Monday, May 12, 2008
THE ARTS
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This one is Sandy Dokka’s favorite, the one showing the man in the choir robe playing the upright piano. The painting is small, but big enough to contain the large woman standing behind the pianist. She’s singing, it’s obvious.
The trouble with this quilt show is it generates inspiration. And from inspiration comes a messy sewing room — so messy that order may never return. The LSU Bachelor of Fine Arts Student Exhibition will be Monday-Friday, May 12-16, at the Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Exhibition Gallery in the Shaw Center, 100 Lafayette St. May 11-May 17, 2008 Small groups of work by individual artists dot the floor of Elizabethan Gallery, 680 Jefferson Highway, most of the time. The result is basically several small shows within a single large exhibition space, and it showcases work of the area’s contemporary realistic artists. The fact that this gallery permits artists to show a group of works rather than a single painting or sculpture makes this a place to get a handle on what people in this area are creating these days in the way of contemporary realistic art. Showing through May are a smashing collection of individually framed flower arrangement close-ups of blossoms, some six to eight in all, by Alla Baltas, and landscapes by April Hammock. A single dramatic portrait of a woman, the work of May Krouziger, is also on the wall. Paintings by Kim Schnarr put the viewer in another world — a place where green dominates life. She places more variations on the simple color, green, than I would have deemed possible and creates a place of simple and glorious beauty. Baltas’ flower paintings simply pay homage to the splendor of blossoms, giving each flower a distinct personality to complement the immediate impact of its beauty. Hammock pays tribute to the drama of a winding highway, running through the fields and valleys to an indefinite goal. A line of landscape defines the boundary of the painting, with large tree trunks highlighting the road itself. Each of the groups of paintings emphasizes the importance of natural beauty in all of our lives, and makes us take another look around us at the Louisiana landscape and its endless detail and dignity. The work also inspires respect for the creativity of Louisiana artists, who transfer a smattering of the natural beauty around us to canvas so we can take it with us and hang it on our walls. Next to the real thing, a painting of the leaf, the flower, the glory of the simple landscape assumes a monumental importance in our lives. Elizabethan Gallery offers so much art and so much variety that the needs of almost anyone can be satisfied in the expansive space. Baton Rouge will be visited by a couple of dirty rotten scoundrels, a wizard and none other than Tracy Turnblad beginning in the fall. The Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra’s Mother’s Day Lunch and Chamber Concert will be at noon today, May 11, at De La Ronde Hall, 320 Third St., Suite 201. Exhibits by artists Cynthia Knapp and Regina Loch-Elvert will open Monday, May 4, at Ann Connelly Fine Art, 711 Jefferson Highway Suite 3A. There will be an opening reception 6-9 p.m. Friday, May 9, in conjunction with Mid City Merchants’ Hot Art Cool Nights. The exhibit will continue to May 28. Knapp’s exhibit, By the Same Hand, features figurative and abstract works on paper and canvas. Her current work develops dialectically. Each new series of drawings, paintings and sculpture revisits and transcends the formal and imagistic premises of her earlier work. A little over a decade ago, the owners of galleries and businesses in the midcity area of Baton Rouge took a look around and liked what they saw: clusters of art and art-related businesses. A free day of the arts at the Shaw Center for the Arts will run 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, May 10. The Second Saturday event is an all-ages day of art activities and fun throughout the building. Activities vary each month. Second Saturdays are a cooperative arts activity by Manship Theatre, the LSU Museum of Art, LSU School of Art Gallery, Brunner Gallery, the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, Community School for the Arts, Playmakers of Baton Rouge and Shaw Center for the Arts. The Phantom of the Magnolia Arts Pavilion seems like such a long title. Better shorten it to The Phantom of the Pavilion, at least for this afternoon. If you’re lucky, John Clemmer will walk in right before you’re about to leave. He won’t notice you, which is OK, because you’re not the person with whom he can truly share his stories of Caroline Durieux. The Baton Rouge Art Car parade will roll at noon Saturday, May 3, beginning at the State Capitol parking lot. The parade is sponsored by the nonprofit arts organization CultureCandy. To fully enjoy “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” patrons need to bring two things to Baton Rouge Little Theater. The first is a tolerance for bawdiness. The second is earplugs. NEW YORK (AP) _ Laurence Fishburne has been taking risks since the age of 14, when he spent 18 months in the Philippines playing a young soldier in Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now." Since then, he has won Tony, Drama Desk and Emmy awards, as well as an Academy Award nomination. Only an adult would call it a snake. Let’s insert an eye roll here, because one passed by and said just that. Now, if you’re a kid you can see Richard Swenson’s creation clearly, even before the head is assembled. “Look, a dragon!” someone said. Songstress Nnenna Freelon will perform in the final concert of the River City Jazz Masters Series’ 2007-2008 season at 7 p.m. and again at 9 p.m. Thursday, May 1, in the Manship