The Healing Arts
On NJN’s State of the Arts
Friday, November 2 at 8:30 pm; and Wednesday, November 7 at 11:30 pm

Program was the recipient of two 2007 Mid-Atlantic Emmys

STATEWIDE – This special episode of State of the Arts takes a poignant look at the liberating — even cathartic effect — that music, dance, and the visual arts have on human nature. The Healing Arts airs on Friday, November 2 at 8:30 pm, with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, November 7 at 11:30 pm. The program was the winner of the 2007 Mid-Atlantic Emmys for Outstanding Magazine and for Outstanding Informational/Instructional Feature/Segment for “The Body You Have.” State of the Arts marks twenty-five years on NJN this year. The series has earned 28 Regional Emmy Awards, including New York Emmy Awards in 2007 and 2005, and Mid-Atlantic Emmys in 2007 and 2006.

The Body You Have
The Roxey Ballet, based in Lambertville, New Jersey, is a professional contemporary ballet company with an international touring schedule and an “all-inclusive” mission. From its beginning in 1994, founders Mark and Melissa Roxey have integrated a “Wheels in Motion” project into all aspects of the company. This teaching, mentoring, and performing project provides a vehicle for people to explore the art of dance regardless of individual disabilities. In conjunction with the Matheny School & Hospital's Arts Access Program, Roxey Ballet has developed methods for students with severe disabilities to dance and to create original works of choreography. State of the Arts producer Susan Wallner visits the Matheny Medical and Education Center in Peapack, New Jersey, for one of the Roxey Ballet’s weekly one-on-one dance classes and talks to Lyn Chaney, director of Matheny’s Arts Access Program, and to some of the students there. Wallner also visits The Roxey Ballet during rehearsal for “Wheels and Bodies in Motion,” a full-length concert starring Kitty Lunn, a trailblazer in the art of “integrated dance” (dance combining able-bodied and disabled performers). She talks with Lunn who became an “incomplete paraplegic” 20 years ago after a fall ended her professional ballet career. Also included is footage from the premiere performance of “Wheels and Bodies in Motion” at New York’s Joyce Theatre.

Harp Therapy
Morristown Memorial Hospital is conducting research into the therapeutic value of music for patients recovering from surgery. Harpist Alix Weisz strolls through recovery rooms with her hand-held Celtic Harp playing soothing arpeggios and folk tunes; and doctors and nurses monitor the blood pressure and heart rates of their patients before, while and after Weisz plays. Preliminary results suggest that the music actually has a measurable beneficial impact. One patient joked after recovering from surgery that he woke up in the hospital and thought he had died and gone to heaven. State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz visits the hospital and speaks with Weisz, patients and nurses as they discuss the implications of their research.

9/11: The New Jersey Memorials
Five years after 9/11, the State of New Jersey invited the public into the galleries of the State Museum in Trenton to see the designs and models for “Empty Sky – The New Jersey September 11, 2001 Memorial.” Except for the planned monuments for Ground Zero itself, New Jersey's Empty Sky, which will be constructed directly across the Hudson River from where the World Trade Center stood, just might end up being considered the 9/11 monument. Other monuments by New Jersey artists are also beginning to dot the landscape. Bedminster artist Sassona Norton's monument to the victims and heroes of 9/11 stands at the Montgomery County courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey artist and Grounds for Sculpture founder Seward Johnson's “Makeshift Memorial” — cast from one of his own pieces that was salvaged from Ground Zero — is located on the Hudson River Walkway in Jersey City, New Jersey. State of the Arts producer Christopher Benincasa talks with Frederic Schwartz and Jessica Jamroz, the designers of Empty Sky, and explores other monuments — great and small — that have sprung up in the wake of 9/11.

State of the Arts, the award-winning, half-hour arts magazine, airs every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by an encore presentation each Wednesday at 11:30 pm.

The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net. Individual stories will be available to view following their broadcast by visiting the program online at State of the Arts.

Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.

NJN is available on all New Jersey cable systems, satellite systems, and Time Warner Cable channel 750 in NYC.
State of the Arts is also available via video streaming at njn.net after the original broadcast.
Additionally, the program is repeated on NJN’s JerseyVision available on Comcast Digital Cable in New Jersey.
(Check http://www.njn.net/digital/schedule.html for detailed listings.)
NJN – Uniquely New Jersey
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