Whats-Happening: Page 421

Live Long and Prosper

Celebrating 50 Years of Star Trek with Eugene’s Trek Theatre

ArtsTheater

Half a century ago this world, as well as worlds beyond our solar system, fell in love with the ’60s television series-turned-movie franchise known as Star Trek. Christina Allaback, creative director of Eugene’s Trek Theatre, says that along with the relationships among central characters like Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the show’s underlying message of hope helps Star Trek endure. “There are dystopic science fiction stories,” Allaback explains. “With Star Trek you have the opposite of that — the possibilities of where the human race can go.” Continue reading →

Down and Out in West Texas

Two brothers start robbing banks to buy back the family ranch in gritty crime drama Hell or High Water

ArtsFilm

As the riotous ’60s bled into the scabby ’70s, a lot of people in this country found themselves asking what happened to the American Dream, and movies from that era reflected this swooning miasma. In film after great film, directors like Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah and Robert Altman, to name just a few, tapped into our growing sense that something had gone seriously, desperately wrong — that the great social experiment of democracy and prosperity had finally begun rotting from the inside out. Continue reading →

Life on Mars

Jerry Joseph has been called the Anthony Bourdain of music

ArtsMusic

Jerry Joseph has been called the Anthony Bourdain of music. “I finally realized I was never going to be a big fucking rock star,” Joseph says. “Nobody’s ever going to invite me to Saigon to come play a concert.”  So the veteran Portland songwriter and longtime fixture on Eugene stages decided to take matters into his own hands and travel the world with his music.  “I called people I knew, people that lived in Cambodia and Thailand," Joseph explains. "And I brought a camera guy with me.”  Continue reading →

From Guinea with Love

The Yansanes put African dance in its cultural context through the West African Cultural Arts Institute

Arts
The Yansanes

Before moving to Eugene, Alseny Yansane danced for Ballets Africains, the most prestigious dance troupe in the West African nation of Guinea.  But there’d be no mistaking his moves for anything from Swan Lake.  Low squats, flips, rapid sideways motions, windmill arm movements — these are some of the most common hallmarks of the dozens of dances that can be found across Guinea and which Yansane and his wife Andrea Yansane teach at the West African Cultural Arts Institute (WACAI) here in Eugene.  Continue reading →

Stop Motion

A look at the state of dance in Eugene

ArtsDance

Choreographer David Parsons’ signature piece, Caught (1982), features more than 100 leaps in six minutes by a solo dancer who is repeatedly trapped in mid-motion by the strobe lights he controls, creating an illusion of flight. Seen live, the work is unforgettable; I saw it once here, in Eugene, at the Hult Center, danced by Parsons himself. Caught seems an apt metaphor for dance: vital, powerful yet ephemeral, almost fragile. Dance requires a nutritive base to thrive, constant support and a collaborative spirit. Any dance venture is a leap of faith. Continue reading →

Dancing for Preservation

ArtsDance

Mysterious forces drew Bonnie Simoa to Bali, Indonesia to study the legong dance, which she has now been practicing for two decades.  Simoa founded a dance company in Davis, California, and as the company was beginning its seventh season, she says she needed something more from her dance life. “I wanted to go some place where dance and spirituality and life were more integrated,” she says. By chance, Simoa came across Bali and then disbanded her company, put her things in storage, left her dog in the care of her sister and relocated to Indonesia for six months.  Continue reading →

Community Through Motion

Flail and writhe like nobody’s watching at coalessence ecstatic dance

ArtsDance

Across the wood floorboards at WOW Hall, there’s a frenzy of writhing limbs, bare feet and butts. In fact, someone farted square in my face while stretching. The crowd is intimate, exchanging kisses on the cheek, sharing bear hugs, grinning widely. Clearly, this is a special gathering.  This is Coalessence Dance, a bi-weekly “ecstatic” dance gathering centered on building community through motion. Continue reading →

Can’t Touch This

Magic Men Live in Eugene

Culture

I spent a half hour of my life watching YouTube videos of nearly naked men wiggling and worming around on stages illuminated by flashy lights — for research purposes, of course. Magic Men Live is coming to town and there’s something hypnotic about the performers’ abdominal capabilities.   Magic Men Live is a simulation of the 2012 Steven Soderbergh film Magic Mike but omits plot development and Channing Tatum. Each set of dancers in the performance is dressed according to a theme, so you can expect impractical firefighter uniforms and cowboy hats galore.    Continue reading →

Local Dance Studios

Listing of local dance studios

Dance

All that! Dance Company Ballet, contemporary jazz, tap, hip hop, ballroom allthatdancecompany.com 541-688-1523   Ballet Fantastique Ballet balletfantastique.org 541-342-4611   Ballet North West Academy Ballet, tap, modern, jazz and Broadway dance bnwa.net 541-343-3914   Celebration Belly Dance and Yoga Bollywood, zumba, samba, capoeira, African, 40-plus Continue reading →

Summer’s End

And the virtues of escarole

Gardening

August went by in flash, as usual. Daily watering chores. Jam making. An ocean of applesauce. After a week’s vacation in a cabin by the Metolius, I somehow carved out time to think about the fall and winter vegetable garden. Space must be carved out, too, and I’m grateful for any crops that can go in after the pole beans and tomatoes are torn out in October. But starts of red Russian kale, my favorite for winter eating, need to go in as soon as possible. By October what you see is more or less what you get until growth starts up again in March.   Continue reading →