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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > December
December 2009
Review: ‘A Texas Christmas Carol’
Variety shows are tough. They can demand lightning fast emotional shifts as a troupe moves from lighter fare to more melodramatic matters. But they also can offer quick hits of all kinds of entertainment - here’s a show choir, here’s some ballet, here’s a jazz singer — a jukebox of the stage, if you will.
It helps to have a theme, and “A Texas Christmas Carol” pretty well explains it. No, Scrooge is not involved, thank God — transplanting him to Austin would be a bad look.
Instead, veteran producer Charles Duggan (“A Greater Tuna” and two sequels) has assembled an all-Austin talent revue based around a loose Christmas/holiday theme.
The MVPs are the almighty Biscuit Brothers and Tish Hinojosa — the former move the show along, the latter sings a mess of songs. Dancers from Ballet Austin crank out a nine-minute Nutcracker, perfect for your local 4-year-olds. (I took my 4-year-old Tuesday night.)
The Amazing Grace Gospel Choir gave us “Go Tell It On The Mountain” (not sure if the intro was supposed to remind me of Gyorgy Ligeti’s “Requiem,” but the effect was cool). Members of the Austin Lyric Opera were sprinkled throughout — they led a “Hallelujah” chorus sing-along and soloist Liz Cass delivered a sharp “O Holy Night” (a.k.a. the best Christmas carol ever).
Jazz vocalist Kat Edmonson was the guest star for the Dec. 30 performance, torching up “Santa Baby” and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” The Tapestry Dance Company kicked, the Bowie High School Silver Stars show-choired and Zach Theatre regular Jill Blackwood seemed to sing on just about everything. The show benefits a variety of charities on various nights (see below).
At one point, Duggan emerged with his twin 7-year-old sons to talk about how the show was for them and children everywhere (see also the list of charities involved). It’s the first year for this production and Duggan hopes to make it an annual event. He’s enough of an old pro to learn from some slower moments (and a second act that’s longer than the first) and tighten things up next year.
Here’s hoping “A Texas Christmas Carol” is around for enough years for the twins to get thoroughly embarrassed by their dad bringing them out on stage.
‘A Texas Christmas Carol’
When: 1 and 6 p.m. today.
Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive.
$10-$60
www.thelongcenter.org
Each performance features a special guest artist or artists and also benefits an Austin charity with 20 percent of the ticket proceeds donated.
2 p.m. Saturday: Matthew Hinsley, Austin Classical Guitar Society (Helping Hand Home for Children)
7:30 p.m, Saturday: Anton Nel, Stanislav Pronin (Any Baby Can, Ronald McDonald House)
1 p.m. Sunday: Anton Nel (St. David’s Foundation)
6 p.m. Sunday: Matthew Hinsley and the Austin Classical Guitar Society (Make-a-Wish Foundation)
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A few of 2009’s top arts stories
- Austin Museum of Art cancels downtown project Jan. 2, 2009
- Art of budget cutting: Arts groups get creative to survive hard times Jam. 11, 2009
- Welcome to the new Bass: UT concert hall opens after renovations that addressed safety concerns, updated venue Jan. 19, 2009
- Higher note: Opera star Barbara Smith Conrad recalls Texas racism Feb. 1, 2009
- Steven Dietz: Being prolific yields its own kind of fame: Playwright’s hard work finds its way onto stages in Austin March 1, 2009
- The Long Center for the Performing Arts marks its first year March 25, 2009
- Texas Biennial shows off Lone Star state of independent thinking March 25, 2009
- UT scholars fill in Duke Ellington’s work: The jazz great left operatta undone at his death, but Austin experts prepare to bring it to stageApril 14, 2009
- Mexic-Arte Museum’s opts to stay put downtown and remodel April 30, 2009
- Blanton taps Ned Rifkin, former Smithsonian leader, as its new director May 8, 2009
- The mystery of a masterpiece: Reunification of Renaissance altarpiece at Blanton solves a big art mystery Oct. 4, 2009
- Collectors Jeanne and Michael Klein bring passion, curiosity to Austin’s art scene Nov. 1, 2009
Image: Teresita Fernandez’s “Stacked Waters” installation at the Blanton Museum of Art. Gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein.
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Top nine — and then some — arts happenings of 2009
Despite recessionary contractions, the arts in Austin continued to percolate this past year. Here are the top nine — and then some — arts happenings of 2009
- 1. ‘The Trash Project.’ On a rain-slicked defunct airport tarmac, choreographer Allison Orr marshalled trucks and drivers from Austin’s Solid Waste Services Department to create an utterly original, emotionally resonant dance that celebrated everyday work.
- 2. Teresita Fernandez’s ‘Stacked Waters,’ Blanton Museum of Art. A gift from donors Jeanne and Michael Klein, Fernandez’s smart artistic transformation of the Blanton’s cavernous atrium alters the act of museum-going.
- 3. Fusebox Festival. Everything about this increasingly international bonanza of performance-based art just keeps getting more thrilling, more edgy and more entertaining. Could this some day be the SXSW of the arts? Maybe.
- 4. Texas Biennial 2009. This Austin-born artist-organized semi-yearly gathering of fresh Lone Star art, proves that not only is the indie spirit here alive and well, it can suggest the way forward.
- 5. ‘The 24 Hour Rome Project,’ Arthouse. Staging the building and destruction of the Roman Empire in miniature — and in 24 hours — made for a perfect way for the Congress Avenue contemporary arts center to close for a much-anticipated year-long renovation.
