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VIRTUAL ARTS CALENDAR

The way we view entertainment and participate in the arts has changed for the time being. Hopefully, soon life will start to return to normal. In the meantime, there are a variety of ways to stay connected to local and national venues that present the arts. We have highlighted just a few of those options to you below, which are suitable for all ages. While nothing can compare to being at a museum in person, and being just inches away from works of art, or being hands-on with a learning activity, this is the next best thing at the moment. Randy Montgomery >> The Entertainer!

Arizona Sonora Desert Museum

The Desert Museum in Tucson is a fusion experience of zoo, botanical garden, art gallery, classes, natural history museum, and aquarium. While closed, you can still discover the joy of the desert and the joy of learning alongside expert educators and scientists. Live programs are being offered for registered participants. While free, donations are greatly appreciated.

desertmuseum.org

Arizona Science Center

Discover the wonder of the Arizona Science Center, wherever you may be. The center is offering online resources for educators, parents and students with at-home learning designed to inspire and educate curious minds through science. The staff is offering lesson plans, interactive videos, activities and articles. Follow its Facebook Live sessions for scientific activities and demonstrations.

azscience.org/learn

Spring Butterfly exhibit at Desert Botanical Garden

Desert Botanical Garden

It’s spring, the weather is warming up and everything is blooming at the Desert Botanical Garden. Unfortunately, we cannot be there in person to see it. No worries! The

Hall of Flame Museum

garden’s team is bringing all of its vibrant spring blooms and butterflies to you—your computer, tablet or phone. Also, be introduced to all 16 species in its Spring Butterfly exhibit through a beautifully filmed video.

dbg.org

Dinosaurs and More!

A popular feature at Mesa’s Arizona Museum of Natural History are the exhibits related to dinosaurs. While you can’t visit them again just yet, there is plenty to learn on the museum’s website. Learn about the Triassic Period in our state, when Coelophysis and Tanystropheus roamed the land. Jump ahead 100 million years to the Jurassic Period and meet the Mymoorapelta. Then get schooled on the Cretaceous and Cenozoic eras.

arizonamuseumofnaturalhistory. com

Hall of Flame Museum Storytime

Take short video tours of the world’s largest firefighting museum, which is located in Phoenix. Mark Moorhead, curator of education, will introduce you to several of the firefighting trucks, hand pumpers, and steamers on display. Also, enjoy storytime, as he reads from the children’s classic “Bravest of All,” which is Little Golden Books No. 402. This is a treat for everyone in your family.

hallofflame.org

Heard Museum Online Shop

There’s no better way to support your local museum while it is closed than making a purchase from its online gift shop. The Heard Museum offers a variety of American Indian art collectibles, including baskets, fine art, jewelry, kachina dolls, folk art, textiles, pottery and carvings. Browse the collections and find exclusives only found at the Heard. Not ready to buy just yet? No problem. Viewing the online pieces for sale is the next best thing (sort of) to making a visit.

heardmuseumshop.com

i.d.e.a. Museum at Home

Mesa’s museum inspires children of all ages through art exhibitions and STEAM activities focused on supporting early learning, nurturing creative thinking and engaging

families. The staff wants the learning to continue by offering activities you can do in the safety of your home. Suggestions and directions on music, scavenger hunts, crafts and painting can be found online.

ideamuseum.org/iart

Mesa Arts Center on YouTube

The Mesa Arts Center will be closed until the fall. In the meantime, visit its YouTube channel, which offers dozens of videos highlighting the artists and performers who have visited the center. You can view past arts installations and performers and take an up-close look at artists at work creating their masterpieces. To find the videos easily, visit

mesartscenter.com and click on the “MAC on YouTube” button on the home page.

