We've got issues.
The (sub)Urban Projections Digital Art & Media Festival returns April 21 with a two-night multi-sensory, multi-discipline experience. Sponsored by the city of Eugene in partnership with Harmonic Laboratory, the festival — now celebrating its fifth year — seeks to “champion emerging artists, cultivate community and generate vibrancy in downtown Eugene.” Continue reading
It’s not necessarily downbeat to claim that a given theatrical production is completely carried by one performance in particular — to lavish praise on an actor who puts the play on her back and carts it expertly and, of equal importance, joyously from her first appearance on stage to the proverbial drop of the velvet curtain. This is especially true in community theater, a distinctly democratic institution where the egalitarian instinct gives a nudge to tender swaths of talent that blend in a stew of ability, some of it realized but not always. Continue reading
Eugene audiences were treated to two world premieres yesterday, as the Eugene Ballet Company presented Suzanne Haag’s Look and Toni Pimble’s The Great Gatsby. Continue reading
The capacity crowd at Beall Hall Friday night was only satisfied after not one, but two standing ovations for Joan Szymko’s new work “Shadow & Light”, performed beautifully by the Eugene Vocal Arts Ensemble, the Eugene Concert Orchestra and soloists Marietta Simpson, Sarah Joanne Davis and Brendan Tuohy, under the direction of artistic director and conductor Diane Retallack. Continue reading
Betroffenheit, the collaboration between Kidd Pivot/Electric Company Theatre, presented by Whitebird Dance at the Newmark Theatre in Portland Saturday night, pushed at odd angles through territory that at times felt dank, or prickly, hot and then cold. The audience was at times arrested, cajoled, invigorated and perhaps browbeaten. This was not namby-pamby dance for its own sake, nor was it theater alone, but a hybridization that, though not consistently successful, whatever that means, was at least doing something new. Continue reading
“It’s been some time that I’ve been wanting to have music that gives voice to those who’ve gone through Alzheimer’s disease and dementia,” says Eugene Concert Choir artistic director and conductor Diane Retallack, who has poured her energies into making the world premier of composer Joan Szymko’Shadow & Light a reality. Continue reading
Xcape Dance Company presents The Freak Show! with a red carpet and pre-show at 7:30 pm and show at 8:30 pm Friday, April 1, at the Hi Fi Music Hall, featuring “Non Stop hip hop, street jazz, tap, music, side shows, tricks, treats, circus acts and show stoppers,” says the group’s artistic director Vanessa Fuller. Tickets xcapedance.com; $10-$13. Continue reading
Ah, Paradise: What an orchard of happiness. Endless green, endless time and endless innocence, unsullied by death and the knowledge of it. What’s not to like? But God, in his infinite wisdom, looked upon Eden’s immaculate expanse and thought unto himself: Needs something. Needs a beholder to appreciate my handiwork and artistry, my Godness. Needs people. And so there were people, and everything went to hell. Continue reading
Blue Man Adam Erdossy has spent much of the last 10 years being … blue. “It’s a special shade called ‘Blue Man blue’” Erdossy says. “It gets pretty much everywhere, which is actually pretty fun.” Continue reading
Two couples, one reeling from the horrific murder of their only daughter, the other coping with a terminal illness that is reaching its late stage, come together and confront their demons: This is the thumbiest of thumbnail sketches of The Quality of Life, a play by Jane Anderson that explores the specter of death, the lash of loss, the cycles of grief and how people make meaning amid chaos and crisis — in short, it’s about life itself. Continue reading