- 6. Original and authentic Austin-made theater: ‘I’ve Never Been So Happy,’ the Rude Mechanicals; ‘Murder Ballad Murder Mystery,’ Vortex/Tutto Theater Company; ‘House of Several Stories,’ John Boulanger; ‘The Bird’ and ‘The Bee,’ Capital T Theatre/Frontera Fest.
- 7. Solo art showings: Beili Liu at D. Berman Gallery, Erin Curtis at Women & Their Work, Sterling Allen at Art Palace and Artpace, Lee Baxter Davis at Texas Biennial, Jade Walker at the Austin Museum of Art, Pablo Vargas Lugo at the Blanton. Jill Pangallo at Texas Biennial.
- 8. Two brilliant — and brilliantly different — solo piano concerts. Michelle Schumann illuminated John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. Anton Nel treated at the Long Center. Because sometimes it takes only one musician on a stage to create a transformative experience.
- 9. ‘Dialogue of the Carmelites,’ Austin Lyric Opera. Poulenc’s wrenching, modern opera about 18th-century France, wrestles with deep psychological and spiritual concerns. But as this Austin Lyric Opera production proved, it’s really all about the singing.
Images: “The Trash Project” (top); Beili Liu at D. Berman Gallery (bottom)
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Performance artist Tim Miller — one of the ‘NEA Four’ — in Austin Jan. 29-31
Performance artist Tim Miller — one of the so-called ‘NEA Four’ — is coming to Austin Jan. 29-31 for three performances at the Vortex.
MIller will be performing the latest of his one-man solo shows ‘Lay of the Land,’ a look at what Miller calls the ‘State of the Queer Union.’ Miller ricochets from his sexy misadventures while on national tour, to street protests for marriage equality, to the electoral assaults on gay folks all over the country, to a grade-school flag monitor, to choking on cheap meat caught in his 10-year old gay boy’s throat,
‘Lay of the Land’ plays 8 p.m. Jan. 29-31. Tix are $10-$30 and seating is limited. See www.vortexrep.org for more information.
After 1988, with George H.W. Bush in the White House, conservatives focused their attentions on a handful of artists whose practices involved the body, sexuality and identity.
In 1989, Andreas Serrano’s photograph ‘Piss Christ’ — an image of a plastic crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine — received the wrath United States Senators Al D’Amato and Jesse Helms who were furious that the artist had received a $15,000 grant from National Endowment for the Arts. A catalogue of Serrano’s work was torn apart on the floor of the Senate.
Then in 1990, after NEA peer panels awarded grants to four artist performances artists — John Fleck, Karen Finley, Holly Hughes and Miller — the grants were subsequently vetoed by then NEA chairman John Frohnmayer.
The artists — who became known as the NEA Four — sued.
But both district and circuit courts ruled in favor of the NEA Four and ordered the U.S. government not only to reinstate the artists’ grants in full, but also to pay their court costs
The NEA Four pressed on, this time suing the federal government for violation of their First Amendment right to free speech.
However in 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a verdict on National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley that not only reversed a portion of the lower courts’ rulings but also advised the NEA to take “into consideration general standards of decency and respect for the beliefs and values of the American public,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in her decesion.
In response to what became known as the culture wars, the NEA — which was nearly abolished by conservative lawmakers — stopped awarding individual grants to artists.
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The decade in review: Austin arts
Got a comment about our story on the decade in review: ‘Building boom marks the 2000s art scene, but future may be in artists themselves’
Leave your remarks at this blog.
Also, check out the video featuring folks from Arthouse, the Congress Avenue contemporary art center, and artist collective Okay Mountain offering their point of views on the present and the future of Austin’s arts scene.
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School of Music faculty meets fundraising match
Despite recessionary cutbacks, some faculty at UT’s Butler School of Music have donated $25,000 to establish a new endowed scholarship in musicm, the university announced today.
The grassroots effort began this summer when philanthropists Sarah and Ernest Butler — who last year contributed $55 million to the UT School of Music which was named in their honor — said that they would provide matching funds for any scholarship gifts between $25,000 and $50,000 through the end of 2009. According to UT officials, several members of the music faculty saw the announcement as an opportunity to help provide much-needed student aid.
The resulting $50,000 endowed scholarship in music — when matched by the Butlers in January 2010 — will support undergraduate and graduate students in music.
“I am particularly moved by the fact that in a year in which the faculty received no merit raises, they would voluntarily donate funds in an amount sufficient to establish an endowed scholarship,” said B. Glenn Chandler, director of the Butler School of Music. “This is just another example of the unwavering dedication our faculty have to the education of their students.”
To date, the Butler’s dollar-for-dollar matching program has resulted in seven new scholarships for music. Chandler reportedly said he anticipates that three additional scholarships in progress will also be matched.
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| The decade in review: In the arts, Austin went on a building boom, but the future may be with the artists themselves |
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Anton Nel named to endowed faculty position
The University of Texas has named UT professor of piano Anton Nel to the recently established Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Piano in the Butler School of Music.
The the endowed position was established through a $1 million gift from the Longs.
An nternationally-recognized pianist,Nel joined the UT faculty in 2000. In March, he was the first classical performer to play a solo concert at the year-old Long Center for the Performing Arts, also named for Joe and Teresa Long.
Nel’s next Austin appearances include a concert with violinist Anne Akiko-Meyers and with the Texas Piano Quartet on April 28. Both concerts are at UT’s Butler School of Music.
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Frida Kahlo self-portrait to stay on view until March 2010
UT’s Ransom Center, which has Kahlo’s “Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” (1940), has announced that it will keep the painting on display until March to coincide with the exhibit “¡Viva! Mexico’s Independence.”
