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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > August
August 2010
ASH Bash: Insights Art Show & Sale
Combining art created by Austin State Hospital patients during an art therapy program along with the work of professional artists, the ‘ASH Bash: Insights Art Show & Sale’ challenges the notion of what constitutes so-called “outsider art” created by non-trained artists versus that created by professional artists.
Think you know what to expect? You may have to think again at the “ASH Bash: Insights Art Show & Sale,” a fundraiser for the State Hospital.
More than 100 pieces of patient-created art are displayed alongside local professional artists, including revered artist Maranda Pleasant, Roi James, Andrew Long, Eliza Thomas, Daniel Johnson and Billy Tice.
The event is 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 16 at 816 Congress Ave. Tickets are $20. Music by Suzanne Choffel. See www.ashvolunteers.org for info.
Painting by Austin State Hospital patient (anonymous).
“We Who See,’ mixed media, by Maranda Pleasant.
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‘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.
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Scriptworks tweaks name, broadens reach to DFW
The playwrights’ service organization Austin Scriptworks is now just Scriptworks to reflect the group’s expansion of services to the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
The playwright-driven organization offers coaching, staged readings, worshops and co-presents FronteraFest, the annual fringe festival of new work. Now, Scriptworks will be taking its readings and workshops to the Dallas-Fort Worth area as well.
We’re very excited about expanding our programming to the Dallas - Fort Worth area, and since about a quarter of our membership lives outside of Austin, now is the perfect time to change our name to reflect our reality,” says executive director Christian J. Moore.
This Sunday, Aug. 29, Scriptworks will be hosting its annual end-of-summer .Meet N Greet,’ 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Vortex Theater, 2307 Manor Road. Area playwrights, actors, directors, designers, technicians and those interested in finding out more about ScriptWorks are invited. It’s FREE; libations provided.
For more info see www.scriptworks.org.
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Hanger company launches ‘ARTroduction’ art competition
Now that it’s relocated its headquarters to Austin, the Hanger Orthopedic Group, a supplier of of orthotic and prosthetic products, is launching a competition for local artists.
“Hanger’s ARTroduction to Austin” competition offers a local artist a $10,000 commission plus the opportunity for exhibition at Hanger’s corporate office in the Domain in Northwest Austin.
From the new release, the details of Hanger’s contest:
The artwork should reflect the theme of “Moving Lives Forward,” representing Hanger’s vision to provide services and products that enhance human physical capability. The winning art will be displayed in the gallery space of Hanger’s new headquarters at The Domain in Northwest Austin for approximately two years. After that time, the work will be auctioned with proceeds benefitting a local nonprofit organization.
Artists can decide what concept would best represent the theme and have the most impact on the designated space, whether that is a series of artwork or a single piece. The competition is open to all visual art mediums except video or any work that requires electricity. Entries, including a 500-word-limit description, a photo of one completed original piece of art, and the artist’s resume, are due by 5 p.m., CST, on Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2010.
A jury of area art professionals along with Hanger Orthopedic Group representatives will select up to 10 finalists who will be awarded $500 each. The winning artist, chosen by the same jury, will receive a $10,000 Hanger Commission Award to carry out his or her vision for Hanger’s gallery space. Hanger employees across the country will also select one artist to receive the Employee Choice Award and a $1,000 prize. The Employee Choice artist’s work will likely be displayed at one of Hanger’s patient care centers in the Austin area.
Full details on the competition are available at www.ARTroduction.com.
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Tapestry Dance Company to offer free Saturday intro classes
The professional hoofers at Tapestry Dance Company are offering to share their secrets for free.
Beginning next week, the company will offer a series of free Saturday classes for adults and teens in tap, ballet, modern and jazz dance.
The first Saturday of each month Tapestry co-founder and artistic director Acia Gray will lead in intro tap class. Gray was recently elected to the National Tap Hall of Fame.
Every second Saturday, Tapestry co-found Deirdre Strand will teach an introductory ballet class. Third Saturdays it will be modern dance and fourth Sundays, jazz dance.
No experience is required; no obligation to sign up for anything else.
Introduction to Dance Series
11 a.m. Saturdays beginning Sept. 4
Tapestry Dance Studios, 2302 Western Trails Blvd.
www.tapestry.org
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Five Austin museums declared a “cultural campus”
Five Austin museums located at or near the University of Texas have joined forces to create single joint profile for marketing purposes.
Dubbing themselves “Austin’s Cultural Campus,” the Blanton Museum of Art, the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, the Harry Ransom Center, the LBJ Library and Museum, and the Texas Memorial Museum plan to dovetail some promotional efforts such as creating a descriptive brochure and map. Additional plans call for some collaborative programming.
To recognize the group effort, Mayor Lee Leffingwell will proclaim September 2010 as “Austin Cultural Campus Month” at today’s City Council meeting
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Recent arts coverage:
‘The Intergalactic Nemesis’ returns home, but the show has big ambitions | Out of Bounds, not out of laughs: Festival brings 500 performers with funny on their minds to Austin
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Weekend Arts Pix
‘New Works: Okay Mountain’
Austin Okay Mountain artist collective has had a heck of success in the past year. Their current show in New York is getting critical raves. And ten-person collective got a ton of attention at last year’s Pulse Art Fair in Miami, taking home the ‘Pulse Prize’ — all while running a ground-breaking gallery in East Austin. Now, the group presents its latest venture, a video installation entitled ‘Water, Water Everywhere, So Let’s All Have a Drink,’ a satirical send-up of mass media. Exhibit continues through Nov. 14. Austin Museum of Art, 823 Congress Ave. $4-$5. www.amoa.org
Joseph Phillips & Shawn Smith
‘Muses IV: Memories of a House.’
Home is where the stories are. The theater artists of the Vestige Group know this. And for their latest site-specific performance, they use the history of an historic South Austin and the people who lived in it as a basis for an intimate theatrical journey. Audience members wander from room to room and happen upon characters and settings that weave a narrative web of the family that once called he thouse a home. 8 p.m. Fridays-Sundays through Sept. 12 Private residence in South Austin. Location given upon reservation. $15-$25. www.vestigegroup.org
‘Totally Telemann.’
The Guinness Book of Records cites German Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann as the most prolific composer of all time. For an all Telemann concert, countertenor Andrew Hallock is joined by Baroque oboeist Billy Traylor, harpsichordist JiMin Kim and members of the La Follia Baroque ensemble. 8 p.m. Saturday. First Presbyterian Church, 8001 Mesa Dr. $15 ($12 seniors, $5 students). www.lafollia.org
Image: Joseph Phillips, ‘String Theory (Earth),’ courtesy D. Berman Gallery.
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KLRU’s “In Context” series to feature Anton Nel and Bion Tsang
Thought that KLRU’s famed Studio 6A soundstage was just pop music?
Think again.
