Hoffman Center Blog

This is where you’ll find the latest announcements for our workshops, art camps for kids, the authors presenting at the Manzanita Writers’ Series, as well as other performances in music, magic, and theater.

To see what’s coming up, simply scroll down this page to see all the latest posts.  Or, if you are looking for something specific click on a category (from the list on the right hand side of the screen), and you’ll see all the posts relating to that topic

Along the top of the page, you’ll see additional tabs for more information about the Hoffman Center (just pull down the menu at each tab to get the info you want.)  Enjoy finding out more about us, and we hope to see you soon.

Dance instructor, Joyce Edelstein (pictured in orange shirt), with a recent class of young dancers

Preschool Dance with instructor Joselyn Edelstein

4 week class in February
Tuesdays 2-3pm
$40 for all 4 (can make weekly payments, but it is not a drop in class)
older children ok with instructor approval

Jocelyn Edelstein has studied modern dance, hip hop,kundalini yoga, Afro Brazilian Folkloric Dance and Capoeria for the past 10years.  Edelstein’s studies have taken her from Oregon to Brazil and back again where she has taught classes and workshops for ages ranging from 3 to 80 years old.  Edelstein is the founder of the Urban Body Project, a multi-media organization that explores the relationship between dance and community.  UBP is currently in post production for their upcoming feature length documentary, Believe The Beat. More info on her classes can be found at www.danceharvest.com.

Class Description: Intro to Dance for Kids!

This class for beginners will introduce basic movement derived from various styles, including ballet, modern, hip hop and Brazilian folkloric dance forms. Our class will use dance, games and imagination to explore movement concepts and rhythm. The class is open to pre-school children ages 3-4. Please wear clothing that is comfortable to move in. Dance shoes optional. Water bottle recommended.

 Introduction to Stage with instructor Annie Naranjo-Rivera

4 week class in February
Wednesdays 2-3pm
$40 for all 4 (can make weekly payments, but it is not a drop in class)
older children ok with instructor approval

Annie Naranjo-Rivera has taught both visual and performing arts classes for over 10 years. She has been blessed with the opportunities to act, direct, stage manage, choreograph, and participate in costume and set design for numerous note worthy children’s theaters for over 10 years. Naranjo-Rivera currently runs the drama program for Nea-kah-nie Middle School, where the children are preparing to put on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz this upcoming spring.In addition, Naranjo-Rivera has taught everything from playwriting, to improvisational acting, to voice with children of all ages in both Clatsop and Tillamook counties. Naranjo-Rivera runs the Hoffman Center’s Art and Drama Camp for Kids, which will be headed into it’s fourth summer this year. Information about past classes and theater performances can be found at hoffmanblog.org by selecting Art Camp and Drama Camp categories.

Class Description: Intro to the Stage for Kids!

This entry level class will allow kids to play and explore the imaginary world of the stage. We will learn about storytelling, costumes and make some of our own props to tell famous stories.Each child will learn to develop their own unique “voice” on the stage and have a blast doing it. We will practice movement, singing with instruments, will play improvisational acting games and possibly make up some games of our own! This class is open to pre-school children ages 3-4.Please wear clothing that is comfortable to move in. Water bottle recommended.

If a child is enrolled in both classes there is a $10 discount–$70 for both.

Complete the Spring Dance and Drama Brochure to register and mail it to PO Box 678 Manzanita 97130.

The shop is looking great (some “new” work tables! more organized type & spacing!) and Sarah is excited to offer two workshops in February: one beginning and one intermediate. Call or email her a.s.a.p. to reserve your space.  Also please let her know if you would like to participate in one (or both) but the date doesn’t work for you; she may be able to reschedule if enough concur. And of course feel free to contact her with any questions you have about letterpress.  She can be reached at accidentalpress at gmail.com or (503) 739-1939.

LETTERPRESS FUNDAMENTALS

Sunday, February 5th 2012
11am – 5pm with break for lunch
$65 (includes all materials)

In this workshop we will collaboratively print a poster on the Vandercook no. 2 galley proof press, learning typesetting, hand inking technique, & shop procedure in the process, plus a little typography & color theory. Participants will take home their own print or two and thereafter be qualified to use the proof press– perfect for printing linoleum and wood image blocks as well as moveable type– during supervised open studio hours.

INTERMEDIATE LETTERPRESS

Saturday, February 11th 2012
10 am – 5pm with break for lunch
$80 (incudes all materials)

This class is for those who have taken Letterpress Fundamentals (or ANY workshop from me in the past) and would like to learn to operate the Chandler and Price platen job press (or refresh their muscle memory). By designing and printing a postcard together, participants will advance their typesetting skills, learn to lock up the form, pack & ink the press, & troubleshoot until achieving ideal registration and impression. Participants will go home with an edition of at least 20 beautiful postcards and will thereafter be qualified to use the job press for their own projects during supervised open studio hours.

