Arts: Page 253

Bid adieu to 2015 and ring in 2016 with dance!

Who's who and what’s what in dance this month

Dance
Ballet Fantastique’s Hannah Bontrager and Fabio Simoes in An American Christmas Carol. Photo by Stephanie Urso.

Bid adieu to 2015 and ring in 2016 with dance!  The Eugene Youth Ballet tours the town with The Nutcracker 4 pm Thursday, Dec. 3, at Springfield Public Library, 10:15 am Friday, Dec. 4 at the Sheldon Branch of the Eugene Public Library and 2:45 pm Saturday, Dec. 5, at the Waldorf School. The final performances will be at 4 and 5 pm Wednesday, Dec. 9, at the downtown Eugene Public Library, 7:30 pm Thursday, Dec. 10, at Elmira High School and finally 10:15 am Friday, Dec. 11, at the Bethel Branch of the Eugene Public Library; FREE.   Continue reading →

Suffer the Children

Film

Recipe for an emotional pummeling: A mother and her 5-year-old son are locked up in a dank shed, held hostage by an evil piece of white shit who makes routine visits for creaky sex acts while the kid counts time, faking sleep in a tiny closet. Mom was abducted seven years ago, which means that the tight walls of “room” are all the child knows, all he comprehends of the world: his universe is a sink, bed, tub, table, television and the shed’s single skylight revealing endless blue nothingness. Continue reading →

Where there’s smoke

Smoke Season

Music
Smoke Season

There’s no one element that stands out in “Opaque.” Smoke Season’s most popular single from 2014’s Hot Coals Cold Souls starts unassumingly, with guitarist Jason Rosen’s reverb-drenched Gibson SG carefully plucking out a G chord. Singer and keyboardist Gabrielle Wortman then moves into the mix, showing off her range with a few octave leaps before launching into the sort of arms-wide-open chorus that U2 built stadium tours around.  Continue reading →

Cascadia Hootenanny

Conjugal Visitors hope to get away from the “domestication” of modern society and back to an agricultural and bartering lifestyle

Music
Conjugal Visitors

The Conjugal Visitors’ M.D. “Maz” Elsworth is from Kentucky — the Bluegrass State. He says he considers his Eugene band to be the “Cascadian” equivalent to the Appalachian sound he grew up around. “The epitome of Cascadian, whiskey-land jazz,” Elsworth tells EW, describing his band’s old-timey music, “Cascadian party music.”  Continue reading →

The Scrooge Effect

OCT offers another look at Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol

Theater
Robert Hirsh and Brittany Dorris in OCT’s A Christmas Carol

Most of us have grown up with the tale of Ebeneezer Scrooge rediscovering his Christmas spirit and, while the story doesn’t change, our relationship to the story does.  Sometimes life makes Scrooges of us all with its litany of heartbreak, missed opportunities and too much time wasted stressing about careers and money. That’s what makes Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol so immortal.  Continue reading →

Holiday Treats

Local theaters hit the stage with a whirl of winter classics

Theater
A Christmas Carol at Actors Cabaret of Eugene

What is it about the encroaching cold and dark that sends us shivering out into the night in search of a collective theater experience? Local theaters can smell our desire, and like an expert patisserie, they set out the most familiar, uplifting theatrical fare to tempt us. There will be no angst-ridden, painful social statements made on stage this December. The holiday theater season is about warm, familiar classics to satisfy an audience hungry for community and tradition. Continue reading →

Arts Hound

Visual Arts

For those willing to brave the cold, First Friday ArtWalk will be brimming with holiday cheer. Courtney Stubbert, of Eugene Contemporary Art, partners with Threadbare Print House to host a pop-up print shop —  “Give Shop” — 5:30 to 9 pm Friday, Dec. 4, at 945 Olive in Broadway Alley. “Give” posters will be screenprinted on the spot. All proceeds go to Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Lane County. Continue reading →

Overstuffed and Flickering Out

Film

Mockingjay Part 2 has no illusions about being anything but the final movie in a series. There are no reminders, no “previously, on The Hunger Games” montages to put you back in the story; it just starts, opening on a Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) who is, as we so often see her, bruised but not broken. Which, in a nutshell, is the problem with this movie: It doesn’t know how to grapple with the way that book-Katniss really is broken, traumatized and angry after all she’s been through. Continue reading →