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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > March
March 2010
Review: UT’s New Music Ensemble plays William Bolcom
The University of Texas’ celebration of William Bolcom this week, which culminated in an all-Bolcom concert Tuesday by UT’s New Music Ensemble, made one point clear: The much-lauded American composer knows that serious, intelligently-composed music can be beguiling, fun and unabashedly inclusive of its American origins.
Sly humor — and a little irreverence — kicked off the program at Bates Recital Hall. With the audience seated and looking at an empty stage, a burst of brass music surprised from behind. The Bel Cuore Saxophone Quartet, the student saxophone foursome, dashed off the short playful Scherzino from behind the last row of seats.
From there the evening coursed through a lively sampling of Bolcom’s chamber works — Whisper Moon, Scherzo Fantasy, Three Rags for String Quartet and Orphee Serenade — played with considerable spirit and energy by the student ensemble, particularly the Aeolus Quartet — UT’s graduate quartet in residence — who brought considerable élan to Three Rags.
Bolcom’s music is a bit like rapidly flicking through a slide show about an ever-changing American landscape that’s been rendered in single perfect frames: First a jazzy glittering city, then a quaint town with brass band playing in a gazebo, then a darkened forest full of dissonant shadowy sounds, then a sunny vibrant prairie expansive with possibility rich with open sounds. In between, musical quotes from centuries past — a blast of baroque, a sweep of romanticism — pop like a bright flash bulb.
Bolcom loves his Americana. But he also loves his moments of atonal harmonies and jittery, modern rhythms. His is an eclecticism expertly rendered.
The recipient of UT’s $25,000 Eddie Medora King Award for outstanding contributions in music composition, Bolcom was on hand Tuesday. (He’ll be officially presented with the award April 23 when a newly-orchestrated version of his opera “A View from the Bridge” opens at UT’s McCullough Theatre).
Still furiously busy writing music at age 71, Bolcom took the piano for what he called “Mini Cabs” a dozen, super-short cabaret songs. Working with leftover lyrics found amongst the papers of Bolcom’s longtime collaborator and librettist Arnold Weinstein who died in 2005, the composer fashioned wry little musical one-liners, sung charmingly by his wife, mezzo soprano Joan Morris. (The two have concertized together for nearly four decades.)
And what droll one-liners they were: “People change into what they are.” “Those who want to do it all the time do it less than those who don’t.” “I will never forgive you for my behavior.”
Quiet chuckling rolled through the audience. That’s right, intelligent compositions can be a darned good time.
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Exhibit, films celebrate Manuel Alvarez Bravo
Mexico’s contributions to the development and history of the art of photography are profound. And perhaps no one led the charge as much Manuel Alvarez Bravo whose stunning black-and-white images rightfully hold their place in the canon with his contemporaries such as muralist Diego Rivera.
As Mexico shifted from revolutionary times into modernity, Alvarez Bravo was there with his camera, artistically documenting ordinary scenes, political turmoil and folk traditions and rituals. Through his lens, Mexico appeared both surrealistic and timeless — a place pursuing modernization and while also developing a national identity that proudly reflected its pre-Columbian past.
Culled from UT’s Blanton Museum of Art and Ransom Center, the exhibit “Manuel Alvarez Bravo and his Contemporaries” explores the work of the Mexican master and his peers including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange and Edward Weston.
And in conjunction with the exhibit, the Blanton has put together a film series of three rare movies on which Alvarez Bravo served as a cameraman.
The series starts Sunday with a screening of “¡Que Viva Mexico!”
Like many intellectuals of his time, Russian avant-garde film director Sergei Eisenstein found immense fascination in Mexico. In 1930, financed by author Upton Sinclair (among others), Eisenstein set out to a film an epic about Mexico’s history from pre-Columbian times to the present.
But though he shot an estimated 200,000 feet of film, and after Stalin called him back to the USSR, Eisenstein never completed the project. A subsequent edit in 1979 by one of Eisenstein’s collaborators resulted in a 90-minute version of “¡Que Viva Mexico!”
Screening of “¡Que Viva Mexico!” 3 p.m. Sunday in the Blanton Museum auditorium. Tickets are $3-$5 (museum admission not required).
‘Los Olvidados’ (1950, directed by Luis Buñuel) screens April 11 at 3 p.m. and ‘La Diosa Arrodillada’ (1947, directed by Roberto Gavaldon ) on April 25 at 3 p.m.
‘Manuel Álvarez Bravo and his Contemporaries’ continues through Aug. 1. www.blantonmuseum.org
Image: “Cemetery Wall,” silver print, 1964. Manuel Alvarez Bravo. Blanton Museum of Art collection.
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GHP to present Tosca Strings and new compositions by Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij
Alt classical organization Golden Hornet Project is at again, premiering new work by genre-less composers.
On April 26, as part of the Fusebox Festival, GHP will present Tosca String Quartet playing new compositions by Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij, Will Taylor of Strings Attached, Sam Arnold of Opposite Day and Christopher Cox. GHP
And yes, Vampire Weekend groupies — Batmangliji will be there to accompany Tosca Strings on his new pieces.
There will be two shows at 7 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. at the Alamo Ritz. Tix are $18.
See www.goldhenhornet.org for more info.
Earlier this season, GHP presented new symphonic works as well as Popcorn Superhet Receiver by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood
Also leaders on the indie classical scene, Tosca Strings has played with David Byrne, Spoon, Bob Schneider, Lucinda Williams and the Dixie Chicks, among others.
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Austin’s arts funding changes on hold — for now
The City of Austin has retracted recently added language from its arts funding guidelines that left many groups wondering whether they were still eligible for city money as the application deadline approaches.
