martinez Hand Rolled Cigars, a small factory owned by Jesus Martinez that maintains the art and craft of cigar creation, a long family tradition.

As a complement to the storytelling on public radio's "The Moth Radio Hour," its fans attend live Moth events in New York and other cities. Donna Hanover goes to one of The Moth's weekly New York StorySlams, this one at Housing Works Bookstore hosted by comedian Ophira Eisenberg (radio's Ask Me Another), with storytellers Kate Greathead, Steve Whyte and Gail Thomas. And Barry Mitchell explores the origins and evolution of the popular board game Monopoly with Mary Pilon, author of the new history The Monopolists.

* ARTS IN THE CITY is repeated Sunday 3/15 at noon and returns Friday 3/27 at 10am, 3pm and 8:30pm and on Sunday 3/29 at noon on CUNY TV. On and after March 13, the program may be viewed anytime on www.cuny.tv.

CUNY TV is broadcast over-the-air in the tri-state area on Ch. 25.3, and cablecast in THE FIVE boroughs of New York City on Ch. 75 (Time Warner and Optimum), Ch. 77 (RCN) and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS).

Photos, top to bottom: Host Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson at The Salmagundi Club; Saint Laurent & Halston fashions at The Museum at FIT; Carol Anne Riddell with PROOF exhibition; Mana Contemporary founder Yigal Ozeri; Jersey City Theatre Center artistic director Olga Levina (Photos courtesy Arts in the City / CUNY TV; fashion photo courtesy The Museum at FIT)