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Among the several pleasures of writer-director Paul Weitz’s new film Grandma is watching Lily Tomlin drop a petulant teenage slacker to the floor with a hockey stick to the nuts. The aggression is not unfounded: Elle (Tomlin) is simply avenging her newly pregnant granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner), who is trying to collect enough money for her abortion appointment, and her baby daddy (Nat Wolff) won’t cough up his share. Continue reading
Los Angeles band Period Bomb is an anarcho-feminist project recalling protest punk like Bikini Kill and straightforward, curled-upper-lip rock ‘n’ roll like The Runaways. Period Bomb’s “Get Out Of My Life Creep” is a simple kiss-off to a boorish, controlling lover. The song features vocalist Cami Miami’s supple, Siouxsie Sioux voice moving over tightly wound power chords. Continue reading
California-based progressive bluegrass group Front Country has a new connection to Eugene. “Our fiddle player [Leif Karlstrom] just moved up here,” guitarist Jacob Groopman tells EW. “I always like coming to Eugene. It’s a nice town.” Front Country is touring in support of 2014’s Sake of the Sound. The record features mandolin, fiddle and the hymnal quality of vocalist Melody Walker. The resulting sound recalls the chamber folk and bluegrass of Chris Thile and Punch Brothers. Continue reading
Blackalicious needed two decades to establish themselves as one of underground hip hop’s most progressive, impressive and beloved groups. But it took Harry Potter to make them famous. Continue reading
We’ve all played this game: If you could share a drink with one person from history, living or dead, who would you choose? For music fans in general and jazz fans in particular, the answer is often Billie Holiday. Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, running now at Actors Cabaret of Eugene, gives audiences that chance. The play debuted in Atlanta in the mid-1980s, with a recent off-Broadway run starring Audra McDonald in the titular role. Continue reading
In theater, the imaginary barrier separating an audience from the action on stage is called the fourth wall — a sort of make-believe TV screen that, by mutual agreement, keeps art on one side and spectators on the other. Artists have been fucking with the fourth wall for decades now, inviting the audience to a naughty peek behind the Oz-like curtain where the dirty secrets of creativity hide. In the wrong hands, the device is cloying and cheap and self-satisfied, like listening to a bong circle of conspiracy theorists. Continue reading
Local found-object sculptor Jud Turner has been working nonstop for decades, but he hasn’t had an open studio showing his work for 15 years. While his work is collected internationally, many in Eugene have never seen his art face to face. This weekend, Sept. 11-13, he will be showing more than 100 works, many of which have never been shown in Eugene and some that were completed this past week. Why have you waited 15 years? Continue reading
“Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made,” choreographer Ted Shawn once said. It’s a quote that my first dance teacher had on a poster in her studio, and it’s an idea that carries to the dancer, the dance company, even to the community itself. Welcome to Eugene Weekly’s 3rd annual Dance issue. Continue reading
Tap has long held both the glamour of Fred Astaire and the grit of early vaudeville. Even so, its popularity has been inconsistent in the history of dance. Tap has enjoyed peaks on Broadway in the 1920s, the funk tap show Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk in the ’90s and even made appearances on So You Think You Can Dance as of late. As a whole, however, the scuffs and stamps of tap don’t seem to compete with the pirouettes of ballet or the chest pops of hip hop — especially in Eugene. Continue reading
All that! Dance Company Ballet, contemporary jazz, tap, hip hop, ballroom allthatdancecompany.com 541-688-1523 Ballet Fantastique Ballet balletfantastique.org 541-342-4611 Ballet North West Academy Ballet, tap, modern, jazz and Broadway dance bnwa.net 541-343-3914 Celebration Belly Dance and Yoga Bollywood, zumba, samba, capoeira, African, 40-plus Continue reading