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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > November
November 2008
More parking options for this weekend
As orchestra patrons head to the Long Center and shoppers head to the Junior League’s “A Christmas Affair” at the Palmer Event Center Friday and Saturday nights, the parking situation could get crowded.
Hence, Austin Symphony Orchestra will be providing shuttle service from the Austin Convention Center Parking Garage on E. Second and Brazos streets to the Long Center.
ASO encourages its patrons to use the Austin Convention Center Garage for parking and take provided shuttles to the Long Center.
Cost for parking is $7 per car, but shuttle service is free.
Shuttles will run every ten minutes from 6:30 pm to 11:30 pm on Friday and Saturday, November 21-22.
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Avoiding the parking storm at the Long Center this weekend.
With a convergence of events this weekend at both the city-operated Palmer Events Center and at the neighboring Long Center, there’s due to be thousands headed to W. Riverside Dr. and Barton Springs Road.
But, according to a recent new release, a little planning between the concerned parties has resulted in some transportation options. The plan came about as a result of meetings among representatives of the Long Center, Capital Metro, the Downtown Austin Alliance and the City of Austin.
Capital Metro will expand the hours of the #450 Congress ’Dillo on Nov. 21-22 to accommodate those headed to either the Junior League’s 33rd annual A Christmas Affair at the Palmer Events Center or to the Austin Symphony Orchestra concerts at the Long Center.
The #450 Congress ’Dillo — which loops around the Long Center then runs up Congress Ave. to the Capital and its surrounding parking lots — will operate until 10:30 p.m. Nov. 21-22 to help shoppers and orchestra attendees easily get to and from these events.
After 7 p.m. Nov. 21-22, the Congress ’Dillo will operate on a 15-minute frequency. The ’Dillo costs 50 cents for a two-hour pass.
“We want as many people as possible to enjoy events at the Long Center and Palmer Events Center by making it easier to get to and from these venues,” said Cliff Redd, executive director of the Long Center, in a news release.
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Review: ‘Ophelia’ at Blue Theatre
Edgar Allan Poe wrote that “the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” If that’s so, “Ophelia” gives us poetry five times over. The new work, written and directed by Dustin Wills for Tutto Theatre, gives us five different aspects of Ophelia, makes the audience come to sympathize with or even share Hamlet’s love with each, and then kills her off.
Poe continued that “equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.” That’s certainly true in the original “Hamlet,” where the prince himself hauntingly wails her death in the graveyard, but here the bereaved is Ophelia herself.
That’s both a strength and a weakness. At its lowest, “Ophelia” can seem overly introspective, insidery, and academic, all of which goes with the territory. It’s easy to lose the sense of real relationships and emotions unfolding in the, admittedly clever, allusions to, echoes of, and twists on “Hamlet,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Macbeth,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and more.
At its best it’s just as easy to forget all that and simply watch a young girl, or five, slowly descend into madness on her own.
The play opens ominously. The five Ophelias sit on a starkly white, wooden framed stage, designed by Lisa Laratta , under the boughs of a weeping willow made of tangled ropes and swings that grows, of course, aslant a brook. They dangle their feet, splash each other, and laze about until, sharply, they join in song and spoken word to recite Queen Gertrude’s description of Ophelia’s drowning.
From there the story follows Ophelia as she falls deeper in love with Hamlet, is warned away by her father, and devises a plan to trick him into madness. The plan, though I never could figure out why, is meant to both appease her father and win Hamlet’s heart — letting Ophelia please all the men in her life at the cost of herself.
While the plan itself may not make much sense, though it’s certainly no less confusing than Hamlet’s original device of feigned madness, the presentation is touching. Wills, a stronger director than writer, has an eye for beautiful and poignant scenes, bringing strong performances out of his entire cast.
Sofia Ruiz, as Ophelia in Love, opens the play with charming naiveté and innocence. Each subsequent Ophelia teeters closer to the line between madness and reason, adding conflict to her aspect of the psyche as saner, balancing aspects are removed, until finally all that’s left is Kim Adams’ Ophelia, undone, and a moving rendition of madness set to violin by Emily Tindall as Ophelia, in water.
