Weekend Reviews

Holocaust dance evokes deep emotion

Dance: "Light: The Holocaust & Humanity Project"
Theater: "Nickel and Dimed"
Art Exhibit: "Sky Above, Earth Below"
Music: M. Ward
Music: Chick Corea

Web posted: April 4, 2005

Dancing about degradation, suffering and genocide sounds like fodder for a dodgy, R-rated movie. Not so in Ballet Austin's poignant "Light: The Holocaust & Humanity Project." Wisely avoiding clichιs or Nazi imagery, director Stephen Mill's stunning production at Bass Concert Hall focused on universal themes of alienation and inhumanity. The concert last week also marked Ballet Austin's most ambitious — and successful — venture in linking extraordainary art and social consciousness.

"Light" is a masterful exposition on one of history's darkest episodes. Visually and emotionally gripping, this abstract ballet segued from dawn-of-humanity inklings and communal celebrations into cruelty and despair, before culminating with hope and optimism.

Margot Brown and Jim Stein's sumptuous opening duet created an Adam-and-Eve metaphor of visceral, moving sculpture. Brown's sinuous physicality was spectacular. Dressed in minimal flesh-colored leotards, the well-matched duo melted through an amazing array of sharp-edged and sensuous movements, some of Mills' best choreography to date.

Later, one highly dramatic section featured dancers cringing in their underwear in an ever-changing configuration of humiliation and suffering. Backed by a score of wailing sirens, the cluster of humanity ebbed and flowed with flailing limbs in the closest literal reference to the horrors of the Holocaust.

Mills ingeniously placed his 1998 award-winning short ballet, "Ashes," into the fourth and most emotionally draining section. The haunting choreography, set to Arvo Part's plaintive score, spoke volumes about despair and death.

Throughout the ballet, Karen Kuykendall appeared as a matriarch reliving past memories, while a spherical lantern hung overhead, signifying the spark of eternal hope.

"Light" surprised with its absence of literal Holocaust imagery, but not in its gut-wrenching emotion. In this age of graphic film and television violence, Ballet Austin thankfully chose a sophisticated alternative, which made the concert's impact all the more compelling.
— Sondra Lomax

Theater

'NICKEL AND DIMED' COMES UP A LITTLE SHORT

Barbara Ehrenreich shamed every American with her best-selling book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America." In 1998, the veteran journalist journeyed into the hourly wage workplace to see how the working poor managed a decade after welfare reform dumped millions into the workplace. She toiled as a waitress in Florida, as a cleaning woman in Maine and worked at a Wal-Mart in Minnesota. Along the way she chronicled in piercing prose the anxiety and struggle low-wage workers face every day as they try to make ends meet while facing long hours and often humiliating working circumstances.

Indeed, Ehrenreich's book continues to be popular and has even tipped off a nationwide awareness campaign about the plight of low-wage workers. However, as compelling as Ehrenreich's story is, it doesn't necessarily make for riveting theater, despite an excellent production of Joan Holden's stage adaptation, "Nickel and Dimed," now presented by the State Theater.

Director Scott Kanoff kept the pacing nice and brisk through the two-and-a-half hour show. And the talented cast — especially Ron Berry, Mary Cox and Carla Nickerson — each deftly handled multiple characters. A nifty but spare set featuring large black-and-white photos by Lesley Nowlin of working Austinites served the rapid scene changes well.

Missing: dramatic action. We witnessed thinly dramatic scenes without development or depth. Despite a very polished production and a critically important message that needs to be heard loud and clear, "Nickel and Dimed" felt more like speechifying or documentary journalism than great theater.

("Nickel and Dimed" continues at 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through April 17 at the State Theater, 719 Congress Ave., $28-$35, 469-SHOW.)
— Jeanne Claire van Ryzin

Art

ART LOOKS AT SPIRITUAL SIDE OF NATURE

Artists Stella Alesi and Connie Arismendi are taking the high ground. New works by these two artists in "Sky Above, Earth Below" at 2040 Gallery meditate on spiritual enlightenment and the mysterious powers of nature.

Alesi's path follows an investigation of the chakra system. She paints a series, each with a corresponding color; for example, the throat chakra is associated with the color blue. She incorporates specific birds — the throat chakra is illustrated by a northern mockingbird — as symbols of the self into her circular mandalalike, kaleidoscopic designs centered within square compositions. Brilliantly colorful, clear, crisp and orderly, they resonate like teaching tools, icons or emblems.

