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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > April
April 2008
Update: Arts on Real offered new lease
Arts on Real has been offered a new lease for the property at 2826 Real St., the East Austin property it has called home for the past five years.
Cathy Tabor, attorney with Tabor Law Firm, who is providing pro bono legal services to the theater, said that she is “cautiously optimistic” that by the end of Wednesday the theater would be able to sign a 12-month lease on the former warehouse that Arts on Real founder Blake Yelavich converted into a theater.
Yesterday, the theater reported that its occupancy was threatened when the LWR Family Partnership, the owner of the property, said they would not offer the theater group a new lease. An attorney for LWR Partnership said in a statement Tuesday that a continuation of the lease was not offered because of arrears in rent payments.
Tabor said that she received a new one-year lease agreement this morning.
She said that $6,000 was needed by the theater by the end of the day to pay outstanding debt LWR Family Partnership says it is owed. She said that although an exact accounting of what LWR Family Partnership is owed has still not been provided, the theater was willing to make the additional $6,000 payment in order to secure a new lease. “Part of the confusion seems to be not fully understanding the (monthly payment) calculations and the fact that the property taxes and the insurance have fluctuated,” she said. The initial lease required the tenant to cover property taxes in addition to a monthly rent payment.
“We have donors that have come forward and are willing to keep the theater open,” said Tabor. “We just need to bring in those donor pledges.”
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Fusebox review: ‘Terrible Things’
Hundreds of marshmallows spread across a stage make compelling theater. Austin favorites director/performer Katie Pearl and playwright Lisa d’Amour bank on the beauty of marshmallows in the works-in-progress showing of “Terrible Things” Sunday at the Blue Theatre, which closed the first weekend of the Fusebox Festival. The marshmallows did their job: the piece has a kinesthetic, visual draw, even though it is obviously still under construction.
The play loosely follows Pearl’s life, tracking her childhood in Oklahoma, and then gesturing to her adult life as an artist. The show is a solo show and it is not a solo show. Seven women swirl around Pearl throughout the play, painting pictures with marshmallows and shadowing Pearl’s gestures. Their largely silent, slowly sculpted movements, choreographed by Minneapolis-based dancer Emily Johnson, expand Pearl’s presence.
The text, delivered by Pearl playing herself, is at its most poetic when stories are told absent context. After recollecting her parents enticing her 5-year-old self to sleep, Pearl curls up against the theater’s back wall, telling stories that seem to reference frustrating intimate relationships: wanting to tell someone she would move in with her and nursing someone in a hospital. These stories give a more natural sense of jumbled emotion and desire than Pearl’s more straightforward childhood anecdotes. As Pearl jokes throughout the show, “Terrible Things” teaches others how to feel like Katie Pearl for a half an hour. It’s funny that it’s easiest to empathize with Pearl in the moments where it is least clear why she feels the way she does.
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Arts on Real may lose East Austin home
Arts on Real Theatre may lose the lease on the East Austin property it has called home for the past five years.
The venue, at 2826 Real Street, is the permanent home of theater director Blake Yelavich’s Naughty Austin Productions, which is the primary presenter of shows at the theater.
In an e-mail sent to supporters April 23, Yelavich wrote that “we will be forced to close (our) doors by the end of May if we do not raise $7,500 by the end of April.”
A copy of the lease obtained by the American-Statesman shows that Yelavich was required to pay from $2,480 per month to $3,100 per month for the past 11 months in a graduated rent payment schedule over 60 months. The lease also required that Yelavich pay the taxes on the property.
A statement issued by Gary I. Currier, an attorney with Vack, Kiecke and Currier who is representing the property owner, LWR Family Partnership LP, said that the nonprofit theater organization “was in almost continuous default of the lease by failing to pay its rent on time, wrote several rent checks that were returned for lack of sufficient funds and still owes a considerable sum in back rent to the landlord.”
Currier did not respond to a request asking for the specific amount LWR Famly Partnership was owed by Yelavich.
“In all honesty there have been cash flow problems with the organization,” said Catherine Tabor on Tuesday, an attorney with Tabor Law Firm who said she was providing pro bono legal services to Arts on Real. “All we really want is May, to (have the time to) sort out the numbers and figure out what is owed and to negotiate the next year’s rent,” she said. Tabor said that documents she received Tuesday from Currier revealed that $15,000 was owed by Arts on Real. She said that almost $10,000 has been raised by the organization since last week. She added that Yelavich had added $30,000 of improvements to the property over the five years he has occupied it.
Multiple calls to Yelavich were not returned Tuesday.
Larry Rother, representative of the group that owns the property, referred all questions to lawyer Currier when reached for comment. In the statement from Currier, he said that LWR Family Partnership, “has decided not to extend the lease on the property leased to Arts on Real.”
This is a developing story and updates will be posted.
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Zach extends ‘Doubt, A Parable’ for an extra month
Due to the popularity of the show, Zach Theatre will extend “Doubt, A Parable” for an additional four weeks beyond its original end date of May 11. The production will continue through Sunday, June 8.
Show times are 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays. ZACH Theatre’s Whisenhunt Stage, 1510 Toomey Road. See the Zach Web site for more information.
Directed by internationally renowned playwright Steven Dietz, John Patrick Shanley’s Tony Award-winning suspenseful, drama takes a look at the goings on of a Catholic school in Bronx in 1964 when a independently minded nun grows suspicious of a young priest who seems to take a special interest in a new student.
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Salvage Vanguard Theater announces new leadership
Salvage Vanguard Theater has appointed a new executive director and an interim artistic director to fill the shoes of company founder Jason Neulander, who announced his departure from the nonprofit group last fall.
Here’s the official news release from the theater:
Salvage Vanguard Theater, an Austin theater company founded in 1994, has selected two people to replace founder and Artistic Director Jason Neulander when he steps down on May 30.
Following a four-month national search, SVT has hired Brad Carlin as executive director of the fourteen-year-old company. Jenny Larson, currently SVT’s associate artistic director, will serve as interim artistic director.
“There is genuine excitement on the Board about our future with Brad and Jenny leading the organization,” says SVT board chair Reza Shirazi. “We’re evolving from a founder-driven company to a full-fledged Austin arts institution.”
When Neulander announced he was leaving last year, the company’s board determined that they would split his role into two positions. They quickly asked Larson to step in as interim artistic director based on her long association with the company as they began a national search for an executive director.
Shirazi led a succession committee through the four-month search. The committee received resumes from coast to coast. When the time came to select the new leadership, the committee’s vote was unanimous.
“Jenny and Brad have a natural chemistry,” continues Shirazi. “Both can focus on their specialties, and together they will find great ways for SVT to have impact on the artistic community in Austin.”
Before accepting the position with SVT, Brad Carlin was the associate managing director of SITI Company (an ensemble theater company led by Anne Bogart and based in New York City). Prior to his time with SITI, he worked with the managing director of City Theatre in Pittsburgh while earning his masters degree in arts management from Carnegie Mellon University. While in Pittsburgh, he led research projects on tax policies supporting the arts and arts education for American for the Arts. Carlin is also an alumnus of the prestigious Theatre Communications Group’s New Generations Mentorship Program.
Carlin’s roots in Austin run deep. He has a BA in acting from St. Edward’s University and has worked on stage and off with many local theater companies, including SVT, Hyde Park Theatre, the Rude Mechanicals, and Refraction Arts. His work was recognized with several ACoT B. Iden Payne Award nominations, Critics Table Award nominations, and a Deacon Crain Award.
“I feel like the challenges and experiences I have gained while away will be invaluable in charting a path for the next fourteen years of SVT,” says Carlin. “Salvage Vanguard Theater is a robust and vital company with a nationwide profile, and I am honored to be entrusted with continuing SVT’s transformation into an Austin institution.”
Jenny Larson has been active in Austin theater as an actor, director, and teacher for over ten years. Larson has a BA in theater from St. Edward’s University and has been involved with numerous local and touring theater productions. Larson’s first experience with SVT was as an audience member at SVT’s 2000 production of Terminal Hip. After seeing the show, she knew she had to work with the company.