~ immerse yourself in letterpress and save $10 by taking both workshops in succession: $135 tuition for both. ~

Northwest Film & Video Festival screens on January 27, 7:30

The Hoffman Center’s Manzanita Film Series will host a showing of “The Best of the 37th Northwest Film & Video Festival” at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 27. Admission is $7 and snack concessions will be available for purchase.

The collection of short films was selected by the Northwest Film Center of Portland from its annual juried film festival. The total running time is 82 minutes.

The films to be screened are “Savage” by Lisa Jackson, Vancouver; “Into Darkness” by John Waller, Portland; “Mumbles” by Rick Raxien, Victoria; “Robier Talks About Life, Part 28” by Jim Lowry, Portland; “Shut Up and Ride” by Michael Ward, Portland; “The Thomas Beale Cipher” by Andrew S. Allen, Seattle; “My Voyage to Egypt” by Ian Berry, Portland; “Crossings” by Brian Libby, Portland; “Dear Peter” by Orland Nutt of Portland; and “The True Believers” by Nathaniel Bennett, Medford.

The Manzanita Film Series is a program of the Hoffman Center in Manzanita. Films are screened monthly throughout the year. The Center is located at 594 Laneda Ave.

Ismet Prcic kicks off the 2012 Manzanita Writers' Series season with a reading from his novel, Shards.

Ismet Prcic will read from his novel Shards at the Manzanita Writers’ Series at 7pm on Saturday, February 18, 2012 at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita. This event kicks of the 2012 series, now in its fourth year.

Also at the Saturday event, we’ll unveil the first edition of the new literary journal, the North Coast Squid, with selections from a variety of writers who have a connection to the local area.

Shards is a novel about a young Bosnian, also named Ismet Prcic, who has fled his war-torn homeland and is now struggling to reconcile his past with his present life in California.

It’s a harrowing war story, a stunningly original coming-of-age novel, and a heartbreaking saga of a splintered family. Shards has been listed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Chicago Sun-Times Best Book of the Year, an Oregonian Top 10 Northwest Book of the Year, and shortlisted for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award and the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize.

Prcic has gotten positive reviews for his first novel:

“Prcic captures the insanity of war and its unceasing aftermath.” – Publisher’s Weekly.

“Impressive . . . Inventive . . . Pushes against convention, logic, chronology . . . Ambitious and deep . . . [Prcic] succeeds at writing an unsettling and powerful novel.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Irresistible . . . Fierce, funny, and real.”—Chicago Sun-Times

Ismet Prcic (ISS-met PER-sick) or Izzy as he prefers, was born in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1977 and immigrated to America in 1996. He holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and was the recipient of a 2010 NEA Award for fiction. He is also a 2011 Sundance Screenwriting Lab fellow. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife.

Following Prcic’s reading and Q&A, we’ll have our popular Open Mic where up to nine local writers will read 5 minutes of their original work.

Admission for the evening is $7.

Dr. Iced Tea and the Lemon Tarts (Tarts not pictured) performed "A Tribute to the BBQ" in October 2011. What will they come up with this time?

The Hoffman Center in Manzanita will host its third Community Talent Showcase Saturday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. The event will feature a variety of acts put on by local citizens.

“Our previous two shows were so well received, we had to do another one,” said Center president David Dillon. “We’re looking for singers, musicians, actors, orators, or almost anything. We know there’s a lot talent in this community.”

Auditions will be held Wednesday, Jan. 18, from 5 to 8 p.m., at the Center to select 12-15 acts that show a particular skill or originality. The acts should be suitable for all ages and be no more than five minutes long.

Admission to the Jan. 21 show will be $10. All proceeds will go to support the Center’s general operating fund.

Print off the CTS Performer Registration form and bring it to the audition. Questions can be e-mailed to hoffmancenter@nehalemtel.net or phoned to 503-368-3846.

Kathryn Claire in concert on Friday, January 6

 Following a phenomenal performance with Hanz Araki in October, singer-songwriter Kathryn Claire will return to the Hoffman Center on Friday, January 6th for a solo show. Kathryn will be playing from her latest solo release Morning Comes Too Soon.  Admission is $7.

Kathryn Claire has asserted herself in a new generation of traditionally-inspired musicians. Her violin-playing exhibits a technical grace which is matched only by her truly captivating voice and she possesses the rare ability to move seamlessly across genres. Her deep love and respect for traditional music has long been a driving influence and those roots can be heard in her own original music.

Kathryn released her third solo album, Morning Comes Too Soon, in April 2011. It features Jeff Baxter on piano, Jules Holbrook on bass and Scott McPherson on drums with guest performances by Hanz Araki, Ezra Holbrook, Andrew Lorish, Matthew Hayward-Macdonald and Skip Von Kuske.

