Noah Galvin in A.R. Gurney's What I Did Last Summer. Photo: Joan Marcus
If you have written upwards of fifty plays over fifty years, it's likely that the bigger hits are balanced by some titles which have in one way or another gone astray. The Signature Theatre -- which has appointed A.R. Gurney as playwright-in-residence this season -- has seen fit to dust off a 30-year-old piece of what might well have been assumed to be lesser Gurney. What I Did Last Summer, surprisingly, turns out to be a delectably flavorful all-round treat.

An aimless 14-year-old (Noah Galvin) from Buffalo -- not unlike Gurney himself -- spends the summer of '45 in an upper class resort on the Canadian side of Lake Erie. There he encounters local eccentric Anna Trumbull, A.K.A. "The Pig Woman" (Kristine Nielsen). Before we go on, let it be noted that even if the play wasn't any good, the performances of Galvin (from the Playwrights Horizons musical, The Burnt Part Boys) and Nielsen (whose Maggie Smith phone monologue in Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike was one of the acting highlights of 2013) make a trip to Signature its own reward. But the play is good. What's more, the Signature Ticket Initiative keeps the admission price for all seats down to $25 (except for any extension period), which makes What I Did Last Summer not only a delight but a bargain.

Kristine Nielsen in A.R. Gurney's What I Did Last Summer. Photo: Joan Marcus
The so-called Pig Woman teaches the boy to develop his potential, be it in paint, clay, woodwork or even knitting. As it turns out, the boy will eventually become a playwright and write upwards of fifty plays over fifty years. Which is to say, this is indeed a young Gurney, who has noted that some of the scenes between the two are verbatim exchanges from 1945.

Galvin -- who will play a central role in Dan Savage's upcoming ABC series, The Real O'Neals -- exudes charm as the awkward teenager, bringing to mind Matthew Broderick in Brighton Beach Memoirs. Nielsen is rivetingly magical as the mentor, a sort of backwoods Auntie Mame. The rest of the cast -- Carolyn McCormick as the mother, Kate McGonigle as the sister, Juliet Brett as the neighbor girl, Pico Alexander as the son of the local gardener -- all contribute to the affair while knowing well enough to keep out of the way of Galvin and Nielsen. One of Gurney's conceits is to give the four lesser characters monologues in which they admit the play is not about them, although they'd prefer that it was.

What I Did Last Summer was written in 1981 or thereabouts and produced in New York in 1983 at Circle Rep. The production, apparently, was a shambles; director Joan Micklin Silver ("Hester Street") either quit or was fired, leaving the show to open with no director credited. This is always a dire sign, and the play was seen as a half-baked attempt by the playwright, just then riding high with the off-Broadway hit The Dining Room. A prior summer stock tryout, at the Westport Country Playhouse in 1982, sounds at least interesting in that it starred Barbara Feldon (of "Get Smart") as the mother and the celebrated Eileen Heckart as Anna.

The Signature production reveals that this is indeed a viable coming-of-age comedy. Clean, spare and nostalgic, it gently pokes fun at its hero/author and at itself. Gurney devised it to be simply performed with minimal furniture and props. Director Jim Simpson (of the Flea Theater) does this, effectively so. (The practically empty stage -- a bench, a platform, an upstage wall -- comes from Michael Yeargan, whose sumptuous King and I is presently at Lincoln Center.)

Two directorial devices stand out: the use of a musician (Dan Weiner) at a drum kit on the far right of the stage space, providing sound effects including minor sounds for the invisible props; and frequent projections on the back wall (stage directions, occasional lines and key words from the dialogue -- or merely letters -- scattered randomly). It is hard to say whether these devices help or hinder; they border on distraction at times, but they might be part of what gives the production a resonance that the play apparently has not had in the past.

Perhaps it's the directorial contributions of Mr. Simpson; perhaps Gurney has honed his script with expert rewrites; or perhaps it's a combination. Certainly, Galvin and Nielsen offer a grand acting holiday that it would be a shame to miss. The results are admirable: thirty years on, Gurney's What I Did Last Summer turns out to be an enjoyably delectable charmer.

Noah Galvin and Kristine Nielsen in A.R. Gurney's What I Did Last Summer.
Photo: Joan Marcus
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What I Did Last Summer, by A.R. Gurney, opened May 17, 2015 and continues through June 7 at the Pershing Square Signature Center

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Legendary blues guitarist and singer B.B. King died last week. He was a global ambassador for American culture. King performed in Russia, China and Europe, and while in his 80s, he was still playing concerts in Denmark, Germany and France. He was an embodiment of American Soft Power, expressing the vitality and spirit of a diverse nation.

I first heard B.B. King play the blues in the 1960s in a bar in Washington, DC, packed with a racially mixed audience, a rarity in those days. I became a fan and admirer of his talent and his work ethic. Decades later while serving as US ambassador to Finland in the Clinton administration, I got to meet King when he performed at the summer Pori Jazz festival which attracts worldwide musical talent.

Before his performance, I sat with King in his trailer. I expressed my admiration for his career, and asked him if he had ever been to the White House. "No, sir, " he replied, "But I'd surely like to." He gave me "Lucille" guitar picks as a souvenir and asked me to give his regards to President Clinton. I sent the White House a report about the meeting, and included a personal note for the President. Later that year, Clinton included B.B. King as a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. President Obama would later invite King to perform at a blues concert in the White House where the two of them sang a duet of Sweet Home Chicago.

During my diplomatic time in Finland, I saw first hand the power of American music to stir foreign audiences. Other singers who performed in Finland included Wilson Pickett, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and James Brown. I stood on the running board of the white Rolls Royce that Brown -- the King of Soul -- required for concert appearances while he leaned out and gave me religious and political advice for his fellow Baptist, Bill Clinton. I welcomed Cash and his wife June Carter, and Cash kindly dedicated a song to me in public before a sold out crowd in a hockey arena. I presented an achievement award to Tina Turner, then watched her run up and down the steps of Helsinki's Olympic Stadium singing and dancing, thrilling the Finns. When a friend from Los Angeles, folk rock singer Jackson Browne came to Helsinki, I hosted him at the ambassador's residence and took my family to his concert, where he gave a shout out to his fellow Californian.

Music diplomacy was not a one way street. I paid a courtesy visit to Helsinki's only rock n' roll themed McDonald's, run by a Finnish group called The Leningrad Cowboys, a band of entrepreneurial musicians with a sense of humor (the joke of the band's name was that they had come to Finland from Russia). To celebrate the end of the Cold War, the band invited the Red Army Chorus to play a joint concert in downtown Helsinki's Senate Square, and advertized the event with posters saying, "The Russians Are Coming." They also starred in a strange road movie, Leningrad Cowboys Go America, directed by the Finnish director Aris Kaurismaki. The band agreed to play at my 50th birthday party, and in front of guests including Finland's Prime Minister, I was made an honorary member of the Leningrad Cowboys and presented with a trophy calling me 'the Ambassadude" (a moniker I've happily used ever since).

During the Cold War, the US State Department recognized the power of music and sent jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman on concert tours behind the Iron Curtin (for details, see: Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War, by Penny Von Eschen, or Jazz Diplomacy, by Lisa Davenport). Bruce Springsteen played a famous concert in East Berlin in 1988 before the Wall came down, a story told in Rocking The Wall. Bruce Springsteen: The Berlin Concert That Changed the World by Erik Kirschbaum. While on a student trip to the Soviet Union in the 60s, I recognized that rock n' roll was a subversive force in a repressive society. My classic rock albums were gold currency which I traded with Russian students. Jazz, the Blues, folk music and rock n' roll all speak to the diversity of the American experience and are inherently democratic musical forms.

Of course, it's not only these popular genres which make for music diplomacy. Finland is known for its famous classical composers and contemporary world class conductors. While I was abroad, Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen became head of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to much acclaim. He brought the LA orchestra to play in Helsinki, and I hosted a post-concert dinner for the entire LA Phil (including accompanying spouses and partners), and invited Finnish classical musicians to join in a summer outdoor meal. I also attended performances of the classic American opera Porgy and Bess, and modern operatic offerings by composer John Adams whose producer Peter Sellars came to Helsinki with the show "I Was Looking at Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky."

The power of music is universal. Music diplomacy is not just an American tool of statecraft. Musicians from South Africa jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela and singer Miriam Makeba played an important role in winning international support against the Apartheid regime. Folk singers from Chile rallied international opposition to the Pinochet dictatorship, and the songs of Bob Marley have been an inspiration for freedom movements around the world. Occidental graduate Gay Carawan who died this month revived and popularized the hymn We Shall Overcome which became a civil rights anthem and an international song of freedom. Amandla: A Revolution in Four Part Harmony, the award winning documentary directed by my Oxy colleague Sherry Dean Simpson. tells the role that music played in bolstering Mandela and the ANC's liberation movement.

Music continues to bring down international barriers.

Pop star Michael Jackson was an international icon with a global fan base. In 2003, former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney famously played In Moscow's Red Square. Russian President Vladimir Putin gave Sir Paul a personally guided tour of the Kremlin and attended the concert. The Gangham Style music video by South Korean pop star Psy became the first You Tube video to reach one billion views. By the end of 2012, the song had topped the pop charts in more than thirty countries including Australia, Canada, Russia and the UK. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed it as a "force for world peace," and President Obama praised the song in his White House meeting with the South Korean President. One of the most popular American rock groups in China is The Eagles. Their 2011 concerts in Shanghai and Beijing were sell outs, and the band's signature song Hotel California created a mini-boom in like named hotels.

American musician Ry Cooder collaborated with Cuban musicians to produce the awarding winning album, The Buena Vista Social Club. This past weekend, the Minnesota Orchestra played to a sold out crowd at the Theatro Nacional in Havana, the first American orchestra to make a concert tour in Cuba after President Obama announced the opening of normalized relations. The conductor of the orchestra, Osmo Vanska, is Finnish.

Of course, music can't solve all of the world's troubles and there's no doubt that the Islamic State won't be won over by Western tunes -- but music diplomacy should be a tool of every country's statecraft.

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Here's the truth: You'll never know what's in your heart unless you reach inside your own chest and squeeze it. It sounds painful. It sounds dangerous. This is mainly because it is.

In fact, the only thing more dangerous than reaching inside your chest and squeezing your own heart, is to go through life and never know what it's made of, or capable of doing.

To never risk the inherent dangers of: Art, with a capital A.

Whether you act, write, paint, cook, dance, sing or play an instrument, these are all seemingly fun and innocent but ultimately risky ways of squeezing the human heart. Who knows what might come out? Maybe you've always imagined you'll sing like Justin Bieber but when you do, nothing but Slipknot comes out. Or vice-versa.

The horror.

Maybe you'll squeeze your heart in public and people will laugh at you or worse, ignore you and the painful act you're going through. Maybe your family will tell you not to. Maybe they'll tell you they knew other people who squeezed their hearts, and they died, cold, poor and alone.

Maybe you'll be completely disappointed by the experience and resolve to never listen to, let alone squeeze your heart, ever again.

From squeezing my own heart, I know this: It's a messy experience and there's a lot of bad stuff that needs to come out. I can only speak as a writer, because that's the heart I was given when they were handing them out, but I would say the first 100 000 words that came out of my heart were horrible, to say the least. They made little sense, even to me, and I was writing them.

But I sat in my chair late at night, steadied myself against the desk, grabbed hold of my heart, wincing, and wrung every single one of those words out, one by painful one. For a long time, it seemed like an exercise in futility.

Eventually, something changed, and I wasn't completely and utterly embarrassed by what was coming out of my heart.

I'm not saying that I have a magical heart now, filled with magical words, there are still some clunkers left in there, waiting to embarrass me at the most inopportune moment. And if I'm honest, there are days when it all still feels like an exercise in futility and days when there doesn't seem to be anything left. Sometimes, there's even an old familiar voice, somewhere closer to my head than my heart, that says, "Making art? What a horrible, stupid waste of time."

This is what I'm saying: I have seen people wait their entire life for the perfect moment to squeeze their heart, and that moment never came. I have seen people risk it all too late, be amazed by what they found, and cry over the time they wasted. I have seen people disappointed and sad and poor and more aware of who they are and what they are than anyone who didn't dare risk what they risked. I have seen people never know their own heart, and they may as well have never had one.

I am saying: risk squeezing your heart, because I believe there's goodness there, for both you and the world.

Sure, maybe it'll be made of stone.

But if you squeeze it hard enough, you'll get blood out of it anyway.

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Ever wanted to write a book? Do you have an unfinished opus about your expertise sitting on your laptop? How about the next Harry Potter or crime thriller?

When I was six, I wrote an elaborate children's story about a family of mice who vacation at Disneyworld. I detailed their quaint village, their quirky personalities and every road trip adventure they encountered along the way. I never quite finished the tale, but I relished the creative writing process. Explains all the poems, unpublished essays, and Chapter One's sitting on my laptop, gathering dust.

Fast forward to now: I have now authored two books and published several print and online articles. I learned a lot along the way, whether from doing things the wrong way, shattering long-held myths or getting blindsided by things I never expected.

Here are seven valuable lessons from my journey to help you with your future screenplay, non-fiction best-seller or literary novel.

