Letting midnight out on bail pop- a- da having been detained in jail oop- pop- a- da for sprinkling salt on a dreamer’s tail pop- a -da — Langston Hughes, Jam Session, 1951 Henry Wolking’s orchestral jazz music consistently has that generous, resounding and veritable feel. One of Utah’s most important composers, he once described … Read more
In 2013, four months before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Windsor case set the stage for courtroom challenges to bans against same-sex marriage in every state, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled in a case brought by three couples from the state of Oaxaca that denying the rights to marriage equality was unconstitutionally discriminatory. … Read more
Not that many decades ago, the work of artists who imagined and represented the American West — spanning the transition from Lewis and Clark’s famed expedition in the early 1800s to the culmination of the manifest destiny ideal that occurred at the turn of the 20th century — was not seen regularly in the same … Read more
In the first issue of Seven Arts, a cultural arts magazine launched in 1916, Romain Rolland, a French writer who was a close friend of Marcel Duchamp, contributed an essay titled America and the Arts. He paid great tribute to Walt Whitman – “the elemental Voice of a great pioneer,” the American corollary of Homer. … Read more
The challenge in any holiday season is to find fresh entertainment that carries a theme without resorting to conventional tropes or clichés. Two local companies have offered their own version of a holiday program not set necessarily in the season but with a spirit that fits perfectly into the celebration: Sackerson’s ongoing production of The … Read more
“Goodbye,” said the fox. “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” “What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember. “It is … Read more
NOTE: All four short films are available for viewing here. In its 15 years, the PitchNic film program at Spy Hop Productions has succeeded because student filmmakers first learn the rules of crafting a good narrative for a short film, whether it is fiction or a documentary piece, and then learn how to break them, … Read more
Expressing the art of dance in painting is among the most difficult challenges artists attempt. Many know of Edgar Degas, who practically lived at the Paris Opera in the 1870s, watching ballet rehearsals and performances, often from backstage, so that his paintings would be as true to representing the intensity of movement and focus of … Read more
Two local theatrical companies recently staged productions of locally written adaptations of two of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. One is the witty The Weyward Sisters, inspired by Macbeth, as staged by PYGmalion Productions and the other is Ten Deaths of Hamlet, a one-actor adaptation featuring 16 characters, presented by Sackerson. PYGMALION PRODUCTIONS: THE WEYWARD SISTERS There’s … Read more
One of the most impressive scenes in The Ice Front, the Eric Samuelsen play in a world premiere Plan-B Theatre production, comes in the second act, where the five actors, stage manager and assistant manager have assembled at a restaurant. Shortly before this scene, Morten, the Nazi collaborator who is running the Norwegian national theater, … Read more