May 2008
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STANT ON WELCH ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
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Three Classics, FiveTangos �
MAY 22 - JUNE 1
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Three prolific and internationally acclaimed choreographers present their own interpretations of the classical idiom. Stanton Welch’s Falling is danced by five couples to the music of Mozart. Hans van Manen’s Five Tangos is a unique mix of the power and sensuality of tango and the cool abstraction of classical ballet. Presented with a world premiere by James Kudelka to the music of Philip Glass.
Official Airline of Houston Ballet
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La Sylphide/ A Doll’s House
Le ft Image: Ke lly My er nic k & Chr isto pher Co omer in F I V E R ight Image : J ames Go te sky, S ara Webb & Co nno r W alsh in L A S Y L P H I D E Phot os: Dre w Do novan
T A N GO S
JUNE 5 - 15
Danish choreographer August Bournonville created La Sylphide in 1836 – to the delight of audiences ever since. When a young Scottish farmer abandons his bride-to-be for a beautiful winged creature, he offends not only the wedding party but the witch who predicted his defection. Presented with A Doll's House, a world premiere by Stanton Welch.
713.227.2787 www.houstonballet.org
The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Presents
S panish Nights
Hans Graf, conductor Eliot Fisk, guitar Shai Wosner, piano Falla: El amor brujo (Love, the Magician) Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra Falla: Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain) Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34
Friday, May 16
8 p.m.
Gates: 7 p.m. Pre-concert activities begin at 7 p.m.
Tickets: $15 covered / $10 uncovered
s et' L Dance!
Musical Road Trip Fri., June13
of The Wortham Foundation
8 p.m. Gates: 7 p.m.
Tchaikovsky: Waltz from "The Sleeping Beauty" Offenbach: Can-Can from "Orpheus in the Underworld" and more!
Sponsored in part by
FREE LAWN SEATING courtesy
Wed., May 21
Brett Mitchell, conductor Featuring dancers from Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy
FREE LAWN SEATING
Tickets: $15 covered / $10 uncovered
8 p.m.
Gates: 7 p.m. Pre-concert activities begin at 7 p.m.
Free ice cream from 7-7:30 p.m.!
Pre-concert activities begin at 7 p.m.
Robert Franz, conductor
Dragon: Yellow Rose of Texas Copland: Celebration Dance from “Billy the Kidd” Wagner: Overture to “The Flying Dutchman” Grofe: Mardi Gras from the “Mississippi Suite” and more!
Tickets: $15 covered / $10 uncovered FREE LAWN SEATING
PLAZA SPONSOR 2008 SEASON SPONSORS
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w ww.w o od l an d sc e nt er.or g
Reserved seating tickets can be purchased at The Pavilion Ticket Office, located at 2005 Lake Robbins Drive in The Woodlands, Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., all Ticketmaster outlets including Macy's, Fiesta, select FYE and H-E-B locations, Media Magic and 5 Wherehouse Music, by calling 713-629-3700, or online at www.ticketmaster.com. Group and senior discounts available at The Pavilion Ticket Office. Most major credit cards are accepted. Some service charges may apply.
“It’s easy to sit back and take pot shots at certain politicians, because it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. But if you can make art that’s got a broader truth to it, a more universal and more international truth in terms of representing humanity in general, as opposed to a specific political agenda, I think that’s more difficult and challenging.” -John Alexander 16
Features Motion and Image: Ron Brown Dances the Legacy of ‘Teenie’ Harris
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A Conversation With John Alexander
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Devil in the Details: Local Prop Squads Fret Over Every Little Thing
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Beyond the Public Green: Discovery Green Park Adds More Than its Greenspace to Downtown Houston
There’s an element of fate in choreographer Ronald K. Brown’s One Shot, based on the work of photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris, a performance, residency and exhibit that unfolds through out the city this spring.
They toil away in dusty workshops. They dig through attics and flea markets and dollar stores. They spend their days knee-deep in papier mache and paint. They are eternal treasure hunters.
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Loaded Chamber: Teetering on the Edge with Foundation for Modern Music
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Painter John Alexander grew up in Beaumont as “a bit of an oddball,” he says, playing in the trees and along the bayous while also obsessed with drawing and painting.
Discovery Green stands out from other Houston parks in several respects—it strives to be a place that serves the diverse needs of Houstonians as well as those of our environment. The very variety of activities and venues concentrated into this not-quite- twelve acre site is astounding.
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Now in its 21st year as a presenter of new music in Houston, the Foundation for Modern Music has recently become fuel-injected under the artistic direction of pianist Adam Tendler.
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Departments Publisher’s Note Editor’s Picks Style and Substance with Tom Richards
It would be inaccurate to call the guitar the Rodney Dangerfield of classical music instruments. That dubious honor must belong to the viola. As in, “What’s the difference between a viola and a trampoline? You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.” The Art of Collecting Art with Lester Marks This month we examine works by women artists; in particular, artists whose works trigger issues regarding representations of the female body both from an artistic and historical perspective.
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May Arts Calendar Graze Restaurant Review: Bistro Lancaster
Sometime in the distant past, though no one can tell you exactly when, Bistro Lancaster was arguably the best restaurant in down town’s busy Theater District. Happily for all of us who frequent these theaters night after night, that time is about to be now.
Reviews
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Opera in the Heights: Tosca The Suicide Kings @ DiverseWorks Artspace: In Spite of Everything Houston Grand Opera: Last Acts The Catastrophic Theatre: Big Death and Little Death Hooks-Epstein Galleries: Alex Gabriel Bernstein, Karen
Willenbrink & Jasen Johnsen
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Apama Mackey Gallery:
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Anthony Thompson Shumate: Stations
DiverseWorks Artspace: Kurt Stallmann and Alfred Guzzetti: Breaking Earth Zoe Crosher: 1Yr Later
Project Row Houses: Nathaniel Donnett: The Greatest Store That Never Sold 7
artshouston publisher’s note Issue Eighty Five Founder Chas Haynes Publisher Frank Rose Associate Publisher Varina Rush Editor in Chief,Visual Arts Tria Wood Editor in Chief, Performing Arts John DeMers Sales Manager/ Photographer Kara Duval Web Administrator Genevieve Alexander Dear Reader
Interns Karen Lopez Amanda Stecker Issue Contributors Holly Beretto Michele Brangwen R. Eric Davis Garland Fielder Lester Marks Tom Richards Nancy Wozny
ArtsHouston is published monthly in Houston, Texas. ISSN 1541-6089. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the expressed written consent of the publisher. Copyright 2007. Individual issues may be purchased for $3.00, a yearly subscription (12 monthly issues) for $28.00. For advertising information, call (713) 589-9472. Letters to the editor may be sent to: ArtsHouston, 3921 Austin Street, Houston, Texas 77004; or frank@artshouston.com. Tel (713) 589-9472 • Fax (713) 429-4191 Web: artshouston.com 8
This month we continue our series focusing on sustainability on Houston with Tria Wood’s piece on Discovery Green Park, currently seeking LEED Gold certification. The park is a welcome addition to the city, chock full of programming to keep people coming back for performances by Fresh Arts members or fresh veggies from the Thursday farmer’s markets. Dance maven Nancy Wozny brings us a story on the latest collaboration between Society for the Performing Arts, DiverseWorks, the Mitchell Center for the Arts and Project Row Houses. Centering around the photographs of Charles “Teenie” Harris, SPA presents Ron Brown’s One Shot, while the Blaffer Gallery shows Harris’ work itself. Project Row enlisted Ray Carrington III to inspire elementary school students to photograph their neighborhood, write about the images and choreograph dances based on the photos. It’s this kind of city-wide collaboration that creates inspiration in both patrons and artists alike. We also visit with local props masters – “those responsible for everything from ornamental flotsam and jetsam to giant peaches and just about everything “the set and costume designers don’t want to deal with.” Michele Brangwen brings us a piece on the Foundation for Modern Music and their upcoming concert featuring works by David Lang who asks, “what would it be like if composers based pieces on what they thought was wrong with them?” And finally, Tria Wood interviews Beaumont native, John Alexander, whose retrospective is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through June 22. The images above and on the front and back cover were taken during an event held in celebration of Earth Day. The no-VOC paint was generously donated by New Living (newliving. net), an eco-friendly hardware store located within Wagner Hardware on Kirby Drive. While the paint left us with Jackson Pollock-like sunburns, no harmful chemicals were absorbed in the shooting of these images. Enjoy!
Publisher, Frank Rose frank@artshouston.com
Arts Houston May
houston public radio
2007 2008 Symphony Season Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony May 1, 3, 4, 2008 Tickets: from $26
Mozart’s Fourth Violin Concerto May 9, 10, 11, 2008 Tickets: from $26
Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto May 15, 17, 18, 2008 Tickets: from $26
Pink Martini
May 23, 24, 25, 2008 Tickets: from $28
support thought radio kuhf.org Michael Krajewski, Principal Pops Conductor
(713) 224-7575 www.houstonsymphony.org Customer Service Center open Monday - Saturday, 10 AM - 6 PM. Buy 10 or more tickets and save. Call (713) 238-1435. All performances in Jones Hall, 615 Louisiana.
Fidelity Investments Classical Series
KUHF Houston Public Radio is a public service outreach of the University of Houston, paid for by its listener-members.
Shell Favorite Masters
TOTAL Gold Classics
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12/19/07 10:59:17 AM
may editor’s picks ROCO Presents ‘Inventive’ Premiere
In one of those remarkable collaborations that make the arts so exciting, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra is serving up the world premiere of a work built around the music of Brad Sayles and the writing of John Lienhard, based on his popular series Engines of our Ingenuity. Echoes of Invention for Narrator and Orchestra will be performed May 3 at St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, with a second performance the following day at Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, part of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. “When Brad and I worked on Echoes of Innocence, I knew that I wanted him to compose a piece for us,” says Alecia Lawyer, ROCO founder and principal oboist. “Basing it on John’s show which highlights inventive minds seemed to fit, and collaborating with various aspects of the local arts community was very appealing.” Tickets are $25 per concert, $10 for students. Information is available at rocohouston.org or by contacting 713.665.2700.
Claire Cusack and W. Tucker Claire Cusack’s mixed media constructions of found objects such as paintbrushes, baseball bats, clear cylanders and discarded zippers are presented in a soothingly neutral palette of browns, whites, and black. The precise construction of these artworks pulls these disparate objects together in quite striking ways, demonstrating a profound sense of balance. W. Tucker’s works are deceptively simple, offering a series that resembles nothing so much as Zen cartoons. Loosely drawn animal figures stand in the vast negative spaces of worn found surfaces, creating the illusion of finding a long-lost child’s drawings of the walls of an abandoned house. Both artists present an intriguing combination of found object and creative impulse. Through May 10th, 703 Yale Street, 713.862.5744, koelschgallery.com
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Low Flying Valkyrie, and Friends No, they’re not flying monkeys from Oz, but they can be pretty scary and extremely well-orchestrated thanks to Wagner. In an unusually cool move for a major cultural institution, Houston Grand Opera is fielding an entry this year in the quirky-funky Orange Show Art Car Parade taking place on May 10. And it’s a safe bet you’ve never seen a Brunhilde quite like this. “The Brunhilde image was selected because it’s familiar to nearly everyone, even those who have never been exposed to opera,” says our source inside HGO. “She’s made out of recycled materials, opera stock fabric, foam and air duct hoses. Adorning her helmet are 150 melted vinyl records from operas and Broadway musicals, many of which have been performed at HGO.” The Houston Art Car Parade, which starts at 1 p.m , includes more than 250 amazing works of rolling art intended to dazzle more than 250,000 spectators along Allen Parkway on one downtown block of Bagby. Check out orangeshow.org/artcar.html for the parade schedule.