1. 1. Discipline your muse:

Sorry, folks. Inspiration doesn't always just "strike" especially when you're on deadline. I used to write only when I literally couldn't stop the ideas from tumbling out of my head. That doesn't work well when you have a launch date or an expectant publisher. I thought the muse would simply strike at her own whim and I could just lazily wait for her arrival -- when, really, she often comes when you discipline yourself and consistently sit down to write. Make your writing schedule realistic like I did and break it up into doable chunks (i.e., This week, I'll complete the outline. Next week, I'll focus on chapter one.) If you sit down and start writing, just like showing up to a job, you'll produce brilliance on some days and crap on others. And if you need to take a break one day, take it. Ditch the guilt and then get back to the work tomorrow. The more you produce, the more you'll finesse, tweak, explore, hammer out, invent, -- and the more likely those "A-Ha!" moments will come. It's a probability game. The more you do, the more chances you'll find gems in the work.

1. 2. Commit out loud:

If you're working on a book, you're working on a book. That means people need to understand your schedule may be different. You might not be at your spouse's beck and call and you may have to pass up on certain activities. How do you make this happen? Not by hiding your writing in the dark of night, but by sharing your goal with the people in your life. State your intentions out loud so you not only force yourself to commit but you set others' expectations of your time and attention. If you treat your writing as a hobby, to be done only "when you have time" or "feel like it" (see #1) it will never get done. Added bonus? You will find support, cheerleading and maybe even a few proofreaders along the way.

1. 3. Get comfortable with feedback:

If you wither and die when someone gives you constructive criticism, get over it or go home. No one is perfect and every writer will tell you that good writing is re-writing. You need objective outsiders to review your work, especially from professional editors and proofreaders. What may make sense in your own head could leave readers scratching theirs. My editors (rightly) questioned my story structure, plainly told me if a specific story made sense of not, and highlighted where I was repeating myself. But make sure you are seeking out feedback from trusted experts (professional developmental editors, etc.) or readers in your target audience and not merely changing course according to the whim on any old critic who comes your way...which brings me to #4...

1. 4. Picture your reader:

Just like I advise clients with their business brand strategy, it helps to identify your audience as a real person: picture an actual reader. Not only will this help you effectively market the book, it prevents the writing from becoming a tangled mess. You absolutely need to be clear about for whom you are writing and what they will get. My business book, Branding Basics for Small Business, was written with small business owners, non-profit leaders and entrepreneurs in mind. I had a very clear picture of these people and what made them tick. This "persona" guided the wording, explanations and analogies that I used. On a completely different note, I wrote my personal memoir, Rebooting My Brain, for both women struggling to overcome a life crisis, as well as brain injury caregivers and survivors. I pictured them in my mind as I typed. What questions might they have? What information would they want to know? What would move, delight or inspire them? This ensured my memoir became something universal, useful and valuable for others.

1. 5. Prepare for diverse reactions:

This one was a shocker. Turns out, the people I thought would be most excited by my book writing efforts expressed passing interest (if that) and others who I thought wouldn't give a damn became my best cheerleaders. At first, it really irritated me and, honestly, made chipped away at my confidence. Here I was, doing something that absolutely petrified me, and it was like certain people close to me were not even acknowledging it. Recognize that writing a book is an art form and not everyone "gets" artists. Some don't know how to respond, some may think you're nuts, others will drool with envy and still others will admire you beyond belief and support you full throttle. And by support, I mean even just simply remembering that you're holed up writing and asking you how it's going from time to time. But I finally learned that my big dream was big to me and people are usually just doing the best they know how. They have their own lives to live and dreams to pursue and may not even realize how deeply their reactions (or non-reactions) are hurting you. If certain people in your life don't engage for whatever reason, that's kind of not any of your business -- you have work to do. Throw expectations of other people's reactions out the door, write the book because your soul has to, needs to, and be humble and grateful to those who openly support your dream.

1. 6. Prepare for self-doubt....often:

At every single point in my book writing process, for both books, I doubted myself. My expertise, my knowledge, my ability to tell a good story, whether people would care, whether they would judge me, whether some crazy person from my past would see my book on the shelf, become a stalker and haunt me for the rest of my life. You name it, I thought it. This is natural when you follow a dream. Someone once said that if you're scared, then you know you're doing the right thing. Every writer has at one point during the writing process thought, "What the hell am I doing?" But if you believe in yourself, your knowledge, and your story -- and never lose sight of the value it will provide -- that will help you stay the course. Post up inspirational note around your laptop, seek advice from other writers, find an online writing community and surround yourself with people who will prop you up (or take you out for vodka tonics) when the doubt attacks.

1. 7. It's your story...TELL IT!

One day while writing Rebooting My Brain, my heart sank as I scrolled through title after title of forgotten "aneurysm survivor" books on Amazon. I thought, "What can I possibly add to this conversation? Some of these people are overcoming way worse long-term disabilities than I am. Plus, I'm not famous or anything so who will care about my story?" One of my dearest friends emailed me, "Maria, Eat, Pray, Love was just about a regular woman who got divorced and took a trip. How many books have been written about that? It's all in how you tell it, in your voice, which makes it a story people will want -- and need to -- read." Bless her wise perspective. And the countless emails and reviews I've received thanking me for all my books have done for readers is all the proof I need that my lovely friend was right. No one can tell a story or share wisdom the way you can and you just may touch someone in a way no other book or story can. Don't think your story isn't valuable because the plotline has been done. If that were true, people would never write another book again. Put your unique spin on it and just believe.

Which piece of advice resonates (or scares you) the most? If you've written a book, what additional advice would you share from your own lessons learned? Please share in the Comments!

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For a short while each spring, we have a good excuse to forego cleanings for screenings (showers notwithstanding.)

The San Francisco International Film Festival kicks off its theater takeover every late April. This year's opening night film was Oscar winner Alex Gibney's "Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine." Two weeks later, the festival closed with the playful "Experimenter," about psychologist Stanley Milgram and his groundbreaking, albeit infamous obedience experiments. These two stories of personal willpower and technological authority bookended more than 200 films and shorts by some of cinema's most innovative filmmakers.


Director Alex Gibney. Photo by Tommy Lau

One of the current movements in global filmmaking, as evidenced at the SFIFF, is the intimate depiction of people and families living in the margins. From South Korea's "Alive" to Brazil's "The Second Mother" to France's "The Wonders", sharply-focused vignettes are are giving clarity to communities and ways of life commonly painted in broad strokes elsewhere. This has been happening in the documentary sphere for a long time (wherein the camera acts as objective, all-absorbing eye). But narrative films are now attempting to reflect these lives just as accurately. It's an exciting recombination of cinematic elements, proving in its own way that inventiveness and accuracy don't always have to be mutually exclusive.


Script Re-Write

This year's festival was the first to see significant oversight from Noah Cowan, who took the helm as Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society in March 2014. Previously, Mr. Cowan was the founding Artistic Director of Bell Lightbox, a cultural center and home of the Toronto International Film Festival. Along with Rachel Rosen, the Film Society's Director of Programming, Cowan and staff curate and configure each of the society's offerings.

A core aspect of Mr. Cowan's approach so far has been to engage forward thinkers in the arts and tech communities alike. "The most important thing over the last year involves our relationship with the bay area in a concrete way" he says. "We try to bring the most interesting thinkers to attend the festival, be part of our programming, and use the incredible power of this region to help film." These relationships have allowed the festival to boast a number of new activations in recent years, including enhanced Q and A's, live performances, and online interactives. All of these features leverage partnerships with producers, organizations and key figures across different industries.


A scene from Alice Rohrwacher's THE WONDERS. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.

The SFIFF is the San Francisco Film Society's golden child. But it is far from the their sole offering. In many ways, the end of the festival is the kick-off for a host of other, year-programs which both feed into the festival and achieve independent goals.

Filmmaker360

One of the most successful of these programs is Filmmaker360, which provides indie filmmakers with grants and developmental resources. Within 360, a full-fledged residency program called FilmHouse offers workspaces, peer-to-peer feedback sessions and an assortment of collaboration opportunities to emerging filmmakers.

Among 360's recent success stories have been such revelations as "Beasts of The Southern Wild" and "Fruitvale Station." This year, an SFFS-supported film called "Romeo Is Bleeding", about Bay Area poet Donte Clark's efforts to unite a tragedy-stricken community, won the festival's Audience Award for Best Documentary. This film now marches on to festival screenings in Seattle, Berkshire, and New York.


A scene from Jason Zeldes' ROMEO IS BLEEDING

Competing with high rents and lack of housing, Filmmaker360 has been instrumental in attracting talented producers and filmmakers to live and create in San Francisco. It has also given natives another reason to stay. "The complicated part about this area is there is a lot of churn" Mr. Cowan explains. "People come in and out, so we are trying to be as nimble as we can."

The Kids Are Alright

For all of the renown of the SFIFF, The Film Society's youth education programs may well stand on equal ground in terms of influence and innovation. Guided by Keith Zwölfer, the programs reach more than 10,000 Bay Area students and teachers every year.

"We have a few programs about making films, but everything else is more about cultivating an appreciation" says Mr. Zwölfer. "If some of them become filmmakers, thats great. But hopefully it just inspires them to do whatever they love."

Through the Schools at the Festival program, students are connected with visiting filmmakers from around the world and given insight into the craft of filmmaking. By way of FilmEd, an online educational resource created by the Film Society, screenings, discussion topics, and learnings materials are made available to schools and educators outside of the Bay Area.

Over the course of 11 years with the youth program, Mr. Zwölfer has observed that more classrooms are embracing media literacy as a curriculum standard. For a generation of young people constantly inundated with media, the ability to classify and make sense of the nature of content becomes increasingly important.

"The idea is to help kids be thoughtful participants in what they are viewing", says Keith. "We want them to be able to ask 'Am I being manipulated here? And if so, how?' They might just decide they're not so keen on simply being a target audience."


Landmark's Clay Theater. Photo by Tommy Lau


Always Time For Popcorn

Little else can rival the experience of walking out of a theater after a good movie, still wholly immersed in the world that was onscreen. For a brief time the characters, mood and storyline give a strangely meaningful color to all surroundings. With its broad dedication to creative growth and awareness, the San Francisco Film Society is poised to ensure that those moments keep being made, and that audiences keep remaining open to them.

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With Cannes in full swing, the topic that seems to keep popping up everywhere this year is female representation in the film industry. Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, which just premiered at the festival, has begun to drive the conversation towards female-centric storylines. Gender equality in film, both how it is portrayed on screen and how it's practiced behind the lens, has been a hot topic for many years now. But with more mid-range and big budget films presenting female driven plots and women as main characters, the issue is now at the forefront of cinema discussion more than ever.

In a recent Variety interview, Cate Blanchett discusses her role in Carol and the importance of this type of narrative in the film world. Carol centers on two women who begin an intense love affair with each other in 1950's New York. Right off the bat you have an uncommon Hollywood combination: two female main characters (in a non "chick flick" movie) who are also homosexual.

Blanchett comments in the interview that films such as these, with strong-willed female protagonists and a gay romance storyline, are hard to finance because many people are under the impression that movie-goers don't want to see this type of film. But that simply isn't true anymore. There have been a number of actresses who've played extremely strong, tough characters in recent years -- Meryl Streep and Reese Witherspoon to name a few -- which have been very well received and widely accepted by audiences. But the gay love story still presents a set of new challenges entirely.

It's unclear whether its actually the gay romance storyline that audiences aren't receiving well, or the lack of funding and promotional efforts that go towards films of this type, because of the fear that audiences won't receive it well. Brokeback Mountain was a breakthrough in the gay love story, but that was over a decade ago now, and the genre has yet to become fully integrated in the mainstream. Blue is the Warmest Color received quite a bit of critical acclaim, and did find some mainstream success, but unfortunately this was mostly due to the fact that it contains a number of provocative lesbian sex scenes.

Luckily it seems that more people are realizing how important the opinions of women and the LGBT community are to the art of filmmaking, and that they will continue to be an integral part of the film industry's evolution. This year at Cannes, The Hollywood Reporter is partnering with Kering, a parent company to designer brands like Gucci and Balenciaga, who has been at the center of women's rights issues since its inception in 2009, to present a panel called "Women in Motion." The panel will feature actresses such as Salma Hayek, Isabella Rossellini, and Frances McDormand, who will discuss female representation in the media today, as well as the role of women working in film, both onscreen and behind the camera.

It's quite thrilling to see so many influential media personalities discussing these issues and attempting to bring the female narrative to mainstream film. We need to tell the stories of women and of the LGBT community if we ever hope to live in a society where we understand and respect one another. I'm a firm believer that film, television, and music play a powerful role in the ideas we have of what is normal, acceptable, interesting, and important. These ideas must broaden to include the stories of gays, lesbians, and women. Their stories must be seen as normal, acceptable, interesting, and certainly important, if our ideas for the future include living in a peaceful society.

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Note: This post contains artistic depictions of nudity.

I've been holding off writing about Jenny Morgan's work because I've had trouble figuring out how to look at it. It is very beautiful, but of a kind of formal beauty which tends to push me out of a painting. This is a weakness of mine and I am working on it.

Until very recently, I hadn't actually seen her work in person. Let me share with you the experience of seeing it at a remove, and then describe how physical presence adjusts that impression.

Here's a painting from her current solo show, "All We Have Is Now." This piece is fairly typical of the aesthetic she's developed over the past few years.


LINK, 2014
Oil on canvas, 84 x 60 inches

Familiar elements include the layering of a nearly monochrome, front-lit tonal rendering of the female nude over a sherbet-like varying color field, hyperclarity and darkness of hair, nipples, and belly button, blurring of the face, and crisp edges where figure meets flat, bright ground. There is a kind of industrial perfectionism to this approach. The delicate layering allows no corrections to errors made during the rendering. The pristine ground prohibits the canvas from getting even slightly dirty during the painting. Stephen Jay Gould remarks that a perfect evolution erases its own history, and Morgan paints to erase the history of her work; process is nothing, goal everything.

