Mission: Impossible Photography

May 16, 2014, 3:02 pm

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Click here to watch the TEDTalk that inspired this post.

A co-worker recently asked me for a favor: to photograph her entire team for a memento that would be presented to a soon-to-be retiring member of that team. Having access to one of the nicer cameras in our office, I agreed and snapped a few shots that came out beautifully.

Mission accomplished. Or so I thought.

The next day I learned that two of the team members weren't present for the original shoot. In lieu of rounding up the group again, my colleague asked if I could simply photograph the others and Photoshop them into the original shot. Sure, I figured. How hard could it be?

As I dawdled in Photoshop, meticulously slicing layers and refining the edges of the two transplanted individuals, I eventually stumbled upon a realization: the challenge I had to overcome didn't lie in the software itself but rather in my own brain.

With each click of the trackpad on my three-year-old Macbook, I pursued an unmarked destination somewhere between fiction and truth where the million-year-old computer positioned between my ears would accept this visual input as valid. I fiddled with size and perspective to match the dropped-in faces to the existing ones; I tooled with light and color balance as if I were a tailor hiding the seams between two stitched garments. Suddenly, I found it - the point at which my lower brain's sensory apparatus accepted the scene as real enough, even if my higher order cognition knew it wasn't.

Erik's "impossible photography" operates within the perimeter of the same principle, in effect pushing us into that titillating gap between comfort in the lower brain and unease in the higher cortices.

In the same way we find disturbing - if not outright revolting - a robot or animation that is nearly humanlike but not quite there (the nightmare-inducing baby in Pixar's Tin Toy comes to mind - Google it, if you dare), our reaction to 'impossible' photography oscillates between unease and fascination.

Art is no stranger to subverting our expectations of reality, from the brain-tickling impossible designs of M.C. Escher to the unsettling surrealism of Salvador Dali. In fact, diversion from facsimile is arguably the basis for all art, whether the distortion is by way of style, technique, form or packaging.

The most vexing aspect of photography, as Erik alludes to, is that we inherently trust the result because of the mechanical device central to its operation. A camera, after all, cannot choose to lie or change what it sees. But can we really trust photography any more than, say, a painting or a sculpture?

After all, even a simple crop of an image can radically alter its power. Case in point: have you ever seen the wider shot of the infamous Tiananmen Square protester?

In an era when Photoshop is ubiquitous and used interchangeably as both verb and noun, our basis for accepting photography as somehow more "real" than other visual media is increasingly tenuous.

Perhaps, photography should be construed, as Erik suggests, as being "more about capturing an idea rather than capturing a moment."

Thinking back to my photo montage project, this seems to makes a lot of sense.

After all, the recipient need not believe the photograph's scene happened exactly as it appears for it to be meaningful. Its importance lies instead in the idea of what it represents: the cohesion of a team and the collective memories of working together.

Having tried my hand at a relatively simple sort of mash-up, I'm sure that Erik's svelte presentation belies the extensive labor that goes into his work, not solely in the actual photography and assembly of the images but in the design of an idea that his audience will receive.

I would encourage you to take a stab at your own "impossible photography," as I've found that the process of learning the contours of our brains' visual perception is as rewarding as the end result.

After all, as Erik put it best, "the only thing that limits us is our imagination." Indeed.

We want to know what you think. Join the discussion by posting a comment below or tweeting #TEDWeekends. Interested in blogging for a future edition of TED Weekends? Email us at tedweekends@huffingtonpost.com.

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Arab Love Arab Freedom: One Woman Muses

May 16, 2014, 4:26 pm

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Is it possible that art is more than personal experience? If you recognize that your voice contains all the voices that came before you, then you will realize that when you speak you do not speak alone. All the people who made your presence possible on earth speak with you. When you begin to... explore this, you will realize how immense that voice really is. - Anne Bogart

Lisa Kotecki is busy playing traffic cop to all the voices that came before her, and on May 22nd, for one night only, audiences at Stage Werx in San Francisco will find her navigating the sociocultural gridlock of her Arab American heritage in a candid, funny and occasionally provocative one-woman show.

Growing up in Texas - the daughter of a Syrian woman who had come to America in her late 20's, speaking no English, but determined to make a new life for herself - Kotecki mostly flew under the radar, air cover provided by her Polish American father's last name. She is routinely mistaken for Hispanic, and speaks Spanish fluently, whereas her Arabic is still rudimentary.

"My mother did not force her culture upon us," notes Kotecki, "We didn't live in an ethnic bubble. People would only know of my heritage when I decided to tell them." Her visits to her mother's homeland were "magical... before it became the warzone it is now... I imagined that this was how adopted kids feel when meeting their birth parents for the first time."

Of course, this was the pre-9/11, pre-Axis of Evil time period. "I was in college when 9/11 happened, and that's when my relationship to what it meant to be from that part of the world shifted. Earthquake-shifted. I was terrified for my family here in the U.S., who lived in a predominantly Arab community."

She recalls the escalation of anti-Arab sentiment and the hate crimes. "I went from feeling completely integrated and one with my environment, to feeling more and more separate as an American and Arab. It felt as if the two were no longer allowed to be together; you were one or the other. But I felt like I was both. I am both. Then again, the struggle was very different for those of my relatives in America who carry a name that makes it obvious where they came from."

She would go on to study Middle Eastern history in college, and imbibe as much of that complex civilization as she could from her perch among that growing tribe of 'Third Culture Kids' - whose signature traits, sociologists report, are resilience, insecurity, and a propensity to deal with problems by leaving town.

Kotecki left town when California beckoned. Though true to the adage, she confesses with a grin: "You can take a girl out of Texas, but you can never take Texas out of the girl."

She now resides in the creative ferment that is Oakland. She has built a niche for herself, crafting new media strategies to help entrepreneurs and small businesses burnish their brands. And when not busy taming the internet, she pours her heart into art. "I've always been somewhat of an art slut," she claims. She started playing piano at 8, took up bellydance at 18, and acting at 28. The interest in bellydance stemmed, not surprisingly, from a thirst to learn more about her heritage. And yet bellydance is considered a very low art form in most parts of the Middle East, "not that far removed from prostitution," observes Kotecki. The art of fusion bellydance, which seems a poetic fit for a mixed-race dancer, became her obsession, and she traveled and performed and found a sisterhood of sorts in the bellydance community.

Don't wait until you know who you are to get started. - Austin Kleon

Inspired by the many performers in the Bay Area who are reshaping traditional art forms, layering the personal and the political, and exploring issues of identity through art, Kotecki started to chronicle her personal skirmishes with culture and tradition. Her voice by turns comic, bewildered, humiliated, and triumphant, these fragments coalesced into a one-woman show, under the experienced eye of writer-director Martha Rynberg.

In Arab Love Arab Freedom, Kotecki speaks with great affection of the strong women in her life - especially her mother and grandmother, both educated, independent and accomplished, even as she points out the widening chasm between their worlds and hers. She tries to reconcile the "rules" and expectations for women who straddle borders as she does, in the post 9/11 world. She embraces feminism, unsure if feminism will embrace her back. She stumbles in and out of love, each relationship raising more questions than it answers. She makes some choices that she worries will outrage her mother.

Memoir in America is an atrocity arms race. - Calvin Trillin

On stage, Kotecki is breezy and graceful, with a hint of the sinuosity of a bellydancer, even in jeans and a T-shirt. Her face is luminous, her wide-eyed candour engaging. There is a vulnerability and a steeliness to her presence - part warrior, part sylph. She is still refining her piece, deciding which elements of her life to reveal at this time, deciding whether she will dance for us. Expect sass, sorrow, and a little Texas swagger.

Creativity is subtraction. It's often what an artist chooses to leave out that makes the art interesting. - Austin Kleon

Catch Lisa Kotecki live in Arab Love Arab Freedom on Thursday May 22nd, 7 pm, at Stage Werx at 446 Valencia St., San Francisco.

'Mr. Show' with Bob and David Inspires LA Artists

May 16, 2014, 4:58 pm

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Ask any comedian and the response is basically universal: Mr. Show with Bob and David is hands down one of the best, and underrated, sketch comedy shows ever to air on television.

Having originally aired on HBO from 1995 to 1998, Mr. Show, starring Bob Odenkirk (of recent Breaking Bad fame) and David Cross (of everything awesome fame), influenced an entire generation of comedians and funny writers, not to mention basically every weird online video you've ever watched ever. Ever!

But its influence apparently goes far beyond just comedians. Turns out it also inspired a slew of artists. This work has culminated in an exhibit at Meltdown Comics and the Nerdist Showroom in Los Angeles called The Mr. Show Show: An Artistic Tribute to Mr. Show with Bob & David curated by Danielle N. Kramer, Nico Colaleo and Sara Pocock.

Starting Saturday, May 17 at 7 p.m. with an opening night party (FREE a.k.a. Unheard of in LA), and lasting until May 24, you can see the weirdly awesome artwork by artists in Los Angeles and beyond. Seriously, if you're a fan of Mr. Show (and who isn't?), then you have to check this out.

Information about the event can be found here. You can check out the artwork all week at any of the awesome shows happening at NerdMelt (Los Angeles's premier alternative comedy venue, rated the No. 1 comedy venue by LA Weekly, etc. etc. gush, gush, just go).

I've also taken the liberty to post some of the best Mr. Show with Bob and David clips below. No need to thank me!

What's your favorite Mr. Show moment?

Cartoons, Chaos and Commedia, Oh My!

May 16, 2014, 6:13 pm

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The mind works in mysterious ways. During one week I had some bizarre experiences in dreamland that covered sights and sounds quite different from past adventures.

In several of these dreams I found myself in the basement level of an old department store that was undergoing a makeover in order to appeal to a new generation of consumers. Although the floor plan (and much of the furniture) was dominated by right angles, there were no guarantees of permanence.

People might wander across my line of vision who seemed familiar from past dreams (and certainly seemed to recognize me) but they turned out to be actors dressed as Neanderthals, who had been tasked with demonstrating how consumers could buy and use a collection of lawn furniture to help camouflage a sinkhole that had developed in their back yard. At the touch of a button, the floor promptly caved in.

At other times I found myself obsessing over audiotapes I needed to return to a group of court reporters after I had finished transcribing their depositions. But it didn't seem like the lobby to their building was the way I had remembered it (had I ever really been there, anyway?). Attaché cases briefly appeared and then vanished while filled with my possessions. Entire retail displays disappeared as soon as I passed by.

I don't doubt that some of these dreams were triggered by a series of Canadian animation shorts I had watched from a program at CAAMFest 2014. However, these shorts also helped to clarify how creativity sometimes works in very messy ways.

What we often see as a final product has been carefully mapped, plotted, and refined to a point where it is monodirectional and aimed to please. Consider the following Ramen Party Music Video (created by Lillian Chan, John Poon, and Michael Mak) as an example:







Lately, I've found myself getting up several times during the night and then, after climbing back into bed, falling back into the same dream sequence I had just emerged from. Or is that what's really going on? David Nguyen's video game-inspired short, Insert Credit, offers a hint of what might be bubbling somewhere in my subconscious.





Nguyen's animation is still quite linear, methodical, and destination driven. By contrast, my dreams tend to be more chaotic, taking me into situations, colors, and dimensions that I could never experience in my waking hours. Perhaps that's why I was intrigued by the Yellow Sticky Notes/Canadian Anijam curated by Jeff Chiba Stearns.





The following two clips illustrate how creativity can come in short (and often messy) spurts of imagination.







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Sustaining chaos as an engine of stage farce is easier said than done. It requires an awful lot of imagination, determination, a seemingly endless supply of shtick, and a dedicated troupe of clowns with great timing.

