By Bob Hicks
Mr. and Mrs. Scatter spent Friday night — or at least a short part of it — at BodyVox for the opening performance of Obstacle Allusions, Eric Skinner’s new half-hour dance for Skinner/Kirk Dance Ensemble.
It was the second recent new contemporary dance piece in town in which the music was an essential and [...]
UPDATE: Barry Johnson reviews TopShakeDance’s “Gust” on Arts Dispatch.
Todd Stephen
By Bob Hicks
Feels like spring. Finally. Mr. Scatter is cavorting about town in short-sleeve shirts, anticipating the day after the Rose Festival’s Grand Floral Parade, when the rains might taper off for good and we can start thinking about summer. O gray, gray Puddletown: We’ve had [...]
Gadi Dagon
By Bob Hicks
After a whirlwind fling with white asparagus, Belgian beer, briny mussels, fish stews, canal-skimming tour boats and close encounters with the likes of Memling, Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Vermeer, De Hooch, Michelangelo, Cocteau, Picasso, Van Gogh, Frans Hals and Jan Steen in places where a church that began life in 1408 is known [...]
Excellent news has arrived: Martha Ullman West, Art Scatter’s chief corespondent, will be presented with the Senior Critics Award when the national Dance Critics Association holds its annual conference next month in Seattle.
Because Art Scatter World Headquarters has shifted temporarily nine hours east to Amsterdam, we got the word a little late — first, in [...]
Anne Mueller in Eyes on You. Photo: Blaine Truitt Covert
By Bob Hicks
“Oh, look!” Mr. Scatter said, glancing up from his program. “The music is by Wiwaldi and Corelli. You’ll like that.”
The Small Large Smelly Boy snickered. “Why do you always say ‘Wiwaldi’ for ‘Vivaldi‘?” he asked.
“Because sometimes you need to do things just for the [...]
Groundbreaking ballet dancer Jacques d’Amboise, who created memorable roles in works by Balanchine and other stars of ballet’s American golden age, will be in Portland on Thursday, April 14, to talk about his new book I Was a Dancer. D’Amboise also choreographed for Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, and appeared in dancing roles in the [...]
By Bob Hicks
How quickly the worm turns.
Less than a month ago, in a post detailing the ouster (or resignation: stories varied) of the legendary archaeologist Zahi Hawass as Egypt’s powerful chief of antiquities, we made this observation: “(T)he revolution is real, and Hawass, barring yet another turnabout, won’t be making any of its crucial decisions.”
Well, [...]
By Bob Hicks
A few Friday hot links to go with your early-weekend bagel and eggs:
Leave ‘em hanging: In this morning’s A&E section of The Oregonian I reviewed Laurie Herrick: Weaving Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, the new show at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. Herrick was a prominent loom weaver in Portland beginning in the late [...]
UPDATE: On OregonLive, Ryan White has just posted this announcement of a big-name benefit for Japanese disaster relief at the Aladdin Theatre on March 27. So far, the list of performers includes pianist/bandleader Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini, singers Holcombe Waller and Storm Large, dancers from Oregon Ballet Theatre, new-music adventurers fEARnoMUSIC, the Pacific Youth [...]
By Bob Hicks
Must everything we see and do be an “event”?
Mr. Scatter noticed this pernicious form of marketing and advertising breathlessness beginning as a trickle a couple of years ago, and it’s become an all-taps-open flood. The most ubiquitous torrent is the “major motion picture event” — which means “movie that cost a lot to [...]