WGBH - General RSS

Bold and Courageous

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:45 PM +0000

BOSTON — Through performance, photography and film, consider those who fight for love, for peace and for family.

The Lily's Revenge
Plays through October 28 at the American Repertory Theater’s Oberon

A thirty-person ensemble weds dance, film, theater, and music into five unique acts that span over four hours and explores how love should transcend all differences. Become immersed in the event from the seats in the audience to the intermissions, where actors spend time in the crowd and offer tours through backstage. This is a new way to experience the theater.

Kennedy to Kent State
At the Worcester Art Museum through February 3rd

See some of the most powerful American photographs of the 1960s, collected by Howard G. Davis, III and now part of the museum's permanent collection. The images reflect upon Davis's memories of the era with images from 1958 to 1975, including the presidency and assassination of John F. Kennedy, as well as the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War.

Read about Jared's recent visit to the Worcester Art Museum.

Ethel
Premiers tonight on HBO

The life and times of Robert F. Kennedy have been well documented. But it's his wife Ethel who has always been the backbone of the family — raising 11 children and carrying on a tradition of activism. Now her youngest child, Rory Kennedy, has made a documentary, "Ethel," telling this lesser-known story. It's an intimate view of a family that lived through (and sometimes created) historic moments.

Read excerpts of WGBH's Bob Seay interviewing Rory Kennedy.

Young People These Days

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:52 AM +0000

August 23, 2012

BOSTON — What prompts young people to roll up their sleeves, make money or make art? David Cronenberg explores the ugly side of success with his new film, while the young artists in downtown Boston will tell you it's creativity and hard work that pay off.

Cosmopolis
In theaters Friday

David Cronenberg's new film, based on the novel by Don DeLillo, will leave you puzzling about the new millennium’s obsessions with power, money, control, information, technology, violence, sex, mortality, revolution, destruction and hopefully, some redemption.

Artists for Humanity—The Store

In Faneuil Hall, Boston

With help from the city of Boston and COLOR Inc., teen artists have envisioned, designed and built a retail space made from 70% recycled/reused materials. Students have created mugs, tee-shirts, and other souvenirs and sell their own photographs, sculpture and paintings. Artists for Humanity empowers and employs Boston teens in an intensive program of arts, creativity and enterprise.

>>Read Jared's full review and see photos of the store.

What to look forward to in the upcoming arts season:

Marie Antoinette at the A.R.T.: Jared has met the cast and expects a great performance.

The New Repertory Theater will present The Kite Runner, based upon the 2003 novel by by Khaled Hosseini

David Lindsay-Abaire's play Good People, set in South Boston, will run at The Huntington Theater.

The MFA will present an exhibit of Mario Testinos fashion photography in a show called "In Your Face"

The Boston Ballet gives The Nutcracker a makeover this year. Visit their website to see video and sketches of the new set by Robert Perdziola.

Phyllis Diller: Comedy Comes From Tragedy

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:20 PM +0000

Phyllis Diller interviewed for the American Comedy Archives. (Emerson College)

There was everything to love about Phyllis Diller—the jokes, the clothes, the stage presence. Then there was the intellect and the fortitude. How stunningly remarkable that at age 37 and with five children at home, she could begin carving out one of the most distinguished careers in American comedy. And it was the 1950s!

Diller made us think she was ugly when it wasn’t remotely true. She made us think she was crazy when she was actually quite brilliant. Most importantly, she made us laugh. Her insight into comedy was recorded by researchers at Emerson College who assembled the American Comedy Archives there beginning in 2004. They collected memorabilia, props, scripts and interviews with more than 50 comedians dating back to the first days oftelevision. We profiled their efforts in this Emmy-winning piece from 2006. In it Diller, as always, is a delight.

(Greater Boston)

Artists for Humanity Opens in Faneuil Hall

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 01:08 AM +0000

August 9, 2012

BOSTON — Quincy Market is a maelstrom of Massachusetts merchandise. But make your way past all the Red Sox caps, stuffed baked beans and lobster tchotchkes and you’ll find a brilliant little boutique oasis in the corner of historic Faneuil Hall. It’s Artists for Humanity—The Store featuring merchandise designed by teenagers. Very clever ones.

For 21 years now, Artists for Humanity has employed teenagers to make art. Roughly 225 students from Boston neighborhoods annually make their way into AFH’s Fort Point channel headquarters named the EpiCenter to find their muse and mine undiscovered talents in seven artistic media including painting, sculpture and video production. This is not just a fluffy confidence-building exercise. AFH’s professional artists, teachers and mentors guide kids into creating art they sell. And not just to proud parents—major Boston corporations and banks have commissioned AFH works. Now the enterprise is expanding with their very own store featuring T-shirts, mugs, tote bags, buttons, water bottles and more sporting student designs.

“We didn’t want this to be like all the other stores,” says AFH Marketing Director Rich Frank. It’s not. Wicked populah now is a red T-shirt featuring a Tim Burton-esque Boston Terrier with a very Boston bark. Proceeds go to AFH, the teen designer receives royalties and with Holliston-based souvenir chain Color Inc. generously providing the retail space, the non-profit’s overhead is nil.

Artist for Humanity’s reach is jaw-dropping. Architectural Digest magazine twice commissioned the group to create its signature tables featuring recycled materials for AD events. That led Neiman Marcus to commission tables for a new California store and that led Newton-based shoe company Clarks to order up tables and stools made of old catalogs for an upcoming convention.

AFH alum Kershner Williams, who splits his time between The Store and mentoring at the EpiCenter, is all about the business. The students “are going to create something that someone’s always going to see,” he says. “They need to focus on that because once they put that together, they’re selling their story.”

It certainly beats a paper route.

The Summer Arts Weekend Preview

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:36 PM +0000

July 23, 2012

Suzanne Vega kicks off a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Solitude Standing in Copley Square. (photo credit: Mary Rozzi)

BOSTON — WGBHArts contributors offer you a preview of the upcoming Summer Arts Weekend, three days of performances in Copley Square happening this July 27-29.