The Berkeley Repertory Theatre recently presented a new production of Dario Fo's provocative political farce entitled Accidental Death of an Anarchist (which was first performed in December 1970). Fo's farce was inspired on the 1969 incident in which an Italian railroad worker/anarchist named Giuseppe Pinelli fell to his death (or might have been pushed) from a fourth floor window of a local police station in Milan. In describing the audience's reaction to the first performances of Accidental Death of an Anarchist (when the memory of Pinelli's death and the December 12, 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing was still raw in the public's mind), Fo noted that:

The audience split their sides laughing at the effects produced by the comical and at the same time satirical situations. But as the performance went on; they gradually came to see that they were laughing the whole time at real events, events which were criminal and obscene in their brutality; crimes of the state. So the grins froze on their faces and, in most cases, turned into a kind of Grand Guignol scream which had nothing liberating about it, nothing to make things palatable. On the contrary, it made them impossible to swallow.

Since its 1970 premiere, Accidental Death of an Anarchist has been translated into numerous languages and performed around the world. While the play provides a dramatic map for the actors, it is essentially a framework which can support all kinds of pratfalls, sight gags, and buffoonery that has kept audiences laughing from the days of the Commedia dell'arte to vaudeville; from Plautus to The Producers. As Berkeley Rep's artistic director, Tony Taccone (who first met the playwright nearly 30 years ago) notes:

Fo's entire career has been dedicated to the creation of subversive laughter. He has famously taken on politicians, the police, and his personal favorite: the pope. For his efforts he's been vilified and adored, condemned as an outlaw and celebrated as champion of the people. At one point, the State Department labeled him as a dangerous criminal and, for many years, he was barred from entering the United States.

You can read his plays all you want, but they only come alive in performance. They are built around his persona as a professional Fool, a court jester whose job is to expose the hypocrisy of the state and to satirize all forms of corruption. The Fool speaks the truth when no other person dares to; he creates jokes that are based in reality and relentlessly ridicules those who have lied, cheated, or killed to attain power. In that sense, the Fool is a teacher, and the conspiratorial laughter he creates with the audience is both relieving and alarming.

Stephen Epp stars as the Maniac in Dario Fo's political satire,
Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Photo by: Joan Marcus)


Adapted by Gavin Richards (from a translation by Gillian Hanna) this production has been directed by Christopher Bayes, who has spent many years studying Commedia dell'arte and teaching classes in clown technique. Together with Steven Epp (who stars as the Maniac), the creative team has done its best to pepper the evening with references to current events. Whether citing some of the lost souls who can be found wandering the streets of downtown Berkeley or referencing Senator Dianne Feinstein's criticism of the CIA, every effort is made to keep the audience aware that what they are witnessing onstage is only a tiny part of the corruption and injustice which perverts their daily lives.




Eugene Ma, Steven Epp, and Allen Gilmore in a scene from
Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Photo by Joan Marcus)


Among the talented ensemble Bayes has assembled for this co-production with the Yale Repertory Theatre are Liam Craig as the blustering police Superintendent; Renata Friedman as the female journalist, Feletti; Allen Gilmore as the stooge, Pissani; and Jesse J. Perez as the buffoonish investigator, Bertozzo. As a pudgy constable who (when not singing falsetto) is happy to sit on the sidelines eating donuts, Eugene Ma delivers some priceless comedic moments.

How did Bayes find a way to combine the comedic traditions of Commedia dell'arte with cultural references that would resonate with a modern audience? As he explains:

Having grown up in the 1960s and 1970s, Accidental Death of an Anarchist had the kind of sitcom feel like Barney Miller gone terribly wrong, or The Honeymooners, or I Love Lucy gone completely psycho. So we used this feeling as a kind of inspiration for the design elements. It feels very much of its time but also it is very clear that we are doing a period play in the present moment (there is a kind of acknowledgment of the theatrical conceit). Corruption and coverups never seem to stop. They just seem to get stupider because we have grown to expect them. Verbal storytelling tends to be more of a cerebral experience. If a story is told with more physicality, it becomes a more visceral experience.

Jesse J. Perez and Renata Friedman in a scene from
Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Photo by: Jared Oates)


While Berkeley Rep's production benefits strongly from Kate Noll's unit set and the costumes by Elivia Bovenzi, there were many moments in Act I when I felt as if every possible piece of shtick was being tossed out to the audience in order to see what would stick. As the Maniac, Epp would frequently comment about how the audience was probably wondering why people thought any of this was funny.

However, any discomfort was quelled in Act II when Epp reappeared as a military inspector from another district. Suddenly, the tone of the farce shifted and I found myself watching, in amazement, what felt like a classic Sid Caesar comedy sketch. The sharpness of the satire only served to set the audience up for the sobering dose of reality with which the playwright confronts his audience at the end of the evening.

Whether one tires of the shtick or finds it hysterically funny, there is method to the playwright and director's madness. In addition to Epp's deliciously manic performance, I greatly enjoyed the work of the lanky Renata Friedman and the talented Eugene Ma.

To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

Modernism Gallery and the Late Mark Stock: Art, Friendship, and Feeling

May 17, 2014, 8:03 pm

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Martin Muller, who owns and runs San Francisco's esteemed Modernism art gallery, was preparing for a new show of work by one of his longtime artists. Barnaby Conrad III, who wrote the artist's biography in 2000, was flying to San Francisco to interview him and update the book. Neither man had any idea that Mark Stock--best known for his feeling-infused paintings of a tuxedoed, white-gloved butler, most famously The Butler's in Love: Absinthe--would be dead before they could see him again. When he died this past March, he was only 62.

The gallery show, which runs through June 21, is now titled Mark Stock: Lives of the Butlers: Memorial Exhibition.

Among his other figurative works, Stock created more than 100 paintings featuring butlers in poses suggesting repressed pain and longing. They are like little stories the viewer helps write with Stock's narrative hints, such as the bend of the butler's body and tilt of his head as he looks at the lipstick traces on an empty glass. A newer painting, titled Sunset, shows a man lying on his back on thick grass enclosed by a low barrier, oblivious to the sky's fiery glow as he intently reads a one-page letter. What does it say, and who wrote it?

Early on, Stock worked as a lithographer at Gemini G.E.L., a renowned fine arts publisher in Los Angeles. Here he worked with artists such as Jasper Johns and many others who do abstract work. In the art world, abstraction is the novel to figurative painting's short story, by which I mean it is generally considered more important, at a higher level somehow, simply by virtue of its form. Some critics almost disdain figurative, or realist, work of any kind.

But Stock stayed true to his own inclinations--just as Muller has since he opened Modernism in 1979. Among the 40-some living artists whose work he shows, Muller represents some whose work is as abstract as they come, such as James Hayward's ultra-thick layers of color on canvas, which look like frosting through which someone could not avoid artfully running a finger, or Charles Arnoldi's often moody geometrics.

Muller also represents artists such as Gary Baseman, with his lively cartoonlike figures, and Gottfried Helnwein, whose almost surreal, serious children make Stock's protagonists look positively cheerful. Then there's the uncategorizable Jonathon Keats, whose work you just have to see for yourself. I would say there's no gallery in town quite as eclectic as Modernism. (You may see work as varied and original at newer galleries, but I doubt any also show works by L.A.'s famed Ed Ruscha, Le Corbusier, and the Russian Avant-Garde, 1910-1930.)

As for Stock, Muller felt the emotion in his work even in a newspaper image he spotted in the mid-eighties, after which he spent a long time seeking Stock out. He then commissioned Stock to create a painting inspired by an earlier book of Conrad's, Absinthe: History in a Bottle, for a black-tie publication party. The party was at Bix, down an alley near Jackson Square, where Stock's most famous painting still hangs in the elegant bar.

This tells you something about the world of art and friendship that Muller has created over the years. The announcement for this new gallery show reads: In great sorrow on the passing of our dear friend and artist Mark Stock, August 4, 1951-March 26, 2014.

Through June 21, Modernism, 685 Market St., S.F., Suite 290, 415.541.0461, modernisminc.com.

The Cannes Diaries: Divorce Orthodox Style, the Next Arab Superstar and Hugs on the Croisette

May 18, 2014, 7:13 am

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Ronit Elkabetz in Gett, the Trial of Viviane Amsalem

The Festival de Cannes continues to be both astounding and demanding. While the meetings and human contact is unequaled for me -- it feels like a wonderfully inclusive high school reunion where I get to see all the people I adore, and none of the ones I can't stand -- running back and forth between the Carlton, the Grand Hotel and the Palais through the Croisette, dodging tourists eating their ice creams proves, at best, challenging. Alessandra Priante, the Cultural Attaché for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Gulf said it best when she stated, "Nina, blisters is the nickname of Cannes for ladies!" Blisters will definitely be one of the souvenirs I take home from this trip. Along with memories to last me a lifetime.

On Day Three of the festival, I got into a screening of Gett, the Trial of Viviane Amsalem by the skin of my teeth, that's how late I was. But running for the film, which is part of the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, proved full of reward. Gett (the name of the document of divorce in Israel) by brother and sister filmmakers Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz, is a beautifully shot, stunningly acted oeuvre, which sneaks in a daring commentary on Israeli society and Orthodox deviations when it comes to women's rights. While the Torah could be a teaching tool full of tolerance and wisdom, the Rabbinic laws, as in most fundamentalist variations on religions, have deviated from the books' original, well balanced views. So Viviane (played with seductive dignity and courage by Ronit Elkabetz), a character introduced along with husband Elisha (Simon Abkarian, who grows from unlikable to detestable in a stunning crescendo of talent) in previous films by the Elkabetz, is subjected to a court made up of three rabbinical judges. These three men see her claims of incompatibility as unfounded, and clearly, but not forthrightly, insufficient grounds for a divorce. For five years, lived along with the audience, Viviane is subjected to her husband's passive aggressive behavior, while the court and witnesses discredit her and her decision by chipping away at her being. Never too dramatically of course, but her freedom, her independence as a strong woman is attacked in ways that made me squirm in my seat.

Walking up the stairs of the Theatre Croisette inside the JW Marriott after the screening, I felt as if I was thankfully coming up for air, after having been submersed in feelings and beautifully cinematic anguish for nearly two hours.



Mid-afternoon I got to interview the filmmakers of Party Girl on the Gray d'Albion beach. Claire Burger, Marie Amachoukeli and Samuel Theis were insightful and interesting, and represented their film, which is by the way based on the true adventures of Theis' mother Angélique Litzenburger. She's a dancing girl, a woman of the night, in her sixties, with a dilemma ahead. To marry or not to marry, to work or not to work, as her age is catching up with her but her spirit fights entrapment all the way. Adding to this docu-meets-drama scenario is the fact that all the Theis siblings also act their own roles in the film. When I asked the trio why direct altogether, their reply was that they've been making films together since film school. But I sensed a weak link among them, the reason why perhaps Party Girl felt wonderfully entertaining to watch, but didn't fill my dreams afterwards.

Then it was time for one of the events I always look forward to, the SANAD fund announcement party at the UAE pavilion. Time and time again, and I'll never get tired of saying or writing this, I feel the welcoming arms of the Gulf cinematic organizations envelop me, as they have supported my work and spread my message like no other. My love of cinema from the Gulf and film in the Emirates grows each time I attend one of these events, and this time, with their new grant projects disclosed, it is no exception. Plus the idea to create within the UAE Pavilion a single space for the film festivals in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as for the film commissions in both emirates, has proven perfectly successful. A one-stop shop for all things wonderfully Emirati.

During the party, I met the man responsible for the hilarious "Man Rides Camel Through Burger King" video stunt. He's Hamad Al Amari, a comedian from Qatar, who works with the Doha Film Institute and is both funny and charming in person.

Oh, and then some lunatic tried to crawl under America Ferrera's skirt, on the red carpet, later that afternoon. But you can read all about it in another article, by a different writer...