In February, the legendary set of “Austin City Limits” was the site for a concert by two Austin-based classical musicians, pianist Anton Nel and cellist Bion Tsang. The gig was a recording for KLRU’s “In Context” series, which presents performances by Austin artists and cultural organizations.
Tsang and Nel played selected movements from Boccherini’s Sonata in A major, Rachmaninov’s Sonata in G minor, Shostakovich’s Sonata in D minor, Beethoven’s Sonata in A major and Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor.
Thursday KLRU will air the 30-minute special at 8 p.m.
The duo — both celebrated soloists in their own right — crossed paths more than 15 years ago in New York and have since developed a musical partnership. Now both on the faculty of the University of Texas’ Butler School of Music, they continue their collaboration, frequently performing and recording together.
Their new CD, “Bion Tsang and Anton Nel: Live in Concert, Brahms Cello Sonatas and Four Hungarian Dances,” recently was released on Artek Recordings and iTunes. The CD was recorded live in New England Conservatory’s celebrated Jordan Hall in 2008. In his more than three decades of concertizing, Nel has developed a reputation as a sensitive interpreter and wholly present performer, known for his virtually encyclopedic repertoire.
Among the famed concert halls he’s played are Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and London’s Wigmore Halls.
Tsang, who made his debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11, is noted as a chamber collaborator having played with the likes of Austin Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare, pianist Leon Fleisher and celebrated fellow cellist Yo Yo Ma. Nevertheless, the chance to play on the “Austin City Limits” stage was not without its excitement for Tsang.
“I’ve lived in Austin since 2002, and it is a thrill to play in the ‘Austin City Limits’ studio, where so many legendary musicians — Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, to name a few — have inspired audiences,” says Tsang.
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Ballet Austin hosts free day of dance class, opens new studio
Think you can dance?
Ballet Austin invites you to give it a try Sept. 12 when it hosts its third annual free day of dance and fitness classes. “Come Dance! 2010” will offer classes for adults and children in ballet, yoga, jazz dance, hula, hip hop, pilates and broadway and musical theater dance, among other offerings.
The celebration will also include the opening of a new 1,910-square-foot studio within the ballet’s Butler Education Center— a direct response to the growing demand for dance classes. Ballet Austin has seen a remarkable 472% growth in demand since opening its new downtown center in 2007.
WHAT: “Come Dance! 2010” Celebration: A day of free classes and opening of a new studio
WHEN: 2 to 6 p.m., Sept. 12
WHERE: Ballet Austin’s Butler Dance Education Center, 501 W. Third St.
Free admission
INFO: www.balletaustin.org
image: Free day of dance classes 2008. Photo by Kelly West/A-AS.
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Review: ‘Jersey Boys’
Variously named the Variatones, the Village Voices, the Four Lovers, and the Topics, the group went through more than a dozen names before finally landing on the one we all know and love, the Four Seasons.
“Jersey Boys,” the first installment of this season’s Broadway Across America tour playing at the Bass Concert Hall now through Sept. 5, traces the humble (and only slightly criminal) beginnings of the Four Seasons all the way through their tumultuous years of success and eventual dissolution.
It all begins with Tommy DeVito (Matt Bailey), the two-bit hustler with a gambling problem who wants to make it big. DeVito discovers the teenage Francis Stephen Castelluccio working as a busboy in a nightclub and hears in his voice a ticket to the top. Tommy takes Castelluccio under his wing, and Frankie Valli (Joseph Leo Bwarie) is born.
The group, however, takes a while to gain momentum, partly due to Tommy DeVito’s and Nick Massi’s (Steve Gouveia) merry-go-round of incarceration. But when they finally stumble upon the young singer and songwriter, Bob Guadio (Ryan Jesse), the Four Seasons start their ascent in earnest.
As we would expect, the staging is spectacular in the Broadway sense of the term. Neon signs, LCD screens and backlit scenery flash across the stage in impressive numbers. On the whole the eye-catching lighting is enjoyable, save a blindingly bright moment just before the end of the first half.
Though the base set design is fairly industrial and sparing, it’s appropriate for the group’s New Jersey background and seems to suggest that the men are trapped in their pasts.
More like a narrated concert than a play, the show allows each member of the group to tell his story. The narrator-based plot structure doesn’t leave much room for character development, but the show has some really fun meta-theatrical moments.
When the group plays their first hit single, “Sherry,” the auditorium erupts into applause and the actors get to enjoy it as if they’re hearing it for the first time.
The musical showcases both the group’s and Valli’s lengthy list of hits. While we may not identify much with the men themselves, the songs are unavoidably delightful. It can either be a trip down memory lane, or a history lesson imbued with a bit of pizzazz, but either way, if you love the music then you’re in for a good time.
8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 5. Bass Concert Hall, 2350 Robert Dedman Drive. www.broadwayacrossamerica.com.
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Review: ‘Dead White Males’
If you can read this, then chances are you’ve had a teacher at least once in your life, and that’s the only prerequisite for enjoying Sustainable Theater’s production of “Dead White Males” by William Missouri Downs, playing now through September 11 at The Hideout Theater.
Subtitled “A Year in the Trenches of Teaching,” the satiric play tackles the obstacle course of politically corrected, color-coded bureaucracy that contemporary educators must face, proving that even education is subject to corruption and conflicts of interest.
The opening roll call paints a picture of the problems ahead. First, there’s Janet (Molly Fonseca), the enthusiastic ingenue certified to teach art, assigned to teach history instead. Then there’s Doris (Suzanne Balling), the jaded science teacher certified to teach history. Ms. Woods (Beth Burroughs) is the art teacher certified in science, and the three administrators are in charge for no certifiable reason.
The show starts with a hilarious illustration of counterintuitive administrative intervention. The teachers at Thomas Paine elementary are under review, and as the bureaucrats sit in the corner shouting suggestions and asking Janet to pretend they aren’t there, she valiantly tries to control her classroom and preserve her sanity.
Fonesca embodies the enthusiasm of the uninitiated, and Balling’s blase attitude masks a sincerity that shows us the crippling weight of continual compromise.
As Master Teacher Burns, Kaite Brock comes off as America’s answer to Dolores Umbridge — her officious interruptions are exasperatingly impossible for the teachers to ignore, and equally impossible to gratify.
The school’s principal Petlogg (Dennis Kelleher Bailey), is an administrative stooge with a big fat secret. Bailey’s bumbling self-importance is consistently amusing, making his moments of solemnity all the more unsettling.
Dr. Ozzy Mandius (Robert Deike) rounds out the superintending trio as the Amway-peddling authoritarian and Christian fundamentalist in charge of everything. Though Deike’s portrayal might seem farcical at times (the misspelled overhead projections are a bit much), the character is disturbingly similar to the man behind the Texas Board of Education’s recent amendments to the social science curriculum.
Director Derek Kolluri provides a frame of reference with his pre-show entertainment — inspirational education commercials of bygone days juxtaposed with recent news footage regarding Texas’ conservative educational shift.
