Chandan chosen to attend youngARTS Week

Lewiston Porter Sentinel, December 30, 2006

Aayush Chandan of Lewiston, a senior at the Nichols School, was selected from a pool of thousands nationwide as one of 141 teenage artists to attend youngARTS Week in Miami, Jan. 8-14.

Application number 4,052 turned out to be the lucky number for Chandan, who won the honor to attend youngARTS Week based on his unique talents and experience. Nationwide, 7,300 youngsters applied.

Chandan is a talented actor who has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and now has also landed a spot in the prestigious youngARTS Week.

“I was speechless when I found out,” Chandan said. “So few get this opportunity, I just consider myself so lucky to be one of them.”

He is the son of Dr. Komal and Anupama Chandam of Lewiston and has two sisters, Aditi and Aarti. He attended Stella Niagara Education Park from kindergarten through eighth grade. His goal is to attend a conservatory for theater arts, and he plans to audition for 11 schools.

Chandan said he sent in his audition tape the day of the deadline, and was thrilled to be chosen one of 22 youngsters in the theater category. He said he had to do two monologues for the tape – one contemporary and one classical. For his contemporary piece, he chose “Borderline,” by Hanif Kureishi, playing the part of Haroon. For the classical, he chose Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” playing the part of Benedick.

Chandan will work with major American artists, collaborate with other students and take master classes – plus compete for $10,000, $5,000 and $1,000 awards and a chance to perform at New York City’s Ziegfeld Theater in April.

Chandan is the first person in his family to pursue a life in the arts. He has had the opportunity to be an intern with the Shakespeare in Delaware Park festival and was fortunate to attend a six-week, pre-college experience at Carnegie Mellon University. Last summer he was a part of a select group of high school students who were chosen to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Through his love of storytelling and exploration of various characters, Chandan hopes that his work as an actor is not just entertaining but also a means of connecting people from different cultures. Chandan would like to thank Kristen Tripp Kelley, his acting teacher, for her “fierce encouragement.”

The teen-agers chosen to participate in this year’s youngARTS Week promise to keep the arts in America alive with imagination and originality.

This year’s winners, all between the ages of 17 and 18 years old, were blindly selected by panels of professional artists in nine disciplines (dance, film and video, jazz, music, photography, theater, visual arts, voice and writing).

Their initial reward is being flown to Miami, where for a week the young artists create work, participate in readings and showcases, collaborate with each other, take master classes and are mentored by some of the most prominent teachers and artists in the country. Last year’s master artists included Mikhail Baryshnikov, Michael Tilson Thomas and Placido Domingo. This year’s roster is still under wraps.

The week will culminate on Jan. 13 with “An Affair of the Arts” Performance and Gala at the newly opened Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. The 2007 gala will also honor Dave Brubeck with the Arison Award for his contributions to jazz education. Allegra Goodman, a 1985 youngARTS Winner in Writing and Presidential Scholar in the Arts, will receive the 2007 youngARTS Alumni Award.

In addition to this life-changing, all-expense paid week, the teen-age talents compete for over $500,000 in prize money. Of these top winners, the dancers, actors and musicians will be seen by an invited audience of 1,200 in a one-time only production, “Breakthrough 2007.” Created and directed by Neil Goldberg to show off the specific gifts of the young artists, the performance takes place at the Ziegfeld Theater on West 53rd Street in New York City and is followed by a gala celebration at The Museum of Modern Art.

“The first thing the kids always say about their Miami experience is that it is not the money,” said William H. Banchs, president of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. “It is the fact that they found other young people who understand them, who empathized with them, who made the same sacrifices, the same commitments and have worked just as hard as they had to reach the level of artistry that brought them to Miami.”

In addition to the youngARTS Awards, the 141 recipients become eligible to be United States Presidential Scholars in the Arts.

NFAA and its youngARTS program were established 26 years ago by Carnival Cruise Lines creator Ted Arison and his wife, Lin Arison.