But the issue is far from being permanently resolved.
The language, which stated that arts groups would now have to prove how their programs promote tourism, had been added to the guidelines by city staff members who said they had done so to comply with state law governing the use of hotel occupancy tax dollars.
City officials say they will create a task force to resolve tourism tax issue.
Click here for the entire story.
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Ballet Austin’s ‘New American Talent/Dance’ winnings announced
The judges have decided. And their $15,000 in discretionary prize monies have been allocated.
Judges for Ballet Austin’s ‘New American Talent/Dance’ — the biennial choreography competition now in performance at Ballet Austin’s Austin Ventures Studio Theater — have announced their awards decision.
Houston’s Dominic Walsh and Nelly van Bommel of New York each received $6,000. KT Nelson of San Francisco’s ODC/Dance was awarded $3,000.
The jurors were Alicia Adams, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of international touring; Julie Nakagawa, artistic director and co-founder of Chicago’s DanceWorks’ and Paul Vasterling, artistic director of the Nashville Ballet. Each judge had a $5,000 discretionary fund to allocate.
A ground-breaking biennial competition, ‘New American Talent/Dance’ brings together three choreographers as chosen by three internationally renowned judges. Choreographers are given a stipend and the opportunity to create new work for the Ballet Austin dancers.
Additional prize money of will be awarded to the choreographer garnering the most audience votes each night. Those prizes will be announced next week.
Click here for a review of ‘New American Talent/Dance.’
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Review: KDH Dance’s ‘Alone, Alone’
KDH Dance went to new places with ‘Alone, Alone,’ a new hour-long dance work that premiered this weekend in three sold-out shows at the Salvage Vanguard Theater.
In more ways the one, too.
Artistic director Kathy Dunn Hamrick rallied the ambient rock band Hill Ma as collaborators — a pretty daring choice even for the self-proclaimed ‘Live Music Capital of the World.’ So often live musical accompaniment to modern dance remains acoustic.
Not so with ‘Alone, Alone,’ The Hill Ma foursome played live from behind a scrim at the rear of the stage. And if their more charging, louder sounds made for a bit of an aesthetic disconnect at times with Hamrick modern moves, for the most part the band’s ethereal lyric-less wall-of-sound and moody style made for a good fit, adding plenty of energy to Hamrick already energetic manner of dance.
Indeed, Hamrick’s signature athleticism provided the underpinnings to ‘Alone, Alone.’ (Hers are usually some of the most vigorous dances on Austin indie modern dance scene).
But rather than take her usual humor-infused approach to creating abstract non-narrative dance, Hamrick went for thoughtful: ‘Alone, Alone’ was an emotionally resonant hour-long exploration of the state of being alone.
Though at time the company of eight dancers filled the stage together, they were really been dancing solo, each working out a way of being through dynamic angular moves, each glancing sideways assessing how others were doing it. Clad in first pink then chartreuse tunics, the dancers partnered each other only briefly and distractedly. Even when pairs or trios or quartets danced through sequences together, there was a marked but effective disconnect between them.
Slowly, the emotional gaps between the ensemble closed as ‘Alone, Alone’ progressed. But not before we saw a series of striking variations on the movement of singleness.
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Review: Ballet Austin’s ‘New American Talent/Dance’
Saving the best for last may be a cliche, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.
Ballet Austin definitely saved its best new ballet until the end of Thursday’s New American Talent/Dance (NATD) program. Nelly Van Bommel’s Fanfarneta is smart, funny, and rich.
Fanfarneta was one of three ballets commissioned for the third biennial NATD competition. Three jurors—this year Alicia Adams of the Kennedy Center, Julie Nakagawa of DanceWorks Chicago, and Paul Vasterling of Nashville Ballet—select three finalist choreographers from a pool of video applications. This year’s finalists were Dominic Walsh of Houston’s Dominic Walsh Dance Theatre, KT Nelson of San Francisco’s ODC Dance, and Van Bommel, a French-born choreographer now based in New York.
Van Bommel chose La Cor de la Plana’s music for Fanfarneta, using the songs of the all-male French group for a series of vignettes. Sung in Occitan, a language indigenous to southern France and Catalonia, the throaty voices and the songs’ rhythmic complexity generate a folksy feel. Van Bommel ably couples music and choreography so the dance becomes another rhythmic layer. The two artistic elements feed one another, rather than one channeling the other. She accentuates this relationship by having the barefoot dancers slap the floor with their feet. The dancers may all have shin splints soon, but the foot-stomping provides a joyous, calamitous tone.
Fanfarneta’s sense of intense community captures folk dance’s spirit with a modern dance vocabulary. In a simple series of arm gestures, Jaime Lynn Witts and Joseph Hernandez demonstrate how performers can really see one another and connect. The piece seems intensity seems social (even in Michelle Thompson’s fabulous solo). Van Bommel brought the dancers together.
It’s reductive to compare dance pieces, since every work has unique successes and failures. But the NATD format—audience members use their cell phones to vote for their favorite work—makes comparisons hard to avoid. Next to Fanfarneta, Walsh’s “The Whistling” seems underdeveloped. Walsh chose an excellent cast and used their balletic skills well, but he also gave Hernandez a bad ballet version of breakdance popping and locking as a solo. The piece was littered with moments that screamed, “This gesture is very meaningful” without providing narrative or kinetic interpretive contexts.
KT Nelson’s “When Love is Hard” lacked sophistication. Nelson’s choreography generally followed a single instrument through Borut Krzisnik’s dense score. Couples paired by repeating a movement motif of poking one another with outstretched fingers: one couple poked with tenderness, another slashed with rage. But for all the different emotions expressed, the end result was monotonous.
