Tag Archives: Institute of World Culture

Walt Whitman, Radical Patriot

I’ve posted now to YouTube the full length “Walt Whitman, Radical Patriot”. Below you may find YouTube links. There is also an audio interview from KCBX radio that plays directly from this page.

This play was first written and performed in 2004, as a free cultural event at the Santa Barbara Central Public Library. This filmed performance took place in 2005 at Victoria Hall Theatre, Santa Barbara, CA, due to generous support from Karuna Foundation and the Institute of World Culture. Special acknowledgment to Alison and Ernie Tamminga for videography and editing, and without whom there would be no living record of this event. Special thanks goes to fellow thespians Peter John Duda, Maria De La Vega Delgado, & James Colbert, who trusted me, and profoundly imbibed the exhilarating words and heart of a great American. “Walt Whitman, Radical Patriot” was honored with a Santa Barbara Independent Theater Award in 2006.

YouTube links:

Walt Whitman, Radical Patriot, Part 1

Walt Whitman, Radical Patriot, Part 2

KCBX interview with Joseph Miller, hosted by Marisa Waddell: Central Coast Forum, October 19, 2005.

“Walt Whitman, Radical Patriot” is a celebration of the life and words of
the American bard, coinciding with the sesquicentennial (2005) of the publication of “Leaves of Grass” (1855). Staged for four actors and multimedia, the play uses drama, humor, song, choral recitation, and movement to evoke Whitman’s great heart and sweeping vision. A collage of poetry and prose recitations is threaded together by a narrative line that follows his childhood, youth, artistic awakening, burst onto the literary scene, involvement in the Civil War (as a nurse), impressions of Lincoln, and broad views on faith.

Audio Interview with Fariba Enteshari 5-13-16

The Sufi Inspiration in Rumi’s Poetry

Presenter: Fariba Enteshari

Saturday, May 21, 2016 from 4:00 – 6:00 pm

The Institute of World Culture 1407 Chapala Street, Santa Barbara CA

Information at IWC website 805-966-3941

This recitation of and commentary on the poetry of the 13th century Sufi teacher, Jala ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, offers entry into a universal path to self-discovery and healing. By exploring the images, symbols and messages in Rumi’s poetry and stories, one can develop inner knowledge, spiritual insight and health, mental and physical.

Ian Ruskin audio interview, Feb. 2016

This week on DirecTalk Radio: Actor and writer Ian Ruskin as Thomas Paine speaks with Joseph Miller.

Anglo-American actor IAN RUSKIN trained at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and performed in England for 15 years. He came to Los Angeles in 1985 and worked primarily in television; usually guest starring as the intelligent bad guy in shows such as “Murder She Wrote”, “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” and “MacGyver”. This work paid the rent but did not in any way fulfill his dream as a student at RADA – to work in plays that would affect an audience. A pivotal moment arrived in 1994 while playing the lead in Rob Sullivan’s Strike Story: The Harry Bridges Story. A rehearsed reading before the ILWU, the renowned labor leader’s own union, was capped by a ten-minute standing ovation. Some years later Ruskin put his hand to writing and recording radio documentaries and one-man plays, including From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks, which was eventually directed and filmed for PBS by the legendary Academy Award-winning cameraman, the late Haskell Wexler.

In 2010 Ruskin received a COLA [City of Los Angeles] Fellowship to write To Begin the World Over Again: the Life of Thomas Paine, and has toured over 60 performances to date, including Harvard Law School, The American Philosophical Society, the ACLU, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. What’s more, a film adaptation (Wexler’s final project, before passing away at 92), narrated by Elliot Gould, is now complete and will be featured on PBS nationwide later this year. Ruskin brings his play to Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon February 13 for one performance at the Faulkner Gallery at the Central Public Library. The performance is free, and hosted by The Institute of World Culture.

Henry David Thoreau – Still in the Mail: Messages from the Imagination

This week we air a lecture presented by Joseph Miller at the Institute of World Culture in Santa Barbara on May 31, 2014.

The Institute of World Culture was co-founded in Santa Barbara in 1976, the United States

Henry David Thoreau

bicentennial year, by visionary philosopher Raghavan Iyer and his wife, Nandini, both professors at UC Santa Barbara at the time.

For nearly forty years the IWC has presented seminars, lectures, performances and study groups with the aim of promoting universal fellowship through understanding. “A world culture,” states its declaration, “is greater than the sum of its parts.”

This lecture is entitled, “Henry David Thoreau—Still in the Mail: Messages from the Imagination,” and centers on Thoreau’s first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and his correspondence with Harrison Blake.