So fierce is her will to control that she has recognized and incorporated into this aesthetic her own, and the viewer's, need for mistakes, for chaos. She provides two safety valves to avoid total procedural determinism:

First is the unevenness of her sherbet-field. The gradient from red to pink to orange to yellow under the two women is uneven and washy. It could be perfectly smooth, but it isn't, it never is in her work. It lets in a little breeze of the unpredictable.

The second valve is the blurring of the faces. As far as I can tell, she's sanding down finished renderings, wiping away her own work and possibly augmenting the faded features with dark streaks. This too is an unpredictable procedure, this attack on completed work. Apart from any narrative meaning it holds, it transmits a sense of danger, of risk -- the face is the most important part; how much will she wipe away before her painting is destroyed?

And yet, each of her paintings makes use of this same toolkit, with most of the elements under total control, and the messy bits corralled in their right places. I have found their foregrounded graphic design and their utterly polished quality alienating. I could see that they were beautiful, but I did not want to look at them.

When I finally got around to seeing them in person, though, I was reminded of something my friend Kelly Nichols once said. I was guiltily confessing to wanting some new Apple product for no particular reason except that it was awesome. Kelly, who is a brilliant and enigmatic designer, said, "Since when is awesomeness not a valid consideration in evaluating a technology?" I hadn't considered this point of view.

I had occasion to consider it a second time looking at Morgan's work in person. It is, if anything, more perfected in person than in photographs -- she is quite willing to place a highlight on a single point of the canvas where warp and weft overlap to create a tiny bump. Her figures are scaled monumentally, at perhaps 1.5 times life size. Morgan herself is very small, and if she is anything like many other small women I have met, she is interested in strategies for claiming the space she deserves in the world. Many of her paintings are self-portraits; in them, her grand interior scale leaks outward, like the TARDIS on Trenzalore. To me this is very likable, her transmutation of a personal circumstance into an aesthetic of authority.

It is easier, in person, to make room for what Morgan's work is offering, and to stop asking it for what it does not have to give. It has tremendous formal beauty, focused ambition, a strange but first-rate set of technical skills, and a charged creativity of composition. Its intense graphicality, coloring, and proficiency give it a Cupertino feeling; perhaps it references psychedelic posters, but for me, it is more sympathetic with the iPod or the Balloon Dog, and their finite and distinct catalogues of colors. Awesomeness, as we use that word now, seems like a fair way to describe it.

Morgan's work has so rigorous a degree of precision that it exhibits a bias toward fixed literary meanings conveyed through visual symbolism. Consider HEAVENFACED, completed not long after LINK:


HEAVENFACED, 2014
Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches

Here we have the classic scenario of a figure and its reflection, in which the figure's gaze is offset from our own and yet, uncannily, the reflection meets our eye. Atop this narrative proposition, Morgan layers a scenario in which the real figure exists in a world of hard edges, and the reflected figure in a spooky fading world where the individual features wash away. Only the intense but distorted eyes remain, which is to say, awareness remains. The reflection lives in a haunting world of awareness which is different from our own familiar plane. And yet, the right eye of the real figure is beginning to exhibit the same blur as the reflected image. The reflected world is bleeding back into the real one. So what are we to make of the direct contact the reflected gaze makes with us, the viewer? Must we blur too? We have here three figures -- two of her and one of us -- in a striking evocation of a familiar literary concept, aphorism 146 from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil: "when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you" -- or, more generally, you will tend to become the thing you gaze upon -- including yourself, including enlightenment.

For all that seeing these paintings in person reconciled me with them, I do not think I would feel so compelled to write about them if Morgan were not already growing past them. This is no small thing. If you go to her website, and study her work from 2009 to 2014, you will see her refine the toolkit we've been discussing. There used to be more elements to it, and less skill. Sometimes roughnesses crept in at the edges. With each painting, she has thrown something away, and improved her execution of the elements that remain. Having reached, at last, a purified form of her initial impulse, you would think she'd stick with it for a while. It is testimony to her seriousness as an artist that she grew restless right away.

We turn now to early 2015, and find that she has brought a skeleton into her studio.


IN THE MOMENT (DEATH HYMN), 2015
Oil on canvas, 56 x 38 inches

Well this is very interesting. You can tell it's her first time, or close to it, dealing with this skeleton, because it has the same awkward kind of pose as a model one works with for the first time. You don't know your new model, and your model does not know you, so between the two of you, you choose a weak or obvious or generic pose. Morgan hesitantly bends the skeleton back, letting the arms hang, and starts from there. She's trying a new subject, and doesn't know what it does yet.

She is also trying new tools, or at least mixing up the ones she's got. She tries a new thing in each part: here jet black, there rendering without color, here a new algorithm for the sherbet-field, there a stain edging into the pristine yellow ground. It does not especially work for me, and yet I like very much that Morgan is so clearly laboring to shock herself out of her assumptions about how to make a picture and what to make a picture of.

Next she takes a stab at synthesizing the elements of this new paradigm with her literary sensibility:


POV, 2015
Oil on canvas, 56 x 38 inches

We see some but not all of the elements of the first skeleton painting. The handling is surer now, the pose decisive, the color coordinated. In fact, she has imported the hanged man from the Rider-Waite tarot deck:



Even as she is groping her way toward expression in this new territory, her choice of the tarot tells us that she is becoming preoccupied with magic. Magic takes many forms, but I think one of the important ones for artists lies in making the leap from explanation to assertion.

Artwork that explains comes stammering up to you, wanting to account for every little thing. It feels a need to justify its contents, setting up clockwork cosmologies which can only be grasped for a moment before artist and viewer alike forget their intricacies.

Artwork that asserts is content merely to be. Often it can be explained, but explanation is not its goal nor its mode of creation. It comes from a blazing core of creativity, and the artist has matured enough to trust it -- to step out of its way. I think of Francesco Clemente and William Kentridge as two modern masters of assertion.

Morgan soon stops thinking about magic and begins simply performing it: she asserts.


IN THE MORNING OF THE MAGICIANS, 2015
Oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

Consider how much lighter this is than the work we have been considering, how fluid in composition and effortless in aspect. The jumpy background color -- gone. The rendering of the figure -- gone. The individuation of the face -- gone. Both the hesitation and the overdetermination of the pose of the skeleton -- gone. This painting falls into the exact configuration natural to it, without the index finger of the artist nudging all the bits into position. Morgan trusts her minimal elements, and tells a very simple but open story of a dance of life and death, of weight and weightlessness, burden and flight and letting go. She reconciles in this piece the strict perfectionism of her method, which survives intact, with the demands of art, which makes so much of its home in mystery and a dreamlike flux of meaning.

This is not to say that the maturity of this piece cancels out, or even precludes continuing, the kind of work that Morgan made before. Let's look at one last piece from the show, painted during the same period that Morgan was trying to figure out what to do with the skeleton.


DARK STAR, 2015
Oil on canvas, 70 x 48 inches

To me this is one of Morgan's strongest applications to date of her earlier idiom. The range of values is more pleasing, the coordination of colors more beautiful and more ambitious. The match of hue and expression on the face, that mix of vulnerability and catastrophe which seems to give the painting its name, suggest to me that the literary skew of Morgan's work has developed into a psychological skew, a more complex and trusting means of perceiving and expressing the humanity of her figures. At the same time that she commands the medium, she surrenders to the work.

What we see, then, is that the new revitalizes the old. There was nothing wrong with what Morgan did before, except that she already knew how to do it. She was close to seeing that line of image-making, so clearly a labor of love spanning many years, wither away. In setting out to question what she did and expand what she could do, she breathed new life into her first mode of working.

This is a standing dilemma of art as a process of making. Mastering the means of making the work leads to great creativity, because creativity feeds on basic obstacles. But overcoming those obstacles often long pre-dates the heart of the artist losing interest in the given mode of working. Resolving the formal and technical problems does not mean one is done with the thirst to make the work.

Most artists, as they grow, should abandon what came before. Many do not, and go on rehashing the same few motifs for many decades. The ones with integrity let go of the past. There is a tiny third category: a few who blaze alternate paths to keeping their labors fresh. Morgan is pursuing this more difficult goal. Her path has bifurcated, and at least for now, her new ideas and her established ideas are talking to each other and helping each other along.

So this was what was so exciting for me about "All We Have is Now" -- not only the specific qualities of the work, but what the body of work tells us about the still-developing process of its creation. It is a show full of discipline, creativity, growth, and hope. It vibrates with possibility, it is an unfinished, exhilarating story. Well done, Ms. Morgan, and best wishes for many years of new roads.

-----

Jenny Morgan: All We Have is Now
Driscoll Babcock Galleries
525 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001

until July 02, 2015
all paintings copyright Jenny Morgan, courtesy of Driscoll Babcock Galleries
tarot card via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RWS_Tarot_12_Hanged_Man.jpg

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Pictured L-R: Dante Brown, Mei Yamanaka, Leslie Cuyjet, Abigail Levine
Floor/front: Christopher Bell; Photo by Yi-Chun Wu


The Lower East Side has always been a playground for oddballs, creative types who diverge from Manhattan's mold. It's a quirky neighborhood filled with idiosyncrasies and secrets stuffed in blocks and buildings. These days, south of Union Square is trending, a wonderland of bars, movie houses, and restaurants that offer a refreshing contrast to Midtown. But don't be fooled: the Lower East Side has a legacy of hosting the mysteries that lie behind closed doors and inside our imaginations.

Mark Dendy's NEWYORKnewyork@AstorPlace shares marrow with the LES, a skeleton that rivets freaks and geeks with nostalgia. At Joe's Pub last week, the work was provocative, wild, and weird. Dendy is celebrated for mixing genres, incorporating spoken word into dance and crossing over from eccentric experimentation to Broadway to ballet. And what exactly was NEWYORKnewyork@AstorPlace? I have absolutely no idea, and perhaps that's what made it so compelling.

When I told my friends that I was headed to the Public on Wednesday, May 6, they assumed that it was for Hamilton, the musical hit of the season. They were, of course, wrong; I was off to an intimate, candlelit room to watch ghosts emerge from their graves. Ghosts of New York's bourgeoisie. Ghosts of the gay movement. Shakespeare's ghosts. It was all haunting in its absurdity.



Pictured: Abigail Levine (center),
Back L-R: Christopher Bell, Dante Brown, Leslie Cuyjet, Mei Yamanaka; Photo by Yi-Chun Wu

NEWYORKnewyork@AstorPlace narrated the history of the street where the Public sits in its majesty. Dendy took no precautions for political correctness, and with a fake hand job and a strip tease onstage, there were plenty of moments when the audience squirmed. He also approached difficult issues like gentrification and the AIDS epidemic in the '80s, which didn't make for typical mealtime pleasantry. As spectators munched on hamburgers and fries, Christopher Bell gyrated as a gay exotic dancer with the kind of fervor that harbors sexual frustration and anger brought on by fear of disease. As they sipped on a jug of beer, Abigail Levine twirled aimlessly, mocking Taylor Swift's "Welcome to New York" and its whitewashed sentimentality. Leslie Cuyjet ran around as a realtor, decrying artists for making New York "cool" and contributing to rising rents. Meanwhile, Danté Brown danced in a hoodie, representing racism until, with one ice-cold beat of a gunshot, he collapsed like the blow of a hammer.



Certainly, the piece felt scattered. It interfaced with so many dialogues that no one stood out for its urgency. Nevertheless, NEWYORKnewyork@AstorPlace had a strange allure. Dendy thought a lot about the current state of New York and how it differs from decades passed. He managed to infuse his movement with meaning, and few could belittle the performance as sheer entertainment. It forced the viewers to question, which is almost always good in a culture industry that so often dictates what we do unconsciously. And it was still pleasant at times because Dendy's dancers, especially Mei Yamanaka and Bell, were intoxicating.

Would I go again? Absolutely not. It's never nice to sit on edge, uncomfortable with the honesty of a situation. That's what makes NEWYORKnewyork@AstorPlace important: it confounds without mercy.

I once had a philosophy professor who said that when you're confused, it means you're getting it. If so, Manhattanites have a lot to learn from Dendy and his stint at Joe's Pub.



Pictured L-R: Mei Yamanaka, Abigail Levine, Leslie Cuyjet; Photo by Yi-Chun Wu

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Aaron Clifton Moten and Matthew Maher in The Flick by Annie Baker.
Photo: Joan Marcus

Annie Baker, in The Flick, has drawn three disparate loners in dead-end menial jobs; engaged them in often aimless-seeming banter, as opposed to meaningful discussion; and keeps them at it for three-plus long hours. Being a theatrical alchemist, Baker's oddball characters nevertheless grab our attention, and the sometimes sketch-like morsels combine to form a powerfully compelling and unexpectedly moving evening. You might take occasional glances at your watch, early on; once the gears start spinning, though, you realize that the lumbering pace is very much to the point, as the characters sweep up spilled movie-house popcorn and mop up spilled soda and you are enthralled. This is one of those provocative plays that nourishes playgoers and leaves them with something to cogitate.

Ms. Baker, that prolific playwright who has been brightening the scene with works like Circle Mirror Transformation, The Aliens and her adaptation of Uncle Vanya, writes plays that are not only distinguished; they are also quite unlike the plays of everyone else. (Not to make comparisons, but that's what they said about Eugene O'Neill when he first appeared with Beyond the Horizon and The Emperor Jones.) Like Beyond the Horizon, The Flick -- which originated in the spring of 2013 at Playwrights Horizons -- won the Pulitzer Prize. It has now reopened in a commercial transfer at the Barrow Street Theatre, virtually intact; the back wall of David Zinn's authentically rundown set has been reconfigured, presumably to accommodate the upstage exit, but the cast and production team remain the same.