‘New American Talent/Dance’ continues through April 4. See www.balleaustin.org.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Review: ‘Post-Oedipus’
“Post-Oedipus,” a co-production of the Getalong Gang Performance Group and The Blue Theatre, includes some characters from Greek drama you may be familiar with.
For example, there’s Oedipus, who famously killed his father, married his mother Jocasta, and eventually gouged his eyeballs out. But though you may have encountered these characters before, you’ve never seen them quite like this.
In “Post-Oedipus,” Jocasta (Jennifer Gravenstein) is a vain, drugged out, overdramatic narcissist and Oedipus (James Brownlee) listens to self-help tapes, cracks jokes about being blind, and dreams of starting his own gumball machine business. Much of the action in the ensuing story centers on the conflict between Jocasta’s two sons, Polyneices (Seth Thomas) and Eteocles (Stephen Cruz), who are fighting over who is the proper ruler of Thebes.
“Post-Oedipus,” written by Steven Gridley and directed by Spencer Driggers, teases at the conventions of Greek drama—the big voices, the over-wrought acting, the endless grief. The show takes a post-modern approach to storytelling as it mixes genres, plays with notions of past and present, and brings in elements from contemporary life. For example, the characters take photos of themselves and do another “take” if the performance doesn’t seem right. “Post-Oedipus” is Greek tragedy as dysfunctional reality TV show.
But despite the enthusiasm of the cast and production team, the show can’t overcome some basic problems of the script. The zany elements of the show (Oedipus’s gumball machine, the relentless photographs), are funny for a moment, but they just don’t seem to add up to a coherent whole.
In addition, the internal logic of the play does not entirely make sense. Are the actors playing actors putting on a play? Are they the original characters in a dramatically different world? What exactly is this play trying to tell us?
The cast attempts to tackle the all-over-the-place script, but they can’t completely overcome its shortcomings. Ismene (Michelle Turner) is endearing, her sincerity standing out in the circus of melodramatic characters that surround her. Seth Thomas also stands out as a focused, strong, and occasionally explosive Polyneices.
It’s great to see a newer Austin theatre company tackling non-realistic and artistically challenging material. It doesn’t quite work here, but the company offers some promising talent nonetheless.
‘Post-Oedipus’ continues through April 11, Thursday- Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at The Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Road. $15. www.ggpg.org
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Daniel Brock.
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Play’s cancellation ‘right thing to do,’ Dewhurst says
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst condemned a production of “Corpus Christi,” a play by Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally that depicts Jesus as gay. McNally was raised in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Click here for the complete story.
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Ted Pillsbury, longtime Kimbell Art Museum director, dead at 66
Edmund Pillsbury, who turned Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum into a world-renowned institution during his 18 years as director, has died. He was 66.
Click here for the entire story.
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Austin to celebrate World Theatre Day on Saturday
Austin theater artists are joining the World Theatre Day celebrations, an outreach effort established by the International Theatre Institute.
Guerrilla theater events are planned all day around town in public places from the City Hall to Whole Foods. And the celebration culminate at with a party and some speechifying. The party starts at 7 p.m. at Greater Austin Creative Alliance, 701 Tillery Street.
See www.exchangeartists.org for a complete schedule.
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Recent arts coverage
Kathy Kelley domestics urban detritus in a new solo exhibit | Composer William Bolcom is as atonal as he wants to be — or not
Follow @artsinaustin on Twitter
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Beloved folk art Cathedral of Junk threatened with closure
A destination for folk art fans, Vince Hannemann’s Cathedral of Junk in South Austin has been cited by the city as a dangerous structure.
The 33-foot assemblage of mostly metal found objects, which Hanneman has been constructing since 1988, is a structure by code standards, the city says. And as a structure, it needs to meet certain safety requirements. Hanneman has until March 31 to submit plans to bring the assemblage up to code or to get a permit to demolish it.
Read the complete story.
Cathedral of Junk owner Vince Hannemann, left, started creating the attraction behind his South Austin house in 1988. Some of the junk is being moved to solve an easement problem. Photo by Alberto Martinez/Austin American-Statesman.
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UT’s Texas Performing Arts co-commissions a new musical
‘Rappahannock County,’ a new musical based on historical documents from the Civil War is headed to Austin thanks to co-commission from the University of Texas’ Texas Performing Arts.
UT partnered with the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, the, Virginia Arts Festival and the Virginia Opera to commission the new musical by composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Mark Campbell
‘Rappahannock County’ will play in Austin Sept. 18-25, 2011. The show premieres at the Virginia Arts Festival, opening April 12, 2011, the same day that Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in 1861 signaling the start of the Civil Wars.
From the UT release:
‘Rappahannock County’ is a fictional song cycle inspired by diaries, letters, and personal accounts during the period of the Civil War, and explores the war’s impact, from secession to defeat, on a community of Virginians—black and white, rich and poor, soldiers, nurses, widows and survivors. The production is a multi-media event, enhanced by projections of Civil War photography, illustrations, documents, and other moving visuals and features five principal singers performing more than 30 roles, backed by an ensemble of 15 musicians.