Gabriel Luna, as both Hamlet and Polonius, offers the male side. While he’s occasionally childish and jokey as Hamlet, Luna retains sincerity and power, particularly in Will’s unique twist on the classic “Get thee to a nunnery.”
Separating most of the Ophelia’s time on stage are dreams of lyrical dances, choreographed by the ensemble. Coming after a scene of high hope and love or one of despair and anger, they offer moments of quiet reflection that set the tone for “Ophelia” as much as any of her conversations.
“Ophelia” as a play may occasionally be more academic than human in its exploration of Ophelia outside of the male-dominated “Hamlet.” As a production, though, it manages, as its lead character struggles to, to balance the head and the heart.
(Joey Seiler is a freelance theater writer and critic.)
(“Ophelia” continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays through Nov. 23 at the Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Rd. $12-$15. 927-1118, tuttotheatre.org.)
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Review: ‘The Nina Variations’ at Dougherty Arts Center
“The Nina Variations” is a sort of quantum Chekhov. It takes one of the most emotionally charged, and unfulfilling, moments of “The Seagull” and proceeds to unpack it, twist it, and turn it around in every way possible. From a literary perspective, it’s enlightening and entertaining. From a human perspective, it’s simply moving.
In “The Seagull,” a diverse group gathers at a lakeside estate, squabbles, and, in various forms, falls in love. Nina, a young actress, is pursued by the brash, young writer Treplev, but follows an older rival, Trigorin, to Moscow. In one of the final scenes, she returns briefly to visit Treplev, they say almost nothing clearly, and she leaves before he shoots himself.
Playwright Steven Dietz now gives the pair some 40-odd variations to try and find the words that Chekhov didn’t give them or, in some instances, explain those that he did.
If you’re not familiar with “The Seagull,” it’s all right. “Nina” provides a brief summary of the relevant highlights complete with charming illustrations. If, like me, you’re not a fan of Chekhov, that’s also fine. Dietz certainly riffs on the Russian’s style at various points, but the wit and emotion is his own.
As the semi-Sisyphean pair Rachel McGinnis and Aaron Hallaway are vibrant. Both are mercurial, to say the least, shifting through variations of emotion and action that seem almost exhaustive. At his heart, though, Hallaway’s Treplev seems nervous, nebbishly intelligent, sad, and a little hopeful. Nina is more bittersweet, alternately laughing and solemnly reminiscing.
However, and it’s a credit to both actors that it works, the characters become both figuratively and, occasionally, literally interchangeable. That’s the spectrum that Dietz provides while plumbing the possibilities of where Chekhov’s scene could have gone, and the pair makes every alternative, whether charming or frightening, seem plausible.
That comes across in the more human moments of the play, where Nina and Treplev seem most real — screaming at, laughing with, and loving each other — more often than in the moments where Dietz breaks the fourth wall. Those can offer witty commentary, including some humorous banter about critics, but they’re less affecting.
The exception is, for me, the most powerful moment of the play. Nina and Treplev dissect Chekhov’s lines, he reading them with only a hint of emotion on top of what’s obviously contained inside and she offering an exegesis of what that Nina might have meant. The simple, blunt, feeling interpretation could make for a successful essay. It would also likely move at least one reader to tears.
Each transition is highlighted by a number projected on the back wall. While at first it seems like some changes come on haphazardly, often silently switching moods mid-conversation, they later serve as punctuation. Director Will Hollis Snider and Dietz flow from long, discursive dialogs where changes may go unnoticed to short scenes made up of only “I love you,” a pause, and a flash of changing numbers that cut off any possibility of a response.
Of course the question left at the end of “The Nina Variations” is whether other scenes might return that possibility or simply come back to the inevitability of a gunshot.
(Joey Seiler is a freelance theater writer and critic.)