Friday

Preservation Hall Jazz Band Brings New Orleans Spirit to Boston
by Mary Tinti

Laissez le bon temps rouler! (Let the good times roll!) embodies the spontaneous and exuberant essence of the PHJB music.

Hear them play on Friday evening.

A Conversation with Sierra Hull
by Kris Wilton

Sierra Hull has been shaking up the bluegrass establishment since she was just 15. Read a Q&A with the rising star.

Hear her play on Friday evening with her band Highway 111; and with Del McCoury on stage for a fantastic meeting of bluegrass legends past and present.

Real Talk with Irma Thomas, The Soul Queen of New Orleans
by Bridgit Brown

“Soul,” says Irma Thomas, “is the satisfactory feeling that you get from doing what you love. It has nothing to do with a genre of music, and everybody has it.”

Hear what Irma Thomas has got on Friday night at the Main Stage.

Del McCoury Brings Bluegrass Back to Preservation Hall
by Scott McLennan

McCoury got his start playing guitar and singing in Bill Monroe’s famed Bluegrass Boys in 1963. “I found out he liked jazz. He listened to jazz and was influenced by jazz,” McCoury says of Monroe, the father of bluegrass. “I grew to learn how all music is related.”

Del McCoury and Preservation Hall Jazz Band will get together Friday night in Copley Square and then again after midnight in the Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel’s Copley Club.

Saturday

It's All About Balance with Flooky and The Beans
by Stacy Buchanan

This Boston-based children’s music group shares the stories of a robot obsessed with technology who makes friends with a bunch of beans, and they appreciate the beauty of nature.

See their antics and hear their songs on the main stage at 11am on Saturday.

Bonaparte Dazzles and it's MAGIC!
by Stacy Buchanan

What magicians do best--no matter what your age--is put a smile on your face. Bonaparte, one of Boston’s favorite magicians, has been doing that for quite some time.

Catch his performance during the Summer Arts Festival Saturday at noon.

Paying It Forward with Dan Zanes and Friends
by Stacy Buchanan

Dan Zanes, former lead singer of the ‘80s band The Del Fuegos and Grammy Award-winning childrens performance artist, is also an advocate for creative collaboration. He focuses on the good that happens when everybody is brought together to connect.

Dan Zanes and Friends will be performing with the South Sudanese group Dieer Dee Jieng and African Gospel Artists at 1:00 pm on Saturday.

Sharon Shannon Brings Cool Celtic Accordion to Boston
by Kris Wilton

Shannon's music isn’t the stuff of St. Paddy’s Day parties and Temple Bar tourist traps. It’s much more alive, and less pigeonholed. Her sound is unmistakably Irish, but not cliché.

Sharon Shannon will perform on the Copley Plaza Main Stage on Saturday afternoon.

The Eclectic, Ethereal Sound of The Low Anthem
by Mary Tinti

The satisfying, classically infused songs of this talented young band have that unique ability to seep into your mind and feel very much at home.

Hear them perform live on Saturday evening.

Suzanne Vega Not Alone in Celebrating Solitude

Hear some of the classics from Solitude Standing, from “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner” to “Gypsy,” and “Calypso.” Vega's performance in Copley Square is the first of three stops scheduled as special Solitude celebrations, continuing at the City Winery in New York City and the Barbican in London.

Vega is scheduled to perform on the Summer Arts Weekend main stage at 7:30 P.M. Saturday and then in the Fairmont Copley’s Copley Club at 12:45 A.M.

Soul Rebels Launch Brass Attack
by Scott McLennan

Here is everything you need to know about the band that's a radical gumbo of New Orleans brass mixed with hip-hop, soul and funk.

Soul Rebels takes the Copley Square main stage on Saturday evening.

Sunday

A Classical Sunday in Copley Square
by Brian McCreath

British trumpeter Alison Balsom is on the schedule for Sunday's all-classical line up. She will join Boston's own Landmarks Orchestra and guest conductor Christopher Warren-Green. Visitors are in for a great day. Watch video previews of several participating performers.

See piano duo Anderson & Roe, the theatrical Igudesman and Joo and many others in Copley Square on Sunday.

Alison Balsom on Spine-Tingling Performances
by Kris Wilton

Trumpeter Alison Balsom is about as much of a pop sensation as a classical musician can be, having released six albums, won numerous honors and getting the credit for bringing glamour back to the classical stage.

Trumpeter Alison Balsom makes her U.S. debut on the Copley Square Main Stage this Sunday.

Museum Invites You to Worcester's 'Living Room'

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 14:56 PM +0000

July 20, 2012

Matthias Wascheck, Director of the Worcester Art Museum, at the front doors on Salisbury Street.

BOSTON — A few months ago I visited the Worcester Art Museum for the first time (I am now embarrassed to admit), and I was stunned by its positively staggering collection. It brims with gems. All of the European masters are represented—Monet, Gauguin and Goya, to name just a select few. The museum’s American galleries are equally vibrant and it boasts impressive modern and contemporary art galleries as well. The new director of the Worcester Museum, the ambitious Matthias Wascheck, has now removed the cloak from the region’s hidden gem.

In a symbolic gesture that worked well for the MFA, Wascheck is reopening the museum’s front doors on Salisbury Street, which were shuttered in 2009 due to budget cuts. He has also commenced having the entire collection digitized and has launched a major advertising campaign. Even more impressive, today Wascheck announced that museum admittance will be free for all of July and August.

"This is the Renaissance Courtyard of the Worcester Art Museum," Wascheck said in a solicitation video, "but it's not only our court, it is the living room of Worcester. It is your living room, and it is easier than you think to help us open this to the public." He goes on to ask for $60,000 to keep the doors and the courtyard accessible.

Wascheck arrived at the Worcester Art Museum in November from the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis, Missouri, where he served as director. Before that he was director of Academic Programs at the Louvre. He is a man with exceptional pedigree and with the drive to dust off the cobwebs and elevate the WAM’s profile. So I implore you—go to Worcester. See works by all of the greats you’ve never seen before. Revel in your discoveries and the free parking. You will be bowled over. I promise.