The Ransom Center’s Kahlo painting — which has been on almost continuous loan since 1990 — had been scheduled to come down off view on Jan. 3. “¡Viva!” goes on view Feb. 9 through Aug. 1. The year 2010 marks the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s independence from Spain and also the centennial of the Mexican Revolution.
‘Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird’ has been featured in exhibitions in more than 25 museums in the United States and around the world. In 2010, the painting will travel to Berlin and Vienna.
‘Self-portrait’ travels by personal courier in its own special carrier and the case gets its own seat on the plane.
Where in the world was this Frida Kahlo? Check out the Ransom Center’s interactive map of where the Kahlo painting has been.
Image: Frida Kahlo. ‘Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird,’ 1940. © 2009 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. Av Cinco de Mayo No. 2, Col. Centro, Del. Cuauhtemoc 06059, Mexico, DF
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Golden Hornet Project premieres new symphonies, including one by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood
Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski — perhaps Austin’s busiest musicians and certainly some of the most prolific artists of any discipline in town — will premiere the sixth symphonies together on Feb. 6.
The duo’s Golden Hornet Project will premiere Reynolds’ ‘The Difference Engine’ and Stopschinski’s ‘Rough Night with Happy Ending.’ And Reynolds and Stopschinski will also present the Texas premiere of Jonny Greenwood’s orchestral work ‘Popcorn Superhet Receiver.’ Greenwood is the lead guitarist and keyboardist of Radiohead — and also the composer-in-residence at the BBC.
Greenwood composed his symphony for the 2007 film, ‘There Will Be Blood,’ but it was declared ineligible for an Academy Award nomination under a rule that prohibited “scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music.”
‘Golden Hornet Project Presents Symphony VI’
8 and 10:30 p.m. Feb. 6
AustinVentures StudioTheater, Ballet Austin, 501 W. Third St. Tix: $10-$60, www,goldenhornet.org
Here’s portions of the official release:
Inspired by the life and work of 19th century inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage, Reynolds’ composed ‘The Difference Engine,’ a triple concerto for violin, cello, and piano with string orchestra.
Stopschinski’s ‘Rough Night with Happy Ending’ for violins, violas, cellos, basses, percussion, harp, and piano, features Austin’s premier harpist Elaine Barber. “This symphony is a musical depiction of a long hard night with a pleasant morning sunrise,” explained Stopschinski. “ The main musical thread that ties all of the movements together is the concept of Digital Delay or Echo. Stopschinski has split the violins sections from their usual positions to 9 on the left side and 9 on the right side to enhance the echoing effects in the room.
“We are beyond excited to bring Greenwood’s piece to Texas,” noted John Riedie, executive director of Golden Hornet Project. “His avant-garde orchestral work is the perfect complement to Reynolds and Stopschinski’s world premieres: Symphony VI.”
All three compositions are string oriented, so this version of the Golden Hornet Project Symphony Orchestra will consist of 32 of Austin’s top string players, along with the musical directors on piano, electronics and effects.
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Review: Noriko Ambe: Artist Books, Linear-Action Cutting Project’
There’s a kind of irreverence to Noriko Ambe’s cut paper artworks now on view at Lora Reynolds Gallery. Slicing up artists’ catalogs - no matter that the end result makes for delicate art objects - bears an impiousness, however impish, that can’t be ignored.
Cy Twombly, Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons and Hiroshi Sugimoto are among the all-male roster of superstar artists that Ambe chose, selecting a catalog or monograph by each. She then embarked on her labor-intensive process, delicately altering each page of each book with a series of cuts so that every volume is transformed into a kind of elaborate excavated version of its original form.
As critic Lilly Wei outlines in an essay that accompanies this exhibit, the Tokyo-born New York-based Ambe intended for her actions to be a collaboration of a sorts with each artist. Ambe studied each volume intensely, we’re told, to work `with them through the assimilation of their art, without the need to be personal.’
Yes, there is a certain collaborative reverence here on Ambe’s part as well as a certain cool detachment. But Ambe’s subtractions also ironically add up - however unintentionally - to a delicate riff on 20 art-world heavyweights.
In`Dot on Dots and Layers: Roy Lichtenstein,’ the seminal Pop artist gets his Ben-Day dotted cartoon-like images punctured even more by Ambe’s drilled holes. Ambe adds more sprawl to Twombly’s random sprawling scrawls with random incisions of her own.
The pages of Gerhard Richter’s ‘Atlas’ are mined to the core as if to reach some ultimate source behind the work of the enigmatic German artist. And with ‘Beautiful Inside My Head Forever: Damien Hirst,’ the British prankster known for sticking a dead shark in a vitrine of formaldehyde, will find his monograph volume chopped and stuffed into a short grey filing cabinet.
The current exhibit is curated by New York-based collector Glenn Fuhrman. (Fuhrman is the co-founder of MSD Capital, Michael Dell’s investment fund. Fuhrman’s FLAG Art Foundation in New York presents exhibits of contemporary art and co-produced the catalog to the current show which will go on exhibit there in 2010.)
Ambe certainly performs a collaboration with her honored roster. But in a brilliant stroke, she slices into something deeper as well.
‘Noriko Ambe: Artist Books, Linear-Action Cutting Project’
11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays through Dec. 31, Lora Reynolds Gallery, 360 Nueces St. www.lorareynolds.com
Image: Noriko Ambe, ‘Diamond Dust Shoes: Andy Warhol, 2009.’ Courtesy Lora Reynolds Gallery.
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Vortex nets $15,000 NEA grant
The National Endowment for the Arts is beginning to make its list of FY 2010 grant recipients.