The album was recorded in an intense few days at the Secret Society in Portland, Oregon (with engineer Jordan Leff and co-producer Andrew Lorish) and has a very live, dynamic quality. Explored in the 10 tracks are themes of transition, loss and discovery. The songs retain the narrative and personal quality that she is known for while allowing a more mature sound to develop around them.

“Claire’s tunes bridge a personal presence with traditional folk style, and solid contemporary acoustic guitar. Lyrical melodies, and a heart-full folk soprano reminiscent of Baez” – HipFish

www.kathrynclairemusic.com

The Hoffman Center will host the first northern Oregon screening of the independent film “Opal the Movie” Saturday, Nov. 26 at 7:30 p.m. The 2010 feature tells the story of Oregon self-taught nature writer Opal Whiteley.
Raised in a Cottage Grove logging camp, Whiteley catapulted to fame with the publication of her childhood diary in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1920, then to infamy when readers suspected a hoax.
The film explores the mystery behind a woman whose life sparked both admiration and controversy. It rides the tension between fact and fiction, and presents a character that embodies the possibilities of both.
Whiteley died in 1992 at age 94.
Written and directed by Diane Ciaulo, “Opal” premiered at the 2010 Mill Valley (California) Film Festival.
Following the Hoffman Center presentation, Ciaulo will hold a Q&A session with the audience via Skype.

The Hoffman Center will host a four-week “Introduction to Family History” course in January. Class sessions will be held on Tuesdays, Jan. 10, 17, 24 and 31, from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. in the Hoffman House Studios next to the Manzanita Library. The tuition will be $40 for all four classes.

Instructor Karen Merrill Martin has been doing genealogy research for over 20 year. She holds a Certificate in Genealogical Studies from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies affiliated with the University of Toronto.

Martin published her first family history book in 2010 and was recently named first runner-up in a family history writing contest sponsored by Family Tree Magazine and Abbott Press.

“Family history can be many things,” said Martin. “From ‘I just want to put a scrapbook together of these old photos,’ to a scholarly text with footnotes and charts, to a novelized version of an ancestor’s life story.”

This class will offer students ideas on where to start, and help them decide where to go from there. Topics will include organizing files, protecting documents, researching vital records, making courthouse trips, and finding online resources.

“We will also discuss how to keep track of your family and your research either by hand or computer,” said Martin. “Whether you are a beginner or someone with more experience, there will be lots to learn in this class.”

For more information, contact Martin directly at kmmartin@nehalemtel.net.  Download the Genealogy_Class_Registration_Form here.

The Hoffman Center is your community arts center, and we’re eager to grow our programming to meet your needs.  Please take a few minutes to fill out our short survey regarding Hoffman Center programming for Adult Visual Arts Classes. We appreciate your feedback and suggestions to help improve the Hoffman Center and its offerings!

Click here to get started:  http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e4p33df8grsoiw9s/start

New York Times Bestselling author Chelsea Cain will read from her latest book The Night Season at 7 pm Saturday November 5.

Caine’s Portland-based thrillers, described by The New York Times as “steamy and perverse,” have been published in over 30 languages, recommended on “The Today Show,” appeared in episodes of HBO’s “True Blood” and ABC’s “Castle,” named among Stephen King’s top ten favorite books of the year, and included in NPR’s list of the top 100 thrillers ever written. According to Booklist, “Popular entertainment just doesn’t get much better than this.”

So how did this “Queen of serial-killer fiction” (Kirkus Reviews) get into writing gory books? Here’s the start of an explanation.

“In retrospect I always had a fascination with the macabre.

It started with the pet cemetery. A kitten of mine was hit by a car and I buried her in an elaborate ceremony under the Rhododendron bush in our front yard in Bellingham, Washington. Months later, I came across a dead bird. I picked it up, put it in my lunchbox, carried it home and buried it under the Rhododendron.

Eventually kids in the neighborhood started hearing about the cemetery and would appear at my door cradling their dead pets. By the end of that year I had buried fifteen birds, three cats, a hamster, a rabbit, a chicken, and about a dozen gold fish. Each corpse was laid in a shoebox, cushioned with toilet paper, and presented with a piece of costume jewelry from a collection that someone had given me. I would then bury the box and say a few words to whoever was present. I had a special vintage ladies hat I would wear for the occasion. It was black, with white silk flowers piled on it, and a torn black net veil.

I was not an ordinary child.”

Get the idea that Cain won’t be an “ordinary reader?” To find out more about how the Green River Killer, Nancy Drew and TV cops shows headed Cain down the path of gory thrillers join us on November 5.

After Chelsea’s reading and Q&A we’ll have our popular Open Mic focused on the theme of “It was a dark and stormy night” at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita.

Admission for the evening is $5.

The weekend is a joint event of the Manzanita Writers’ Series/Hoffman Center and the Manzanita Business Alliance, and is made possible in part by a grant from the Tillamook County Cultural Coalition.