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No wonder local swing dancer Nick Davis has fallen hard for Lindy hop. It’s sexy, funny and fresh. It’s the most goddamn exhilarating movement I’ve seen. Watching a video of dancer Frankie Manning swing his partner with such centripetal force — linked solely by fingertips, momentum building like a merry-go-round — it’s easy to imagine that, were they to let go, each dancer would ricochet into outer space. Continue reading
Award-winning playwright Aaron Posner grew up in Eugene. And since Oregon Contemporary Theatre’s season opens with Posner’s Stupid F@#*ing Bird, it seemed a great excuse to ask this renowned artist about his old paper route. Chekhov’s The Seagull inspires Stupid F@#*ing Bird. How did you plumb Chekhov’s “Theatre of Mood” for the funny? Continue reading
The fall dance season kicks off during First Friday ArtWalk with Lane Arts Council’s Fiesta Cultural salsa dance party 5:30 to 8 pm Friday, Sept. 4, at Kesey Square; free. Also during First Friday: “Come to the last #instaballet of the season!” co-founder Suzanne Haag suggests. “This is your last chance until 2016 to help Eugene Ballet Company dancers make a ballet with audience input.” Catch #instaballet 5:30 to 8 pm in The Studio at the Hult Center; free. Continue reading
A curious girl can raise only so much hell for a totalitarian regime: When Ximena makes too much noise, the state takes away her voice. Literally. Set in a faceless authoritarian state, Degenerate Arts Ensemble’s Predator Songstress — produced in conjunction with the new Oregon Performance Lab — sets out to examine repression, surveillance, interrogation and the power of noise. The play runs Friday and Saturday, Aug. 28 and 29, at Lane Community College’s Ragozzino Hall. Continue reading
From the moment you take your seat at Cottage Theatre, waiting for the lights to dim, Quilters transports you into a quaint, home-lovin’ kind of feeling. Opening with old-time music with a heck of a lotta twang, the women of the musical burst in running and laughing — yee-haws and all — giving you a slight pause to ask: “What have I gotten myself into?” Continue reading
The city of Eugene has lined up lots of family-friendly dance happenings as part of its EUGfun festival in August. Continue reading
Set in 1928 Arizona, The Shedd’s revival of Whoopee! is populated by rootin’ tootin’ cowboys, rich tourists and the occasional hypochondriac. Based on the 1923 play The Nervous Wreck, this goofball musical comedy by Gus Kahn and Walter Donaldson was made famous by both the Ziegfield Broadway production of 1928 and the 1930 Eddie Cantor film. In the vaudeville era, shows like Whoopee! cobbled together already popular tunes with a loose plot, peppering zany narratives with plenty of jazz standards and daffy jokes. And it’s still a winning combination. Continue reading
VLT casts Anne of the Thousand Days as a post-apocalyptic feminist tale of Tudor intrigue William Faulkner once suggested in an interview that the essential ingredients of any good drama are family, money and murder. This might help explain our ongoing obsession with the House of Tudor, those ingrown English monarchs whose rule included ample instances of greed, intrigue, betrayal and bloody battles for the rights of primogeniture. Continue reading
After four years and three venues, G.L.A.M. arrives at its grand finale and celebration, a pink party at Luckey’s Club Saturday, Aug. 1, to send off the whole G.L.A.M. family in style. The drag show Eugene has grown to love began as Gays, Lesbians And More, offering a positive venue to queer folks and their allies. “It was about people who didn’t have a space,” says producer/emcee Anthony Barber, aka Diva-Simone Slaughter, who has performed in Eugene since “Baby Got Back” was the flavor of the week. Continue reading
You think your dad has outrageous stories? According to Edward Bloom, the years before he became a salesman were filled with heroism, giants, witches, mermaids and indentured servitude in the name of love. Continue reading