Young Writers Read at the Menil Collection
Houston is a fertile ground for creative writers, and its youth are no exception. Come listen as Houston’s young authors present their poetry, stories, and memoirs this May. The works read are the culmination of the children’s work with professional writers via the Writers in the Schools program in over 350 Houston area classrooms and community centers. The depth, intelligence, and creativity of these young writers never fails to astound the audience. Plan to arrive early—these annual readings are often standing room only. May 12th (K-4th grade) and May 13th (5th-12th grade) at 7pm, 1515 Sul Ross, 713.523.3877, witshouston.org
Shoot From The Hip
ArtStorm’s upcoming show, Shoot From The Hip, curated by ArtStorm board members Melissa Juvan and Isela Aguirre, is an innovative show featuring unusual and interesting alternatives to standard photographic processes such as digital prints, Polaroids, photo-collage and mixed media. Featured artists are: Isela Augirre, Jim Dillon, Kelly Ekl, Michelle Fleming, Lisa Marie Godfrey, John Hines, Daniel Hipolito, Chuck Ivy, Melissa Juvan Alex Nguyen, Alicia Seale, Gabriella Solis, and Laura Barth Turner ArtStorm says: “If you wanna know just how innovative local artists can be with the expansive medium of photography—visit ArtStorm and feast your eyes!” An opening reception will be held on Saturday, May 3, 2008 from 7- 10 PM, and the work will be on view through May 31, 2008. 708 Mathis Street, 713.568.8174, artstormhouston.com
Opera Idol
On the final day of this month, a local group called Opera Vista launches its 2nd annual opera competition – and for those who say they don’t make opera like they used to, well, this event should provide ample proof. For one thing, Opera Vista’s model is less anything from the art form’s glistening past filled with Verdi, Wagner or Puccini than the TV show American Idol. As with Idol, entries are put through a rigorous private winnowing out before ever facing the “real” audience. And then, as with Idol, the real audience gets to vote. There’s something comforting and old-fashioned about these votes being taken on paper, however – and about the process not involving Florida. Artistic director Viswa Subbaraman says the festival will open May 31, with the semi-final round June 5 and the final on June 7, all taking place at the Taft St. Coffee House. For more information on the Opera Vista Competition (whose entries this year come from across the country and around the world), go to operavista.org or call 713.533.9632. 11
Style & Substance with Tom Richards Illustration by Varina Rush 12
It would be inaccurate to call the guitar the Rodney Dangerfi eld of classical music instruments. That dubious honor must belong to the viola. As in, “What’s the difference between a viola and a trampoline? You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.” The guitar runs a close second however, in that it was not considered a proper -or even serious - instrument by many in “legit” musical circles for centuries. With the Houston Symphony, along with soloist Eliot Fisk, performing Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra May 15, 17, and 18 in Jones Hall, the time seems apt for a look at the guitar’s long climb into the ranks of respectability. Early in its history, the guitar was viewed as an instrument of the peasants. Accordingly, few composers wrote pieces for guitar, and the ones who did were usually guitarists themselves, in need of new repertoire. Near the end of the 18th century, the six string (or “six course” guitar) appeared. Previous guitars had only used fi ve strings, but the changes in the instrument went beyond the addition of one more string for an increased tonal range. Geared assemblies were used instead of wooden pegs to increase the level of tuning precision, an open sound hole was introduced to provide for additional volume, and the body was redesigned so that the player was able to access the twelfth fret and thereby have an entire octave at his disposal on each of the strings. Even with these refi nements, compositions for the guitar remained scarce at best. As composer Hector Berlioz once observed, “It is almost impossible to write well for the guitar without being a player on the instrument.” Certainly this was the prevailing feeling through the 18th and 19th centuries. Fernando Sor was one of the fi rst guitar virtuosos who also composed, writing a number of pieces based on classical forms rather than popular motifs. One of his contemporaries was Ferdinando Carulli, who substantially advanced the instrument’s development by publishing a guitar method in addition to over 400 pieces featuring the guitar, including concertos, duos, trios, quartets, fantasias, and variations. On the technical side, guitar construction became more standardized during the 19th century. During this period,
Spanish luthier Antonio de Torres Jurado introduced an instrument which became the standard with regard to size, string length, and bracing patterns. The next major advance in guitar construction did not occur until 1946, just after World War II, when nylon strings replaced gut strings, to the relief of cats everywhere. This new, larger instrument led to a refi nement in technique. Francisco Tarrega was one of the more notable performers who took advantage of the guitar’s increased capabilities, developing a more sophisticated right-hand style, one in which the hand was not supported by the top of the instrument. Like the virtuosos before him, Tarrega composed a number of pieces for the guitar, as well as transcribing compositions that had been written for other instruments, greatly expanding the repertoire. The man who was perhaps the guitar’s greatest champion, Andres Segovia, was born in Spain in 1893. His parents opposed his desire to become a professional musician and would not provide money for his studies. As a result, Segovia was largely self-taught, developing a style which, for the fi rst time, utilized the fi ngernails to produce a greater variety of tonal colors. He made his recital debut at the age of 15 and was soon in demand throughout Europe. Segovia was profoundly frustrated by the fact that the guitar was not, in his view, accorded the same respect as other instruments, and he made it his life’s work to raise the profi le of the guitar while continuing to advocate the guitar’s legitimacy as a concert instrument. Like Tarrega, Segovia sought to expand the guitar’s repertoire by transcribing works by Bach, Handel, and Chopin. More signifi cantly, however, Segovia commissioned pieces from non-guitarist composers, among them Manuel de Falla, Joaquin Turina, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Joaquin Rodrigo. An interesting historical footnote: despite the fact that the Concierto de Aranjuez was the fi rst modern work for solo guitar and orchestra and an instant hit after its premiere in 1940, Segovia – for whatever reason – shunned the work. As a result, in 1954 Rodrigo composed another work for similar forces, the Fantasia para un Gentilhombre, fi nally pleasing the grand old man of the guitar.
A glimpse… into Handel’s world
Judas Maccabeus George Frideric Handel’s oratorio
TWO PERFORMANCES
SATURDAY, MAY 17 at 7:30 p.m. SUNDAY, MAY 18 at 5:00 p.m.
Nancy Curtis, soprano
Natalie Arduino, mezzo-soprano
Dawn Padula, mezzo-soprano
Dann Coakwell, Randall Murrow, baritone tenor
Zilkha Hall, The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts 800 Bagby Street a professional consort of singers Kevin Riehle, artistic director
TO PURCHASE TICKETS:
Visit www.cantarehouston.org or call 281-649-3479.
This project is supported by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.
IMMANUEL & HELEN OLSHAN
U N I V E R S I T Y O F H O U S TO N | M O O R E S S C H O O L O F M U S I C
Intense performances J U NE 200 8
Proudly announcing the world premiere of
Lopsided Dances for Orchestra by Texas composer David Heuser
www.uh.edu/tmf for full concert schedule
UH is an EEO/AA institution
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The Art of Collecting Art with Lester Marks 14
Welcome back, artful travelers! This column and the next few will delve into another specifi c genre of collecting, one that is most fascinating. We will examine works by women artists; in particular, artists whose works trigger issues regarding representations of the female body both from an artistic and historical perspective. As has been my custom, I will use works in my collection as starting points for our explorations and journeys. I believe that no matter where you fi t in as a collector, from novice to pro, the study of these artists and their unique works can produce many insights that you, the collector, can put to use. These women and their work, which we will examine from the context of collecting, are Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, and Dixie Friend Gay. Louise Bourgeois, at the age of 97, is recognized as the greatest living female sculptor in the world. Dixie Friend Gay, Houston’s own, was most recently recognized in 2007 as Art League Houston’s “Texas Artist of the Year.” This month, we will begin with Kiki Smith. Smith, born in 1954 in Nuremberg, Germany, was the daughter of the noted American minimalist sculptor, Tony Smith. The younger Smith, who grew up in New Jersey, had become one of the most innovative and unusual artists of her times by the late 1980’s. Her starting point was the female body, but she worked in a way never done before. Smith’s radical aesthetic was to examine the body not as a complete fi gure, but as individual parts, even turning the organs inside of the body outwards. She visually illuminated, in drawings, paintings and sculpture, molecular structures of the body, appendages and internal organs, sometimes along with their accompanying fl uids, often in a psycho-sexual context. This was certainly not the female body as depicted by Courbet in the late 1800’s! Smith also preceded later female contemporary artists, such as Lisa Yuskavage, who likewise represented female identity and sexuality in decadent and somewhat disturbing ways. During Smith’s 2006 exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (ArtsHouston, September 2006), the artist talked about how her art is not so much purposeful as it is reactive: reactive to her world as a woman and an artist; reactive to functions and events from the point of view of not just a woman, but as a person; reactive to events like being born, giving birth, and death. It seems as if Smith has never been afraid, regardless of the subject, the material, or the narrative. She is content to let her art be what it will, and believes the visual beauty will somehow be understood and appreciated. Smith is not afraid to pull forth images that are often left untouched, and from these images, to create concrete objects of art which are alarming to some, exciting to others. Likewise, Smith has never been afraid to go far beyond the obvious. Her works help us to loosen the grips that keep us bound to the status quo. She fi ghts against normalcy for normalcy’s sake, asking in her art where we can go with the body. What can we do with our bodies in a world that has become too large and too powerful for the individual to make his or her own statement? We are becoming, she says, “psychically vulnerable.” The body carries its own history composed of emotional impulses, some controlled, others fl owing without boundaries. One example of this is her 1994 work Tissue Drawing With Armpits comprised of layer upon layer of Nepalese tissue paper, with ink and stitching, which appears as if the stitching had been done on human skin. Remember, as you view works of art, allow yourself to do more than just see the work. React with your heart and mind, and if it touches you, your journey has been a good one! That’s it for this month. And remember, keep those questions and comments coming to me, your artful therapist, at nothingbutart@webtv.net.
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Motion Motion and Image Ron Brown dances the legacy of ‘Teenie’ Harris By Nancy Wozny
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here’s an element of fate in choreographer Ronald K. Brown’s One Shot, based on the work of photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris, a performance, residency and exhibit that unfolds throughout the city this spring.
TOP LEFT and OPPOSITE: Evidence Dance Company’s One Shot, photo by Rachel Papo TOP RIGHT: self portrait of Charles “Teenie” Harris PAGE 18: photo and poem by an elementary school student in Project Row Houses’ program; the children then created dances based on the photographs
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When Brown sat down with the staff of the August Wilson Center for AfricanAmerican Culture to entertain the idea of a commission, the subject of Harris surfaced as a place to start. Brown recognized many of Harris’s images immediately. They had been posted on the walls of his apartment for nearly a decade. In that way, the piece actually began before it truly got started. “There has been an element of the divine about this project from the beginning, and it has continued that way,” says Brown, with a sense of reverence for the mystery of the creative process. “I knew immediately I had to do it.” Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art is home to some 80,000 of Harris’s negatives, the largest archive of an African-American photographer in the world. Harris documented life in Pittsburgh as a staff photographer from 1936-1975 at the Pittsburgh Courier, a leading black newspaper. He captured jazz stars of the day such as Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Ahmad Jamal, Sarah Vaughan and other leading musicians. On the political front, he documented the civil rights movement, the Negro league baseball, and the trials of integration of the major leagues. But it is his work depicting the everyday life of African Americans that exemplifies the fullness of his eye. It was this level of diversity that reached out through time to grab hold of Brown’s imagination. “His work falls into several categories such as prayer, faith/service, and hope,” says Brown. “Eventually these headings became a structure for me to organize the piece.” Harris died at the age of 89 in 1998, in relative obscurity. Through this project Harris moves to his rightful place as one of America’s foremost photojournalists. Harris’s son, also named Charles “Teenie” Harris, came to see an early version of One Shot at the American Dance Festival. “The whole family has been so helpful and supportive,” says Brown. “And they filled me on the details of his life.” Brown has since spent time with the extended family, who have been deeply grateful of his efforts in restoring Harris’s reputation. Brown, hailed as “one of the most profound choreographers of his modern
dance generation” by The New York Times, maintains a humble attitude regarding the many accolades that line his bio. In addition to his company, Brown has set works on The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco, and the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble among others. Starting his company at the tender age of 19, Brown has developed an international reputation and a distinct technique that is informed by African, Caribbean, and modern dance forms. “I have not named it; but people tell me I should before someone else does,” says the reserved choreographer. “ I just can’t see calling it the Ron Brown technique.” An element of fate existed for the major partners in this project, DiverseWorks, Society for the Performing Arts, and The
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston. It was as if Sixto Wagan of DiverseWorks, Karen Farber of the Mitchell Center, and June Christensen of SPA had a virtual photo of Brown hanging in their minds. Wagan, who initiated the collaboration, had an ongoing conversation with Brown to bring his work to Houston, but knew he needed some citywide support to make it happen. “I knew that we should participate in the project in some way, but I had to get the partners,” he remembers. “One Shot seemed perfect for DiverseWorks with the visual art inspiring a performance, and, in turn, creating another visual work. “I have always been blown away by his work,” says Farber. “After speaking with Sixto, the project seemed a natural collaboration for us. Rarely do we see process, product and community come together so
clearly in multi-disciplinary art.” Christensen remembers an impromptu meeting on the floor of a booth at the Associations of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) conference. “It was one of those moments where everything came together,” recalls Christensen. “We decided on the breadth of the project and decided who would do what. It’s amazing what can happen when people rally around one specific artist.” All three have been delighted at how fluidly the project has progressed during both the planning and implementation stages. Activities run the gamut from Brown working with UH photo and dance students simultaneously to young photographers creating dances from their photos. Ray Carrington III, the brains behind the MFAH’s annual exhibit Eye on the Third Ward, worked with elementary students at Project Row Houses to document their neighborhoods in preparation to Brown’s visit. The children created dances based on photos developed during their time with Carrington. UH Dance students dipped full speed into Brown’s idiosyncratic vocabulary in technique and composition classes this past April. “I wanted our students to get a chance to be exposed to Brown’s movement style because it’s great stuff and I knew they’d like it,” says Karen Stokes, head of the Dance Division. The project even has some offshoots that involved other local teachers and scholars. UH visiting professor Carroll P. Blue in the College of Education introduced the idea of digital stories with photography students from Jack Yates High School. Brown prefers to delve deep into the community. “For me as an artist, it’s nourishing.” he says. “I don’t want to be a stranger when I get up on the stage.” Still performing at 41, Brown will dance the role of Harris himself. Again, he recalls a sense of fate. “It was as if Harris told me to do so through the body of his work,” says Brown. “My job is to be obedient.” Accompanying the performance is an exhibit of 32 photographs by Harris at the 17
Blaffer Gallery. Brown co-curated the exhibit along with Deborah Willis, a professor of photography and imaging at New York University’s Tish School of the Arts. These photographs are integrated into One Shot by Clifton Taylor and Brown. The images move forward and retreat, change shape, and assume part of the fabric of the choreography. No stranger to working with visual media, Brown sees the dance as partnering with the images. “At one point, the dancer
turns to the photograph projected behind her as a way to acknowledge the image,” says Brown. “It’s as if the dancer pays homage to the person in the photo.” Brown’s work in One Shot is a collaboration through time. Harris may no longer be around to see the fruits of this partnership, but his images live on through movement and vision. Music plays a huge part in Brown’s work; he worked to establish a rhythmic sense of the images coming and going. “It’s OK to have the music match up now and then,” he quips. Music by Ahmad Jamal, Phyllis Hyman, Anonimo Consejo, Billy Strayhorn, Mamadouba Mohammed Camara, and Lena Horne complete the story. Former Pittsburgh mayor David L. Lawrence (1946-1958) nicknamed Harris “One Shot” because he supposedly got the photo in one shot. According to Brown, that’s not entirely accurate; when he photographed city events he took only one shot out of a sense of economy. Back then, Harris paid for his own film. For other photos, he actually took several shots. For Brown, the concept of One Shot reveals a larger meaning that summarizes the project in a single thought. “We have this one opportunity and what are we going to do with it?” asks Brown, “It’s about a capacity to dream.” Society for the Performing Arts and DiverseWorks present Evidence, A Dance Company in One Shot at 8pm on May 10th at Cullen Theater, Wortham Center. Call 713-227-4SPA or visit spahouston.org Charles “Teenie” Harris: Rhapsody in Black & White, An exhibition of Harris’s photography, Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston continues through August 2, 2008. mitchellcenterforarts.org, 713-743-5548 The Jewish Community Center presents an IW Marks Dance Master Class taught by Ronald K. Brown on 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Friday, May 9 at the JCC. Call 713.729.3200, ext. 3223.