Theatre in the Shaw Center, 100 Lafayette St. This will be the LSU School of Music’s last Union Theater performance for at least year. After this, audiences will have to go to First Baptist Church of Baton Rouge, the Louisiana School for the Deaf and the Reilly Theatre on campus for big events and concerts. “The LSU Union Theater is undergoing renovation after this,” Sara Lynn Baird said. “They’re predicting it will take a year before the project is complete.” A two-day symposium focusing on “Discovering How People of African Descent are Interpreted at Louisiana State Plantation Sites” will be held at the LSU Rural Life Museum Friday-Saturday, May 2-3. When he thinks of Rome, he remembers the fancy nightclub and the jetsetters who came in nightly to listen to his trio play. He was the only jazz pianist in the city, maybe all of Italy, and those nights were exciting, because people were coming to hear him. He can see the marquee now: Tonight, Bill Conti. Every night, Bill Conti. The fourth annual Art for Food — Art for Every Budget begins with a silent auction at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 1, on the grounds of Burns and Co. Realtors Inc.’s Highland Road office at the gates of the Country Club of Louisiana, 17400 Memorial Ave. The event is hosted by Burns and Co. The live auction will begin at 7 p.m. No, please. Hasn’t everyone heard enough about Hurricane Katrina? Nick Erickson didn’t think so, but his students were living in a different mindset. Some were survivors of the storm, and sure, they had stories. But they were ready to move on. He was scared, too scared to stand in front of an audition panel and recite his lines. Fear filled his eyes, his voice faded into a tiny whimper. Photographs by legendary New Orleans pianist Henry Butler will be on exhibit through May 24 in the Jones Walker Foyer Gallery of the Manship Theatre inside the Shaw Center for the Arts, 100 Lafayette St. The exhibit is the second in a series of events sponsored by Brunner Gallery and Manship Theatre, celebrating collaborations between the performing and visual arts. “Dancing at Lughnasa” is a fire built without the proper kindling. The new two-act drama from Baker Little Theatre too hastily drags its audience through a “character piece” that never fully takes the time to establish its characters. Go ahead, ask if he’s going to change anything – if the Philip Mann vision will be something completely different. “Well, I’ve changed a few of the costumes,” he said. “We’ll have some animal prints and more leather.” Silence, followed by a smile. “Well, it is a whorehouse, after all,” Mann said. He’s still smiling, but it’s not one of those junior high laugh-at-anything-risque smirks. The last will be a first for the Louisiana Sinfonietta. For it’s in the final concert of the season when the Sinfonietta will perform its first opera. Or mini opera, as Dinos Constantinides calls it. “This opera will have a very little stage,” he said. After more than 30 years, Godspell could use a little updating. Enter Bradley Sanchez. The 20-year-old LSU student and Gonzales native is directing the Ascension Community Theatre Second Stage’s production of the rock musical, opening this week at the Pasqua Theatre in Gonzales. A man making love to a goat ought to be the most provocative part of any play. But the love that dare not bleat! its name is only the tip of the horn in “The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?,” Baton Rouge Little Theater Second Stage’s deeply funny, deeply disturbing, new one-act comedy directed by Keith Dixon. He searches for the right word, that perfect combination of storytelling and music. Something meaningful — something Irish. “If it’s anything Irish, I’m interested in it,” Jack Wilson said. “It’s where my people are from.” It’s the Irish factor that makes Dancing at Lughnasa special. The fairy godmother turned a pumpkin into carriage and mice into horses so Cinderella could go to the prince’s ball. Everyone knows that. But does anyone know what Cinderella ate at the ball? Why, crawfish pie, of course. Oh come on. In Louisiana, “ball” is just a fancy word for party, and parties serve up lots of food. True, Charles Perrault’s fairy tale skips over what was served. He wrote it in 1697, after all, and the story’s moral took precedence over food. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Tiffany Bostic. And Jennifer Crippen. And Kathryn Drake. And Jennifer Juilfs, Susan Ruggeiro, Johnnie Bankens, Terrance Brown, Brandon Hendrickson and Adam Holcomb. They are the performers in Opera Louisiane’s Young Artists program. They also will combine for the main attraction at Opera Louisiane’s Mozartiana. Maybe Mickey Gray shouldn’t have waited so long. Then again, the idea didn’t occur to him right away. So, while Vladimir and Estragon spend their days waiting for some guy named Godot in LSU’s Hatcher Hall Theatre, Gray spent his time thinking of a special way to interpret their waiting. Of Moving Colors will host writer, director and producer Calvin Rowe’s premier work Bread and Water at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, April 17-18, at the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, 427 Laurel St. Caffery Gallery, 4016 Government St., shifts the paintings on display each week to provide variety and public interest as well as to present work of a variety of artists during the spring months. Bing Zheng of Port Allen received the Best of Show award for his painting, “The Green Field,” during the opening reception of the 13th annual Spring Art Show at the West Baton Rouge Parish Library. In 431 B.C., when Euripides’ Medea was first performed by the ancient Greeks, a drummer and a flute player probably provided the music. |
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