Day Four started with breakfast in the company of one of my favorite actors and all around cool man Adam Bakri, who played the lead in last year's Un Certain Regard jury prize winner Omar. Bakri comes from cinematic royalty, as both his father Mohamed Bakri and brother Saleh Bakri represent the very best Palestinian cinema has to offer. This year another brother, Ziad Bakri, stars in Self Made, a film part of the Semaine de la Critique sidebar in Cannes. But back to Adam, from the first moment he appeared on screen in Abu-Assad's masterpiece film, I knew he would be a superstar. And with an announcement slated for later in the day, my instincts proved right. But more on that news in a minute.


On my way to the Dubai International Film Festival luncheon at the Carlton -- yes work is hard but life, not so much, as I am surrounded by handsome movie stars and eating at world class hotels -- I noticed a handsome, stylishly dressed man walking towards me, with arms extended. "Me?" I asked, surprised that I could not place his face, while he was clearly offering a hug. "Yes, may I?" He asked. Complete strangers, we hugged, briefly, he smelled delicious and introduced himself as Louis. We said goodbye, went our separate ways, and I defied all warnings published that very day in the Hollywood Reporter which stated that the French hug to "destabilize" foreigners. I felt perfectly stable, quite proud of myself, and as an inveterate New Yorker, I checked my purse to make sure I had all my belongings. I did. They were.

While at the DIFF lunch, I had a chance to catch up with Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Hefzy, who is responsible for a lot of my favorite films. From Rags & Tatters, to Microphone, to Villa 69, Hefzy is now part of the A to B film currently in production, which offers a buddy movie, road trip format across the Middle East. And lets not forget, Hefzy is also the director of the Ismailia International Film Festival which will take place in Egypt from the 3rd to the 8th of June. Filmmaker Jim Sheridan was also at the glamorous luncheon, and he's as humble as he is interesting. Not to mention, his love for Arab cinema is something to be admired. Deeply.

Later in the afternoon, it was time for yet another event, the FiGa/Br label launch party in the Cinema do Brasil pavilion. Co-founder Sandro Fiorin, and I can't say it enough, is the man I hold responsible for my love of Brazilian cinema and his hospitality at the party was warm and lovely. With a Caipirinha in hand and after enjoying some great conversations with the British (not Brazilian) filmmaker of Indian Summer (which has the best tagline in the festival "A Politically Incorrect Short Film"), I was content to call it a day, early enough to get home and await the big news.

So no need to hold our breaths any longer. Just announced at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc dinner hosted by mega-agent Charles Finch, Adam Bakri will star in a fantastic new project, a cinematic adaptation of Ali and Nino, a novel about the romance between a Muslim Azerbaijani boy and Christian Georgian girl in Baku during the First World War. With a screenplay by Christopher Hampton (of Atonement and Dangerous Liasons fame) and directed by Asif Kapadia (Senna), who is known for his deep characters living in unforgiving landscapes, this promises to be a gorgeous project. One that makes Bakri the next, great, Arab movie star!

Insh'Allah.

Images courtesy of the Festival de Cannes, Adam Bakri photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for DIFF, used with permission

2 States (Hindi and Tamil, English Subtitles), Directed by Abhishek Varam

May 18, 2014, 10:19 am

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In matters of romance, we say that opposites attract. That's not always the case with the parents. Such is the intrigue of "2 States," written and directed by Abhishek Varman, based on the novel by Chetan Bhagat. It's the love story between vivacious Ananya (Alia Bhatt) and Kris (Arjun Kapoor), her gloomy fellow business school student. She's a Tamilian Brahmin from Chennia. He's a North Indian Punjabi from Delhi. Different cultures? She doesn't care, he doesn't care. But there are impediments to the marriage of their true minds. To her parents (Revathy and Shiv Kumar Subramaniam), Punjabis are rich but uncultured. To his mother (Amitra Singh), Tamil's are dark-skinned. Montagues and Capulets? Try Hatfields and McCoys.

The film is notable for it's genre bending. The elements of a typical Bollywood romantic comedy are there. From the start, the story's strewn with obstacles. Kris is smitten, as are all the other men. When they meet, she's fielded almost a dozen marriage proposals. He helps her with her math and enters the friend zone. And then one things to another.

The film's formulaic, to be sure. But it moves beyond formulas. It provides depth to the characterizations. It turns expectations on their head. We think Ananya will henpeck Kris. She doesn't. He's got too much on his mind to be fully present. As in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?," we think family introductions are going to be awkward. They are, but we have no idea they'd be so nasty. We think the relationship will work, not work, work, not work. It does, it doesn't, it does, it doesn't. It, well, nevermind. We think, a la Romeo and Juliet, that one of them, as they tell their therapist, will commit suicide. Thank God that doesn't happen. We think that Kris will forever be held under the thumb of his mother. That doesn't happen. We think he will be forever estranged from his father (Ronit Roy). In a touching scene, that doesn't happen, either.

To Varman's credit, easy consolations of stereotype are thrown out the window. We get the full backstory of the problems with Kris' parent's marriage. This explains his mother's spite towards Ananya's parents. We get extended attempts by Kris to win over Ananya's parents and by Ananya to win over Kris' mother. We don't have a clue what's going to happen until the end. Nor do we realize that a written version of the story itself will figure mightily in the plot.

Though the film lasts two-and-a-half hours long, time flies. The two leads are fantastic. Bhatt's Ananya is effervescent. Under Kris's mother's nonstop assaults, though, you can see her glow diminish. Kapoor's Kris is an aw-shucks-nerd-in-love. He undercuts this with a broodiness that has nothing to do with his attempts to squire Ananya. The production design is captivating. The songs, especially "Offo!" and "Locha-E-Ulfat" are gorgeous. And the story's various twists and turns resonate with young people in the thralls of love and their parents in the thralls of their children in the thralls of love. Makes you wonder how couples -- and their parents -- get through, much endure, the crucibles of friendship, love, and marriage.

Oakland-esque: Oakland Ballet's love letter to a city

May 19, 2014, 12:03 am

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Ballet companies everywhere are trying to stay relevant, agonizing over how to build audiences and attract a younger demographic to the opera house.

Oakland Ballet's straightforward strategy is to take ballet to the streets - literally and figuratively. Their latest program, Oakland-esque, a love letter to the artists and musicians who give the city its vibrant soul, closes with the dancers trooping gleefully out of the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts and inviting the audience to join them on the street as they wrap up the final number, artistic director Graham Lustig's irresistible Turfland.

Against the bold backdrop of urban art by Samuel Renaissance, Lustig showcases the talents of Garion "Noh-justice" Morgan and Rayshawn "Looney" Thompson of the famed Turf Feinz crew, drawing out the similarities between their style of hip hop and ballet. The terrific Oakland Ballet dancers - the women in tutus with knee socks and ripped tights, the men in sneakers - bust all kinds of moves: moonwalking on pointe, pirouettes on the tips of their sneakers, flips, body waves, tutting. Sonsherée Giles and Joel Brown from Oakland's acclaimed physically integrated dance company, AXIS Dance, join in the fun, expertly maneuvering Brown's wheelchair in a series of daredevil spins and flips.

In a nod to the complex geometries of ballet, Lustig deftly weaves the dancers in and out of formations more formal than the typical b-boy and b-girl battles. In the most telling of contrasts, Steph Salts explores the dynamics of balancing in a forced arch on pointe on one leg, shifting her head, arms and upper body to maintain her balance over a flexed hip, knee and ankle; seconds later, Noh-Justice takes on a similar challenge while balancing in a deep pistol squat on one leg.

In a moment both comic and poignant, the sound of rain interrupts the music, and the men hike the women into the air as the women extend their bodies rigidly parallel to the ground - like umbrellas. Street dancers are always prepared for weather.



The program opens with Sonya Delwaide's smart and sassy Rocky Road, a tip of the hat to the Oakland inventors of the ice cream flavor during the Great Depression, and to Oakland jazz great Earl "Fatha" Hines. The pointework is jazzy and delightfully stilted, amid a cascade of cheeky gestures, stomping, leaning, lunging, wiggling and hitch-kicking. Brief solo turns elicit admiring Whoa's from the ensemble, attired in snappy athletic-inspired wear and fire engine red pointe shoes and ballet slippers.

A voice-over conversation between two lovers having an argument in a busy coffee shop suggests that this piece may reflect the vicissitudes in a relationship ("You just don't get it," she complains at one point. "You gonna finish your ice cream?" he wants to know.) The duets veer from comic, to tender, to passionate. A languid saxophone underpins the sharp push-pull between Evan Flood and Sharon Wehner. A tempestuous encounter between AXIS Dance's Giles and Brown seems finally to resolve itself as she curls up in his lap and he wheels his chair offstage. (Given the intriguing movement options and imagery opened up by dancers whose mobility is aided by equipment, it seems a massive oversight that more dance companies have not embraced these possibilities.)

Molissa Fenley's cerebral Redwood Park provides a sharp musical contrast to the rest of the program. Scored entirely for an array of percussion instruments (gong, elephant bells, temple blocks, bongos, ratchet, woodblocks, and bass drum) by Joan Jeanrenaud, and requiring a highly precise interplay between musicians Nava Dunkelman and Anna Wray, the piece is meant to convey the feeling of hiking the Oakland redwood trails. The choreography explores the timbres and rhythms of the score - impressionistic, and without a dramatic arc, it calls to mind some of Merce Cunningham's work. With their stiff, hyperextended arms and simple, playful movements that include flat-footed turns, floor skimming hops, and leg swings, all executed with balletic precision, the dancers in their jewel-toned pajamas might have been birds flitting among the redwoods.



The high point of this ambitious program of world premières was Robert Moses' TIP, set to the music of bass guitarist Larry Graham (of Sly and the Family Stone fame, and later, Graham Central Station). Graham pioneered the technique of slapping the electric bass, which has since defined the modern funk genre. Moses winds provocatively around the beat of the music, his dancers invariably elegant as they slide, twist, and explode off the floor, vibrating at a very high frequency. The women, clad in halter tops and playfully printed short shorts, bounce off the men, in matching bike shorts and muscle T's, with the super-cool attitude of "I got this." The women often initiate the whiplash lifts and spins, and at one point, a man kicks a woman in the shoulder, trying to raise a little hell, but she isn't fazed, just flashes him a grin.

Vincent Chavez and Emily Kerr are superb in a feisty duet with breakneck transitions in which neither of them appears to break a sweat. Moments later, the two-timing Chavez is wooing Steph Salts in a more overtly sexual and hungry mood. Things with Salts don't seem to work out either, and Chavez expresses his loneliness and frustration in an intense, savage solo.

Salts won't give Chavez the last word, however; she reappears for a blistering solo that hooks the riveting and lyrical Matthew Roberts. They dance together on her terms - without physical contact. A magnificent close to a captivating work that takes us to unexpected places emotionally and intellectually.

It is a great pity that Oakland Ballet's resources only stretch to the briefest of seasons. A program that celebrates this spirited city with such style and invention deserves a long run, in many different venues. Purists may grumble, but this is the future of ballet. Companies in other cities should pay attention.

Photos, courtesy of Oakland Ballet:

1. Oakland Ballet Company dancer Vincent Chavez (left) and Rayshawn "Looney" Thompson (right) of the Turf Feinz in Graham Lustig's TURFLAND. Photo by David DeSilva.

2. (Left to right): Oakland Ballet Company dancer Sharon Wehner (left), with guest dancers from the Turffeinz, Rayshawn "Looney" Thompson (center) and Garion "Noh-justice" Morgan (right) in Graham Lustig's TURFLAND. Photo by Christopher Dunn.

3. (Left to right): Oakland Ballet Company Dancers Steph Salts, Sharon Wehner and Megan Terry, Rayshawn "Looney" Thompson of the Turf Feinz, Oakland Ballet Company dancer Tori Jahn in Graham Lustig's TURFLAND. Photo by Christopher Dunn.

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Challat of Tunis at ACID in Cannes: Urban Legend or True Lunatic?