MoMA

New York’s Museum of Modern Art is world renowned and features thought-provoking modern and contemporary art. During the closure, the museum is offering a variety of virtual viewings of its current collections. At deadline, visitors are able to watch nine films from a home video exhibition, with commentary from the curators.

moma.org

Petersen Automotive Museum

While a trip to Southern California may not be feasible at the moment, the Petersen Automotive Museum, one of LA’s most iconic venues, is offering a virtual tour of its vault. More than 250 vehicles, cars, trucks and motorcycles are kept below street level and stretch an entire city block. This tour is usually an upcharge to general admission.

petersen.org

Phoenix Art Museum Exhibitions

The galleries may be closed at the Phoenix Art Museum, but you can still browse them online. Simply visit the museum’s website, click on “Exhibitions” and see a full list of everything that was on display prior to the temporary closure. Select pieces can be viewed on your browser, along with backgrounds on the artists and brief descriptions of featured pieces.

phxart.org

Phoenix Police Museum

The Phoenix Police Museum features the city’s law enforcement history over the past 130 years starting with 1881 with historical photography, equipment and stories that bring them to life. You can take a virtual tour of the museum and read about each period of history presented at the museum. Did you know the Miranda rights read to detainees came from a case right here in Phoenix? Read all about it!

phxpdmuseum.org

Scottsdale “Virtual” Arts Festival

Two and a half hours into loading artists into the Scottsdale Arts Festival, the event was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns. You can still see pieces created by the 185 artists in a variety of mediums through the virtual festival. Simply

Scottsdale Art Festival - Franco & Feona Forte

select the artists list, then choose your favorite medium. Easily scroll through all of the works. Viewing the art is available through the purchase of an optional ticket. The tickets are $12 and directly benefit arts programs in Scottsdale.

scottsdaleartsfestival.org

Sharlot Hall Museum

The crown jewel of Prescott, and a must visit on any trip to the charming—and bustling—town north of the Valley, is the Sharlot Hall Museum. The museum’s extensive archival collections are available on its website. Art and history buffs can browse historic photographs, maps and articles. Videos also give you a tour of several of the buildings found on the grounds.

sharlothallmuseum.org

The Met

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art presents more than 5,000 years of art from around the world and live in three iconic sites in New York City. As of this writing, 27 exhibits were viewable online. You can view works of art in a variety of mediums, as well as clothes from designers such as Coco Chanel and Christian Dior.

metmuseum.org

UPFRONT | CITY | ARTS | DINING | BEER AND WINE | SPORTS | FAMILY | MUSIC

BARCELONA’S SUNSHINE

Former ASU QB Gus Farwell lightens the mood with opera

When Gus Farwell was a Sun Devil theater major, he slid into ASU Gammage through the loading docks and daydreamed about headlining a soldout show at the venue.

His dream somewhat came true last month when he performed through ASU Gammage’s Facebook page after receiving worldwide acclaim for his seventh-floor balcony concerts in Barcelona.

“I hope, one day, to go there and do a concert at Gammage for all the ASU fans and everybody of Arizona,” he says. “Hopefully that happens.”

The Farwell family’s videos of the former ASU quarterback/opera singer serenading his neighbors have reached millions of people worldwide.

“It started on the first night of the quarantine,” says Farwell, who has two daughters, Devon and Avalon, with his wife, Claire. “Everybody came out on their balconies and gave this huge round of applause for all the medical workers. This was going on for 5 minutes. Then this ambulance came by. It was this really emotional moment.

“I just got caught up in the moment and, being a singer, I was overcome with emotion and the song came out. I sang the last couple of notes from the big aria that Pavarotti does, ‘Nessun Dorma.’ Everybody cheered and it was this great moment. I didn’t think much of it.”

The next day, Claire came up with the idea of performing each night to entertain the masses who are quarantined due to coronavirus.

“I was really unsure of how my neighbors would respond to it,” he says. “I was quite nervous the first few nights—‘Do people really want this?’ ‘Do they care?’ ‘Do they want to hear opera?’ Over time, I realized the answer to that question was yes, they do like it.

“I sang on that second night a little bit of ‘O Sole Mio.’ All of a sudden, they cheered (and wanted more). I was completely unprepared for that. I didn’t know what to do or what to sing. I just winged it and sang a little bit of another Christina Fuoco-Karasinski >> The Entertainer!

song.”

Halfway through the song, his neighbors shouted “fiesta” and everybody cheered. A DJ who lives around the corner from Farwell took over and started spinning.