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artshoustonCmyk.pdf
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2008 HOUSTON AREA EXHIBITION MAY 10–AUGUST 2, 2008 OPENING RECEPTION: MAY 9, 6–8 P.M.
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JACOBSANDRESJANACUANICHOLASKERSULIS MINDYKOBERJONATHANLEACHLYNNEMCCABE ARIANEROESCHJULIESPIELMANGABRIELA TRZEBINSKIJEFFWILLIAMSAUDRYWORSTER
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The 2008 Houston Area Exhibition is organized by Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. The exhibition and publication are made possible, in part, by Occidental Energy Marketing, Inc., the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. I. H. Kempner, III, and Nancy and Rob Martin. Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, is located in the Fine Arts Building on the University of Houston’s central campus, entrance 16 off Cullen Boulevard. The museum is free and open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Sundays, Mondays, and University holidays. The museum is ADA compliant. For more information, please call 713.743.9530, or visit us online at www.blaffergallery.org.
Creativity Inspiration Entertainment Family IRVING ARTS CENTER
Fun!
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ainter John Alexander grew up in Beaumont as “a bit of an oddball,” he says, playing in the trees and along the bayous while also obsessed with drawing and painting. After earning his MFA from SMU in 1970, he moved to Houston, where he taught at the University of Houston for several years. Although he moved to New York City in 1979, Alexander’s artwork remains deeply connected to the storytelling culture of his youth in Southeast Texas. A retrospective of his work, now on view at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, was recently exhibited at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., and chronicles the twenty-nine years since he left Houston. I met with Alexander in the MFAH galleries as he installed his show, where we talked about his life, his imagery, and the dilemma of being labeled a “Texas artist.”
A Conversation with John Alexander by Tria Wood 20
OPPOSITE: John Alexander, Marabou Stork, 2002; PAGE 22: John Alexander, Parade, 2006; PAGE 23: photo by Will Michels
Tria Wood: Can you tell me a little bit about the role of allegory in your work? It seems to be a very strong influence within these narratives that take place and in the symbols that you work through. John Alexander: First of all, I think, I personally think that—and this is not an editorial comment or a judgment, it’s just a personal thing—I have never had a terribly strong interest in what you would call total abstraction or nonobjective painting or art that doesn’t have some particular meaning or message, some narrative to it. And I come out of a tradition, I think a clear and strong tradition of Southern narrative art. Storytelling is a big part of the South and Southern tradition…. and in Southern literature like Faulkner and Tennessee Williams or whoever, there’s a strong pathos and a dark, kind of Gothic tradition of narrative. And that’s real. And so I think that subconsciously, I guess—it’s certainly not a conscious thing—I come out of that, and I can say with some degree of certainty that almost every picture, with maybe some rare exceptions in this exhibition, comes from some story. Even in the ones where I’m picking something like the thistle, which is a fairly straight-on rendering of a thistle, or the sunflower…. I consciously could have taken any route on that sunflower. I could have painted a sunflower in bright bloom, I could have painted a sunflower before it bloomed, I could have painted a sunflower sprig coming up out of the ground, because there are sunflowers all around my studio out in Amagansett. But I chose to paint sunflowers at the end of their life, dead, and to me, that kind of wilted, folded, kind of bruised at the bottom, it’s somewhat symbolic of the whole life cycle…. Somebody that was in here the other day… saying “My God, your paintings are so beautiful, and I was looking at these beautiful paintings and all of a sudden I was wondering: what’s bothering me about them? And then I realized that there was something strange lurking in there.” And that’s absolutely not a conscious thing on my part, that I say “Oh, I’m going to paint some grim fairy tale,” it’s just something that naturally comes through as I paint. TW: How do you think that works? Do you have an idea of how you move your sense of narrative into your work? JA: I can think of painting a picture of a vase… a garden scene, and some people can paint a garden scene and it looks like Bonnard, and it’s beautiful and voluptuous and colorful and happy and lifting and warm and fuzzy, but I can paint the same group of hollyhocks, and it looks like it’s something out of Dante’s Inferno [laughs]. TW: [laughing] You’ve got a dark filter for your work. JA: So I don’t know where that comes from—I think I’m a pretty upbeat person. I like life, I like my life—and I’m not very happy politically right now, but I don’t think most Americans are…. TW: I’m noticing that even your animals are very much characters, you know, you can see personalities in them.
JA: That is a conscious effort. I try to give them a personality, and so often you can do that with just the eyes. “What’s he looking at?” you know. And I also try to make them, as often as I can, look— even though they may be some strange bird or fish or crustacean or sea creature—I try to give them, even though they’re not human, some human sense or quality, at least some sort of connection to the human experience. It’s like, “How do you make a fish look sad?” or “How do you make a bird look angry?” And I can’t imagine why a bird or fish wouldn’t be pissed off and sad. TW: Speaking of birds and fish, because I see the beaked masks… what is the role they play in your other works? JA: Now I’ve been asked that many times, and I don’t know why, but I never seem to have a good answer as to where the masks came from…. I think that the most obvious origin of that beaked mask kind of thing came out of the whole idea of the birds. It just seems like a natural transition to me. I have to go back to and look back in the records and figure out where they first appeared and what might have caused it. But I can say with certainty that it didn’t have anything to do with Venice or the Renaissance or Venetian Carnival, because that never occurred to me. You know, now looking at it in the context of that stuff, I think “Wow, there’s a real kinship here.” The mask itself, though, is clearly used in my figurative work to hide the identity of the person. Usually the person that I’m trying to depict is some kind of buffoon or fool or criminal or politically repellant individual, and so I try to consciously make them look as foolish as I can, and then putting a mask on them makes them look even more foolish, but it also makes them more universal. I don’t want to do art that’s about the specific personality of a political moment because those people come and go. Political parties change, administrations change…. It’s easy to sit back and take pot shots at certain politicians, because it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. But if you can make art that’s got a broader truth to it, a more universal and more international truth in terms of representing humanity in general, as opposed to a specific political agenda, I think that’s more difficult and challenging. And if you don’t know who’s behind that mask, you still have to realize that it’s a pretty evil force…. It doesn’t have to be about a person in Washington, Houston, New York, or whatever. TW: Something that I found interesting when I was reading about you is that there’s this sort of chorus with each article saying “he’s a Texas artist, but he doesn’t mind being called a Texas artist.” JA: Well, that’s not really true. Let me make this crystal clear. I’m very proud of the fact that I grew up in Texas. I have great memories of my childhood. I’m not one of those people that looks back at their childhood and says, [moaning] “Oh my God, I grew up on Beaumont.” I have nothing but very good memories of that. I mean, I guess the most negative memory I have of that is watching the Big Thicket or the East Texas woods, the rivers and bayous become increasingly more destroyed and polluted and stripped and pillaged. And that I was cognizant of as a young person, and still even more so today. But basically I enjoyed my life growing up here 21
in Texas… What I don’t like about the “Texas artist” thing is that in the Northeast… often, not always, but often, it’s used in a pejorative way. It’s like saying, “God he’s really—that’s a very, very good Black artist there.” Well, what does that mean? What?! I mean, that doesn’t give everyone an equal playing field; either you’re a good artist or you’re not a good artist. And I’ve never in my fortyplus years of being in the art world, ever heard, ever, ever, ever, heard someone referred to as a “Massachusetts artist” or a “Connecticut artist.” I’ve never heard that. Somebody mentioned to me the other day, “Well, you do hear ‘California artist,’” and I thought about that. Yes, you do, that so-and-so’s a “California artist.” And you often hear it, though, James Surls, David Bates, myself: “Texas Artists.” And somebody said, “Well, you know, maybe it’s because they’re such big places, physically, that they’re almost like a country. They’re almost entities unto themselves, whereas Connecticut or Massachusetts aren’t.” And if that’s the case, then I applaud it. That’s fine. But if it’s used in the context of, “Well… he’s a Texas artist that can really draw,” and it means that he’s the best of that, but he’s not quite on the Varsity…. TW: “He’s good, for someone from Texas.” JA: Yeah! It’s like, “Poor fellow has flippers for hands, but he can still draw,” and I’ve always had that. And to this day, there are still people that write about me or know about me in the context of New York, where I’ve lived in the same loft for twenty-nine years, and I’ve had a dozen one-man shows in New York, but they still refer to me as being a Texas artist. Many people still think I live in Texas. So that’s all right, I’ve eaten as much barbecue as anybody, and I can’t ride a horse, but I love the fact that I’m from Texas, and I’m very proud of it. And I’ve done pretty well. TW: Sure. JA: And I’ve drawn on a rich heritage here that has been, certainly, a good marriage for me…. There’s a kind of ruggedness to the personality of people here that is more attuned to my sensibilities, especially with the influence of Mexico and the whole tradition of 22
the angst and passion of Mexican art out of the history of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Siqueiros and Orozco and all that—that was some powerful and politically driven, personal, humanistic art. It’s not about minimalism and it’s not about color field, conceptual, decorative; it is truly about humans confronting other humans about issues that concern every day lives. And I think that I try to be that way in my work, very very much. To a fault, I mean, it’s hurt, because I’m considered outside the mainstream, and still am. TW: That’s not a bad thing. JA: No, in the long term it’s not. But it costs you in other ways…. When you’re identified as a regionalist artist, that really is a problem. That’s even worse than “Texas artist.” And I think that’s changed so dramatically…. so many young people here are doing extremely well, and that wasn’t possible in my day. I mean, it was possible, obviously—Surls and Bates did it—but those are only two…. But generally speaking, you had to leave in those days to make it into any kind of bigger arena. And that’s, I’m happy to report, not true any more. It’s very possible and probable that you can live and work in Houston or Dallas or San Antonio, wherever, and have a big career…. That’s not the world we grew up in here, and I’m really happy to see the change. And a lot of it comes from many things pulling together. Just the very fact that you’re here talking to me right now—those things didn’t exist. There were no media outlets for us. I used to say this publicly all the time, and I still believe it: in order to have an art community, you have to have five important things. Number one, most important of all, you have to have good artists, hardworking serious artists to make the art. Number two, you need a decent, viable commercial scene, a gallery scene to sell the art and to work with the artists to make it profitable and possible for them to make art. Number three, that means you have to have a very strong collector base to support the galleries and the artists. Number four, you have to have a very strong, viable writing group— magazines, newspapers—a critical, structured place to dissemi-
nate the information, talk about art and give it access to bigger
audiences…. Number five, you have to have a very powerful, strong and viable institutional scene like the Contemporary Arts Museum, definitely the Museum of Fine Arts, and the number of alternative spaces that give art legitimacy. If you’ve got those five things working together in some kind of harmonious concert with each other, you have an art scene. What they had when I was here was the first, which was the artists, and very painfully, not enough of the other four…. There’s a very nice and warm and viable art scene here now, which gets me back to the fact that young people don’t really have to leave.