The play rings depressingly true in the current educational climate and the comedic cast masterfully instills the serious moments with chilling gravity. It’s a truly funny look into some of life’s unfortunate realities and the often overlooked tenacity of the teachers that care.
‘Dead White Males’ continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturday through Sept. 11 at the Hideout Theatre, 617 Congress Ave. On Sept. 10, playwright William Missouri Downs will join Sustainable Theatre Project for a talk-back following the performance. www.sustainabletheatreproject.org
Cate Blouke is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
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Arthouse gets ready for its grand re-opening
It may still have scaffolding around it, but the downtown contemporary arts center Arthouse is gearing up for its grand reopening festivities Oct. 21-24.
Arthouse closed its building October 2009 for a $6.6 million innovative renovation and expansion project designed by Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis Architects of New York. See details here.
Exhibitions planned for the reopening include commissions of new work by Jason Middlebrook, Tony Feher and Ryan Hennessee, along with solo presentations of work by Mequitta Ahuja, Cyprien Gaillard, and James Sham.
The grand gala reopening party and fundraiser has just picked up sponsorship from Switzerland-based financial services firm UBS. A limited number of gala dinner party tickets are still available for $1000. After-party tickets will be available closer to the event. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit www.thenewarthouse.org.
Oct. 21 — 8 to 10 p.m. artists’ only sneak peek (for Arthouse artist/educator-leve members)
Oct. 22 — 7 p.m. gala reopening dinner; 10 p.m. after-party
Oct. 23 — 7 to 10 p.m. members’ preview party
Oct. 24 — Noon to 8 p.m. public reopening
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Free screening of ‘Grand Paris Texas,’ a film by artists Teresa Hubbard & Alexander Birchler.
The folks at Lora Reynolds Gallery bring a terrific opportunity to see the work of an Austin-based pair of artists whose careers are largely international, not local,
The gallery offers a free film screening of ‘Grand Paris Texas,’ a film by Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler.
The 54-minute film screens at 7 p.m. on Sept. 9 at the Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress Ave. Doors open at 6 p.m. A conversation between the Blanton Museum director Ned Rifkin and the artists will follow the screening. AND IT’S FREE.
The town of Paris, Texas gained a certain level of international recognition thanks to Wim Wenders’ acclaimed 1984 feature film ‘Paris, Texas.’ (Mega-band U2, for example, noted Wenders’ movie as inspiration for their album ‘The Joshua Tree.’)
Yet ironically, the town itself didn’t really benefit. Wenders’ film never actually filmed in Paris, Texas — the place is only alluded to in Wenders’ moody story of a drifter trying to re-connect with his long-absent wife and son. Hence, whatever cinema notoriety the little Northeast Texas city might have gained was ultimately tangential.
The central protagonist of Hubbard and Birchler’s video — which was commissioned by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth — is The Grand, a time-weathered, bird-infested abandoned movie theater in downtown Paris, Texas. Combining footage of the theater along with interviews with Paris, Texas denizens, Hubbard and Birchler probe what the resonance of cinema and Wenders’ movies is in Paris, Texas.
In connection with the film, a selection of Hubbard/Birchler’s photographs relating to ‘Grand Paris Texas’ will be on view at Lora Reynolds Gallery, 360 Neuces St., from Sept. 9 —11. The artists will give a talk in the gallery at 2p.m. on Sept. 11.
See www.lorareynolds.com for more information.
Teresa Hubbard (American/Swiss) and Alexander Birchler (Swiss) live and work in Austin. Hubbard is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and both are graduate faculty members at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, New York. Hubbard/Birchler have been working collaboratively for 20years in photography, video and sculpture. Their extensive exhibition history includes the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, the Venice Biennial, the Tate Museum, Liverpool, Great Britain and the Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland, among many others. Their work is in numerous private and public collections around the world including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland, the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Museum Sammlung Goetz in Munich, Germany.
Video stills courtesy www.hubbardbirchler.net
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Back to school (of a sort) at the Blanton Museum of Art
The Blanton Museum of Art is getting into the back-to-school spirit with a fun and innovative series of programs School Days, dovetailed to the installation by artist Anna Craycroft, ‘Subject of Learning/Object of Study.’ The installation features colorful sliding chalkboards, modular furniture, pedagogical computer displays, a library of educational books and other elements designed by the artist to create a classroom-like setting.
Check out Craycroft’s web site for the installation.
Happenings include a reading by the Encyclopedia Show Austin, an ambient musical performance by Nick Hennie and the Church of the Friendly Ghost, an open-mic session to share old school essays, a poetry workshop and Home Economics with the Knotty Knitters. The series concludes with a self-portrait drawing workshop hosted by Craycroft.
And every Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m., curator Risa Puleo will hold “office hours” in the gallery to chat about the exhibition. Stop by — Puleo is a savvy and fun conversationalist.
CALENDAR OF PROGRAMS:
—Office Hours with Risa Puleo, Blanton assistant curator of contemporary art, 2 to 4 p.m. Thursdays in August
— Home Ec, 6 to 7 p.m. Aug. 19
Grab your knitting needles and crochet hooks and share your love of fiber arts with Austin’s local knitting/crocheting meet-up group, The Knotty Knitters. Beginners are welcome.
—School Band, 2 p.m. Aug. 21
Acclaimed percussionist and composer Nick Hennies, in association with Church of the Friendly Ghost, will share with visitors an array of cowbells, drums, snares and triangles in a workshop that will explore instrument resonances, acoustic space, and aural immersion, culminating in a group performance on the vibraphone.
—English Lit: Poetry Workshop with S.E. Smith, 2 p.m. Sept.
Graduate of the Michener Center for Writers and widely published poet S.E. Smith takes the mystery out of contemporary poetry. Beginning with Frank O’Hara’s poem, “Why I am not a painter” SE leads a tour of the gallery to some of O’Hara’s favorite artists. The event concludes with a poetry workshop.
—Scholastic Bowl: The Encyclopedia Show Austin, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 16
The cast of ‘The Encyclopedia Show’ produces creative performances centered on themes taken from actual encyclopedias. For their program at The Blanton, they will host a ‘School Days’ themed reading series with poetry, song, fiction, and perhaps a game of Heads Up 7-Up.
— School Days Open Mic: What I Knew, 2 p.m. Oct. 16
Dig up your best (or worst) essays and book reports! Local artist Katelyn Wood hosts “What I Knew,” an open mic session in which visitors can share their writings from grammar school to grad school. Bring your notebook, number two pencils, and all you thought you knew.
See blantonmuseum.org/calendar_events for more info.
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‘Kuumba: An Artists Retreat’ & other Pro-Arts happenings
Austin’s Pro-Arts Collective is getting ready to get busy. The organization has a group art-making event scheduled for Aug. 28 and has put out a call of submissions for its new gallery program.