The three principal players are beyond excellent. (There is also a fourth actor, playing two small roles.) Matthew Maher (of Mr. Burns, a post-electric play) is Sam, a 35-year-old who has been passed over so many times by younger menials that he realizes, beneath his omnipresent and slightly fraying Red Sox cap, that he is likely never to advance from the bottom rung. Louisa Krause is Rose, the black-garbed projectionist until digital comes to town and she is fated to be demoted back to the popcorn detail. Aaron Clifton Moten is newcomer Avery, a 20-year-old movie nerd hiding behind thick glasses with his polo shirt neatly buttoned as if it could afford protection. The workplace is The Flick, a rundown single-screen movie house in Worcester County, Massachusetts facing obsolescence and extinction.


Louisa Krause in The Flick by Annie Baker. Photo: Joan Marcus

Each character lives in his or her own shell, with his or her own secrets. Baker manages to draw fully-realized beings while allowing only fleeting passages of personal information. These speeches -- Avery's at the end of the first act and in a solo phone monologue presumably with his shrink, Rose's as she tries to explain her contradictory nature, and especially Sam's breakdown of a confession -- belie the seemingly casual nature of the everyday grind. The actors seize their moments, and while I suppose others will play these roles in productions to come, I can't imagine truer -- or more wrenching -- performances than those of Maher, Krause and Moten.

Director Sam Gold, who since Circle Mirror Transformation in 2009 has served up several intriguing productions and who is a strong contender to pick up a Tony next month for Fun Home, is here at his most incisive and inventive best. Whether he helps Baker or whether she inspires him, they certainly do magical work together. Watch the dialogue exchange between Rose and Avery at the end of the first act. This comes after Rose's extravagantly primal mating dance, which petrifies the boy altogether (and with reason). Gold has Krause and Moten standing between the rows of movie seats, on opposite sides of the stage. They talk to, but away from, each other; hands are self-consciously crammed in pockets, all four of them. You sit there watching, wanting them to move together and connect so badly that you almost explode. Then they do move together, and they do explode. Later, watch Krause -- frozen upstage -- during Maher's extended breakdown. Stunning work from actors and director.

Baker, for her part, does a remarkable job of making something out of nothing. Or rather, what appears to be nothing. Being a canny playwright, though, that is surely her aim, and one she has executed powerfully and effectively in The Flick.


Louisa Krause and Aaron Clifton Moten in The Flick by Annie Baker.
Photo: Joan Marcus

It is worth noting that the producing team of The Flick includes 17 of the 18 producers of Fish in the Dark. It's almost as if one of them emailed the others and suggested that since they were making so much money from the Larry David comedy, with its $497 premium tickets, they were honor-bound to underwrite something important. The Flick will hopefully do well during its four-month run at the 170-seat Barrow Street Theatre, but their grosses will certainly be chicken feed -- or, rather, popcorn kernels -- compared to the million-plus Larry David is bringing in weekly. How novel: commerce paying for art, with the theatergoer as beneficiary.

Annie Baker's The Flick opened May 18, 2015 and continues through August 30 at the Barrow Street Theatre

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Today, Washington National Opera (WNO) announced that Francesca Zambello will extend her term as Artistic Director for three years, through September 2018. She has served as the company's Artistic Director since January 2013 and as its Artistic Advisor since June 2011. She has directed 15 productions for the company, starting with Of Mice and Men in 2001. Her most recent production was Dialogues of the Carmelites this past February.

"Francesca Zambello continues to bring passion and vision to WNO, and I am thrilled she will be staying in the Kennedy Center family," says Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter. "Her deep commitment to WNO's mission, its legacy of rich artistic programming, and its outreach and education initiatives will continue to bring WNO to a new level of artistic excellence."

I have interviewed Ms. Zambello several times for Huffington Post, and feel she has brought much to Washington National Opera in terms of creative staging, the hiring of excellent singers (e.g. Isabel Leonard, Dolora Zajick, Deborah Voigt, Angela Meade, Joshua Hopkins, Stephen Costello, Andrea Carroll and Patricia Racette -- to name a few), and the commissioning of new American opera through the American Opera Initiative. Her productions of Florencia in the Amazon (2014), The Lion, The Unicorn and Me (2013, world premiere), Show Boat, (2013), and The Force of Destiny (2013) fascinated me with their complexities. Next season she will direct the company's first-ever complete Ring cycle.



The last time I saw Ms. Zambello was on May 9, the opening night of Cinderella. She was in the lobby of the Kennedy Center passing out flyers for the 2015-16 season. I decided she was the very model of the modern artistic director: hands on, and able to connect with her audience.

Soon Ms. Zambello will return to Cooperstown for the 40th anniversary season of the Glimmerglass Festival, where she has been General and Artistic Director since 2010. This summer Glimmerglass will stage The Magic Flute, Vivaldi's Cato in Utica, Macbeth and Bernstein's Candide, which Ms. Zambello will direct.

Other future directing projects for Ms. Zambello include the world premiere of La ciociara (Two Women) at San Francisco Opera and a revival of Luisa Miller to open San Francisco Opera's 2015-2016 season.

Personally, I look forward to many more evenings at Washington National Opera blessed by Ms. Zambello's innovative touch.

(Portrait of Francesca Zambello by Stephen Voss.)

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In a city that is constantly mourning its cultural and lifestyle losses, The Theatre For a New City has achieved what even the venerable NYC Opera has not.

When interviewing the group's Executive Director (Crystal Field) some years ago, I learned that this "Bohemian" bested the "Man" at his own game. Field, by pulling off a stunning real estate deal gained ownership of the building that hosts the multi-leveled theatre, resulting in the one of the most stable artistic institutions in NYC. That interview can be read here..

Located on 10th St. and 1st Avenue, the TFNC complex puts on a diverse style of original theatre including straight plays, musicals, operas and cabaret. That fare is available all year.

But, perhaps one of the most remarkable feats TFNC has pulled off its Memorial Day Weekend Extravaganza. The doors (and streets) are opened up to offer free entertainment from all the genres previously mentioned. And more: film, art, crafts, and exotic foods also can be found.

I spoke to Lissa Moira, TFNC Playwright in Residence, and a major force in behind the festival. I set up a phone chat, but after a few moments I knew I would not be able to document a fraction of Moira's accomplishments. Thus, I will pen a "Reader's Digest Version."

Lissa's voice was youthful and enthusiastic, and although born in Brownsville, Brooklyn had no discernable accent.


M. I have heard some stories about your extraordinary youth...


L. I graduated high school at fourteen ("WHAT?"). The teachers saw I was totally bored, and since I started reading at two years old they put me right into the fourth grade. I then (at fourteen), went to LIU. But I was not happy while I was there.

M. Please explain.

L. I was just too young to be there. When I was considered for Chekov's The Marriage Proposal, the professors saw I had no breasts, and I was ruled out. (Of the play, at least.)

M. Ouch! Then what happened?

Lissa proceeded tell me a story right out of the tail end of the "Age of Aquarius." She fled NYC and joined an artist commune in Berkley. She danced, sometimes covered only in body paint. And somehow she made it to Johnny Carson's house.

At nineteen, she returned to NY and went back LIU -- finally having a bosom. There was not much of formal theatre at the school, but they soon hooked up with BAM (Wow!), and Lissa met the likes of Lanford Wilson. (The Rimers of Eldritch). Her acting career started in earnest when she landed Ismene in Oedipus Rex, as picked by James Earl Jones. (Still at LIU!)

A landmark moment occurred when she met her collaborator and personal partner James West (guitarist, playwright and director). With him, she wrote Sexual Psychobabble , The Best Sex of the XX Century Sale , and the musical Who Murdered Love?

M. Whew, ok, so what is your most recent project?

L. Currently I am directing and collaborating on the writing of a musical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with music by John Taylor Thomas, opening at TNC this coming June.

And that was all this girl reporter could put on the record -- for the time being. Look for a part two with Ms. Moira, I know I want to know the rest of the story.


M. Getting back to the festival -- in what capacity are you serving it?

L. I have written and directed several pieces for it. I also curate the poetry portion of the weekend.

M. And what special "bit" are you putting up?

L. I will be performing a monologue from my play TIME IT IS . This piece was chosen as one of the ten finalists in the International Chesterfield/Paramount Competition from a field of 5000 entrants. (Almost an inconceivable thought.)

Here is a short list of highlights:


Murray Abraham, David Amram, Penny Arcade, Tammy Faye, Politically Satirical songs, Songs from Speakeasy, The Allisons in Wonderland (a new musical in development), Louisa Bradshaw, "Epstein and Hassan--The Black and the Jew," Folksbiene National Yiddish Theatre, Karen Kohler, Reno, Phoebe Legere, James Rado (co-creator of Hair) and the Rod Rodgers Dance company.

Find the rest and organize your viewing fare at
http://www.theaterforthenewcity.net/

And please note there will be a rip-roaring outdoor music festival Saturday--from Noon to 5PM, led by the aforementioned Richard West.

And finally, there is the LES Art Exhibit. 30-40 local artists will have their art on display in paintings, collage, sculptures, photos, and multi-media; 5:30pm until 8pm. The public is encouraged to meet and mingle. Not to mention eat-up and drink some wine, if so inclined.

If you are in the City on Memorial Day, it might behoove you to sample all this gift that the TFNC has to offer.

Happy Holidays!

(FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY -- MAY 22, 23 AND 24) 155 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10003 http://www.theaterforthenewcity.net/

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Interview Recorded at Sunset Diner in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on March 21, 2015


On the occasion of Tri Angle Records 5th Anniversary as part of Red Bull Music Academy Festival New York, I got the chance to interview the charming Tri Angle Records founder Robin Carolan at my local neighborhood diner.

MN: Where you from?

RC: I'm from London, but I've lived here for quite awhile now. Originally Northeast London.

MN: To me, some of the stuff that is on your label could have grown out of the stuff coming out of London in the 90's. It reminds me of that moment when Hip-Hop started to get kind of gothy with Tricky.

RC: Yeah.

MN: When I was in college I loved Tricky and Portishead and all that stuff. It seems like your stuff is coming out of that in a way, do you see that at all?

RC: Yeah, I definitely see that. I can't say I grew up with it. Maybe it was something I discovered in my late teens, early 20's. It wasn't he stuff that initially formed my taste. My main influences as a teenager were hip-hop. Stuff like Lil Kim and a lot of Warp electronic stuff. Bjork was a big deal. It was always like whose that producer she's working with, then get into that sorta thing. Then discovering a lot of music off the back of her records. At the same time I wouldn't say Tri Angle was a 90's inspired label.

MN: I see it as forward looking. Certainly it's not looking back, I'm just saying I see a thread. Starting from there and like a few other things. I could be totally off the mark.

RC: Oh, no your not. I just never think to specifically about influences or certain eras. I know some artists and musicians are indebted to their influences and I hear that. I always viewed what I do as more vague. Not intentionally. It's just a mish mash of things that I try not to analyze too much. Not to get put into a box. But yeah, I can see the bridge between trip-hop and what we are doing.

MN: It's funny when we use these words like "trip-hop", because there is a lot of grey area in there. I too grew up with hip-hop. So the moment it started to happen for me was in 92. I was in high school when Wu-Tang came out. That was the entryway. Before that Public Enemy and stuff.

RC: I never really listened to hip-hop in that way. I also didn't listen to a lot of Wu-Tang which would probably surprise people because there have been a lot of comparisons to what we have done and what Wu-Tang have done. The kind of way I listened to music as a teenager, which sounds funny to say out loud I was really obsessed with female musicians. They were my gateway into everything. Whether it was hip-hop, rock, or electronica it always seemed to stem from a female artist. So with hip-hop my big obsession was with Missy and Lil' Kim. What would happen is that I would find out whom they worked with and then I would expand my knowledge.

MN: when I did my research on you, I realized I had never heard the SugaBabes before. (laughs) I don't think they had a real moment in the US.

RC: No, they didn't really.

MN: I really like it. It's catchy as hell.

RC: its really good songwriting. They went through different incarnations. Some of them not so good, but the first incarnation I was the same age as them I think. Maybe a little younger so it felt really relevant to me at the time. It sounded like a low-fi pop record that could have been made in a bedroom. I guess utilizing some of the same things I had been listening to like UK Garage and American R&B that made something that very much sounded like them. But yeah, they never really had a moment out here. That first record was huge deal for me.

MN: I just discovered it and I love it. I love pop music. I hate when people use that term "guilty pleasure" that it doesn't apply to me. I don't have guilt.

RC: It's bullshit. If you like something why not enjoy it. It's not to say everyone has good taste. It's a very subjective thing. Yeah, I hate that term.

MN: Taste is funny because, in a way it's so circumstantial. I don't know if you do this but I will listen to something and I know its bad. But I like it anyway. I know something is uncool, or bad. I just don't care.

RC: Me too, there was definitely things I listened to growing up that at the heart of it I knew was really bad but it still didn't stop me from being into it. I was a massive pop music geek so I've been completely unapologetic about that. I think as I've grown up I've swayed a little further away from that. That could have something to do with how pop music is marketed now. Maybe I just don't find the sounds as interesting as they once were.