(“The Nina Variations” continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Nov. 22 at the Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Road. $12-$15. 708-1893, gobotrick.org)
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Ravel trio: Newly restored
Digging through the archives, turns up treasures.
Tuesday night, the Harry Ransom Center welcomes pianist Richard Dowling in a free concert. Dowling will perform and discuss the music of French Impressionist composer Maurice Ravel who is represented in the Ransom Center’s collection by letters and notes. Dowling will play a newly restored version of Ravel’s Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello with celebrated Miró Quartet first violinist Daniel Ching and cellist Amy Levine of the Laurel Piano Trio.
7 p.m. Tuesday. Jessen Auditorium, 21st St. and Whitis Ave. Free. 471-8944.
If you can’t make it to the lecture, tune into the live Web cast at www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/webcast.
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Review: Austin Chamber Ensemble
Saturday’s recital by cellist Ruslan Biryukov with pianist Mary Au gave listeners a demonstration of solo virtuoso style: Instead of the musicians serving the music, the music was made to serve the musicians. Showpieces were suitable vehicles for Biryukov; the more serious chamber music on the program suffered.
Make no mistake, the playing was often superb. Biryukov pulled beautiful tone of amazing intensity from his cello. His sense of pacing was elastic, with phrases shaped boldly and decisively. He had great facility in numerous lightning-fast passages. Pianist Au kept pace with Biryukov, playing with the lid fully open and drawing a quantity of sound that matched Biryukov.
Winner of the Mu Phi Epsilon International Competition, Biryukov appeared in Austin at the Unitarian-Universalist Church as part of the Austin Chamber Ensemble series. Along with a program of three sonatas by Frenchmen François Francoeur, Claude Debussy and César Franck, there was also a substantial dessert course of four brilliant encores, chosen seemingly on the spur of the moment from a small stack of sheet music on the piano.
In the Francoeur, an 18th-century sonata structured as a dance suite, there was no attempt to emulate what is accepted now as appropriate performance practice. Slow movements received a passionate, 20th-century sound, while the fast movements, far from echoing the original dance forms, were played as fast as the fingers of Biryukov’s left hand could move across the fingerboard.
The Cello Sonata of Debussy and the Franck Sonata (originally for violin), both far more than showpieces, demand respect, even humility, from players. The pace continued to be super-fast. The playing in the Franck also included a pile of wrong notes from both players. That wouldn’t matter so much if the wrong notes came with a great interpretation, but that isn’t what happened.
There’s nothing wrong with putting on a good show. But in this case Debussy and Franck got shortchanged.
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More new music: Calling all Steve Reich fans!!
Audio Inversions, a group of young music professionals, is on a mission to bring to the Austin music scene what so few musical presenting organizations in this town do — dynamic and lesser-known music written by contemporary and nationally-acclaimed composers.
Come Nov. 17, Audio Inversions will host the newly-formed percussion group Line Upon Line in an all Steve Reich program.
The program will include Reich’s Drumming Part I, Six Marimbas, Clapping Music, Music for Pieces of Wood and Nagoya Marimbas.
8 p.m. Monday
Austin Museum of Art, 823 Congress Ave.
Tix: $10 ($7 students) available at the door.
More info at www.audioinversions.
As an added attraction, attendees to the concertt will also be treated to exclusive access to the museum’s exhibition “Workers : Photographs by Sebastiao Salgado,” a survey by the award-wininng Brazilian photographer of the world’s poor standing in tribute to the human condition. The museum’s galleries are customarily closed to the public on Mondays but will be open only to Audio Inversions audience members on the night of the show for free.
Sebastiao Salgado. “Workers Emerging From A Coal Mine. Dhanbad, Bihar State, India.” 1989.
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‘Electrons & Phonons’ — A new music double-header
The always-enterprising New Music Co-op presents ‘Electrons & Phonons’ its third annual fusing of instruments and voice with and cutting-edge (and classic) electronic technology. And this year the celebration is twice as big with two concerts, each which a distinctly different program.