Harvesting Community with CSArt

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:00 PM +0000

June 19, 2012

CAMBRIDGE, MA - On June 12, a friendly group of artists and art enthusiasts gathered at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education (CCAE) to celebrate the commencement of this year’s Community Supported Art program.

A brilliant concept whose tagline is “Invest in local artists, reap a harvest of art,” CSArt is one of a gazillion great ways that the worlds of sustainable farming and contemporary art seem to be colliding lately, and this one is literally in your backyard!

Borrowing a few basic principles from community supported agriculture, CSArt matches nine local artists with 50 shareholders who, at the end of the season, will acquire a bounty of limited edition, original artwork for the bargain price of $350. That’s NINE works of art…produced by talented artists from the Greater Boston area, that will nourish your mind and creative urges in the same way that farm-share produce fills your body with healthy, organically grown goodness. The art will be doled out in phases at three different shareholder harvest parties this fall, gatherings meant to cultivate new friendships as much as they do new collectors.

Oh, and did I mention that CSArts is also super entrepreneurial? Shareholders reap the benefits of starting or adding to their art collection and have the pleasure of knowing that their support provided an opportunity for these artists to get paid for their work, receive a great deal of exposure, and connect with the CCAE for business tips and networking opportunities to enhance their practice.

Artists like Will Whelan, who plans to create a series of swirly, process-revealing prints by transforming discarded, all-but-obsolete phone books into his impromptu sculptural blocks; Melissa Chao, who will channel her bookbinding prowess into fabricating a series of hand stitched journals – treasures whose pages beg to be filled with tales of everyday neighborhood adventures; and Kristen Belton Willis, who will fabricate rag dolls (sure to become family heirlooms) inspired by the strength, smarts, and courage of escaped slave Mary Walker, whose family owned the very house that is now home to the CCAE on Brattle Street.

There are still some shares available, but take my word for it, they won’t last! Visit the CCAE website today and don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to get in on the arts harvest action. And be sure to swing by the CCAE in July to check out this year’s exhibition of harvested art, which will be on view through early September.

Sounds delicious, doesn’t it?

For more information, please visit:
Community Supported Art 2012
Cambridge Center for Adult Education
42 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 547-6789

Image Caption:
Eight of the Nine participating artists in CSArt 2012. Photo Credit: Mary M. Tinti

Poetically Speaking: The Legacy of The Last Poets

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 23:01 PM +0000

June 15, 2012

Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets at the Grammy Awards in 2006. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

BOSTON — On May 19, 1968, three poets stepped up to the mic to recite their verses to the rhythm of percussive thrusts, and from that day forward the art of spoken word was altered. The poets had no idea that they were about to make music history. None of them had given what they were doing a name, but each wanted to create an opening in the Black Arts Movement for their chosen form of expression. The poems were hip and the drumbeats were infectious. Words over beats would become a powerful social force for African-American and Latino youth, paving the way for social and political messaging through beats and rhymes.

No discussion about the history of Rap or even about the history of contemporary Spoken Word is complete without mentioning The Last Poets. Clive Campbell, better known as "Kool Herc" or The Father of Hip-Hop, said the vocal style of rap is owed to The Last Poets’ cofounder, Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, the Grandfather of Rap.

On June 16th, Abiodun Oyewole, Babatunde Don Eaton, and Umar Bin Hassan of The Last Poets will be stepping up to a mic as part of the international observance of Juneteenth (June 19), the day in 1865 on which slaves in the state of Texas were emancipated from slavery. This was two years after slavery was officially abolished in the United States, on January 1, 1863 (another reason for us to celebrate New Year’s Day!).

Juneteenth honors African-American liberation and this year in Boston it will be done through poetry and spoken word. There are other Juneteenth activities taking place, but this one caught my attention because I've been following Jesse Winfrey a/k/a Catch Wreck since he was a high schooler, and I’ve been waiting to hear some fresh lyrics from him. I’ve also been meaning to check out Sofia Snow, another rising young star on Boston's spoken word scene. Veteran poet Jamarhl Crawford, and newbie Neiel Israel will bless the mic with their lyricism, too. Jeff Robinson, a saxophonist, and host of The Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam, will accompany this verbal explosion of FREEDOM with his tunes.

Abiodun Oyewole on how a poet helps define a Revolution

I was fortunate to catch Abiodun Oyewole before the show and to get his take on Juneteenth, revolution, Hip-Hop, and the use of the n-word in Rap. He also recited “If We Only Knew What We Could Do,” an original poem about hope.

Abiodun Oyewole says Hip-Hop is a wonderful vehicle, if used well

"Understand the origin of the N-word," says Abiodun Oyewole, poet of a Revolution

Get tickets for The Last Poets: Live in Boston on The Blackstonian website.

Letter from the Editor: Welcome to WGBHArts

Thu, 31 May 2012 17:24 PM +0000

As New England’s only full-time arts reporter on television, radio, and the Web, I regularly bring you the backstories behind the extraordinary arts at our doorstep and across our region.

Today, I’m thrilled to welcome you to our newest platform: WGBHArts.org. We’ll steer you toward all that’s fresh, relevant and fun for the summer arts season.

I’ve created a regular blog, Caught in the Act, and will curate exclusive content from a team of arts bloggers (check them out!).

We’ll go behind the scenes of the big events happening this summer:

June: The national Theatre Communications Group Conference: Think of it as Boston landing the theater Olympics. Some 1,500 artistic directors will be there, and so will I.
July: Mark your calendar for July 27 – 29 for The Boston Globe WGBH Summer Arts Weekend presented by Citizens Bank—a big outdoor musicpalooza featuring Suzanne Vega, Sierra Hull and many more great talents.
August: Tanglewood celebrates its 75th-anniversary and the Berkshires is alive with the sound of great music.

Stick with us as we cover the mainstream—I already have a date with Batman, Catwoman, and a big tub of popcorn—and as we unearth the hidden gems in your own communities…like local superstar Kathy St. George channeling Judy Garland in Stoneham.

