Arts and Culture in Mississippi

The beauty of Mississippi’s land and waterways is perhaps only exceeded by the creative contributions of its native and adopted sons and daughters. Could it be is the rich Delta clay that promotes a fertile imagination, the need to create, and the determination to succeed that characterize the successful creative artist? Whatever it may be, Mississippi arts and culture is strong and vast as the mighty river that shares the state's name. HIGH ARTS One of the world’s most prestigious dance events, the USA International Ballet Competition put Mississippi on the map in terms of ballet. The competition, founded by noted teacher and author Thalia Mara, is on a par with the Varna (Bulgaria) and Moscow competitions, and thereby attracts dancers from around the world. The associated two-week summer class session gives local students the opportunity to train with top-notch teachers from all over the world. No commentary on dance in Mississippi would be complete without a nod to Mara. Raised in Chicago, she danced professionally in New York and Paris, relocating to Jackson to develop a new ballet company. Though she retired from running that company six years later, her dedication to promoting quality in Mississippi performing arts was so steadfast, the city of Jackson named its main performance venue Thalia Mara Hall in 1994. Ballet Mississippi, a professional school, performs the classic Nutcracker every Christmas season.Ballet Magnificat tours throughout the U.S. and abroad. Tupelo boasts its own Tupelo Ballet, which performs and presents well-known American guest artists and companies. The regional Mississippi Metropolitan Ballet presents one ballet per year. In 1945, the Jackson Opera Guild was founded to bring this thrilling art form to state audiences. Rechristened Mississippi Opera in 1970, it now presents two to three performances a year and has hosted such guest artists as Renee Fleming, Beverly Sills, and Montserrat Caballe. You can also find opera at the Natchez Festival of Music, which presents one opera and one musical theater show in its main stage productions each year. Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, which held its first performance in 1944, terms itself the largest performing arts organization in the state. Composed of musicians from Mississippi and neighboring states, the orchestra performs classical and pops concerts in its Jackson home and in venues around the state. The symphony also encompasses several chamber groups that also tour.  Founded in 1962, the Gulf Coast Symphony boasts a full season of concerts at the Saenger Theatre in Biloxi. The orchestra has hosted Luciano Pavarotti, toured with Andrea Bocelli and routinely presents internationally known guest artists. It also sponsors a youth orchestra. Up north in Tupelo, symphonic music is kept alive by the Tupelo Symphony Orchestra, which has the privilege of presenting the winner of the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition each year. MUSEUMS Mississippi lays claim to nearly 100 museums at last count, dedicated to everything from blues music to sports, famous figures, historic events, and art. The permanent collection of the newly renovatedMississippi Museum of Art consists of American art by such figures as Romare Bearden, Alexander Calder, Mary Cassatt, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol. Mississippi photographer and writer Eudora Welty features prominently in the collection, along with more contemporary state artists. British portraiture, European Impressionist prints, and pre-Columbian ceramics, together with the quilting and basketry of  "outsider artists," round out the collection. Founded in 1911, the museum will soon be celebrating its centennial. Most small museums are dedicated to artists and cultural figures important to the state. The mission of Biloxi’s Ohr-O’Keefe Museum is to preserve and present the work of innovative Mississippi potterGeorge Ohr. Designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, the museum’s structure reflects the bold spirit of its namesake. The year 1991 saw the creation of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in historic Ocean Springs. WAMA celebrates the work of painter Walter Inglis Anderson (1903–1965), whose art reflected the natural life of the Gulf Coast, along with his lesser-known brothers, Peter (pottery) and James(painter, ceramist). FILM Film festivals abound in the Magnolia State. Notable among them are the Delta International Film and Video Festival and the Crossroads Film Festival. The cities of Jackson, Natchez, Oxford, and Tupelo host events as well. Thanks to its astounding natural beauty, historic locations, and of course, generous filmmaker incentives, Hollywood is no stranger to Mississippi. Among movies filmed in whole or in part in the state are Mississippi Masala (1991), A Time to Kill (1996), Walk the Line (2005), The Insider (1999),Mississippi Burning (1988), The Client (1994), The Chamber (1996), Ghosts of Mississippi(1996), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), The Road to Graceland (2001), Love and Valor: The Intimate Civil War Letters (2009), Cadillac Records (2008),and Cookie’s Fortune (1999). In addition, the TV version of In the Heat of the Night (1988–1995) was set in Sparta, Mississippi. The roster of Mississippi-born and/or bred entertainment luminaries is remarkable. Oprah Winfreygrew up in the town of Kosciusko and is now one of the most well-known media personalities in the world. The legendary Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo; his childhood home is now a museum. No less talented are the state’s other beloved and award-winning actors and entertainers such as James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, Muppets creator Jim Henson, Mary Alice, Dana Andrews, Diane Ladd,Kate Jackson, Sela Ward, Ray Walston, and Vivica Fox. MUSIC Mississippi is the birthplace of "Delta