On the fourth night, Avalon took the video from the balcony and Claire posted it. Farwell was against the post, but it went viral.

“The fourth night I brought a speaker out on the balcony and put it between my legs to add music,” he says. “I didn’t want to just sing a cappella. I had a backing track. These singing conditions would normally be a nightmare to any classical singer.

“It’s outside. There’s zero acoustics and I’m singing along to a prerecorded backing track. In classical music, the orchestra follows you, not the other way around. That’s why the conductor’s there, to follow you. It’s far from ideal. To be listening to it from a little speaker between my legs doesn’t help. But who cares? That’s the beauty of the whole thing. It’s not a professional concert. I’m just some guy with a speaker between his legs singing to his neighbors. That’s why the attention it’s received globally is overwhelming.” SUN DEVIL FOREVER

As a theater major, Farwell attended ASU from the fall of 1995 to the fall of 1997. He didn’t realize singing was “my thing.” He performed musicals at Los Gatos High School in Northern California, but it took a party for Farwell to realize opera was in his future.

“I had attended a party in high school, and, in a nutshell, the parents’ CDs came on the six-disc changer,” he says. “It was Luciano Pavarotti’s greatest hits. The room melted away from me. It went completely black. I was lost in the music.

“When I came out of it, I said, ‘What is this music?’ I had never heard opera before. I asked to borrow the CD, and it’s still in my possession to this day.”

In high school and college, Farwell drove around with the CD in his vehicle singing along with the tracks—he knew them as “tracks,” not “arias.”

“I didn’t know what they were called,” he says. “I didn’t know the stories. I couldn’t understand the words. I just loved the sound of it.

“I just mimicked what Pavarotti was doing—or tried to at least. Years later, when I worked with my fi rst professional coach, he said I was probably lucky I did it that way, because there can be a lot of poor teachers out there.”

In Tempe, he started living at the dorms and then moved into a house with fellow quarterback Jake Plummer and linebacker Chris Finn.

“Th ere were two seniors and a sophomore. I was the sophomore,” he says with a laugh. “Th at was a fun house. Th at whole year was fun. We had an incredible season in ’96. We went undefeated and went to the Rose Bowl but came up shy of a national championship. It was an incredible group to be a part of.

“Pat Tillman was a good friend of mine. I’d love to go back and visit. I haven’t been back since we moved to

Europe. Come hell or high water, I’m getting back this fall.”

Since ASU, Farwell has performed at Celebrity Fight Night in Phoenix and venues in Los Angeles to much acclaim.

“Tom Hanks came up to me in the middle of the encore,” he says about Fight Night. “He grabbed the fl owers from the centerpiece of his table and threw tulips one by one.

“I’ve had Placido Domingo come to my concert in LA a few years ago. He said I belonged in the opera house. It’s been this long, interesting road for sure, with some incredible highs and real lows.”

Farwell and his family moved to Barcelona in October 2016 because he was fed up with the music business and he wanted to study at the Conservatori Superior de Musica del Liceu, which is part of the Liceu Opera House. Th e city has meaning to the Farwells. Eighteen years ago, he met England-born Claire at a Barcelona nightclub. She encouraged him to sing.

“She said this isn’t a party trick or gimmick,” he recalls. “Th e reality is, I’ve been promised (success) quite a few times by some very infl uential people, but unfortunately things just haven’t panned out for whatever reason.”

He calls his age a problem.

“I’m old for someone who’s supposed to be starting out in this career,” Farwell says. “Most of those starting out are in their late 20s, early 30s. I’m 43.

“A lot of things I would normally do or apply to do are unavailable to me. I’m beyond the age limit. I fi nd myself in this strange spot of looking for opportunities for ‘young singers.’ I’m not ‘young.’ I’m new, but I’m not young. It’s a strange place to be.”

He found an all-ages Italian competition, but it turned out to be a money-making sham. So, he stopped singing. Th e pandemic encouraged him to try again.

“You couldn’t write a better story,” Farwell says. “It’s such a case of the truth is so much stranger than fi ction. You wouldn’t believe it if somebody wrote it. Th ere’s an amazing sense of community that exists here. It really feels like a community, which can be rare in a city. We’re all in this together—not just Barcelona, but Europe and the rest of the world. America heard this, and we’re realizing what it means to be a global community.”