My WGBHArts.org summer to-do list includes:

A chat with renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz at the Concord Museum
Conducting the first-ever TV interview with cheeky British sculptor Gary Webb—he’s making his US museum debut at the deCordova
And see if I move like Jackson as Cirque du Soleil interprets the King of Pop at the Garden.

We’ll be first in line to cover the latest theater, dance and film…thumb through books for the best beach reads…and survey museums and galleries for the newest openings.

Read, watch, listen. Then use our ArtsBoston calendar to plan your summer schedule.

The art of enjoying the summer just got a whole lot easier, with WGBHArts.org as your guide.

Cheers,

Jared

Arthur Griffin's Lens on Fenway

Thu, 24 May 2012 07:44 AM +0000

May 24, 2012

Hear more about the Griffin Museum on Greater Boston

WINCHESTER — Perhaps the best view of the Red Sox these days may be at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester. Small but industrious, the museum honors Red Sox Nation in its latest show.

It’s a Fenway fest at the museum. The park you love, the moments you know and the ones you will now never be able to forget (think nuns). The Griffin celebrates Fenway Park’s 100^th anniversary with a veritable scrapbook.

Paula Tognarelli is the executive director of the Griffin Museum. She said they’ve been anticipating Fenway’s anniversary for some time.

“We’ve been planning this for 2 years. This has been so much fun. We have gone out to a plethora of organizations looking for photographs,” she said.

There are stars and stripes, divine intervention and Fenway itself as the supermodel. It’s a photographic party for the park, according to Tognarelli.

“What it does do is focus on the building itself. People who inhabited the space, people who have visited the space, and I believe it communicates the spirit of a Boston icon,” she said.

Fenway’s 100^th anniversary as a ballpark coincides with the Griffin’s 20^th. It was founded by the late photographer Arthur Griffin, a local legend who snapped pictures from 1929 until his death in 2001 at age 97, said his nephew Peter Griffin, president of Griffin Museum of Photography's board of trustees.

“He worked in an era where there were not a lot of photographers. So he had this wide range of opportunities to shoot for different publications. He shot for Life, Fortune, Saturday Evening Post,” Griffin said.

Red Sox left fielder Ted Williams (Photo: Arthur Griffin)

Arthur Griffin also shot a lot of images for The Boston Globe, where he was among the first to photograph a Red Sox rookie, a very youthful Ted Williams.

“Here’s this handsome 20-year-old kid, splendid sprinter. Tall, skinny, and the images were so good one was actually used on the cover of Sports Illustrated the time of Ted’s death in 2002. And he remained friends with Ted all those years. When my uncle was in his 90s and Ted was approaching 80, Ted would still be referred to as the kid,” Griffin said.

Today the museum balances its preservation of Griffin’s abundant legacy, some 50,000 images, with its mission of elevating photography’s relevance.

“I don’t think the world is aware of how much they’re influenced by the photograph as well,” said Tognarelli. “We’re constantly bombarded by imagery; we haven’t learned to interpret that imagery and that’s what our mission is here at the museum.”

Griffin added, “We’re able to identify up-and-coming photographers who may not be ready for major exhibitions in some of the great museums, but are so incredibly talented that in a few years, you’ll see them in those exhibitions.”

The Griffin is a fantastic museum now featuring artists the world over. But it’s a hidden gem in need of more exposure.

Pictures Worth Thousands

Wed, 23 May 2012 22:45 PM +0000

May 24, 2012

BOSTON — Photographer Ansel Adams once said, "You don’t take a photograph, you make it." Some images also end up making history, such as those by Arthur Griffin that depict decades of baseball at Fenway, or the enormous donation of Adams, Sheeler and Weston photography just received by the Museum of Fine Art from its trustee Saundra Lane. Hear more about those and some shows currently on the stage.

Griffin Museum of Photography
Fenway Park: A 100th Anniversary Celebration
On view through June 3

The Griffin Museum presents a photographic celebration of the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park, as well as the 20th anniversary of the museum, where Boston baseball has been very much a part of its history. The Griffin Museum is the embodiment of founder Arthur Griffin’s passion: to promote an appreciation of photographic art and a broader understanding of its visual, emotional and social impact. Arthur’s goal was to share with visitors his enthusiasm for a medium that is diverse, imaginative and informative.

The Lonesome West
Presented by Tir Na at Davis Square Theater
Through June 3

In a small Irish town that's fast becoming the murder capital of the world, two brothers battle it out over a dead father, an inheritance and a packet of crisps. The Lonesome West is the third instalment in Martin McDonagh's award-winning Leenane trilogy. It tells the story of Coleman and Valene Connor, whose dysfunctional cohabitation plays out a hilariously dark vision of the human condition.

Xanadu
Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company
At the Calderwood Pavilion
Through June 9

Based on the cult film of the same name, which starred Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly, this riotous musical follows the efforts of a magical Greek muse who drops in on Venice Beach, California in 1980, disguised as an Australian, to help a struggling artist achieve his dream of opening a roller disco. Xanadu features a book by the ingenious Douglas Carter Beane and a score with those chart-topping tunes “Magic,” “Suddenly” and “Evil Woman” by Jeff Lynne, of ELO fame, and John Farrar.

Lunenburg, 1954 by Charles Sheeler

Art News: Gifted

MFA trustee Saundra Lane has given the Museum of Fine Arts a gift "that will transform the museum's holdings," says director Malcolm Rogers. It's billed as one of the largest and most significant gifts in its history. The 6,000 photographs alone increase the museum's photography collection from 9,000 to 15,000 items, including works by Ansel Adams, Charles Sheeler and Edward Weston.

In addition to the 6,000 photographs, Lane's gift includes 25 paintings, among them works by Stuart Davis and Franz Kline, as well as works on paper by Georgia O'Keefe and Arthur G. Dove. Currently on view from the Lane collection are 40 of Weston's photographs in an exhibit called Edward Weston: Leaves of Grass, as well as Lunenburg, 1954, by Charles Sheeler, on view in the gallery of American modernism.

