See pages 8-10
WINTER ARTS PREVIEW
Creative Cauldron’s Passport Music Festival Sounds Off
by Patricia Leslie
Near the finale of a concert at Creative Cauldron Saturday night, a fire alarm at Pearson Square abruptly ended entertainment by an international trio of musicians, but, not to fear: The company’s expert management immediately ordered the audience to nearby exits.
There was no panic in the stands since Grammy winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer’s music had mesmerized the audience which was calm and peaceful exiting into the cold night, warmed by sounds still echoing in their ears which included those by Chinese classical musician, Chao Tian, who played the yangqin (a Chinese hammered dulcimer) and mandolin.
Another classical musician, Snehesh Nag, an artist-in-residence at Strathmore in 2023, sometimes joined the group on stage to play his sitar and add to the evening’s pleasures.
When the alarm sounded, Grammy winners Fink and Marxer were playing their banjos for “Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep,” an AfricanAmerican spiritual, while Chao Tian clashed four bamboo sticks together,
an example of Chinese percussion.
The sticks’ friction sounded like a loud cricket or a rattlesnake, the bamboo she periodically waved in the air, like a snake charmer trying to coax a cobra from its basket.
No cobra emerged, only the sights and sounds of the undulating bamboo, Chao Tian’s circulating hands and arms moving the sticks and shaking them together to vibrate like a magic show in a musical acrobatic feat. (Come to think of it, could the friction have....no.)
The evening was titled “From China to Appalachia” with Fink and Marxer playing the gourd banjo, five-string banjo, ukulele, guitars, dumbek and cello-banjo.
In 1980 Fink became the first woman to win the West Virginia banjo contest which she’s won three times. Saturday night she and Marxer played music of Pete Seeger, their friend with whom they had collaborated, composed and performed.
Fink said that although she and Marxer “only” had about 60 strings on their instruments and Chao Tian had 147, the Americans spent a lot more time tuning their instruments Saturday than did their Chinese partner, but, all part of musical
expectations.
The show was near a sellout with some crowd participation, once singing in Chinese, which, strangely enough, was not difficult, perhaps because the refrain included only a few syllables.
The night’s global impact (and the arrival last week of the Chinese pandas at the National Zoo!) was deepened by the surprise appearance of international Chinese five-generation music star, Zhou Benming, wearing, like the others, a silk Chinese jacket but his jacket’s sequins and length captured more attention.
He played three instruments, one that sounded like a Halloween horn, another, a long rectangular instrument he blew to make music like an accordion, and the third which looked and sounded like a flute.
The crowd roared and many stood to applaud.
This weekend’s performances will end Cauldron’s “Passport Music Festival,” this, its 14th year and sponsored by Realtor Ken Trotter, and close Creative Cauldron’s occupancy on South Maple since it will shortly be moving to new digs at East Broad Avenue and Washington Street.
On stage Friday at 7:30 p.m.
will be violinist Dave Kline and Veronneau, an acoustic, song-based group notable for its jazz, bossa nova and gypsy jazz followed Saturday at 7:30 p.m. by Little Red & The Renegades who play accordion, steel pan, rock and roll, zydeco, blues and New Orleans sounds for the Mardi Gras Passport Finale Party. (Renegades’ recent shows include the Kennedy Center on New Year’s Eve.)
Tickets for both Cauldron performances start at $25 with live streaming at $15. Volunteer ushers and concession workers can apply for free
tickets. (Visit the website at www. creativecauldron.org.)
At its new location, Creative Cauldron’s first production will be “Steel Magnolias” set to open February 13, 2025.
The company’s founder and artistic director Laura Connors Hull told Saturday’s crowd she hopes to get the occupancy permit any day. When she asked, a show of hands indicated just about half in the audience knew about the move.
Until then, Creative Cauldron is at 410 South Maple Ave., #116, Falls Church, ph. 703-436-9948.
GRAMMY WINNERS PERFORM at Creative Cauldron. From Left are Marcy Marxer, Cathy Fink and Chao Tian( Photo: Patricia Leslie)
WINTER ARTS PREVIEW
A Falls Church Arts Exhibition That Comes ‘Full Circle’
piece “The Starry Night.”
“The natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric circles,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay “Circles,” and the latest exhibition at Falls Church Art Gallery seems to have tapped into the Transcendentalist writer’s idea of “drawing a circle around the circle” in its latest exhibition. In “Full Circle,” forty-two artists explore the circle or the concept of coming full circle in a forty-five-piece exhibit.
“Into the Mystics,” an acrylic and ink work by Elise Ritter-Clough, explores transcendent circles within circles high above lively circles of life below. At the center of the circle above is the sun. The digital photograph “The Marsh” by Bonnie B. Collier depicts two children seeming to be in Victorian-like costumes. The child on the left is seated in an ornate chair, in the marshy fields facing the direction of a white, circular ball. Nature is often a theme in these works, and “The Marsh” features a lake and mountains behind the children. Marina DiCarlo’s acrylic on paper “Waterlily II: Botanical Garden, Jerusalem” is a further instance of the circles found within nature. Cynthia Schoeppel’s acrylic “Autumn Mandela” featuring leaves in autumnal colors in a circular format is another foray into the natural world of circles and cycles.
For circles in concrete, we move to Steve Jenning’s arresting black-and-white photography of Washington’s “Memorial Bridge” and its emphasis on the rounded, circular features of the bridge. It is a close-to-home reminder that circles are in our midst everywhere, even in the highly urban context of a commuter bridge. The “Full Circle” artworks also contain occasional allusions to earlier art, for instance Mary Kane’s acrylic on canvas “Earth Is Too Small for Anything but Peace” and its swirly references in the dark blue sky to Vincent van Gogh’s Impressionist master-
Circling back to Emerson, who wrote that “the eye is the first circle,” we are reminded of an eye looking out from the canvas as we admire Michael Lindsay’s acrylic on canvas “Full Circle in Blue.” In the exhibition card next to the painting, Mr. Lindsay states: “Expressing yourself through art is so freeing, and these circles are free; never ending or giving up. They are also blue—which to me is the most beautiful color of all—shades of water, sky, and bluebells.”
Kimia Foroughi’s painting “No Night Lasts Forever” is particularly striking. This artwork depicts a woman dressed in red inside an arched doorway with five pomegranates atop her head. A bird is seen within a circle. The exhibition card elaborates: “This painting symbolizes Yalda Night, the ancient Persian celebration of the winter solstice, marking the longest night of the year and the triumph of light over darkness. The crown of pomegranates in the painting reflects the theme of renewal, while the golden circle with a bird embodies hope and the return of brighter days. The deep blue and golden hues convey the harmony of night and light, celebrating cycles of nature, unity, and the promise of new beginnings.” It is a reminder in the oil medium that spring is not far away!
Many of the artists break barriers, for John Ballou, in his oil on canvas “At Last,” presents Cubism within a circle. In another unusual take on the “Full Circle” topic, ripples in a lake are suggested in Gini Moore’s photography of a “Floor.”
We come full circle to Emerson’s notion that human life “is a self-evolving circle” by encouraging readers to visit “Full Circle” for these and other unique artworks during the exhibition’s stay at Falls Church Arts Gallery through February 23, 2025. For further information, please see: fallschurcharts.org.
FULL CIRCLE ON DISPLAY AT Falls Church arts. ( Photo: FCArts)
by Mark Dreisonstok