Arts: Page 386

Morgan Spurlock’s Shadow

Eugene’s honorary stoner, comedian Doug Benson, returns to our green valley

Comedy

April 21 may as well be the new 4/20, as far as Eugene and comedian Doug Benson are concerned. The seminal stoner and star of Super High Me returns to WOW Hall for his 3rd annual celebration of giggling and giggle weed, hot off releasing his on-the-road documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Rolled — to continue in the vein of pot variations on a Morgan Spurlock theme — on Chill.com. Also the host of the Doug Loves Movies podcast, Benson sounds off on his favorite and most despised films of 2013, smoking with the stars and legalizing marijuana. Continue reading →

Dance Diplomacy

U.S. State Department selects DanceAbility teachers to share their method abroad

Dance

“I was part of the contemporary dance scene at the point when everyone was pushing for equality, respect of all people and the idea that all people could dance,” says Alito Alessi, artistic director of DanceAbility International. “But no one was doing anything about it, including myself. So I said, ‘Well, what would it look like to do what we say we all believe in?’” Continue reading →

Mental Illness and the Police

Film

Cinema Pacific, the annual festival featuring films from Pacific-bordering countries, is in full swing, and like any good film festival there is a dizzying array of options for movie buffs and casual cinemagoers alike to choose from. This year’s focus will be on films and filmmakers from Singapore, Mexico and the U.S. West Coast. Continue reading →

Fathers and Sons

Film

The Place Beyond the Pines is an ambitious, beautifully filmed follow-up to director/co-writer Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine (2010). That bleak bruise of an indie darling gave a stamp of greatness to the careers of Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, and it divided viewers, who thought it was a searing portrait of a dissolving marriage — or thought it had little to say.  Continue reading →

Music, Mountains and Mythology

Music

Jessica Raymond has gathered several musical influences since she arrived in the PNW: Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, the North Cascades and the Olympic Mountains. “I’ve spent a lot of the past couple years in the mountains,” says Raymond, singer-songwriter and guitarist for The Blackberry Bushes, an alt-folk progressive bluegrass trio based in Seattle. “It influences what I do. They stick with you.” In fact, Raymond attended Evergreen State College in Olympia and deemed her concentration “Music, Mountains and Mythology.”  Continue reading →

Keep Them Like A Secret

Music

If you’ve never heard Built to Spill, let me first ask you this: Have you been living on the moon for the past 20 years, or in a subterranean cave with no light or sound? ’Cause if you haven’t, then there’s really no other excuse to have missed out on some of the most vital and interesting guitar rock produced in the Northwest since Nirvana.  Continue reading →

The Nickatina Experience

Music

I noticed a Kickstarter campaign the other day; someone is transcribing the flow of popular rappers into traditional music notation and wants help funding a book about it. I hear you can study “turntablism” at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Does this mean rap is dead — or that it’s finally part of the establishment? Neither, if San Francisco-based indie rap icon Andre Nickatina has anything to say about it. Continue reading →

Yonder Hearts Eugene

Music

When Jeff Austin roams around the state of Oregon, he feels as if he were in a strange movie. But it’s not just the scenery that keeps Austin and the rest of Yonder Mountain String Band coming back to this fine state; it’s the people. “Eugene is very near and dear to our hearts; it’s always been good to us,” says Austin, who plays mandolin and provides silvery vocals for Yonder. “We’re like old cowboys. We don’t forget that stuff.” Continue reading →

The Leading Player

The indefatigable Tony Rust brings Pippin to Marist High School

Theater

One year ago, Tony Rust conceived the idea of directing Pippin at Marist High School, and playing the Leading Player himself. If directing a high school play and being in it sounds crazy, remember that this is Tony Rust — the Marist drama teacher doesn’t sleep. He can be found doing everything from directing, running summer camps, crafting sets under the name FeO2, singing lead roles, teaching high school drama and often doing several of these things at the same time. Continue reading →

No Weeds in this Garden

The Secret Garden at the Cottage Theatre is a hit

Theater

There is this sublime passage near the end of Cottage Theatre’s current production of The Secret Garden when Kyra Siegel, in the lead role of Mary Lennox, bows low to the stage and then rises in hypnotic fits and starts, as her character commences a healing dance for her invalid cousin Colin (George Schroeder); seeming possessed, Siegel’s lanky body jumps and arcs and shivers through space, and the complicated grace of her movements defies the mundane laws of gravity. It’s beautiful to behold. So beautiful, in fact, that I found myself tearing up. Continue reading →