Culture Club
This article originally appeared on MilwaukeeMagazine.com
http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com:80/cultureclub/default.asp
by Paul Kosidowski | Wednesday 6/10/2009
http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com:80/cultureclub/default.asp
Weekly Picks
Grand finales and new beginnings
by Paul Kosidowski | Wednesday 6/10/2009
It’s a weekend of grand finales (some of which are really, really grand), and a few beginnings.
It’s hard to imagine a finale more grand than Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. At its premiere, it featured more
than 1,000 performers—hence its nickname, “Symphony of a Thousand.” Here, Andreas Delfs will lead an ensemble of 300-plus at his last concert as the Milwaukee Symphony’s Music Director. In addition to the orchestra, there are eight vocal soloists, the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, the Milwaukee Children’s Choir, and the Master Singers of Milwaukee. Whew!
There’s big stuff happening at the UWM Dance Department as well, though it’s not as much about hundreds of people as millions of pixels. This weekend’s Summerdances concert honors Alwin Nikolais, a pioneer in the blending of technology and dance. The company will stage a revival of Nikolais’ “Tensile Involvement,” and “Water Studies,” two works solidly situated in the “Mid-Century Modern,” even though there isn’t an Eames Chair in sight. Of course, Nikolais didn’t know a megapixel from a plie, so his work involves slide projections and Moog synthesizer music. But the tech-savvy UWM fol
ks are pairing it with three works that take the high-tech slant into the 21st century. The concert also features new works by Luc Vanier, Simone Ferro, and Dani Kuepper.
East meets West in Present Music’s season finale, and we’re not talking about Bay View vs. Brookfield. Music Director Kevin Stalheim pairs masterpieces of Minimalism (including pieces by Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and Terry Riley) with a performance by North Indian violin virtuoso Kala Ramnath (joined by Prithwiraj Bhattacharjee on tabla). Ramnath is known for her “singing-violin” style of playing, in which she creates vocal-like sounds by manipulating the strings.
And if you’re up for a road trip, American Players Theatre is up and running for the summer. This weekend, you’ll have a choice of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors or George Bernard Shaw’s The Philanderer. And Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale is soon to follow. 
Movies for Grown-Ups: If you’re still buzzing from the Tony Award hype, there’s 
an interesting double header coming your way. This weekend, the Chorus Line documentary Every Little Step, opens at the Downer Theatre, just in time for you to see it before the touring production of the show arrives at the Marcus Center later this month. A hall-of-mirrors film if there ever was one, Every Little Step follows the audition process for the 2006 revival of the show, which is, of course, about the audition process for an unnamed Broadway show. Critics have called this one a real crowd pleaser.
There’s also been a lot of chatter about Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, mostly for the news that he case real life porn star Sasha Gray in the lead role. This is one of Soderbergh’s “quickie” experiments—a film shot in hand-held digital video—and
it has its champions and detractors. Some call it the best of his “DV doodles” (Bubble and Full Frontal are others). David Edelstein called it a, um, “corpse with twitching limbs.” Ouch.
But for the best movie around, whether for grownups or tots, you’ll have to haul your Chevy Tahoe out to the suburbs to see Up, which is beautiful, tender, witty and altogether astonishing. How the Pixar Pack continue to make these Hollywood masterpieces is anyone’s guess, but Up shows that they are becoming deeper and more soulful even as the technical bravado becomes more amazing. See this movie in 3-D. But don’t expect the screen-shattering surprises that you see in other 3-D films (put there to keep you awake). But because the 3-D adds depth and gravitas to the Pixar creations, both characters and images, and it will leave you both delighted and moved.
JOIN THE CLUB! Keep up with all the goings on in Milwaukee arts. Follow Culture Club on Twitter or become a friend of CultureClub Milwaukee on Facebook. Or subscribe: Pipe me right to your Blog Reader with RSS or get email notices from Milwaukee Magazine.
And don't forget to tune in to "Arts On Deck," every Friday morning on WUWM-FM's "Lake Effect."
It’s hard to imagine a finale more grand than Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. At its premiere, it featured more
than 1,000 performers—hence its nickname, “Symphony of a Thousand.” Here, Andreas Delfs will lead an ensemble of 300-plus at his last concert as the Milwaukee Symphony’s Music Director. In addition to the orchestra, there are eight vocal soloists, the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, the Milwaukee Children’s Choir, and the Master Singers of Milwaukee. Whew! There’s big stuff happening at the UWM Dance Department as well, though it’s not as much about hundreds of people as millions of pixels. This weekend’s Summerdances concert honors Alwin Nikolais, a pioneer in the blending of technology and dance. The company will stage a revival of Nikolais’ “Tensile Involvement,” and “Water Studies,” two works solidly situated in the “Mid-Century Modern,” even though there isn’t an Eames Chair in sight. Of course, Nikolais didn’t know a megapixel from a plie, so his work involves slide projections and Moog synthesizer music. But the tech-savvy UWM fol
ks are pairing it with three works that take the high-tech slant into the 21st century. The concert also features new works by Luc Vanier, Simone Ferro, and Dani Kuepper. East meets West in Present Music’s season finale, and we’re not talking about Bay View vs. Brookfield. Music Director Kevin Stalheim pairs masterpieces of Minimalism (including pieces by Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and Terry Riley) with a performance by North Indian violin virtuoso Kala Ramnath (joined by Prithwiraj Bhattacharjee on tabla). Ramnath is known for her “singing-violin” style of playing, in which she creates vocal-like sounds by manipulating the strings.
And if you’re up for a road trip, American Players Theatre is up and running for the summer. This weekend, you’ll have a choice of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors or George Bernard Shaw’s The Philanderer. And Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale is soon to follow.
Movies for Grown-Ups: If you’re still buzzing from the Tony Award hype, there’s
There’s also been a lot of chatter about Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, mostly for the news that he case real life porn star Sasha Gray in the lead role. This is one of Soderbergh’s “quickie” experiments—a film shot in hand-held digital video—and
it has its champions and detractors. Some call it the best of his “DV doodles” (Bubble and Full Frontal are others). David Edelstein called it a, um, “corpse with twitching limbs.” Ouch.But for the best movie around, whether for grownups or tots, you’ll have to haul your Chevy Tahoe out to the suburbs to see Up, which is beautiful, tender, witty and altogether astonishing. How the Pixar Pack continue to make these Hollywood masterpieces is anyone’s guess, but Up shows that they are becoming deeper and more soulful even as the technical bravado becomes more amazing. See this movie in 3-D. But don’t expect the screen-shattering surprises that you see in other 3-D films (put there to keep you awake). But because the 3-D adds depth and gravitas to the Pixar creations, both characters and images, and it will leave you both delighted and moved.
JOIN THE CLUB! Keep up with all the goings on in Milwaukee arts. Follow Culture Club on Twitter or become a friend of CultureClub Milwaukee on Facebook. Or subscribe: Pipe me right to your Blog Reader with RSS or get email notices from Milwaukee Magazine.
And don't forget to tune in to "Arts On Deck," every Friday morning on WUWM-FM's "Lake Effect."
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