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Weekend Arts Pix
‘Post-Oedipus’
Steven Gridley radically reworks Euripides’ play ‘The Phoenician Women,’ interjecting it with chaotic revelries, bizarre jumps in time, musical interludes and plenty of zany movement, all to chronicle tumultuous events of Oedipus’ family after his fall. Expect the unusual in this Getalong Gang Performance Group premiere. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays through April 11. $15, Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale Road. www.bluetheatre.org
‘New American Talent/Dance’
Three choreographers, $20,000 in prize money and you get to choose a winner. Ballet Austin presents its biennial choreographic competition that challenges three mid-career dancemakers - K.T. Nelson, Nelly van Bommel and Dominic Walsh - to each create a new 20 to 30 minute piece. A panel of judges selects their favorite, but the audience can vote for theirs, too. Bring your phone and text in your vote. 7 p.m. today, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. Continues through April 4. Austin Venture Studio Theatre, 501 W. Third St. $37-$47. www.balletaustin.org
‘Pretend You Are Rich Art Auction’
What could be better for recessionary times than an art auction where you can pretend to be rolling in it? The artist-run Pump Project Art Complex hosts its annual faux rich fundraiser. The bidding on work by 20 local artists starts at $3,000 - but then every wining bid gets a $3,000 instant rebate! 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday. Pump Project Art Complex, 702 Shady Lane. Free. www.pretendyouarerich.com
Photo: Ballet Austin’s ‘New American Talent/Dance’ by Tony Spielberg
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Alison Kuo does some nesting at SOFA Gallery
In her latest work, artist Alison Kuo creates an oblique narrative about the anxiety of home-making. Is a home a secure space or does it restrict freedom?
And what better locale to explore the issue of home than SOFA Gallery, the micro-gallery run by ambitious young curator Katie Geha in her north campus apartment.
SOFA hosts ”Alison Kuo: Nesting.’ The opening is Sunday from 4 to 6 p.m. The exhibit continues through April 18.
Kuo — who interestingly is on the verge of leaving Austin and relocating to New York City — makes anthropomorphic, fuzzy stuffed sculptures that suggest nesting rodents. And her fragile cage-like wooden constructions could be intricate nests made of twigs, grass and leaves. Temporary shelter or permanent protection?
And her drawings and animated video animate her complex narrative. Nesting — well, home, that is — is a very complex and contradictory thing after all.
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Recent arts coverage
Kathy Kelley domestics urban detritus in a new solo exhibit | Dancemaker Kathy Dunn Hamrick embarks an a collaboration, family-style | Austin ponders changes to new funding rules for arts organizations
Follow @artsinaustin on Twitter
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The latest crop of MFA’d artists go on exhibit
The latest class of MFA graduates from the University of Texas will show what they’ve been up to for the past three years when the Studio Art MFA Exhibit opens Saturday.
The exhibit, at UT’s off-campus satellite gallery the Creative Research Lab, features the work of Sonya Berg, Michael Coyle, Ryan Cronk, Samuel Dahl, Kristina Felix, Santiago Forero, Daniel Lane, Robert Melton and Christina Weisner.
Opening reception: 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday
Creative Research Lab, 2832 East Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Map.
The exhibit runs through April 10.
Image: Sonya Berg, ‘Make My Falls,’ 2008. Oil, conte, pastel on tracing paper. Courtesy CRL.
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Review: ‘The Phantom of the Opera’
“The Phantom of the Opera” is like the Las Vegas of musicals.
It’s full of glitz and glamour. It’s heavy on special effects (real fire! a Venetian style gondola floating on a river of fog!). And like the shimmering city in the desert, it’s a lot of fun, though you might feel guilty for liking it afterwards.
This dramatic gothic musical about unrequited love is the longest running show in Broadway’s history. The national tour of “ The Phantom of the Opera,” now playing at Bass Concert Hall, is the show’s final one—it closes this fall in Los Angeles.
“The Phantom of the Opera,” (directed by Harold Prince) is set at the Paris Opera House in the late nineteenth century. It tells the story of the Phantom (a deformed man who haunts the building) and his obsession with the young soprano Christine Daaé. His unrequited love for Christine, and his determination to make her a star, leads to much scheming, danger, and melodramatic mayhem.
The music (by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Charles Hart) is undeniably catchy, and the performers in the lead roles are quite good. As the young ingénue Christine, Trista Moldovan’s voice is light and airy. Tim Martin Gleason as the Phantom shows enormous vocal range and power. “All I Ask of You,” a duet between Christine and Raoul (Sean MacLaughlin), showcases the singers’ lovely harmonies, while in “Masquerade,” we hear the impressive power of the entire chorus.
“The Phantom of the Opera” has always been heavy on spectacle, and the visual elements of this production, (production design by Maria Bjornson and lighting by Andrew Bridge) are indeed still striking. The show is suffused with lavish sets, extravagant costumes and, of course, a famously large chandelier.
Perhaps it’s no surprise to say that the production, at times, suffers from a lack of freshness and surprise. For example, when the Phantom first makes his presence known by causing part of the set to crash, no one in the cast is able to act genuinely surprised. The first act has more energy and momentum than the second, and the music sounds somewhat dated, full of keyboards and synthesizers. But after a twenty year run, perhaps asking for freshness from “The Phantom of the Opera” is beside the point.
If you’re coming because you’re already a fan, you’ll be satisfied with this solid and professional production; if you’ve never seen it, you’ll likely be entertained by the sheer spectacle of it all. And if you can’t get enough of the Phantom and Christine, Webber’s new sequel “Love Never Dies,” has recently opened in London and will be heading to Broadway in the fall. Hide the chandeliers.
‘The Phantom of the Opera’ continues through April 4, Tuesday-Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. Bass Concert Hall, 2350 Robert Dedman Drive. Tickets $25-$72. www.BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com.
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Arts groups rally to oppose changes in city arts funding guideliness
Representatives from several dozen arts groups gathered Tuesday to strategize how to challenge changes in the city’s arts funding guidelines that could leave many cultural organizations ineligible for municipal monies.
