Listen Live on KKFI
Every Thursday at 7:00pmAbout the Show
Thursday Night Special
Thursday nights are special!
First Thursday: Jasmine Jones hosts Next Step Forward, a spotlight on millennials of Kansas City who are within a marginalized group, but are using their talents, business, activism etc. to help bring positivity within their communities. This program exists to be a place that is inclusive, safe, fun, inspirational and educational not only for the listeners but for the guest as well.
Second Thursday: Shots in the Night radio theatre; hosted and produced by various members of Shots In The Night. In 2023 SITN has received seven awards for podcast productions in the 9th Annual Hear Now Audio Fiction and Arts Festival produced by the National Audio Theatre Festivals, Inc.
Third Thursday: People Power Hour, brought to you by KC Tenants, hosts a rotation of speakers featuring members and leaders from KC Tenants and other tenant unions across the country to analyze, inform, and inspire listeners about the power of tenant unions in America. Every episode will showcase a different lesson about tenant unions and America's problematic history with housing by providing in-depth historical analysis, testimonials and stories from leaders who organized in their communities, and collectively brainstorming a vision for a better world where housing is treated as a human right.
Fourth Thursday: Sirisha Naidu and Taki Manolakos host Economics For the People, a journey to explore the transformative power of economics when it is harnessed for the working classes, to advance social justice, and to create an inclusive and equitable society. It is an open invitation to participate in collectively shaping and reimagining an economy that prioritizes the needs and aspirations of the working classes, marginalized communities, and individuals of different gender expressions, sexualities, and abilities. The show features diverse voices, experiences and perspectives that often remain unheard in mainstream conversations about economics, markets and numbers.
Fifth Thursday: The provocative "From Ark to Microchip", produced by Dwight Frizzell, mixes commentary, dramatic re-enactment, original music, historic voices, audio art and sound effects in a pan-historical, pan-cultural milieu. Programs in the program series have received several awards.
Note: These programs may be preempted by special presentations.
Artspeak Radio + Artful Poetry, Shawn Stewart, Elizabeth Kirsch, & Christopher Leitch
Artspeak Radio, Wednesday, noon – 1pm CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio, streaming live audio www.kkfi.org
Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd welcomes Artful Poetry contest winners Emily Wilder, Abigail DuMont, & Ari Shanahan, musician Shawn Stewart, art historian/curator/writer Elizabeth Kirsch, and artist Christopher Leitch.
Winners of the 2023 Artful Poetry Contest Share Their Poems!
Artful Poetry, an Open Doors Spotlight on Youth Initiative, allowed students from the Kansas City area the opportunity to perform their poetry at the Kauffman Center’s Future Stages Festival on June 11, 2023. Local youth writers submitted their original poems to a panel of local professional poets, artists and writers.
Check out the winners of our 2023 contest and links to their winning poems below:
10 and Under Category
1. Maha’era Neil Aggarwal
2. Laura Zhekah Downum
3. Loren Gillete
11 and Up Category
1. Emily Wilder
2. Abigail DuMont
3. Ari Shanahan
SHAWN STEWART started playing music in Kansas City after he moved here from Chicago in 1991. His band, “Tin Roof Echo” played venues around town through 1993 when he retired to the suburbs to raise a family as a “stay at home dad.” In 2014, after his kids were grown, he moved to midtown to pick up where he left off. He released four albums under the moniker, “JohnnySuperColossal” and released his newest album on all platforms-6.10.23
Published songwriter. #4 song of 2020; #1 of 2021 on The Bridge.
www.shawnstewart.com
ELIZABETH KIRSCH is an art historian, curator, and writer who has curated over 100 exhibitions of contemporary art, American Indian art and photography, locally and across the country. She writes frequently for national and local arts publications.
CHRISTOPHER LEITCH- I am a visual artist working with unpredictable methods and various media. The content and images of my works are determined by chance occurrences and random processes, and I never know what anything’s going to look like. This uncertainty is liberating and invigorating.
I live and work near Kansas City, Missouri. My works have been widely exhibited and toured: “Explicit Content” with the cu46 project; “Lost Words” at Northwind Art, Port Townsend, WA; “Ink & Clay 45” at the Kellog University Art Gallery,California Polytechnic Pomona; “Fiber as Metaphor” at Gallery Fritz, Santa Fe; “word” at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art; “True Stories” at Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art; “Men of the Cloth”, curated by poet Stephen Beal at the Loveland Museum in Loveland, Colorado (with catalogue); the Boston Society for Arts and Crafts; the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design, Asheville, North Carolina; Plymouth State College, NH; the Kansas City Jewish Museum; the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center; McAlester College Gallery of Art; Jan Weiner Gallery; and many others. I have designed costumes for private collections and public productions including The Paul Mesner Puppets’ presentations of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado and Mark Twain’s very naughty 1601. Hear me talk about my work on the radio here and here.
Publications featuring reviews and discussions of my work include: The Hand magazine, issue #25; Ley Lines, H. L. Hix, curator, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Canada; Drawing from Life, Jennifer New, ed. The Princeton Architectural Press; New Art Examiner; Art in America; Fashion Theory; American Craft; the International Textile Design Directory. I have written for ArtPapers Atlanta, New Art Examiner and Ceramics: Art and Perception.
I was lead author of “LGBTQ Welcoming Guidelines for Museums: developing a resource for the museum field” in Museums and Social Issues, and a contributing author with Renae Youngs to companion article“Diversity in Museum Hiring” Museum Magazine. I have presented papers for the American Alliance of Museums, Alliance of Midwest Museums, the Hall Center for the Humanities and the Canadian Museums Association.
I served as Assistant Dean at Kansas City Art Institute, as a consulting curator with the Center for Creative Studies, University of Missouri-Kansas City, and as director of Kansas City Museum. I have been a visiting lecturer and instructor at many schools across the US.
I earned an MA in Visual Arts from Goddard College in Vermont and my BFA from Kansas City Art Institute. I attended the University of Oklahoma for three years.
www.christopherleitchstudio.net