Long-time Austin indie theater Vortex Repertory Company has been awarded $15,000 in from the NEA’s Access to Artistic Excellence grant program for ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ an original musical by Vortex founder Bonnie Cullum and theater artist Content Love Knowles.
The grant will fund a new production of the all-ages musical that was first performed at the Vortex in 2005. Dance, music and storytelling weave together Cullum’s and Knowles’ feminist adaptation of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale.
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Review: Tapestry’s ‘Of Mice & Music: A Jazz Nutcracker’
Usually the most noticeable percussive sound in Nutcracker issues from the toy of the same name.
Tapestry Dance Company shifts the sounds of the holiday classic from toys and Tchaikovsky to taps in its new production “Of Mice and Music,” which premiered Monday at Salvage Vanguard Theatre.
Running just under an hour, the new show looks to become an annual Austin dance fete. The slightly cramped audience in SVT’s theatre eagerly peered around one another’s shoulders to glimpse the large cast, which included adult, teen, and children students from Tapestry’s academy, as well as the professional company. The tiniest mice and the quickest feet made the lean-in worthwhile.
The company has significantly revised the Christmas story, making dance more than a decorative feature in the story. Clara (Meghan Davis) receives a pair of tap shoes as her magical Christmas gift, thus entering a world where characters create and prove themselves through dance.
One of the best moments unfolds as the Rat King (Tony Merriwether) and Nutcracker (Jeffrey Olson) battle each other in a tap competition.
Several dances made full use of the interaction with live band Blue J, who developed the jazzy score from Tchaikovsky’s score. In the Russian and Marzipan segments, Matt Shields and Katelyn Thompson respectively, tapped out the well-known music in spaces the band left open for them. Tapestry always does an excellent job of reminding audiences that tap is both music and dance.
Artistic director Acia Gray hovered over the evening as magical guide, Ms. Bon Marche, transforming the ballet’s eccentric uncle character into a diva Drosselmeyer..
As the story ends, Clara stands under the Christmas tree wearing the diva’s gifts: a fur boa and tap shoes. Merry Christmas.
‘Of Mice & Music: A Jazz Nutcracker’ continues at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road. $15. www.tapestry.org
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Kathleen Turner to play Molly Ivins in new play
Molly Ivins, the salty-tongue Texas columnist, will be portrayed by Kathleen Turner in a new play about Ivins’ lively career and character.
Philadelphia Theatre Company will premiere ‘Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins’ a new play by Margaret Engel and Allison Engel.
Playbill reports that the production will run March 19-April 18, 2010.
Why Philadelphia and not the Lone Star State? Because if you want to align your production for an eventual Broadway run — or even to be a considered for such — you open it first in places like Philly or Boston.
Among her other brilliant witticisms, Ivins coined the nickname “Shrub” for George W. Bush.
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City of Austin gets NEA grant for professional workshops
The City of Austin Cultural Arts Division has been awarded a $35,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In its first round of FY2010 grants the NEA is distributing $26,968,500 to support 1,207 projects nationwide, the agency reported.
The Cultural Arts Division will use the grant to expand its ‘Take it to the Next Level’ series of workshops that offers training to non-profit arts and culture organizations and for-profit creative industries professionals.
Past workshop topics can be found at www.cityofaustin.org/nextlevel.
The city also hopes leverage the NEA funds to stage a statewide arts conference, tentatively scheduled for Spring 2011, that will offer the same kind of strategic and business training for creative professional. The conference will be presented in partnership with the Texas Commission on the Arts.
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‘Open Architecture East’
Not tired of running around East Austin after the recent East Austin Studio Tour?
Then try ‘Open Architecture East’ on Saturday. Hosted by AIA Austin, the event offers the chance to drop in on the studios of 18 architecture firms who call East Austin home.
You’ll have just four hours — from 1 to 5 p.m. — to try to take in all 18. But if you drop by 1401 E. Seventh Street, you can visit six different studios all at once.
Rick Black Architect, Designhouse, Merzbau Design Collective, Red Arc One and John Mayfield Architects all share a 2200-square-foot former warehouse.
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Austin Symphony Orchestra hires new executive director
After suddenly losing its executive director earlier this year under a cloud of confusion, the Austin Symphony Orchestra has announced that it is hiring one of its own for the top management position.
Anthony Corroa, the orchestra’s operations manager since 2000 and the recent interim executive director, has been named the new executive director.
Orchestra board president Joe R. Long said in the announcement Thursday that Corroa was selected after a nationwide search.
Corroa’s appointment comes after the orchestra went through a tumultuous management shuffle earlier this fall.
Galen Wixson, the organization’s previous executive director, disappeared from the organization’s Web site Aug. 31. At the time, ASO board leaders offered no explanation for Wixson’s disappearance though it was reported that he had been fired.
On Sept. 1, more than two dozen orchestra musicians sent a letter to the board’s executive committee protesting Wixson’s sudden and unexplained absence.
Then on Sept. 9, Long finally issued a statement saying Wixson has resigned as executive director over creative differences.
Wixson never responded to requests for comment.
Wixson was hired in mid-March after a national search. He left the position of executive director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra to take the Austin job. Previously, Wixson had served as executive director for the Symphony of Southeast Texas, the Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
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NEA report: Less participation in/audience for the arts in 2008
The National Endowment for the Arts today released its 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, the nation’s largest and most representative study of adults’ arts participation habits.
The most important info culled from the report? Audiences for ballet, classical music, jazz and theater are both declining and growing older
- Nearly 35 percent of U.S. adults — or an estimated 78 million — attended an arts performance in the 2008 survey period, compared with about 40 percent in 1982, 1992, and 2002.