At issue is new language that requires groups applying for city arts funding to offer “public activities that directly support tourism,” according to a document produced by the city’s cultural arts funding program. The guidelines also require organizations to keep track of and report on how many out-of-town tourists attend arts events and programs.
The city funds its cultural contracts program principally through monies collected from the nine percent tax on hotel-motel occupancy. Cultural funding receives the smallest share — 12 percent — of the occupancy tax fund. For the current fiscal year, the cultural contracts program distributed $5.2 million to more than 200 arts groups and projects.
Arts groups were notified of the new guideline changes by the city’s cultural funding program office on March 12. The deadline to apply for city funding is May 1.
The Austin Convention Center is allocated 50 percent of the hotel-motel occupancy tax revenue while 16 percent is allocated to the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau. About 22 percent funds a bond redemption fund used to pay for the Convention Center expansion. And the remaining 12 percent goes to the local arts groups.
According to cultural arts program office, the current cultural contractors have combined cash budgets of nearly $65 million and reached 4.3 million individuals, including more than 1 million tourists in 2009.
At its Monday night meeting the Austin arts commission, which does not have the authority to change funding guidelines, voted unanimously to ask the City Council not to accept the changes.
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Combining passions: A most distinct aritistic collaboration
Choreographer Kathy Dunn Hamrick and her son Jacob Hamrick have pulled off a kind of creative collaboration that family experts would probably marvel over.
Together, the mother and son have made it happen: Hill Ma. Jacob’s band, will play live when Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company performs ‘Alone, Alone,’ a new program this weekend.
KDH Dance is know for its vivacious, athletic modern dance styles. Hill Ma makes thoughtful, ambient rock music. Together, the pair of creative entities bring an hour-long exploration in sound and movment of the emotional shades of aloneness.
Click here to read the story and hear music samples of Hill Ma.
‘Alone, Alone’
8 p.m. March 25-27
Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road
$12-$15
www.kdhdance.com
Making Dances 4: Hill Ma from farid on Vimeo.
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Review: Ellen Fullman and the Long String Instrument
Venue and performer synched perfectly Sunday night when experimental composer and instrument creator Ellen Fullman brought her 100-foot Long String Instrument to the Seaholm Power Plant, a defunct 1930s power plant in downtown Austin.
Hosted by the New Music Co-op, Fullman installed her Long String Instrument in the Seaholm’s towering turbine hall — its cavernous corners, abandoned industrial fittings and dust-caked windows dramatically lit by lighting designer William Meadows.
Atmosphere is everything for Fullman, a self-taught musician who began her career as a sculptor (and who created the Long String Instrument when she lived in Austin from 1985 to 1997).
Yes, there’s the resonance from the enormous venue that accentuated the almost ethereal sound of Fullman’s instrument. But the visuals and the environmental - and the audience interaction with both — played an equally strong part in the 90-minute performance.
Coating her hands with rosin, the petite Fullman walks like a tight rope performer, one foot carefully in front of the other as she moves the length of her instrument, vibrating its long strings as she slowly moves.
And as if to acquaint the audience to exactly what she was doing, Fullman started with “Event Locations, No. 2” a solo piece she played with tiny surveillance cameras attached to each of her wrists. The detail of her hands on the strings projected in black-and-white on a wall several yards away.
The magnificient ‘Adaptations from Stratified Bands: Last Kind Word’ was a re-setting for of Fullman’s epic piece composed in 2002 for the Kronos Quatret. Fullman was joined by New Music Co-op members James Alexander (violin), Henna Chou (cello) and Travis Weller (violin) whose fixed string instruments provided a kind of tonal grounding against the ethereal bent pitches of the Long String Instrument. Fullman used as a starting point for the piece a haunting 1930s blues song which echoed throughout.
Weller and Nicke Hennies joined Fullman on the box bow — the boxes are handle-held rhythmic devices used to play Fullman’s string instrument more rhythmicall — for ‘Time Crossing.’ Developed as Fullman’s homage to the sound of the harmonica in folk music, the box bow created repeated rhythms that jigged along sounding also sometimes like an accordion or a pump organ or a harmonium or a couple of banjoes or even the vestiges of marching band heard from a distance.
Its simple harmonies — characterized by big wide open fourths and fifths — bore the unmistakable sounds of early American folk music, at once joyous and plaintive and nostalgic.
Though there were seats for the sold-out audience of 250 (the second of two shows last weekend), people were invited to move quietly around the vast turbine hall. And wander they did, some slipping off to far corners, others drawing closer to the musicians. One woman danced free form. A woman and her young daughter paraded the perimeter of the crowd for a while quietly swinging hands.
As shadows in the industrial setting grew deeper as the night outside darkened, the audience only seemed to grow more engaged. As the last sounds resonated resonated, people seemingly froze for a moment — venue, musicians and audience by then in perfect synch.
Photos by Dell Hollingsworth.
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ACP presents An Evening with David Alan Harvey
From the “Not SXSW” category of events this week comes the Austin Center for Photography’s Icons of Photography lecture series featuring David Alan Harvey.
Harvey bought a used Leica as kid and began photographing his family and neighborhood in Virginia. Now, he is a Magnum photographer who has spent his career training his lens on African American culture, the hip-hop scene in New York, Cuba and latino migration to the Americas.
Harvey will also be signing copies of his book ‘Living Proof,’ a photo essay examining DJ culture in the Bronx River Projects.
7 p.m. Wednesday
Blanton Museum Auditorium
Tix: $5 student/senior/military in advance or $10 at the door; $10 general admission in advance or $15 at the door.