“I have always had and continue to nurture my love for new works, edgy performance, and productions that defy tradition,” says Larson. “This company has always been a perfect fit for me.”
Larson started her professional relationship with SVT in 2001, first as a literary intern, then as an actor, literary manager, resident company member, director, and finally, associate artistic director. Larson has won numerous local theater awards and has already directed three SVT main-stage productions.
Larson’s enthusiasm about the future is palpable: “I am very excited and hopeful as I step into this next phase of not only my career, but of Salvage Vanguard Theater’s development. And I am thrilled to be working with Brad Carlin.”
Salvage Vanguard Theater’s next production is Hamilton Township by Jason Grote, directed by Jenny Larson. It opens May 30 and plays through the end of June at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road in Austin
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Interview with composer John Adams
American composer John Adams — winner of a Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards and numerous other honors — is in Austin this week, appearing at the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music as a part of the school’s visiting composer series. During his stay, Adams will receive the $25,000 Eddie Medora King Award for Musical Composition, which is awarded every other year by the university to a composer for his or her body of work; and some of his best-known pieces will be performed in concerts by various UT ensembles Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
In a recent e-mail interview, Adams responded to some questions about his professional life and works:
Austin American-Statesman: Depending on when you start counting, you’ve been composing for about 50 years now. How do you think your music, or your view of your music, or your view of the public’s view of your music, has evolved over that time?
John Adams: Yikes! Much too broad a question. It would take a novel to answer this. I just finished a book of memoirs, called “Hallelujah Junction,” which answers this question, but it takes 320 pages.
A-AS: You frequently appear as a guest conductor. Although you will not be doing so during your Austin visit, how do you feel about conducting your own music? What kind of insights does it provide you as a composer? br>
Adams: I enjoy conducting, not only my own music but both the classics and the contemporary repertoire. I sometimes say it’s the yin to the yang of composing; it’s an extroverted activity that provides a good psychic balance to the very private world of creative work. It also reminds me of the need for practicality, especially in the creation of orchestral and operatic works, where rehearsal time is usually severely limited. When you look at a score by Mahler, for example, you can immediately tell that, despite the great originality and daring of the music, it’s the creation of a working musician who understood intimately the realities of large ensemble performance.
A-AS: Many classical music aficionados identify you as a “minimalist” composer, and in 2006 you curated the hugely popular “Minimalist Jukebox” for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. How does the term apply (or not apply) to your work?
Adams: I think that “minimalism” is a very useful term, especially in music. Using it quickly orientates us as to a particular style and musical procedure. On the other hand, I have never considered myself a “minimalist” composer. For me that would be too limiting a definition. I have absorbed the technique into my larger musical language. Certainly my music is pulse-driven, and some of my earlier works like “Shaker Loops,” “Nixon in China” and “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” share the feel and sound of minimalist pieces. But I think that minimalism in music was much like cubism in painting. It was a breakthrough in language and technique, in a sense a reduction of means to arrive at a new result. After its introduction it almost immediately required an integration into a more complex and varied system, or it would have grown stale.
Three nights of the music of John Adams
At 8 p.m. today, UT Symphony Orchestra will play ‘The Wound-Dresser,’ based on Civil War poems by Walt Whitman. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, UT’s New Music Ensemble plays ‘Christian Zeal and Activity,’ ‘Phrygian Gates’ and ‘Chamber Symphony.’ At 8 p.m. Wednesday, the Butler School’s Wind Ensemble joins forces with the Choral Arts Society, Concert Chorale, Women’s Chorus and Men’s Chorus for ‘Fanfare for Great Woods,’ ‘Short Ride in a Fast Machine’ and ‘Grand Pianola Music.’ All concerts are in Bates Concert Hall, Music Building, Trinity Street and Robert Dedman Drive. $10-$17 ($5-$10 students). Tickets available at box office one hour before concert. All concerts will also be webcast live at www.music.utexas.edu. 471-5401.
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Fuse Box filling houses
Austin wants to get lit. Or so it would appear from the crowds turning out for Fuse Box 08, the 10-day contemporary performance arts festival that kicked off this weekend.
On Thursday, Graham Reynolds’ re-working of his Cult of Color: Call to Color score as a string quintet played to a standing-room only crowd at Arthouse. You can catch composer-pianist-drummer Reynolds again when he collaborates with jazz drummer Brannen Temple this Saturday, May 3, at 8 p.m. at the Long Center’s Rollins Studio Theatre for what promises to be a super-charged concert of original new work and some improvisations. Tickets are $10.
Friday, there were nearly full theaters for London-based theater troupe Rotozaza’s beguiling show “Five in the Morning” at Salvage Vanguard Theater. Ditto with Neal Medlyn’s hysterical “Neal Medlyn’s Lionel Richie Opera”) at the Blue Theater.
A performance art jam at the Victory Grill organized by Austin Video Bee also brought in a standing-room-only crowd.
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Fuse Box review: ‘Neal Medlyn’s Lionel Richie Opera’
Go ahead. You know you want to. You want to lip-synch to and act out your favorite pop songs. You’ve thought of imaginary scenes that would go perfectly with those catchy hits that just stick in your head. You know — you just
Pop culture talks to Neal Medlyn. And the brilliant satirist that he is, the East Texas-born New York-based performer talks right back with some of the funniest, most inventive little shows on the alt performance landscape.
Shows like “Neal Medlyn’s Lionel Richie Opera” which he brought to the Blue Theater Friday night in one of two performances as part of Refraction Arts Fuse Box 08 Festival.
In an absurd premise, Medlyn took his abiding appreciation of Richie’s “Back to Front” greatest hits album and layered it with the plot of Richard Strauss’ opera “Arabella.” Well, that’s sort of what transpired in the hysterical 40 minutes or so that Medlyn was on stage.
With the frenzied intensity of an evangelist, Medlyn throws a weird array of props and himself through the first few rows of seats, acting out characters, donning tiaras and costume hats, flicking his wrists and his skinny-boy hips on perfect cue with Richie’s Top 40 ballads.
What made it all this transcend just simple camp, is that while Medlyn is dissecting and mocking our pop-culture worshipping zeitgeist, he’s also celebrating it. He catapults Richie saccharine pop songs so far out of their original context you think these songs — “All Night Long,” “Easy Like Sunday Morning,” “Say You, Say Me” — really are full of the melodramatic drama Medlyn injects.
For all the gut-busting laughter he provokes, Medlyn’s a serious performer. He slyly transforms what are impossibly fun and absurdist happenings into what you only later - after you’ve stopped laughing — realize are trenchant comments on contemporary culture.
But really it’s all amazingly ridiculous. Medlyn is amazingly ridiculous. But he’s also wonderfully smart.
Fuse Box continues through May 3. See the Refraction Arts Web site for show times and other information.
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Fuse Box: Double Fantasy/Double Reality Exhibition
Call it a creative melting pot — with a deadline.
As part of the Fuse Box 08 Festival, producers put out an open call to artists interested in collaborating with another artist working in a different medium. Playwright with installation artist, choreographer with video artist — that sort of thing. Artists from Mexico, France and across the U.S. responded, and five collaborative teams were formed.
Today through May 3, you can see these artists’ individual work on exhibit in “Double Reality” in the galleries of Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road. Then May 3, from 7 to 9 p.m., head to Big Medium Gallery, 50305 Bolm Road, for the “Double Fantasy” unveiling where you can see the fruits of the artistic collaborations.
Among those at work over the next week is Mexico City-based artist Armando Miguelez. He had show here at the now-closed Volitant Gallery last year. But for Fuse Box, Miguelez will be bringing part of utterly beguiling large-scale installation he exhibited this fall at Casino Metropolitano, an artist-run project space in Mexico City. “Eppur si muove” — Italian for “and yet it moves” — involved an arrangement of enormous constellationlike mobiles arranged throughout the old commercial building that houses Casino Metropolitano in Mexico City’s historic downtown. The motorized mobiles whirred quietly around in the intriguing old venue which is delightfully tucked away in Mexico City’s historic central district.