Meanwhile, fashion icon Iris Apfel has pledged to donate more than 600 fashion pieces to the Peabody Essex Museum. All the the items were featured in the Rare Bird of Fashion exhibition, first at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005 and then at PEM in 2009. Iris Apfel has been donating 80 to 90 additional pieces a year to PEM since her show closed; with the announcement of this newest gift, Apfel will have given almost 900 pieces to PEM.

Apfel, at age 90, shows no sign of slowing down. She has recently been the face/inspiration for a major M.A.C. cosmetics line, has launched a signature Iris Apfel jewelry and eyewear lines, and is a visiting professor for the University of Texas at Austin.

Review: Europa Galante at Sanders

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:38 PM +0000

Baroque Strings At Sanders

It’s been a good year for the Boston Early Music Festival. Most lauded for its biennial June performances, the group also presents a strong line-up of concerts throughout the year. This season it’s been the finest classical series in town, with quite a roster of established and newer stars (in the latter category is countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, who gave a knock-out BEMF performance in October: get a taste via YouTube as he wins a French Grammy in 2007).

On Sunday, February 5, BEMF brought the baroque string ensemble Europa Galante to Sanders Theater in a performance directed by founder, violinist Fabio Biondi. The concert wove together both well-known and obscure baroque and early classical works, all delivered with the combination of ardor and accuracy that is one of the group’s many virtues. For anybody who fears that early music shows might be a parade of audible footnotes—“look! we play this trill this way in Scaccia, but this way in Bach, thrilling, huh?” Biondi and his band are a great tonic. Instrumentation, techniques, and tempo are in the historical tradition, but phrasing is vibrant and attacks are nuanced, even personal. Above all the music comes across as alive, not curated.

Familiar works fared best, with a Haydn rarity, The Concerto for Violin and Harpsichord in F, Hob 18:6, a particular prize. Paola Poncet’s keyboard style captured the wild imagination of the piece (at least from my second row vantage point; friends further back in Sanders couldn’t hear her) and an argument for Haydn not just as a classical master, but as a bridge between baroque and classical styles found compelling evidence. A suite from Handel’s opera Rodrigo included wonderful inward looking moments in a softly spoken Sarabande, and hypnotic Passacaille.

The Bach Double Violin Concerto, played by violinist Andrea Rognoni and Biondi who also soloed in the Haydn and other works, was a more equivocal pleasure. It had a strikingly lovely center movement, Largo ma non tanto, those famous overlapping voices and suspensions even more heartbreaking than usual. But the opening and closing movements had occasional problems: ragged unbalanced ensemble playing; contrapuntal musical lines that weren’t coordinated (or in non-music critic speak, an alarming sense of just “sawing away.”) But these, and some tuning problems here and there, were momentary lapses in a concert that succeeded handsomely overall. BEMF continues to go from strength to strength with performances by Sequentia and The Tallis Scholars upcoming in March. Strongly recommended!

Baroque Strings At Sanders

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:30 PM +0000

Baroque Strings At Sanders It's been a good year for the Boston Early Music Festival. Most lauded for its biennial June performances, the group also presents a strong line-up of concerts throughout the year. This season it's been the finest classical series in town, with quite a roster of established and newer stars (in the latter category is countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, who gave a knock-out BEMF performance in October: get a taste via YouTube as he wins a French Grammy in 2007). On Sunday, February 5 BEMF brought the baroque string ensemble "Europa Galante to Sanders Theater in a performance directed by founder, violinist Fabio Biondi. The concert wove together both well-known and obscure baroque and early classical works, all delivered with the combination of ardor and accuracy that is one of the group's many virtues. For anybody who fears that early music shows might be a parade of audible footnotes"look! we play this trill this way in Scaccia, but this way in Bach, thrilling, huh?" Biondi and his band are a great tonic. Instrumentation, techniques, and tempo are in the historical tradition, but phrasing is vibrant, and attacks are nuanced, even personal, and above all the music comes across as alive, not curated. Familiar works fared best, with a Haydn rarity, "The Concerto for Violin and Harpsichord in F," Hob 18:6 a particular prize. Paola Poncet's keyboard style captured the wild imagination of the piece (at least from my second row vantage point, friends further back in Sanders couldn't hear her) and an argument for Haydn not just as a classical master but as a bridge between baroque and classical styles found compelling evidence. A suite from Handel's opera "Rodrigo" included wonderful inward looking moments in a softly spoken Sarabande, and hypnotic Passacaille. The Bach Double Concerto, played by violinist Andrea Rognoni and Biondi, who also soloed in the Haydn and other works, was a more equivocal pleasure. It had a strikingly lovely center movement, Largo ma non tanto, those famous overlapping voices and suspensions even more heartbreaking than usual. But the opening and closing movements had some problems: ragged unbalanced ensemble playing; contrapuntal musical lines that weren't coordinated (or in non-music critic speak, a alarming sense of just "sawing away.") But these, and some tuning problems hear and there, were momentary lapses in a concert that succeeded handsomely overall. BEMF continues to go from strength to great with performances by Sequentia and The Tallis Scholars upcoming in March. Strongly recommended!

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:45 AM +0000

The most moving scene in The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, a striking new documentary about the Black Power Movement, is one in which Stokely Carmichael sits on the couch and gently interviews his mother, leading her to voice aloud and for the cameras what she seems reluctant to articulate: that racism has severely constricted her life.

The scene is moving because of the great tenderness Carmichael The Uncompromising Revolutionary displays toward his soft-spoken mother, and because in that and other scenes in this engrossing movie we see Carmichael as he is rarely elsewhere seen: relaxed and smiling, joking around with friends, even singing a song. What the scene reveals is not that Carmichael was a far more fully-rounded human being that he is usually portrayed, which should go without saying, but just how often American history seeks to flatten and even demonize black men who stand aggressively in the service of black liberation. What the scene reveals is how effective such flattening almost always is, even among those of us who think we know better. What stands revealed is seeing Stokely smile is not him but us.