- Performing arts attendees are increasingly older (between 46 and 49 years old) than the average U.S. adult (45 years old). Forty-five to 54-year-olds — historically dependable arts participants — declined for all art forms except musical theatre.
- People with higher levels of education - usually the most likely to attend or participate in the arts -have curtailed their participation in nearly all art forms since 1982. High school graduates had the steepest rate of decline — 25 percent — between 2002 and 2008.
Also, Americans are increasingly participating in the arts through new media.
- The Internet and broadcast media are popular ways to engage with the arts. Forty seven million adults downloaded, watched, or listened to music, theater or dance performances online - and most said they did so at least once a week. More Americans view or listen to broadcasts and recordings of arts events than attend them live (live theater being the sole exception).
- Photography/videography/film-making increased in popularity as art-making activities, from 12 percent to 15 percent, since 1992, supplanting weaving/sewing as the most popular creative activity reported.
Generation Y reports taking fewer arts classes/lessons.
- When people ages 18-24 were asked if they had taken an art class/lesson at some point in their lives, they reported lower rates of participation than previous generations for all art forms compared in this study (by 6-23 percentage points, depending on the art form, from 1982 to 2008).
Further conclusions:
- About 35 percent of all U.S. adults — or 78 million Americans — visited an art museum or gallery or attended at least one of six types of the “benchmark” arts events tracked since 1982.
- About 23 percent of all adults visited an art museum or gallery.
- Musicals drew 17 percent of all adults, and nonmusical plays drew 9 percent.
- About 9 percent of adults attended classical music. Relatively fewer adults attended jazz (8 percent), ballet or other dance (7 percent), Latin or salsa music (5 percent), and opera (2 percent)
The NEA survey was conducted in partnership with the United States Census Bureau and asked more than 18,000 people 18 years of age and older about their frequency of arts engagement. It has been conducted five times since 1982.
Download a copy of the report here.
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‘Dance-Along Nutcracker’
Keeping Austin invincibly weird. Donning fanciful red jackets and hats that resemble the old-fashioned military outfit worn by a classic nutcracker figurine, the indie band Invincible Czars charge through their rock-ed up version of “The Nutcracker Suite.” And you’re invited to dance along!
‘Dance-Along Nutcracker’
When: 3 p.m. Saturday, family-friendly show. 9 p.m. adult show
Where: Jovita’s, 1617 S. First St.
Cost: $8 adults, $4 children. Adults’ show: $10
www.invincibleczars.com
The Invincible Czars perform their ‘Dance-Along Nutcracker’ at Houston’s Wortham Center Houston
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Review: ‘Dionysus in 69’
It easy, arguably, for today’s theater-goer to forget that so many of the conventions of contemporary performance — the improvised audience participation, the venues with no fixed seating and no ‘fourth wall’ between performance and audience, the changeable dramatic trajectory of each performance — were once new and shocking.
What was avant-garde 40 years ago seems so conventional now.
In an audacious move, Austin theater troupe the Rude Mechanicals has re-staged ‘Dionysus in 69,’ one of the most ground-breaking theatrical productions to come from the 1960s radical experiments in performance.
And the audacity pays off: This 2009 ‘Dionysus in ‘69’ is a keen, spirited, brilliantly acted paean to experimental theater past, present and future.
The original ‘Dionysus in 69’ — directed by Richard Schechner and created more or less collectively by The Performance Group — offered a radical new interpretation of Euripedes ‘The Bacchae.’ Schechner and his co-horts commandeered a garage in New York’s then-gritty Soho neighborhood for a theater space with no separation between audience and actors. Viewers perched on platforms made of two-by-fours or sat on the floor and were invited to join in on a Dionysian dance of ecstasy. Clothes were shed from actors and audience alike. Actors played themselves and their characters at the same time. And the narrative focus morphed depending on what happened between audience and actors.
Though based on an ancient Greek cautionary tale of the dangers of libertine living, ‘Dionysus in 69’ utterly epitomized its freedom-exploring era. Critics both praised and decried it. A young Brian De Palma filmed it. And Schechner’s self-coined term ‘environmental theater’ became academic nomenclature.
Boldly, the Rudes — easily Austin’s most sophisticated performance group — have re-created ‘Dionysus in 69’ using De Palma’s movie as a template and benefitting from Schechner’s temporary tenure in Austin as this year’s Cline Visiting Professor of UT’s Humanities Institute.
It’s impossible to know how accurate or ‘right’ the Rudes’ re-staging of the original production is. And in a way, it doesn’t ultimately matter. (Though at a recent screening of the De Palma film, the bold-talking Schechner declared the Rudes’ production ‘every bit as good’ as the original.)
What matters is that with their ‘Dionysus in 69,’ masterfully directed by Madge Darlington and Shawn Sides, the Rudes conjure up a spirit of revolution and playfulness that celebrates the zeitgeist that 40 years ago led to shape-shifting changes in theater practice.
An unflinchingly focused and creative ensemble makes this ‘Dionysus’ their own masterwork. And Thomas Graves as Dionysus/William Finley and Josh Meyer as Pentheus/Bill Shephard demonstrate how sophisticated risk-taking defines tour de force acting.
The Rudes’ re-staging of such a seminal work is vital to Austin’s arts scene. Performance is at the fore of so much creative output today, particularly in the visual arts. Yet, most of what is produced is so clearly ignorant of its own origins. Likewise, are arts audiences.
This ‘Dionysus in 69’ is required viewing.