On Aug. 28, the East Austin-based organization will host ‘Kuumba: An Artists’ Retreat,’ an opportunity for artists of all disciplines to create a temporal community art piece. Musicians, dancers, writers, actors, visual, spoken word and hip-hop artists; filmmakers, directors and artists of all disciplines are invited.
Here’s what is happening:
- KUUMBA (Kiswahili word for “creativity”) is a creative experience that invites artists of different disciplines to produce work in a retreat setting. Facilitators will be Megan Crigger of COA’s Art in Public Places and Reimon’ Alvarez, an internationally acclaimed graffiti artist based in Austin.
We will gather at a central Austin location TBA at 10 a.m. on Sat. Aug. 28, discuss the importance of public art and its’ impact on our community and then create a temporal artistic expression based on that discussion.
This will not be a pre-determined work. The art may be an installation, a movement piece or any genre suitable to the location.
Call for art submissions
Professional, new and emerging Black artists who are interested in exhibiting work in the African American community art gallery are encouraged to apply. Artists should submit their work samples to lisa.byrd@a-trc.org. For more information contact Lisa Byrd at 512-236-0644
Submissions can be received no later than Sept. 3
Bydee Art Gallery, Austin Revitalization Authority), Eleven East Corporation, ProArts Collective, A/TRC and 11th Street Station have partnered to create a Black Community Art Gallery. The gallery located inside Bydee Art Gallery, 1050 East 11th Street, in the African American Cultural Heritage District, is completing its inaugural season and preparing a jury for the second season.
Each exhibit will run from four and a half to six weeks. The first juried show for the 2010-2011 Season will open December 2, 2010. The juried exhibits will run through June 2011 with July and August exhibits featuring artistic works of Texas Learning Academy and Texas Empowerment Academy.
Submissions: Submissions may include all types of visual art that can be displayed in a gallery, such as photographs, original graphic pieces and any other two or three dimensional pieces.
Submission format: Digital prints only are acceptable. Images should be no larger than 4x6 at 150 dpi (or standard files off a digital camera are OK) and emailed to lisa.byrd@a-trc.org
The community gallery at Bydee Art is proving to be a great success as the first space in the African American Cultural Heritage District that is dedicated to exhibiting the works of Black visual artists, says Lisa Byrd Executive Director of ProArts Collective and chair of the African American Cultural Heritage District Steering Committee.
The first season featured an exhibit by professional artist Carla Nade Nickerson and the works of emerging artists, Amir Lyles from Philadelphia and Austin based artists, Norma Clark, Alexander Stross and Meredith Sisnett. “The Community Gallery gave me an opportunity to get folks to see my work. We had about 70 people come to the opening night reception and I sold a lot of prints. I thank all of those involved in getting this gallery going, it really helped me”, says artist Meredith Sisnett.
“We are excited to provide support and opportunity to Black artists that can spur their artistic development”, says Brian Joseph owner of the Bydee Art Gallery.
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Weekend Arts Pix
Today through Saturday
‘Dead White Males: A Year in the Trenches of Teaching.’
Just in time for back-to-school and on the heels of the widely controversial decisions passed by the Texas Board of Education, comes William Missouri Downs dark comedy about rookie history teacher up for an annual evaluation. But instead of the teachers learns how to censor musicals, teach creationism and cultivate paranoia in a system dominated by constant accountability and deep corruption. A biting satire of the American public school system, ‘Dead White Men’ has adult language and content. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Sept. 11. Hideout Theatre 617 Congress Ave. $10 to $20. www.sustainabletheatreproject.org
Friday through Sunday
‘B Boy Bluez’
Performance poet Zell Miller III moves through the timelines the golden age of hip-hop and marks his development into manhood with the graffiti road signs of his youth. Where were you when L.L. rocked them bells or when RunDmc made the box rock? Features dancers from b-boy dance troupe Outta Kontrol. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Sept. 4. Vortex, 2307 Manor Road. $10-$30. www.vortexrep.org
Saturday
‘Michael Long: Argentina Expressions’
Shooting with color negative film during five weeks of travel in Argentina, photographer Michael Long, greatly influenced by painting, explored the intersection between the material of object and immaterial of light and space. He exhibits his work. Opening Reception: 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday. Exhibit continues through Sept 18. L. Nowlin Gallery, 1202 W. Sixth St. Free. www.lnowlingallery.com
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La Scala’s ‘Aida’ screens for free at the Long Center
Opera aficiandos, you have options now.
Thanks to collaboration between Austin Lyric Opera, the Long Center for the Performing Arts and Emerging Pictures — an all-digital alternate contect theater network in the United States — Austin will be getting the ‘Opera in Cinema’ series, hi-def screenings of opera productions from around the world.
To kick things off, there will be a free screening Aug. 27 of Verdi’s Aida in the 2006 production by Teatro alla Scala of Milan. Director Franco Zeffirelli brought his trademark over-the-top extravagance to the production which features an ensemble of over 300 actors. It stars soprano Violeta Urmana and tenor Roberto Alagna.
The screening starts at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free, but tickets are required and limited. To obtain tix visit www.thelongenter.org, call 512-474-LONG (5664) or stop by the Long Center box office.
Paul Beutel, interim executive director of the Long Center, and Austin Lyric Opera general director Kevin Patterson will announce the remainder of 2010-2011 opera screenings in the next few weeks.
The free ‘Aida’ screening kicks of a weekend of hi-def cinema at the Long Center.
Aug. 28:
2 p.m. Kurosawa’s ’ The Hidden Fortress’
5 p.m. Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’
Aug. 29:
3 p.m. ‘The Girl With the Dragoon Tatoo’
7 p.m. ‘Monty Python & The Holy Grail’
Admission: $7 advance; $9 day of show ($2 off for kids under 13 and seniors over 65)
P.S. in this Texas heat wave: The Long Center is always a comfortable 68 degrees inside.
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UT’s Butler School of Music to offer informal classes
In welcome news given how the University of Texas recently discontinued its busy informal classes program, UT’s Butler School of Music has launched a new program of informal music classes that will offer non-credit music courses to community members. The informal courses are designed to meet the needs of everyone from the experienced musician tothe musically-curious.
The first classes start this fall, with plans to expand the offerings in subsequent semesters. Fees start at $100.
The courses will be taught by experienced graduate students under the supervision of the Butler School’s faculty. Students enrolled in the courses will have access to the Butler School’s classroom and practice facilities. Classes will be held on weekends and evening on the UT campus. Participants will also have the opportunity to attend select Butler School performances free-of-charge as part of their program coursework.
Informal courses offered this fall include:
— Learn to Read Music
— Piano for Beginners
— Guitar for Beginners
— Voice for Beginners
— Private Instruction: Piano
— Private Instruction: Guitar
— Private Instruction: Voice
For more information see www.music.utexas.edu/news
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Review: ‘Incidents at the 22 Hotel’
The disquieting beauty of the distorted human form was an essential element of Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s most recent work, “Incidents at the 22 Hotel,” performed last weekend at the Off Center.
