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Habib Iddrisu has a slender, compact body, an unlined, youthful face and a headful of small, short dreads. The University of Oregon adjunct dance professor travels the world with traditional African singing and dance groups and actively teaches African history. But he won’t reveal his age. “I keep that to myself,” he says. Continue reading
The Senior Moments Dance Team got its start when Richard Walker, retired owner of Champion Friction, issued a public invitation in The Register-Guard to join a seniors’ flashmob. Seventy-seven people showed up to that first rehearsal at the Vet’s Club in May of 2013, and the group’s been dazzling audiences ever since. Continue reading
Susan Kincaid never thought she would take dance classes and perform on stage. But, at 44, she finally found herself “brave enough” to step out of her comfort zone and try tap dancing at Petersen Barn Community Center. Continue reading
All That! Dance Company Ballet, contemporary jazz, tap, hip hop, ballroom allthatdancecompany.com 688-1523 Continue reading
It’s nothing new for Richard Linklater to demonstrate his fascination with the passage of time in cinema. Dazed and Confused took place on the last day of high school; his films with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, most recently Before Midnight, skip through the years in the life of a couple, their relationship moving from young passion to a maturity that’s both prickly and graceful. Continue reading
Having all but walked away from movies in exhaustion and disgust after finishing his last full-length feature Killing Me, local writer-director Henry Weintraub now returns to the cinematic fold with The Assassin, a compact gem of shoestring filmmaking. Shot in digital black-and-white and devoid of dialogue, this surreal short film about a low-rent, grungy killer is in many ways a return to Weintraub’s roots in slam-bang, low-budget auteurism, and the joy he rediscovered in the endeavor shows in every frame. Continue reading
Tone, taste and tenacity remain ZZ Top’s motto and rationale for their lasting popularity, lead guitarist Billy Gibbons tells EW. “If you recognize it as ZZ Top then we’ve had a successful expedient in sonic branding. Taste is the stuff we play, how we play it, but, more importantly, the stuff we don’t play. Tenacity of course is stick-to-it-iveness and we have been pretty good at sticking around,” Gibbons says via email. Continue reading
Type “Soulja Boy” into YouTube, click the video for “Crank Dat” (with more than 158 million views, mind you) and dance along as you listen to the hip-hop song that took 2007 by storm. DeAndre “Soulja Boy” Way always knew he was going to be “the next big thing” in the rap game — and even said as much on the Wikipedia page that he created for himself when he was 15. He worked at Burger King in high school, but before he was 20 “Crank That” helped him earn a major record deal and a Grammy nomination. But it doesn’t stop at the crank. Continue reading
Bruno Mars knows exactly what he is doing, and he does it better than just about anyone in the business. Not only has he released two chart-topping albums — 2010’s Doo-Wops & Hooligans and 2012’s Unorthodox Jukebox — sold over 100 million copies of his singles and albums and won multiple Grammys, but he’d made a name for himself prior to all of this as a songwriter and producer. B.o.B.’s “Nothin’ On You,” for example? Co-written by Mars. Cee-Lo Green’s “F*** You”? Ditto. Continue reading
In 2014, what does punk rock mean? “Playing as fast as you can? Playing three chords?” poses Atom Willard, drummer for Against Me! “Spiking your hair? Punk rock is doing what isn’t generally smiled upon by the masses,” Willard says. “Doing something you believe in and isn’t easy to do — basically going against the grain.” Willard says the gender transition of Against Me! vocalist Laura Jane Grace (born Thomas James Gabel) is one of the most punk rock things he’s ever witnessed. Continue reading