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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > August > 30
Monday, August 30, 2010
‘Opera in Cinema’ at the Long Center fills the house for its first screening
Can a free show be sold-out?
Well, it certainly can be maxed-out which what happened at the free screening of La Scala’s ‘Aida’ at the Long Center Friday night. All of the 2400 available tickets were reserved in advance. And while there may have been a few no-shows, nearly every seat was taken.
The screening was the first of a new collaboration with Emerging Pictures, purveyors of hi-def movies, many of them cultural. The Austin Lyric Opera is co-sponsoring the 2010-2011 ‘Opera in Cinema’ series with the Long Center.
With bragging rights to the second-largest movie screen in town (after the IMAX screen at the Bullock Museum), and with hi-def projection equipment, the Long Center makes for (literally) picture perfect of hi-def films. The image was crystalline — perfect for the Zeffirelli-designed production and its lavish sets and costumes. Indeed, the quality of the projection was leagues better than Austin screenings of the Met Opera hi-def movie series shown venues that lack hi-def projection equipment.
Without a proper cinema sound system at the Long center though, the acoustics weren’t quite as sparkling as the image, leaving the sound a little mono-directional. (A cinema sound system would cost the non-profit Long Center several tens of thousands of dollars. Who wants to donate that?)
Still, the audience was appreciative Friday night, applauding the arias while they sipped drinks (yes, water and clear-colored beverages are now allowed into the Long Center’s Dell Hall for certain shows).
Up next, on Sept. 14,is Mozart’s ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ from London’s Royal Opera House followed by ‘Carmen’ from Spain’s Gran Theatre del Liceu on Oct. 13.
See www.thelongcenter.org for more info.
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Review: ‘I Witness’
Postmodern is one of those lovely ambiguous labels that tends to get bandied about by critics and academics when we don’t exactly know what to say. It often seems to mean whatever its speaker wants it to mean. So in this instance, I’ll be sure to clarify.
“I Witness,” Tutto Theatre Company’s current production, running now through Sept. 4 at the Blue Theatre, is definitely postmodern. What makes it postmodern? The intentional juxtaposition of “high” and “low” culture, and a disorienting use of fragments, pastiche, montage — to me, these are fundamental aspects of postmodern art. While a collage sort of performance can make it difficult to focus on any given thing, it also allows you options about where to look or listen, which can be nice.
Billed as “an evening of dance (and spoken-word) with choreography by Amanda Oakley, Shawn Nasralla, and Jennifer Micallef,” the show is neither a play, nor a poetry reading, nor a dance recital… it’s all three — sort of.
It’s a play only in the sense that there does seem to be some sort of narrative through line that deals with love, identity and physics. There are performers who speak lines to an audience. And it happens in a theater.
The lines are a mish-mash of poetry, literary excerpts, quotations and explanations of physics by Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, verging dangerously on the edge of pretentious. These “spoken-words” can be difficult to follow despite the actors efforts. Lizzi Biggers infuses her lines with captivating ardor, but Alex Cogburn would have done well to find some emotions to put behind his.
The dancing is certainly not traditional though classical elements appear, and it occasionally reminded me more of pilates than of pirouettes — which actually made it much more enjoyable than that might sound. Seeing legs in the air and not on the ground was disorienting in a delightful way and at times produced a whimsical sort of beauty that can be lacking in more stoic forms of dancing.
The play of shadows orchestrated by Natalie George’s breathtaking light design is worth the trip in itself, but the talented array of dancers really make the magic happen. Unlike a traditional chorus line, each woman stands out with her own shape, size, and costume.
You may have to pick a favorite to focus on with so much happening at once, but it’s not like that’s a new dilemma for anyone living in the age of the world wide web.
8 p.m. Thursday - Saturday. $15 (Thursdays pay-what-you-can). www.tuttotheatre.org
Cate Blouke is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Review: ‘B-Boy Bluez’
There’s an undeniable energy to hip-hop music, a kinetic force, a driving beat that just won’t stop.
Writer and performer Zell Miller III channels this energy into “B-Boy Bluez,” a lively theatrical love letter to hip-hop culture running through Sept. 4 at the Vortex theater, in co-production with UpRise! Productions.
One of the few performers in Austin whose work fits into the genre of hip-hop theatere, Miller skillfully combines hip-hop elements (graffiti art, rap/spoken word, dj-ing beats) with autobiographical stories and character-driven monologues. The fourth element of hip-hop, breakdancing (or b-boying) is brought to life by dancers from local dance crew Outta Kontrol (with choreography by Ananda Mayi Moss and Tony Phillips), who glide through space effortlessly and are a sheer joy to watch.
Miller is a fast-paced and spirited performer who excels at connecting with the audience through telling personal stories that are funny, touching, and full of pop culture references (“Charlie’s Angels,” “Hawaii Five-0”) that will make old-enough audience members flash back to their own pasts nostalgically. In other memorable scenes, Miller plays a “professor” of hip-hop, who schools the audience in hip-hop history.
Like all true hip-hop artists, Miller threads his rhymes with incisive social commentary. In “B-Boy Bluez” he tackles the gentrification of East Austin and the way hip-hop has been commercialized and turned into a commodity for the masses. He also calls out current hip-hop artists for continuing to spread misogyny and homophobia through their music.
Mostly, though, the show centers on the positive effect hip-hop culture had on Miller’s life as a young boy growing up in Austin. As Miller talks about the artists who have influenced him— KRS-One, Public Enemy, Digable Planets — his passion and respect shine through. The show is definitely about race, class, and history, but it’s also about the power of language, art, and music to inspire lives and reshape worlds.
The program note rather mysteriously states that Miller is planning to “walk away” from being a featured performer to focus more time on producing and writing in the future. If this is true, one should definitely see “B-Boy Bluez” before he does.
‘B-Boy Bluez’ continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays through Sept. 4 at The Vortex, 2307 Manor Road. Tickets $10-$30. Sundays 2-for-1 admission with donation of two non-perishable food items for SafePlace. www.vortexrep.org
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