MN: I don't know if you are finding this, but I'm finding I'm excited about hip-hop again and I haven't been in years. Like a lot of these younger MC's I think are really good and bringing craftsmanship back. There are a number of years where I think rap became very lazy. You know mush mouthed. I really like Joey Bada$$ and Azaelia Banks. I think she's a damn good MC.

RC: I think what I'm missing in hip-hop right now is really innovative production. You know, I was a teenager when Timbaland was doing his greatest stuff. To me that material still has a really future shock vibe that I don't hear anywhere. When it comes to hip-hop I must admit I switch off a little bit when it comes to the lyrics. The lyrics and the voice become another instrument. Just another sound. Not all always, but most of the time. So the thing I really focus on is the production. That's how I tend to judge hip-hop tracks. I just don't hear anything that grabs me.

MN: That's interesting. I look at it in this totally different way as if I'm always first hearing the articulation of what the MC is trying to do, and I've always appreciated really wordy MC's. But I also appreciate the rhythmic element. Much in the way an instrument would be. If you listen to Slick Rick or something, he has a lilt in his voice that is musical.So what do you listen to now?

RC: Oh god, umm, uh...

MN: That's a stupid question actually. I can never answer that on the spot.

RC: (laughs) I can answer that, I just need a moment to think about it. There are a few things I'm really into at the moment. I've developed an obsession with 80's avant, this is such a wank term: avant pop. That was a bit left of center. I'm really into the last two Talk Talk albums; I've always had a huge obsession with David Sylvian.

MN: Me too. Especially Japan.

RC: Absolutely.

MN: I don't know the solo records so well just the ones he did with Ryicho Sakomoto a little bit but man I love those Japan records like Quiet Life. Not to go off on Japan, but I crazy for that record because Duran Duran came out and stole everything off of that Quite Life record.

RC: I don't know I sorta prefer the David Sylvian records solo. Its not that they are all great, it's just that he has had this really interesting career where you can tell he did exactly what he wanted to do. So one record would be really pop, then he would make another record that's super abstract. You would have to be a fan of very specific jazz, which is very specific. Some of the solo records are amazing.

MN: I will have to dig in to those; I'm not that familiar. I just loved the Japan stuff and didn't dig any deeper. Plus he reminded me so much of Bryan Ferry and I'm such a huge fan of Roxy.

RC: Right. Brilliant Trees is a really great album and Gone to Earth. Secrets of the Beehive is probably one of my favorite records ever. It kind of reminds me of Talk Talk in the sense that it doesn't sound like anything else. I seem to get things from that record I can't seem to get anywhere else. So yeah, I've been listening to a lot of that stuff like Blue Nile. I listen to a lot of new stuff obviously but I can't say that anything has really grabbed me at the moment. A few things but nothing that has shook me up and made me feel like "wow what the fuck is that." Aside from people I've signed and might be working with. That sort of thing.

MN: I'm not familiar with all the artists on your label, but I have been digging through a lot of it. The Haxan Cloak really grabbed me. That stuff is wide like cinema. Do you know what you are looking for or do you just hear it? Do you know what you want?


RC: Yeah I just hear it.

MN: An aesthetic emerges.

RC: I find it a hard question to answer. When other labels are asked that question they can go towards big high concepts. It seems to be a philosophical approach. For me I just don't really have that. In that sense its an abstract thing to explain. Then again I'm obsessed with tight curation. Everyone I choose to work with, all the records have to make sense as a whole. I don't expect them to make sense to everyone, but for me I can connect the dots. I can see why I was thinking like that at a certain time. That's why we made that certain record. I also think its because I'm super restless which is why I think Tri Angle has probably lasted for 5 years. When we started I thought maybe we would be a record label that would survive for 2 years because we kind of emerged as part of a trend that I never really wanted to be a part of. I had to think outside the box to avoid that. I seem to have an obsession with not doing the same thing twice and having everything make sense as well.

MN: I think all artists think that way if you are at all going to challenge yourself and be relevant to the times you are living in. My favorite artists are of the David Bowie mold. The kind that are moving and looking at the next thing.

RC: Right.

MN: Forward, sideways, maybe not always first but can read a moment.

RC: I'm super into that too, those are my favorite artists, which is an ethos I take to the label. About a month ago I was chatting to Bjork about this. We were talking about how Tri Angle was part of this whole alternative R&B explosion. We were definitely at the forefront of that. She was asking my why as soon as that became vaguely popular. I moved on almost immediately. That is because I'm restless and I get bored. She was asking if I regret not hanging in there to capitalize on the moment and a more kind of commercial way. I said to her, "not at all, I have no regrets about doing that." Because I would rather do something that feels like its first like what you just said about David Bowie and then just move on, than just stick around and just see how it goes. That's what I'm trying to do as well. I always think its funny when people refer to Tri Angle as the home of the weirdoes and outsiders. Because there is probably some truth to that, I just wouldn't term it like that. Whenever I work with certain artists, they seem weird at that time. Very like, "what the fuck is this?" Then a few years later what they were doing is considered the standard and common.

MN: Your artists seem to start to fall in the pocket. They seem to make sense alongside one another. It's interesting.

RC: yeah

MN: One guy I find interesting is Sd Laika. That stuff is really far out.


RC: I'm glad you like it. I feel like. He's a good example of someone that would be referred to as a weirdo and get bemused reactions.

MN: That's kind of what I go for. If it makes me think something I've never thought before, then that's what I'm after.

RC: That's one of the things that informs how I'm signing people. If something really confuses me I find that intriguing. Even if it's to the degree that I may not be sure I even like it. If something confuses me and I can't quite figure out what that it, then that makes me obsessed. It makes me feel like there is something there and needs to be developed. Yeah, Sd Laika, his stuff is insane. If some people don't like it or don't get it at all I don't think its music people are supposed to get. He's off in his own world His album got a really good reaction actually I think in a few years when he has got more work behind him he will be seen as someone who had done something that people weren't really doing at that time.

MN: I think there is a misconception with people that listening to music means listening to music for pleasure. That music listening should always be a pleasurable experience. When an old person says, "how can you listen to that?" I think that's a good question, how can I listen to that. Then I think well how can I not listen to it? It's like watching a car accident sometimes. How can you not be intrigued by the uglier aspects of life?

RC: Yeah definitely.

MN: We look for that in other art forms, we look at crime in films and books. The things that humanity tends to shy away from. For some reason music is supposed to be a pleasurable experience only. I think its also and can be an intellectual exercise.

RC: It's like that saying, "One man's pleasure is another man's pain", the way I do a lot of things is to constantly remind myself that everything is subjective. I might feel a certain way about something but that doesn't mean it's definitive. Which is why for the most part we get really good reviews and reactions to everything we do. When there is an instance when someone doesn't get something it doesn't annoy me or offend me. It's very subjective. I'm not afraid to release stuff that is challenging or complicated and doesn't make people feel great. I think I'm kind of comfortable doing that. Of our noisier releases, I happen to think they are quite poppy.

MN: I think your noisier records are quire poppy. I can always find a thread that makes them accessible. Then again I listen to a lot of extreme metal and I find some of it quite beautiful.

RC: I like noise music and extreme forms of music. It probably goes back to me just being a huge pop geek. I'm kind of obsessed with melody and hooks. However vague or abstract they might be. All our noisy albums have an entry point they are not impenetrable.

MN: Like Merzbow or something.

RC: Yeah, I don't mind some of that stuff but its almost like taking elements of that and smashing it together with more of a pop construct. Somewhere in the middle it becomes a thing that may or may not succeed. I don't know.

MN: Want to take a break to eat your soup?

RC: Yeah.

MN: Tell me a bit about what you are doing at the Red Bull Music Academy. I'm gonna go.

RC: Cool, we are celebrating 5 years of being a label.

MN: You were telling mea earlier you didn't expect to see five years?

RC: When I started it I didn't think of it as anything too serious. It was a hobby or something fun to do. Then it quickly became a thing. The suddenly I had this label. I had the instincts of a curator to maintain the release of some records. But I think that but I thought most people didn't think Tri Angle would last too long. I get the impression Tri Angle surprised some people on where it has gone. Kind of like I was saying earlier about that conversation I had with Bjork, why didn't I stick around to cash in on the trend and I imagine that's what a lot of people have done.

MN: You probably would have failed if you had done that because you would have pigeonholed and filed into people's brains.

RC: Music is cyclical. Some people when there are in the eye of the storm are a part of a thing and are really hot think its going to last forever and that never happens. The moment someone calls a genre dead and gone it comes back around. I think people thought Tri Angle was just this alternative R&B whatever the fuck people were calling it label and I just had no interest in that. So we took a sharp U-turn from that and over the years and confounded some people. Even Tri Angle fans were not having it. Now I think people know to expect something unexpected from Tri Angle.

MN: So this showcase, who is playing?

RC: Haxan Cloak, Forest Swords, Evian Christ, Holy Other, and there is another room with Lotic, Rabit, Clams Casino like a lot of the newer guys.. This guy we haven't released a record by yet called Hanz. We have some special guests coming as well. It should be good. I was nervous to do it, because we haven't done a showcase in a long time and it's the first one we've done in the US and I always want things to be a certain way. When you are doing a showcase that big there is lots that can go wrong. It sold out very quickly which was super encouraging, everyone is excited to play, and so it should be good.

MN: How did you figure out the business end of running a label? The reason I ask this is that being a filmmaker I had to be tutored. When I got my first movie deal, nobody had given me that much money to make anything before, so I had to figure it out how to manage money. Fortunately I had a great executive producer to teach me these things. What I'm getting at is that I learned from having to do it.

RC: I learned the same way. Trial by fire. I didn't have a clue. It quickly turned into a business and I just had to learn really quickly. I never worked at a label before, I had no idea how it was structures. It was just something I had to learn really quickly. I think I finally go there after a year. Yeah it was pretty tough realizing that you all of the sudden had a business when it wasn't your intention to set one up.

MN: You were young, like twenty something years old right?

RC:I was 23 when I decided I wanted to do it and had to opportunity to do it but I was 24 when we actually started releasing music. Yeah I was pretty young and didn't come from any label background. I think that's the other thing as well. The other week I had to go through the back catalog because Haxan is creating this sound installation using everything. There was a lot of stuff I haven't listened to in awhile. It was interesting because it forced me to be reflective. How have I kept the label going for 5 years having had no experience and still doing everything myself pretty much. You get through it; common sense plays a big part in it.

MN: It's probably like any other business. You have to have an accounting structure. Make sure your taxes are paid. and most importantly have a good lawyer.

RC: (laughs) yeah that's pretty much what I did. I knew some people who were doing it all themselves. They do their own accounting. I thought, "Fuck that I'm not doing this."

MN: (laughs) You'll fuck it up.

RC: No one wants to spend the money but there is no way I'm doing that. So I just made sure I had those things in place. I think I do things pretty stripped back. I don't have huge overhead because I don't need them it means I work a lot because I'm doing the job of most people.

MN: yeah, I relate however I have great partners.

RC: It allows me to invest in things I really want to invest in. Which is just making new records.

MN: So how many people are in the company?

RC: (laughs) me.

MN: (laughs) that's cool. Interns and stuff? I'm always hiring interns.

RC: I can't deal with interns. Not because they are bad, I'm just not very good at delegating. I think I have a guilt complex with interns, which I probably shouldn't have. I had one intern for one day and that was it. I just used to doing everything myself even if it's a lof of work and I'm sure at some point very soon it will need to change. If I'm doing it, I know it's being done and if something goes wrong it's my mistake

MN: I think we did a nice interview. Anything else you wanna mention? This one I was winging it because I mostly wanted to talk to you about music.

RC: Sorry, I am not always so comfortable in interviews.

MN: You spoke more than I thought you would.

RC: I tend to ramble a bit.

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This year's Venice Biennale might unintentionally bring the answers we have been waiting for when trying to understand the role of art in a world where genocide and human extermination appear as something to be aware of but not to get involved with. The decision of the Biennale's chief curator to pay homage to Karl Marx' Das Kapital is incompatible with the fact that the Ukrainian Pavilion has been privately funded by the billionaire businessman Victor Pinchuk, who also decided, in what I believe is an act of censorship, that no comment against Russia would be included or tolerated. A similar paradox emerged when the floating bridge bringing a dozen VIP guests broke, throwing all of them, Miuccia Prada included, into the lagoon. I am saying this because these days Europe cannot seem to find a way to prevent thousands of African refugees from drowning nearby, off the coast of Lampedusa, not very far from where the Venice Biennale takes place.




The New York Times recently published an article written by Farah Nayer ('Venice Biennale Pavilions for Iraq, Ukraine and Syria Reflect Strife at Home') where she shares with the world her satisfaction at the fact that those three countries managed to have their pavilions. So, business as usual?



Of course not. According to Nayer: 'Art often reflects the horrors at home: Artists and curators, who view portraying reality as a duty, illustrate it in a range of media, and Venice becomes a platform for geopolitical frictions'. But is portraying conflict really what artists and curators should worry about? Should art have a message? Should art reflect a state of affairs? If so, are we finding artistic value in the 'seriousness' of the message?



'Conflict is certainly visible this year in the pavilions of Iraq, Ukraine and Syria. Iraq and Ukraine tackle the hostilities directly: Iraq evokes the brutalities of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) in drawings, watercolors and photographs, while Ukraine illustrates its ordeal through painting, sculpture and an installation with artists who are on a hunger strike. Syria's exhibition is more apolitical, but elsewhere at the Biennale, the underground filmmakers' collective Abounaddara -- which received a special mention from the Biennale jury on Saturday -- offers glimpses of life in Syria' says Nayer.

A major focus of the Iraqi pavilion this year (held at Ca' Dandolo, a palazzo on the Grand Canal) is a set of drawings by adult Iraqi refugees who fled the Islamic State's onslaught. These depictions -- a hooded militant shooting a mother and child, a bandaged man whose bleeding heart is shaped like Iraq -- were produced when the Ruya Foundation took paper, pencils and crayons to refugees in three camps in northern Iraq. All 546 submissions were then flown to Beijing and shown to the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who made a selection for a book published by the foundation. (That book is on sale at the exhibition and proceeds will go to the refugees.)

But what does Ai Wei Wei have to do with all this? In other words, do I need the Venice Biennale (a place where the conspicuous consumption of art happens) to tell me that ISIS are murderers or do they need me to listen to justify other things? Might it be possible that the horrors of war are being manipulated not to really have to deal with the problem while at the same time shouting in all directions that we are so very worried?

Artists from Ukraine have been very vocal about this in Venice. On Friday, activist Ukrainian artists (who were not associated with the national pavilion) occupied the Russian pavilion in camouflage and invited visitors to wear uniforms bearing slogans. All of the works in the Ukrainian pavilion itself, a glass box parked along the Grand Canal, represent the strife in Ukraine in one way or another. Inside, the Open Group collective is presenting a young artist on hunger strike, sitting at a table with a water jug and a glass and staring at nine live video feeds showing the homes of Ukrainian soldiers who have been drafted. Whenever a soldier returns from the front, the artist ends his hunger strike and another takes over. Color photographs of tables in the soldiers' homes, covered with their paraphernalia, are on the back of the grid of video screens. Are they really on hunger strike? I am saying this because if they are not they are banalising a very extreme (and sometimes needed) means of expression.

The Belgian curator Björn Geldhof, who was appointed by Ukraine's ministry of culture, said that for him, not referring to the military situation was "not possible." He added, "I think it would be a form of escapism." It is true but 'mentioning the military situation' is not in itself a source of artistic value.

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Surround Audience, as is titled the 2015 New Museum Triennial, closes later this week after a three-month run full of reviews, performances, lectures, screenings, and a quirky ad campaign. It addresses a digital world that has new, blurred lines between audience member and showrunner. While the aggregated, critical response seems to be something like "Not The Worst," I wanted to underscore something specific I haven't read much about. The especially wide, international net cast by the curators (51 artists from 25 countries) has certainly been addressed, but I noticed something peculiar about its global edit. After spending the 3+ hours it takes to consume all of the video in the show, I found that in particular, nearly every artist working in video had brought their geopolitical baggage to the Bowery, and slammed it on the counter.

Leveling with the show's premise, the inclusion of geopolitically charged video may be addressing a gap in other common sources of video that boast a wider, and perhaps more surrounded, audience: mass media. The democratization of video has long since been used and abused by artists, and social media has only fueled that. Artists today can now cheaply and easily produce HD video that can just as easily slide through your Facebook feed as it can hang on a museum wall. Although it's certainly varied in style and affect, most of the videos in the show address some geopolitical issue, accumulating into a set of complex, visual essays.

The geographic distribution of the nations included skews east, primarily in Africa and the Middle East. Regions that are consistent cable news targets, yet it's unlikely that much of what's discussed in the Triennial video would make the cut for neither a FOX nor an MSNBC segment. The matter of each Triennial video work is not breaking news, but nonetheless current and pressing for a region or a people. What's at stake for these artists is not objective reporting or thorough analysis, but activism -- frequently demonstrating a fervent opinion. The latent calls to action in these works are not something simply discussed in a crossfire interview or even a standard documentary film. What sets this type of video apart is its transgressive mutability. Video art doesn't attempt to tie up loose ends nor does it cater to a league of executive producers. It employs the vigor of street activism but reaps the versatility of new media (and if it's lucky, the credibility of a museum spot).

Moving top-down through the museum, one of the first videos you encounter is Lawrence Abu Hamdan's piece The All-Hearing. The video is produced in a fairly traditional documentary form, while what it contains is a calculated, instigated performative work. Hamdan asked two sheikhs in Cairo to deliver sermons denouncing noise-pollution, simultaneously blasting the sermons live from loudspeakers outside the mosque. The nature of this seemingly simple act is indeed quite complex, and made so by the context of Egypt's current militarized state. The authorities in Cairo have attempted to suppress oppositional speech through policy -- firstly by dictating what topic every sermon in Cairo should be each week, and secondly through the guise of anti-noise pollution legislation in order to prevent anti-government sentiments from spreading through loudspeakers, which are commonly found around the city. Herein Hamdan makes a political paradox: the sheikhs become symbolically complicit with both the government agenda and the same activities this agenda attempts to quell. This is not simply a documentation, or even a story, of two sheik's delivering two sermons, but a clever act of civil disobedience, using religion and public space as a conduit.

Passing down a narrow stairwell to the next floor of the museum, you find a video of a performance by South African artist Donna Kukama titled NOT YET (AND NOBODY KNOWS WHY). In the video Kukama stands in front of a crowd gathering for an event commemorating the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya against the British between 1952 and 1960. She stands still, except for applying red lipstick to her entire face until it's completely covered like a mask. The opinion of the Kenyan population towards the Mau Mau rebellion is polarized, some condemning their violent guerrilla tactics. Thus, an event such as this is not a unanimously celebrated one in Kenya. This polarization makes Kukama's video perhaps the most ambiguous piece in this selection. The visual signifiers of the performance register as political, stirring up loose associations of other, far more transgressive acts such as self-immolation in crowded, public spaces. Despite this, it remains unclear and we're left in the dark on Kukama's personal views on the Mau Mau Rebellion. Works of video like this are important in this geopolitical canon -- they don't fit neatly into a political dialogue, and because of this, they call for us to question both points of view on an issue. Furthermore, they ask us to question the origin of the issue at all, in this case, the divided views of a population, representing another lasting condition of post-colonialism.

Found on the following floor is another personalized account of a symbolic journey. Shadi Habib Allah's untitled video work is an 18-minute montage of first-person footage. The video serves as the artist's account of several trips crossing the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The peninsula is a symbol of contention for Egypt, as the region's native people, the Bedouin people, are considered to be neglected by the Egyptian government. The process of the trips is a political one, as the peninsula is used as routes for illegal smuggling, despite military surveillance of the region. The turbulent nature of the camerawork and editing indicate a perilous, very real, lived experience. It is one of the most compelling works in the show, as the danger is palpable, and the thrill of watching real footage is more acute here than anywhere else in the exhibition. It's dull placement on a wall in a crowded, well-lit room, without headphones, make it clear that this acuity was lost on the curators. In any case, this video may appear at first like the most likely candidate here for a traditional run-and-gun style documentary, yet, much like Donna Kukama's work, the video does not afford the viewer with any transparent commentary or supplemental materials like interviews, title cards, or introductions. It is a diaristic, nonlinear account of real experiences, existing on its own as a final product. This lack of bookended-ness defies the laws of traditional documentary form, and permits us to experience his journey in a far more unmediated way.

The exhibit continues, and boasts another half-dozen works of video that all fit into the current geopolitical landscape, each certainly worthy of your attention. From micronesia to North Korea, there are stories abound in the museum -- many you may be surprised you hadn't already heard of.

Experiencing the video of Surround Audience is like discovering a premium cable channel you didn't know you had -- or could even exist. It's informative but enlightening, well-crafted but sincere, fragmented but not click-bait, current but comprehensive. Most importantly, it's only up for another week -- so climb out of your news feed, and surround yourself with a new audience.

Surround Audience, at the New Museum at 235 Bowery, closes this Sunday, May 24th.

Above photo of "Untitled," © Shadi Habib Allah.

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Let's set the scene. It's Friday night. 11pm. It's raining outside and we're in Paris. We're in a dark corner of a dingy jazz bar. Someone's wearing stripes. We close in on one girl, eyes fixed on the main stage, foot tapping and head swaying. She's been jazzed and she isn't afraid to show it. The girl is me. For 10 months last year, I lived in Paris and for every second of it, I felt like a pretentious elitist. Even saying the words I live in Paris filled me with self-loathing.

Since returning to the UK last year, I have been wondering why I felt this way in Paris. During the months leading up to my departure I fantasised for hours and hours about everything that I would experience and learn, all of the art that I would see and every piece of culture I would soak in. And I think that's where the problem lay. Although I craved art and culture, when I spoke about them to other people, I couldn't help feeling a little snooty.

'Culture' is a dangerous word. Utter it to the wrong people and you're an outsider, talk too passionately about it and you're an elitist snob. It hasn't always been like this, though. Go back 100 years or so to the advent of cinema and everyone was a fan. Venture back a few hundred more and and droves of people were listening to the latest Beethoven piece. Somewhere along the way, our general perception of culture changed. What is an inclusive and open form of expression somehow became skewed as being a 'members-only' club.

Ever since the arts became attached to the country's economic status, they have been placed under intense scrutiny. Commodified as a means to a financial end, they have been forced to prove themselves by pulling their weight in money. When that began to happen, people started to question the worth of the arts and to scrutinise how they contributed to our country's financial situation. Of course, art is not about financial gain; money and self expression are directly opposed from one another and yet it seems that if something doesn't better the economic standpoint of the country, it is achieving nothing. If you champion an economically empty endeavour, people will naturally assume it's because you want to prove a point.

My life in Paris taught me so much about culture, art and people. Yet somewhere along the way, I forgot the real aim of art and how it enables us to expand our ability to understand. Art is not a monetary commodity, it is a communicative tool. Void of a global language, we can express our most abstract ideas to people from all around the world and in turn, enable them to think differently about their own. We need art not as a tool of finance, nor as an elitist institute. Art brings us to other people and that is one of the most valuable tools we could hope to gain. The next time I visit a gallery, or a jazz club, I will try to brush off a little of my self-awareness and fully appreciate the art on show. After all, you can't get more French than that, non?

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I often say (and you've probably heard me say it), that when I started out in this business of writing songs I was twenty. Everyone else was twenty. Now I'm fifty-something and everyone else is five. I'm exaggerating about the five, but you know what I mean. There's a Generation Gap with two capital Gs. Which causes me, from time to time, to step back and take stock.

Today, I added an AARP folder to my filing cabinet and a membership card to my wallet. At first I thought the post man was putting the AARP newsletters in my mailbox by accident. I kept tossing them into recycling. But I've finally crawled out of denial. I guess I didn't want anyone to know I qualified. Especially co-writers and other music business colleagues who are...umm....five.

Dynamics in writing sessions have certainly changed. Not for the better or the worse. They're just, well, different. For me, conversations can be forced, like when I'm trying to relate to things like prom, the piercing of a frenulum or when I'm pretending to know what "wilding" is. (I tend to be late to all parties. One time I had to ask Jude Cole to explain the meaning of "my bad.")

Often session swagger is so intense I'm not even sure what language we are navigating. Sometimes my confusion matters to a young co-writer. In extreme cases, (and especially when I feel like I'm becoming invisible because he or she is embarrassed to be working with me), I avoid re-convening in the same room. But to the majority of young writers (and artists) thankfully, it's a non-issue, (as it should be).

Like for instance, I've been working with the lovely and talented Laura Marano. I'm pretty sure I'm around the same age as her Mom. But Laura could care less. She appreciates my experience and doesn't see the gap as a detriment but as an advantage. I brought two song starts (concepts) to our last session, which she (and Dan Book), vastly improved upon. I can't be mad at that.

But I digress. What was I saying? Oh yes--AARP. I'm embracing it. Plus, there are actually some very nice benefits for members: discounts on travel, car insurance, movie tickets, hotel rates, Ancestry.com, Mr. Tire, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Dunkin' Donuts!

My assimilation into AAA on the other hand, was an entirely different experience. My Dad signed me up when I became a licensed driver and I seamlessly slipped the ID card into my wallet without a second thought. But then, nobody ever freaked out about being seventeen, did they?

And speaking of AAA, I find it ironic that my AAA folder is directly adjacent to the AARP folder. There's been so much adventure in between seventeen and the present, I feel like there should be more space. But there they are back to back--symbolic of how the decades have started butting up against each other.

I really don't care so much about how far to the right my blip is on my lifeline. What does make me uncomfortable, however, is the realization that I'm closer to the end of my life than I used to be--no matter how young I am at heart. And that's a drag because I'm having so much fun.

It is what it is.

I'm closing the file cabinet.

Tonight I have a vocal session with Laura. I look forward to it. But first I'm going to go for a run. (Hopefully I won't hurt myself.) And then I'm going to buy movie tickets for tomorrow and shamelessly request my discount. Perhaps I'll pick up some donuts on the way to the theatre.

Ok, I'm done. No I'm not.

In many ways I'm more comfortable in my collagen-challenged skin than I was when I started out at twenty. Age can be a stigma in a youth oriented industry. If you let it. And I'm trying my best not to.


One more thought: I work with people who are a decade younger than I and others who are a decade older. Some have innocence and some have wisdom. Sometimes the innocence does not belong to the younger writer or the wisdom to the older. In fact, it's often the other way around. We truly are as young as we feel.




Please become a fan by checking the "become a fan" box next to my byline. Come visit me at shellypeiken.com and on my Serial Songwriter Facebook Page.

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Joy Gim and Ron Thiele in Leonide Massine's Scheherezade. Photo: John Markowski (1990)

This week marks a major milestone in the history of two storied American ballet companies on opposite coasts: American Ballet Theatre turns 75, and Oakland Ballet turns 50.

Bowing to their respective pasts, their gala celebrations spotlight two different golden eras in the history of ballet: the Diaghilev era in the case of Oakland, and the American pioneers of the mid 20th century in ABT's.

A sybaritic film salute to ABT by Ric Burns, which just premièred on PBS, underscores the influence of impresario Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and its revolutionary collaborations with Stravinsky, Satie, Cocteau, Picasso, Bakst, Chanel and others, on the evolution of dance in America.

Oakland Ballet founder Ronn Guidi was passionate about reconstructing these modernist works, and this weekend the company will gift us with excerpts from five iconic ballets by Mikhail Fokine (Petrouchka and Scheherazade), Léonide Massine (La Boutique Fantasque) and Bronislava Nijinska (Le Train Bleu and Les Biches), as well as Vaslav Nijinsky's groundbreaking, erotic L'Après-midi d'un Faune in its entirety. The décor for Ann Hutchinson Guest's 1995 restoration of Faune has been resurrected for this season's gala. For one brief shining evening, in the glorious precincts of the Art Deco Paramount Theatre, home to many of the company's past seasons, audiences will be transported not just to Oakland Ballet's early days but back to the heyday of the legendary Ballets Russes in the 1910's and 20's.


Ethan White in Vaslav Nijinsky's L'Après-midi d'un Faune, restaging by Ronn Guidi. Photo: Marty Sohl(2007)


Oakland Ballet Company dancers in Bronislava Nijinska's Le Train Bleu, restaging by Irena Nijinska. Photo: Emilio Mercado(1996 )


(l to r) The Three Athletes: Joral Schmalle, Ron Thiele, and Don Schwennesen with Oakland Ballet Company dancers in Bronislava Nijinska's Les Biches, restaging by Irena Nijinska.Photo: John Markowski(1990)

Tyler Rhoads and Daphne Lee in rehearsal for Léonide Massine's La Boutique Fantasque. Photo: David DeSilva

Guidi's curatorial tastes were not confined to the Diaghilev era, however. Under his direction, through the 1990's, Oakland Ballet also revived modern American classics and commissioned new work. Eugene Loring contributed several ballets including The Tender Land, for which Guidi invited composer Aaron Copland to conduct his score.

Graham Lustig - at the helm of the company since 2010 - has chosen to represent this period in the gala program by excerpts from Loring's Billy the Kid, Alonzo King's Love Dogs, and Ronn Guidi's The Secret Garden, and by the full-length Green by Carlos Carvajal.

Lustig thinks big. Not simply content with honoring tradition, he says "we must step away from it, too," and has roped five choreographers, all of whom have longstanding connections to the company, to make new dances for the gala. In addition to Lustig's world première to music by minimalist Max Richter, Val Caniparoli, Betsy Erickson, Michael Lowe, Robert Moses and Amy Seiwert - a formidable brigade of Left Coast dancemakers - are each crafting a toast to the 50th anniversary of this historic company.

And while tight finances preclude the furnishing of live orchestra for the evening, renowned pianist Roy Bogas will play live for Moses' new piece, set to Satie, and for the revival of King's Love Dogs, set to Poulenc.

Dying to see how Lustig was going to execute these heroic maneuvers with a lean, mean fighting machine of only 14 dancers, Ballet to the People tiptoed into Oakland Ballet's busy studios at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts to spy on Erickson and Caniparoli at work on their new pieces.


Emily Kerr and Taurean Green in rehearsal for new work by Betsy Erickson. Photo: David DeSilva)

A duet for Emily Kerr and Taurean Green, set to the shimmering, soaring strings of Marjan Mozetich's "Postcards from the Sky," marks Erickson's return to choreography after a long absence. Oakland-born, Erickson was ballet mistress for Oakland Ballet in the 1980's, after her own illustrious performing career, and the pieces she created on the company back then were much admired. Her new, story-less duet situates Kerr and Green as equals, with similar qualities of strength in their movement.

As the silvery blonde Erickson demonstrated a sweeping movement of the arms with a slight twist of the shoulders, Kerr imitated her delicate but authoritative épaulement, and Ballet to the People was struck by the identical beauty of their serene, aristocratic profiles.

Erickson has Kerr and Green chew up space and together, they look like a god and goddess gamboling on Mount Olympus. They're an intriguing pair: the fragile-looking Kerr, whose steely core emerges unexpectedly, and the imposing Green whose body lines slash thrillingly through space.


Sharon Wehner and Sean Omandam in rehearsal for new work by Val Caniparoli. Photo: David DeSilva

Across the hall, the animated, silver-haired Caniparoli took three couples through a lighthearted, caffeinated romp that had them slouching and stomping and ricocheting off each other and off the floor, a dash of hip hop here, a nod to French court dances there.

But first they had to work out a thorny new lift.

Caniparoli demonstrated it with Sharon Wehner, threading one arm through her arms that were tautly cocked behind her like the wings of a rooster. With his other hand providing leverage against a critical spot on her mid-spine, he timed his push to match her jump. She sailed through the air, snapping her legs into a split at the peak for even more oomph. It took a bit of practice before Sean Omandam, Matthew Roberts and Tyler Rhoads could achieve the same effortless propulsion with their partners. Daphne Lee and Alysia Chang rounded out the spirited sextet.

Once they had the entire sequence down with counts, it was time to run it with music. This knock-your-socks-off arrangement of Leopold Mozart's "Toy Symphony" has been re-orchestrated for the 21st century, in a recording by violinist Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica, with the tinny buzz of a cellphone and the high-pitched drone of a computer-generated voice chirping "hello" in place of the more familiar toy trumpet, cuckoo and drum.

It was all the dancers could do to keep from cracking up as Caniparoli tossed witty movement jokes at them, but they had to work hard to syncopate the movement the way he instructed.

Grins broke out, however, once costume-fitting time rolled around. Of the bold, bright designs, Ballet to the People scribbled in her notes: "Alice in Wonderland meets Cabaret."

Just as Oakland has weathered grave economic and socio-political storms, the viability of its ballet company has been threatened several times in recent decades. Lustig is a pragmatist when it comes to fiscal management. The magic that is making this gala come together is not magic at all: it's the generous collaboration of dozens of former Oakland Ballet alumni - coming in to coach the present crop of dancers in the revivals, lending a hand with designs - and the goodwill of many organizations including the Paramount Theater, the Oakland mayor's office, the unions. Lustig's dreams of restoring the company to its former luster, augmenting his imaginative - and profitable - Nutcracker with a full spring and fall season, will require significant public and private commitment from a city that seems perennially strapped and preoccupied with other issues.

This is an image problem hardly unique to Oakland. Farther south, in the more affluent Silicon Valley environs, Ballet San Jose recently issued an emergency appeal for half a million dollars, and will require another $3.5 million by October to stay afloat.

Those with deep pockets who are looking to make an impact with their philanthropy may not see ballet as sufficiently cutting-edge, hip or relevant.

But Lustig's impeccable programming taste and vision may change their minds.

The day after the gala performance at the Paramount, the company will take the party to Laney College, where it will perform its newest works alongside an array of local dance companies. These include the imaginative AXIS Dance, which unites dancers with and without physical disabilities, Walnut Creek's spunky Diablo Ballet, The Milissa Payne Project, street dance crew Turffeinz, and Tessera Tribal Belly Dance.

Of the updated score that Val Caniparoli uses in his latest work, Gidon Kremer called it an attempt "to set Mozart in the frame of our time."

With this gala, Graham Lustig does exactly that for classical ballet.

For more information on Oakland Ballet's 50th anniversary gala weekend, and to purchase tickets, see their website.

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Image: Artist's Model Mark Snyder and Artist Zhenya Gershman, Franklin Londin 3-d Photography

On Friday May 15th, a historic event took place at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, recognizing renowned artist's model Mark Snyder with a Lifetime Achievement Award - a first in its kind. Mark Snyder delivered a moving speech on behalf of all models who never had a chance to express the importance of their profession. "The Model's Artist," a complementary exhibition currently on view at Los Angeles LGBT Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center through June 13th, reveals a unique 14-year collaboration between artist Zhenya Gershman and model Mark Snyder. This event was produced in collaboration with project AWE, a non-profit organization on a mission to support and explore the arts. Here are the profound words of Mark Snyder:

"The Model speaks; what a concept! I've always dug the fact that we models face the challenge of communicating non-verbally, so actually using words presents its own challenge, one I hope I'm up to.

We are all multidimensional beings of limitless potential. The people with whom I've had the pleasure of conspiring to invent this night are no exceptions. All have taken on roles showcasing the unique and diversified gifts that necessarily must come into play to manifest a vision like the one surrounding you tonight. All have poured their hearts into this effort in hopes that it will help elevate the inner conversation in those who experience it.

I see a contingent of LA's top models here tonight, and I truly appreciate your presence. This night's for you, too! I'd also like to pay homage to our artist-teacher collaborators. We are co-dependents in the best sense of the word. That bond of mutual need fuels and fires the teacher-model-student trinity. On behalf of us models, I thank you for the care and concern you lavish on us, always making sure we know we are golden to you.

We are also greatly blessed tonight with the presence of an LA modeling legend - Nancy Lily. A key figure in figure history, she is known and cherished by us all. Following years active in modeling, she moved on to be the model coordinator at Art Center College. She held benevolent court there for decades. She had the power to supercharge the career of any fledgling model she sensed worthy. I know, because it happened to me. Nancy, we welcome you; we honor you for everything you've done for us, and everything you are to us. You are the godmother of us all, and we just thank you.

It's only proper to start by invoking the man responsible for bringing us all together tonight. That's the spirit of the model's patron saint, the international cause celebre and local legend, Antonio Corsi. In the early 20th century, Corsi was like a one-man "golden age of models," a star of his times. He embodied the "renaissance man," collaborating with artist greats in the creation of timeless art both here and across Europe. He even dipped his toes in that Hollywood upstart, "moving pictures." After his untimely passing in 1924 at age 55, in the town of Garvanza, now a neighborhood of Los Angeles, it seems a sort of model dark ages set in. Models became the poor stepchild of the fine arts hierarchy, overlooked, underpaid, unheralded by society at large.

Now, however, all that's beginning to change. Folks are waking up to the cultural significance of the role we play, that we've always played, as evidenced by your presence here tonight, and the recent rise in model themes in books and on film. Almost a century after his passing, Corsi is back. The power of his narrative attracted a circle of art lovers and historians to set the record straight, do justice to his legacy. "The Model's Artist" is a direct result of that joining of forces, as is the upcoming feature documentary, "Corsi, Prince of Models."

My admiration for the timely vision of film maker, Jake Gorst, Tracey Gorst, and producers Charles and Tina Miller, knows no bounds. This whole project is a bonafide labor of love, and Zhenya and I are delighted to be caught up in your gorgeous "moving pictures." I think they're actually called "talkies" now.

These days, when someone says "model," what usually springs to mind is commercial models. Not surprising, since the print and electronic media assure these images get seen by millions daily.

When you think of it, however, artist's models are the REAL models, the "OG" models. We are the ones whose lineage stretches back hundreds of years. Our work, by nature, appreciates over time, not relegated to hamster cages or upstaged by the next big ad campaign. Rather than re-enforce stereotypes, we exist as models of diversity; our ranks celebrate the Homo sapiens in all its glorious, infinite permutations. Nowhere is sheer egalitarianism is more evident than within our subculture. We are the standard bearers, we are the silent witnesses to the truth of body as sacred space. Our very existence quietly counters the prevailing mindset of body as profane: stupid, crude, and sin-laden.

Visibility-wise, we work "behind the scenes" and mostly out of view. We're found behind gates, guards and "Do Not Enter" signs. People pay for the privilege. Our images, far from mass-produced and consumed, are rather handcrafted, one at a time.

The attention we do get is hard won, the result of years and years of showing up, performing live to small groups, over and over, and over again. In LA, we drive ridiculous thousands of miles a year to make our gigs. All that's out of our pockets, too, but that's the givens, and we accept that. We are sustained by the spontaneous applause and the respect we see in our artist's and student's eyes. These shows of appreciation assure us that our contribution still counts, that our best efforts are far from in vain. Definitely worth the trip.

Subsistence-level income does not prevent models from living rich. Money has its place. However, to paraphrase Lao Tzu, "Once we feel we have enough, then we are rich." Counter-types, we find other ways to thrive apart from merely acquiring consumer power. For us, it's wealth in feeling, the richness found in unique, empowering, enlightening experiences. It's in the knowing that, with every pose, every gesture, we stand as living representatives of all mankind--past, present, and to come. It's being free, open and ready for the unexpected, the extraordinary to appear at any time. And it does. Ours is also the priceless wealth of owning our lives, being the ones to call our own shots.

There's richness in opportunities to collaborate with teachers of brilliance, depth and humanity. The Model's contributions are acknowledged and valued in the academic world. Together, we serve as inspiration for new generations of artists. Our stillness spawns action that swirls around us, expanding the breadth and scope of art in new directions. One could say we models are paid to meditate, to spontaneously create, to challenge our limits, to elevate the conversation wordlessly. Some even refer to us by the "M" word - "Muse!" We trigger the inner dialogue. We see the artist's darting, hungry eyes, ever grasping to commit something real, and honest, and true.

"Lifetime Achievement?" Pretty heady stuff, an honor humbling yet bewildering. It makes more sense seeing myself as a stand-in for all art models, selflessly sharing their essence in studios and classrooms near and far. It also signals the emerging awareness of the significance of our historical contribution to art and culture in general. At sixteen years in, I think myself just getting my model steam up, earning my chops, the late blooming boomer. I'm sure my siblings here, Brother Steve and Sister Mary K, would agree that my greatest achievement really comes down to, "I'm still (expletive) alive!"

I learned the hard way that visions and revelations of a freshly psychedelicized young mind had no welcome place in a society bound by war and acquisition. The draft, the war on drugs, the homophobic fever, all seemed tailor made to annihilate people of my ilk. The list of innocents succumbing to decades of this brutal, dominating mindset is long and tragic.

So what, in fact, are the achievements that led me here tonight? Most obviously, it's my years modeling in general, and my work with Zhenya specifically. But my story previous to that, I feel, is equally relevant, and telling.

I am not here because I played ball, or because I conformed. Seen through the lens of so-called traditional American values, the man before you stands as an unqualified, abysmal failure, a total loser with no perceived redeeming value. I sport no assets, no property, no spouse, no children. I've never owned a credit card, health insurance, or anything resembling disposable income. Rather, I have lived alone most of my adult life, figuring ways to balance the delicate dance pitting worldly responsibility and spiritual integrity, sensing myself every moment one stranger in a very strange land.

I came up in times when it was open season on Flower Children like me. Attacked by priests, betrayed by peers, jailed by cops, threatened by warmongers; what's a hippie love-and-peacenik to do to survive but go underground, guising in a life no one else would want, or feel threatened by? So, in the broader sense, this, too, is a crucial achievement in a life laid bare for you tonight. In a society plagued by body shame and degradation, artful nudity offered the perfect fit for my subversive deviance. Here, the body's elegant truth, laid bare, could counter the prevailing dirty lies. But that's another movie.

I am a product of the co-mingling of DNAʼs from Northern and Southern Europe via The Smoothing Iron Ranch in Eastern Washington and Potlatch, Idaho. My beloved parents, Joe and Bernie Snyder, met at a freshman "mixer" at the University Of Idaho, and, boy, did they mix! A World War and ten kids later, the 60ʼs hit. ʻNuff said. We boomers defined, and refined, the meaning of "generation gap." The Snyders survived, however, and thrived; looking back, our house-full reflected a microcosm of our turbulent times. All the stories were there, a panoply of American diversity complete with its soaring ups and crashing downs.

I carry my parent's legacy in a special way. That country DNA that found its way to LA blessed me with my Father's big, gnarly hands, my Mother's swooping arches, and all the other features that help me pay the rent and continue to live in dignity. So - Thanks, Mom and Dad!

My adventures in modeling was never a goal unto itself. For me, it's part of a larger journey dominating my life. Over time, with little else to call mine, I came to see the value of one thing I did have at my disposal - my own precious body. I came to see a universe within, the next frontier, worlds awaiting discovery. And, it was fully portable!

Never one for the well-worn path, in the body I found my own way of radical subversion, of needed inner healing. I channeled the love and care supposedly reserved only for others to my own body. (Gasp!) I hoped that, over time, I'd find ways to coax out secrets I, and others, could use to enhance life with powerful therapeutic tools for prevention, maintenance, and natural healing. Call it Practical Love.

Love is, after all, the Force that creates and sustains the All that Is. The wimpy moon-june-spoon contrivance is so over. The Love I'm talking about takes names and kicks (expletive); holistically, of course!

I've spent years alone, thousands of solitary hours forming this concept of exercise as active meditation, one that balances, strengthens and energizes the whole system, inside and out. It's about harnessing primal forces to forge the form as a sculptor would with wood and clay. So when you see my rendered image, what you are actually seeing is a work of art of a work of art.

Outwardly, the practice takes the form of weightless, yoga inspired movements in warm water. Inwardly, the process unites the upper and lower brains, the masculine "thinking" brain and the feminine "feeling" brain, the seat of intuition. The loss of this inner connection is at the root of human suffering, and Practical Love serves the purpose of this reunion of opposites. Homeostatic Integrity is the new game in town. Corporate fitness had its day, but lost its way. In the future, anybody will be able to begin a self-ministry, and witness the laws of physics refining us into the bodies we'll need to face the future.

What, one may ask, does any of this have to do with modeling? In my mind, the chances of introducing a daily practice able to successfully challenge the "fitness" model was as improbable as a middle-aged man coming into demand for his physique in body-centric LA. The modeling became a way for me to put my proto-body experiments to work "in the field," as it were, anonymously. No one knew what I've really been up to, what was driving my passion; what mattered was that I left everyone happy.

Modeling gave me the objective experience needed to see that I was, in fact, beating the odds, excelling in a tough, tight art-world subculture. Sixteen years and a few thousand gigs later, recently an official senior citizen, here I am, coming out to you, revealing my hidden side. I'm 65 going on 30, living in a bachelor pad, dancing my ass off at the drop of a pounding rhythm, and still expecting Mr. Dreamboat to sail up my harbor any day.

That's a relief! Thank you all for bearing with me; please enjoy the rest of this fabulous night compliments of the hard work and vision of the show's curator, Katie Poltz, my new friend, Norm, and the staff of the LA LGBT Center. Thank you, brother Evan Hatfield, for your magic sitar, thank you, Sean, on guitar, and you, my dearest Alma Cielo, who, acting on your own intuition, opened the door that led directly to this night.

Zhenya - words fall short to express the power of the bond we share. Choosing me as your partner in art has changed my life, giving space, validation and vindication to my wildest fantasies. You are incomparable, and, with your grace, I get to have a little taste of that, too."



Image: Zhenya Gershman, Silencio, oil on plastic palette

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May is the season of Commencements and as New England Conservatory and other schools of music prepare to graduate a new class of wonderfully gifted, creative, and idealistic young musicians, one can't help but contemplate the world in which they will make their way.

For music and the arts in general, we are living out the famous Chinese curse: these are "interesting times." (Well, yes, we do know that the phrase is not really Chinese. Nor is it a curse. Nor is harm or danger intended by it. Click here for more on that. ) There is clearly turbulence in the education and arts world, although there are different opinions about what that means. Some would say we are at an inflection point in our evolution. Others, more Panglossian, might suggest that all is well with our orthodox approach to the arts and education and the world in general. Still others might suggest that we need a massive revolution to stir the pot and take us out of our complacency.

As I look at the world our students will enter, I recognize both huge problems but also a giant opportunity to put our energetic arms around the issues and do something about them. Indeed, we must do this. This is our world after all and we are responsible for what happens now and for the future.

I have always considered education as a given in our society. Something that is prized as a priority supporting the essential upward trajectory of our world and, at its very best, available to all. But that view is up for debate these days with the value of liberal arts education, in particular, being questioned and the cost of education putting it beyond the means of ordinary people.

The emphasis is very much upon families with resources and the technical side of education that promises an immediate return on tuition investment. The so called STEM curricula: science, technology, engineering and math, are now considered the gold standard. By contrast, the arts are clearly not valued--at least in certain quarters. Which leads us to ask: are we looking at a purely technocratic world for the future, one that is easily understood in engineering or scientific terms but whose creative essence is lost in an equation somewhere?

Just as contentious is the cost of education, an issue that seems to be brewing up a storm on a global basis. Having spiraled over recent years (see graph), annual tuition in the U.S. is typically in the region of $50,000. This has resulted in what is often referred to as the "scholarship arms race," with various institutions competing for the best students with the best possible discount rate. And this, in turn, has placed even greater strain upon colleges' campaigns to raise money for endowment funds. In Europe, which has traditionally subsidized higher education at 100%, governments are cutting back; the UK, for example, is now charging £9,000 annually. Only countries like Germany and Norway still offer full tuition discount, but for how long is to be questioned. Does this portend a draconian shift of policies, new curriculum priorities, and escalating personal costs?

Within this Darwinian analysis of higher education, what is the state of play in the performing arts and where exactly is their place in our contemporary world?

The performing arts tend to be highly conservative and resistant to change, which makes them vulnerable and often weak. As someone once said, failure is not fatal, but failure to change can be fatal, and we have seen this played out across the U.S. in recent years. Numerous opera companies and orchestras have gone out of business or are operating with drastic reductions in budget, output and personnel. Those that have survived--like the Detroit and Minnesota orchestras--are slowly recovering from debilitating internecine warfare. Such crises usually ignite a cauldron of blaming and shaming instead of collaboration and partnering. Yet this is exactly where opportunity can surface and creative, flexible minds can envision a new course far more relevant to contemporary society. That's not to say that we should dumb down the arts. Far from it. It's about preserving what we love while building the new relationships and establishing the new priorities we need now.

The arts really are among the most powerful forces in our culture. Access to the arts and a meaningful interactive experience should be the birthright of all, not merely the highly educated elite. This is a basic tenet I think we would all defend. Nonetheless, there is dissonance between this tenet and the current arts delivery system, which has buried itself too often in tradition and reliance upon accepted relationships. We need to be striving for the full democratization of the arts which would redefine and sustain its legitimate place in society and move it away from the periphery and into the center.

Our agenda for the future should be about bringing all the elements together: a changing world, the arts' place in that world, the need for a training and educational program which are reflective of all these needs, and arts and education leaders who have the thoughtful insights and courage that make change happen at all levels. This would involve how resources are used, how we plan, where the relationships are, who the audiences should be, and, most significantly, what the role of artists should be in the C21. (See an interesting article on this subject.)

Such a thorough reassessment is a daunting prospect. Many artists might be tempted to throw up their hands in despair. They could understandably claim that they didn't go into the arts or music or the theater or dance for that kind of job. They would rather just perform, realize their passion. Well, they can do all these things but with a different understanding of what is needed. Traditional forms of employment--never plentiful--are melting away. Getting a permanent job where a company or institution look after you, pay you a regular salary, and offer healthcare benefits and generous pensions has never been more difficult. And it's not because artists aren't good enough but because the economic landscape is changing, and we need organizations and training programs that will take all this into account. Then, when we enter the professional world, we can devise some models of good practice, or continue with research and development. But what is clear is that the artist's mission must be to strive and reflect and respond in partnership with society as a whole, not as a small element in its elite wing of entertainment and prestige.

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Every time I visit Paris, I think about the way Hemingway referred to the City of Light as a "Moveable Feast." But I have to admit that I like the Russian translation of the title even more, "A Holiday That is Always with You." When a few weeks ago I returned from a trip to Paris, a surprise package was waiting at my door with the book, Why LA? Porquoi Paris? An Artistic Pairing of Two Iconic Cities, by Diane Ratican. And, if that was not enough of a coincidence, the next day, I went to Paramount Studios to attend the third annual Paris Photo LA, the prestigious international photo fair with its home base at the Grand Palais in Paris.



So, let me share with you my recent adventures in and around the City of Light, where I was a guest of the Paris Region Tourist Board at the Grand hotel du Palais Royal, across from the Museé de Louvre, an ideal place to stay for any art aficionado. My hosts also arranged my first ever trip to Chateau de Fontainebleau, the imperial residence which Napoleon considered to be "the real home of kings, a house of centuries." I was especially intrigued to see there the relatively modest -- by size -- private apartment of Napoleon himself. With its sprawling parks and gardens, the Chateau was the splendid home to French royalty from the 12th century until the abdication of Napoleon III in 1870. There is so much to see and to experience in Fontainebleau; one should plan to spend at least a whole day there.



The same day, we drove to resplendent Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte, which is only one hour away from Paris. In 1641, it was purchased by Nicolas Fouquet, who, several years later, became the Minister of Finance for Louis XIV. Fouquet had grandiose plans for his estate. At one time, it was said that Fouquet employed 18,000 workers to maintain his gardens and rebuild his castle. Among them were the famous architect Le Vau, the landscape designer le Notre, and artist Le Brun.



In a tragic turn of events, after lavish festivities to celebrate the opening of his estate, Fouquet -- the richest man in France after the King -- was arrested under a false accusation of misappropriation of public funds. Voltaire famously said, "On 17 August [1661], at 6 in the evening, Fouquet was the King of France; at two in the morning, he was nobody." In 1875, after many years of neglect, the Chateau was sold to Alfred Sommier, and today, it is administered by his descendants and regularly opens to the public.



Back in Paris, I spent a good amount of time getting familiar with two new major cultural projects, Jean Nouvel's Philharmonie de Paris and Frank Gehry's Fondation Louis Vuitton. Even four months after its official opening, the Philharmonie building is still 20 percent incomplete. The building is impressive, but not particularly likeable. But, what's important is that it has become a big success with the public from Day One, mostly due to its splendid acoustics and reasonably priced tickets. On the ground floor, there is an exhibition space, currently devoted to David Bowie; the next exhibition will feature the art of Marc Chagall.



My visit to Fondation Louis Vuitton, the translucent glass fantasy by Frank Gehry in Boulogne Forest, made me forget the splendor of Fontainebleau and Chateau de Vaux. At the age of 86, Gehry has delivered his most adventurous, most ambitious architectural project. There is a seamless interaction between the outdoor and indoor spaces, which makes one think about the influence of Los Angeles modernist architecture.



One climbs up several levels of the building, discovering numerous terraces and patios. And, with every twist and turn, yet another view of Boulogne Forest with Paris in the distance is revealed. And, for the first time in his practice, Gehry chose to reveal the architectural and engineering structure of his building, the structure that made me think about the gorgeous skeleton of a gigantic dinosaur. Even compared to his celebrated Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and his Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Fondation Louis Vuitton shines as Gehry's absolute best.

To learn about Edward's Fine Art of Art Collecting Classes, please visit his website. You can also read The New York Times article about his classes here.


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Edward Goldman is an art critic and the host of Art Talk, a program on art and culture for NPR affiliate KCRW 89.9 FM. To listen to the complete show and hear Edward's charming Russian accent, click here.

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