Ascension at Frontier
Directed by Jessica Kingdon
Genre: Documentary
1hr 37mins
NR

ASCENSION is an impressionistic portrait of China’s industrial supply chain that reveals the country’s growing class divide through staggering observations of labor, consumerism and wealth.

To outsiders, China presents somewhat of a paradox: a nominally communist nation that exemplifies the enormous wealth creation of a hyper-capitalist nation. In recent years, President Xi Jinping has popularized the term “Chinese Dream”—an explicit nod to the path of personal upward mobility that made the United States the envy of the twentieth century. While it is an open-ended phrase, the CCP has used it to signify China’s return as a world superpower through military and economic strength. The dream is collective, and it is determined by the Party, from the top down. But what does the dream look like on an individual level, from the bottom up? This is the gaze of ASCENSION.

ASCENSION portrays capitalism in China across the levels of its operation, from the crudest mine to the most rarefied forms of leisure. Accordingly, the film is structured in three parts, ascending through the levels of the capitalist structure: workers running factory production, the middle class training for and selling to aspirational consumers, and the elites reveling in a new level of hedonistic enjoyment. The film juxtaposes these very different spaces to show a hidden but intrinsic connectedness. In traveling up the rungs of China’s social ladder, we see how each level supports and makes possible the next;simultaneously we see how true upward mobility between its levels largely remains an elusive fantasy. Though the levels exist side by side, ascension isa journey across generations, benefiting a few individuals on the rise at the expense of many.

Start your engines!  Sign up for our March slot car race series to begin Friday, 3/4 at 7 pm and every Friday night in March. Want to see the racing in action? Come watch this Friday night, 2/18 at 6:30pm for the conclusion of our previous series – it’s exciting! FMI call 207-833-5257, e-mail us at Slot Car Junction, or visit our Facebook page.
Also we will be open everyday next week during school vacation. . Racers get three hours of free track time each week to practice, and 4 consecutive Friday evenings of racing.  FMI. Call 207-833-5257.

Through a combination of live music and synchronous film, this program reflects on our community’s dependence on water as a resource, commodity, and defining feature of Maine’s landscape and culture. The program considers the strength, vulnerability, and transience of our water systems while celebrating the beauty and importance of Maine’s water landscapes in all seasons. The performance will explore the natural and human impacts that transform the Kennebec River and inform our understanding of water. The film component of the program was collected and designed by Luke Fatora to pair with selected musical pieces on the program. The performance will include Take 4’s original arrangements of music ranging from traditional Scottish and Irish tunes to Argentinean tango, Spanish lullabies, and Italian motets.

BIO
Take 4 is an ensemble consisting of violinists Josie and Sophie Davis and Luke Fatora, and violist Colin Wheatley. Based in Midcoast Maine, the group performs their own arrangements of music ranging from traditional Scottish and Irish tunes to Argentinean tango, Spanish lullabies, Viennese waltzes, and Italian motets. The musicians met as students at Oberlin Conservatory, however after graduating spent close to a decade pursuing further studies, teaching, performing, and traveling separately in the US and abroad. After settling in Maine in 2019, they began to play together more frequently, experimenting with arranging music to fit their instrumentation. As the pandemic made collaboration with other artists more challenging, they formed Take 4 and have since performed throughout Midcoast Maine, created a number of recorded projects, and written and performed a variety of their own string arrangements.