#NL2B 2015 Liverpool: Enter the Dragon + Freedom Art #Umbrellas for Chinese New Year

Dear Friends

On the 19th Feb 2015, we celebrated the first day of Chinese New Year of the Ram with an intimate evening and took the opportunity to host this year’s #NL2B 2015 Nothing Left2Burn a bit earlier since  the section of #NL2B 2014 scheduled inside the Bombed out church was cancelled because of the weather  last year.

• The Venue: Bombed Out Church Liverpool was endorsed by Paul Sir McCartney in 2014

Before we begin, we would like to commend Ambrose Reynolds on his work as the Venue Curator of the newly revamped St. Lukes. It was a difficult year for the Bombed Out Church during 2014. It was the subject of a great deal of media attention.

As Cecilia boarded her plane from Florence Italy in March 2014, she received a message that almost 25,000 concerned individuals had signed a petition to “Save the Bombed out church” from potentially being sold as a Boutique Wedding Venue to private investors. The events that unfolded subsequently was a media whirlwind spanning many continents and most of it occurred via Social Media.

Many from Liverpool volunteered to support Urban Strawberry Lunch, below are some of the newspaper articles covering the issue:

Quote from the website of Sir Paul McCartney : “The people of Liverpool should do everything possible to keep this venue open for the use of the people and run by the people. It is a place that is regularly staffed by students from LIPA and every-day people of all ages, religions and backgrounds. It would be a terrible shame if we lost this cultural icon.” The singer joins the likes of Yoko Ono in lending support to the cause.

Sir Paul McCartney supports the Bombed Out

With the Stars and Citizens Power that gathered to protect the beloved Historic Venue, a year later during #NL2B , it was finally confirmed that in 2015, works will begin to preserve the historic building. St. Lukes will be maintained as an artist-led venue to promote creative freedoms locally and internationally. ( 150K Preservation of Bombed Out Church )

So it is with a great sense of relief that  Cecilia and Ambrose talked about the future of the Bombed out church as we brought in Chinese New Year of the Ram in 2015. The next day after our #NL2B Chinese New Year art event and celebration, Ambrose made the announcement with the BBC by radio.

Everyone can still support the Preservation of Bombed out Church by Crowdfunder:

• The Art Installation is a tribute to the spirit of “Freedom” by Kel1st and Yu

Rough Sketch concepted via New Media, Kel1st and Yu, #NL2B 2015

During Hong Kong Pro-democracy protest, a 15 yrs old girl was arrested as a vandal for drawing a flower and an umbrella with chalk on the “John Lennon Wall” in Admiralty, Hong Kong, 2014

•  “The Life of Bruce Lee” and “Enter the Dragon” were the features at the Open Air Cinema

(c) Enter the Dragon

• Students from Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts LIPA helped with the art installation and many volunteers helped to provide drinks, coffee, open bar and served dim sums to guests.

The Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts LIPA was founded by Sir Paul McCartney and Mark Featherstone-Witty .  There is also a LIPA Open Free School to provide education for future creative innovators. Because of the New York Graffiti based Art partnership between Kel1st and Yu, we were genuinely entertained and moved by the story that LIPA was inspired by the New York High School for the Performing Arts in the movie “Fame“.

It feels like we are all in the same creative global family, that the underground culture in New York (instrumental to the plot of Fame), became an inspiration for a performing school co-founded by a member of the Beatles which decades later, had its young volunteers, participate in an Art installation co-concepted by the very artist whose life embodied the art/cultural ethos  that defined “Fame” in New York.

Randy Rodriguez (Kel1st), one of the 1st child-star of NYC graffiti, could certainly identify with the themes in the movie that imitated his and his peers’ lives. He remembered the social and personal obstacles he overcame in the meeting where he presented his art portfolio to Parson Design school’s Admissions panel and he was told,”We do not do this type of art here, young man.”

His response was: “I am willing to learn new things. How about this? You kick me out if I fail any of my first year classes?”

Interestingly, Cecilia remembered being told off for using spray cans in her study room at home, as her traditional chinese calligraphy roots meant that there were fears of stylistic bad habits from her private art tutor. So all she could do was watch re-runs of  Fame on TV as a child and thought,”I will try this when I get older.”

Through hours of discussion with Kel1st, Cecilia was told in no unequivocal terms that part of the reason why he was able to transcend class/race based limitations to break through with his art and go on to study at Parson’s Design school was because he saw a hero and a role-model in the creative works of Mr.Bruce.Lee. Hong Kong Cinema challenged many racial stereotypes against Asians, further more “Enter the Dragon” promoted de-segregation and civil rights movements in the USA.

#NL2B Nothing Left2Burn would not exist without Cecilia’s connection to those who are part of the Liverpool-sounds and instrumental in the Punk movement. Again in a cyclical synergy, the first #NL2B was arranged in order to honor posthumously the lifetime cinematic contribution of Ms. Eva.Monley who was Cecilia’s creative mentor for over a decade and a close friend of the Director of “Enter the Dragon” Mr.Robert.Clouse.

As Ambrose repeated,”We are all ONE creative family whether we accept it or not.”

As artists, our creative lives can often be more serendipitous than any fictional movie and these are things that cannot be copied, plagiarised or imitated. When we are all respectful of the higher callings of our arts, many events can feel  like PURE Creative Karmic Synergy! 

So our thanks go to the volunteers from LIPA, their names are:

Ashley True, Nicole Robinson and Ann-Marie Stearn !

XXOO

May the creative arts force be with you all in your future as artists and thank you for helping us execute “Freedom” from a mere sketch created from the brain-waves of Kel1st and Yu telephone chats to a physical artistic reality that many photographed and enjoyed !

• We want to thank the Sifu and his school at Hung Gar Martial Arts school in Liverpool for performing the incredible Dragon dance with the 2 dancing Lions at the end of the screening of “Enter the Dragon”.

• The classic Chinese Calligraphy of Ms. Audrey Eu was part of the projected Art of #NL2B 2015 (Nothing Left to Burn ) with a message of encouragement to those who participated in the peaceful Umbrella protest of Hong Kong in 2014.

2 comments on “#NL2B 2015 Liverpool: Enter the Dragon + Freedom Art #Umbrellas for Chinese New Year”

1. EmileGlennyiz

   May 24, 2015

   

   hi thanks for letting me know about free themes so I want to give you these free PageRank backlinks info back!
   It’s better to own them because paying for them is too expensive. I know how to do that, just google it:
   Polswor’s Backlinks Source! Have fun!

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • ceciliawyu

     May 25, 2015

     

     Thank you Emile! 🙂

     LikeLike

     Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

Δ