WORDS AND MUSIC BY
George GERSHWIN Ira GERSHWIN Ken LUDWIG AND
BOOK BY
TW: And that’s a good thing. JA: And that’s a good thing! John Alexander: A Retrospective is on view through June 22nd at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet Street, 713-639-7300, mfah.org To hear the complete interview with John Alexander, visit artshouston.com/podcast.php to download the podcast.
Celebrating 25 Years of getting our hands dirty!
Stephen Vitiello Four Color Sound
NOW PLAYING HUBBARD STAGE
May 9, 2008 - June 14, 2008 Opening Reception: Friday, May 9, 2008 6-8pm
Kara Hearn
A Problem of Courage
May 9, 2008 - June 14, 2008 Opening Recption: Friday May 9, 2008, 6-8pm
BEST SEATS BUY NOW
ALLEY THEATRE
WWW.ALLEYTHEATRE.ORG 713.220.5700
Evidence, A Dance Company One Shot
GENIE AND BILL MEREDITH AND JOHNSON CORNELIA LONG
Saturday, May10, 2008, 8pm Presented with the Society for the Performing Arts Wortham Center’s Cullen Theater
www.diverseworks.org 1117 E. Freeway 713.223.8346 Official Airline of Alley Theatre
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New Gallery/Thom Andriola 713.520.7053 newgallery.net Tara Conley, thru 5/31. Art Storm 713.568.8174 artstormhouston.com Shoot from the Hip, thru 5/26. Art League Houston 713.523.9530 artleaguehouston.org Observer’s Event Horizon: Stacey Neff, Of Winter to Spring: Suzanne Manns, thru 6/13. River Oaks Chamber Orchestra 713.665.2700 rocohouston.org Brad Sayles’ Echoes of Invention – for Narrator and Orchestra, 5pm, St. John the Divine Episcopal Church; and 5/4, 6:30pm, Bayou Bend. Bering & James 713.524.0101 beringjamesgallery.com J. Antonio Farfan, thru 5/28. Logan Fine Arts 713.781.2402 loganfinearts.com Larry Bell: New Works on Paper, thru 6/7. The Jung Center 713.524.8254 cgjunghouston.org Mindy Kober: Microcosm, thru 5/29. Galveston Historic Homes Tour 409.765.7834 galvestonhistory. org, and 5/4, 10am - 6pm. Yale Street Arts & Flower Market 713.802.1213 YaleStreetMarket.com, 11am - 6pm. Darke Gallery 713.542.3802 darkegallery.com Gold Rush: Linda Darke, thru 5/24. G Gallery ggalleryhouston.com Kelly Alison, thru 5/25. NauHaus 281.618.1845 texascollaborative.com Jeff Jennings,
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Houston Center for Photography 713.529.4755 hcponline.org Skylight Nocturnes, Sprawl, and The Red Chair, thru 6/1. MECA 713.802.9370 meca-houston.org Alejandro Vela and Friends, 8pm. Houston Poetry Fest First Fridays 713.521.3519 houstonpoetryfest.net Linda Koffel and Clint Spencer, 8:30pm, Inprint House.
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Hope Stone Dance 713.526.1907 x3 hopestoneinc.org Kids Play Ensemble & Youth Sound present Peace, Piece, 7pm, Jewish Community Center. MFAH 713.639.7300 mfah.org Latin Wave: New Films from Latin America, thru 5/4. Houston Symphony 713.224.7575 houstonsymphony.org Mahler’s Ressurection Symphony, thru 5/4, Jones Hall.
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Ars Lyrica 713.528.6665 arslyricahouston.org Duelling Divas, 5pm, Zilkha Hall, Hobby Center. Third Annual Lois Alba Aria Competition 713.334.7367 loisalba.com, 7pm, Houston Community College’s Heinen Theater.
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Orange Show 713.926.6368 orangeshow.org 2008 Houston Art Car Parade, 1pm, Allen Parkway. Contemporary Arts Museum Houston 713.284.8250 camh.org The Old, Weird America, thru 7/20. Gallery Sonja Roesch 713.659.5424 gallerysonjaroesch.com Ever Present: Ruth Pastine, thru 7/5. Documentary Alliance Houston 713-666-2504 documentaryalliance.org Tell the Truth and Run, 7pm, Aurora Picture Show. Devin Borden Hiram Butler 713.863.7097 dbhbg.com William Betts, thru 6/13. Galveston Historic Homes Tour 409.765.7834 galvestonhistory.org, and 5/11, 10am - 6pm. Society for the Performing Arts 713.227.4SPA spahouston.org One Shot, 8pm, Cullen Theater, Wortham Center. Main Street Theater 713.524.6706 mainstreettheater.com Present Laughter, thru 6/8. Da Camera 713.524.5050 dacamera.com Strike 3 Percussion, 3pm, Menil Collection North lawn
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Lawndale Art Center 713.528.5858 lawndaleartcenter.org what we want is too late - Danny Kerschen, Teresa O’Connor & Lynne McCabe; Drawing in Space - Curated by J Hill; Work by John Adelman, Daniel Adame, Annette Lawrence, The Art Guys & Cory Wagner; 3 Months and 90 Days - Catherine Colangelo; The Suburbs of the Emerald City - Joshua Smith, thru 6/14. Joan Wich & Co. 713.526.1551 joanwichgallery.com Julie DeVries: Part of the Process, thru 3/31. Houston Symphony 713.224.7575 houstonsymphony.org Mozart’s 4th Violin Concerto, thru 5/11, Jones Hall. DiverseWorks 713.223.8346 diverseworks.org Stephen Vitiello: Four Color Sound, Kara Hearn: A Problem of Courage, thru 6/14. Blaffer Gallery 713.743.9521 blaffergallery.org Houston Area Exhibition and Charles “Teenie” Harris: Rhapsody in Black & White, thru 8/2.
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Talento Bilingue de Houston 713.222.1213 tbhcenter.com A Night of Underground Sounds featuring Pistolera, thru 5/17, 8pm. Aurora Picture Show 713.868.2101 aurorapictureshow.org Slant 8: Getting to Nobu: Show and Tell with Nobu Adilman,
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Masquerade Theatre 713.861.7045 masqueradetheatre.com Company, thru 6/8. Aurora Picture Show 713.868.2101 aurorapictureshow.org Slant 8: Bold Asian American Images, 8pm.
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Houston Center for Contemporary Craft 713.529.4848 crafthouston.org Craft Texas 2008, thru 8/17. A.D. Players Children’s Theatre 713.526.2721 adplayers.org The Emperor’s New Clothes, thru 5/24. Society for the Performing Arts 731.227.4SPA spahouston.org Itzhak Perlman, 8pm, Jones Hall.
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Houston Symphony 713.224.7575 houstonsymphony.org Pink Martini, thru 5/25.
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The Menil Collection 713.525.9400 menil.org Sterne and Steinberg: Critics Within, thru 8/17.
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Progressive Forum 713.664.0020 progressiveforumhouston.org Elizabeth Edwards, 7:30pm, Cullen Theater, Worhtam Center.
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Theatre Under The Stars 713.558.2600 tuts.com The Drowsy Chaperone, thru 6/1, Sarofim Hall, Hobby Center.
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put me on your fridge
artshouston
Inversion Coffee House 713.523.4866 inversioncoffee.com WOOD-GLASS FIRE-ICE: Omar Angel Perez and Kim Clark Renteria, 7-10pm. Urban Retreat Watercolors: Peihong Endris and Cheryl Walker, thru 7/30.
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Texas Repertory Theatre 281.583.7573 texreptheatre.org You Can’t Take It With You, thru 5/25. Da Camera 713.524.5050 dacamera.com Fischer Duo, Noon, Grand Foyer, Wortham Center.
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Da Camera 713.524.5050 dacamera.com Jose-Miguel Yamal Latin Jazz Quintet, 1pm, Discovery Green.
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thru May. Redbud Gallery 713.862.2532 redbudgallery.com Susan Plum, thru 6/2. Da Camera 713.524.5050 dacamera.com After Einstein: Music and the Relativity of Time, 8pm, Cullen Theater, Wortham Center. Aurora Picture Show 713.868.2101 aurorapictureshow.org Doxita Film Festival, 8pm, 5/4 3pm. Moody Gallery 713.526.9911 moodygallery.com Charles Mary Kubricht: Slight Disturbances, thru 5/31. Hooks-Epstein Galleries 713.522.0718 hooksepsteingalleries. com Otis Lumpkin, thru 5/31. The Menil Collection 713.525.9400 menil.org Max Neuhaus: Circumscription Drawings, thru 8/10.
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Inprint Brown Reading Series 713.521.2026 inprinthouston.org Tony Kushner, 7:30pm, Alley Theatre.
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koelsch gallery 713.862.5722 koelschgallery.com Jason Willaford and Nelda Gilliam, thru 6/14. Elder Street Gallery 281.250.4889 elderstreetartist.com Feminine Pallet, 6-9pm. MFAH 713.639.7300 mfah.org The Scholar’s Eye: Contemporary Ceramics from the Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection, thru 9/1. CANTARE Houston 281.639.3017 cantarehouston.org Judas Maccabeus, 7:30pm, 5/18 5pm, Zilkha Hall, Hobby Center. Aurora Picture Show 713.868.2101 aurorapictureshow.org Best of Dallas Video Festival, 8pm, 5/18 3pm.
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Contemporary Arts Museum Houston 713.284.8250 camh.org Perspectives 161: Tim Lee, thru 7/13. Talento Bilingue de Houston 713.222.1213 tbhcenter.com Holy Dirt, thru 5/17, 8pm. Last Concert Café 832.641.1851 myspace.com/absinthart AbsinthArt, 8pm.
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Houston Symphony 713.224.7575 houstonsymphony.org Rodriguo’s Guitar Concerto, thru 5/18.
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Stages Repertory Theatre 713-527-0123 stagestheatre.com Mr. Marmalade, thru 6/1.
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Writers in the Schools 713.523.3877 witshouston.org Young Writers Read, 7pm, and 5/13, Menil Collection Museum.
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Buffalo Bayou Art Park 713.502.9454 bbap-houston.org Barry Stone: Decking the Path to Blessedness, thru 5/2, Sabine Street Art Park. Watercolor Art Society - Houston 713.942.9966 watercolorhouston.org April show, judged by Arthur Turner, thru 5/2. Houston Grand Opera 713.546.0200 houstongrandopera.com Britten: Billy Budd, thru 5/4; Puccini: La bohème, thru 5/3. MFAH 713.639.7300 mfah.org Passionate Vision: Celebrating the Life and Photographic Work of Beaumont Newhall, thru 5/4; Miwa Yanagi—Deutsche Bank Collection, thru 5/4; John Alexander: A Retrospective, thru 6/22; Pompeii: Tales from an Eruption, thru 6/22. Houston Center for Contemporary Craft 713.529.4848 crafthouston.org Craft in America—Expanding Traditions, thru 5/4. koelsch gallery 713.862.5722 koelschgallery.com Claire Cusack and W. Tucker, thru 5/10. Rice Gallery 713.348.6069 ricegallery.org Launch: Rice Student Art Exhibition 45, thru 5/10. Contemporary Arts Museum Houston 713.284.8250 camh. org Perspectives 160: Dawoud Bey, thru 5/11. Menil Collection Museum 713.525.9400 menil.org Form, Color, Illumination: Suzan Frecon Painting, thru 5/11. Ensemble Theatre 713.807.4309 ensemblehouston.com Ashes to Africa, thru 5/25. Alley Theatre 713.228.8421 alleytheatre.org The Gershwins’ An American in Paris, thru 6/1. Main Street Youth Theater 713.524.6706 mainstreettheater. com James and the Giant Peach, thru 5/3. A.D. Players 713.526.2721 adplayers.org The Emperor’s New Clothes, thru 5/24; The Heiress, thru 6/1. Museum of Printing History 713.522.4652 printingmuseum. org Altered Portraits of the Childhood Cancer Experience, thru 5/31; Orchidaceae: Photographs by Frazier King, thru 6/21. Talento Bilingue de Houston 713.222.1213 tbhcenter.com La Labor - Paintings by Roel Flores, thru 6/8. Museum of Natural Science 713.639.4629 hmns.org Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius, thru 9/1.
ongoing
Do you have June event that you would like to see listed here? Send all pertinent info to tria@artshouston.com by May 10th
8pm.