Miguelez’s Fuse Box collaboration with Austin-based dancer/actor Lauren Tietz is likely to produce intriguing results.
Armando Miguelez in his “Eppur si muove” installation in Casino Metropolitano in Mexico City.
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Austin Arts Hall of Fame inductees named
The Austin Critics’ Table has named seven individuals to the Austin Arts Hall of Fame.
Those celebrated for their long-time commitment to Austin’s arts community are long-time philanthropists Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long, whose arts patronage of the Austin Symphony Orchestra and in particular the Long Center for the Performing Arts, named in their honor after they donated $22 million to the recently completed $77 million center.
Other inductees this year are architect Stan Haas of Nelsen Partners Architects, named for his design of the Long Center; Craig Hella Johnson, director and founder of the Grammy-nominated choral group, Conspirare and Tina Marsh, innovative jazz vocalist and founder of the Creative Opportunity Orchestra. Capital City Comedy Club owner Margie Coyle and arts patron Don Howell were also named to the Austin Arts Hall of Fame.
The Arts Hall of Fame awards will be presented June 2 at the annual Critics’ Table Awards ceremony. The free event is open to public and starts at 7 p.m. at Capital City Comedy Club.
The Austin Critics’ Table is an informal group of arts critics and writers from the Austin American-Statesman and the Austin Chronicle who each year present awards for outstanding achievement in the arts.
Teresa Lozano Long and Joe R. Long at the opening gala of the Long Center.
Architect Stan Haas in front of the Long Center.
Craig Hell Johnson of Conspirare.
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Austin Symphony Orchestra announces new season
A solo concert by famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma and a world premiere of a piece specifically for the Long Center’s Dell Hall by noted composer Christopher Theofanidis and electroacoustic music pioneer Mark Wingate are just two of the highlights of the Austin Symphony Orchestra’s 2008-2009 season, which was announced Wednesday.
Maestro Peter Bay made the announcement on the Long Center’s City Terrace with a fanfare provided by the symphony’s brass quintet.
Also on the schedule next season is the premiere of Austin composer Dan Welcher’s Symphony No. 5. Conspirare, Austin’s Grammy-nominated choral group, will join the symphony May 15-16, 2009, for Mahler’s mighty “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2 in C Minor.
Other special guests include famed British flutists Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway, Austin pianist Anton Nel, violinist Sarah Chang and pianist Jon Nakamatsu, whose recording of Gershwin music with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra spent 27 weeks in Billboard’s top classical charts last year, peaking at an impressive number 3 position. Nakamatsu will play Gerswhin’s Piano Concerto in F Major. The all-American concert will also feature works by Roy Harris and Leonard Bernstein.
The Long Center’s Dell Hall will be celebrated with the innovative collaboration between Theofanidis and Wingate. The as yet untitled suite of five short pieces will employ both the symphony orchestra and Wingate’s live surround-sound samplings. Theofandis and Wingate were in town recently to explore the Dell Hall and find inspiration in the venue’s architecture and acoustic possibilities.
The Texas-born award-winning Theofanidis received national kudos and attention this year for “The Refuge,” his massive musical and community event for the Houston Grand Opera inspired by Houston’s polyglot immigrant community and involving the opera’s singers and community performers. Wingate, by the way, received his doctorate in composition from the University of Texas.
Hats off to Bay for pursuing such a ground-breaking commission perfect for Austin and the new Long Center.
Peter Bay on the stage of the Long Center’s Dell Hall.
For tickets and more information go to the Austin Symphony Orchetra’s Web site.
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Fuse Box: Musing with Rotozaza
Though they’ve only been in town just a few days, London-based performance group Rotozaza has done everything good Brits should do when they first visit Austin.
They’ve shopped for cowboy hats and cowboy boots. (Score thus far: One used hat, no boots yet.) They went to the Continental Club to see Heybale’s regular Sunday night gig. They found their way to Barton Springs Pool for a swim. (“Soooo lovely,” coos Silvia Mercuriali, who along with Anthony Hampton, founded Rotozaza.) They hit a few South Austin pawn shops. (Actor Greg McLaren found an inexpensive fuzz box for his guitar,) And they’ve eaten lots and lots of Mexican food.
As of Monday afternoon, they still hadn’t yet checked out the Salvage Vanguard Theater where they’ll be performing “Five In The Morning,” their beguiling theater piece that garnered rave reviews last year when it played P.S. 122 in New York. Nor have they installed “Etiquette,” their participatory theater experience for two, well, participants and no actors, that will happen in Cafe Mundi.
Rotozaza — the name comes from a sculpture by surrealist artist Jean Tinguely — will get started on all that after lunch at the Green Muse Cafe.
Silvia Mercuriali, Anthony Hampton, Greg McLaren (with his new hat), Melanie Wilson at the Green Muse Cafe.
With its reputation growing on the international experimental theater circuit, Rotozaza lands in Austin for Fuse Box, the 10-day festival of time-based contemporary art: performance, dance, poetry, film, visual. If it’s art that involves a specific time — fleeting, situational, unique — it can be a part of the smart lineup brought together by Refraction Arts artistic director Ron Berry under the banner of Fuse Box.
“We interested in theater that is not trying to dominate the audience,” explains Hampton.
But they don’t mind making the audience a little tense. They merge dark psychological story arcs with absurdist theater techniques and use rehearsed and unrehearsed performers. A commanding voice offstage might instruct those on the stage to do something, as in “Five In The Morning” that imagines an Orwellian theme park called Aquaworld. Or, as in “Etiquette,” there’s a voice on a recording that instructs two people through a series of conversations and small actions.
“Etiquette” just had its Spanish-language debut in Mexico City last week where, instead of a cafe, the earphone setup was perched in a corner of the enormous Plaza Juarez. Hampton and Mercuriali said “Etiquette,” which normally is a private experience for two, became a public spectacle when transported to a plaza.
Creating a situation where it’s ambigious if what’s going on is rehearsed or not, is the aesthetic Rotozaza explores. “People really embrace a situation differently if it isn’t mediated or contrived,” Hampton says. “An audience will become much more invested in what’s going on if they know that a situation is unrehearsed,” Why not spread the tension and fear of what that voice offstage might tell you to do and whether or not you’ll do it correctly.
Ah, now that’s utterly live theater.
“Five In The Morning”
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Review: ‘Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil’
Blues legend Robert Johnson went down to the crossroads one night and sold his soul to the devil. Afterward, he could make music like no other man in the Delta. How else could he seemingly go from a mediocre harmonica player to a genius guitar craftsman who would influence musicians for decades after his mysterious death in 1938?
In “Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil” playwright Bill Harris takes that bit of blues legend - along with the mystery swirling around Johnson’s little-documented life and death at age 27 — and draws out a compelling story of what might have happened.
And director Marcus McQuirter gives it an equally compelling treatment, a co-production of Austin Community College and Pro-Arts Collective now playing through Sunday at the Long Center’s Rollins Studio Theatre.
Harris’ trains his lens on the last day of Johnson’s life, when the rambling musician (played with a decidedly sweet touch by Aaron Alexander) wanders into a Mississippi juke joint — one of presumably many stops this restless man makes on his constant wanderings.
Everybody wants a piece of Johnson, it seems, from juke joint proprietress Georgia (an effective Feliz McDonald) to Kimbrough, a nervous and odd Shakespeare-quoting professor, played by Michelle Flanagan with a gripping and anxious brittleness, on a quest to find the man whose records touch her soul.
Though the plot line of Kimbrough, a white woman, journeying through 1930s African American Delta enclaves seems a bit of a construct, Kimbrough’s entry into a world so different from her own gives the playwright ample opportunity to comment on Johnson’s legacy and how it’s played out — or co-opted? — over generations of music fans.
Unfortunately, the playwright’s linguistic mash of Shakespeare and philosophical musings combined with the more lyrical aspects of Johnson’s tale bogs down in places and seemingly takes the wind briefly out of what is otherwise a firm production.
Set designer Douglas Gessaman takes advantage of the Rollins’ volume with a hefty wooden structure that serves as the juke joint complete with frontpiece wall that hoists up. And McQuirter wisely leaves Johnson’s music to be little but an aural soundscape throughout the play.
