About the author
Sam Kerson is known to his friends as the, Unknown American Artist, even more so since he moved to Quebec fifteen years ago. Kerson never goes to New York or to L.A. He never applies for a NEA grant or a Guggenheim or a state grant either. He never knocks on the doors of corporations or wins prestigious prizes. He is nonetheless the founder of Dragon Dance Theatre and has been the artistic director since 1976. He does work regularly, as a theatre director, in remote parts of Mexico and in various parts of Europe. He has been active in international exchange since he worked with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the late eighties.
What’s more he has been a prolific journalist since he went to Goddard in 1969. He has written about everything and everyone that he was involved with; the Argentines, The Nicaraguans, Cuba right after the oil stopped coming from Russia, 1990, Mexico, especially Oaxaca and Mexican mythologies. He was an election observer in Guatemala at the end of the genocidal wars of the eighties. He has written about his work and experience in Slovakia and France and Belgium and Finland. All of these journals often accompanied by drawings or colorful pastels are here in the Dragon Dance house in Quebec.
Starting last year in 2014 Sam and his wife Katah have started to study the materials and extract the scenes they want to make into books. Last year we produced Brigadistas, one day in the life of a cultural worker in Nicaragua in the eighties. This year we have produced Green Turtle Soup and other stories, featuring a dramatic account of the elections in Nicaragua in 1990. Sam Kerson and G. Roy Levin painted a giant mural in Masaya, Nicaragua during the elections. The experience shared in this book was harrowing but also very enlightening. In this book we see and share Kerson’s special appreciation for the other culture and another way of being. We see how it is that cultural exchange has become the principle idea of Sam Kerson’s artistic practice.
Sam Kerson is known to his friends as the, Unknown American Artist, even more so since he moved to Quebec fifteen years ago. Kerson never goes to New York or to L.A. He never applies for a NEA grant or a Guggenheim or a state grant either. He never knocks on the doors of corporations or wins prestigious prizes. He is nonetheless the founder of Dragon Dance Theatre and has been the artistic director since 1976. He does work regularly, as a theatre director, in remote parts of Mexico and in various parts of Europe. He has been active in international exchange since he worked with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the late eighties.
What’s more he has been a prolific journalist since he went to Goddard in 1969. He has written about everything and everyone that he was involved with; the Argentines, The Nicaraguans, Cuba right after the oil stopped coming from Russia, 1990, Mexico, especially Oaxaca and Mexican mythologies. He was an election observer in Guatemala at the end of the genocidal wars of the eighties. He has written about his work and experience in Slovakia and France and Belgium and Finland. All of these journals often accompanied by drawings or colorful pastels are here in the Dragon Dance house in Quebec.
Starting last year in 2014 Sam and his wife Katah have started to study the materials and extract the scenes they want to make into books. Last year we produced Brigadistas, one day in the life of a cultural worker in Nicaragua in the eighties. This year we have produced Green Turtle Soup and other stories, featuring a dramatic account of the elections in Nicaragua in 1990. Sam Kerson and G. Roy Levin painted a giant mural in Masaya, Nicaragua during the elections. The experience shared in this book was harrowing but also very enlightening. In this book we see and share Kerson’s special appreciation for the other culture and another way of being. We see how it is that cultural exchange has become the principle idea of Sam Kerson’s artistic practice.