Gus Farwell

On Twitter: @GusFarwell

The Insider’s Guide to Arizona Entertainment

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Phoenix Art Museum names Timothy Rodgers director and CEO

Timothy R. Rodgers finds himself frequently returning to the Phoenix Art Museum.

A native Midwesterner, Rodgers moved to Arizona at 19 years old to attend ASU. While in college, Rodgers visited and attended events at the museum.

On July 1, after spending the last five years as the director of The WolfsonianFlorida International University in Miami, he’ll head to Phoenix to lead the Phoenix Art Museum as its Sybil Harrington Director and CEO.

“I’ve always come back to the Phoenix Art Museum because my family lives there, and I’ve enjoyed many exhibitions there and have seen so much of the good work they have done. I’ve been a fan from afar and even close up, and now it’s a privilege to become the director,” Rodgers says.

Armed with a background in speech, debate and theater, Rodgers is an ideal candidate.

“The artwork is silent, but it needs a good spokesperson. I’ve often been that spokesperson,” Rodgers says. INSPIRED

As an ASU student, Rodgers visited and attended events at the Phoenix Art Museum. Especially inspiring was a lifesized portrait of a woman by William Merritt Chase.

“It was just so evocative to me,” says Rodgers, who earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from ASU and master’s and doctoral degrees from Brown University.

“She seemed incredibly sad and isolated. This rose that she carries is drooping from her hand. Everything about her seemed to be melancholy, despite the fact that she was very beautiful and in this beautiful white dress. The juxtaposition of how beautifully presented she was but at the same time how sad she seemed was interesting to me.”

In high school, Rodgers planned to study political science and law. He was a competitive debater in high school and college, but he also had an interest in art.

In high school, he started to paint more seriously and attended summer camps for art.

“I always had an interest in art. It just never seemed to me a career path, and then I found art history. It seemed to be a combination of my interests and my skills,” Rodgers says. Laura Latzko >> The Entertainer!

Rodgers has more than 20 years of experience in museum leadership positions. Besides The WolfsonianFlorida International University, he has worked for Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art from 2009 to 2015, vice president of the Scottsdale Cultural Council, an associate professor of art history at Lawrence University, chief curator for the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe and co-owner of Saints and Martyrs gallery in Albuquerque.

He says these different roles have taught him the importance of interacting with the public in different ways, on their levels, to make art more significant to them.

“You really have to be available to them to answer those questions as best as you can and to really encourage them to think about more and different questions,” Rodgers says.

One of Rodgers’ recent accomplishments has been overseeing the implementation of The Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab, a new M.A. and Ph.D. program and a research hub that is geared toward teaching humanities students different skill sets.

While in Scottsdale, Rodgers was part of the implementation of the SMoCA Lounge, an experimental space inside the museum designed for music and performance arts.

“I thought that it gave more meaning and depth to the contemporary art that we showed but also extended our reach to a variety of different communities in Phoenix,” Rodgers says. NEW ROLE

A committee of past and current board of trustees and community leaders chose Rodgers. He says he’s honored to be chosen for the position, even though it comes at the difficult time when the museum is closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s such an odd moment to be thinking about a move and a new job,” Rodgers says. “I’m, on the one hand, very excited about coming back to Phoenix and seeing all of my friends, colleagues and family,” Rodgers says.

“On the other hand, we’re really unable to move. We live in a condo on Miami Beach. They wouldn’t allow movers in even if we wanted to move. Of course, it’s not a wise thing to do. So, it’s an odd tension to be experiencing joy on the one hand and a lot of fear, concern and trepidation on the other hand.”

While his new position has some similarities to other roles he has had, Rodgers expects running the Phoenix Art Museum to be a very different experience.

“The Phoenix Art Museum is a very large institution, in terms of the size of the building complex but also in terms of staff size and budget,” Rodgers says.

“It has a very robust and large volunteer community as well as a very large and robust board. It will be much bigger in that sense, and there will be even more for me to do with the team. The other way it will be different is the way that the art museum is positioned in the community.