Black Power Mixtape is a fascinating compilation of interviews, news accounts and melancholy images from the fertile, fevered years of the Black Power Movement. Shot by Swedish journalists, who traveled to America to see for themselves – and interpret for their countrymen -- what the heck was going on over here, the snippets together offer a fresh and compelling look at a time not so long ago but already calcified in public knowledge.

I plan to make my undergraduate students see it, those studying African-American literature. When asked about Stokely Carmichael they come up blank (sigh). But when asked to toss out adjectives for Malcolm X or the Black Panthers or just about any other black activist or writer who called for an immediate end to black oppression they hand me these: extremist, angry, violent. About Rosa Parks they know only that her feet were tired. About Martin Luther King Jr. they only know he had some kind of dream, one involving being able to sit in a restaurant with white people. Problem solved.

This short and fierce movie can’t fix all that; it makes no pretense of being a comprehensive look at a wide-ranging and disjointed movement that spanned everything from Pan-Africanism to black cultural nationalism to Marxism, and beyond. But it does serve as a bracing corrective to America’s tendency to reduce complicated people and complicated times into two-dimensional stick figures, with gentle heroes and hostile villains and nothing in between. The interview with a pale but radiant Angela Davis in prison is alone worth a hundred cheap and sentimental movies like The Help.

This movie also makes you think. What in retrospect may seem naïve or misguided – namely, revolution -- in the moment of these tapes seems breathtakingly possible. As Dr. King said in his groundbreaking 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech, mentioned here but far less enshrined in the American imagination than that dream one, “These are revolutionary times.”

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
Directed and written by: Göran Olsson
Produced by: Annika Rogell, Story AB
Co-Produced by: Joslyn Barnes & Danny Glover, Louverture Films

Currently running at the Kendall Square Cinema
One Kendall Square
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 499-1995

"Porgy and Bess" at A.R.T.: Transformed and Illuminating

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:04 PM +0000

It is a truth not universally acknowledged that writers are always writing for somebody. Any writer with ego enough to desire publication has an audience in the conscious or subconscious mind during the act of creation. It is also true that this hovering audience shapes the creation as surely as the potter’s intended use for a pot shapes the clay. As Toni Morrison asked of the great novel “Invisible Man,” “Invisible to who?”

I had this thought while watching the excellent and moving adaptation of “Porgy and Bess” at the ART in Cambridge recently. According to the Playbill this production is “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” reportedly the title required by the Gershwin estate, but I am not so sure. The opera has been famously, and controversially, adapted by the playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and composer Diedre L. Murray and directed by Diane Paulus, and I, for one, am grateful. Were it strictly the Gershwins’ opera, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it as much.

I can’t say for sure, though, because I’ve never seen "Porgy and Bess" before. Never wanted to.

I always assumed George Gershwin and his team created this grand American folk opera primarily for a white, early-twentieth century audience and that it therefore was unlikely to speak to me. What little I knew about the piece--the cringe-inducing lyrics by George Gershwin’s brother Ira and librettist DuBose Heyward (“I Got Plenty Of Nuthin’ ” “Bess, You Is My Woman Now”) layered atop the sublime music, the fact that Sidney Poitier had at first refused to star in the movie version, the character description of Bess as a loose drug addict and the depiction of Porgy as deformed--did little to change my mind. Even considering that it might have been bold for the original creative team to imagine the inner lives of black people in 1935 didn’t mean I wanted to see it. Just because a portrayal is sympathetic doesn’t mean it is not also a stereotype.

All of which is to say I arrived at the ART slightly skeptical. The first few songs—the sweet and famous lullaby “Summertime” and “A Woman Is A Sometime Thing”--did little to ease my worry. The crap game scene early in the first act--bare-armed black men gambling and courting violence--had me shifting in my seat.

But then the funeral scene hooked me. Here is the moment the production comes into full possession of itself. Here were people I recognized. Here was grieving and movement, gesture and sorrow, and song that I knew. Here was a witness to African-American life that felt deeply-rooted and authentic and true.

How important is such authenticity? To theatergoers who prize Gershwin’s transcendent score over all else, the African dance gestures and dead-on black church movements in the funeral scene may not mean much. Likewise, the set-up which gives context (and standard English) to Porgy’s “I Got Plenty of Nothing,” rescuing it from being a happy, darkey song may not greatly improve the work and the “excavation” of Bess’ character which Lori-Parks has spoken of doing may seem unnecessary or even presumptuous to some.

To me, though, these transformations allowed me to fully embrace a work I fear I may not have before. They also go a long way toward answering a question I had upon first reading about this production: Does the world really need an updated version of Porgy and Bess? Do black people?

The answer to both questions is yes. The world needs this production because Audra McDonald is a revelation. Even with Parks’ tweaking, the character of Bess still hovers at the edge of blurred, two-dimensionality but McDonald wrenches her into focus as a vulnerable and deeply flawed woman fighting hard to save herself in the only way she knows. As others have said, this is not only great singing but great acting too.

Black people need this production now because “Porgy and Bess” is a story of not only of black romantic love (which would be reason enough), but also of black community, and of the redemptive and transformative power of love.

Watching Norm Lewis’ crippled Porgy extend his hand to the beautiful Bess (and, yes, I’m glad they took him off of that damn goat cart) I tried to remember the last time we saw a story of a black man’s love for a black woman raising him to manhood and changing his life. When was that on the ART’s or any other local stage? (Heck, try to find, on broadcast or cable television right now, a black man with a black female love interest at all.) When was the last pop culture depiction that not only offered a black woman so valued and desirable that three men were willing to fight over her but, almost casually, also tossed the stories of two other solid and loving black couples into the mix?

And, yes, among a people still scarred, not only by the legacy of legalized racial oppression, but also by the present reality of racial caste and social control, manifest, among other ways, in mass incarceration of black men, any time is the right time for a story of a strong and vibrant black community.

It is not just Porgy who loves Bess. But the other characters who love as well: Clara who loves Jake, Serena who loves her husband, and Mariah and the fisherman and the preacher and the undertaker who love everyone. It is not just Porgy who will save Bess, if Bess is to be saved; it is the flawed but ultimately embracing and forgiving citizens of Catfish Row, who know that in loving and uplifting the least of them they are also saving themselves.

