Program info & archives
Story Subject Category: Champaign
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The art of storytelling has been with us since before written history. When most people think of storytelling today, they think of someone simply reading a story aloud from a book. But traditional storytelling actually involves much more than that. We caught up with storytellers Dan Keding and Kathe Brinkmann to get the story straight from the storytellers themselves.
Segment duration: 11:01
Story links:
- Champaign-Urbana Storytelling Guild
- Tim Sheppard’s Storytelling Resources for Storytellers (UK)
- International Storytelling Center (Jonesborough, TN)
- Dan Keding: Storyteller, Author, and Folk Musician (personal website)
- Kathe Brinkmann: Storyteller (personal website)
Producer: Steve Drake and Virginia Steffen
Editor: Steve Drake and Tristan Riddell
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • Folklore • Hobbies • Literature • Champaign • Urbana
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Yu “Ian” Wang is an avid collector of local artists. He was born in China’s southernmost province of Yunnan and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1990s. Although he lives in Champaign and works in Rantoul, Wang has always kept his ties with his Chinese homeland. Collecting artwork from his hometowns takes him not only across the Midwest, but across the globe. His collection is a combination of traditional Chinese water-ink painting and modern Western abstract art.
Segment duration: 9:11
Producer: Steve Drake
Editor: Jared Collins and Steve Drake
This segment is filed in these categories: Antiques/Collectibles • Arts/Culture • Ethnicity/Culture • Hobbies • Libraries/Museums/Cultural Centers • Champaign • Rantoul • Urbana
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We meet photographer David Wiegers, of Gurnee, Ill., who is traveling across American documenting the many sculptures, monuments and other public artworks dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, including those located on the University of Illinois campus.Over the past few years, Wiegers has photographed over 200 statues and monuments dedicated to our 16th president. Series Producer Steve Drake caught up with Wiegers when he visited the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus to photograph one of those Lincoln artworks, the relief sculptures that adorn the walls on the university’s own Lincoln Hall.
Segment duration: 06:02
Producer: Steve Drake
Editor: Jared Collins and Steve Drake
This segment is filed in these categories: Architecture • Arts/Culture • Historical Landmarks • History • Illinois Culture/History • Photography • Travel • Champaign • Lincoln • University of Illinois • Urbana
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Yuki Okinaga Llewellyn of Champaign, Ill., spent three years during World War II interned at the Manzanar Assembly Center in California. Llewellyn and her 23-year-old single mother were evacuated from Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, to Manzanar in Lone Pine, Calif. The now famous 1942 National Archives photo, taken by Clem Albers and showing Yuki sitting on a suitcase in the train station, became representative of that period. A retired assistant dean of students at the University of Illinois, Llewellyn returned to Manzanar last fall for the first time since she and her mother left it in October 1945 with $25 and a pair of government-issued bus tickets. Producer Denise La Grassa talks to Llewellyn about living in Block 2 inside the internment camp where she shared a 20 x 20 room with her mother and another family.
Segment duration: 07:55
Producer: Denise La Grassa
Editor: Eleanore Stasheff
This segment is filed in these categories: Ethnicity/Culture • History • World War II • Champaign
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For 6,000 years people have been practicing yoga. Its roots are religious, but outside of India, most people practice it as a form of exercise. Producer Virginia Steffen examines this ancient practice and learns that it’s something anyone can do.
Segment duration: 08:49
Story links:
Producer: Virginia Steffen
This segment is filed in these categories: Hobbies • Champaign
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John O’Connor of Champaign served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. He was chosen as lead pilot with the first experimental flying unit aboard the B-24 Liberator. He flew 50 missions and also used his skills as a trumpeter and band director. Flying back from a mission, John and his crew would often pull out their instruments and play. O’Connor later became a member of the Medicare 7, 8 or 9 Jazz Band, performing around the country.
Segment duration: 04:46
Producer: Denise La Grassa
Chief Camera - Segment: Julius Bolton
This segment is filed in these categories: History • Music • World War II • Champaign
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The mission of 40 north/88 west is to nurture artists in Champaign County by fostering collaboration, and keeping them informed about opportunities and events. Producer Virginia Steffen introduces some of the artists who are part of 40 north and the work they are creating in central Illinois.
Segment duration: 06:45
Story links:
- 40 north/88 west
- David Raila
- Adriana Smith
- Georgia Morgan
- Deborah Fell
- Kim Allison
- Hyon Joo Kim
- Christine Main
- Burcu Okay
- Athan Chilton
Producer: Virginia Steffen
Chief Camera - Segment: Julius Bolton, David Noreen, Henry Radcliff, Virginia Steffen
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • Champaign • Champaign County • Urbana
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By producer Alison Davis Wood
I first met Chad Dunn when I was producing a story on another band that he plays with called Desifinado. After talking to him, I quickly realized that Chad should be his own story for Prairie Fire. His talents include hand crafting instruments that are used by Sting and members of Paul Simon’s band, and he teaches Brazilian percussion to young and old. But Chad is also a lover of trash. He looks at old bottles and paint drums and hears music. What also is incredible is that he inspires others to do the same.
Chad’s musical mission of keeping things out of landfills led to him forming Recycled Rhythms. The band is unlike anything you’ve seen before. It is part musical group, part perfomance art, part environmental activism. But most of all the band is fun to watch. You can’t help but move to the beat and maybe even join the band on stage with a pair of “dancing hands” (empty boxes with scrap paper attached).
Chad’s vision for the future of the band is that Recycled Rhythms will do extensive workshops within communities across the country. The group would help organize a community “clean-up” with a local school. Then Chad would work with school children to turn the items collected into musical instruments. They would teach the kids how to play tradtional Brazilian rhythms on the new instruments. All the work would result in a performance between the school children and Recycled Rhythms after which the instruments would be donated to the school.
I hope this story inspires people check out a performance of Recycled Rhythms or possibly make their own instruments. Maybe you will think twice before you throw something away ... there could be music in that old cereal box or coffee can. You just have to let it out!
Segment duration: 09:19
Story links:
Producer: Alison Davis Wood
Chief Camera - Segment: Julius Bolton, Brian Paris, Virginia Steffen
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • Music • Champaign
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The goal of Habitat for Humanity’s Champaign ReStore is to keep gently used furniture out of the landfill and also help people in need.
Segment duration: 06:49
Story links:
Producer: Virginia Steffen
This segment is filed in these categories: Business • Environment • Housing and Urban Renewal • Champaign
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When World War II broke out, Iris Nigg Lundin of Champaign left her small town in Minnesota and joined hundreds of other women in the newly formed Marine Corps women’s Reserve. She became one of the first four female navigation instructors.
Producer Denise La Grassa said that in her conversations with Lundin, she was impressed by the strength of this woman who left a secure life in Minnesota to join the ranks of the Marines, the toughest of the tough. “This was the first time many of these men who were her students had encountered a female instructor and she really held her own,” said La Grassa. “When I listened to her stories, I was moved by her description of how she went to bat for African-Americans on the military bases where she worked. She was brave enough to tell a higher-ranking officer that he shouldn’t be treating a steward in a demeaning manner. Later in her life, equality was very important to her.”
Segment duration: 07:39
Producer: Denise La Grassa
Editor: Eleanore Stasheff
This segment is filed in these categories: History • Military • World War II • Champaign
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