Arismendi's less graphic, although equally intricate, work takes shape in more material-driven ways. Also interested in nature and spirituality, Arismendi admits to finding "solace in the song of a bird and the smell of rain on a breeze." She works in a variety of media, but is increasingly known for her pencil drawings on intricately cut pieces of Mylar resembling doilies or Mexican papel picado. Some of her most spectacular works are executed in all-Mylar. One forms a hemisphere of ethereally translucent latticework from which a well-modeled portrayal of a hummingbird emerges, hovering slightly above eye level. In this work, Arismendi reinterprets a glimpse of nature we rarely find time to appreciate. Structured similar to an apse/altar area in a church, it is called "Sky."

("Sky Above, Earth Below: New Works by Stella Alesi and Connie Arismendi" continues 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through April 30, 2040 Gallery, 2040 S. Lamar Blvd., free, 912-0902. Alesi will give an artist's talk, 7 p.m. April 21.)
— Erin Keever

Music

M. WARD'S VOCALS ARE WELL-TRAVELED

What?! No cherry-red Gretsch hollow-body? That's like Air Jordan without Nikes, an astronaut without Tang, M. Ward without ... mojo.

Fifteen days after his sardine-packed South by Southwest showcase, Oregonian singer-songwriter Ward ("Matt," not "Montgomery") returned to The Parish for a cozy evening with locals only. He didn't need an announcer; he just appeared onstage seemingly from out of nowhere, seemingly tuning a black acoustic guitar, then knowingly ripping into an instrumental that yielded one of those unnecessary halfway-between-a-yelp-and-yeehaw affirmations from the crowd that make emigrants to the state reluctant to call themselves Texans.

"I love this audience," Ward said.

I take back what I said earlier.

After a proper guitar switch, the devil made good on his promise and ushered the Delta out of Ward's throaty trap — which constantly begs for a cup of hot tea — to shape a collection of numbers from his fourth release, "Transistor Radio," a timeless interpretation of Americana rivaling the quality of a Smithsonian Folkways Recording.

On "Four Hours in Washington," Norfolk & Western, a by-train-only touring band, manned the posts of Ward's bed as he raced against insomnia: "Well, it's one in the morning, and I can't sleep at night/I hear wolves around the doorstep, they're circling outside."

Drummer Rachel Chaiya Blumberg, formerly of the Decemberists, traded in her sticks for a ukulele on "Radio Campaign," on which Ward pined for peace of mind. When the lyric "To all the people underground, listening to a sound" came across as a salutation, the glitter-free version of David Bowie's "Let's Dance" to come later in the set was made up for in advance.

Throughout, Ward shepherded his flock from the living rooms of their grandparents in their prime to haunted outposts in the desert well past midnight. Even Britt Daniel took a break from talking up Spoon's forthcoming album to get sucked in by songs such as "O'Brien," a track Ward played with Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes and Jim James of My Morning Jacket on a recent episode of "Austin City Limits."

Now, M., about that baseball cap.
— Michael Hoinski

Music

JAZZ GREATNESS JAMS STAGE AT ONE WORLD

As if the mere presence of Chick Corea at the piano weren't enough to pull in appreciators of out-and-out instrumental mastery, the longtime jazzist offered a trio Sunday that absolutely bulged with star power. His "sidemen" were studio drum legend Steve Gadd, whose distinctive drum grooves have defined countless hit records, and bassist Christian McBride, who is perpetually at the core of important releases across the jazz spectrum. Corea himself, of course, has long since earned a place in jazz history as one of the most innovative and influential artists of his generation.

For Sunday's "jam set" at One World Theatre, the vehicles were all originals drawn from Chick's huge catalog of compositions, including classics such as "Windows" and "Matrix," which date back to Corea's groundbreaking "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs" recording of 1968.

The band's collective brilliance let it sail effortlessly over every technical hurdle and go straight for the fun of the interactive moment. Sustained eye-to-eye contact locked them together in their game, while their phenomenally quick aural and physical reflexes made every move a winning one.

On "Matrix" in particular, Corea's own prowess as a drummer was evident, as he played the inside of the piano with mallets, not just as a special effect, but with the dazzling linear precision which is such a strong feature of his fingered piano style. Other highlights were McBride's lyrical solo on Quartet No. 2, and Gadd — each and every time he gave a samba beat his unique touch.

The encore number was the perennial audience favorite "Spain." Corea cajoled the crowd to join vocally on several call and response choruses, led by his improvised piano lines. I've never heard an audience sing more tricky cross-rhythms and chromatic melody in my life. Somehow Corea and his fans made it work.
— John Mills