(Photos by Michael J. Lutch)

The Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess,” American Repertory Theater through October 2, 2011, with the potential of a Broadway run early next year. Full information available at the ART’s Web site (including video interviews with the cast), http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/events/show/gershwins-porgy-and-bess.

For Colored Girls

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:46 PM +0000

Well, I saw it. Lots of reaction. Short version: not as terrible as I feared (and yes, I hate to admit that). But I walked out of the theater feeling as if I had been bludgeoned for two hours. What redeemed it was the astonishing language (Ntozake's) and the performances (which were terrific, almost-uniformly great). I was happy to pay my little 'leven-fifty to support so many beautiful black actresses on the screen. And Perry is definitely growing as a filmmaker, getting all fancy with his shots. Clearly he means well, and wants to celebrate black women (especially Janet Jackson. Can he get off his teenage crush already? The woman cannot act! What was with the Kabuki makeup? And why did Loretta's wig look so awful? Why did she look so bad in general? Poor Loretta ....)

Still I found myself wishing, wishing, wishing someone else had made it, someone who didn't seem to see black womanhood as one, long, joyless, relentless slog of bad choices and victimhood (self-inflicted, to be sure) and abuse. Someone who would not have missed the ultimate joy and affirmation in the original, nor completely denied the frank celebration of a black woman's sexual power in the original (in the movie, sex=death. Period). Someone who didn't think drama=melodrama. I mean, good Lord -- I really did feel beat up by the end. I kept thinking "She didn't mean for the audience to consider suicide, yo!" That was not the feeling I think the play left people with. At least not me.

I think the movie probably stands up better for those who don't know the original, which is legitimate. And, as the bookseller I saw the movie with said, this will drive people to the text (though probably not the folks in the audience howling at every word out of Whoopi's mouth). So, all in all, go on Tyler, with your bold self. Next time, though, please, let someone else write it while you direct?

Bruce George: A Poet For the Stage

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:00 PM +0000

Bruce George is a legend even though he would rather be recognized as a poet. But he is the reason why the art of performance poetry catapulted to stardom in this decade, and continues to thrive despite the rapidly changing interests of the American television viewership. For instance, Russell Simmons Presents Brave New Voices, a seven-part HBO series that began airing in April 2009 was a spin-off of one of his ideas. This documentary-like program was narrated by Queen Latifah and profiled teenaged poets as they competed for the National Youth Poetry Slam - a BIG deal if you're a teen with something to say, poetically speaking that is.

But Bruce stresses that he had little to do with the diffusely organized trend toward performance poetry these days even though the idea behind the HBO series Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam came from him. True that the movement started gaining new ground in the late 1990s, but there would be no television program featuring the art of performance poetry if Bruce did not come up with the idea, share it with a mentor who then shared it with Russell Simmons, and the rest is his story.

Other accomplishments accomplishments include the recently published collection of writings that he edited called The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology By Gang Members and Their Affiliates to a number of gigs from providing content for I-Tunes and I-Pod to a cameo appearance in the Oscar-winning film that starred Denzel Washington – Training Day. Currently he is collaborating with poet/essayist Louis Reyes Rivera on a book-in-progress to be titled Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies.

When Bruce is not being the indispensable representative of today’s performance poetry movement or performing his own work on stage, he speaks on behalf of the art form and trains others to perfect their poetic flow through performance.

Just recently, he taught a two-day workshop at Berklee College of Music to students enrolled in the college’s Poetry Jam and Slam course. It was during this time that he spoke to Basic Black Perspectives Now on his part in today’s movement to speak poetically.
Peace and Poetry!

Don West: Black Boston's Photographer

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 16:33 PM +0000

What makes a picture perfect? Some say it’s the light. Some say it’s the right angle. Some say it’s the subject in the crop of a frame, but Don West, a Boston-based photographer, says it’s the energy that a person, place, or thing emanates that makes him raise his camera to eye level, point it, shoot it, and share it.

He has had many lives prior to taking his current stance behind the camera. In his twenties, he was a professional bass guitarist, then he went on to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, spiritual leader to the Beatles, and founder of the Transcendental Meditation movement of the 1970s.

It was in the early eighties that he began taking photographs for the Bay State Banner, a newspaper servicing Boston’s African descended community. Since then, has captured volumes of photographs which he catalogues by themes: politics, culture, history, sports, music, etc.

The bulk of his massive stock of images are portraits of notable people like South African political activists Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, Stevie Wonder, Senator Edward Kennedy, Civil Rights activist Angela Davis, and Tito Fuentes (just to name a good few). He also has a collection of photographs that include his walks in Beijing China, and glimpses of a couple entwined in a tango dance Spain. In the fairly recent past, he had the honor of photographing President Barack Obama while on his campaign trail in the North East. Though it was Don’s pipe dream to become the House’s staff photographer, he joked about finally getting to know someone in the White House after all.

On a more serious note, he cites the economy and the advent of the digital revolution as the cause of the deteriorating relationship that now exists between photographers and major corporations. With the laying off of staff photographers to stay abreast in this economy, these individuals now have to compete with other freelancers for the fewer jobs that are already out there.

“Instead of hiring a professional throughout the year to cover everything that they do, which was the case back in the time of roll film photography,” he explained “now they’ve bought their own digital cameras and they do all of the in-between and major events themselves, with their staff and their digital cameras.”

Art For The People

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:41 PM +0000

Fern Cunningham has a mission and it is to sculpt the story of her people. Back in 1999, when the city of Boston unveiled the Harriet Tubman Memorial that it commissioned her to create; she made a point to punctuate the fact that the monument told the story of the liberated, and not the liberator. Up until then, Boston had no memorials that honored an African American woman, nor was there one that honored any woman. Titled “Step On Board,” the memorial is a testament to Fern’s will to make the presence of the black experience known throughout the city of Boston.