On Friday the ensemble will offer a rare performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s four channel electronic work from 1960 ‘Kontakte,’ a masterpiece of twentieth century electronic music.
On Saturday, guest marimba player Nathaniel Bartlett brings his instrument into the realm of the unreal through the use of advanced digital sound processing and 3D audio projection Ultra-high fidelity sound generation in eight channels will immerse listeners in a sound world more vivid than that of an IMAX theater. Among other works, Bartlett will be perform the recently commissioned new work ‘Anchialine’ from New Music Co-op member Travis Weller.
‘Electrons & Phonons’ will be presented in the auditorium of the architecturally stunning Mexican American Cultural Center.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Mexican American Cultural Center, 600 River St.
$12 students/advance purchase, $15 at the door. For both nights, $20 students/advance purchase, $25 at the door.
More info at www.newmusiccoop.org
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Review: Met Opera’s “Damnation of Faust”
NEW YORK — Berlioz’s “Damnation of Faust” vexes as a most dramatic choral and symphonic works that rarely makes it successfully to the opera stage. But the current technology-infused production at the Metropolitan Opera, which had its second show here on Monday night, made innovative opera of it nonetheless.
Working with interactive video designer Holger Forterer, director Robert Lepage, in his Met debut, created an uncanny dreamlike world in which scenic images morph and ripple across screens, the action triggered by the movements of the chorus, orchestra and cast.
A four-tiered scaffold wall subdivided into 24 cubicles by industrial-looking trusses fills the entire stage and serves as the playing field for all the action. Scrims roll over the cubicles to create a larger surface when needed. Projections cast from behind and onto the front.
The effect is a liquid-like visual environment, hallucinatory in feel and cinematic in its pacing. The theatrical effect? There are now bridges between the narrative gaps in Berlioz’s episodic re-telling of Goethe’s “Faust.”
Those bridges drive a live performance that is theatrically wholly engaging. And most of the time, they don’t overwhelm Berlioz’s romantic and complex mix of fantastical flights of fancy and a refined melancholy.
Stained glass cathedral windows kaleidescope gently in and out of different patterns. Soldiers fall gracefully down a grassy embankment only to march perpendicularly up in slow motion again and again, the blades of grass shimmering with every footstep. A lonely library of solitary scholars morphs into a rousing tavern. Méphistophélès, the bass-baritone John Relyea, rows Faust, (tenor Marcello Giordani) across a glassy moonlit lake, only to capsize the boat sending Faust underwater into a surreal acrobatic pas-de-deux with a nymph.
If at times the soaring actors on wires reminded a little too much of Cirque du Soleil, there’s a reason: Lepage is the director of Cirque’s Las Vegas show “Ka.” (Lepage’s Quebec-based multidisciplinary production company, Ex Machina, has a long list of noted theater and film credits as well.) And if at times those acrobatic stylings overwhelmed, there’s also a reason: A little of the artistic conceit of this “Faust” goes a long way.
Still, Lepage’s vision adds just enough to make this “Faust” have the feel of an opera and the look of cinema-inspired performance art.
Conductor James Levine drew a superbly clear and refined sound from the orchestra, keeping things sublime even in the wilder moments, when odd harmonies and blaring moments rattle. Indeed this “Faust” had a beguiling ethereal and cool sound.
As Faust Giordani, while not always vocally even, nevertheless gave an impassioned performance. Sure and commanding Relyea as Méphistophélès projected a successful blend of cunning, romantic charm and power. As Marguerite, Graham brought a restrained richness and soft lyricism to the role.
Under the direction of Donald Palumbo, who rightly garnered ‘bravos’ from the audience, the chorus also exuded a sure, sophisticated and rich sound that deftly made the most Berlioz’s many musical moods.
Critics have often described Berlioz’s creative musical tale as more cinematic than operatic. Perhaps Lepage’s high tech spin has now realized the things Berlioz imagined in his music.
