Houston Lifestyles & Homes January 2010
performing arts in the houston area
Broadway Across America, Jan. 5 - 17
In an empty theater, on a bare stage, casting for a new Broadway musical is
almost complete. For 17 dancers, this audition is the chance of a lifetime. It
’s what they’ve worked for—with every drop of sweat, every hour of training, every day of their lives. It’s the one opportunity to do what they’ve always dreamed— to have the chance to dance. This is A Chorus Line, the musical for everyone who’s ever had a dream and put it all on the line.
Winner of nine Tony Awards, including “Best Musical” and the Pulitzer Prize for drama, this singular sensation is the
longest-running American Broadway musical ever.
For more information, go to www.broadwayacrossamerica.com.
National tour cast from
A Chorus Line
Houston Friends of Music, Jan. 19
Since their explosive debut in 1989, The Borromeo has been regularly heard in
the world
’s most illustrious concert halls. Besides performing regularly in distinguished
chamber music series across the United States and abroad, The Borromeo String
Quartet has had residencies at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston,
the New England Conservatory of Music, the Tenri Cultural Institute in New
York, Dai-Ichi Seimei Hall in Tokyo and the Taos School of Music.
Your Bright Future:
12 contemporary artists from korea
Museum Fine Arts Houston, Through Feb. 14
Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea features a generation of artists who have emerged since the mid-1980s—some well-known and others on the brink of such recognition—all of whom work on the cutting-edge of international art trends and within a
distinctly Korean context.
Your Bright Future (a deliberately ambiguous title taken from a sculpture by Bahc Yiso) represents
each artist through a large-scale installation or substantial body of work,
including site-specific installations, video art, computer animation and
sculpture. For more information, go to
www.mfah.org or call 713-639-7300.
Do Ho Suh, Fallen Star 1/5, 2008, ABS, basswood, beech, ceramic, enamel paint,
glass, honeycomb board, laquer paint, latex paint, LED lights, pinewood,
plywood, resin, spruce, styrene, polycar- bonate sheets and PVC sheets.
courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York
Thunder Rock
Company OnStage, Jan. 15 - Feb. 20
A Lake Michigan lighthouse is a safe haven for a disillusioned war veteran who
elects to isolate himself from society. The imagined ghosts from a shipwreck on
the lake 90 years earlier give him the confidence to reconnect with the world
he deserted.
Thunder Rock is a fascinating and inspirational drama by Robert Ardrey.
El Anatsui
Rice University Art Gallery, Beginning Jan. 28
Rice University Art Gallery has commissioned a site-specific installation by El
Anatsui, one of the foremost contemporary artists of his generation. Anatsui,
who has been called
“a master of material transformation,” is known for turning the detritus of everyday life into works of stunning
beauty and power.
A native of Ghana and resident of Nigeria since 1975, El Anatsui has
experimented throughout the years in a variety of media including wood,
ceramics and paint. Although he was a respected teacher and artist in Africa
for more than 30 years, he was little known internationally until 10 years ago
when he began creating dazzling suspended sculptures made from liquor bottle
tops and metal foil collars from the bottle necks.
The Turn of the Screw
Houston Grand Opera, Jan. 29, 31, Feb. 6, 10, 13
In the operatic thriller The Turn of the Screw, two children are pulled toward the world of the dead by the ghosts of their
prior governess Miss Jessel and her lover, Peter Quint.
Internationally-acclaimed soprano Amanda Roocroft plays the governess whose
obsessive efforts to protect the children may prove more of a threat than the
spirits themselves. Powerhouse mezzo-soprano Judith Forst is housekeeper Mrs.
Grose, the governess
’ only ally. Haunting Victorian sets depict the world of the Henry James novel on
which the opera is based. Directed by Neil Armfield, this is the third opera in
HGO
’s ongoing Benjamin Britten series.
Jon Pylypchuk
Blaffer Gallery, Through Feb. 6
Jon Pylypchuk’s work lays bare the frailty of human existence and the fragility of social
relationships. A contemporary fabulist, Pylypchuk creates heart-wrenching
stories of attraction and repulsion, love and loss, pleasure and pain, and
triumph and failure. Endowed with human attributes, yet endearing in their
pet-like cuteness, Pylypchuk
’s hybrid creatures inspire empathy. Their experiences and struggles speak to the
pathetic banality, stubborn determination and relentless optimism that define
many of our paths through life, that unfolding tragicomedy of epic proportion.
Curated by Director and Chief Curator Claudia Schmuckli, this exhibition
presents a 10-year survey of Pylypchuk
’s career, including 75 works created since 1999.