“Incidents” centered on the existential crisis of the figure of an “Unexplained Presence” (Ghislaine Jean-Mahone), but as the figure’s name might indicate, it was not a typical sort of identity crisis.
Combining elements of Butoh and Afro-futurism, “Incidents at the 22 Hotel” was a fusion of science-fiction and performance art that focused our attention intensely on the bodies of the performers.
Annelize Machado and Nicole Vlado steadily ran circles around the space while we watched “Unexplained Presence” struggling convulsively with the effort of imagining her own existence.
The intense physicality produced visceral reactions in the audience in ways that were surprising at quite lovely at times. As the four performers swayed rhythmically in the silence of the wind, it felt as if we swayed with them. As the runners gasped for breath, our heart rates increased as if we were running as well. And it was a distinctly unique experience to sit amongst a sea of masked audience members watching each other watch the performers.
Ogunji’s work explored the significance of history and memory in a world where all the land masses have gone under. In the first act, Jean-Mahone embodied an African artifact - found by the two runners/Ife Heads (Machado and Vlado) and offered to the sea and the private collectors played by the audience. In the second act, “Unexplained Presence” willed herself into human existence, replete with gold spandex body suit.
Just as “Unexplained Presence” discovered, in the world of spirits and ancestors if you don’t speak the “shadow language” you’re likely to get a bit lost. Billed as a play, the performance was much more accessible when considered retrospectively in terms of its primary influence, Japanese Butoh dance.
Striving to express bodily forms the way we actually are (not perfectly fit and lithe dancers), Butoh explores how some part of life is grotesque. The movements are at times achingly slow, at others almost convulsive, and are not beautiful in the traditional sense.
Despite some truly poignant moments, “Incidents” felt more like an
installation piece than a play, and without the context of the program, the loose narrative and abstract ideas would have been impossible to follow. While the performance raised questions about the importance of history and memory, it mostly left me questioning the role of theater that requires explanation and research.
Cate Blouke is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
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Chinati Foundation names new director
The Chinati Foundation just announced that it has hired Thomas Kellein as its next director.
Founded by artist Donald Judd in 1986, the Chinati Foundation is located in West Texas desert town of Marfa on the site of the former U. S. Army Fort D. A. Russell. The Chinati features permanent installations of Judd’s work and installations by John Chamberlain, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Ilya Kabakov, John Wesley, David Rabinowitch and Roni Horn.
Kellein, an authority on Judd’s work, worked with the artist on a proposed architectural project in Switzerland in 1990. For the past 14 years Kellein has served as director of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld in Bielefeld, Germany.
Kellein takes the job in January 2011 and succeeds Marianne Stockebrand, Judd’s longtime companion, who earlier this year announced her retirement after serving as the museum’s director since 1994. Stockebrand becomes Director Emeritus.
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Hitchcock’s doppelganger: ‘If you meet your double…’
Recognized in the arenas of both art and film, Belgian artist Johan Grimonprez premiered ‘Double Take’ at the Berlin Film Festival and in the U.S. at the Sundance Film Festival.
Imagining Alfred Hitchcock — starring with his double — as a paranoid history professor unwittingly caught up in a double-take on the Cold War, Grimonprez’s film probes the global rise of fear as commodity promoted by popular culture — the encroaching ubiquity of television. Is this fear we thrieve on in real life or a media product?
Using Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ as a metaphor, the film intertwines Hitchcock’s movie cameos with footage of Nixon, Khrushchev, Kennedy, the space race, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Sputnik and other television news events.
There’s a saying about doppelgangers:“If you meet your double, you should kill him, before he kills you.” That may as well be the theme to Grimonprez’s dense and intriguing film.
The 80-minute films screens for free Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Blanton Museum of Art, Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Congress Ave. www.blantonmuseum.org
Grimonprez was in residence at the UCLA’s Hammer from November 2007 to April 2008 during which he developed Double Take. Here the artist speaks about his artistic process in making the film, and clips from ‘Double Take’ give an overview of its scope.
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City hosts symposium on public art re-examined
The City of Austin’s Art in Public Places Program welcomes Robert Hammond, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the High Line — New York City’s award-winning “aerial greenway” urban redevelopment project —and High Line public art curator Lauren Ross to Austin as keynote speakers for an all-day symposium on public art entitled ‘Blurring the Lines: Public Art Re-Examined’
WHEN: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 11.
WHERE: Ballet Austin’s Butler Dance Education Center, 501 W. Third St.
TIX: $15 and includes lunch and free parking
Register at www.cityofaustin.org/nextlevel
The High Line is a public park built on a 1.45-mile-long elevated rail structure running from Gansevoort Street to 34th Street on Manhattan’s West Side. From 1934 to 1980 it was a rail freight line connecting warehouses on the West Side to incoming rail lines around Penn Station. After the High Line was threatened with demolition in 1999, fans of the elevated monument to New York’s industrial history organized to preserve it. The first section of the High Line opened last year and features landscape plantings, viewing platforms, a sundeck (with lounge chairs) and other gathering spaces.
The symposium will feature:
Keynote address by High Line co-founder and the public art curator
Pecha Kucha presentations by local creatives
Interactive panel discussion with experienced public artists and administrators
Networking opportunities and access to industry experts
Roundtable lunch (provided)
Take-home materials such as the “Public Art Resource Guide”
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Review: ‘Metamorphoses’
In “Metamorphoses,” a modern adaptation of classical Greek myths, the spark that creates the universe is a cigarette lit by Zeus.
This mixture of ancient tales and anachronistic, irreverent accents (Katy Perry’s summer anthem “California Gurls” makes an appearance, and Pandora’s box is represented by an Apple laptop) is a hallmark of Zach Theatre’s production, directed by Dave Steakley.
“Metamorphoses” is a collage of familiar and lesser-known myths adapted from Ovid’s poem of the same name and originally directed by Mary Zimmerman.
One of the strongest vignettes is that of Orpheus and Eurydice, whose story is told twice. In Ovid’s version, Eurydice (Rachel Wiese) is bitten by a snake on her wedding day and taken to the underworld. Hades (Aaron Alexander) agrees to let her return with Orpheus (Frederic Winkler) if he agrees not to look back at her, but he can’t help himself and is forced to replay her loss over and over.
The staging of the second version, from a 1908 poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, stands out because of its sheer poetic simplicity and its surprising perspective twist. Here, Eurydice is enthralled with death and cannot even remember who her husband Orpheus is.
Another delightful scene is when a whiny and over-privileged Phaeton (David Christopher) tells his therapist (a pitch perfect Stephanie Dunnam) about his attempt to impress his distant father (Apollo, the God of the Sun) by driving the sun across the sky. You can guess how that one ends.
A twelve-foot wide swimming pool is the centerpiece of the action, and yes, there is a splash zone. Steakley has staged some lovely moments with the pool (assisted by Jason Amato’s skillful lighting), as when three men slowly paddle a boat carrying the doomed Ceyx to sea. And dropping dry ice into the water created a gloriously creepy effect. Some of the pool use, though fun, seemed a bit gratuitous.