“The Damnation of Faust” will be presented live in HD on Nov. 22 at 12 noon at four Austin area movie theaters: Metropolitan 14, Southpark Meadows, Tinseltown USA Pflugerville, Cinemark Cedar Park and Cinemark Hill Country Galleria . For more information, click here.
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Sneak peek at the remodeled Bass Concert Hall
We’re still more than a couple of months away from the re-opening of the Bass Concert Hall, the 27-year-old University of Texas venue that is getting a much-needed $14.7 million renovation.
But a recent sneak peek revealed some pleasing changes to the 3000-seat venue. Principally, the cramped and dark lobby and foyer is getting a major makeover. the fron facade has literally been popped out and the lobbies extended farther on the south side of the building facing the UT stadium. Clerestory windows bring the light in and expand the views. And it looks like modern touches will bring the interior details up to date.
Some improvements are being made to the acoustics, but we’ll hold out for the first concert to hear what’s actually been done.
Season tix to the events are on sale now. And on Nov. 13, individual tix to the “Legally Blonde: The Musical” will go on sale, the first of six Broadway musicals that will sweep through the Bass.
Here’s a look at the Bass, still under construction.
The new top level south-facing balcony overlooks the LBJ Library to the east.
The newly-expanded lobbies feature floor-to-ceiling windows, more mingling space and plenty of bar stations.
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Blast from New York: Met Opera, the Longs
NEW YORK — Being a fellow at the NEA Arts Journalism Institute at Columbia University offers the chance to take in some of the top concerts and programs the Big Apple has to offer.
Among them is the stunning new technology-infused production of Berlioz’s “Damnation of Faust” at the Metropolitan Opera. Director Robert Lepage writes Berlioz’s dreamy episodic re-telling of Goethe’s tale onto rear projections screens where undulating images morph and respond to the singers pitch and movement.
Monday night’s performance proved stunning — a visually arresting way to experience Berlioz’s ‘un-opera’ as a fully staged opera.
And who was in the audience Monday night? Joe and Teresa Lozano Long. The Austin power philanthropists were spending a few days in New York catching up on opera and theater after a trip to Washington D.C. where Teresa was honored by the National Museum for Women in the Arts with a gallery dedicated in her name. Mrs. Long is on the museum’s advisory council.
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Review: ‘Fantasmaville’ at the Long Center
“Fantasmaville” is a play about ghosts. Unfortunately for a play that can otherwise be charming, funny, and topical, it has a few of its own as well.
“Fantasmaville,” a new project from playwright Raul Garza and Teatro Vivo, focuses on an East Austin neighborhood undergoing gentrification, from a new mixed-race family moving in to defend the traditions to the city pushing a dog park on an empty lot. For the families involved, its less a referendum on economic statuses than cultural and personal histories — at least it’s meant to be.
Tensions run high between Flor, filled with sass and sweetness by Patricia Arredondo, and her mildly estranged daughter Celeste. While Celeste and her gringo husband, Martin, played by Karinna Perez and Chase Wooldridge, epitomize bleeding heart yuppiness, bordering on cliché, other locals like Gustavo and Freddy, laconically drawled out by Donato Rodriguez III and Rupert Reyes, are content to sit in a re-imagined Scoot Inn drinking the day away.
The first half of the play introduces the whole cast of characters, switching mostly easily among them. Stylized animations projected on the back of the stage, loosely connected conversations and monologues, and, of course, an Austin focus give the progression a “Slackers” feel. With some that feel more rambling than ambling, though, that brings the good and bad side of Richard Linklater.
Overall they remain largely enjoyable through the first act, and Garza balances well, switching between domestic conflict, sitcom laughs, bilingual cursing, and simply pleasant vignettes. As the neighborhood begins to clash over the proposed dog park and undercurrents of racism, though, the conversations have a tendency to sound more like formal debates or Socratic dialogs than parts of the building story.