blues." One of the state’s most musically celebrated native sons is blues legend B.B. King, who keeps a home in the state. Bo Diddley, award-winning rock and roll pioneer, is another Mississippi native. Other Mississippi-bred blues artists include W.C. Handy (often referred to as the "father of the blues"), Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Guitar Slim, Mississippi John Hurt, Otis Rush, Bobby Rush, Willie King, and Little Milton. But blues doesn't have a stranglehold on the Mississippi music scene. Jazz, country, gospel, pop, rock, and rap are well represented by such artists of origin as Jimmy Buffett; soul singers Sam Cooke,Mary Wilson (the Supremes), Al Wilson, Thelma Houston, and the Staple Singers; country artistsCharley Pride, Tammy Wynette, LeAnn Rimes, Faith Hill, Mickey Gilley, Bobbie Gentry, and pioneer Jimmie Rodgers; jazz eminence and Grammy winner Cassandra Wilson; pop divas Britney Spears and Brandy; R&B artists Lance Bass (N’Sync), Ray J, and Margie Joseph; and rock and roller Jerry Lee Lewis. Classical artists include opera pioneer, powerhouse, and multiple Grammy winner Leontyne Price, composer William Grant Still, and chorister Walter Turnbull. THEATER AND PERFORMING ARTS New Stage Theatre, founded in 1965 and housed at Jackson’s Jane Reid-Petty Theatre Center, prides itself on producing classic, contemporary, and experimental drama, comedy, and musical theater. Its Eudora Welty New Plays program ensures the company presents work by new playwrights as well. The Mississippi Theatre Association also produces an annual festival at alternating state locations in January each year. The festival includes community, college, and youth-oriented events. Jackson-basedPuppet Arts Theatre tours the state with educational and entertainment-oriented productions. LITERARY ARTS Among its writers, Mississippi can proudly acknowledge more than one double Pulitzer Prize winner, along with recipients of the Nobel Prize, the French Legion of Honor, and the National Medal of Arts. Nobel and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner William Faulkner is one of the best-known American writers. Among his many novels, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and Intruder in the Dust are often required reading in secondary and postsecondary American literature courses. Born in Albany, Mississippi, Faulkner lived most of his life in the state. His home, Rowan Oak, is now a museum. Another lifelong resident, the short story writer, novelist, and photographer Eudora Welty, who won a Pulitzer in 1973, dedicated her career to telling stories of life in the American South. Together with fellow Mississippians Faulkner and Pulitzer winner Tennessee Williams, she helped bring Southern writing to the attention of the nation and the world. In 1996, Welty was awarded the Legion of Honor, the highest honor bestowed by the French government. She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. Fellow Pulitzer Prize–winning writers include Alice Walker (The Color Purple) and Beth Henley(Crimes of the Heart). Other well-known Mississippi writers include best-selling author John Grisham(The Client), Richard Wright (Native Son), William Hodding Carter, Jr., Hodding Carter III, Mark Childress (Crazy in Alabama), Mart Crowley (The Boys in the Band), Myrlie Evers-Williams,Thomas Harris (The Silence of the Lambs),Elizabeth Spencer (The Light in the Piazza), and screenwriters Joseph Tidwell and Al Young. VISUAL ARTS Mississippians hold their celebrated visual artists close, often creating entire museums to celebrate them. The Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs is dedicated to his work. Known for his watercolors, he also worked in pen-and-ink and ceramics and created murals and large block prints. His work principally depicted Mississippi’s natural surroundings. Anderson’s art is also on view in the permanent collections of major museums around the country and for sale at galleries the world over. Unfortunately, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina did great damage to his home and the artwork stored there. An entire museum is also devoted to the work of potter George Ohr. Known for its whimsy, simplicity and distinctive style, most of his work was fashioned of rich Mississippi clay. Though Ohr died in 1918, Andy Warhol figured greatly in returning his work to the attention of the art world during the 1960s.William Eggleston, who introduced groundbreaking techniques of color photography, spent his childhood in Mississippi and attended university there, though he now makes his home in Memphis. Other Mississippi artists of note include photographers Marion L. Brown and Paul T. Brown, paintersMary Lovelace O’Neal and Andrew Bucci, Byron Leslie Burford Jr., William Dunlap;watercolorist Paul Jackson; photographers Don Guravich, photographer Steven Kirkpatrick, andEudora Welty; and multimedia artist Roy Lagrone. HANDICRAFT AND FOLK ART Folk art notables from the Magnolia State include Bessie Johnson (basketry), George Berry(woodcarving), and Geraldine Nash (quilting). Among the best-known virtually self-taught painters is Mississippi's Theora Hamblett, who took the first of very few art classes at the age of 55. Thereafter, her career developed at a rapid pace, as her brightly colored, "childlike" paintings quickly attracted national attention. Her work was the first by a Mississippi artist to be exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and was subsequently displayed at well-known galleries and museums. The state's Alice Latimer Moseley had a similar career path. Entirely self-taught, she did not begin painting until she was 65 years old. Encouraged by her devoted son, she sold her first works at a flea market. In her final years, Moseley planned and provided for a museum to house her work after her death. The result, the Alice Moseley Folk Art and Antique Museum, is located in the city of Bay St. Louis. -World Trade Press