Nicole Whiteside’s aerial choreography is eye-catching. Will Zinser performs an especially wild, reckless solo as a fury let out of Pandora’s box. The aerial acrobatics, along with the far out costumes (designed by Blair Hurry), tilt Zach Theatre’s version of “Metamorphoses” in a decidedly more surreal and circus-esque direction than Zimmerman’s original.
Despite a few too many bells and whistles, the timeless stories—with all their heartbreak, pride, desire, and folly—still shine through.
‘Metamorphoses’ continues 8 p.m Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays through September 26. Zach Theatre’s Whisenhunt Stage, 1510 Toomey Road. Tickets $20-$44. www.zachtheatre.org
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
Photo by Kirk R. Tuck.
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Weekend Arts Pix
Today
‘The Phenomena of Place: Artist Panel’
Join artist Karen Mahaffy, Austin public art administrator Megan Crigger, author Chris Oglesby, artist Chris Sauter and other guest artists as they discuss Mahaffy’s current exhibit ‘Persistence of Moment’ as well as ideas of private space and public space. 7 p.m. today. Women & Their Work, 1710 Lavaca St. Free. www.womenandtheirwork.org
‘Life Lessons: Things Your Mother Never Taught You’
The all-female improv troupe Sarah 7 are willing to teach you a lesson or two. They’ll take your questions about love and life and give you — or perform for you — an answer. Think of it as a live advice column — but these actress play women of very questionable virtue and tastes. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Aug. 26. Coldtowne Theater, 4803 Airport Boulevard. $5. www.coldtownetheater.com
Friday and Saturday
‘Incidents at the 22 Hotel’
Part performance art and part science fiction, part dance theater and part art installation, Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s newest work explores a future, post-apocalyptic world where any physical movdment requires a great deal of physical and emotional strength and where inhabitants live in a hotel consisting of two sky-high towers built on a plastic floating island made up of the detritus of centuries. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo St. $15. www.incidents22.wordpress.com
Saturday
‘Noche de Tango with Glovertango & The Tosca String Quartet’
Drawing on arrangements from the Golden Age of Tango, Glovertango — featuring Glover Gill on bandoneon — combines faithful renditions of early 20th century tangos, milongas and waltzes with original compositions in the classic style. Accompanying Gill is Justin Sherburn on piano and Chris Maresh on bass. The Tosca String Quartet completes the ensemble and the result is a tango orchestra much like the classic groups. $10. 5 www.esquinatangoaustin.com
Saturday
Opera Showcase
St. Edward’s University Music Department and Spotlight on Opera present two different programs of staged excerpts from the world’s most beautiful operas, including La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, Cosí fan tutte, Faust, Manon, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Rusalka, The Rake’s Progress, I Capuletti e i Montecchi, The Mikado and more. 7 p.m. Saturday. Jones Auditorium, Ragsdale Center, St, Edward’s University, 3001 South Congress Ave. $10 ($7 seniors and children 7 and up). www.spotlightonopera.com
Image: Untitled, Karen Mahaffy. Video still. Courtesy Women & Their Work.
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Review: Shakespeare in Round Rock
If brevity is the soul of wit, then spontaneity is the heart of humor.
In Penfold Theatre’s production of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged),” playing now through Aug. 22 at the Round Rock Amphitheater, moments of improvised hilarity abound, wonderfully complementing the scripted shenanigans of the play itself.
Though familiarity with the Shakespeare canon will add to your enjoyment of the show, it’s certainly not necessary. The 90-minute, three-man romp across all the plays is intended to be accessible to audiences that both love and/or hate the Bard.
The largest portions of the play are devoted to “Romeo and Juliet” and “Hamlet,” and even the most passing knowledge of these stories will suffice. Judd Farris acts as scholastic tour guide to Shakespeare, filling in the narrative and structural gaps with the cement of academic erudition — i.e. he’ll explain away all the bits that don’t make sense, and it’ll most likely be funny.
All three men bring rollicking energy and enthusiasm to a physically demanding piece. Performing as themselves, the actors’ improv backgrounds aid them immensely in a show that relies on audience interaction and off-the-cuff comedy.
Judd Farris dealt swiftly and hilariously with a recalcitrant audience volunteer on Friday, and the performers seem more comfortable ad-libbing humor than milking the jokes built into the script.
Nathan Jerkins keeps the performance on track, entertaining the audience and managing his fellow performers with the skill of a seasoned cat-herder.
Ryan Crowder stands out for his infectious vivacity, and you can’t help laughing at his hijinks. Yet Crowder demonstrates his acting virtuosity through the surprisingly solemn “what a piece of work is man” speech in the second half.
While those familiar with “Complete Works” might be disappointed by director Beth Burns’ changes to the “Othello” section, she more than compensates in the way she deals with the setbacks of the space itself.
Outdoor performances always risk natural intrusions, and in the relatively new (2007) amphitheater, auditory interruptions are inevitable. The players deal with this particular drawback with an ingenious bit of structured improvisation. Overall, the space is lovely despite the lack of amenities — that’s right, the bathrooms are in boxes — and it’s well worth the trip north to sit under the stars and watch some “Shakespeare.”
Admission is free, donations appreciated. Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m. Encore performance Sunday, Aug. 22 at 6 p.m. Pre-show performances by a variety of local guest artists, see website for details. www.penfoldtheatre.org
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Review: ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’
Envy, avarice, and the inescapable mendacity of dysfunctional families — it’s hard to go wrong with Tennessee Williams. His Pulitzer Prize-winning plays inevitably capture the softer and sadder sides of human frailty, showing us the destructive potential of our uglier impulses.
Playing through Aug. 15 at City Theater and directed by Jeff Hinkle, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” begins, like so many of Williams plays, with a family in crisis. Ostensibly there to celebrate the 65th birthday of “Big Daddy” Pollitt (Garry Peters), everyone has gathered on the family plantation in Mississippi. But Big Daddy has cancer, and everyone knows it but him, and the heirs are out for blood.
The show centers on the dysfunctional relationship between Brick (Tim Brown), the favorite son, and his wife Maggie (Rachel Mcginnis), the “cat.” Born poor, Maggie has clawed her way to the top by marrying into money, and she intends to stay there despite her husband’s alcoholic indifference to his father’s fortune.
Rachel McGinnis dominates the first half as the seductive and ever-glamorous Maggie. Her smooth dynamism captures our attention and keeps it, compensating for many of the show’s inconsistencies.
Some of the costume pieces are downright distracting (Big Mama’s ludicrous necklaces), as are some of the supporting characters — the screechy sister-in-law Mae and bizarrely sycophantic Reverend Tooker.
The play is distinctly Southern and colloquial, so the use of accents was probably unavoidable. Though the cast gives a valiant effort, their attempted accents generally prove forced and cumbersome, inhibiting what might have otherwise been more exceptional performances.