Red Carpet Oscar Party
Houston Symphony, Feb. 5 - 7
February means the Academy Awards. Remember your favorite Oscar-winning
blockbusters with music from
Lawrence of Arabia, Exodus, Ben Hur and Titanic, as well as 2010 Oscar hopefuls. Michael Krajewski will serve as conductor.
Besa: Muslims Who Saved Jews During
the Holocaust
Holocaust Museum Houston, Through Feb. 7
In a five-year project, Colorado-based photographer Norman Gershman set out to
collect the names of righteous, non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
He discovered that some of the names were of Albanian Muslims. He then began a
quest to meet and photograph the Albanian rescuers or their descendants. During
his interviews, when he asked why they rescued Jews, the resounding response
was
“Besa,” the code of honor deeply rooted in Albanian culture and incorporated in the
faith of Albanian Muslims.
Gershman’s mission is to use art as the primary form of expression to break down
stereotypes and build upon the deep roots of humanism that cross racial,
ethnic, religious and national boundaries. His photographs are purposeful. What
comes though is his overriding belief in the goodness of people reflected in
his portraits.
For more information, go to www.hmh.org or call 713-942-8000.
LA BAYADÈRE
Houston Ballet, Feb. 25, 27, 28 and
March 5 - 7
The high point of Houston Ballet’s 40th anniversary season will be a spectacular new production of one of the
great classical works of the 19th century repertoire, featuring choreography by
Stanton Welch and lavish scenery and costumes by the celebrated English
designer Peter Farmer.
Set in the Royal India of the past, La Bayadère is a story of eternal love, mystery, fate, vengeance and justice. The ballet
relates the drama of a temple dancer (bayad
ère), Nikiya, who is loved by Solor, a noble warrior. She is also loved by the
High Brahmin, but does not love him in return, as she does Solor.
Rent
Country Playhouse, Jan. 8 - 30
Country Playhouse will present the Broadway hit RENT in January. RENT is Jonathan Larson’s groundbreaking rock musical that took Broadway by storm and put actors like
Taye Diggs, Idina Menzel, Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal on the path to stardom.
Based on Puccini’s La Boheme—an opera about Parisian intellectuals living, loving and partying amongst those
afflicted with consumption
—RENT updates the story to present a group of artists and intellectuals living in late
’80s lower Manhattan, facing the AIDS crisis. The characters find strength in
each other as they come to terms with the careless, upwardly mobile society.
The Moon: “Houston, Tranquility Base Here. The Eagle Has Landed.”
Museum Fine Arts Houston, Through Jan. 10
The Museum Fine Arts Houston celebrates the 40th anniversary of the landing on
the moon with
The Moon: “Houston, Tranquility Base Here. The Eagle Has Landed.” The exhibition pays
tribute to the achievements of the Apollo space missions.
This exhibition provides an overview of 500 years of fascination with the
ever-changing phases, yet ever-constant image of the moon. Approximately 130
works of art will be on view and will feature some of the most groundbreaking
treatises on the moon as well as 17th-century telescopes and other early
scientific instruments, moon globes and maps. For more information, go to
www.mfah.org.
Wonderland
Alley Theatre, Jan. 15 - Feb. 14
Composer Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll and Hyde) returns to the Alley with Wonderland, a delightful new musical that updates Alice’s adventures through an amazing pop score.
Alice is a children’s book writer in Manhattan who is suffering through a creative block, estranged
from her husband and alienated from her daughter. It takes a trip to a
strange-yet-familiar
Wonderland for her to regain her life’s balance and again find the love and everyday magic that reside in us all—if we know how to look. Alley audiences will be among the first to see this new
production filled with extraordinary songs, fantastic characters and lots of
heart.
Mark Morris Dance Group: Mark Morris, Choreographer
Society For the Performing Arts, Jan. 15 - 16
From its early years as Mark Morris and a group of friends, to its contemporary
status as a burgeoning dance institution, the Mark Morris Dance Group has
stayed true to its founder
’s convictions, especially dancing with live music performed by some of the world’s best musicians. Mark Morris Dance Group performances are not just dance at the
highest level, but simultaneously, concert-going at the highest level.
For its SPA performances, the company will perform Excursions with music by Samuel Barber; the tour de force Going Away Party to the music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys; the powerful Italian Concerto, danced to the J.S. Bach score; and the astonishing Grand Duo, considered “one of the masterpieces of the late 20th century” (The Guardian) with music by Lou Harrison.
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