After all, “Trick the Devil” allows just for a moment for the legendary man to be considered apart from his music.
“Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil” continues 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Rollins Studio Theatre, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive. $10-$12, 474-5664. www.proartsaustin.org.
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Review: Austin Lyric Opera’s ‘Carmen’
The audience buzz was high Friday night at Austin Lyric Opera’s debut performance at the new Long Center for the Performing Arts, the first of four sold-out shows of Bizet’s “Carmen.”
A “Home Sweet Home” banner greeted a festive crowd as they climbed the stairs to Dell Hall, the much-anticipated new home stage for the 22-year-old opera company. But unfortunately that audience energy far exceeded the verve coming from the stage. Awkward stage directing and weak performances from the lead performers left this “Carmen” lackluster.
Thankfully, sharp conducting by music director Richard Buckley flaunted the Long Center’s sparkling acoustics and provided the performance’s only real sizzle.
As Carmen, mezzo-soprano Beth Clayton lacked volume and a fullness of tone, never quite grabbing the pitch she needed during what should have been show-stopping arias. Tenor William Joyner, as Don Jose, likewise struggled with consistent delivery.
In the secondary roles, soprano Barbara Divis, as Micaela, did manage more volume and flair. And as Escamallio, Luis Ledesma had a good tone and plenty of dramatic flourish. Alas it was some of the only dramatic action we saw. Stage director David Gately seemed to have given little structure or purpose to the movement during the crowd scenes and principal characters lacked focus. This was a Carmen and Don Jose in love? It was hard to buy.
Perhaps the only star of the evening was the Dell Hall and its acoustics, amply celebrated by Buckley and the orchestra. Buckley drew a nuanced and shimmering sound from the pit that resulted in hearty cheers from the audience.
If this “Carmen” was underwhelming, at least Dell Hall and its sound continues to impress.
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Fusebox passes on sale now: save $25 through the weekend
Save yourself some cash and get a pass to the Fusebox 08 Festival now. Passes are $50 through this weekend, after which the price jumps to $75.
Purchase your tickets online here.
Started by Refraction Arts artistic director Ron Berry, Fusebox is one of the brightest and most exciting events to hit Austin’s cultural landscape of late.
For 10 days, various Austin venues will pop with all manner of time-based art. Think art — performance, theater, dance, visual, video, poetry — that can only be experienced in a certain place at a certain time. Think fresh, inventive art that asks big questions and small.
This year’s Fusebox is presenting artists from, among other places, Mexico City, Salt Lake City, New York City, Portland, London, Paris, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Houston and Chicago — and yes, Austin.
It’s time to get your mind blown, folks.
‘Stacked Cow and Other Dances,” Hijack dance troupe in collaboration with Scott Heron.
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UT celebrates composer John Adams
UT’s Butler School of Music will present the $25,000 Eddie Medora King Award for Musical Composition to noted composer John Adams and celebrate his music in two concerts April 29 and 30. Creator of luminous music that has refreshed classical music while never losing track of the modern vernacular, Adams is this year’s Visiting Composer at the Butler School.
Adams will be presented the award at 8 p.m. at the April 29 concert of the Butler School’s New Music Ensemble. The program will include Adams’ Christian Zeal and Activity; Phrygian Gates; and Chamber Symphony. Featured soloist is pianist William Doppmann.
Then on April 30, also at 8 p.m., the Butler School’s Wind Ensemble joins forces with the Choral Arts Society, Concert Chorale, Women’s Chorus and Men’s Chorus in a program featuring Adams’ Fanfare for Great Woods: Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Grand Pianola Music.
Both concerts are at Bates Hall in the Music Building on the UT campus. Tickets for the April concert are $5-$10; for the April 30 concert, $10-$17.
Box office opens one hour prior to show time. Both concerts will be webcast live from the School of Music Web site at www.music.utexas.edu. You can access the webcast by clicking the event listing on the calendar of events. The School of Music events hotline at (512) 471-5401.
From Adams’ web site:
John Adams is one of America’s most admired and respected composers. A musician of enormous range and technical command, he has produced works, both operatic and symphonic, that stand out among all contemporary classical music for the depth of their expression, the brilliance of their sound and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes.
Born and raised in New England, educated at Harvard, Adams moved in 1971 to California, where he taught for 10 years at the San Francisco Conservatory and was composer in residence at the San Francisco Symphony.
Adams’s operatic works are among the most successful of our time. Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic, all created in collaboration with stage director Peter Sellars, draw their subjects from archetypical themes in contemporary history.
On the Transmigration of Souls, written for the New York Philharmonic in commemoration of the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and won a rare “triple crown” at the Grammys, including “Best Classical Recording”, “Best Orchestral Performance.”
In 2003 a film version of The Death of Klinghoffer, Adams’ second opera, directed by Penny Woolcock with the composer conducting the London Symphony was released in theaters, on television and on DVD. Wonders Are Many, a new documentary by Jon Else on the making of Doctor Atomic, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
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Be there for last screening of “I-Be There”
At 3 p.m. Saturday, Okay Mountain, 1312 E. Cesar Chavez St., will present the final screening of Ryan Trecartin’s video “I-Be Area.” Admission is free.
The video created quite the art world buzz when it went on exhibit in New York last year.
The wholly whacky, utterly original 108-minute fast-paced drama charts the interwined stories (sort of stories) of a tribe (of sorts) of young adults who rattle through scenarios and monologues on everything from same-sex adoption, identity politics, love and art. It’s an irreverent, raucous “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” for the YouTube generation. “I can’t live without an audience,” one character admits.
Video still: “I-Be Area” Ryan Trecartin 2007
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Long Center announces Broadway shows
The new Long Center for the Performing Arts will play host to three Broadway shows this year, center officials announced today.
Five-time Tony Award-winning musical “The Drowsy Chaperone” will play the Long Center’s Dell Hall Aug. 19-24.
Academy Award nominated actor Chazz Palminteri will kick off his U.S. tour of “A Bronx Tale” in Austin Sept. 2-7.
And direct from Broadway, the internationally acclaimed “Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy” will play Nov. 25-30.
Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Sunday, May 18. Tickets available online at www.TheLongCenter.org at (512) 474-5664 or at the 3M Box Office at the Long Center. Groups of 20 or more may call (512) 457-5161 now to pre-book tickets before the public on-sale.
From the Long Center press release:
“The Drowsy Chaperone” received more Tony Awards than any other musical of the 2006 Broadway season, including Best Book, Original Score, Costume Design, and Scenic Design. A completely original musical comedy, “The Drowsy Chaperone” tells the story of a modern day musical theater addict known simply as “Man in Chair”. To chase his blues away he drops the needle on his favorite LP — the 1928 musical comedy, “The Drowsy Chaperone.” From the crackle of his hi-fi, the musical magically bursts to life on-stage telling the tale of a pampered Broadway starlet who wants to give up show business to get married, her producer who sets out to sabotage the nuptials, her chaperone, the debonair groom, the dizzy chorine, the Latin lover and a pair of gangsters who double as pastry chefs.
Directed by Tony Award-winner Jerry Zaks, “A Bronx Tale” features Palminteri as 18 characters depicting a rough childhood on the Bronx streets. First mounted Off Broadway in 1989, “A Bronx Tale” helped establish Palminteri as a writer and actor. He now has over 50 movies to his credit, including “The Usual Suspects,” “Bullets over Broadway,” “Analyze This,” “Hurly Burly” and “Mulholland Falls.”
“Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy” sees 25 aerialists, contortionists, acrobats, jugglers and musicians combine athleticism and theater in a spectacular show inspired by nature’s unpredictable creatures.
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Review: Austin Chamber Music’s Long Center debut
If you have the talent to show off, why not do so?
That’s what Austin Chamber Music Center did for its flourishing debut at the new Long Center for the Performing Art’s Rollins Studio Theatre Sunday night.