“This is the large major art institution in Phoenix. The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art was much more focused and specialized in contemporary art. The Phoenix Art Museum has a much broader mission.”

Directing the Phoenix Art Museum involves overseeing the staff, creation of exhibitions, educational activities, community outreach efforts, membership, facility care and maintenance, and volunteers, as well as working closely with the board on financial matters.

Rodgers has unofficially started his work at the museum by conducting oneon-one video chats with managers at the institution.

Rodgers will enter his new position at a time when nonprofits such as

the Phoenix Art Museum are facing challenges not only financially but with engaging with and bringing in the public.

“This is a very difficult moment for all nonprofits. They are suffering, like everyone else is, to chart a course for their future. Everything is new, and everything is unknown. The more I can be helpful, the more I want to be there,” Rodgers says.

The museum has been renovated a number of different times since its inception. Rodgers says it will be important for him, the board, curators and educators to look at where the collections are located in the museum and how the different spaces can be used to display the artwork.

“Where the art is located has a big impact on how you experience that art in the museum,” Rodgers adds.

“Not having our doors open might just give us this moment to really think more clearly about how is it we want the museum to look in the future when we do reopen.”

Virtual experiences are at the center of his ideas for change and growth.

“All institutions are thinking about how much we want and need to invest in digital efforts so that our community is defined much more broadly and we have more reach than simply our city or our state,” Rodgers says.

21 THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE MAY 2020 They Need to Dance

Scorpius theater keeps engaging fans through video

The COVID-19 Pandemic has a major impact on dance companies around the Valley, including Scorpius Dance Theatre. Despite the challenges it is facing, the company is bringing dance to the community—but in a different way.

Since March, it has been releasing videos showing the dancers in motion in their homes. For the first video, they did 1-minute recordings of themselves dancing on and over a chair.

For another video, called “We Need to Dance...,” members of Scorpius performed contemporary dance routines while sweeping, vacuuming, dusting and cleaning windows or counters.

Many of the dancers have been performing by themselves, although one of the dancers included her children in one of the videos.

Angel Castro, one of Scorpius’ dancers, recorded himself while on a mountain for the first video. He has also been assisting with video editing.

Scorpius artistic director Lisa Starry has encouraged dancers to take part in the videos so they can still keep doing what they love.

“Our thoughts were, ‘Let’s just try to keep making art,’” Starry says. “It is seeing how they can get creative with these different assignments and seeing how they can connect.”

Her company is a close-knit family. She says members of the company have missed dancing and spending time with each other.

“That’s the hardest thing, is we’re not in the studio together working. There are also so many parts besides just rehearsing. We are all friends. We support each other. We talk. We got out Laura Latzko >> The Entertainer!

to eat after rehearsals,” Starry says.

Starry hopes the videos will bring some positivity during a difficult time.

“I felt like right away in the beginning, there was very negative and scared energy going around. I just wanted to try to bring people’s spirits up,” Starry says.

She says audiences have responded favorably to the videos and Starry’s content on her Vimeo channel.

“I was able to share some videos that we did that people haven’t seen in a while,” Starry says.

Scorpius’ season ended abruptly when major gatherings, including dance concerts, were canceled due to the coronavirus. That includes its 20th anniversary showcase set for April.

If the stay-at-home order is lifted, Scorpius dancers will begin rehearsals for “A Vampire Tale,” the troupe’s annual Halloween show, in July. During its downtime, Scorpius has been fundraising through its Facebook page and website, collecting more than $3,000.

Starry says that community support has been important because of the uncertainty the dancers and the studio are facing.

“I think the part that is the most stressful for me is a lot of my dancers are young artists and they work in the dance studio or at a coffee shop,” Starry says.

“None of them have jobs now. They are stressing out and we don’t know if we will have a season next year, because everything is on hold right now. My studio had to close. We don’t have the income for that. We are doing a fundraiser to just pay the bills for the next couple of months and help the dancers out, too.”

Scorpius Dance Theatre

scorpiusdance.com, facebook.com/scorpiusdance