Devil in the Details Local Prop Squads Fret Over Every Little Thing
story by Holly Beretto photos by Kara Duval
You probably don’t know their names. But it’s time you were introduced to these behind-the-scenes brains.
T
hey toil away in dusty workshops. They dig through attics and flea markets and dollar stores. They spend their days knee-deep in papier mache and paint. They are eternal treasure hunters. They are the properties masters, those responsible for everything from ornamental flotsam and jetsam to giant peaches and just about everything “the set and costume designers don’t want to deal with,” as an inside-industry saying goes. You probably don’t know their names. But it’s time you were introduced to these behind-the-scenes brains. 26
Richard Solis is the resident props designer for Main Street Theatre. He began his career as an actor, but found he had an affinity – and a talent – for stagecraft. He’s been working fulltime in props and stagecraft for 17 years, mostly in children’s theatre. “You’re always building something strange in children’s theatre,” laughs the six-year veteran of Main Street. His list of strange things includes a two-foot tall tomato and a six-foot-high hand. When ArtsHouston caught up with him, he was crafting a 10-foot peach for Main Street’s production of James and the Giant Peach. At Houston Grand Opera, Megan (who uses only her first name) and assistant Andrew Cloud know a lot about largerthan-life props. They are HGO’s props department, where they often craft things on a very grand scale. “The front row of our theater is thirty feet from the stage,” says Cloud. That means he and Megan are often building things super size. “We had an eighteen-inch razor that spurted blood when we did Sweeney Todd.” Meanwhile, Megan is working on the company’s Art Car Parade entry, where an oversized head of an opera singer is built on top of a one-ton truck. Brunhilde, inspired by the leader of the Valkyries in Wagner’s Ring cycle, is a massive undertaking. “Oh, she’s just great,” says Megan, who’s been a driving force behind bringing her to life, raving about how the dynamic diva was built from fabric and swimming noodles and hundreds of melted vinyl records, and a host of other found objects – all par for the course of the props master’s job. “My husband collects all these old bottle caps,” says Megan. “And I kept saying, ‘Honey, what are we going to do with all these?’ But I actually wound up using them for the art car, so I guess it all worked out.” Over at the Alley Theatre, Karin Rabe and her staff are also in the business of finding things, building things or just running out to buy them.
“The decision to build or buy a prop is made fairly early in the design process of a show and is based on what we know we can buy or what we know is so specialized that it must be made,” says Rabe, the Alley’s properties master, who admits to finding props everywhere from high-end boutiques to garage sales to dumpsters. “We’re almost guaranteed that anything we find for a show will never be quite right and we’ll always be making adjustments to it either to fit into the designers’ vision or make it more actor-friendly,” she says. “Props should help the actor establish
his character and put him in the mood and place of the play,” agrees Jodi Bobrovsky, who is the properties master for Stages Repertory Theatre, who also designed the big peach for Main Street. “Props ‘fill in the blanks,’ and give you visual clues as to the character’s personal taste and history, the time of the year, or the passing of time.” Bobrovsky says she wants her props to showcase as much of a character as possible, so she’ll often talk with actors to get a feel for what they think their characters would own or what they might use. She’s even gone so far as to find certain period details such as stamps for envelopes an actor is holding, just because the actor will know it’s there. Rabe has done similar detail-oriented
work. For the Alley’s recent production of Arsenic and Old Lace, she and her team helped devise an entire wall covered in weapons and a life-sized sculpture of a cave man on the upstairs part of the set. “I think that most of the audience never noticed, as these things seemed to belong in and were accepted as part of the zany house the family lived in,” she says. “Yet, these props help make the audience and actors feel at home and make the story real and believable.” “Oh, a lot of people ignore props,” says Solis. “I mean, who notices a cup or a plate?” He says those items are necessary to a scene, but if the props people are doing their jobs right, the props just blend in naturally. But even he says that his eye for details, like Bobrovsky’s, extends to smallest of details. “I paint the bottoms of mugs or the backs of clocks and things,” he says. “Because it just adds a little something extra, a little magical touch. Maybe only the actor and I know it’s there, but it matters.” The other thing that matters is just plain job satisfaction. “I get to come to work and play with knives and guns,” Cloud says, amused. He’s working on the props for HGO’s Billy Budd (through May 9), which involves shackles, cutlasses, rattans and cannon balls, among other things. He says that through the rehearsal process, he had to replace the knives twice. But it’s all in a day’s work. Solis agrees, and says his job is made all the more fun by working in children’s theatre. “The kids just get so into it,” he says of Main Street’s productions. “I mean, I made a peach, right? But when I see how the audience reacts to it, I sit back and think, ‘That’s my work. This is what I do.’” Even when things go awry, Bobrovsky says you just sit back and take it all in stride. In previews for Stages’ recent production of Rounding Third, “a piece of foam stuffing in the bat bag came out along with all the baseball equipment, when [actor] Justin Doran dumped it out. He picked it up and treated it like it belonged in a bag of baseball equipment and got a good laugh.”
OPPOSITE TOP: Megan and Andrew Cloud channel the Viking within OPPOSITE BOTTOM LEFT: Richard Solis in front of his home workshop ABOVE: Megan and Andrew Cloud peek through a stage mock up
27
Beyond the Public Green:
Discovery Green Park Adds More than Just Greenspace to Downtown Houston story by Tria Wood photos by Kara Duval
“Mommy, mommy! I love coming to play in New York!” said Monica Pope’s daughter of the newly opened Discovery Green park, according to Programming Director Susanne Theis. This reaction, she says, demonstrates just why Houston needs such a space. Although green spaces do exist in our metropolis, they’re somehow rarely associated with the city’s public image; although Houston’s downtown area boasts several parks (Tranquility Park, Sam Houston Park, and Allen’s Landing, to name a few), in terms of public spaces, Houston seems to have a reputation for being somewhat less than green. Discovery Green stands out from other Houston parks in several respects, however—it strives to be a place that serves the diverse needs of Houstonians as well as those of our environment. The very variety of activities and venues concentrated into this notquite-twelve acre site is astounding. Not only do green lawns, an amphitheater, a children’s playground and water features greet the visitor, but sculpted gardens, public art pieces, casual and fine dining restaurants and fenced dog runs as well as free WiFi access and a Houston Public Library satellite create a space that invites visitors to connect with each other in many ways. Theis, who once served as Executive Director of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, says that a series of town hall meetings with Houstonians began the design process for this park; the goal was to create a place that people would be driven to use. On the day after the park’s April 13th grand opening (which at 2:00pm had attracted a crowd of 20,000), a fair number of people were already making use of the area. Flying disc players and picnickers gathered on the lawns, children swarmed over the bird-themed playground (a bit of artwork in itself), and people in their office garb lingered at outdoor tables with their laptops. Isaac Cohen, a local artist of Art Car Parade fame, put the finishing touches on a beautifully curved wooden structure that will soon house remote controlled model sailboats; soon, visitors will be able to rent and sail these boats on a section of the park’s Kinder Lake. Nearby, Mark Bradford’s “art cart” (a golf cart-turned-art 28
car) attracted its share of onlookers. Clearly, this space was already working its magic. As we strolled through the park, Theis recalled her days at the Orange Show, remembering how its design seemed to effortlessly accommodate groups both large and small. “We could have hundreds there without it feeling crowded,” she says, noting that the variety of large and intimate spaces fostered comfort in Jeff McKissack’s creation. The same can be said of the design of Discovery Green’s spaces, she notes, which are cleverly broken up into discrete areas by water, walkways, buildings, and public art. Most famously, Jean Dubuffet’s Monument Au Fantome has been moved from its Louisiana Street location to the West end of the park, directly across from the George R. Brown Convention Center. Viewed from the park, its colors play nicely against those of the hulking convention center; viewed from the sidewalk, however, its silhouette becomes an intriguing part of the Houston skyline—a feat never possible when the piece was swallowed by the shadows of the skyscrapers that dwarfed it. Nearby, Margo Sawyer’s Synchronicity of Color pokes out of the ground, decorating the underground parking garage exits with a pixilated arrangement of technicolor squares. In other parts of the park, Doug Hollis’s parabolic Listening Vessels and fountain feature Mist Tree invite more direct interaction with artworks as visitors play with their effects. Theis notes that an ongoing series of temporary art installations is in the works, starting with a gazebo crafted of recycled glass by artist Dan Phillips. Performing arts events abound as well, with a robust roster of dance and music performances lined up for May and beyond. As if the sheer variety of spaces, activities, art, community events and workshops weren’t enough, Discovery Green also has a distinctly environmental edge, notes park President Guy Hagstette. It is currently pursuing LEED gold certification, meeting strict standards for the construction and ongoing maintenance of the park. All of its buildings, with Larry Speck as lead architect, were constructed according to the best environmental practices avail-
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PAGE 28: Children play in the Gateway Fountain TOP LEFT: Margo Sawyer’s Synchronicity of Color TOP RIGHT: Tiffany, Lucy, Mikaela, Alexis with pugs Ricky, Louanna and London enjoying Discovery Green’s grand opening LEFT: Margo Sawyer and her sculpture BOTTOM: Circling the Mist Tree
Although green spaces do exist in our metropolis, they’re somehow rarely associated with the city’s public image
able, including solar panels to offset electricity use while relying on Green Mountain Energy for the rest of its electric needs. Additionally, an amazing 98% of the park’s construction waste was recycled. Even the Lake House restaurant’s to-go containers are compostable. One branch of the park’s community outreach includes monthly workshops on recycling and a weekly program of bringing giant rolloff recycling containers to the corner of McKinney and Crawford for public use. In addition, a Thursday afternoon market will offer locally grown organic produce to Houstonians. During her work with both the Orange Show and Discovery Green, Theis recalls her out-of-town contacts saying, “I never knew Houston was so [fill in the blank: full of culture, cosmopolitan, savvy, artful].” The existence and success of this effort, she hopes, will help visitors and locals alike realize what a great place Houston really is. 30
2008 ANNUAL JURIED ART EXHIBITION
The 2008 Annual is open to artists living within 150 miles of Columbus, Texas. This year’s jurors are nationally recognized Texas artists Liz Ward and Rob Ziebell
Loes Berendschot + Elizabeth Denton + Kurt Dyrhaug + Janet Green + Michael A. Hannon Carol Hayman + Christi Hellrung + Jane B. Honovich + Jennifer Kimbrough + Suzanne Lewis Marianne C. McGrath + Lorena Morales + Eila Park + Paul K. Talley + Barbara Timko Tamara Viles + Emily Waters + Matthew Winters + Laura Sturtz
LIVE OAK ART CENTER 1014 MILAM COLUMBUS, TEXAS 78934 MAY 17, 2008 – July 5, 2008 opening reception: May 17 4 – 6 pm HOURS: Wed. & Sat. 10 am-2 pm Thurs. & Fri. 10 am-4 pm 979-732-8398 liveoakartcenter@sbcglobal.net www.liveoakartcenter.org This exhibit is sponsored in part by a grant from the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau and HOT funds. Visit www.columbustexas.org 31
Loaded Chamber
‘Teetering on the Edge’ with Foundation for Modern Music story by Michele Brangwen Now in its 21st year as a presenter of new music in Houston, the Foundation for Modern Music has recently become fuel-injected under the artistic direction of pianist Adam Tendler. Revved up and spinning over the possibilities of concert music in the 21st century, the Foundation isn’t waiting and hoping for audiences to decide what’s hip; they are instead showing them by delivering artistic programming that reflects an understanding of the power and sustainability of great music. On May 13 the Foundation presents Loaded Chamber, a concert of seminal works by American composers Steve Reich, Lou Harrison and David Lang, in Duncan Recital Hall in the Shepherd School of Music. Tendler, who has led the organization for the past year and a half, describes the title Loaded Chamber as “a play on words.” And he’s hoping the concert will be a repeat event every season. “In one respect, I choose music that is uncompromising, explosive, gritty, complicated, but also extremely engaging,” he says. “I choose music that happily teeters on the edge of what we consider acceptable in the concert hall.” The program features Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra. This work makes use of unusual percussion instruments like clay pots, a bathtub basin, and a double-bass turned on its back. Harrison was at the forefront of fusing world music with classical music. He built his own gamelan and immersed himself in music from Asia and the Pacific Rim. Harrison’s work is performed by 32
violist Angela Fuller and percussionists Mathew Strauss and Mark Griffith of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, joined by Brandon Bell and Matt McClung of Strike 3 Percussion Ensemble. The concert also includes Steve Reich’s Music for Mallet Percussion, Voices and Organ, and his Piano Phase, which will be performed by Tendler and pianist Rodney Waters. Tendler calls Piano Phase “a severe and a rarely performed minimalist masterpiece.” David Lang, the third composer on the concert, is sometimes referred to as a post-minimalist. His cheating, lying, stealing is an autobiographical work created to illustrate the shameful side of its creator. Lang explains: “So often when classical composers write a piece of music, they are trying to tell you something that they are proud of and like about themselves. I thought, ‘What would it be like if composers based pieces on what they thought was wrong with them? Like, here’s a piece that shows you how miserable I am.’ Or, ‘here’s a piece that shows you what a liar I am, what a cheater I am.’ I wanted to make a piece that was about something disreputable.” Although the work doesn’t need an explanation to be appreciated, it is amusing to think on the composer’s intentions as the music motors along, clanking out what indeed sounds like disgraceful little mantras. That the works presented on the Loaded Chamber program are out of mainstream of classical music speaks more to the disenfranchisement of important and essential music in this country than it does
OPPOSITE: Adam Tendler at the keys LEFT: Adam Tendler, photo by Beryl Striewki ABOVE: Adam Tendler prepares the piano for a John Cage piece RIGHT: Julia Bronkhorst performs songs in Dutch and Afrikaans at a Foundation for Modern Music Donor Cultivation party. The Persian cat does its best to play along.