May 19, 2014, 4:02 am

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Kaouther Ben Hania's film Challat of Tunis screened in front of an overpacked, sold-out audience this year in Cannes, part of the ACID program. ACID is a French film directors association that helps films find an audience, but also distribution and more screening options. In this, Challat of Tunis was the perfect choice, as their successful opening night event proved, beyond all doubts.

Ben Hania's is a documentary-meets-fiction film, which left me with that wonderfully tippy feeling of not knowing where reality ends and make-believe starts. I enjoyed it thoroughly, because while telling a story taken from the Tunisian headlines -- of a man on a scooter who in 2003 went around slashing the bottoms of women he considered inappropriately dressed -- it really ran alongside a commentary on society in Tunisia today. Nothing is what it seems but everything is open to interpretation, with the help of Ben Hania's presence to help thread the story through. Full of insight, poignancy and even humor -- the filmmaker holds auditions to find the perfect slasher for her film -- Challat of Tunis is a film that comes freshly out of country where telling the truth, speaking one's mind is no longer a crime.

I caught up with Ben Hania and her producers, Julie Paratian and Habib Attia, in the UAE Pavilion in Cannes for a wonderful chat about their film.

Your film seems both a documentary and a set-up, a constructed documentary. How did you come up with that format?

Kaouther Ben Hania: Because the real story, when it happened, there was no investigation, no one was ever caught by the police, so there were a lot of rumors and rumors are fantasy, fiction. It was the best form to treat this story in which the part of reality is small. What was interesting for me was what is the collective conscience of people and the fantasy around it and what it tells about us, so I had to set up stories to explain this.

So you set up auditions for the Challat. I love that!

Ben Hania: Yeah, I set up a lot of things, because the facts are so small and what was interesting was what is behind the facts.

The film is really entertaining because you make it about an urban legend. It becomes more of a reverse, dark fairy tale where the prince is actually a slasher. So why did you decide to make this particular story, when you could have explored any in Tunisia?

Ben Hania: This story was interesting for me because it was how to make a film about an anonymous guy by negative, to treat this character as the negative in photography. We don't see him and we don't see his face at the end of the film, we don't know who is the Challat, but we know a lot about Challat.

Julie Paratian: He's a symptomatic character, symptom of the society and of a state.

Ben Hania: Of a situation of the dictatorship, all this is the real metaphor of the sickness.

What has changed in Tunisia since 2003, the time of the attacks by the Challat?

Ben Hania: The main change is that we can talk about it, before we could not have a debate about this issue and social and political issues. The fact that we didn't talk we were frustrated, and I think the Challat appearance in 2003 is also because of this. When you talk it's kind of a deliverance. if you are under oppression you can explode. And the Challat for me explodes. The main change is that after the Revolution we can talk about it, there is no censorship, and this film is mainly a symptom of how we can treat things, and talk about them freely. And we start by talking so we've taken the first step.

Paratian: She started the film before the Revolution with that same idea and the idea of the Challat remained a very good way to go inside the Tunisian society after the Revolution. It was a good vehicle to know what has changed and what has not changed. Without saying "OK is the Revolution good, is the new government good," directly. And what she does with putting that guy inside the part, is like an experiment to show what has changed and what has not changed. And what has not changed is what is deep inside in the mind. The relationships between men and women, but what has changed is the fact that you can talk about it so you can free yourself and hear other people's opinion.

I mean, you are basically talking about women's bottoms for the entire time! It's a huge deal in a film from Tunisia. Your two main characters are women's bottoms and a slasher. The film, by its sheer existence shows a change but also changes the world.

Paratian: Absolutely! I had that feeling after showing it mostly to an Arabic audience, that's what we had in Dubai. Because what's really strong also is that it's made by a Tunisian woman who is able to laugh about her country, to show her country's bad side, not only to show her countrymen fighting for their rights.

Personally, I see cinema as a means of activism, as a way of changing the world. Are you both conscious that when you make a film by its sheer existence it's changing the world a little bit?

Ben Hania: I'm not sure that films can change the world, but I've heard this and I find it wonderful because it's so true, they can change our relationship to the world. Our way to look to the world is different, but changing things, cinema doesn't do this.

If I read an article about the Challat I would get some basic info, it wouldn't stay with me very long, but a film makes that story stay within me for a long while. Media doesn't do that.

Ben Hania: For me, the main difference between news and cinema is like the difference between amnesia and memory, cinema is memory it's for generations, but news is now. And we are in a very crazy period, because we have a lot of news so we're kind of amnesic, we have heard everything but don't know anything.

Paratian: It's the difference between journalism and literature. As a woman you are touched, and as a man you are touched also. We have talked to men who say, I understand some things about being a man by watching these guys, because there is somethings they say that I recognize in myself, even if i would never say it. Cinema affects you more strongly than only abstract things.

Did you know always that you wanted to be the narrator, and be there throughout the film?

Ben Hania: Yes, because there are a lot of stories in the film and there is no link between them and the main link is an idea. I needed a character to link all the stories. For example the girl with the tattoo, the girl who commits suicide, the casting call, I needed the character to link all this so I borrowed the code of an investigative documentary...

Paratian: Like a Michael Moore film, you know...

When and how did Enjaaz, the post production fund of the Dubai International Film Festival come onboard?

Habib Attia: We started the development of the project with Dubai, in 2009. Then Dubai knew about the project, so Enjaaz was just a concretization of this collaboration. Enjaaz came in at the right moment. We had the final cut of the film but we were not booked on the financing, they enabled us to finish the film in the right way. The other great part of DIFF is their visibility. It's important to have a partner like Dubai, not only for their film festival, where we had our world premiere, but other events in other festivals and distribution. Dubai is the right partner for financing-slash-quality, because of how they are perceived in the world. DIFF is not only a very big festival with red carpets but it's very market oriented and it has this handle on its identity. It's important to have them as a partner on the film.

Paratian: Also it has made the position of Arab co-producers stronger, because before they didn't have a lot to bring to the table. Now they can bring money, partners and so they have a better position, and it makes what they bring to the project more interesting. Habib is a very subtle but very strong producer and he can get a spot in the international market because he brings that. It's very important. What I saw, in Dubai, was that there is really a community of directors and producers who are starting to come together, and you realize that you now have a voice, you have a community.

Ben Hania: We can breathe a little bit, Enjaaz is like a breath.

All images courtesy of the filmmakers, used with permission

On the Culture Front: Red-Eye to Havre de Grace, The Few and more

May 19, 2014, 4:10 am

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Broadway is having a banner year, and for the first time in a while, new American plays are a significant part of the lineup. Will Eno's The Realistic Joneses is a great example. Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Edward Albee, Eno uses stylized language to explore how we relate (or don't) to each other. He never draws straight lines between his ideas but rather gives us just enough information for us to understand his characters through our own life experiences. Many critics have focused on one particular plot revelation, but to do so, I feel reduces the play's scope. If you let it wash through you, this surreal and satisfying one act has more to say about modern existence than could ever be conveyed simply with plot.

Robert Schenkkan's fiery political masterpiece All the Way focuses on the months leading up to the Civil Rights Act. It's a fascinating glimpse into all the wrangling that goes into passing a law -- think Lincoln but with a much better script -- as well as a philosophical dialogue on whether the ends justify the means. There's also Bryan Cranston who is the great living actor hands down.

Neil Patrick Harris is turning in the performance of a lifetime in Hedwig and the Angry Inch over at the Belasco Theatre where according to the show's book, Hurt Locker: The Musical opened the night before and "closed at intermission." Poor Hedwig has been called on to fill the space and does so completely. Unlike the TONY's, I consider Hedwig to be an original musical because of the extensive book revisions that John Cameron Mitchell made. It's because of these that we never question why Hedwig would be on Broadway. Every one of Stephen Trask's songs is a show stopper, and Harris brings them to life with pathos and a welcome levity that makes the story all the more profound.

While he was snubbed for a Tony nom, Daniel Radcliffe delivers a moving and nuanced performance that drives Michael Grandage's revival of Martin McDonagh's dark coming-of-age-in-a-small-seaside-village play, The Cripple of Inishmaan, that deftly brings to life the suffocating nature of small communities as well as the comfort they can provide.

Walter Lee Younger feels the walls of his too-small apartment closing in on him in Kenny Leon's solid if a bit staid revival of Lorriane Hansberry's landmark play, A Raisin in the Sun. Denzel Washington movingly portrays how rootless ambition can undo a man as profoundly as institutionalized racism, but Anika Noni Rose is the reason to see this production. As Younger's brilliant sister, Rose embodies the passion, naiveté, and boundless courage of a woman set to change a world that isn't ready for her. It's too bad Clybourne Park isn't playing anymore, these two would be a wallop of a double header on the progression of race relations in the US.

James Lapine's adaptation of Moss Hart's autobiography, Act One, is a must for anyone who's ever had artistic dreams and ambitions. The well-structured if a bit long two act play does a fantastic job of showing all the ups-and-downs and wrangling there is to be done on the way to the Great White Way. Even more impressive is how Lapine brings to life Hart's recollections of the many revisions Once in a Lifetime went through, illustrating the very fine line between success and disaster. Tony Shalhoub transforms himself seamlessly from an older Moss Hart to his father and then father figure and collaborator George S. Kaufman.

Woody Allen has done a bang-up job transforming one of his strongest films, Bullets Over Broadway, into a love letter to old-time showbiz while simultaneously lampooning the industry and the mystical nature of creativity. The well-curated list of well-known and more obscure songs include, "The Hot Dog Song," which provides the perfect vehicle for one of Susan Stroman's most hysterically salacious numbers. Stroman also deserves high praise for a masterfully staged climax.

The climax in Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's If/Then is a contrived mess but there's much to like about the show. Yorkey ambitiously explores the idea of parallel universes and how our lives take form based on the choices we make. The problem is he tries to cram too much in, causing the show to implode on itself. Kitt's music is alternately trite and deeply moving. There is a hell of a lot of substance and terrific writing buried inside a mess of contrivances. With another draft, it could undergo a Once in a Lifetime transformation and become the hit it deserves to be.

The same cannot be said about Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley's painfully simplistic musical, Violet, which charts the journey of a young disfigured woman set to remake her image. Early on there's an interesting scene that touches on racism in the '60s southern towns where the show is set, but this theme is quickly abandoned for a more superficial storyline. Tesori's music is equally bland pastiche that manages to suck the soul out of soul music save for the rousing "Let it Sing," which is brought to life by Joshua Henry.

Conversely, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's score for Here Lies Love harnesses the energy of disco and uses it to propel a compelling personal story about Imelda Marcos ascent to the throne while telling a more universal cautionary tale of how fascism breeds. Alex Timbers stages the show in a nightclub where you move to the action, which pops up on various platforms in the Public Theater space. Dancing is encouraged (and hard to resist), but it's also a distraction from what's brewing underneath. The ending packs a chilling punch, much like Cabaret when the wall comes up to reveal the concentration camp.

Seeing the revival of Cabaret at Studio 54 (or more aptly the revival of the Sam Mendes' 1998 Roundabout revival inspired by his 1993 staging at the Donmar Warehouse) solidly reconfirmed for me that the Kander and Ebb classic is possibly the greatest musical ever written. It manages not only to craft show-stopping numbers and poignant scenes with meaty dialogue, but uses each meticulous bit to plant a rich and mounting subtext that beautifully foreshadows the climax. It's intensely political but without a soapbox in sight.

Simple props like a wooden chair and door are used inventively to create a rich tapestry of the last days of poet Edgar Allen Poe in Red-Eye to Havre de Grace. The show features many of his late-career poems set to music by David and Jeremy Wilhelm. Darkness and levity dance hand-in-hand through their melodies, and with co-creator Thaddeus Phillips' inventive staging, create a dreamlike vision of horror and wonder as the show (and Poe) grapple with mortality, what it means to exist and not. What it means to feel that existence slipping away and being powerless to stop it. The show could be bleak but is oddly comforting in its honesty and communal feeling.