The second half, with its literal ghosts and fixation on the past, exacerbates the situation. “Fantasmaville” becomes more about what has happened than what is happening. The transition gives David Blackwell, as a bigoted white resident of the neighborhood, a chance to shine as he recalls better times, evoking humanity under his bitterness. Sadly, the narrative twist involved in the revisionist reminiscing undercuts the moment.
It’s perhaps appropriate that a story about a community with so many different approaches to life, politics, and culture has so many ups and downs. Fortunately, the warm jokes and conflicted neighborhood still make it worthwhile. And, oh yes, the preachy, life-size racoon spirit guide doesn’t hurt either.
(Joey Seiler is a freelance theater writer in Austin.)
(“Fantasmaville” continues at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 16 at the Long Center Rollins Studio Theatre, 701 W. Riverside Drive. $14-$18. 474-5664, thelongcenter.org.)
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Review: Dame Edna at the Paramount Theatre
“How do I know, possums, that this theater is so lovely? Because they tried to tear it down.”
Just one of Dame Edna Everage’s many kernels of truth proffered by the self-described giga-star (mega-star seems so plebian). Like nearly everything else articulated by the Melbourne housewife-turned-celebrity in her Austin debut, it was delivered sardonically, ironically or satirically.
And what better pairing than storied performer Barry Humphries (the mensch behind Edna) with the equally storied Paramount Theatre? Humphries performance — the first stop on Dame’s “My First Last Tour” — enacted many of the same dynamics that the theater, built in 1915 as the Majestic, featured during its days as a vaudeville house.
The two-act, two-hourish show presented songs, improv, costume changes, multi-media displays, a talk show, political commentary, floral distribution, ribald humor, a wedding and audience digs. Drawing from today’s headlines, Humphries’ artistic tour de force also referenced life in Austin (Carole Keeton Strayhorn and John Kelso got skewered).
Edna quipped that she recently obtained an African infant “from the same place Madonna shops for hers.” The good Dame also said she sent Sarah Palin an atlas, only to be contacted later by the Alaskan governor because, in looking at the index, she couldn’t find “overseas.”
Humphries debuted another character from his palette of personalities, Sir Les Patterson. The self-described “Australian Ambassador to the U.S.” strode on stage, cocktail in hand, in a mysteriously stained powder blue suit, with some strategically placed padding that would make Spinal Tap’s Derek Smalls blush. The would-be love child of Winston Churchill and Lenny Bruce, Patterson’s jokes were decidedly naughty, easily offending the bluenoses and Mrs. Grundys in the packed venue.
In the end, those acquainted with Dame Edna & Company were undoubtedly rewarded. Barry Humphries is a master at his craft. Let’s just pray that Dame Edna stops in Austin for “My Next Last Tour.”
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Review: Austin Lyric Opera’s ‘Cinderella’
Austin Lyric Opera’s production of Gioacchino Rossini’s La Cenerentola (his treatment of the Cinderella story - cenere is Italian for ashes or cinders) doesn’t have many illogical moments.
Considering that the work being performed in Dell Hall at the Long Center is an Italian opera buffa first performed in 1817 and re-set in early-1930s Hollywood, you should understand the first sentence as a compliment. But you might want to know in advance that Rossini has no pumpkins, nor a clock striking midnight.
This re-set opera is carefully worked out. The sung Italian is conveniently mistranslated in a number of the projected English captions. Ramiro is a movie director, originally a prince, who wants a new actress who is beautiful and sincere to star in his next film. The movie studio, “Palace Pictures,” was originally the prince’s palace. Magnifico, the nasty yet comical stepfather, lives with the stepdaughters in a run-down vaudeville theater. That’s odd. Dandini, Ramiro’s cameriere (originally his manservant), is now his chauffeur.
The staged overture is intelligent, with events and gestures plotted carefully to the shape and rhythm of the music. The captions during the Overture made it feel more like a silent film from Hollywood of the 1920s-which was not the date in the program, but that’s OK.
