Arts: Page 222

All Hail the Melancholy Dane

Timothy McIntosh takes the lead in Cottage Theatre’s excellent production of Hamlet

Theater
Tracy Nygard and Timothy Mcintosh Hamlet

As an accidental theater critic for the past 15 years or so, first in Seattle and now in Eugene, I’ve had the great good fortune to see Shakespeare performed in a variety of ways and in a variety of settings, professional and otherwise. Often upon the stage it’s just a poor player strutting and fretting, signifying very little, yet other times the work is divine beyond all reason. Continue reading →

ArtsHound

Visual Arts

Mural mania: Eugene is becoming the mural mecca we always hoped it would, catching up to the flourishing walls of downtown Springfield. The Lane Arts Council hosts its 3rd Mural Bike Tour 10 am to noon Saturday, Aug. 20, spinning off at the Whiteaker Carpark South (5th Alley and Blair Boulevard). Continue reading →

Accentuate the Positive

The Shedd's OFAM concludes with hits from the home front

Music
Siri Vik

When the United States went to war in 1941, music was in the arsenal. After Japan’s catastrophic sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the country needed cheering up and troops needed cheering on. The nation’s pop culture institutions were enlisted, going on tours and producing “V-discs” (records) and shortwave broadcasts for deployed soldiers and music about coming home and accentuating the positive for Americans.  Continue reading →

Back Beat

Music

Greetings from the dog days of summer: This week, to help pass the warm drowsy evening-time, Eugene offers an eclectic lineup of live music, from the return of L.A.-based freak-folk artist Globelamp to the second local show in less than a year from Portland indie-rock living legends The Dandy Warhols.  Globelamp plays with Tashaki Miyaki and Mischief Mistress 5 pm Monday, Aug. 15, at The Boreal; $5, all ages until 7 pm.  Continue reading →

Long Day’s Journey at the Beach

OCT premieres Shrimp & Gritts: She’s Gone, a new work from Eugene playwright Paul Calandrino

Theater
Bary Shaw and Rebecca Nachison in Shrimp & Gritts: She’s Gone

Living in Oregon’s Willamette Valley means that Manifest Destiny, also known as the Pacific Ocean, is never more than an hour away. From this distance, or even up close, it’s easy to romanticize such a beautiful place. Gazing upon the Pacific, anything feels possible. Visit the Oregon Coast, however, and sometimes you find sandblasted people and communities, stooped low against literal and metaphorical headwinds — economically and emotionally depressed.  Continue reading →

All of Oregon

The Wayne L. Morse Courthouse opens its doors to rotating art exhibits

Visual Arts
‘Linda Jarrard’ by Lynda Lanker

As cold and verboten as government buildings typically feel, it’s easy to forget that they belong to us, The People — paid for with taxpayer money, and don’t you forget it. Too often these edifices are lifeless, soul-squashing, Orwellian; but it doesn’t have to be that way.  Here in Eugene, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken, with a board of art advocates, is trying to shift that perspective by transforming the blank walls of the Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse into a home for art exhibits. Continue reading →

The Eugene Ballet Company (EBC) has received a $200,000 grant from the Richard P. Haugland Foundation

Dance
Lane Community College student Tristan Giannini performs a repertory piece by Merce Cunningham.

Hear ye, hear ye: EW’s annual dance issue is slated for September and we want your dance listings including date, time, location, cost and genre. Please send dance listings to alex@eugeneweekly.com with “Dance Listings” in the email subject line by Aug. 15. The Eugene Ballet Company (EBC) has received a $200,000 grant from the Richard P. Haugland Foundation, as well as $40,000 from the Hult Endowment, to create a new work: Move over Elsa, here comes The Snow Queen — premiering April 2017.  Continue reading →

Bring Me the Head of Ricky Baker!

Two outcasts head into the New Zealand outback in Taika Waititi’s charming Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Film
Julian Dennison and Sam Neill in Hunt For The Wilderpeople

Hunt for the Wilderpeople by Taika Waititi is about an unlikely pair of outcasts who scamper into the New Zealand backcountry to escape the bumbling clutches of a nationwide manhunt. The film is derivative, predictable, grandiose and utterly sentimental. It is also smart, funny, big-hearted and disarmingly adorable, and it juggles these absurd qualities with dexterity and a winking charm that is almost impossible to deny. Continue reading →

Progressive Poptimists

Stockholm’s Miike Snow

Music
Miike Snow

Bloodshy & Avant, the production duo that takes up two-thirds of Stockholm’s Miike Snow, are known as some of the most forward-thinking producers in pop.  Their songs with Britney Spears — including the epochal “Toxic” and the Bridesmaids-immortalized “I’ve Just Begun” — are still head-scratchers even in today’s postmodern pop landscape. One would think that in their own band, free of the commercial expectations of writing for the world’s biggest stars, Bloodshy & Avant would let their ideas go completely off the chain.  Continue reading →