An undeniable communal feeling courses through the world premiere of Ed Sylvanus Iskandar's, The Mysteries, an epic six-hour journey through the greatest hits of the bible, written by 48 established and emerging playwrights. Brought to life by 54 of the Flea Theater's talented resident acting company, the Bats, it would be an understatement to simply call it large-scale. It's biblical proportions underscore the profound impact these stories have had on countless people throughout time while highlighting the personal struggles of Jesus, Mary, and even Judas. Iskandar weaves all 48 playwrights voices (including Craig Lucas, David Henry Hwang, Ellen McLauglin, and Dael Orlandersmith) seamlessly together to create a resounding narrative where the devil is a woman you can relate to and God is a bit of a spiteful prick.

Kiran Rikhye and Sean Cronin's well-shaken "play in three cocktails", Potion, is an engaging if slight musical on the intoxication of love and other spirits that explores the idea that identity is malleable especially in the presence of potent potions. Cronin's music is pleasing homespun folk while Rikhye's book has a playful heightened edge. The mixologist Marlo Gamora receives top-billing and turns out three cocktails (Curiosity, On Pins and Needles, and Love Potion no. 10) that audience members sip from their seats at the intimate People Lounge. Like an evening out drinking, it's intensely entertaining even if the experience fades quickly the morning after.

Samuel D. Hunter's The Few quietly resonates as a rich portrait of loneliness and a sly comment on the economics of journalism. Its title gets its name from a local paper that was founded to give truck drivers a sense of community through carefully crafted stories but has devolved into personals ads when its founder Bryan (Michael Laurence) flees. The lights come up on a small cluttered trailer as he returns four years later and the next 90 minutes is a riveting and enlightening journey of man struggling to put a life back together that he's thoroughly dismantled.

Double Vision

May 19, 2014, 5:27 am

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Over the past 30 years I have written or evaluated more strategic plans than I can count. In every one, appropriately, there is a statement of mission and objectives, or a vision statement or both.

Yet the more I observe arts organization struggling to balance art and fiscal stability, the more I realize that the most successful arts managers have two distinct but related visions for their organizations: one picture of the work of the organization -- the artistic and educational programming that addresses the mission and sets the organization apart -- and a second for the financial structure that provides the resources needed to pay for the programming.

Both are critical. Without a clear picture of the art and other programs that will be mounted in the future, the organization cannot achieve its mission, cannot build an audience or donor base and, frankly, is of little value. Arts organizations, after all, exist to produce art.

But without a clear financial picture of where money will come from and how it will be spent, however, the organization will never be free to make art without always feeling the crushing pressure of cash flow shortfalls. This financial vision reflects expectations for a growing or changing donor base, projections for ticket sales and the development of new strands of earned income.

There are arts managers I observe who do a brilliant job of envisioning art -- of creating new projects of great merit and excitement -- without developing a comprehensive fiscal picture of the future. These managers typically start with a bang -- announcing great artistic projects and engaging the audience and the press. But, ultimately, they cannot pay for their dreams and the wonderful artistic plans cannot fully materialize.

These managers also eventually run afoul of those board members who come from a corporate background and are used to fiscal regimen. They tolerate the artistic innovations until there is no money to pay for them. Then they swoop in, 'restore order,' and often destroy the soul of the institution.

Other arts managers struggle to create exciting programming -- they stick with the tried and true -- but have a very clear picture of financial performance in the future. These managers often use the fiscal vision to justify being more conservative about programming.

Yet with only a fiscal vision, they invariably lose their institutional families, experience reductions in earned and contributed income and, in truth, cannot effectively pursue a mission of artistic excellence. Despite the fiscal discipline they impose, these arts managers end up with organizations as sick as those without a financial plan.

It is those arts managers who can effectively balance these two requirements -- who in fact recognize that the success on one side of the equation is essential for success on the other -- who are the most successful. They know that great art must come first but that a comprehensive financial vision must be developed in concert with a long-term artistic plan. They make the best art for the longest periods of time.

Carl Andre Retrospective at Dia Art Foundation in Beacon (VIDEO)

May 19, 2014, 5:28 am

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Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place, 1958-2010 at Dia Beacon is the first retrospective to consider the full spectrum of Carl Andre's art. The exhibition is grouped into three parts: sculpture, poetry, and Carl Andre's unclassifiable productions, from the enigmatic assemblages known as Dada Forgeries to his wide-ranging ephemera. In this video, Yasmil Raymond (Curator, Dia Art Foundation) provides us with an introduction to the exhibition and Carl Andre's work.



Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place, 1958-2010 at Dia Art Foundation in Beacon spans over five decades. The retrospective includes 45 sculptures; over 160 poems and works on paper presented in wooden vitrines designed by the artist; a selection of rarely exhibited assemblages known as Dada Forgeries; and an unprecedented selection of photographs and ephemera. It's the first museum survey of Andre's entire oeuvre, and the first retrospective in North America since 1978-80.


Carl Andre: Base 7 Aluminum Stack, New York, 2008.

After premiering at Dia:Beacon, the retrospective's only venue in the United States, it will travel to museums in Europe, including Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (May 7 - October 12, 2015); Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (May 7 - September 25, 2016); and Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (October 20, 2016 - February 12, 2017). At Dia Beacon, the exhibition runs until March 2, 2015.

For more videos covering contemporary art and architecture go to VernissageTV.

Memory Postcard: What It Was Like to Be a First Generation Italian-American in the 1920s

May 30, 2014, 12:04 pm

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Glimpses into the lives of ordinary Americans.

GREETINGS FROM MY MOTHER'S KITCHEN, PITTSBURGH, 1920



One day my mother was summoned to my grammar school to meet with one of my teachers. My mother's English wasn't very good (she was from Italy), so I had to act as the interpreter.

TEACHER: I am very concerned about Helen, she has not been doing her homework, and she flunked her math test.

MY TRANSLATION: Helen is doing great, she is very bright and works very hard. I am only making this concerned face because I am concerned that she is so smart, all the other kids might give up.

My mother frowned and tugged me out by the ear; she was no dummy.

Looking back, I think this is probably a familiar experience for many first generation Americans.

You're between these two different worlds, one that exists inside your kitchen, in your neighborhood, in the bakery where they speak Italian, and another, which is everything beyond.

You're the translator. The thing I regret the most in life -- I mean, I regret this so much -- is how I used to feel ashamed when my mother would speak Italian. I just wanted her to speak like everyone else, you know? This beautiful woman, speaking this beautiful language, and I tell you, I was mortified.

Memory Writer: Matthew Ross Smith, Age 32
Writing for: Helen, Age 90
Art by: Kristina Escala

Memory Postcards are 250-500 word scenes, sent from lost moments in history. The program was developed as a way for people with Alzheimer's to send their memories through the mail, to their friends and family.

What was it like to be you? WRITE A MEMORY POSTCARD

Xaviera Simmons on the ImageBlog

May 30, 2014, 12:12 pm

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Index Six, Composition One
2013
Color photograph
50 x 62 1/2 inches
Edition of 3

Primavera Sound 2014: Music Criticism, Riding a Dead Horse Back to Life

May 30, 2014, 12:32 pm

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Yesterday at Primavera Sound Music festival in Barcelona, I spoke on a panel entitled Music Criticism: Resurrection Man or the Walking Dead?

The panel was moderated by the Guardian's Luke Bainbridge, and the other speakers were Pitchfork's Lindsay Zoladz Laura Snapes from NME, and Fernando Neira from Spanish newspaper El País.

We discussed clickbaiting, the pressure to chase traffic, and how the role of the music journalist has changed due to universal access to music and a digital soapbox. If everyone's a music critic, what makes us special?

The conversation continued through the evening, post-panel, as I thought of things I wished I'd said, better ways to phrase what I did say (why was I talking about 2Pac for so long?) and angles I hadn't previously considered.

Here are my top 5 takeaways.

Authority.
Does anyone care what a music journalist thinks, when we can so easily just decide for ourselves? I think people do. We check to see how our experiences compare to those whose opinions we admire, or simply to know what others are saying.

Luke made a good point -- in a world where the internet can virtually give us an opinion on anything, what we gravitate towards, and therefore desire, is an authoritative voice to tell us what's cool, what's actually good, and also, perhaps, what isn't, and why. We also discussed the need for "hard" journalism, the need, as I see it, for critics who are unafraid to say something sucks and why, not simply because it's funny, as Vice has perhaps done to death, but because it keeps people honest.

Access.
Now that everyone has access, what is the music journalist's role?

In the early '90s, I was a rap-obsessed teenager without cable. The only way for me to discover new records, from Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth and the Pharcyde to Biggie, was to listen to the radio and read music magazines and liner notes.

Whoever had the music first was the coolest. Music journalists, therefore, were cool, and I cared what they thought. They had the music first, sometimes months in advance, and the only way to know what the new Beastie Boys album sounded like was to read their review. Now, thanks to Pitchfork's Spotify app (and the death of Google Reader), one of my favorite things on the Internet, people can decide what to listen based on Pitchfork's score, listen to the album while they read the review, or skip the review, cherry pick all the top-rated records, and form their own uninformed/untainted opinions.

Meanwhile, now that everyone has access to the music, and via social channels, the artists themselves, our access as journalists has diminished. We have less time with the record, for fear of bootlegging, and less time with the artist due to shrinking budgets.

In 2002, when press junkets were still in full-swing, artists would have "online media days." You could virtually feel them rolling their eyes as they delivered their one-word answers. A notable exception was Kanye West, who literally wanted to freestyle rap to anyone with a phone. I recall an interview we did, as he was on his way to record "Two Words" with the Harlem Boys Choir in Long Island. He kept losing reception, and calling back rapping furiously. I never got to ask him any questions, but I did get to hear a large chunk of his debut album, and conclude a) this guy's pretty serious and b) this guy is insane. In 2014, the idea that I once had phoners scheduled with Jay-Z or Nas is equally insane.

Interviews don't seem to be as valued as a promotional tool anymore, so the access we have as journalists has diminished. SXSW used to be a place for bands to make an impression, both on fans and press. One year, I did over 85 interviews there over a four-day period. Now it''s a place for bands to make an impression on CEOs, score sponsorship, or branding. I don't think I did a single interview there this year, nor at Coachella. Trying to secure interviews at Primavera thus far has proven tricky. Bands are in Barcelona, they don't want to do an interview, they want to eat Paella, drink wine and hang out on the beach. I feel them. I want to do the same.

Respect.
At Coachella, I noticed what I took to be a diminished respect for the press. Members of the press were given essentially the same access as a General Admission festivalgoer, with bonus entrance to the "press area" a depressing trailer park with dodgy WiFi and free popsicles.

This was purportedly a place for bands to meet press and conduct interviews, but nobody in their right mind would want to spend time there, especially not a touring band at a festival on a beautiful day in Southern California. Press were no longer allowed access to the VIP or artist areas. To conduct interviews, no easy task at Coachella, due to reception (admittedly, less of a problem this year), tight schedules and general festival confusion, it was suddenly even more difficult to meet artists in a comfortable environment, where they could have a beer and talk about whatever they wanted to promote. To me, it spoke volumes about Coachella's interest in the press. What do they need to facilitate press for, when they sell out before they announce a lineup?

The artist area, meanwhile, was overrun with Perez Hilton mainstays, bottle-service enthusiasts and hangers-on. There were few actual artists. I was thinking about this while loitering in the VIP Primavera, hanging out with John Talabot, an artist on tomorrow's bill, watching Future Islands with him, then heading over to watch Charles Bradley with Future Islands, who had never seen him before. None of which would have been possible without access.

Curiosity.
The way people consume news has changed - we just want things summarized for us, in 140 characters or less.