The entire production was first presented at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City in 2004. Most of the time, the sets, costumes and lighting look marvelous. Only little details bothered, such as Cenerentola’s dress for her audition that looked like a business suit and lacked the pizazz that her gown for the last scene had in spades. Garnett Bruce’s direction got a little busy later in Act I, but the rest was tasteful and well motivated.
The cast is consistently excellent, with voices suited to the style. Sandra Piques Eddy as Cenerentola is a mezzo-soprano with an apparently endless range, warm in the middle and lower registers, yet well-focused at the top. As Ramiro, Michele Angelini’s light tenor was agile, princely, and expressive. John Boehr’s chauffeur was brilliantly sung, and his character had sly fun spoofing his boss while they traded identities. Also top-notch were Kristopher Irmiter as Alidoro, a producer, and Steven Condy as Magnifico. Thanks to conductor Robert Tweten’s lightning pace, you’ll hear where Gilbert and Sullivan got the idea for patter.
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Austin, meet Kansas City
One of the most exciting aspects of Austin’s indie gallery and project space scene is the energy and initiative that it percolates. And that means ever-more more ambitious projects and connections
The busy and friendly gang at Okay Mountain continue to broaden their reach with “Slow Cooked : New Work from Kansas City.”
“Slow Cooked” is the first of three exhibits organized by Okay Mountain and the Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City. The show opens Saturday with a reception and artists talk beginning at 6:30 p.m.
The next two exhibits, which open on Nov. 22, will be in Kansas City and feature six Austin artists. The city swap has been in the works for more than year.
On Saturday, Kansas City artists Marcus Cain, Colin Leipelt, Kacy Maddux, and James Woodfill will all be in attendance and will give a short talk at 6:30 p.m. along with curator of the show, Sterling Allen, and Kansas City co-curators Kate Hackman and Grant Miller. Kansas City based collective Carnal Torpor will also be performing live at the opening
Okay Mountain is at 1312 E. Cesar Chavez St.
Michael Converse
Colin Leipelt
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Painter Sydney Yeager moves some parts
One of Austin’s most celebrated painters, Sydney Yeager, unveils her latest series, which have evolved past her sensuous abstractions to new vivid angular representations of movement and energy.
“Bella Fiorentina.” Oil on canvas. 2008.
“Sydney Yeager: Moving Parts” opens with a reception today from 6 to 8 p.m. at D. Berman Gallery. Yeager will give a gallery talk at 1 p.m. this Saturday. Both events are free and open to the public.
You can preview Yeager’s beguiling work here.
D. Berman Gallery 1701 Guadalupe St. Regular gallery hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Exhibit continues through Dec. 13. www.dbermangallery.com.
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Hey Steve Reich fans — free concert tonight!
Hey all you Steve Reich fans out there (and we know you’re out there because you turned out in droves at SXSW last March when Reich came to town). The University of Texas Percussion Ensemble is playing a free concert tonight, at 8 p.m. in Bates Recital Hall.
Ensemble director Thomas Burritt will present Reich’s incomparable ‘Drumming.’
It should be spectacular. And rarely do we get to hear all of ‘Drumming’ performed live in Austin.
If you can’t make the concert, tune in to the live Web cast at http://www.music.utexas.edu.
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Art City Austin 2009: Deadline extended, jurors announced
Art City Austin 2009 — the annual outdoor fair set against Austin’s streets, plazas and downtown green spaces — wants you.
Produced by Art Alliance Austin, Art City Austin is ranked the top art fair in Texas. And the organization is extending its deadline to artists who want to show and sell their work. Any artist may enter their work for the jury to consider for a $35 non-refundable fee.
The deadline for submissions for both the booth spots and commissioned installation proposals has been extended from October 31 at midnight to November 7 at noon CST.
Applications must be submitted online at www.artallianceaustin.org or www.zapplication.org.
