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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > March > 09
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Arthouse scores the love with micro-giving campaign
Combining recession-era austerity and social media cleverness, Arthouse launched a micro-giving fundraising campaign that was promoted solely through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
Throughout February, Arthouse used Twiiterverse and Facebookverse — and yes, conventional old email — to seek $5 donations from 2,000 people, or a total of $10,000 . Dubbed ‘I Heart Arthouse’ — ‘I <3 Arthouse’ in Twitter-ese — didn’t quite make its goal, but it did garner the downtown Austin visual arts center a lot of attention for its clever low-overhead approach to fundraising.
Arthouse director of development Jennifer Wijangco reports that the campaign netted a total of $3,560 from 279 donors representing 19 states. Gifts ranged from $5 to $100.
“We’re looking at conferences to present at about our ‘I <3 Arthouse ‘experience, since there seems to be a lot of demand for this idea,” says Wijangco.
See the campaign’s virtual donor wall at www.arthousetexas.org/valentine/donors.html.
Arthouse is currently in the midst of a major $6.6 million renovation to its downtown Austin home. More than $5 million has already been raised. Arthouse is set to re-open in late October.
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Review: Thang Dao’s ‘Quiet Imprint,’ Ballet Austin II
Love stories between a man and woman (often of royal parentage) enjoy narrative hegemony in ballet. But Ballet Austin and choreographer Thang Dao proved ballet can be (and should be) a tool for telling other stories, too.
Ballet Austin II, Ballet Austin’s apprentice company, premiered Dao’s “Quiet Imprint” this weekend at Ballet Austin’s AustinVentures Studio.
Dao paired contemporary ballet with the smoky, almost bluesy voice of Vietnamese singer Khanh Ly to tell Vietnamese Americans’ stories of growing up in Vietnam during waves of war and violence. The series of vignettes to ten songs, performed live by Ly, hinted at narrative, but more compellingly portrayed a emotional landscape of survival: fierce struggle in the face of sorrow.
Dao crafts an image of a community of undulating bodies of rocking and swaying dancers. A couple swims forward from the group, but just as quickly the group swells to swallow them. No man nor woman ever seems representative of a single character, but the dancers gain identities through relationships. In an early section, a series of women perhaps mourn a lost love. The pairs intertwine their bodies, but never seem to see each other, as though a memory, not an actual man lifts each woman.
In general, the piece’s partnered choreography is strong because Dao imagine partnering as much more than one man lifting one woman. Some of the most interesting partnering features two quartets. In each two men and a woman work together to lift the other man.
The slow rock of Ly’s singing shapes much of the piece’s movement, but one section — really, one movement — stands out as sharply defiant. The cast circles the stage, one at a time interrupting their running fist-pumping, foot-punching jumps.
So much in this ballet is sad, but the dancers seem to refuse to go down under the emotional weight. Similarly, Ballet Austin II’s young dancers face Dao’s choreographic challenges thoughtfully. The dancers explore what it means to give into gravity, often letting their legs lead as their torsos ripple slowly behind.
It’s exciting to see young dancers trying out new ways to move and, equally exciting that Ballet Austin, by commissioning now a fourth from Dao, has made a long-term commitment to an emerging voice.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
