Tony’s Gay Agenda

BY TONY HOBDAY

ART EXHIBITS

JENNIFER WORSLEY works in soft pastels, which are wonderful for capturing fleeting effects of light and weather. She finds pastel very suitable for working on location, in order to achieve a quality of immediacy and liveliness in my work. Worsley is constantly scanning her surroundings for shadows passing over hills, sparkling light on water, or a particular moment of harmonious color in a sunset. And she often discovers subjects by chance, and will get out her pastels and complete the painting on the spot.

Worsley makes her own pastel chalks from raw pigment powder, creating colors she could not find in commercially available pastels. As balance to the immediacy and spontaneity of working in pastel, she also translates landscapes into woodblock prints, using a Japanese method called moku hanga.

Woodblock printmaking requires a careful plan and lots of time to create an image, making it completely opposite to the way I work in pastel. I find that each technique informs and influences the other. I can see a landscape as either a light-filled, atmospheric pastel, or as a more stylized and graphic woodblock print.For more info visit: jenniferworsley.mystrikingly.com

FRIDAY, 31 — JENNIFER WORSLEY EXHIBIT Red Butte Garden, 300 Wakara Way, UofU, times vary through March 8. Free, redbuttegarden.org

CONCERTS

Dame Fortune is the deliciously eclectic sixth album from veteran producer and crate digger extraordinaire RJD2, out March 25 on RJ’s Electrical Connections. It’s a wondrous beast, recorded over the past year while living in Philadelphia, before returning to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Streaked with Philly’s rep for deeply felt soul music while maintaining a playful sense of adventurousness, Dame Fortune features guest vocalists Son Little (aka Aaron Livingston) and frequent collaborator Phonte, while also presenting the bombastic hip-hop sound that marked RJD2’s breakthrough album, Deadringer, and even an orchestral composition for the societal unrest experienced in this day and age (called “PF Day One.”..the PF standing for “Post Ferguson”).

“Living in Philly provided a context for a lot of soul music that I had liked,” RJD2 says on the city’s influence on Dame Fortune’s sound. “I didn’t have any cultural context for this music that I liked — it was just music that I had stumbled across as a beat making nerd. Philly was a place where there were enough people who had the same musical vocabulary that I did, which made the music more than something I had just discovered on my own.”

THURSDAY, 23 — RJD2 Metro Music Hall, 615 W. 100 South, 9 p.m. Tickets $25-30, ticketfly.com

DANCE

Returning to the Capitol Theatre after a successful 2019 premiere, RIRIE-WOODBURY will present a re-envisioned version of “The Live Creature & Ethereal Things”. This curious and shapeshifting theatrical quest, created with local collaborators Alexandra Harbold and Robert Scott Smith of Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory features an original cinematic score by John Paul Hayward. Inspired by the Red Fred Project founded by Executive Director Dallas Graham, The Live Creature & Ethereal Things features the Jolly Troop, a group of larger-than-life birds that guide audiences of all ages through a surprising journey and asks, “If you could tell a story and share it with the entire world, what story would you tell?” This performance will include storytelling in both English and Spanish.

FRIDAY, 31 — ALLEGORY Capitol Theatre, 50 W. 200 South, 7:30 p.m., through Saturday. Tickets $35, artsaltlake.org

DRAG SHOWS

Hey ya’ll, do you not get enough drag shows in this state? Well, here’s another one for all you queen lovers: Get ready for a night of nonstop drag, singing, comedy, bingo, and surprises at THE MINISTRY OF MISFITS DRAG SHOW featuring MONA DIET. You’ll likely lose several pounds from laughter.

The MISS GREAT BEEHIVE STATE PAGEANT system honors the long, rich tradition of drag artists in Utah. It’s primary goals are lengthy: to honor the legacy of the generations of Utah queens that pioneered local drag, create a new and aspiring standard of excellence for this most important and liberating method of self expression, wholeheartedly and genuinely embrace drag in all its forms and varieties, create a family of professional titleholders that represent drag excellence in Utah, for the betterment of our community, and spread the message of support and love for everyone. “Be You. Be Your Dreams. Be Great. Be Beehive State.”

SATURDAY, 4 — THE MINISTRY OF MISFITS DRAG SHOW The Royal, 4760 S. 900 East, 8 p.m. Tickets $10,

SUNDAY, 19 — THE MISS GREAT BEEHIVE STATE PAGEANT Metro Music Hall, 615 W. 100 South, 6 p.m. Tickets $15, 24tix.com