‘Dionysus in 69’ continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays through Dec. 20. Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo St. www.rudemechs.com. Nudity and adult themes.
Photo by Kirk R. Tuck.
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Review: ‘Speed Art: 2003-2009’
A kind of surreal violence has always been present in Julie Speed’s meticulous paintings. Pulling as much from the stylistic influcence of Old Master paintings as she does from the substance current events, the Texas artist has garnered a rapid following for her skewered world view — a view that skitters between the absurd and the anxious but always lands in the anomalous.
The new volume from “Speed Art: 2003-2009” (UT Press, $55; web discount price: $36.85) assembles the artist’s most recent work with a 130 color plates in a gorgeous volume. Yes, the peculiar is still present in Speed’s work. But there’s a new urgency of terrorism and war especially in series such as “Still Life with Suicide Bomber.”
A long-time Austinite, Speed relocated to Marfa a few years ago and the wide open West Texas landscape — with its expansive anonymity — seems to have given the artist — never one to follow convention — even more reason to cut loose.
As a bonus to this volume, writer A. M. Homes contributes a Marfa-based short story, “Do You Hear What I Hear?,” about the investigations of the Phenomena Police. Homes’ story borders on the precious, but matches Speed’s oddball sensibilities,
Former Austin Museum of Art director Elizabeth Ferrer offers an essay that suitably gives some context to Speed’s latest output.
And Speed pens an entertaining essay herself that gives insight to her artistic process. And just what is that insight? “Sometimes pictures come singly, sometimes in series, sometimes from a germ, sometimes from scratch,” writes Speed. “(B)ut always one thing leads to the next in a way that feels inevitable.”
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First Night Austin 2010: The basics
First Night Austin has released the preliminary details of this year’s family-friendly downtown arts-oriented New Year’s Eve celebration.
Keep an eye on www.firstnightaustin.org
for updates.
First Night Austin 2010
When
4 p.m. to midnight, Dec. 31
Event footprint
Congress Avenue from 5th Street to Cesar Chavez, Cesar Chavez from Congress to S. 1st Street Bridge, S. 1st Street to Riverside, and Auditorium Shores. (Note: Riverside will be closed from S. 1st to the traffic circle west of the Long Center to allow for foot traffic to cross between Auditorium Shores and the Long Center)
Admission
Free (except for the ‘Long First Night’)
‘The Long First Night’
This ticketed event at the Long Center is a gala within the celebration. General admission and VIP tickets are available through the Long Center (linked from the home page of the First Night Austin site). This event will run from 5 p.m. to midnight.
- Schedule
- 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Family festival (will include events at City Hall, which will be open until 6 p.m. this year)
- 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Grand Procession, from Fifth Street and Congress Avenue to Auditorium Shores (via Congress, Cesar Chavez, and the S. First Street Bridge)
- 8 p.m. H-E-B Family Finale on Auditorium Shores. This will include a 36-foot-tall vortex of fire on Auditorium Shores (courtesy of Community Art Makers, the team behind last year’s Resolution Clock) and snow (courtesy of Wolf Stuntworks)
- 9 p.m., The Waterlight Parade, courtesy of the Austin Rowing Club, which will light up Lady Bird Lake in a procession that will be a first for First Night Austin.
- 10 p.m., Resolution Run: This late-night race, on a downtown Austin course of just over 3 km, will be coordinated by RunTex, allowing participants to get in one last run for 2009 (or make good on New Year’s Resolutions to get more exercise in 2010).
- Midnight, Fireworks: The traditional finale to First Night Austin will usher in a new decade.
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Review: Ballet Austin’s ‘The Nutcracker’
The swish of taffeta dresses heard in early December can only mean one thing: it’s time for Ballet Austin’s “Nutcracker” again.
At the Long Center Sunday afternoon, the patent leather shoe-wearing children were in full effect. Although the “Nutcracker” matinee’s audience demographic suggests the show targets children, the company’s performance attests there are many reasons for balletomanes of all ages to revisit the holiday classic.
This year marks the company’s second “Nutcracker” run in the Long Center, and the theatre’s size allows for the celebration of “Nutcracker’s” full spectacle.
The set, designed by Richard Isackes, creates opulent worlds for ballet dreaming, both in the early first act party scene at the Silberhaus’s home and in the second act’s Kingdom of the Sweets. Many of designer Tommy Bourgeois’s costumes, particularly the party dresses for adult and children and the many tutus of the second act, accentuate the production’s sense of luxury. It’s nice to see that Ballet Austin avoids the “Nutcracker” ballet trap: often the classic veers towards looking run-down and re-hashed. Ballet Austin’s production sparkles.
Much of the dancing, particularly from the company’s women, extended the production’s clear, open feeling. As Snow Queen, Jaime Lynn Witts had a calm dignity. Kirby Wallis’s flash in the Spanish variation and Rebecca Johnson’s sleek Arabian were second-act standouts.
With so many solos and pas de deux, ensemble performances can go overlooked in “Nutcracker,” but the corps dancers in Snow and Waltz of the Flowers deserve recognition. In Snow, dancer Beth Terwilleger seemed a strong, sure leader among a flurry of beauty.
While Stephen Mill’s choreography does not always follow the swells in Tchaikovsky’s iconic score, Mills excels at creating smaller moments of suspension, from the more staid dances done by the parents in the party scene through the delicate variation for the French couple (Terwilleger and one of the company’s most promising recent additions Joseph Hernandez).
As Sugar Plum Fairy, Michelle Thompson made the most of Mill’s signature timing, opening her arms with a slow grace in the Grand Pas de Deux’s final turns. As Sugar Plum Cavalier, Frank Shott, yet again, proved himself the company’s strongest, most confident partner, a quality too often absent in other moments in Sunday’s performance.