to the riskiness of the works. These are heralded composers who have influenced entire schools of creativity; their works should be staples that we have all head too much of instead of being a rarity. The Foundation for Modern Music’s current concert season has featured performances by Eleanor Sandresky, a New York based pianist who presented the Houston premiere of her enigmatic and haunting Sleeper’s Notebook for choreographic piano, and the renowned Dutch soprano Julia Bronkhurst who performed songs from the Netherlands and South Africa. This January the Foundation for Modern Music co-presented with Third Coast Noise a Sunday Sonorities concert dedicated to music by living composers that involves the use of improvisation and extended technique (nontraditional ways of playing instruments). Guest artists included members of the Austin New Music Co-op as well as many of Houston’s finest avantgarde music specialists. It is interesting to note that the Foundation for Modern Music’s bold programming has resulted in giving it a reputation for freshness and accessibility. Their concerts are often well-attended events – by 8 p.m. the Rothko Chapel is so packed you
can’t get a seat -- proving once again that audiences are looking for art that is going to challenge and engage them. For their 2008-2009 season, works by Meredith Monk, Terry Riley and Yoko Ono are in the mix, along with another Concert for Peace in collaboration with the Rothko Chapel and more wildness with Third Coast Noise. Creating art is not a process that is casual, easy or safe. In a related way, the creating of a concert program requires the presenter to rise to the level of nobility of intention we expect from the works themselves. Tendler’s connectedness to the music for Loaded Chamber is evident both in his describing of it and his enthusiasm for its communicative power. “Loaded to me also means emotional or heavy,” he says. “This music is truly loaded, not just loud and funky, but also extremely intense emotionally. It requires that the performers give their all spiritually, physically, and intellectually, and inevitably the audience gets pulled into the process and meets us right there in the thick of it. We all emerge together in the end changed. And so unfolds the beauty of this music and the kind of mutual transcendence I aim for in all Foundation for Modern Music concerts.” Loaded Chamber: Tuesday May 13 at 7:30 p.m. in Duncan Rectal Hall, Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Advance tickets: 713-529-3928. Admission: $20 adults, $15 seniors, $10 students. modernmusic.org 33
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performance review
Opera in the Heights Tosca John Tsotsoros(Cavaradossi) and Lara Tillotson Joyal (Tosca). photo by Tre’ Ridings, Photographic Tendencies
Houston’s little-opera-that-could ended its 12th season much as it began its fi rst, demonstrating the value of a smaller, leaner version of the grand musical form that offers young singers a chance to polish their craft. It’s old news by now that this is how it’s done in Europe, and the multi-city resumes of singers now showcased by OH make it delightfully clear the local company is no longer alone. Seeing Puccini’s best-ever potboiler Tosca on a small stage – up close and personal, if you will – is a thrill all by itself. Nearly always performed by huge companies on huge stages fi lled with Italianate architecture, the heavy breathing of its three main characters is still more than enough to be heard on the back row. Up close in Lambert Hall, though, there’s room for nuances all around, from Tosca’s coquettishness alternating with piety and jealousy to Baron Scarpia’s many faces of amorality, lust and cruelty. Such an experience stays with you, letting you fi ll in the nuances during typical performances in typically cavernous opera houses. As always with Opera in the Heights, the orchestra was one of the stars. Artistic director and conductor William Weibel drew from his musicians enough great sound to resemble an ensemble twice as 36
large – no easy task on the booming chords Puccini uses to announce Scarpia’s many comings and goings. When the guy is fi nally lying dead on the fl oor, with those two famous candlesticks positioned by his head and the crucifi x set upon his chest, you can almost hear the orchestra breathe a sigh of relief. Tosca is a kind of triptych, a love triangle in the worst sense of the word. And it demands, especially with an audience only feet away, a trio of singing actors who inhabit their roles every bit as much as anyone at the Alley or Stages. On the evening we dropped by, the Emerald Cast was working wonders, and we presume the Ruby Cast handling other performances did some fi ne work as well. Rick Ziebarth wrote the book on being a thoroughly modern Scarpia, making himself not so much Mephisto in riding boots as a smirking and ultimately terrifying corporate warlord. His evil lurked just below his too-tight grin, held barely in check until it can no longer be. Somebody should have given the guy a cape, however; going back to Bela Lugosi and far beyond, capes are wonderful things for the sort of malignant entrances and exits that Scarpia’s dreams are made on.
Lara Tillotson Joyal and John Tsotsoros were utterly believable as the larger-than-life lovers. Joyal’s Tosca seemed more likeable than some, though perhaps that was only being close enough to interact with her fl irtatious eyes, and her soprano was mostly up to balancing the lyricism of her Act II hit Visi d’arte with her street-guttural dispatch of the Evil One himself, snarling “This is Tosca’s kiss!” In the opera’s early moments, Tsotsoros tended to rein in his top notes, turning them soft in a strange and not entirely pleasant way. But they were all there when Puccini demanded them, especially in Mario Cavaradossi’s exuberant shout of victory in Act II and his own big deal of an aria, E lucevan le stelle, at the start of Act III. As always in Tosca, the performance is the Big Three. But that doesn’t rule out some intriguing, even comic cameos. Best side dishes in this Opera in the Heights production were Stefano Koroneos as the hyperventilating, ever-crossing-himself sacristan, George Williams as Scarpia’s tall and head-shaven henchman Spoletta, and Michael Leone delightfully quirky as Sciarrone and later as the highly bribable jailer. – John DeMers 713.861.5303, operaintheheights.org
performance review
The Suicide Kings @ DiverseWorks Artspace In Spite of Everything
Left and Bottom: L-R: Geoff Trenchard, Jamie DeWolf and Rupert Estanislao
The Suicide Kings held court at DiverseWorks as part of a developmental residency for their riveting new work, In Spite of Everything. Geoff Trenchard, Jamie DeWolf and Rupert Estanislao, the three writer/performers who make up the troupe, are deeply rooted in spoken word/poetry slam tradition. Their track record in that arena is impressive, to say the least. Still, the power of In Spite of Everything lies in its integrity as a theater piece that remains tied to its roots while not being limited by them. The perfectly preposterous scenario sets the Kings teaching a poetry workshop to a fi fth grade class. (Getting hired with a name like The Suicide Kings is funny enough.) They zip through the plan like pros revealing a dark undercurrent of sarcasm. The kids are to jump off the poetry bridge on the idea, “I feel a scream coming on.” Things start to unravel when, on the next day, one of the students brings a gun to school and annihilates the teacher himself, and the class. Sure, it sounds all too familiar until you consider the timing of the piece, which was created after Columbine but before the Virginia Tech and the Northern Illinois University incidents. Members of the troupe are interrogated by the police, revealing their own troubled backgrounds, as are the father and friends of the shooter. Predatory news people drool for dead kids, while idiots commonly known as “the experts” weigh in during an ever-growing media circus. Punctuating the narrative are powerful autobiographical performance poems that give each member a time to show, tell, and yell. Most potent is DeWolf ’s rant on growing up as an acne-faced outsider. DeWolf embodies every cell of his story in a piece that elevates sexy-ugly to new heights. By the time he’s fi nished you want to join the club.
Trenchard and Estanislao enlist a driving sense of rhythm that pushes the question, “Have you ever thought about guns.” The collective response, as witnessed by recent events, is unfortunately, “no, not nearly enough.” DeWolf, Trenchard and Estanislao—captivating and fearless performers all—display a verbal dexterity and an intense physicality that imbues their work with a visceral energy that never lets up. Nothing feels false; these nimble-tongued folk know of what they riff. Minimal set pieces keep the focus on language while Sam Bass’s cello accompaniment adds a notably somber ambiance. Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s direction stays close to the bone. With its mostly racing pace, and a kind of reverence for the rapid-fi re delivery of the poetry slam tradition, there’s not a second of dead air. Sarah Sidman illuminates the piece sparingly, keeping its raw tenor intact. The show culminates with a stunning reverse narrative (evoking a famous passage
in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five) of the Columbine shootings beginning with the undeaths of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Brains become whole, bullets retreat to their guns, policemen return to their cars. Imagine fear in retreat—an anti-siren of relief. Exact and vivid descriptions inhale the disaster back in time. It’s like the experience is not only set on rewind, but is literally called back, like a mistake that can be undone. We hear and see events disappear until we fi nd ourselves back in the classroom with the angry fi fth grader who still feels a scream coming on. The Kings offer solace to the youngster, a little space, attention, and understanding for the unnamed anger that consumes him. If only they could have kept going, because, as we know sadly know now, there’s way more to call back. – Nancy Wozny 713.223.8346, diverseworks.org
37
performance review
Houston Grand Opera Last Acts
Kristin Clayton (Beatrice) in Jake Heggie’s Last Acts. HGOs 37th world premiere opera.