Laura Snapes said that NME used to run 8,000 word features, presumably before the advent of the online edition. She now has less than 8,000 words to work with her entire features section. Are people curious enough to read an 8,000 word interview or opinion piece anymore? Are people willing to do so online? Are our attention spans shot? Can our interest overpower our weak and scattered attention spans? Do we only care to know the best tracks and latest news?

Advice for Writers.
To conclude the panel, Luke asked each of us for a word of advice to aspiring music journalists. What came to mind, which is as much advice for myself as for anyone else, is as follows:

Read. Read everything you can. Read all the time. If you don't read, how can you expect anyone to value what you write?

Write. Write all the time. For yourself, for others, for work, for fun. Write things you never publish, things no one will ever see. And finish them. You can't be a writer if you don't write, and you need to finish what you have start.

Don't quit. No matter how embarrassing it is for you, how many times you have to write for nothing or pitch someone half your age, you have to keep going. You'll need a thick skin. You will have hundreds of humbling experiences as a writer. I've been writing for publications for over a decade, and have made an actual (not competitive, but reasonable, if you like eating Trader Joe's for every meal) living, solely as a writer for the past six years, and still virtually no one knows who I am. I assume this is a pretty universal experience, until I either publish something of real note (either because it's so good or because it's so bad and offensive), and in either event, I will, most likely, return to relative obscurity/a place where people perpetually pluralize my last name shortly thereafter.

Anyway, long story short, you can't write if you don't write, and you probably won't be very good unless you do it consistently, because you have to, and because you love to do it.

If you need inspiration, read. To paraphrase an early tweet by the inimitable rapper Action Bronson, back when he was just a guy I knew, before any of you Internet critics had ever heard of him, "Read a fuckin book, man."

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To Be Strong

May 30, 2014, 1:05 pm

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Over the past few years, the artistic talent and creative drive has been on the rise in North Jersey. Young filmmakers are producing high quality content with nothing more than a few pieces of necessary production equipment and some passion to bring stories to life through picture and sound. North Jersey is full of young, creative entrepreneurs combining their talents to build something much larger and more meaningful than one artist might produce alone. New Jersey creative is on the rise with no plans to slow down any time soon.

Over the last four months, I have been collaborating on a documentary film entitled "To Be Strong" with Mike O'Brien, a talented filmmaker from Westwood, New Jersey. We grew up in the same town and played Little League baseball on the same team. Baseball was once the medium that brought us together. Today, twelve years later, that medium is filmmaking. Teamwork has always been the foundation for whatever we did and now we are using that foundation to create a very powerful film that has the ability to change someone's life.

"To Be Strong" chronicles the struggles of Anthony Daniels, a 22-year-old man from Ridgewood, New Jersey, who is battling Lymphoma for the third time. Daniels is currently in search of a 'ten-out-of-ten' or perfect bone marrow match for a transplant that would ultimately save his life. His condition is so rare that in the registry of some 20 million people not one match has been found thus far. The ultimate goal for the film, "To Be Strong," is not only to find Daniels his perfect match, but also to inspire other individuals who may be going through their own battle with cancer.

The film depicts Daniels' unique and rather unorthodox way of fighting his illness. As he undergoes numerous cancer treatments that drain his mind and body, he trains in boxing and weightlifting. He goes to chemotherapy in the morning and when he is finished with his treatment, heads straight to the gym to start boxing. Daniels uses the power of positive thinking and physical exercise to fight off his illness. As he defies the odds, his doctors look on in disbelief because three years ago, he wasn't supposed to be alive.

As filmmakers, we get a front row seat into Anthony's life. We see his struggles. We see his success. We see his capability to inspire others. It is an eye opening experience to tell his story- a man fighting for his life inside, and outside of the ring.

Screening Date:
Where: Montclair State University: Yogi Berra Museum
When: Wednesday, June 11th.
Time: 7pm

We Are the Best! Lukas Moodysson's Love Song to Youth

May 30, 2014, 2:24 pm

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There has never been a movie that has so impeccably captured the feeling of being 13 years old. Frame by frame, Lukas Moodyson immerses his audience in the ocean of naïve rage that pulsates in the hearts of three pubescent punks. Playfully commenting on concepts such as religion and sexism, We Are the Best never loses sight of telling a simple, engaging story.

Making art about adolescence (and especially preadolescence) is an exceptionally difficult conquest to achieve. Any problem experienced by a person under 30 seems inconsequential and unsubstantial. This is why so many movies about high school students seem idiotic. It is even more difficult to make a movie about kids who are not living under extraordinary circumstances (like Anne Frank, Helen Keller or Juno). It is downright mind-blowing that I, a 28-year-old male American who's never even been out of the country, can deeply relate to some 13-year-old Swedish girls. Through the power of modern cinema, people who are worlds away can feel like close friends. This is an important work socially, politically and urgently.


Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv Lemoyne in WE ARE THE BEST! a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.


The reason everybody can identify with this story is the genius of Lukas Moodysson. The celebrated indie director is able to dive into the mind and body of youth and reinterpret it into a palatable flick for mass audiences. Not since Mark Twin have we seen such pitch-perfect portraits of children navigating their way through a culturally poignant backdrop. The truly special thing about the film is there is nothing particularly special about it at all. It is about plain, ordinary, undistinguished girls... Daughters of mediocrity. Yet through the galvanizing filter of punk rock they find themselves to be phenomenal, marvelous, the best. And how do you analyze something that is just beat-for-beat life? How do you review something that you just live through? How do you critique the truth?

We Are the Best is a quiet movie about loud noise. The ideas are being screamed at the top the characters' lungs, yet they are impossibly understated. Bear with me. The Pixies are one of the most influential rock and roll bands of all time. Anybody who would argue differently doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about. It can be asserted that the success of an artist is based on their formula. For example, Stairway to Heaven has been said to be such a mammoth success because of its structural, stairway-like build, which is rare form for a pop song. The thing music and movies need to be compelling is tension. Drama. Friction. You can feel it in your gut when you hear it or see it. The tension within in the structure of a Pixies' song is an insanely basic formula. Loud-Quiet-Loud. That's it. This structural principle was applied to a song by a band you may have heard of called Nirvana. That song was Smells Like Teen Spirit, and it is the most culturally relevant single of my generation. It dethroned the king of pop and made teenagers believe in music again. Lukas Moodysson is to film what the Pixies are to music. While he may never be accepted or known in the mainstream media, he has the influence to inform an entire generation of future filmmakers.


Liv Lemoyne, Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin in WE ARE THE BEST! a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures



More than anything, We Are the Best is about three friends standing up for what they believe in no matter how disgraceful or stupid or bad the world tells them they are. It's about kids on the brink of becoming women in a tangled and uncertain age. But really, it's about finding something deep within yourself to express, whether people want to hear it or not. It's about art. Relentless, reckless, beautiful art.

We Are The Best! opens in Los Angeles at The Nuart Theatre and in New York at The Angelika Film Center and The Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center on Friday, May 30th

First Nighter: Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Poe's The Raven Take Flight

May 30, 2014, 2:58 pm

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Guess it's blowin' in the zeitgeist, but two adaptations involving rhymed classics are available in Manhattan this weekend only and worth any theatergoer's precious time:

Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin was published in serial form between 1825 and 1832 and published in its entirety in 1833. Because then and now Pushkin is a literary figure second to none in the hearts of his countrypersons and because Eugene Onegin, described as the first ever novel in verse is revered as much as or more than his other works, it's had many adaptations into other media.

Rimas Tuminas's production for Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre may not even be the most recent, but here it is at City Center, in Russian with surtitles, as part of the Cherry Orchard Festival. For it the director has taken glorious liberties with Pushkin's melancholy text. Many are of a sort that might ruffle feathers of traditionalists. On the other hand, they're bound to stir the hearts of ticket buyers who wait hungrily for explosive theatrics.

Tuminas pours it all on -- music by Faustas Latenas, dance choreographed by Angelica Kholina, more than one actor playing the focal roles -- and he takes three hours and 45 minutes to do so. But hold on before you recoil at the length! They're three hours and 45 minutes that fly by and reward the spectacle's spectators every minute of the way. Something surprising and not to be missed occurs in each one of those minutes.

The story remains the same, of course. The imperious Onegin (Alexey Guskov as the older one, Viktor Dobronravov as the younger one) rejects the impassioned advances of Tatyana Larina (Eugeniya Kregzhde), maintaining he's too restless a fellow ever to tie himself down in a marriage. Many years and many characters later -- including an influencing Moscow cousin (97-year-old Galina Konovalova) -- when Onegin has had his disillusioning fill of wandering, he returns in pursuit of the now married Tatyana, only to be rebuffed.

Although Tuminas and designer Adomas Yatsovskis keep the basic set free of everything but a high tilting mirror at the back, a walkway directly in front of it and a partial false proscenium, they constantly add set pieces like the bed the young and ebullient Tatyana pulls on and off and plays on. There are times when snow flies thickly. There's a barn into which figures huddle for a while that's assembled quickly and disassembled just as quickly.

A chorus of young dancing women in costume designer Maria Danilova's flowing gowns populates the environments over and again, whipped into shape by a dancing mistress ((Ludmila Maksakova). Ekaterina Kramzina pops in and out playing a domra. A white bunny (Mariya Berdinskikh) does a routine. There's a stuffed bear. The only thing missing is a kitchen sink.

Throughout, the acting is big. Yes, sometimes the young Onegin only struts silently about, but when characters speak -- when, for instance, Tatyana recites the masher's letter she writes Onegin -- they declaim whatever's urgent they have to say as if they mean to be heard from one end of Russia to the other.

Why not let's just say that nothing quite like this Eugene Onegin has unfolded in a local venue in some time, and maybe never. The theater-mad will drop whatever they've planned the next couple of days and go see it.
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The temptation to start ravin' about The Raven is too strong to resist. The one I'm talking about is the theater piece at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater. For the American premiere of composer Toshio Hosokawa's take on Edgar Allan Poe's popular, though gloomy, poem, Neal Goren conducts a Gotham Chamber Opera production with direction and choreography by Luca Veggetti.

Hosokawa writes in a somber mood to match Poe's story of a man who's grieving his deceased Lenore when he opens a chamber door that's being rapped and tapped upon. His visitor is a raven who perches on a bust of Pallas and whose sole comment -- as just about everyone knows who's ever read Poe -- is "nevermore." Goren and his 13 musicians, all on stage to the audience's left, maximize the ominously flowing score, and the effect is of anxiety made audible.

What goes on at the right side of the stage is likewise remarkable. That's where mezzo-soprano Fredrika Brillembourg sings and speak-sings Poe's text in a hypnotically piercing manner -- not vocally piercing but emotionally piercing. And she's to be congratulated not only for her singing but also for meeting the other demands made of her.

Interacting with her is Alessandra Ferri, who's been finding intriguing ways to dance after having retired from her appropriately celebrated ballet career. At times as she slithers and poses and stretches, she seems to represent the raven. At other times, when she reaches for Brillembourg's hand or twines around Brillembourg, she seems to represent another aspect of the bereaved singer, a mourning doppelganger.

Since Brillembourg and Ferri, though physically different, are dressed alike (by Peter Speliopoulos) in shades of grey and wear their hair long, the impression that they're both Poe's lamenting narrator is further enhanced. Even more than that, the tandem movements -- at one point Ferri extends herself as if in flight on the supine Brillembourg's bent knees -- suggest that the raven is symbolic of the narrator's entrenched despair.

There is one especially effective theatrical minute when Ferri is crouched upstage but suddenly seems to be moving on the other side of the upstage wall. The coup is courtesy of projectionist Adam Larsen as well as lighting designer Clifton Taylor.

For the benefit of those who haven't reread "The Raven" in a while, its opening line is, "Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered, weak and weary." With all the deft hands involved here, there's nothing weak and weary about it. Poe is quite nicely honored.

