100G in arts grants

April 24, 2005 from nydailynews.com

Theater, music groups get new fed funds

...The Ollantay Center for the Arts was awarded $12,000 to help support the publication of their theater magazine, which is an international journal featuring the work of Latino playwrights and artists.

The Jackson Heights-based center also offers playwright workshops with well-known Latin American authors, and play reading programs to help local playwrights and a literature program dedicated exclusively to the promotion of local writers through conferences and panel discussions....

City's Pair of Aces

April 17, 2005 from nypost.com
By LINDSAY POWERS

...Kirill Skok, 17, and Konstantin Pozin, 16, both immigrants from the former Soviet Union, were among only 11 students in New York state who earned a top score. Nationwide, 107 students were perfect. ...

...Skok lives in Jackson Heights with his mother and grandmother. They moved to Queens from Kharkov, in northeast Ukraine, in 1997. He picked up English as a fourth-grade student in the public school system. ...

Spring Ambles in, Along With the Curious

April 14, 2005 from nytimes.com
By SHELLY FREIERMAN

...JACKSON HEIGHTS, QUEENS, JUNE 11 AND 12 On June 11 eight private gardens will be open from noon to 4 p.m. There will also be a display of historic photographs and illustrated lectures on the history of Jackson Heights at 10:45 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. On June 12, a guided tour will be offered starting at noon. Tickets for one tour, $10; both, $15. All events take place or begin at the Community Church, 35th Avenue and 82nd Street. Information: (718) 565-5344 or www.jhbg.org...

Urban: Sets and the city

April 7, 2005 from Newsday.com
by Martin Johnson

'Urban" is one of the silliest adjectives in the music industry, a business full of foolish terminology. The industry reserves the term for music that seems characteristic of the black neighborhoods (never mind, the large non-black, suburban constituencies enjoyed by many rappers and R&B singers), but most music reflects some part of the city in some way or another...

...Zap Mama's latest recording, "Ancestry in Progress" (Luaka Bop), is "urban" in the industry sense in that the group works with Ahmir Thompson and Richard Nichols of the Roots, and Erykah Badu makes a guest appearance, but to me the music is urbane, redolent of several city regions such as Jackson Heights, Flushing and the Lower East Side, that energetically bustle in different languages. Wednesday and Thursday, Zap Mama plays S.O.B.'s, 204 Varick St. Showtime is at 9; tickets are $22/$25 DOS. For more information, call 212-243-4940.

Bloomberg lauds Indian Americans

April 06, 2005 from netindia123.com
(IANS)

...At a reception hosted by the Jackson Heights Merchants' Association (JHMA), which represents Indian and South Asian owned businesses in the city's Jackson Heights area, Bloomberg also spoke of the community's prosperity....