In a program of three virtuosic — and demanding — pieces, ACMC artistic director Michelle Schumann and guests — violinist Sonja Braaten and cellist Martha Baldwin, both of the Cleveland Orchectra — impressed a near-capacity audience that rewarded with an enthusiastic standing ovation at concert’s end.
And what was there not to be utterly impressed with? Schumann and Braaten opened with Beethoven’s mighty Kreutzer Sonata and deftly interpreted the piece’s vast scale, coaxing great nuance from a score that sweeps in mood from furious to meditative and joyously exuberant.
Schumann showed her whip-smart sense of programming with the surprising Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello, an untypical Ravel piece with tonal austerity that nevertheless radiated with a kind of modernist lyricism and undeniable vigor.
In a testament to sheer power and endurance that this trio of female musicians displayed, the concert concluded with Tchaikovsky’s demanding Piano Trio in A minor. The undeniably dramatic work — about 40 minutes in length — builds from a dirge-like romantic opening into a series of increasingly complex and ecstatic variations before ending in a quiet yet moving funereal march. And Schumann and company crafted it to be equal parts breathtaking technique and passionate emotion.
Schumann made the forward-thinking decision to be the first of Austin’s not-major classical groups to use the new $77 million downtown performing arts center as its principal concert venue.
To be sure, the Rollins Studio Theatre isn’t as ideal acoustically for classical music as the Long Center’s Dell Hall is. Dell Hall sparkles with clarity and warmth. Rollins is fine, but a bit dry; the vibrant halo of sound doesn’t hold and linger the way that it does in Dell Hall. But the Rollins’ sophisticated (and comfortable) setting lends a refreshing urban aura to a centuries-old musical genre.
Before Sunday night’s concert, the Rollins lobby made a commodious and attractive venue for a short concert by a brass quintet from ACMC’s community music school. Afterward, audience members lingered to chat with the performers.
Welcome to chamber music’s chamber for the 21st century.
Michelle Schumann in the Rollins Studio Theatre. Photo by Riccardo Brazziell.
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Review: ‘Doubt: A Parable.’
The story of “Doubt: A Parable,” an investigation by two nuns of a possible pedophile priest, has the makings of made-for-TV mystery pabulum, but the underpinnings are a hearty challenge. The trick is in bringing them out.
As the play’s 2005 Pulitzer attests, John Patrick Shanley struck gold. His way with words is as invigorating as his tight pacing and nuanced characters are captivating.
As the suspected priest, Jamie Goodwin ranges from charismatic sermons to intimate, urgent sincerity. Janelle Buchanan as the investigating sister lands her many arch, comic lines while keeping a driven purpose, and Sydney Andrews’ younger, more innocent nun provides an excellent emotional touchstone of the play. Angela Rawna’s performance as the mother of the boy in question, while brief, is strong and riveting.
The detective drama succeeds, but the moral probing falls short. Goodwin is almost too nice to be anything other than sympathetic, and Buchanan is far from the “block of ice” her Sister Aloysius is described as. More droll than severe, she’s something of a sober Nora Charles instead of a personification of absolute justice.
The pairing makes for a compelling, entertaining mystery, but it removes all doubt. Two equally uncomfortable opposites should fill the room with uncertainty. Instead there are two endearing people, one of whom just happens to be right and the other, unfortunately, wrong.
(“Doubt” continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through May 11 at Zachary Scott Theatre, Whisenhunt Stage, 1510 Toomey Road. $15-$34. 476-0541, www.zachscott.com.)
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‘Carmen’ sells out Dell Hall; live broadcast planned
Austin Lyric Opera’s production of “Carmen” — the organization’s debut at the new Long Center for the Performing Arts — has sold out all of its four upcoming performances at the Long’s 2,400-seat Dell Hall. As of blog posting time, all but a few single tickets have been sold.
But even if you don’t have a ticket, you’ll still have the chance to hear the inaugural performance Friday night when Classical 89.5 KMFA broadcasts the opera live beginning at 7 p.m.
This is the first of a series of planned simulcasts of ALO’s productions.
The simulcast commentary will be hosted by Lauren Rico, also the host of Minnesota Opera broadcasts on public radio. Intermission interviews will feature ALO’s General Director Kevin Patterson, Principal Conductor Richard Buckley and stars from the production.
Celebrated mezzo-soprano Beth Clayton will sing the role of Carmen. William Joyner will sing the role of the young soldier Don José.
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Blanton Museum of Art to receive portion of Vogel Collection
The Blanton Museum of Art has been selected by the National Gallery of Art as the only museum in Texas for “Fifty Works for Fifty States,” a nation-wide initiative that will give 50 artworks from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection to a museum in each of the 50 states.
The Vogel Collection — one of the most important gatherings of contemporary art ever assembled privately — was amassed by the former United States Postal Service employee and his public librarian wife over the last five decades. The New York couple, now retired, lived modestly in order to devote their income to acquiring art. The Vogels showed a portion of their collection at the Blanton in 1997. The Blanton’s “Fifty Works” gift — the list of works has not yet been released — will go display within the next five years.
Sylvia Plimack Mangold. “Untitled (August),” 1980
From the press release distributed by the National Gallery:
Acquired over the last 45 years, the internationally renowned Vogel Collection of contemporary art comprises primarily drawings with some significant works of painting and sculpture and a small number of prints, photographs and illustrated books. The Vogel Collection is best known for its holdings of minimal, post-minimal and conceptual art, and the diversity of intellectual and stylistic expressions in a variety of media. New York collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel have acquired works by artists whose careers developed after 1960, and in many cases, have assembled large numbers of works by individual artists throughout their career.
The extraordinary breadth and depth of collection are even more remarkable considering the Vogels’ modest means.
Dorothy Vogel was born in 1935, in Elmira, New York, the daughter of a stationery store owner. She pursued a career as a librarian for the Brooklyn Public Library. Herbert Vogel was in New York in 1922, the son of a tailor. In the 1950s — when he wasn’t working as a clerk for the United States Postal Service, wandering around art museum or taking classes at the New York Institute of Fine Arts — Herbert spent time at the Cedar Bar, a meeting place for artists such as David Smith and Franz Kilne.
The Vogels met in 1960. They married one year later and spent their honeymoon in Washington D.C. where Herbert introduced Dorothy to the National Gallery of Art and other museums. Upon their return to New York, Dorothy also began taking classes in drawing and painting at New York University. The couple rented a studio with another artist, painting in their spare time and managing to squeeze in visits to museums and galleries on weekends.
Their first joint purchase of art was a small crashed car sculpture by John Chamberlain in 1962. The Vogels’ friendships with artists Sol LeWitt and Dan Graham, who was then an art dealer, stimulated them to acquire minimal and conceptual art and greatly influenced their collection. Eventually they gave up painting and immersed themselves in collecting — living on Dorothy’s salary and buying art with Herbert’s.
The Vogels were particularly attracted to work by such artists as Will Barnet, Robert Barry, Lynda Benglis, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert Mangol, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Edda Renouf, Pat Steir and Richard Tuttle. With the exception of the collection assembled by Sol LeWitt, no other known private collection of similiar work in Europe or America rivals the Vogels.
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Winners Selected for ‘Temporary Outdoor Gallery Space’ ideas competition
One of the spiffiest creative competitions to pop up on Austin’s calendar this year — the Temporary Outdoor Gallery Space (TOGS) Ideas Competition — wrapped up Wednesday night with the announcement of the winners.
The competition — co-sponsored by Art Alliance Austin and AIA Austin — set out to solicit designs for a structure that could be used in lieu of those white fabric tents normally offered to artists who participate in the Alliance’s annual art fair, this year re-dubbed Art City Austin.
Last year, a spring storm packing strong winds whipped through downtown the night before the annual festival was set to begin, destroying or blowing away artists’ tents. This year, the bright minds behind Art Alliance Austin decided to get pro-active — and at the same time, sponsor an creative competition. Isn’t that what any arts support group should do? Foster creativity?
We think so.
Wednesday’s unveiling of the winners was a buoyant affair at Loft, the trendy home furnishing store on W. Cesar Chavez St.