Now that the world premiere of Last Acts starring Frederica von Stade has enjoyed its fi nal performance by Houston Grand Opera and moved on toward other productions as Three Decembers, it’s worth considering what we’ve seen and heard. While Last Acts may not become most people’s favorite opera, replacing La Boheme or Carmen, it’s hard to imagine any work in recent years that has fi lled us with so much hope for the survival of the art form. Heggie, you see, is willing and able to grapple with opera as musical theater, as he did triumphantly in Dead Man Walking, and not so triumphantly in The End of the Affair, which at HGO’s world premiere seemed more a theological debate than a human drama. With Last Acts he not only returned to straightforward (and deep) human emotions but perhaps pointed to ways opera itself might fi nd and delight a new audience. For one thing, he used star power, just like they do on Broadway. “Flika,” as everybody in the lobby was calling her, is a genuine global opera star, not to mention one with 30-plus years of involvement with HGO. For another thing, he kept the cast small – not only a fi nancial boon but a relief after opera’s tradition of choruses singing long and terrifi c songs while doing absolutely nothing. Heggie kept the orchestra for Last Acts tiny as well and even played one of the two pianos himself, with a dexterity and sensitivity that recalled those scratchy 38
recordings of George Gershwin playing his stuff. Dramatically, we’re not sure why the orchestra was up on stage, behind and around the story’s action, but it made a lovely background nonetheless. If the ensemble was intimate, it certainly suited the tale. A mother comes to some form of reconciliation with her two grown children, and vice versa, as they slowly face the fact that the man in all their lives killed himself more than 20 years earlier. The son, in three vignettes set in 1986, 1996 and 2006, is a gay man in San Francisco, while the daughter mostly feigns a happy marriage with children while turning increasingly to drink. Their mother, the famous stage diva Madeline Mitchell, lives in her own world of nightly applause, able only to convince herself she did all she did to keep her family together. The libretto by Gene Scheer was lovely: funny, sad, candid, painful, and sporting a few modern expletives that (humorously) never showed up on the HGO surtitles. And the music by Heggie was, at times, even lovelier. While few solo “songs” rose to the level of traditional arias, the ensemble pieces for two or even all three singers were heartbreaking in their lilting harmonies. Most sounded like lullabies written to sing angels to sleep, with extraordinary orchestrations to match. And they were sung as such by von Stade herself, with lyrical baritone Keith Phares making his HGO
debut as son Charlie and soprano Kristin Clayton as troubled daughter Beatrice. Last Acts was (and presumably Three Decembers will be) small, intimate, thoughtprovoking, clearly heartfelt by all concerned, and touching from beginning to end. We have only two quibbles, one less than there are Decembers. The fact that Maddy Mitchell is an actress may be essential to keep the creative team’s interest, and probably appealed to the writer of the original play, Terrence McNally, who has a thing about the stage. But it also tended to Sunset Boulevard or All About Eve the whole affair, to make it “about” showbiz, which is unfortunate and hopefully unintended. Anyone who’s older than about 12, seeing and hearing Last Acts in Houston, will tell you these sorts of things happen in every family. This story is so much larger than any life on the stage. And for symmetry, since the opera ends with son and daughter at a memorial service for their mother, wouldn’t it make dramatic sense to begin with that memorial service and let the story unfold as a kind of wrestling match with memory? This is hardly a new idea, but it’s one that would give focus and form to Three Decembers that otherwise seem chosen almost at random. – John DeMers 713.228.6737 houstongrandopera.org
performance review The city’s most prominent troublemakers in theater have returned. The Catastrophic Theatre launched its inaugural play, Mickey Birnbaum’s Big Death and Little Death, in partnership with University of Houston School of Theatre & Dance. The troupe is the new venture of Jason Nodler and Tamarie Cooper, formerly of the nowdefunct Infernal Bridegroom Productions. This fi rst play fi nds the new troupe in top form, performing in the sleek Jose Quintero Theatre with a team of competent collaborators, and a mix of IBP veterans and talented students. Birnbaum’s fragmented story comes at us in discreet episodes that give us glimpse of one particular basket in this going to hell in a hand basket world. Dad, a Gulf War train wreck vet, returns home, kills mom with his reckless driving, and delights in his
The Catastrophic Theatre Big Death and Little Death
L-R: Noel Bowers, Mikelle Johnson, John Deloach, Luis Gonzales, Jeff Miller, Walt Zipprian, Tamarie Cooper, and Jo Amari, photo by George Hixson
L-R: Luis Gonzales, John Deloach, and Walt Zipprian, photo by George Hixson
work, which consists of taking photos of accident victims. The kids Gary and Kristi, in an attempt of fi nd normalcy, do their best to go to school, try not to die when dad drives, and survive the impending end of the world. And just to amp up the danger, they raise bit pulls. Walt Zipprian, as “Dad,” conjured an even more introverted Steve McQueen (if that’s even possible), complete with a nasty bout of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a wooden face, and an unfl inching GI Joe demeanor. He interrogates his son for asking for a Coke, then demands a too long and too hard hug. John DeLoach portrays the son, Gary, as the original mold for the sullen teen “whatever” generation. DeLoach captures the “troubled but managing well enough,”
thanks to a variety of real and invented drugs, death-metal, worthless parents, a shy sister-lusting buddy, and an oversexed guidance counselor. He’s literally holding the family, the play and, hell, the whole galaxy together. “Should I go to college out of state or destroy the universe,” is his quandary. DeLoach fi ts the role so well we actually think it’s best that he get to the biz of destroying the universe before he sends that housing deposit in. First things fi rst, son. Mikelle Johnson makes an impressive Houston debut as Kristi, the tortured anorexic little sister who treasures her father’s gruesome photos. Cooper nails the clueless housefrau who confesses an extramarital affair in the car going 200 miles per hour. Talk about bad timing. No wonder she ends up as roadkill in the heavens. Noel Bowers
renders Harley, Gary’s harmless buddy, as the last gentle soul on earth. He’s priceless when he asks, “Can I come in, the street is gone.” Elissa Levitt is positively loopy as Miss Endor, Gary’s guidance counselor with an appetite for all things naughty. Luis Gonzalez is convincing as the dog that falls through the roof. Jeff Miller is wonderfully smarmy as the convicted criminal Uncle Jerry and also as Craig, the conniving dog bargainer. Nodler directs with a careful hand, allowing the Birnbaum’s master of deadpan surrealism to speak for itself, and with a luxurious sense of time. Really, do you want to rush the destruction of the universe? John Gow’s nihilistic set fuses post-apocalypse style with suburbia, complete with a shell of a VW bus that looks like it just came crashing through the house, two mangy teen bedrooms, and a couch that doubles as a car complete with headlights. Chris Bakos’s sound design punctuates the drama with some choice metal band selections. Towards the end, the growing zombie clan, mom, dad, and Uncle Jerry hop in the VW, stick their oars in the air, and row towards the oblivion of the future with a cheery sense of misguided confi dence. There’s a message there, and as Birnbaum states in his program notes, “it isn’t pretty.” Meanwhile, Gary, Harley, and Kristi huddle on the couch, survive the destruction of the universe, and declare that, all is well, sort of, maybe, not really, but good enough for now. – Nancy Wozny 713.880.5216, thecatastrophictheatre.org 39
visual art review
Hooks-Epstein Galleries Alex Gabriel Bernstein, Karen Willenbrink & Jasen Johnsen Harvey Littleton gave birth to the studio glass movement in 1962 in an attempt to take glass beyond its basic utilitarian aspects; but for decades, as an art medium, it has suffered like a redheaded stepchild to the rest of contemporary visual art. Long categorized as decorative or “craft,” it has only been relatively recently that glass has begun to receive recognition as a legitimate art form (i.e., gallery exhibitions, museum collections, artist superstars – all the things the “regular” art world has had for over a century). Having a long-term interest in contemporary glass, Hooks-Epstein is one of only two galleries in Houston that exhibits glass with any regularity. Beginning in 2004 with Blown, HEG has exhibited many nationally and internationally known glass artists alongside its more typical roster of regional artists. Alex Gabriel Bernstein, Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen and Jasen Johnsen are three glass artists receiving their fi rst exhibitions in Houston. Alex Gabriel Bernstein grew up in a family of glass artists and was surrounded by other pioneers of the movement including Littleton. He studied with Czech glass artist Frantisek Janak then went to Rochester Institute of Technology where he earned his MFA in 2001. His sculptures have earned him many awards and honors and are in numerous collections. Using a variety of mainly cold work Jasen Johnsen and Karen Willenbrink, techniques, Bernstein’s sculptures are either cast or cut glass with fused steel or Long Eared Owl, 2008 cast and carved glass. Using a reductive aesthetic, as do stone sculptors, Bernstein cuts or grinds away glass into its fi nal form. One of the great attractions to his work is his ability to make it appear as if light is projecting from within the sculpture (Amber Coral, Amber Stone, Green Curl, and the beautiful arcing line of Sunset) as opposed to simply refl ecting it. This characteristic allows the work a warmth that belies it hard, cold beginnings as pieces of cast glass and makes for the most successful and intensely seductive work in the show. As equally winning and fascinating is Steel Flow with its tower of glass with fused steel emanating from a dark glacial blue foreground; perhaps a bit like seeing a Richard Serra sculpture in Antarctica. Such works as the Bellows Texas series, though, seem incomplete and demonstrative only of the process through which he makes the fi nal work. The links to his more satisfying work are there, but seem secondary to everything else in the exhibition. At the opposite end of the reductive, abstract work by Bernstein is the nature-fi lled, additive process of off-hand glass sculpting (which typically involves an incalmo technique of joining two hot glass elements together) and blown glass by the wife-husband collaborative of Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen and Jason Johnsen. Willenbrink-Johnsen received her BFA in Sculpture from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and then studied under Pino Signoretto at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington. She was a member of William Morris’s team, an assistant to Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick and an apprentice to Maestro Bruno Zanetti in Murano, Italy. Jasen Johnsen was a glass tech for 10 years before beginning to collaborate with his wife. Living in Washington State not surprisingly led to their Alex Gabriel Bernstein, Green Curl, 2008 love of nature, the outdoors, and animals. The detail work on the birds in this exhibition is amazing considering they start out as blobs of molten glass; everything is there from the variation of feather color to positioning of the birds themselves on lichen covered tree limb mounts (Flying Hawk Owl, Long Eared Owl). The process is so intricate it may take the duo, including a team of up to six assistants, up to two weeks to complete one sculpture. Hopefully this work will not only appeal to ornithologists, because otherwise viewers will miss a chance to see exceedingly fi ne craftsmanship (which should not be confused with the ambiguous term ‘craft’) displayed in such an unusual manner. Whereas Bernstein’s work is more purely about the visual aesthetic than the technical process, the Willenbrink-Johnsen duo’s work is about both; they simply inform one another. The incredible Perruginous Pygmy Owl, Northern Hawk Owl, Western Pygmy Owl, and Sharp Skinned Hawk may be as close as one ever gets to seeing these wonderful creatures, but thank Willenbrink and Johnsen for the chance. 713.522-0718, hooksepsteingalleries.com 40
-R. Eric Davis
Anthony Thompson Shumate, Stations - Mobil (1 of 14), 2008
visual art review
Apama Mackey Gallery Anthony Thompson Shumate: Stations In Stations, a three-part installation illuminating Apama Mackey Gallery in Houston through April 27th, Anthony Thompson Shumate voices a concern so logical and blunt that the viewer is almost shamed into joining the dialog. This is presented not in a pedantic fashion, but in a fairly assertive tone nonetheless. The show succeeds on its own terms in that the concept and the vehicles for it seamlessly fl ow throughout. Aesthetically, the pieces all support one another. Together, they impart not so much a wisdom of ecoresponsibility as a mirror of contemporary American consumption—and that’s a good thing. The graphic slickness of the work also furthers the focus. Shumate’s premise is simple; he has replaced the traditional fourteen Stations of the Cross with fourteen preeminent oil company logos and graphically inserted their images into faux stained glass window frames that are cut into traditional cathedral window shapes. There are appropriately, fourteen of these in the main gallery, all illuminated from behind the black painted frames with strips of white LED lights. These somberly surround a fl oor projection of an emblematic amalgamation of all of the logos in what appears to be a sort of fanciful coat of arms. In the second room, Shumate has set up a collection of Seven Day Saints Prayer Candles in a communal mock-up referencing an altar. The glass jarred candles have the oil company logos affi xed to them complete with a mini history of each one stuck on the back. In the center of these is a silver chalice holding, of course, what appears to be motor oil. The fourteen stations in the fi rst room are colorful and smartly illuminated. The logos are taken from gas station billboards or placards and given fanciful backdrops of American vistas. For instance, the Chevron sign is set against a low horizon line depicting a few urban structures. Another is set amidst a host of pines with snow-crusted branches. The idea seems to be that our collective consciousness of these emblems is so entrenched that we condense our imaginings of these “stations” into the same mental vaults that contain these landscape tropes. I was strongly reminded of Nabokov’s Lolita and the undertones of Humbert Humbert’s eventful road trip. But unlike that novel’s tragic crescendo, Shumate leaves the work open-ended. He is not trying to get his audience to necessarily change, say, their driving habits in view of Iraq, or whatever simplistic platitude could be hung on a similarly themed show. His concern, I think, is more aesthetic and less political. Juxtaposing oil company logos on traditionally religious paraphernalia is a straight up postmodern approach. Leaving the works to do their exploration vis-a-vis the clever graphic interface is refreshing. This perhaps works best in Stations Seal, a projected image in the center of the gallery fl oor. The colors stand out quite vividly, the image is complicated enough to captivate the viewer and the fl oor placement harkens an ornate rug. The interface has some subtle movement to it, but this motion does not add much to the already striking projection. The fun of the piece is picking out the creative placements of the logos. Shumate utilizes his graphic design background here to great effect. In the third leg of the show, the mood is set to full drama. This installation is simple and clever, and perhaps has the most conceptual bite. The chalice of oil is almost large enough for a baptismal rite. The logo stickers covering the Seven Day Saints Prayer Candles look authentic and the addition of the Spanish text on the back, below the English, is a nice touch of realism. Here again, Shumate simply places two seemingly contrasting partners into a homogenous environment, causing a slight nausea, but not a knee-jerk reaction. The artist’s approach seems to be of the variety that creates more questions than answers: What are we willing to do to maintain cheap oil, profi ts, world economic affl uence? What do we really bow down to? Simply, what does America believe in, and do our actions back it up? To answer these would be to come off as a slapdash Hollywood blowhard pontifi cating about issues that are far larger than the reach of a thespian. Shumate has the sense to allow his art to gain strength in its artfulness, rather than to succumb to a politically correct diatribe. -Garland Fielder 713.850.8527, mackeygallery.com
Anthony Thompson Shumate, Installation View Stations, 2008
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visual art review Right: Kurt Stallmann & Alfred Guzzetti, Still from Breaking Earth, 2007
DiverseWorks Artspace Kurt Stallmann and Alfred Guzzetti: Breaking Earth Zoe Crosher: 1Yr Later
Below: Zoe Crosher, Lori, from the series 1 Yr Later, 2002-2003
Breaking Earth is a collaboration by composer Kurt Stallmann and fi lmmaker Alfred Guzzetti commissioned by DiverseWorks and Meet the Composer. Guzzetti, the Osgood Hooker Professor of Visual Arts at Harvard University, is known for his full-length feature, documentary and experimental fi lms. Stallmann, based at Rice University, last presented SONA, Sounds of Houston: Wind, Rain, Trains, a multi-media composition with the Enso String Quartet and Guzzetti. The show has its origins in a joint rereading of Walden, Henry David Thoreau’s masterful meditation on the natural world. The piece—paced slowly enough to orient one into its haunting rhythm—unfolds with an unforced momentum, with images coming and disappearing in a surprising order that resists predictability. The viewer takes center stage with fi ve large screens perfectly arranged in a pentagon. Throughout the unfolding of the piece, one is kept in motion, and in a state of anticipation. Most potent are layered three-dimensional views
of moss rock and vegetation. It’s as if we are seeing into the ground, unearthing its layers in a kind of cross section. Images of fl oating clouds, rich green forests, horizons, and the various manifestations of water are cleverly orchestrated in a such a way that the suspense builds to a visual climax of all fi ve screens spinning in a sumptuously green forest. We stand at the center with the earth moving around us. Stallmann fuses environmental and electronic sounds in a hypnotic score that adds a layer of intense drama and heightened theatricality. Man-made truck noises mix with more watery sounds creating a sonic landscape that includes a human presence. Breaking Earth’s keen sequencing is key to its power. The musical structure—present both in both image and sound—abounds as groupings of images come and go, join and disperse in various arrangements. In fact, a nearly seamless merging of sound and visuals drive the work’s piercing theatricality. Stillness is employed liberally, allowing
quieter moments to sink fully inward. In its fullness the piece seems to point towards a re-awakening of our attention to the textures and cycles of the world around us. The effect is sumptuously sensuous. Face it, nature is sexy. Zoe Crosher’s straightforward exhibit, simply titled 1 Yr Later, focuses on eight adolescent girls photographed at age 17, a crucial juncture in young women’s lives, and then again a year later, at 18. Double portraits sit side by side depicting the young women posed in their bedrooms, the most intimate and private of spaces for teen women. Some attempt is made to strike the same pose a year later but change abounds, sometimes in the superfi cials like hair color and makeup. In other instances, changes appear more elusive. The rooms are relatively the same with small details like photographs and bedding showing some shift. Other times it’s clear that they no longer live in these rooms and have moved out of their family homes. Their distance from their former haunts is blatant and tangible. Crosher plainly captures a threshold year for these women, poised on the brink of leaving childhood, their homes and entering the unknown territory of adulthood, without unnecessary nostalgia. The directness of these portraits projects a refreshing honesty and an uncanny tenderness. -Nancy Wozny 713.223.8346, diverseworks.org
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visual art review A ghostly sense of surreality echoes through the installation The Greatest Store that Never Sold. Except for a stack of shopping carts in one corner and a pile of books along one wall, the space is swathed in white. Thus, the elements of the installation slowly reveal themselves to the viewer, forms and faint colors emerging to hint at narrative threads. Donnett’s choice of white, which permeates the space, in itself invokes several layers of meaning. While this expanse of white might be interpreted as heavenly, it just as easily invokes images of a void. It’s also hard not to read it in terms of race as well; the whitewashing effect of one culture upon others. However, white may just as easily be a blank canvas, an opportunity to create. Donnett’s subject matter is ambitious, addressing personal stories, community, literacy, consumerism, poverty and social justice. The installation is roughly confi gured in the manner of a store, with lightbox shelves displaying various objects—some already white, some constructed of stiffl y laquered white cloth, and some found items that have been shrinkwrapped and painted.