Jurors have been named who will select the artists to show/sell at Art City Austin:
Wally Workman, Wally Workman Gallery
Rachel Koper, Gallery Lombardi
Susan Scafati-Shahan, Photographer
Jade Walker, Director, Creative Research Lab and Lecturer 3-Dimensional Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Anastasia Colombo, dberman Gallery
Zoltan David, Jeweler (owner of Zoltan David Jewelry at the Hill Country Galleria)
Jurors have been named for the selection of Art City Austin 2009’s site-specific installation projects. Sites for the projects are the First Street Bridge, the fair’s Front Gate Entrances, a Water/Boat Installation on Lady Bird Lake, on Cesar Chavez Street, and at a night-time project for Art After Dark.
The site-specific installations are some of the most beguiling attractions of Art City Austin. The deadline to apply is also November 7 at noon CST. Applications must be submitted online at www.artallianceaustin.org or www.zapplication.org.
Jurors are:
Margo Sawyer - Professor, MFA Sculpture, The University of Texas at Austin
Risa Puleo - Assistant Curator of American and Contemporary Art, Blanton Museum of Art
Denise Prince - Internationally showing conceptual artist, and commissioned artist from Art City Austin 08
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Cheap tix to ‘Fantasmaville’ and ‘Unbeaten’
Call it a little ‘recession special,’ but presenters of two shows are offering discounted tix this week.
The folks at Salvage Vanguard Theater are continuing their offer of $7 tix to “Unbeaten,” Shannon McCormick’s one-man quasi-improvisation about professional football. Graham Reynolds provided the original score to the 75-minute piece. Shows run 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday at Salvage Vanguard, 2803 Manor Road.
You can read more about ‘Unbeaten’ here .
And Teatro Vivo has just announced $12 tix for the Wednesday and Thursday shows of “Fantasmaville,” the new comedic drama by Austin’s Raul Garza, longtime member of the Latino Comedy Project. Winner of the 2007 National Latino Playwrights Award, “Fantasmaville” is a touching but spirited examination of the sticky issue of gentrification. When a Latino couple moves back to the urban neighborhood they grew up in, they have to do a little soul searching in order to wrestle with the gentrification they encounter.
Directed by David Yeakle, “Fantasmaville” feature an original score by singer-songwriter David Garza and animations by Joey Santoni. The show plays at the Long Center and the discount tix must be purchase online.
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Review: KDH Dance Company
Dancers can do a lot of pirouettes in 10 years. KDH Dance Company showed off a decade of dancing wares Saturday at Café Dance. The performance begins a month-long celebration of the company’s 10th anniversary, which includes Café Dance shows for the next two Saturdays at 6 and 8 pm.
The evening traced KDH’s repertory from 1999 to the present, an intriguing time travel through the company and director Kathy Dunn Hamrick’s shifting aesthetics. “So Close,” the first work Hamrick ever made for the company, was more aggressive than more recent pieces, which tend to be softer, more gentle.
Part of KDH’s ongoing success derives from dedication to hiring dancers and providing classes for them. Saturday’s entire cast displayed the ability that makes KDH performances so consistently lovely and loving: dancers use their entire bodies — every fingertip dances. Shari Brown had a standout evening Saturday. In “So Close” she was strong, but quick, inflecting the piece with a sense of danger. In evening opener “Co-Conspirator,” Brown found angles in the looping circles of a solo choreographed by KDH associate director Kate Warren, the only piece on the program not choreographed by Hamrick.
Much KDH work has more mood than story, but “The Bystander” suggests a loose narrative. Five dancers sometimes care for, other times dismiss, and sometimes actually step on Roxanne Gage, who is finally left standing alone, arm outstretched. The gesture resonates with the memory of the other dancers, who repeatedly entered with one arm similarly stretched out, but with the other arm wrapped over it, holding back help.
(KDH Dance Company performs dances from its first 10 years at 6 and 8 p.m. Saturday and Nov. 15. Café Dance, 3307 Hancock Drive. $10. www.kdhdance.com; 934-1082)
(Clare Croft is a freelance critic who reviews dance for the American-Statesman.)
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