The Grand Prize ($1,000) was awarded to Amy Wynne and Mark Leveno from Los Angeles, California. Their proposal imagines a flexible wall system with movable pannels that surrounds a basic shipping container-like structure. Check here for a gallery of the winners.
The Second Prize ($500) went to Toshihiro Kimura and Masaki Kanno of Yoyogo, Tokyo, Japan. The Third Prize ($250) was given to the design of Peter Lingamfelter and Taylor Medlin of Berkeley, California.
Twelve honorable mentions were also awarded to finalists from Chicago, IL; Brooklyn, NY; Melbourne, VIC, Australia; Highland Village, TX; New Haven, CT; Arlington, TX; Oschatz, Germany; New Providence, NJ; League City, TX; Nantes, France; Dallas, TX; and the team of Jay Colombo and Micah Land from Austin.
Judging was blind: The jurors did not know the names or cities/countries of origin of the applicants.
Some 269 submissions came in from 23 countries. That list was culled down earlier this week by a panel of jurors: Louise Harpman (Specht Harpman Architects and associate dean at the UT’s School of Architecture; Dana Friis-Hansen, executive director of the Austin Museum of Art’ Elizabeth Dunbar, curator of Arthouse, Goil Amornvivat, architectural designer and currently a designer on TLC’s Trading Spaces; and, Wally Workman of Wally Workman Gallery.
Goil, by the way, was impressed at the reach of the competition and the energy it percolated. “At the end of day, (this competition) was about marrying practicality with spectacle,” he said. “I really impressed with the kind of thinking a competition like this can foster and tha there’s this kind of energy in Austin.”
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Speaking of ‘ennial exhibits…
With changes to the Texas Biennial announced in this blog yesterday… don’t forget to check out “New Art in Austin,” the Austin Museum of Art’s third triennial of emerging Austin artists.
This iteration of “New Art” is by far the most consistent in terms of overall quality — and you can read more about that here.
Installation view of Stephanie Wagner’s ‘Divinity Series.’
Also, coming up is “Atelier 2008: Selections from the Department of Art and Art History Faculty,” the University of Texas at Austin, the UT art faculty triennial, the first to be held in the new Blanton Museum. The exhibit opens April 19.
James Elaine, curator at the Hammer Museum of Art in Los Angeles, served as guest curator for “Atelier 2008.” And from the early looks of it, inviting a guest curator from outside the UT environs makes for a smart new format for the show.
Teresa Hubbard/Alexander Birchler
‘Single Wide.’ High-definition video with sound. Collection John and Julie Thornton. Courtesy Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.
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Texas Biennial dates, jurors announced
The third time, it looks like a streamlined charm.
Always offering a fresh and independent take on contemporary art in the Lone Star State since it launched in 2005, the Texas Biennial has smartly re-tooled itself to provide a bit more focus.
Yes, the Texas Biennial 2009 — March 6-April 11, 2009 — will again be a group show selected from open submissions. But this time, rather than have the selection done by committee, critic and independent curator Michael Duncan has been tapped as juror and curator for the affair. Sites for the group exhibition are Women and Their Work and the new gallery at the Mexican American Cultural Center.
In addition to a group exhibit, there will now also be four solo exhibits awarded to individual artists representing four basic Texas regions (North, South, East and West). The solo exhibitions will be showcased at Okay Mountain, Gallery Lombardi, MASS Gallery and Big Medium.
Also new this year is a collaboration with the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places program that will give the Texas Biennial the opportunity to feature temporary outdoor projects. Potential sites for the temporary outdoor project include Town Lake Metropolitan Park at Auditorium Shores, the Mexican American Cultural Center grounds and Fiesta Gardens. Blanton curator and Art in Public Places panel member Rise Puleo will share the curatorial gig with Duncan for the public art portion of the Texas Biennial.
Applications for the Texas Biennial will be available online April 16. Deadline for submissions is May 31.
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Review: Kathleen Battle at the Long Center
It was a diva evening: glittering opera legend graces the stage of the Dell Hall on Monday night at the new, and equally glittering, $77 million Long Center for the Performing Arts hosting the first classical concert presented by the Long Center itself.
Days before her much-anticipated return to Carnegie Hall this Sunday, luminary soprano Kathleen Battle sang a captivating two-hour recital with selections spanning three centuries, from baroque to gospel.
To be sure, there was some inconsistency with Battle’s delivery. Perhaps she was holding back in preparation for Carnegie Hall? Still, when she did deliver she did so brilliantly, re-affirming that at moments Battle still has one of the most distinctive voices of our era. And she also re-affirmed that the acoustics of the new Dell Hall sparkle with perfection.
Taking the stage in a simple yet elegant black velvet dress and wrapping a full-length golden satin stole around her with dramatic flair, Battle began with a set of songs by baroque composer Henry Purcell — a strange fit for her that she obliviously seemed unsure of herself with, as was evident in her breathy delivery and unsure pitch on sustained notes. Her surety and flair kicked in a bit more when she moved on to a set of Schubert lieder, and a trio of songs by Felix Mendelssohn demonstrated her extraordinary clarity and dramatic turns.
After intermission, she resoundingly impressed with Franz Liszt’s “Die Lorelei” garnering the first of several shouts of “brava” from the audience that rippled through the recital’s second half.
But when she emerged alone on stage without accompanying pianist Ted Taylor to sing an awe-inspiring a cappella version of “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” we heard the legendary beauty. Gone was the distracted glancing at musical scores, the audible inhaling of breath, the odd facial expressions. Instead, Battle unleashed a full, rich, resonant sound.
And that was the diva the audiences came to hear.
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Review: ‘Cult of Color: Call to Color’
Austin deepened the niche that it’s been carving itself on the broader cultural landscape Saturday night with the opening of “Cult of Color: Call to Color,” the brilliant collaboration between Ballet Austin’s Stephen Mills, artist Trenton Doyle Hancock and composer Graham Reynolds.
We’re a city that can support — indeed, cultivate— bold, new creative ventures. And, as “Cult of Color” proved — the ballet is sponsored by Ballet Austin with an accompanying exhibit hosted by Arthouse — those enterprises are done at a smart scale and with a flair that’s utterly unique.
Everything about “Cult of Color” is audacious, starting with Hancock’s odd mythology on which the two-act 70-minute ballet is based. The celebrated Houston-based artist has been unraveling his offbeat cosmology for years in vivid, sprawling, mixed-media paintings that are critically acclaimed and much collected. (The Blanton is just one of more than 20 museums around the world to acquire a Hancock painting). In Hancock’s world self-righteous colorless creatures known as Vegans struggle in their black-and-white cosmos while trying to battle the Mounds, the producers of color, and by implication, love and fulfillment.
To bring those eccentric creatures to the stage, Mills created a movement vocabulary that was wholly and wonderfully otherworldly. Here was ballet-based modern dance that was sensuous, yes, but also simian and earthbound; funky but also feline. Partnering and group movements were sometimes ritualistic and then sometimes urbane. And all of it delighted and surprised.
The troupe pulled it off with energetic flair and considerable personality — not easy given the elaborate and whimsical white Vegan costumes, insectlike with their bulging heads and protruding limbs. Anthony Casati brought a wonderful blustering innocence to Sesom, the Vegan who strives the hardest to bring color to the Vegan world. As the oppositional Betto Watchow, Jim Stein manifested pure sinewy threat.
The brilliant forest that visually defines Hancock’s imaginary world has been writ large in a stunning collage created by the Fabric Workshop and Museum of Philadelphia and that serves as a glorious color-filled 60-foot backdrop.
Reynolds’ compelling score drives the emotional and dramatic trajectory of “Cult of Color.” Like in the choreography, here again is an astute and playful combination of juxtapositions. Luscious cinematic orchestral flourishes shift into raucous klezmerlike refrains. Sci-fi movie sound effects weave in and out of rumbling big band rolls. It’s a roller-coaster ride of musical styles deftly and charmingly combined.