Project Row Houses Nathaniel Donnett: The Greatest Store that Never Sold Items as varied as computer keyboards, boxes of food, and bicycle chains are presented as if for sale, bathed in a faint glow. Others lay discarded on the fl oor, adding a sense of abandonment and improvisation to the work. The shopping carts enhance the store-like environment, as do the white plastic grocery bags suspended from the walls. Each bag contains objects that seem to relay a personal narrative or category: alphabet blocks and stuffed animals, a basketball with a vocabulary improvement book, or a fi rearm afi cionado magazine with a handgun target and crime scene tape. These represent the objects, perhaps, that we shop for as we build ourselves through collection and exchange. Adding to the conceit of the space as a store is the element of exchange. Viewers who bring a book that inspired them when they were young may trade it for one of Donnett’s I CANs, cylinders of laquered cloth shaped like soda cans and inscribed with symbols for affi rmations such as “I can love,” “I can help,” and “I can share.” At the end of the installation’s run, all books left by viewers will be donated to the Project Row House Library. These books now rest to the right of an altar space strewn with white silk fl owers; I CANs are stacked like votives on the left. Above, a large light box presents a transparent black and white image of grocery store shelves, elucidating the repetitive nature of their contents. Donnett also envisions a performance component in which he will act a store manager, helping facilitate exchanges of books for I CANs. With or without him, however, the viewer becomes enmeshed in the artwork through the process of exchange—and perhaps, for less honest viewers, stealing. Our behavior in this space speaks to our own sense of social justice as much as the space itself. Donnett’s work is necessarily rough around the edges, which adds to the senses of honesty and authenticity present in the installation. Through the uneven application of paint and strained surfaces of plastic, the world of this show reveals itself. That he includes viewers explicitly in the artwork’s process is refreshing and humbling. What we lay down on the altar of this store is a symbol of literacy, hope, and encouragement; what we take away is an empty, but signifi cant, reward. -Tria Wood Through June 22nd, 713.526.7662, projectrowhouses.org
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restaurant review
Bistro Lancaster
Old Theater District Favorite on the Rise Again By John DeMers
Left: Colorado Lamb Chops Top: Seared Blue Crabcakes Bottom: Jamie Zelko practices slicing apples Photos by Kara Duval
Sometime in the distant past, though no one can tell you exactly when, Bistro Lancaster was arguably the best restaurant in downtown’s busy Theater District. Happily for all of us who frequent these theaters night after night, that time is about to be now. We enter at the height of the pre-theater crush, when nearly every table against the graceful backdrop of green walls, dark wood and barely open shutters is full. The room’s overlapping conversations are full of references to shows to be seen that night: at the Alley just across the street, at Jones Hall, or even at the Hobby Center a couple blocks away. Best of all, however, nothing about this dining room is frenzied or melting down. No waiters steal glances at their watches, wondering if the entrees for Table 7 will ever come out. And no chefs gaze traumatized from the tiny kitchen, wondering how all this food will get cooked in such a tight window of time. Pre-theater, you see, is when the Bistro shines. And whatever the place’s qualifications to serve us a leisurely dinner
44
once the theater race is over, or even a stylish business lunch, it absolutely has to get us into our theater seats to remain in our restaurant rotation. That it does, with grace under pressure and tremendous enthusiasm. The servers even add a dash of humor, joking with tables full of regulars as though the entire challenge would pretty much take care of itself. As far as we’re concerned, the excitement behind this revitalized Bistro in what may be downtown’s oldest building (now used as the boutiqued-up Hotel Lancaster) is new executive chef Jamie Zelko. From what we remember over the years, chefs in the Bistro have run the gamut, from New York or California new cuisine to Asian-Whatever fusion. Chef Zelko is that rarity in Houston – a chef from Houston, who got her training in Houston and who has done her finest work in Houston. Among restaurant insiders, the fact that her mentors have included Carl Walker, Randy Evans and Chris Shepherd at Brennan’s, Monica Pope of Boulevard Bistro and t’afia, and Brian Caswell at the Hotel Icon
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(now at Reef) would promise a well-trained kitchen professional indeed. Therefore, the food at this new Bistro Lancaster isn’t merely excellent. Unlike in some chapters of its past, it’s actually the right food. Zelko has her flights of fancy – the Madras curried duck, for instance, in which the “dry rub” familiar from Texas barbecue gets transformed into spicy exoticism from the East. But for the most part, thankfully, she understands that her crowd includes many traditionalists, people who want a great meal not that far removed from what they enjoyed at Tony’s or Café Annie or perhaps even Maxim’s a decade or two ago. Or, for that matter, at Brennan’s of Houston. Be sure to start your meal with the tomato bisque, available by the cup or full bowl – we want as much of it as Chef Zelko will surrender - followed by one of the Bistro’s very nice salads. Most people have heard of the Bistro’s long-admired Caesar – a wonder, to be sure – yet this familiarity makes Chef Zelko all the more intent on establishing her smoked salmon salad as its equal. This is excellent too, with chunks of hickory-smoked fish the perfect counterpoint to mixed baby greens, slices of organic tomato, sweet red onions and goat cheese, all enveloped in a super-smooth citrus vinaigrette. There are surprisingly few appetizers offered at Bistro Lancaster, if you don’t count soups or salads. Promising starters include the semolina-crusted calamari, their chipotle mayonnaise announcing just how far we’ve traveled from typical fried with marinara, and the simple-sounding shrimp classique, sautéed the old-fashioned way in white wine and paired up with a small salad. For your entrée – or Main Plate, as the menu calls it – you pretty much win whether you go with seafood or meat. There aren’t so much a million choices as a handful of the right choices, again a tribute to Chef Zelko’s close reading of her market. A recent seasonal market catch, Chilean sea bass (selected carefully and bought at top-dollar from the most upright purveyors, avoiding the overfishing low-lifes who have scared some diners away) was exquisite. According to the chef, the season will soon bring in halibut, settling in beside the asparagus and beneath a light blanket of tomato-pineapple “marmalade” that’s as light and lovely as a pico de gallo. You can happily go meat-and-potatoes at Bistro Lancaster, and a fair chunk of the pre-theater crowd does precisely that. The encrusted Angus beef filet is a not-surprising hit, nestled in Swiss chard, the meat’s light bleu cheese crust the perfect foil for the chive mashed potatoes with a reduction hinting of huckleberries. There’s also a “grass-fed” pork chop you’ll love (unless you hate Chinese five-spice powder), and some terrific Colorado lamb – each chop crusted larger-than-life and accompanied by lush mushroom risotto, grilled asparagus and a nifty herb pesto. Just for fun, there’s a Nike-like flourish of Dijon mustard across the plate, perfect for dipping. Assuming you have time before the theater – and you should at the well-tuned Bistro Lancaster under Chef Jamie Zelko – grab a bit of dessert. The place is famous for its bread pudding, so of course the chef wants you to try her butterscotch cheesecake. It’s heavier and more decadent that the usual air-puffed New York-style, but not so much that you’ll feel the least uncomfortable in your theater seat.
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"It’s "It’s both both Naughty Naughty and and Nice!“ Nice!“ "You "You can can find find itit all all at at Spec's" Spec's" If you haven't been to Spec's Superstore lately, you're in for a true treat! If you beenand to Spec's lately, you're for a40,000 true treat! A world of haven't wines, foods liquorsSuperstore all under one roof. Withinover items in A world of wines, foods and liquors all under one roof. With over 40,000 in our Deli alone, it would be impossible to list 'em all, so here's just a little items sampler: our Deli alone, it would be impossible to list 'em all, so here's just a little sampler:
Syzmo Passion, Prickly or Original Organic Energy Drink Syzmo Passion, Prickly or Original Organic Energy Drink Baxter's Stilton & White Port Soup Baxter's Stilton & White Port Soup D. L. Jardine’s Raspberry Chardonnay Salsa D. L. Jardine’s Raspberry Chardonnay Salsa Bistro Blend Thai Ginger Sesame Oil Bistro Blend Thai Ginger Sesame Oil Flavor Magic Tuscan Garlic Seasoning Sheets Flavor Magic Tuscan Garlic Seasoning Sheets Oogie’s Chipotle Lime Popcorn Oogie’s Chipotle Lime Popcorn Boulder Caramel Pecan Ice Cream Boulder Caramel Pecan Ice Cream
And so much more! Visit us here, or visit us online at And so muchbut more! here, or visit www.specsonline.com, youVisit just us gotta come see us us!online With at friendly help, www.specsonline.com, but you just gotta come see us! With Just Flat Cheap Prices and 5% Discount for Cash or Debitfriendly Cards, help, Just Flat Cheap Prices and Discount foranywhere Cash or Debit you'd be wasting your5%money going else!Cards, you'd be wasting your money going anywhere else!
713-526-8787 • www.specsonline.com 713-526-8787 • www.specsonline.com 2410 Smith Street • Houston, TX 77006 2410 Smith Street • Houston, TX 77006
Naughty Syrah 750ml around $28 cash 47 Naughty Syrah 750ml around $28 cash
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