Nevada Arts Council, Nevada Humanities team for ‘Shaken and Stirred’

CARSON CITY, Nevada (October 8, 2019) – In celebration of National Arts & Humanities Month, the Nevada Arts Council and Nevada Humanities are teaming up for Shaken & Stirred – An Arts & Humanities Mixer.

“Shaken and Stirred” consists of two lectures – one in Reno and one in Las Vegas – where speakers work to find common ground while discussing two entirely unrelated topics. Each speaker gets 10 minutes to teach the audience something about their particular topic and the audience seeks to find the commonalities between the two and ask questions that join everything together.

“National Arts & Humanities Month offers time for reflection around the significant impact creativity and culture have on our state,” said Tony Manfredi, executive director of the Nevada Arts Council. “We are pleased to “mix” with Nevada Humanities around Shaken & Stirred and look forward to more partnerships together that highlight Nevada creativity.”

The Reno event, titled “Optical Illusions and Illegal Dancing,” is Wednesday, Oct. 16 at Plaza Maya, 1644 S. Wells Ave. It is scheduled to run from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Gideon Caplovitz, a cognitive neuroscientist who researches the principles and neural mechanisms that underlie how we visually experience the world, speaks on the topic of optical illusion.

Caplovitz received his doctoral degree in cognitive neuroscience from Dartmouth College and did post-doctoral training at Princeton University. He has more than 20 years of pre-graduate, graduate and post-graduate experience researching the brain using a combination of behavioral and non-invasive neuroimaging techniques.

Louis Niebur, an associate professor of musicology at the University of Nevada, Reno, will speak on illegal dancing.

Niebur’s research fields include avant-garde and popular music of the post-war era, including music in radio, television and film, and the significance of popular music to LGBTQ communities, particularly as it has shifted between live music, the jukebox and the disc jockey in the context of queer spaces.

The Las Vegas event, “Uniform Work and Aesthetic Entanglement,” takes place Wednesday, Oct. 23 at Nevada Humanities Program Gallery, 1017 S. First St., Ls Vegas. It runs from 6:30 to 8 p.m. and is free.

Brittany Bronson, a writer and hospitality worker based in Las Vegas, will discuss uniform work.  Her essays and journalism have appeared in The Guardian, The Times of London, and the New York Times, where she contributes as an op-ed writer. Her work centers on working-class issues and income inequality. She has received awards and recognitions from the Nevada Arts Council, The Pinch Literary Awards, TalkPoverty.org, and Vegas Seven magazine.

Gig Depio, who speaks on the topic of aesthetic entanglement, is a Las Vegas-based painter whose work focuses on American culture and its history. Among the themes he explores are the exploration of the unfamiliar west, its expansion of influence across the globe and the inevitable interweaving of many different cultures. He has exhibited across the state and internationally, including the Nevada Museum of Art, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Reno, the Clark County Winchester Cultural Center Gallery, Las Vegas, the National Commission for Culture and Arts in Manila, Philippine (2018), the 58th Venice Biennale, Giudecca Art District, Venice, Italy (2019), and Three Works Gallery in Scarborough, Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

Gov. Steve Sisolak, in his proclamation for Arts & Humanities Month, touted the arts community’s contribution to both the economic and cultural health of the state.

“The arts and humanities enhance and enrich the lives of every citizen of the Silver State,” the proclamation reads.