“Cult of Color” couldn’t have taken place without the support of a small but forward-thinking group of patrons, most notably Julie and John Thornton. As the premiere performance in Ballet Austin’s new Austin Ventures Studio Theatre (John Thornton is a general partner of Austin Ventures), the 250-seat venue in the organization’s new Butler Dance Education Center, “Cult of Color” epitomizes the groundbreaking possibilities such a venture — backed by risk-taking philanthropists — can produce.
”Cult of Color” continues 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. April 10, 8 p.m. April 11, 2 and 8 p.m. April 12 and 3 p.m. April 13 at Austin Ventures Studio Theatre, Butler Dance Education Center, 501 W. Third St. $50. www.balletaustin.org.
Anthony Casati (left) as Sesom and Alisyn Paino as Painter. Photo by Tony Speilberg.
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Review: Zenon at Texas State
Texas State added itself to the list of the area’s reputable dance presenters Friday with a performance by Minneapolis-based Zenon Dance Company. One of the country’s stronger regional modern dance companies, Zenon brought an accessible, yet artistic program, including works by important choreographers rarely seen in Austin, such as Doug Varone and Sean Curran.
Zenon has physically inquisitive dancers who explore movement for its fullest potential. Opening Sean Curran’s “Coda,” Bryan Godbout let fingers lead him around his body’s axis, layering spiral upon spiral. The dancers gave a sense of not just personal body awareness, but a collective awareness in “Garden” by Wynn Fricke. Every gesture by Amy Elaine Behm-Thomson’s set the rest of the cast into motion. As three couples of men and women responded to Behm-Thomson, she first seemed the group’s protagonist. But then the group became her support system, lifting her above their heads as she walked along the stage’s back wall to exit at piece’s end.
Somber thoughtfulness transformed into flamboyant fun for lighter pieces, such as “The Secret Life of Walt and Kitty” by Cathy Young and “Elegant Echoes” by Danny Buraczeski. In Young’s piece Behm-Thomson and Gregory Waletski conjured images of a 1970s Las Vegas couple seducing each other with flare. Where the rest of the program showcased the dancers’ fluid limbs, Buraczeski’s jazz dance set the dancers’ pelvises into motion, sending them hip-shrugging across the stage.
Zenon’s breadth of repertory (the program also included Varone’s “Of the Earth Below”) is a rarity in dance today. These dancers take on modern and jazz equally well. And they’re funny. That’s hard to beat.
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Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra Long Center debut
Subtlety and sharpness marked the Austin Symphony Orchestra’s debut at the Long Center of Performing Arts Friday night.
And music director Peter Bay smartly picked a program that showed off the sophisticated acoustics of the new Dell Hall, the Long Center’s main 2,400-seat venue. With the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet as special guests, Bay presented a program of all Spanish music rife with bright colorations, crackling rhythms and spirited melodies — perfect for making the most of Dell Hall’s exceptional sound.
After all, the Dell Hall is a vastly more complex instrument than we’ve ever experienced in an Austin concert venue. Gone is the need to make every concert simply - and awkwardly — loud as was necessary in the Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas, the symphony’s home since the early 1980s.
Clarity is the starting point in Dell. Nuance rules. And that means that there’s a whole new range of volumes and colors a symphony orchestra can employ as Bay so deftly demonstrated Friday night, unfortunately to an audience that had noticeable holes of empty seats scattered through it in every of the three levels of seating.
Bay could not have picked a better piece than Luciano Berio’s ‘Versions of ‘Night Retreat from Madrid’’ to start with. Berio’s variations on a popular theme, superimposed on each other, start soft then builds into an impressive volume before receding as if a band of musicians were approaching and then passing along the way. And thanks to Dell Hall’s exceptional nuance, we heard those crescendos and decrescendos with great delicacy.
Though amplified with microphones, the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet nonetheless delivered a crystalline performance of Joaquin Rodrigo’s sensuous and virtuosic ‘Concierto Andaluz.’
Undoutedly the great flourish of the evening’s program was the finale, Manuel de Falla’s ‘Three-Cornered Hat.’ The frolicking piece, originally commissioned as a ballet version of a familiar folk tale, starts with castanet rolls and shouts of ‘Ole’ from the orchestra. Then it’s a sonic celebration as everything from a blackbird’s chirp to a squeaking well is delightfully rendered by the orchestra. At one point a soprano (Liz Cass) sings a tune from off-stage. A sprightly fandango erupts; A snippet from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony pops up in a humouros moment. A cuckoo clock strikes. Could there have been a more charming - and musically eclectic - piece to show off Dell Hall’s dazzling acoustics? Perhaps not, and Bay made it sparkle with finesse.
This reporter spent the concert’s first half in an orchestra level center-section seat, the most expensive the symphony offers. (If bought outside a season ticket plan, the cost is $48.) If there was a fault of the evening, it was that the symphony didn’t take advantage of Dell Hall’s flexibility that allows for the orchestra pit lifts to be raised, thus moving the entire symphony out further into the hall to maximize the acoustics. What was a wonderful sound could have been spine-tingling. And given the number of empty seats around the house and especially in the first few rows, one wonders about the judiciousness of the decision to forego artistry over potential revenue.
But spine-tingling happened in the balcony during Falla’s ‘Three-Cornered Hat.” From a seat in the front section of the balcony - a $27 ticket - every note shimmered and glittered. It was an auspicious debut of Austin’s newest cultural gem.
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Review: ‘The Method Gun’
What to inaugurate the Rollins Studio Theatre with, the smaller of two venues at the new $77 million Long Center for the Performing Arts?
After all, the Rollins is intended as a showcase for Central Texas’ not-so-big arts groups — a stage where emerging or experimental creativity can enjoy a bit of time in the mainstream spotlight.
What a brilliant stroke it is then, that the first show produced by the Long Center is an utterly original play by the Rude Mechanicals, one of Austin’s most utterly original theatrical teams.
Two-years in the making, ‘The Method Gun,’ which opened Thursday for a two-week run, is nothing short of the best work this theater collective has done in its 13 years as it has carved out its well-respected reputation on the international indie theater scene.
This is the Rude Mechanicals doing what they do best: crafting a rich series of stunning and surprising visual moments, lacing those moments with kinetic physical movement and wrapping it all together with a script both lyrical and cheeky.
Sweet, irreverent and terribly funny, ‘The Method Gun’ pays homage to the creative process itself as something of the ultimate ‘theater about theater’ play.
Five unnamed actors — engagingly played by Laura Cannon, Thomas Graves, Lana Lesley, Jason Liebrecht and Shawn Sides — recreate the experiments of Stella Burden, an illusory actor-training guru whose training technique, known as ‘The Approach,’ used exercises that were loaded with potential danger, both physical and psychological. Burden’s ‘Approach’ intended to infuse even the most minor theatrical roles with complexity and depth. One acting exercise in particular 00 ‘The Method Gun’ — was so dangerous that it eventually led to Burden’s death.
Written by Kirk Lynn — one of the five co-producing artistic directors who founded the Rude Mechs — this jewel-like 70-minute play finds the actors recreating the last public performance Burden’s troupe did before Burden disappeared into the jungles of South America. It’s performance that took Burden’s troupe nine years to rehearse. And given her odd penchant for small roles and over-looked parts, that performance was Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ — only performed without any of the primary characters.
That’s a lot of theater about theater. And sometimes ‘The Method Gun’ scoots a little too close to being for insiders only. But happily, the Rude Mechs — whose creative process is wholly collaborative though Lynn remains author of the script — deftly find a way to speak more universally. What is theater if it isn’t ultimately a reflection of life?
‘I have no idea how to act in my life,’ says one of the actors, frustrated. Well, there isn’t a guru in the world that can teach you how to be true to yourself.
‘The Method Gun’ continues 6 p.m. April 6, 7:30 p.m. April 8-10, 7 and 10 p.m. April 11, 3 and 7:30 p.m. April 12. Rollins Studio Theatre, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Dr. $28. 474-5664. www.thelongcenter.org. This show contains adult language and nudity.