“The victims have a different story to tell than the people who may have opened the door. Especially in the case of Harriet Tubman,” she said.

Amongst her bronze repertoire, her favorite piece is “The Sentinel” which sits at guard in the 275-acre, historic Forest Hills Cemetery in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. This work is just as stunning as the woman that it depicts. She is a black woman, clad in bronze and sitting cross-legged on a block of Roxbury puddingstone. “I like her because she reminds me so much of myself,” Fern added.

Raised in Alaska and Upstate New York, it was her mother’s influence that brought her to sculpting in the first place. Her mom was an art teacher and saw to it that her children were always involved in some kind of art-making too. After graduating from Boston University, Fern made Boston her permanent home. She worked for the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts as an art teacher until its doors closed in the late 80s. She has since been teaching art at The Park School in Brookline, which is home to “Time Enough” a monument that depicts her daughter reading a book.

Teaching at the Lewis School helped to shape the content of her work. Citing a list of influences like Paul Goodnight, Momadou Ceesay, Dana Chandler and the other artists that worked for the “movement” of the late 1960s, she described her work as “decidedly figurative” and stressed that it is really important for her to provide images of black people. It took a leap of faith for Fern to get the commissioned work that she desired though.

“I would apply to a lot of commissions and find myself a finalist. I would get my thousand dollars and be told to go home,” she joked.
“After a while, I thought, am I just a convenient finalist? Because then people could say, ‘Well, we had a black finalist and we had a female finalist,’ when, really, female and black people are not expected to be sculptors.” At that point she stopped competing and relied on individuals who would ask her to sculpt a statue of their children, full figures of their loved ones, heads, and portrait heads.

Nearly ten years later, The Browne Fund, which supports art projects that improve public space in the city of Boston, contacted her with a request to sculpt a monument for the Joseph E. Lee School in Dorchester. That project became “Earth Challengers”, a playful depiction of three school-aged children holding up an orb of the globe.

She has since been commissioned by the city to do a number of projects, including the “Rise” memorial, which she created with her cousin, Karen Eutemey. In 2005, the city installed the 20 foot granite and bronze monument at what some call the “Gateway to Mattapan” if one were heading north from the suburb of Milton on Route 138 or Blue Hill Avenue. She also sculpted “Family Circle”, a statue that portrays a father, mother, and child embraced together in a ball. This masterpiece is located in the cozy, tree-lined cul-de-sac at Elm Hill Avenue in Roxbury.

Her most recent commission, "The Value of a Life", is in the design stage. Dedicated to the youth who have lost their lives to violence, the memorial is expected to be unveiled in 2010 at Roxbury's Jeep Jones Park.

Fern is the recipient of many awards for her work, including the Beta Beta Boule Award that she received in 2000; an Appreciation Award from the Roxbury Action Program in 2003 for her efforts to bring her vision of African American history to her artistic creations. In 2004, she received a Drylongso Award which honors African Americans for their fight against racism; and in 2005, the Boston Renaissance Charter School presented her with its Renaissance Living Legend Award.

Candide at the Huntington: Tony-winner Mary Zimmerman takes on a flawed classic.

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:30 PM +0000

Since its Broadway opening in 1956, Leonard Bernstein's Candide has drawn theater and opera companies to its rocky shoals with results that range from leaks to total wreckage. The composer's take on the classic Voltaire satire involved the work of many hands. Lillian Hellman took first honors for the book, but others poked, prodded, pruned, or puffed up, the libretto. The list of Bernstein's collaborators is a mini-who's who of American theater: Hugh Wheeler, Richard Wilbur, John La Touche, Dorothy Parker, and Stephen Sondheim (and that's just the "A list"). Perhaps its first hearing--in a read-through at MIT, of all places--was the best of all possible versions. It may be that that this slender, mordant novel just doesn't want to be onstage!

That hasn't kept theater and opera companies from trying. The score is a sumptuous delight, but the piece as a whole has seldom jelled. In the '90's Boston Lyric Opera brought a handsome, but rather inert production from Opera Theatre of Saint Louis to town; more recent productions by Opera Boston and the New England Conservatory reaffirm the magic of the musical score--Bernstein's songs weave gold from musical idioms as diverse as Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy duets, '60's folk songs, and Shostakovich--but these great numbers risk stopping the show's forward momentum. And even the score isn't stable: pieces have been reworked and re-orchestrated, lyrics toned down, or songs dropped. In one case, the inquisition scene was gutted for a New York production to spare the sensibilities of Walter Kerr, then head drama critic of the New York Times, and a Roman Catholic. Poet Richard Wilbur was pleased with his lyric, "What a day! What a day! for an Auto-da-fe," referring to a burning at the stake that was turned into a jaunty vaudville-style number for the show, in line with Voltaire's original savage satire of the Catholic church. But it all got nixed. I guess nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, especially on the musical theater stage! nbsp;

There's every reason to believe the Huntington Theatre might make a hit of it. They have brought Chicago-based Mary Zimmerman's acclaimed Goodman Theatre Production to Boston. Zimmerman's career has been built on a transformative magic that transmutes great works of literature into arresting stage drama. (Imagine the pitch meeting for her notion that a staging of Ovid's "Metamporphoses" would draw audiences. That's Ovid, as in the Roman poet from the first century B.C.) The show went on not just to draw audiences but to win Tonys. Her career has embraced a raft of other great works--The Odyssey, The 1001 Nights, and most recently the ridiculously convoluted story lines of 19th century opera in several handsome productions for the Metropolitan Opera.

Zimmerman probably regards the work's gory literary history--including Hellman's refusal to let people use her book after the show was altered--not as a burden, but as an invitation to go back to Voltaire. Her method is reportedly to work closely with the original novel every single night and to come to the actors the next day and help them create the work anew. Sounds a lot like putting a show together from scratch with a living playwright and a gang of energized kids. Voltaire is still winking at us from 1759, and if anybody can catch his gaze, and help us look at ourselves through his wise eyes, it's Zimmerman. Candide opened September 10 at the Huntington and runs through October 16. Full info at http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/.