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Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra, Douglas Harvey, cello
The shout of ‘bravo’ came a micro second after cellist Douglas Harvey let go of the last note of Strauss’ ‘Don Quixtoe’ at the Long Center Friday night.
Loud, clear, sincere — that ‘bravo’ packed a kind of spontaneous emotion rarely witnessed from an Austin Symphony Orchestra audience.
The kudos were deserved. Harvey, who is principal cellist for ASO, delivered an emotionally thoughtful, musically wise interpretation of Strauss’ vivid, spirited tone poem that tells the story of Cervantes’ picaresque novel through a series of lush yet highly caricaturesque variations.
Conductor Peter Bay kept the tempos moderate and sympathetic to Strauss very literal musical interpretation of Don Quixote’s imaginative adventures without letting the sometimes satirical piece from turning into caricature. The whimsy was just right; So was the pathos of Quixote’s misguided adventures.
Other orchestral soloists featured in the piece — concertmistress Jessica Mathaes and violaist Bruce Williams — deftly handling Strauss’ conversation-like musical dialogue.
Indeed, ASO is to be complimented for featuring soloist talent from its own ranks rather than hosting a guest soloist: It should happen more often.
Bay organized the evening’s program around works that celebrated literature and hence also presented Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture. With pieces both so often excerpted and rehashed in popular culture, they could remain indistinct, or worse, exaggerated. But again, Bay kept things nicely measured and sharp, allowing for a full-bodied presentation of each lush, fantastical work to take shape. No cartooning here.
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It was more than a little auspicious Sunday afternoon at the Paramount Theatre that opera singer Barbara Smith Conrad was greeted with waves of applause and standing ovations during the premiere of “When I Rise,” the intelligent, poignant and ultimately liberating documentary by Austin filmmaker Mat Hames chronicling Conrad’s life.
After all, when Conrad was a gifted young music student at the University of Texas in 1957 — part of the first group of African Americans to be admitted as undergraduates to Texas’ flagship university - she wasn’t initially allowed into the Paramount to see a film that her drama professor sent the class to see.
Produced under the auspices of UT’s Briscoe Center for American History, “When I Rise” is ultimately about the extraordinary grace of an extraordinary woman.
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Review: Ballet Afrique
Ballet Afrique, Austin’s new African American dance company, weaves their vision of African American culture through ever facet of their work.
The result: their Friday show at Salvage Vanguard was a fascinating, intelligent blend of a variety of African American dance vocabularies—a dense collage of West African dance, jazz, modern and ballet. (And yes, every one of those traditions has roots in African American art. American ballet’s rhythmic complexity owes substantial debt to African American jazz.)
Led by founding executive director China Smith and artistic director Leah Smiley Tubbs, who choreographed all of Friday’s seven pieces, Ballet Afrique adds an exciting dimension to Austin’s dance community. It’s wrong that in 2010 it’s still rare to see an American contemporary dance company with multiple performers of color, but it’s great that Ballet Afrique’s six talented female dancers are stepping into the void.
Tubbs, who creates incredibly technically difficult work, has found dancers who meet her challenges head-on. Sade’ M. Jones spent most of the solo “Through the Silence” standing one leg. The precarious position eventually suggested a resolute desire to stand strong in the face of obstacles.
In “Nina Remixed,” the full company proved their versatility, moving across a choreographic palette that included the swinging, pulsing rhythms of arm-swinging West African movements; hip-grinding jazz isolations, and balletic pirouettes. Every step had a confident posture—an attitude that made it easy to overlook the occasional wobble.
The dancers’ self-possessed performance quality meant some moments offered a glimpse of emotional depth that will surely grow with the company. Adriana Ray’s acting made “At Play” an apt and hilarious depiction of the power struggles of childhood games. Daniele Martin’s intensity in the solo “Reset” made a relatively simple choreographic conceit, a fight to untangle the dancer’s bound arms, a statement on how persistence is central to self-empowerment. Tubbs’ solo in “Nina Remixed” saw the fantastically strong dancer use her physical agility to communicate a sense of internal turmoil.
Welcome to Austin dance Ballet Afrique. We need you.
The show continues tonight at 8 p.m. at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road. www.balletafrique.org
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And, the inflatable suit guy is off!
As scheduled, artist Jimmy Kuehnle arrived at Congress Ave. and Cesar Chavez St. and donned ‘You Wear What I Wear,’ his enormous inflatable suit. Then he set out on a downtown walk.
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This weekend: Some arts happenings vault their own publicness
Starting tomorrow, Austin will be thronged with crowds for two weeks thanks to the various iterations of the South by Southwest festivals of film, interactive and music.
So what better time than to schedule a big public art happening.
On Friday, San Antonio-based artist Jimmy Kuehnle will don one of his giant inflatable suits and hit the streets of downtown at noon to surprise pedestrians. Kuehnle says he didn’t plan his art stunt with SXSW in mind — it’s just a coincidence. Really? Not knowing that March madness in Austin means SXSW is a little like not knowing it gets stinking hot here in August. Read our Q-and-A with him. Kuehnle will start his trek at Cesar Chavez Street and Congress Avenue.
Then on Saturday, Stephen Dubov hopes to attract attention with 50 orange and white hard plastic traffic barriers for a temporary sculptural installation at an South Austin intersection
Dubov will pile the barriers in odd groups and extend them 100 feet or so along South Lamar Boulevard. A team of artists led by Dubov will install them from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Then, the public is invited to an opening from 6:30 to 9 p.m. And to keep the event on a neighborhood-friendly wavelength, attendees are invited to purchase refreshments from a convenience store next to the art site. www.artontheway.com
“I think this piece has a sweet, silly charm that will make people smile, the way Christo’s The Gates did,” Dubov said in press release.