While the adults might have been the focus Sunday, the cast’s children are integral to the annual “Nutcracker” event. As Clara, Macrina Butler displayed lovely shoulder and head placement, creating a central character worthy of center stage.
Like Clara, we all deserve a “Nutcracker” this year.
‘The Nutcracker’
7:30 p.m. Dec. 11-12, Dec. 18-22; 2 p.m. Dec. 13, Dec. 19-20, Dec. 23
Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Dr.
$15-$71
www.balletaustin.org
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Amitava Sarkar.
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Okay Mountain’s ‘Corner Store’ nets PULSE award
Congrats to the collective Okay Mountain for winning the 2009 Miami PULSE Award at PULSE, the contemporary arts fair.
The Austin collective was selected by the PULSE Committee as emerging artists of distinction from their project iin the IMPULSE section of the fair.
‘Corner Store’ was an ersatz off-brand micro-convenience store that sold ersatz items — think fake beef jerky and a simulated slushy machine. Thousands of hours in the making, ‘Corner Store’ was a brilliant spoof on the very nature of trendy art fairs and the swirl of commerce and fashion.
Read a previous post about the project.
‘Corner Store’ was a commission from Arthouse, the Congress Avenue contemporary arts center. The Okay Mountain team received a reported $7500 budget to produce and travel ‘Corner Store’ to Miami along with all of the 11-member collective in tow. The Okay Mountain artists staffed ‘Corner Store’ as clerks.
Any income from sales — yes, the ersatz items were for sale — were reportedly to be divided between Arthouse and Okay Mountain.
The art-making Okay mountaineers gets a $2,500 PULSE prize check. Oh, and they are also offered the opportunity to design a limited-edition PULSE tote bag.
Really? A limited-edition tote bag? Wonder if the judges really understood what ‘Corner Store’ was all about.
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Recent arts coverage:
The Rude Mechs tackle a ground-breaking moment of 1960s theater | Okay Mountain wins Miami PULSE prize | David Bates at the Austin Museum of Art
Follow @artsinaustin on Twitter
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AVAA inaugural Austin Visual Arts Award winners
Neither a few snow flurries nor bitterly cold weather stopped a crowd from attending the Austin Visual Arts Association’s inaugural Austin Visual Arts Awards at the Austin Museum of Art Friday night.
Winners at Friday night’s festivities were given a Fearing Award, a bronze metal designed by sculptor Bob Coffee and named after this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award Winner William Kelly Fearing.
- Austin Visual Arts Awards 2009
- Artist of the Year 2 Dimensional Art: Erin Curtis
- Artist of the Year 3 Dimensional Art: Beili Liu
- Artist of the Year Photography: Roberto Guerra
- Artist of the Year New Media: Michael Smith
- Artist of the Year Early Career: Heather Tolleson
- Collectors Circle Award: Bob “Daddy-O” Wade
- Service to the Arts: Jana Swec, Shea Little, Joseph Phillips for East Austin Studio Tour (E.A.S.T.)
- President’s Award: Will Klemm. Roi James
- Patron to the Arts: Becky Beaver
- Lifetime Achievement: William Kelly Fearing
- Lifetime Achievement, In Memoriam: Robert Dale Anderson
- Lifetime Achievement, In Memoriam: Michael Frary
A nominating committee of representative from 22 Austin art organizations nominated their picks in each category and those artists who received multiple nominations moved forward to the selection committee. The selection committee, which included representative from 12 organizations, developed a list of finalists.
See a previous post for a list of members of the selection committee and finalists.
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Guitar maestro, William Kanengiser
A member of the famed LA Guitar Quartet, William Kanengiser has a repertoire that ranges from the classics to contemporary adventures. On this program, he’ll play, among other selections, Spanish classics by Albeniz (‘Granada (Serenata) from Suite Española’) and by Sor (‘Elegiac Fantasy’) along with jazz-inspired pieces by contemporary composers such as Bryan Johanson and Brian Head.
8 p.m. Saturday
Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Drive
$25-$35
www.austinclassicalguitar.org
William Kanengiser playing ‘Brookland Boogie’ (by Brian Head)
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Okay Mountain sets up shop at PULSE Miami
The Austin art collective Okay Mountain has hit the road to Miami.
No, they haven’t abandoned their East Austin digs. They’ve set out to conqueror PULSE Contemporary Art Fair in Miami, the super-trendy contemporary art fair that shadows the super-fashionable Art Basel Miami Beach.
‘Corner Store’ is a site-specific installation commissioned from the Okay Mountain collective by Arthouse, the Congress Avenue contemporary art center.
‘Corner Store’ is just that — an off-brand convenience store much like you would find in the scruffy patches of urban Texas, the kind of establishment where cheap versions of everything and anything is sold.
The Okay Mountain crew spent literally thousands of hours constructing hundreds of objects by hand that fill the store. And each piece of inventory contains its own quirky twist on the original.
‘Green Things’ anyone? Or how about ‘You Only Live Once’ candy bars?
‘Corner Store’ opened today at PULSE.
The level of detail to ‘Corner Store’ is staggering. The sheer volume and kind of items reaches an encyclopedic level. So do the store’s features right down to the soda machine, the worn shelving, the cheap poorly-crafted signage and the out-of-date cash register.
The Okay Mountain gang will don uniforms and work the ‘Corner Store’ as if it were the real thing (in a way, it is). And they’ve even created advertising circular on cheap newsprint that blasts “10 artworks under $100” and other deals.