Garry Peters gives a convincing and sympathetic performance of the cantankerous patriarch, but Hinkle would have done well to encourage his actors to explore more nuances of anger in the second half. The confrontational scene between Brick and Big Daddy explodes into action, and keeps on exploding again and again and again. Instead of building intensity, the shouting merely serves to draw attention to the moments of calm.
Despite its drawbacks, the production does justice to the classic. The cast comes together to illustrate the repression and resentment spurred by family fortunes. Maybe no one is innocent, but even the guilty earn our compassion.
Showing Thursday - Saturday 8 p.m. Sunday 5:30 p.m. Tickets $15-20, $12 for students, Thursday all seats $10.
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New Work: Faith Gay and Raymond Uhlir
With a shared penchant for vivid color, Faith Gay and Raymond Uhlir make for a comely pair to be exhibiting new work side by side at D. Berman Gallery through Aug. 21.
But color is about all these two have in common.
Gay employs her signature sense of whimsy and delight, but this time instead of the found and vintage objects she’s used in the past, the Austin artist uses simple art and office supplies. Clear packing tape (miles of it), neon-hued labels, colored paper, cardboard and even a little glitter find their way into Gay’s latest creations. And from all these very unnatural materials, Gay fashions organic and nature-referencing objects.
It’s consumer culture masquerading as nature — cheap stuff deployed in our age of economic limitations to make lovely emblems to the natural world. Rainbows, lightening bolts and clouds are cartoonishly rendered in chunky shapes then assembled in layered compositions. Or else, Gay crafts alluring orbs of various sizes and shapes, stacking them in different arrangements on the gallery floor. In one such arrangement, “Zasterous,” more than 100 brightly colored orbs make an mound in one corner of the gallery.
And everything — the layered rainbows, the orbs — is wrapped again and again with clear packing tape. Gay’s ersatz natural objects may be joyful but they are hermetically sealed. For our protection or for the objects?
Uhlir, in his first showing at D.Berman, is a storyteller. Only in his series of paintings — called “Relatively Epic” — the complete story is kept elusively out of reach.
Uhlir’s meticulously stylized gouches and oils — with scrupiously pristine surfaces — mirror the look of 1980s television cartoons. Of varying sizes and shapes, Uhlir’s canvases spill out in a chronological order of sorts, provided you look for the thread of the storyline Uhlir presents. The tale is something about twins — one representing rationality, the other creativity — separated at birth in a mythological world who reunite.
But lacking any kind of detailed explanation from Uhlir — except for his crazy titles such as “Abandoned at Brith, the Daughter Will Grow Up Without Her Brother (Twins Aren’t for Everyone” — the tale leaves plenty of room for viewers to fill in with their own imagination.
And that’s just fine. After all, isn’t everyone’s reality a mythology of their own making?
“New Work: Faith Gay and Raymond Uhlir” continues through Aug. 21 at D. Berman Gallery. www.dbermangallery.com
Images: “Zasterous,” Faith Gay (top). “You Play Beautifully (But You Muse Work Harder. No Cowards. Quit that Moody Brooding,” Raymond Uhlir (botttom). Courtesy D. Berman Gallery.
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Performance workshop Saturday
Artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji will be hosting a performance workshop from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday at the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas.
Workshop participants will work with Ogunji in an exploration of the role of the body in creating new language and narratives. Previous experience with performance not required.
Cost: $20 (includes ticket to Ogunji’s “Incidents at the 22 Hotel” on Aug. 13 or 14 at The Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo Street)
To Register: info@wuraogunji.com (Space is limited.) or call 512-843-0112
************Special Workshop Opportunity******* AUSTIN, Texas—“Incidents at the 22 Hotel” integrates the visual and performing arts to create a “physical” fiction experience. “Incidents” takes a post-apocalyptic landscape and imagines what it is to be part of that future. The work is at once performance art and science fiction. “It is my hope that the work engages the bodies of the audience, so that they can experience their own triumph over the supposed impossible.” - Wura
- For Immediate Release -
Award-winning international artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji premieres “Incidents at the 22 Hotel,” a multidisciplinary performance work that makes the impossible Possible
AUSTIN, Texas—“Incidents at the 22 Hotel,” with performances at 8:00 pm on August 13 and 14 at The Off Center, located on 2211-A Hidalgo Street, integrates the visual and performing arts to create a “physical” fiction experience -a future world where inhabitants live in a hotel consisting of two sky-high towers built on a plastic floating island made up of the detritus of centuries. Movement in this futuristic world requires great physical and emotional feats: humans fly and create themselves, runners run nonstop, a hotel porter carries two buildings on his shoulders…and that is just in the first act.
“Incidents” takes a post-apocalyptic landscape and imagines what it is to be part of that future. The main character, called ‘Unexplained Presence,’ struggles to imagine her own existence. During the performance, she lives two lives, one as an African artifact, full of ancient power, yet motionless. In the other, she must choose to be human and imagine herself into existence in the future. This highly symbolic and evocative piece incorporates Ogunji’s performance videos in which stop motion editing techniques allow characters to fly across the land and walk on water. The sound that emerges in these works is at once human and other worldly, similar to the landscape that Unexplained Presence must travel; strained breathing and truncated speech become the spoken language of the live performance.
The work is at once performance art and science fiction. “It’s my hope that the work engages the bodies of the audience members so that when they are watching the two runners, for example, these characters who literally run for the entire length of the play in an effort to pull time along—they feel that exhilaration and power in their own bodies as if they have been up on stage the entire time. And through that experience they are able to imagine their own futuristic world where they push through and imagine the beauty, and their own triumph over the impossible.”
About the Artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji is a visual artist and performer. Her work investigates the connections between physical actions of the body, memory, history and power. Ogunji’s most recent public performance ‘one hundred black women, one hundred actions’ premiered at Fusebox Festival and was nominated for the 2010 Austin Critics Table Award. Ogunji was awarded The Dallas Museum of Art’s 2010 Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant and has received grants from the Idea Fund, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the City of Austin. Ogunji is a selected Artist in Residence as part of the National Performance Network’s Visual Artist Network and has participated in residencies at Can Serrat in Spain and Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic. Selected exhibitions include Négritude at Exit Art (NY), Screwed Anthologies at labotanica (Houston) and New American Talent: The 22nd Exhibition at Arthouse at the Jones Center (Austin, TX). She is the curator of 2412, a series of twenty-four hour long performances. Ogunji has a BA from Stanford University (Anthropology) and an MFA from San Jose State University (Photography). She lives in Austin, Texas. www.wuraogunji.com
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The secrets of public art revealed in a workshop
The city of Austin is offering a full-day workshop to artists interested in developing a public art practice.
On Aug. 14. ‘Public Art from A-Z’ will feature Lynn Basa and Joel Straus. Basa is the author of ‘The Artist’s Guide to Public Art: How to Find and win Commissions’ and public art consultant. Straus’s projects include the Washington, D.C. Convention Center and McCormick Place Convention Complex art collections.