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Rude Mechs explode — sell-out Long Center debut
In a spring season loaded with Long Center firsts, the Rude Mechanicals can claim several new titles: First local theater company to produce a show in the Long Center’s Rollins Studio Theatre. “The Method Gun” opened last night for a two-week run. Two years in the making, the sharp, jewel-like play unfolds the ethos of illusionary actor-training guru Stella Burden as reflected in her students/followers. How far do you go for art? Choose one: truth, or a beautiful tiger?
We’ll post a review of the show in this blog soon. But here’s another first for the Rudes: First opening night sold-out show at the Rollins!
Yup. It was a packed house at the Rollins last night, about half the crowd looking like a typical Rudes audience, about half not looking like they’d ever been to an East Austin warehouse theater. Which is good. No, it’s great.
Oh and another first. The Rudes can also claim ‘first really funny backstage encounter at the Long Center.’ See, the backstage facilities of the Rollins and the Dell Hall aren’t separated — it’s one big commodious space back there. And that means when you have, say, an alt theater company presenting a play that includes full frontal male nudity in Rollins, and, say, a symphony orchestra rehearsing next door in Dell, you get the potential for some unexpected encounters.
Thomas Graves in “The Method Gun,” here, with most of his clothes on.
Welcome to the Long Center, y’all!
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Colorful ‘Cult’? Or perhaps brilliant…
A buzzing crowd of Austin art scene insiders last night filled the Austin Ventures Studio Theatre to capacity at Ballet Austin’s Butler Dance Education Center.
The 280-plus people were there for the final dress rehearsal of Cult of Color: Call to Color, the much-anticipated collaboration between artist Trenton Doyle Hancock, Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills and composer Graham Reynolds.
You can read all about the groundbreaking creative collaboration between the three forward-thinking artists here. And this weekend, after the ballet’s official opening April 5, we’ll post a formal review on this blog.
But let’s just say this for now — in the hopes that you’ll quick get your tix to this nearly sold-out show — ‘Cult of Color’ will have you at the first variegated flicker of inventive movement, riveting visuals and enticing music.
Last night at the intermission to the 70-minute piece it was hard to ignore how many in the crowd simply couldn’t stop humming “Betto’s Lament” from Reynold’s eclectic score. See if you can get this tune out of your head:
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A museum? Yes, and no…
The headline jumps out from our front page today:
The 21c Museum Hotel and 21c Museum Residences, originally planned for Third and Brazos streets downtown, will be built on a new, larger site at East Cesar Chavez and Red River streets, along the banks of the creek.
But what’s this about a museum being part of the project?
Not so fast. As we reported when the project was announced last year, the Kentucky-based couple behind the project — Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown — are major contemporary art collectors with a penchant for whimsical and slightly irreverent works of art. And they’ve filled their Louisville 21c Museum Hotel with much of their collection, letting the theme of the swanky place be driven by the contemporary art. Like in Louisville, where they have 9,000 square feet of dedicated gallery space that’s open free to the public, there will be a similar offering included in the Austin project.
Wilson and Brown are careful collectors who employ professional curators to care for their collection. And they have recently established their 21c Museum as the International Contemporary Art Foundation, a nonprofit organization, in order to distinguish it from the for-profit hotel.
Current plans call for the same to happen here in Austin: a dedicated museum-quality gallery space on the premises of a high-end hotel and condo building.
Interestingly, the gallery in Louisville is open 24/7. And at 9,000 square feet, it’s just shy of what the proposed new Austin Museum of Art plans for its new $26 million building. After years of trying to build downtown, AMOA will build a three-story 40,000-square-foot building with 10,000 square feet of gallery space.
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Austin Lyric Opera announces new season
Comedy. Tragedy. And a deeply psychological modern re-telling of a French Revolutionary tale.
Austin Lyric Opera announced its 2008-2009 season Wednesday night, a three-show line-up that includes Rossini’s sweet and sentimental ‘Cinderella’ (Nov.8-16) and Verdi’s stirring and memorable ‘Rigoletto’ (Jan. 31-Feb. 8). Ending the season is Poulenc’s ‘Dialogues of the Carmelites’ (April 18-26), the moody modern re-telling of a French Revolutionary tale.
The ‘Cinderella’ production hails originally from Lyric Opera of Kansas City and situates the romantic comedy in 1930s Hollywood with elegant costumes and Technicolor-vivid sets.
‘Dialogues’ is the same starkly beautiful production done by Fort Worth Opera in its 2005-2006 season.
Austin tenor David Small — who’s been impressing in all kinds of ways the last couple of seasons — will star in the role of Marquis de la Force. And barely 30-something New York-based director Eric Einhorn — who’s garnered praise for his fresh and thoughtful approach — will direct.
With its move into the Long Center, ALO is also re-adjusting its schedule. Each production will open on a Saturday night, with shows following on Wednesday and Friday nights and a Sunday matinee.
Also new this year — ALO’s energetic and personable new general director Kevin Patterson will host “Inside the Opera Studio,” a series of intimate conversations with each productions’ artists. Co-sponsored by UT’s Butler Opera Center, the “Inside” talks will be held at ALO’s headquarters at 901 Barton Springs Road.
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I am … a new kind of art fair
It’s big, it’s still downtown, but it’s getting a little more edge than it had before.
The art fair formerly known as the Austin Fine Arts Festival last year branded itself as Art City Austin and took on the considerable of challenge of reinventing the art fair as artist-selling-in-a-booth model for the a new decade. Sure, there will be 220 artists vending their work — hey, the event is a fundraiser for the Blanton Museum of Art and the Austin Museum of Art.
But now, the event — on April 12 and 13 — moves to Cesar Chavez Street occupying a 3/4-mile expanse of street from Colorado Street to the Lamar Pedestrian Bridge. And organizers have taken the bold step of commissioning independent artists’ projects.
Denise Prince Martin will create giant topiary ‘paparrazi’ to greet the First Street Bridge. Ian Cion will present his Cap Metro bus covered with visual expressions made be patients at the Dell Children’s Medical Center.
Jackie Young and Cybil Gustafson have embarked on ‘I Am’, snapping Polaroids of people holding a placard reading “I am __,” with the subject filling in the blank with whatever word describes them best.
As the move through town photographing, Young and Gustafson have installed their growing portfolio of Polaroids in a empty storefront on Second Street between Colorado and Lavaca, across from Jo’s Coffee.
On Sunday, Young, below left, took a portrait of Jerry Manderine in front of the temporary gallery.
Young and Gustafson will give a talk about their work, along with Cion and Prince Martin, Wednesday, April 8, 6:30 p.m. at 233 W. Second St. The event is free and part of a slew of interesting public discussion that accompany Art City Austin. Click here for more info.
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Speaking, singing — and everything in between
Speaking, singing — and everything in between. Including silence.
With “The Universal Instrument,” Austin’s New Music Co-op gives itself up to a concert devoted to entirely to new compositions that feature the human voice. New works for accompanied and unaccompanied voice feature speaking, singing and the variety of possibilities that lie between.
The gig is 8 p.m. April 12 at the Mexican American Cultural Center, 600 River St. A pre-concert talk starts at 7:30 p.m. Tix are $15 at the door.
There’s an open rehearsal April 5 at 5 p.m. Click here for more info.
Singer and co-founding co-op member Brandon Young — whose experimental vocal stylings have intrigued at previous NMC concerts — will take center stage for a number of the pieces and also present his new piece for six singers and prerecorded voice.
Other vocalists on the bill include Ashley Gaar, Kathy Hatch, Deena Hyatt, Wendi Olinger, Anton Boyd, and Kevin Adickes.
Composer and also co-op co-founder Travis Weller will debut his song cycle with text by poet Dorothy Meiburg for solo soprano accompanied by percussion, viola, horn, and Weller’s original instrument, the Owl. Weller’s Owl is a stringed instrument featuring 16 high tension music wire strings with moveable wooden and brass bridges and a resonant soundboard. Much can be done to it: bowing, plucking, scraping, hammering. The options produce a wide — and effecting — array of tonal expression.
Fariss will present a piece — also with text by Meiburg — for vocal quintet with percussion and two contrabasses.
Fariss and Weller, by the way, just netted a grant from the “Meet the Composer” foundation to support their latest compositions.
