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A Masterwork for the New Century: La Compagnie Hervé Koubi at WhiteBird Dance A remarkable piece of movement, a triumph, really, Hervé Koubi’s Ce que le jour doit a la nuit, or in English, ‘What the day owes the night’ pulls together threads stretching into the past, the present and the future. Continue reading
However much we’d all like to tell 2016: “Go home, you’re drunk,” New Year’s Eve in Eugene offers plenty of options to get (responsibly) rowdy … Continue reading
The screenwriter and occasional director Charlie Kaufman has been delightfully gas-lighting moviegoers since 1999’s Being John Malkovich, a film that takes place, quite literally, inside the head of John Malkovich. Like Rod Serling before him, Kaufman loves to knock everything just slightly off kilter, creating an existential free fall that is at once exhilarating and upsetting. Using wry humor to offset his philosophical heebie-jeebies, Kaufman’s what-if movies pry open absurd cracks in accepted reality until a plausible explanation of our human condition emerges. Continue reading
Yes, technically speaking, Shabazz Palaces is a rap group. But that sort of classification is about as accurate as calling Bitches Brew a jazz record or Captain Beefheart a rock star. Sure, it gets you in the right galaxy, but it does nothing to describe the bizarre constellation of fractured beats, warped vocals and occult imagery the group has formed during their six years together. Continue reading
Last year, Ohio’s Saintseneca released Such Things, one of the freshest, and yet familiar, indie-rock records of 2015. Saintseneca’s guitar-based music is sweetly earnest, exhibiting the infectious melodies and charmingly snotty lo-fi sensibilities of Pavement. In other words, Saintseneca are quintessential college rock. Continue reading
PWR BTTM is a self-identified queer-core duo from upstate New York that now resides in Brooklyn. Last year the band gained massive critical buzz with the release of its debut LP Ugly Cherries, a collection of punk and power-pop tunes subverting heteronormative guitar rock reminiscent of Weezer. The track “Serving Goffman” draws comparisons among personal identity, dressing in drag and the costumes worn in corporate America — after all, aren’t we all just roleplaying? Continue reading
Jessica Lea Mayfield is a chameleon. From her first folk-country release With Blasphemy, So Heartfelt (produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys) through her grunge-alternative record Make My Head Sing, Mayfield’s rural music, tinged with a Liz Phair sound, is ever changing — like a pink-haired glittery punk rocker with the heart of a country singer. Continue reading
I saw classical music’s future and its name is … Roomful of Teeth? That takeoff on Jon Landau’s famous 1974 encomium to a young Bruce Springsteen might be a little over the top. But then again, with nearly 30 million Americans singing in choirs and a cappella music a genuine populist phenomenon, an ensemble that combines the universal human instrument — voices — with contemporary artistic ambition might well be a key to bringing new listeners, as well as new singers, to 21st-century classical composers, and vice versa. Continue reading
There’s something slightly off about University Theatre’s current production of Water by the Spoonful, the Pulitzer-winning second installment in Quiara Alegría Hudes’ trilogy of plays about a returning Iraqi War vet who struggles to reintegrate himself into civilian life in the U.S. Continue reading
No holds barred: There is nothing the ladies in Disenchanted aren’t willing to throw down in an effort to overturn society’s ideal of a Disney princess. From tirades about historical inaccuracies to really dirty Pinocchio jokes, all’s fair in Actors Cabaret of Eugene’s (ACE) production of Dennis T. Giacino’s irreverent musical. Continue reading