‘The Gates’? Hmm. ‘The Gates’ was a profound public project on a massive scale. Will 50 traffic barriers really share that profundity?
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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.
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Weekend Arts Pix
‘Over’
Austin-based artists Ilea Avalos, Andrea Bonin and Megan Kincheloe — all recent University of Texas grads — collaborate on a site-specific installation using handmade plaster bricks to create assemblages that represent both units of time and the building blocks of memory. Opening reception is 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday. Exhibit continues through March 27. Mass Gallery, 916 Springdale Road. Free. www.massgallery.org
‘Treading Where No One Hears The Echo of Her Foot Fall.’
Houston-based artist Kathryn Kelley up-cycles and reanimates objects of urban refuse into large, fleshy sculptures that often stand in the place of the self. The impressive scale of these pieces creates a theatrical position for viewers who are confronted with gregarious forms, or intimations of the shadowed self. Remnant inner tubes, doors, frames and windows morph and mingle in these ambitious works. Opening reception is 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday. Exhibit continues through April 15. Women & Their Work, 1710 Lavaca St. Free. www.womenandtheirwork.org
Complete Brahms Violin Sonatas
What did Johannes Brahms do when he was on summer vacation in idyllic mountain settings? He wrote exquisite, intimate sonatas for piano and violin. Pianist Michelle Schumann and violinist Soovin Kim relay stories of Brahms’ creations and play them all: Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major, Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major, Sonata for Violin and Piano in D minor and Sonatensatz in C minor. 7:30 p.m. Saturday. First Unitarian Church, 4700 Grover Ave. $25 ($10 students). www.austinchambermusic.org
Duo Melis
Spanish guitarist Susana Prieto and Greek guitarist Alexis Muzurakis light fire to a wide repertory of classical guitar music from the baroque to modern tango of Astor Piazzolla. 8 p.m. Saturday. Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Drive. $25-$50. www.AustinClassicalGuitar.org
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Testsite launches ‘Just Because’ series, and more
The energetic, inventive indy micro-gallery testsite is gearing up for a new a exhibit series.
‘Just Because’ is a new series of solo shows slated for the gallery cum Central Austin residence.
Opening the series on Sunday is ‘Elizabeth Chiles: Book of Praise.” The reception is from 3 to 5 p.m. The exhibit continues through March 28.
‘Karl Marx says that the problem with beauty is that it doesn’t talk back; that is its strength in fact. Its silence reminds us about grace,’ says the Austin-based Chiles whose work is included in FotoFest 2010 and has been exhibited here at Okay Mountain.
Continuing the ‘Just Because’ series June 6 to 27 will be ‘Ben Ruggiero: After Icebergs With A Painter,’ featuring the new photographic work by the Texas State University art professor that riffs on the 19th-century Hudson River School group of painters.
Before the Ruggiero exhibit though, look to testsite for what promises to by a slyly smart project by Jay Sanders and the irrepressible Michael Smith. Opening in conjunction with the Fusebox Festival, Sanders and Smith will transform testsite into their version of fraternity.
We can wait for Sanders’ and Smith’s kegger.
Image: ‘Aboo,’ 2009 .Elizabeth Chiles. Courtesy the artist and testsite.
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A 100-foot-long string instrument to take up residency in Seaholm
The turbine hall of the historic Seaholm power plant will become the site for an utterly unconventional concert when Ellen Fullman, composer/performer and former Austinite, returns to town with her 100-foot-long string instrument.
When Fullman was here in Austin, 1985 to 1997, she rented a space in a former candy factory off Manor Road It was there that she developed her very unique instrument known as The Long String Instrument.
Fullman used amazing lengths of wire and custom-built wooden resonators to fashion her gigantic instrument. To play it, she developed a method of rosining her hands and walking the lengths of wire as she coaxed out otherworldly vibrations.
“My work resides between the fields of sound art and music,” she has said. “My interest is in composing music on multiple levels, constructing not only the fundamental harmonic content, but also creating a phantom composition by choreographing the performer’s movement through a multi-dimensional matrix of unfolding overtones.”
Fullman’s return visit — her first in 12 years — jibes with the SXSW premiere of Peter Esmonde’s documentary film about her music entitled “5 variations on a long string.”
The two performances at Seaholm are courtesy the non-profit group New Music Co-op.
8 p.m. March 13
8 p.m. March 14
Seaholm Power Plant, 214 West Ave.
Tickets: $12 students/advance and $15 at door
www.newmusiccoop.org
For the concerts Fullman will perform her compositions solo and in ensemble with NMC instrumentalists James Alexander (viola), Henna Chou (cello), Nick Hennies (percussion) and Travis Weller (violin).
Ellen Fullman performance at Berkeley Art Museum, Dec. 2009.
Photo by John Fago.
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Review: ‘Albert Herring,’ Butler Opera Center
Though it debuted in 1947, Benjamin Britten’s comic opera has only fairly recently gotten the love from the opera world with productions popping up on calendars more and more.
The University of Texas’ Butler Opera Center mounts a comely new production of its own which opened this past weekend.
Perhaps it’s Britten’s particularly cruel British comedic sensibility hits home with today’s audiences? Then again, perhaps it’s only now that Britten’s status as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century is now a given.
Like his more popular opera ‘Peter Grimes,’ Britten’s ‘Albert Herring’ centers on an outsider character misunderstood by uptight British society as represented by a small town riven with hypocrisy and intolerance.