Topics will include:
— Where to find public art commission opportunities
— How to effectively read Calls-to-Artists
— What goes into writing a winning letter of interest
— Translating studio work into art for public spaces
— Effective budgeting and time management for public art projects
— Strategies for effectively reading and negotiating contracts
‘Public Art from A-Z’
9 a.m. to 4 p.m Aug. 14
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, 4801 Lacrosse Avenue
$15; includes boxed lunch/drink, parking, and all materials
www.cityofaustin.org/nextlevel
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Weekend Arts Pix
Today through Sunday
‘Metamorphoses’
Based the myths of Ovid — and spinning yarns about transformation, human connection and the eternal power of love —Mary Zimmerman’s play had a critically accliamed run on Broadway in 2002. With the audience seated around a circular pool of water, actors and aerialists enact Ovid’s timeless and heartfelt stories. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Continues through Sept. 26. Whisenhunt Stage, Zach Theatre, 1510 Toomey Road. $20-$44. www.zachtheatre.org
Friday
‘B scene: Cool and Collected’
Nothing like the dog days of summer for a cool distraction. The bi-monthly arty party at the Blanton Museum this time features band Ocote Soul Sounds at 9 p.m. along with exhibit tours, art activities, free snacks and a cash bar. Also, the chance to see the current exhibitions Matisse as Printmaker and ‘New Works for the Collection,’ both of which close Aug. 14. The Museum café also will be open late featuring a special menu of wines paired with tapas. 6 to 10:30 p.m. Friday. Blanton Museum of Art, Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Congress Ave. $5 for members, $12 for non-members. www.blantonmuseum.org
Saturday
‘Group Show: 30th Anniversary’
For three decades, in a 100-year-old historic home on West Sixth Street, Wally Workman has steadily built a smart gallery that has nurtured the careers of many Austin artists, among them Gordon Fowler, Will Klemm, Jennifer Balkan, Helmut Barnett and Jan Heaton, among others. Now, it’s time for a celebration. The anniversary show will include works by gallery artists, old and new, figurative and abstract, small and large and everything in between. Opening reception: 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday. Exhibit continues through Sept. 4. Wally Workman Gallery, 1210 W. Sixth St. Free. www.wallyworkmangallery.com
‘88’
What influences an artist most? Other artists. In 1988 now critically acclaimed artist Andy Coolquitt decided to hunker down and get serious about his art-making practice and began taking serious interest in the work other artists in town were making. Now based half-time in New York, Coolquitt brings together a two-venue exhibit of new work by the several dozen artists from whom Coolquitt took inspiration, learned strategies and sharpened his practice. Among Coolquitt’s mentors are Regina Vater, Lance Letscher, Bob Anderson, Bogdan Perzynski and Bill Lundberg, ‘These people were my direct influences in 1988, when I was learning what it meant to be an artist and I have thought about many of them continuously,’ Coolquitt says. Opening reception 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday. Exhibit continues through Sept. 9. At Domy Books, 913 E. Cesar Chavez, St. and Okay Mountain, 1312 E. Cesar Chavez St. Free. www.domystore.com/austin
Image: Untitled, Jan Heaton. Watercolor. Courtesy Wally Workman Gallery.
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Review: “Early Girl” at Paladin
An all-female cast is a pretty rare find in theater. Even plays titled after female leads tend to be dominated by male-heavy cast lists — see “Mary Stewart,” “Hedda Gabler,” and any number of plays written by dead white men.
But the Paladin Theater Company, under the direction of Charles P. Sites, unearthed a play from the early ’80s in order to showcase the untapped resources of Austin’s female artists.
“Early Girl,” written by Caroline Kava and showing through Aug. 22 at Salvage Vanguard, accomplishes many of the young theater company’s purported goals. The show is charming, accessible, and keeps itself classy while dealing with potentially hazardous material.
Following the lives of six women working in a Midwestern brothel, the play, surprisingly, isn’t really about sex. It touches on themes of female exploitation and empowerment without delving into the seedier side of the world’s oldest profession.
Lana, the madam of the house (Wendy Zavaleta), claims strict adherence to rules as the only way to keep her “girls” safe and her business running efficiently. With strained enthusiasm, Zavaleta carefully explains the “cardinal rules” to naïve new girl, Lily (Keylee Paige Koop). Since health is one’s most valuable asset, no booze, no drugs, no dope, and every girl gets a weekly check-up for diseases. Oh, and no phone calls.
The tone is light and full of laughs as we watch the impact of Lily’s arrival. Bright-eyed, innocent and remarkably attractive, Lily plans to stay only one month — hoping to make $20,000 and get out.
Yet, inevitably, the lifestyle begins to take over, and her escape becomes less certain. Despite a motherly facade, Lana proves to be a cutthroat businesswoman at heart, willing to compromise herself and her girls for a little extra cash.
Kava’s play pits the women against each other, hinging on negative stereotypes and clichés of female jealousy, vanity and competition.
Lindsley Howard gives a lovely performance as Jean, the one woman in the house who knows the score and proves willing to take a stand, but the other women largely come off as caricatures.
Given the play is written by a TV actress, perhaps it’s unsurprising that the show seems more like a sitcom than an expose. But by playing up the comedy, the production misses out on opportunities for insight and depth.
The resolution is satisfying when one ignores the reality of those left behind, and ultimately the play is cute, though not particularly challenging. — Cate Blouke, special to the American-Statesman
“Early Girl” continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 5:30 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 22, Salvage Vanguard Theater. 2803 Manor Road. $20 Fridays-Sundays, $15 Thursdays.
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Penfold Theatre moves on up to Round Rock
After two successful seasons in Austin, Penfold Theatre Company, led by Ryan Crowder, is moving northward thanks to a partnership with the City of Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department.
Penfold hopes to make the neighborhoods of north Austin, Pflugerville, Round Rock, Georgetown, Cedar Park and Leander its permanent home
To celebrate, Penfold presents ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)’ in the Round Rock Amphitheater. The performances are free.
And every show will be preceded by a special performance by guest artists like the Round Rock Symphony, the Round Rock Community Choir, the Baron’s Men and others.
‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)’
Directed by Beth Burns and featuring Ryan Crowder, Judd Farris and Nathan Jerkins
Round Rock Amphitheater, 301 W. Bagdad Ave, Round Rock
8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays Aug. 5-21
Special encore performance 6 p.m. Aug. 22
Admission is free but donations will be accepted
www.penfoldtheatre.org
During the 2009-10 season, Penfold artists took home three Austin Critics’ Table Awards (Actor in a Lead Role, Actor in a Supporting Role and Outstanding Musical Production) on top of eight other nominations.
In addition to ‘The Complete…’ Penfold will present a 2010-11 season that includes ‘Going with Jenny’ and ‘The Lion in Winter.’
