Please save Sat. March 6, 2021 for the BOTMC online Spring Sitch, featuring the Crankie Cabaret.
As always with the Spring Sitch, everything is FREE.
INTRODUCING THE CRANKIE CABARET!
As part of the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention’s SPRING SITCH - SATURDAY MARCH 6 2021 - we are featuring a Crankie Cabaret. At 4 pm PST (time subject to change), following a day of seminars, workshops and jams, the Crankie Cabaret will feature a variety of beautiful Crankies (including YOURS if you submit one!) in a Facebook Watch Party. Afterwards, stick around for some kickass old time dance music!
What’s a Crankie? It is an old storytelling art form, sometimes called a Panorama Box, popular in the 19th century. A long illustrated scroll is wound onto two spools. The spools are loaded into a box which has a viewing window. Then the scroll is hand-cranked while the story is told, or a tune is played or a song is sung. Crankies can be made in any size from a matchbox to a suitcase, out of paper, cloth, drawn, collaged, sewn, more! You have all winter to get creative.
Think of the unlimited possibilities of building crankies using everyday objects - cardboard, boxes, bike lights, suitcases, paper towels, wrapping paper, cereal boxes, shoe boxes, old tired instrument cases, etc.
You can find lots of information about crankies, including instructions for how to make one, at Sue Truman’s terrific website: http://www.thecrankiefactory.com/. Crankies are a great opportunity for artists and musicians to collaborate.
Guidelines for the Crankie Cabaret:
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You can use a previously constructed crankie, but the performance of the crankie should be especially for this event.
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Musical content: the music should be Old Time related. You can decide what that means.
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Do not use commercially released recordings. This is for copyright purposes. The music should be something that is created especially for the Crankie Cabaret, and it's fine if it's pre-recorded.
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Please start your video by saying that this crankie/video is for the Crankie Cabaret. You can add the name of the song, the crankie creator(s) and musicians, or anything else you want, of course!
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Time limit: 5 minutes, including spoken intro. Shorter is definitely okay.
Here's how to be part of the Crankie Cabaret: Upload your Crankie Video anytime between FEB 15 and MAR 4 to our Crankie Cabaret Facebook Group. To do this, you will need to join the FB group, which means you will need to have a FB account. Please note that this FB group will not accept videos before Feb. 15, 2021.
Once approved, it will be put in a queue for the Watch Party on March 6, 4pm pst / 7pm pst
If you don’t have a Facebook account, ask a friend if they would be willing to upload your video from their account.
Your video will not show up on the Facebook Group until it has been approved by one of the admins.
What an amazing experience to have the BOTMC online this year! Many thanks to all who attended and performed and taught and lectured and especially HUGE THANKS to our volunteers, who made the whole thing possible.
As appreciators and torch bearers of early American traditional music, the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention actively questions what it means to share this music in the context of systemic racism. We wish to acknowledge the immense contribution of Black and Indigenous musicians to the music presented by the BOTMC, in the past and in the present. We acknowledge the forces that have historically denied these contributions and that worked to sever their living connections to this music. We also acknowledge our own complicity in this oppression. As we play this music, we are reckoning with our history and present condition. We hope to build a road toward reparation.
We were very moved by the anti-racism statement which the Plaid Strangers crafted and incorporated into their concert set. The above was adapted from their statement.
Looking ahead, please SAVE THE DATES for next year's BOTMC: Sept. 21-26, 2021. We've invited all the performers who were going to play this year (that includes most of the musicians who are part of the 2020 Online BOTMC) to come next year instead.
