In its first program of the season, Fire and Ice, Miami City Ballet brought the work of three very different choreographers to bear, and with surprising results. The “ice” part of the program was Sir Frederick Ashton’s Les Patineurs, a light-hearted winter wonderland of skaters on a frozen pond that was reminiscent of a Hallmark Christmas card. Les Patineurs, set to music by … [Read more...]
‘Life of Pi’ a ravishing visual achievement
I could have watched the opening montage of Life of Pi for a full three hours and walked away satisfied. Not just satisfied but cleansed, reinvigorated and positively transported, to a paradisical time and place that probably never existed. Shot in 3-D, the movie opens with images of a tropical zoo, where verdant foliage flanks scores of exotic animals as they traipse across … [Read more...]
For Kingston, in the beginning was the word
Maxine Hong Kingston first became aware of the importance of language when she went to kindergarten in Stockton, Calif., where she grew up the child of Chinese immigrants. “I spoke Chinese only until I started school,” Kingston says by phone from her home in Oakland, Calif. “I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. I couldn’t communicate.” That first experience of … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 13-14
Theater: Palm Beach Dramaworks opens its season this weekend with Talley’s Folly, Lanford Wilson’s 1979 two-person drama of disappointment, family history and desire. Brian Wallace stars as Matt Friedman, who has fallen in love with Sally Talley (Erin Joy Schmidt), and wants to make her his wife, despite objections from her Protestant family about an older Jewish suitor, and … [Read more...]
Music roundup: A night of Waxman; Trillium kicks off St. Paul’s series
Lynn New Music Festival: Donald Waxman (Oct. 4, Lynn University, Boca Raton) The composer Donald Waxman turns 87 later this month, but his compositional muse shows no sign of slowing down. The special guest last week for the New Music Festival at Lynn University, founded by pianist Lisa Leonard and now in its seventh year, Waxman has had a long, distinguished career in … [Read more...]
Rocker Duarte showcases exuberance, diversity at Bamboo Room
Guitarist and vocalist Chris Duarte hails from Texas, the home state of guitar heroes like Freddie King, Albert Collins, Johnny Winter, Jimmie Vaughan, and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. Yet that’s where the comparisons to those blues-based icons blur. Duarte’s influences extend further, encompassing both jazz/fusion and metal. Which likens his incendiary playing style more toward … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Lovely ‘Fantasticks’; uneven ‘Twelfth Night’
Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s The Fantasticks, the longest-running stage show in modern history at 17,162 consecutive performances, seems an easy show to produce, but it is hardly foolproof. I once saw a production that made the fatal mistake of enlarging its simple, elegant, piano and harp accompaniment to a full-size orchestra, adding a chorus of seven and lots of … [Read more...]
With just voice and guitar, Cornell mesmerizes Fillmore crowd
Seattle-born vocalist and guitarist Chris Cornell delivered a tidy 90-minute solo set at the Fillmore Miami Beach on Wednesday, blending acoustic intimacy, grunge guitar tunings and a church revival fervor. Attired in the post-grunge formal wear of jeans and a white T-shirt and surrounded by seven different guitars, the frontman for Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog and … [Read more...]
Silence helps abstract masterworks reveal themselves
No matter what museum in the world one visits, there is always a crowd and with it comes murmuring. The museum experience then becomes like watching a movie with the director’s commentary on. Some weeks ago something highly unusual happened. I found myself alone with three creations by two American masters of painting: Clyfford Still and Joan Mitchell. The miracle took … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: April 21-22
Theater: Eighteen years ago, a wordless theatrical event involving a gang of street urchins banging on garbage can lids and oil drums, making unlikely percussive music with brooms, sticks and other found objects opened off-Broadway, where it continues to this day. The show is called Stomp and the touring edition plays West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center this weekend only. Even … [Read more...]