And yes, everything is for sale. Items start at just a few dollars. And there’s no re-stocking. It’s the end of the line for ‘Corner Store’ with everything sold as if it were going out of business.
There’s something wonderfully ticklish about the idea of the arterati perusing Okay Mountain’s hand-made and oh-so irreverent items. After all, the Miami art fairs are the fickle and fashion-conscious art world laid bare. There’s no hiding the raw commerce of the art market nor its self-conscious socializing.
After laboring for weeks, the 11-member Okay Mountain crew — Carlos Rosales-Silva, Corkey Sinks, Jesse Butcher, Josh Rios, Justin Goldwater, Ryan Hennessee, Nathan Green, Peat Duggins, Michael Sieben, Sterling Allen and Tim Brown — loaded up their store and drove it by truck from Austin to Miami, camping along the way to save on funds. They’ll reportedly split the profits of anything sold at PULSE with their Arthouse sponsors.
It’ll be curious to hear how ‘Corner Store’ is received by the trendy crowds at PULSE. After all, the Okay mountaineers don’t shirk from poking at the ribs of any sacred art world cows. But ultimately, Okay Mountain’s art-making mischief is gentle — and wise.
Any one wanna buy a gallon of ‘BBQ Water’ or some ‘Olde Money’?
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Austin choral group Conspirare nets fifth Grammy nomination
Austin-based professional choral ensemble Conspirare has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Album for its CD ‘Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert’ on the Harmonia Mundi label.
“Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert” was recorded live at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in October 2008 in cooperation with PBS television station KLRU. It was first released as a DVD for national broadcast on PBS affiliate stations nationwide beginning in March 2009, and was subsequently released on CD by Harmonia Mundi in June 2009. Both the CD and DVD are available for purchase through Conspirare www.conspirare.org.
Previously, Conspirare received Grammy Award nominations in 2009 for “Threshold of Night.” The nominations were for Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance.
Conspirare previously received two nominations in 2006.
‘Christmas at the Carillon’
Conspirare’s annual holiday concert showcases artistic director Craig Hella Johnson’s blending of music old and new. This year’s special guest is Patrice Pike.
8 p.m. Long Center. 701 W. Riverside Drive
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First Night Austin adds ‘The Long First Night’
First Night Austin and the Long Center for the Performing Arts are teaming up to provide a new party attraction for the New Year’s Eve arts-filled celebration.
‘The Long First Night,’ is a ticketed New Year’s Eve gala, from 5 p.m. to midnight on Dec. 31. It is co-sponsored by Sterling Affairs.
The event at the Long Center— utilizing both the outdoor City Terrace and the mezzanine inside the performing arts facility — will bring music, food and drink to the annual First Night Austin festivities.
First Night Austin, now in its fifth year, brings free visual and performing arts to downtown Austin for a public celebration that attracts up to 100,000 revelers.
Tickets for ‘The Long First Night,’ which is will be sold at a special advance rate until Dec. 18.
General admission tickets, which include access to the Long Center, cash bars and food, and all entertainment (which will include music from bands and DJs, as well as a children’s activities area), are $15 until the Dec. After that, tickets are $20.
Details of the entertainment offerings are TBA.
A limited number of VIP tickets, on sale for $95 until Dec. 18 and $110 starting the Dec. 10. VIP tickets include access to the Long Center and all entertainment, as well as access to open bars, complimentary buffets and chefs stations and a private VIP party.
Tickets for the event are available via the Long Center website (www.thelongcenter.org the First Night Austin website www.firstnightaustin.org.
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Ballet Austin adds audio described ‘Nutcracker’ shows
After we wrote about the free audio description services provided to visually impaired at Ballet Austin’s ‘The Nutcracker’ this year, word has spread. And demand is up.
Due to demand, audio description will be offered at two more ‘Nutcracker’ performances for a total of four performances:
7:30 p.m. Dec. 12
New shows: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 18 and Dec. 19
2 p.m. Dec. 20
Audio description is free and the Long Center for the Performing Arts has 50 headsets available without reservation.
Tickets to ‘The Nutcracker’ are $15-$71 and can be purchased at www.balletaustin.org.
Audio description is provided by VSA arts of Texas, a nonprofit organization that connects people with disabilities to the arts. For further information contact www.vsatx.org
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Another tour of East Austin, this time with architects
Following close on the heels of the East Austin Studio Tour — which this year sprawled over 10 days and included some 250+ artists — comes ‘Open Architecture East’ , a tour of 18 architects’ studios in East Austin.
Sponsored by AIA Austin, the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects. ‘Open Architecture East’ the self-guided tour is expected to be the first of several tours of architecture studios operating in specific areas of Austin.
Many of the firms have set up in interesting locations they’ve designed themselves. At Pollen Architecture, a corner lot on East Twelfth St. was transformed into an indoor/outdoor studio complex.
Pollen Architecture, 1200 E. Twelfth St.
‘Open Architecture East’
1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12’Open Architecture East’
Tickets are $5 and are available from aiaaustin.org. All proceeds from the tour will benefit Uplift Austin.
- ACDDC: Austin Community Design & Development Center
- Architecture 365
- Benz Resource Group
- Bercy Chen Studio
- Designhouse
- Heimsath Architects
- John Mayfield Architect
- KRDB
- Lars Stanley & Stanley Architects
- Lawrence Group
- McKinney York Architects
- Merzbau Design Collective
- Negrete & Kolar Architects
- Pollen Architecture
- Red Arc One
- Rick Black Architects
- Specht Harpman
- Urban Jobe Architecture