Based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant — but thoroughly British in Britten’s interpretation — ‘Albert Herring’ is vicious satire on societal propriety as portrayed in early 20th-century Britain that leaves no character unscathed.
When the autocratic Lady Billows (in this production played by soprano Emily Ward) finds no suitably chaste young woman to be crowned May Queen in the village’s annual celebration, she is convinced by the a council of villagers to elect the hapless grocer Albert Herring (tenor Brad Raymond). Albert is, after all, a simpering momma’s boy.
After being dressed in the clownish humiliating May King costume for the village festival, Albert benefits from a glass of surreptiously spiked lemonade which leads him on an all-night bender. After a night of reckless wanton behavior, Albert returns to the village defiant in his new-found embrace life’s more licentious behavior.
The notable highlight of UT’s production was the orchestra led by Jim Lowe, the Butler Opera Center’s new conductor. Lowe (whose resumes includes stints with Houston Grand Opera and conducting the recent Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of ‘Gypsy’ starring Patti LuPone) wrested considerable panache out of the 12-piece chamber orchesrta of student musician. And that’s not an easy feat given that Britten’s score is chock full of deft musical craftsmanship and witty, ironic references to both the whole operatic canon and popular British music. (Britten quotes everything form Gilbert and Sullivan operattas, Baroque operas and even the late Romanticism of Richard Strauss). Lowe’s musical direction is some of the best seen yet from the Bulter Opera Center.
Though the voices in Sunday night’s cast were generally good, (a few secondary roles are double cast), Marc Reynolds’s limp stage direction left some cast members and their characters adrift.
Those who rose above it — and whose voices also stood out — shone.
Raymond makes Albert his own dramatically and vocally, utterly convincing at first as the hapless nerd, a convincing buffoon as the May King and finally a rather sardonic convert to life’s pleasures — and musically strong and distinct throughout.
As Albert’s erstwhile buddy Sid, baritone James Van Rens (who recently had a small part in Austin Lyric Opera’s charming ‘The Star’) was the complete opera package: a performer with excellent comedic acting chops and a rich voice full of clarity and seasoned with superb articulation.
Ditto with baritone Brian Pettery, in a secondary role as the Vicar. Vocal clarity and theatrical aplomb made his character stand out in a cast filled with many secondary characters.
An awkward set by Anne McMeeking had a split staircase serving as the main scenic element but its institutional modernist style were out-of-place next to Michaele Hite’s luscious period costumes.
Though in places uneven, this production of ‘Albert Herring’ nevertheless gives notice that this bitterly funny Britten comedy is not to be ignored.
‘Albert Herring’ continues at 7:30 p.m. March 5 and March 7. McCullough Theatre, UT campus. $20 ($10 for students). www.music.utexas.edu.
Photo by Jon Smith.
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Review: New Music Co-op ‘Invisible Landscapes’
Silence permeated the new compositions played Saturday night by Austin’s New Music Co-op at Ceremony Hall, one of three different concerts — under the banner ‘Invisible Landscapes’ — the music collective presented which focused on the music of California-based composer Michael Pisaro in collaboration with percussionist Greg Stuart.
Warm water morphing into air was the primary image behind Pisaro’s ‘Ascending Series(7) (Evaporation),’ a 25-minute piece. A commission from the New Music Co-op, called for seven bowed instruments — in this case two violins, a viola, a bass and three percussionists who used bows on the rims of floor tom drums to create a soft, ethereal scraping sound. ‘Ascending’ started with a tone that formed something of backbone of the sound. Then, after slowly crescendoing, the tone seemed to evaporate, longer stretches of silence marrying the ever quieter moments of the almost white noise coming from the percussive bowing. Ambient noises from outside the auditorium made delightful guest appearances while ‘Ascending’ demanded careful, meditative listening.
New Music Co-op member Nick Hennies debuted his ‘Second Skin With Lungs’ which had five musicians at floor toms making a circle around the audience. Slowing using their hands to make circular motions across the drum skins, the musicians created a gentle wave of sound, sometime no more than a whisper.
Also getting a debut was Travis Weller’s ‘Toward and Away From the Point of Balance,’ a mesmerizing 10-minute piece for a string trio and The Owl, Weller’s inventive 16-string instrument that produces haunting sounds. Toward’ arched from silence to purpose and back to silence with moody slivers of harmony roughed up a bit with the string players injecting near-silent and other-worldly scraping sounds.
Sound may have been the product of Saturday’s concert, but, cleverly, silence emerged as the subtle star.
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Ballet Austin’s 2010-2011 season
Romanticism rules much of Ballet Austin’s 2010-2011 season.
Along with its usual holiday presentation of ‘The Nutcracker,’ the company will dance ‘La Sylphide,’ widely credited as the first romantic ballet and first staged by the Paris Opera ballet in 1832. The story of a young groom who leaves his bride in pursuit of a tempting, beautiful sylph runs, perhaps appropriately, Feb. 11-13, 2011, right up against Valentine’s Day.
Then on Mother’s Day weekend (May 6-8), the company presents the ballet version of Mozart’s romantic opera, ‘The Magic Flute.’
Ballet Austin opens its season Sept. 24-26 with re-mounts of two works by artistic director Stephen Mills, ‘Carmina Burana’ and ‘Kai.’
A as-yet-to-be-announced program for the Studio Theatre Project March 25-April 3 will play in Ballet Austin’s 270-seat Austin Ventures Studio Theater at the company’s downtown Austin headquarters.
The apprentice company, Ballet Austin II, will reprise Mills’s popular ballet for young audiences ‘Not Afraid of the Dark,’ Sept. 18-19 at the Paramount.
See www.balletaustin.org for more information.