André Caplet's wordless musical setting of Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" precedes The Raven. Here, harpist Sivan Magen is surrounded on the right side of the stage by four musicians as he turns the focal instrument into a percussive bone-chiller. Caplet doesn't take long to spin his musical version of the story, but he definitely achieves his intention to startle.

La Bayadère at the Met: The Russians Invade

May 30, 2014, 3:59 pm

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The glittering La Bayadère - conceived by French ballet master extraordinaire Marius Petipa and set in an improbable Indian kingdom - premiered in St. Petersburg in 1877, at a time of official Russian backlash against the importation of popular Italian stars, known as the "Italian invasion." Homegrown Ekaterina Vazem danced the titular role of the Indian temple dancer to great acclaim, ushering in a new wave of Russian dominance.

Today, a "Russian invasion" of American Ballet Theatre has some home team fans grumbling. Russian transplants are found in the ranks of most American companies but, oddly, the Russians seem to sell more tickets when they swan in for the occasional guest turn. Once they make their home here, their star power slightly dims. Opera house audiences seem to be a fickle lot, preferring the extramarital fling with a glamorous foreign star than a recurring roll in the hay with an equally glamorous spouse.

This week Ballet to the People settled into the Met for three back-to-back performances by a beloved ABT veteran, a 22-year-old Bolshoi sensation, and an established star of the Mariinsky Ballet.



Compounding the excitement was the ballerina face-off at each performance between the humble temple dancer Nikiya and the diabolic Princess Gamzatti. Paloma Herrera met her match in the splendid Misty Copeland, Viktoria Tereshkina wrestled dramatically with the fierce Isabella Boylston, while there was simply no contest between Olga Smirnova and the refined but far too timid Hee Seo.

Manticipation ran high as well. James Whiteside, who has had a meteoric rise at ABT, made an unconvincing Solor: his execution of the mandatory warrior bag of tricks was spot on, but he appeared far too gaunt and grim, apart from a campy swagger when he showed up at the Rajah's palace. He partnered Herrera adeptly and tenderly, but lacked the noble fire of Vadim Muntagirov (Smirnova's partner, from the English National Ballet) or Vladimir Shklyarov (Tereshkina's, also from the Mariinsky). Muntagirov played Solor with boyish elan, while Shklyarov attacked the role with a thrilling ferocity.



The stark difference between the three interpretations of Nikiya was driven home in the first ten seconds of their appearance on stage. Summoned by the Head Brahmin, Nikiya appears at the threshold of the temple, her face veiled, then has to negotiate three steps before making her way downstage to him. Because we cannot see her face, Nikiya first makes herself known to us through a vital ballerina signature: her arched instep.

Herrera understands the importance of this moment, and leisurely lowers one gloriously articulated foot to the first step. Her advance downstage is modest and hesitant, her delicate steps communicating volumes.

Tereshkina gets it too, though she takes that first step a hair faster than Herrera.

Smirnova can't wait to plant herself downstage center so she hustles down the steps, barely bothering to point her beautiful feet.

Herrera and Tereshkina modulate their performances exquisitely, particularly in that first important context-setting scene in which Nikiya discovers she is the object of the High Brahmin's unholy lust, and we first learn of her attachment to the heralded warrior Solor. Smirnova treats the scene like a Hollywood red carpet moment, flinging herself around wildly, hardly the naïve, bewildered maiden. Nonetheless, there is much to admire in her ravishingly supple physique and the way she milks every spiral of the torso, every exultant arabesque, and the poetic flowing of her unusually long arms.

Tereshkina possesses an equally gorgeous tensile spine, honed like Smirnova's at the Mariinsky's Vaganova School (though Smirnova decamped for the rival Bolshoi after graduation). Where Smirnova's Nikiya is melodramatic, and Herrera's wistful and sorrowful, Tereshkina's is deeply mysterious. She and Shklyarov are seasoned partners, evident in the confidence with which they wrapped themselves around each other, and with which he spun her and tossed her skyward. Both showed off their astounding allegro technique, writing big, bold shapes in the air. But the technique was always in service to the acting, their faces and gestures communicating as much as their whirlwind pirouettes. In one unforgettable moment, Tereshkina sank into an ecstatic backbend while Shklyarov pressed his face to her breast, and we watched her hand descend slowly and delicately to caress his head.

All three Nikiyas held the audience rapt with their legendary death scene. Smirnova chose to play her as completely hysterical and crazed, her sinuous histrionics very effective here.

Herrera was more soulful and grief-stricken; when she melted repeatedly from a tight 5th position balance on pointe into a deep arabesque penchée, her sorrow seemed to run like a stream in the direction of the hapless Solor, imprisoned on an ottoman next to his affianced princess, the disdainful Gamzatti.

Tereshkina didn't even come down from pointe when she released her back leg into penchée, as if trying to stake a final heroic claim to Solor's heart - before Gamzatti FTD's her a flower basket into which she's stashed a poisonous snake.



In the Act II Shades scene, Nikiya returns as a ghost to haunt Solor in a fevered opium-induced dream, 24 carbon copies of herself in tow. Ballet to the People's favorite moments in this act are those bourrées in place that cause 24 tutus to quiver ever so slightly at the hips. With the Shades arrayed in their precise columns, the tutus resemble a layer of cloud hovering over the Himalayas. Slight wobbles evident in the slow, hypnotic procession down the mountainside disappeared during the caffeinated portion of this Act, the ensemble and soloists marvelously energized as they dissolved in and out of their formations like magic.

For La Bayadère to rise above kitsch and soap opera requires refinement, clarity of purpose, and precision of execution - evident throughout this brilliant and sensitive staging, but most especially in these moments - and absolute faith on the part of the dancers in the symbolism of their roles. It is in the second and third Acts of La Bayadère that the timeless appeal of this ballet emerges, with a remarkably modern message about the iniquities of caste, the wages of betrayal, and the power of ordinary women to prevail against oppression if they stand united. (The only Princess among the lot is crushed to death by large rocks, punishment for her meanness.)

Examples of female daring abound in Bayadère. Standouts among the Shade soloists from all three nights were the radiant Sarah Lane in the first, quicksilver variation, and the elegant Stella Abrera in the third, expansive variation.

In one of several heart-stopping moments, Nikiya whirls off stage like a force of nature, in a series of lightning-fast piqué turns: Herrera is a breathtaking blur, Tereshkina just a trifle slower, whereas Smirnova cautiously applies the brakes just before she flies off stage.

Despite her villainous streak, Gamzatti is no caricature. Manipulated by her father, the Rajah, she has ample opportunity to express her world view, and her ardor, in several lovely and virtuosic variations. Copeland, Seo and Boylston all nailed the final heart-rending Act III solo, just before the wedding ceremony, in which Gamzatti tries to convince herself and Solor (who is unnerved by repeated apparitions of Nikiya) that they have a happy future ahead of them, her arms spiraling up to the sky as her pointes stake out the vast territory under her sovereignty.

Politics aside, this Bayadère is packed with eye-candy. Joseph Gorak, Arron Scott, and Zhiyao Zhang - Mr. January, February and March, respectively, in a popular calendar of this ancient Indian kingdom - deliver superb Bronze Idol variations, clean and thrilling under that gold body paint. Christine Shevchenko and Isadora Loyola bring proper Russian brio to the scarf-wielding D'Jampe dancers, and many svelte midriffs are bared in the stunning costumes by Theoni Aldredge.

Conductors David LaMarche, Ormsby Wilkins and Charles Barker kept a firm lid on the excessive flourishes that can push this breezy, delectable score by Minkus over to the wrong side of music hall, and the painterly set designs and dreamy lighting by Pierluigi Samaritani and Toshiro Ogawa, respectively, make this evocation of an India that never was as real and enchanting as Natalia Makarova's clear-eyed updating of this 19th century classic.

Photos courtesy American Ballet Theatre:

1. Viktoria Tereshkina as Nikiya in American Ballet Theatre's production of La Bayadère (Photo: Gene Schiavone)
2. Misty Copeland as Gamzatti in American Ballet Theatre's production of La Bayadère (Photo: Rosalie O'Connor)
3. Paloma Herrera as Nikiya in American Ballet Theatre's production of La Bayadère (Photo: Gene Schiavone)
4. Olga Smirnova and Vadim Muntagirov as Nikiya and Solor in American Ballet Theatre's production of La Bayadère (Photo: Gene Schiavone)

Comedy, Tonight!

May 30, 2014, 11:45 pm

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A popular show business axiom insists that "Dying is easy, comedy is hard." While any performer who has bombed onstage will quickly acknowledge this bitter truth, the bottom line is that comedy depends on good ideas and solid execution. Mary Elizabeth Williams makes this point brilliantly in her article for Salon.com entitled Stephen Colbert is Dead, Long Live Stephen Colbert!

During one recent week I attended performances of three very different comedies.

• One was a world premiere, the other two were Bay area premieres.


• All three shows were solidly cast with tightly-knit ensembles that employed strongly talented performers.


• Two productions sizzled, challenging their audiences with issues critical to their lives while causing them to repeatedly laugh out loud (proving beyond any doubt that just a spoonful of sarcasm helps the medicine go down). Curiously, these two plays delivered a wealth of information to their audiences which reflected each creative team's personal passions.


• The third, quite surprisingly, fizzled out. Audience response was polite, but noticeably tepid.


• What could have caused such a difference in response? Was it just a sober audience on a weekday night? Or were other, more subtle factors at play?

* * * * * * * * * *

Suppose you want to write a play that tackles a difficult and extremely newsworthy issue. How can you position it dramatically in an easily understandable setting for a contemporary audience? In the following video, Tony Taccone explains how he and Dan Hoyle teamed up to write Game On for the San Jose Repertory Theatre.





Written for a cast of five (who perform on a unit set), the protagonists of Game On are two impassioned losers whose fanatic devotion to fantasy baseball helps to distract them from the sadder and more distressing realities of their lives.

• Vinnie (Marco Barricelli) is a middle-aged, Brooklyn-born Italian-American facing some steep medical expenses. When he is not driving a cab in and around San Francisco, the frequently depressed Vinnie is glued to his television, watching documentaries about endangered species on the Discovery Channel. A sensitive soul whose emotions are easily manipulated by mass media, the sentimental, anthropomorphically-vulnerable lug has taken to giving individual polar bears names like "Petie" because he feels so deeply about the perils they face as a result of climate change.


• Alvin (Craig Marker) is a cold and clinical numbers man. In contrast to Vinnie (who always goes with his gut), Alvin has been using sabermetrics as a tool for building his fantasy baseball team (as well as building statistical arguments for the entrepreneurial dream he and Vinnie share to make insects a new and extremely profitable source of animal protein for the American diet). If all goes well, a culinary trend embracing entomophagy could make them incredibly wealthy.

Craig Marker and Marco Barricelli in Game On
(Photo by: Kevin Berne)


In a way, Vinnie and Alvin are not that different from Max Bialystock and Leopold Bloom in The Producers . Both are small-time idealists who are completely out of their league trying to raise money to support their dreams. If only someone with megabucks to spare would taste some of Vinnie's fresh, worm-laden spring rolls or fried crickets, Vinnie is sure that the dipping sauce alone could convince that person to write a check!

As the play opens, Alvin and Vinnie are in the television room of an upscale home in Los Altos, which is close to Silicon Valley's deep pool of venture capital. As they eagerly await some precious face time with a Godot-like mogul (who has an expressed interest in "green" projects), they argue about baseball players and fundraising strategies. It soon becomes obvious that, while Vinnie is a man of deep passions, Alvin is a rabid control freak.




Craig Marker and Marco Barricelli in Game On
(Photo by: Kevin Berne)


The hard truth is that neither Alvin nor Vinnie is equipped to go swimming with the venture capital sharks of Silicon Valley. Alvin, in particular, is so wrapped up in numbers and the "rules of the game" that he misses important body language cues and important "tells" dropped by those who step into the game room. They include:

• Bob (Mike Ryan), a Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose company has just been bought by the Godot-like mogul and who is now scouting potential business acquisitions for his new boss.


