Angela Fitzgerald visits the Blackbird Creative Lab at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, where art and science collide. While the observatory plays an important role in astronomy, the Grammy Award-winning music group Eighth Blackbird welcomes a cohort of musical ensembles and composers for an immersive creative experience.
We also meet the new Deputy Director of Yerkes Observatory, Dr. Amanda Bauer, who’s reimagining the future of the observatory as a historic outpost for space exploration and future artistic collaboration. Bauer hopes to lead a team that will reinvigorate the observatory’s historic research program, bringing research, art and culture together to address big questions.
Then, we spend a day with Brandon Rounds, who uses drag bingo and his drag queen persona, named Bianca Lynn Breeze, to entertain and educate in small towns across Wisconsin. It’s an image and mission crafted from an upbringing in rural Wisconsin where the LGBTQ community is sometimes shunned. Rounds has transformed Bianca into one of Wisconsin’s premiere drag bingo entertainers with a little glitter, rhinestones and a wig.
Next, we hear the music of the traditional Hmong woodwind instrument qeej (pronounced “gheng”) performed by Milwaukee graduate student Mason Lospeej Her. Her’s performances preserve Hmong cultural traditions and oral histories, connect generations through music and bridge ancient storytelling practices with modern Wisconsin.
And finally, meet the fun-guy (and gal) behind Field & Forest Products. Mary Ellen Kozak and Joe Krawczyk’s pioneering mushroom business started with a shared interest in mycology over 42 years ago. They specialize in wood decay fungi cultivation, combining traditional knowledge from their Polish heritage with modern scientific methods at their Peshtigo facility.