• Glen (Cassidy Brown), Alvin's former fraternity brother who, following his recent divorce has quietly "married up." A bit of a doofus, Glen plans to don a cape and ski mask and use a bullhorn to intimidate the guests at his wife's party into making larger donations to green causes. His attempt to create and perform a politically confrontational rap song (most probably written by Dan Hoyle) is hilariously misguided.


• Beth (Nisi Sturgis) is Glen's new wife, a diehard sports fan as well as a wealthy Silicon Valley player who is hosting the party and knows the revered billionaire on a first-name basis. She's much better at getting people to write checks than Glen could ever hope to be.

Craig Marker, Cassidy Brown, and Marco Barricelli in Game On
(Photo by: Kevin Berne)


Hoyle and Taccone have fashioned a script which covers a lot of topical issues while delivering a steady supply of laughs to the audience. Their play is nicely structured, with plenty of unexpected twists and turns. Working on John Iacovelli's stylish unit set, Rick Lombardo has directed with a sure hand (San Jose Rep's impressive study guide for students attending performances of Game On includes a wealth of material on such topics as global warming, food and sustainability, entomophagy, fantasy baseball, sabermetrics, how to fund a startup, and whether or not to seek venture capital).

While Craig Marker has developed a reputation for delivering solidly-crafted characterizations, Alvin's spectacular emotional meltdown allows him to show audiences what an impressively layered artist he can be with the right material. Game On gives Marco Barricelli a much stronger opportunity to show his strengths than he received from A.C.T.'s recent production of Eduardo De Filippo's Napoli.

In supporting roles, Mike Ryan offered an appropriately bland Bob while Cassidy Brown enjoyed some deliriously comic flame-outs as Glen. In her limited time onstage, Nisi Sturgis had no trouble communicating to the audience that Beth was much more shrewd and savvy than any of the men in Game On.

* * * * * * * * * *

As in Game On, the dialogue in Wittenberg (which recently received its Bay area premiere at the Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley) fairly crackles. That may well be because playwright David Davalos is also an actor. Davalos first got the idea for his play in 1991, while appearing as Rosenkrantz in a Utah Shakespeare Festival production of Hamlet. As the playwright notes:

"The theatre I enjoy best as an audience member (Shakespeare, Shaw, Stoppard) also challenges and provokes me, be it emotionally or intellectually. To an Elizabethan audience, a reference to Wittenberg both identified a person there as Protestant and as someone immersed in an academic environment of intellectual foment and questioning -- as if an American Hamlet in the 1960s were identified as coming home from Berkeley or Kent State. In many respects, I reverse-engineered Hamlet's psychology from the moment in Hamlet when he's just about to stab a praying Claudius but second-guesses himself. I wanted to suggest that Hamlet's internal moral conflict pre-dated Hamlet."

Jeremy Kahn as Hamlet in Wittenberg (Photo by: David Allen)


It's an interesting dramatic trick, made all the more accessible by Tom Stoppard's breakthrough success with 1966's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Billed as "A Tragical-Comical-Historical in Two Acts," Davalos's play (which premiered at the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia in 2008) takes place in October 1517 as Hamlet (Jeremy Kahn) is still struggling to decide whether to major in philosophy or theology (like some of his classmates, he's also been hanging out at the Bunghole Tavern).

Two of the university's most noteworthy professors, Dr. Faustus (Michael Stevenson) and Martin Luther (Dan Hiatt) are vying for the attention of the Danish prince who, as a senior, is due to graduate as part of Wittenberg's class of 1518. However, Hamlet recently spent a summer in Poland, where he was exposed to the dangerous astronomical theories of Nicolaus Kopernik claiming that the sun (rather than the earth) is the center of the universe.




Dr. Faustus (Michael Stevenson) and Martin Luther (Dan Hiatt)
try to influence Prince Hamlet (Jeremy Kahn) in Wittenberg
(Photo by: David Allen)


Hamlet is under no great pressure to make up his mind. His ability to win at sports (due in large part to the referee's deference) allows him to enjoy his royal status on the tennis court as well as in the classroom. Ironically, Hamlet is not the only one facing some difficult decisions.

• Prone to scatological complaints, Martin Luther is battling a severe case of mental, physical and spiritual constipation that is miraculously eased by his colleague's insistence on the ingestion of coffee. The play begins several days prior to October 31, 1517 when, outraged by the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel's continued sales of indulgences as a fundraising tool, Luther launched the Protestant Reformation by nailing his revolutionary Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenberg's All Saints' Church.


• After many years of debauchery, Dr. Faustus is actually thinking of proposing to his steady paramour.


• Helen (Elizabeth Carter) may have started off as a nun but, as one of Europe's most valued courtesans, has no intention of giving up her independence to accommodate her lover's neediness.

Dr. Faustus (Michael Stevenson) and Helen (Elizabeth Carter)
congratulate Hamlet (Jeremy Kahn) on winning a tennis match
in Wittenberg (Photo by: David Allen)


There was so much to admire in the Aurora Theatre Company's production of Wittenberg. From Eric Sinkkonen's intriguing unit set to Maggi Yule's handsome period costumes; from Josh Costello's clever stage direction to the work of his finely-tuned four-actor ensemble, this play glows with the kind of intelligence, wit, precognition, and mischievous cross-referencing that could give a puzzle fanatic like Stephen Sondheim an erection.

It's rare to leave a theatre thinking how much you'd like to get your hands on a copy of the script so that you could slowly savor all the puns, comedic setups, and insider jokes that Davalos has so intricately woven into Wittenberg. While one doesn't need a thorough knowledge of Hamlet, Dr. Faustus, or Martin Luther's life to enjoy this play, the stronger one's sense of history and literature, the more fun a person will have at any performance of Wittenberg.




Martin Luther (Dan Hiatt), Dr. Faustus (Michael Stevenson), and
Hamlet (Jeremy Kahn) are all severely conflicted in Wittenberg
(Photo by: David Allen)


* * * * * * * * * *


In 1981, Joe Sears and Jaston Williams introduced audiences in Austin, Texas to the citizens of Greater Tuna. The Greater Tuna franchise grew over the years because of the small-town charm of its characters and the dexterity with which Sears and Williams handled quick costume changes as they jumped from one character to another. Unfortunately, the last time I saw them perform one of their plays the thrill was gone, the script was weak, and the performers seemed to be navigating on autopilot.




Jaston Williams and Joe Sears in Greater Tuna


In 1982, Michael Frayn's backstage farce about everything that could possibly go wrong in a stage production (Noises Off) premiered in London and became a popular hit. Although the show has enjoyed numerous revivals, it failed to make a successful transition to the silver screen in 1992 when Peter Bogdonavich directed a cast that included Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, John Ritter, and Marilu Henner. The verdict was that Noises Off was too much of a live theatre experience to work as a film.

In September 1984, the Ridiculous Theatrical Company presented the world premiere of Charles Ludlam's deliciously zany spoof, The Mystery of Irma Vep, with Ludlam and his partner (Everett Quinton) entertaining their audience with wacky costume/character changes and a surprise ending. According to Wikipedia, in 1991 Irma Vep was the most produced play in the United States.




Everett Quinton and Charles Ludlam in
1984's The Mystery of Irma Vep


In June of 2005, Patrick Barlow's hilarious adaptation of a popular 1935 film premiered at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. Its director, Fiona Buffini, had four actors recreating Alfred Hitchcock's screen adventure, The 39 Steps, as they jumped through lighting-fast costume changes and a dizzying array of characters in a highly-stylized and monstrously inventive stage production.





Some comedic tricks hit their mark and never fail to please. Others lose their sting after their first time up at bat. The urge to cherry pick the best qualities of past comedic successes and merge them into a new (yet old-fashioned) mashup can be irresistible. But there are times when resistance is definitely called for.

It's understandable that a creative team might hope to merge the best elements of shows like Noises Off and The 39 Steps in order to capture the kind of comic gold and commercial success that each of those stage comedies achieved on its own. But lightning doesn't always strike in the same place, in the same way, and with the same force, as Steven Suskin admirably explains in his Huffington Post review of Bullets Over Broadway (Aisle View: Don't Speak! Don't Sing!) while meticulously describing how a structural quirk in the new musical continually sabotages the show's comedic momentum.




Darren Bridgett and Michael Gene Sullivan in
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Photo by: Tracy Martin)


Created in 2007 by Steve Canny and John Nicholson for a small British theatrical company named Peepolykus, a comic adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1901 Sherlock Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, became a sizable hit in Great Britain. It has since delighted audiences in numerous cities.

What happens when the intended comedic magic fails to materialize onstage? When a fierce farce feels forced, fertile fun flees a futile fantasy. Instead of the audience feeling like they're feasting on fresh fruit, its faith flutters in fear of failure as it feeds on a fallen souffle filled with flaccid shtick.

Get it? Got it? Good!




Darren Bridgett and Michael Gene Sullivan as two country yokels
in The Hound of the Baskervilles (Photo by: Tracy Martin)


That pretty much sums up the energetic (but lame) performance of The Hound of the Baskervilles that I saw down at TheatreWorks (which fully deserved to be subtitled "This Turd Won't Hunt"). Darren Bridgett, Michael Gene Sullivan, and Ron Campbell (who spent several years as one of Cirque du Soleil's leading clowns) are all accomplished performers who were working hard onstage.

What could possibly have gone wrong? Several hunches pin the blame in surprising places:

• Because I was unable to attend the production's opening night (where members of the audience are frequently welcomed with a free glass of wine), I caught up with The Hound of the Baskervilles at a midweek performance which draws a more sedate audience less driven by the thrill of attending an "event."


• As a critic, I've already sat through several performances of The 39 Steps (including a January 2011 TheatreWorks production directed by Robert Kelley). It could very well be that the novelty of this particular production style has worn thin, causing me to feel as if The Hound of the Baskervilles was a similar product that was simply late to market.


• Whereas the characters in Game On and Wittenberg were motivated by their passions and/or obsessions, none of the characters in The Hound of the Baskervilles exhibited any sense of personal need. At numerous times during the evening, it seemed as if the performers were on a treadmill, trying to keep up with the demands of their rapid costume changes. I never felt any sense of dramatic urgency that could heighten the fun.


• Because of the way the comedy has been structured, the actors occasionally step out of character to address the audience -- even bitching about written complaints (fictional) that were submitted by members of the audience at intermission. At the beginning of Act II, one actor insists on starting all over again and performing a compressed, hyperactive version of Act I to prove to those who complained just how wrong they were. Sometimes a gimmick doesn't work. This one landed with a resounding thud.


• It's quite possible that, despite the current fascination with television and film treatments of Sherlock Holmes, the TheatreWorks audience was not especially familiar with Arthur Conan Doyle's story of The Hound of the Baskervilles. As a result, some of the jokes which might titillate Sherlock Holmes fans may have completely lost their punch.

Darren Bridgett and Ron Campbell in a scene from
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Photo by: Mark Kitaoka)


Ironically, the experience awakened long-buried memories of a dreary Broadway musical entitled Baker Street, which opened on Broadway in February 1965 and whose exquisite sets (designed by Oliver Smith) were far more impressive than the show's book, score, or Hal Prince's stage direction. Although the cast was headed by such theatrical stalwarts as Fritz Weaver (Sherlock Holmes), Martin Gabel (Professor Moriarty), and Inga Swenson (playing a stage actress named Irene Adler), Baker Street is rarely, if ever performed. Consigned to oblivion, it offers a tiny footnote to the history of the Great White Way as the show that marked the Broadway debuts (in small supporting roles) of Tommy Tune and Christopher Walken.




Martin Gabel, Fritz Weaver, and Inga Swenson in 1965's Baker Street


To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape