A dream, an observation, a question

I wrote the following three years ago for the now-defunct Desert Advocate and reprint it here because its subject is the roots of national culture. It ends with a question I would love you to answer in the form of posted comments.

***

I just returned from Kaua’i, the farthest west of the major Hawaiian Islands and, some would say, the most beautiful. (Don’t ask me — Kaua’i is my only experience of our 50th state.)

On the first night there, I had a disturbing dream, a nightmare vision wildly out of sync with the idyllic languor of the place.

I had fallen asleep with the smell of salt-sea breezes in my nostrils and the glow of strange, gold-and-vermilion flowers in my memory.  So, why did I dream of angry Hawaiian warriors rushing toward me in a kind of hypnotic trance? In the vision, they pushed passed me violently, and I felt their power as I fell downward into some empty place beneath them. I don’t usually remember my dreams. This one woke me up. And I remembered it.

As I discussed my nocturnal encounter the next day over lunch with my wife, our waiter felt it apt to interrupt.

“The Night Marchers,” he said.

The what?

“You saw the Night Marchers, the spirits of Hawaiian warriors killed in battle. They died too quickly to know they are dead, so they keep marching.”

Apparently, they are all over the Hawaiian Islands, a place that has seen as much violence as any other, less paradisiacal place — and not just after the white man came. There, where fruit drops freely from the trees and fish fill the warm ocean waters, where year-round tropical mildness means shelter and clothing may be minimal, and therefore cheaply provided, tribes battled bloodily against each other for centuries, over what? Never underestimate man’s ability to find excuses for war.

So, what does this have to do with the arts? Nothing, by itself, but it made me wonder just what we are doing when we talk of a country’s “culture” and by that mean its food, its crafts, and maybe some of its more pleasant music. You know: Japan is sushi, bonsai and some strains on the koto; Ireland is corned beef, step dancing, and maybe a crocheted leprechaun. Hawaii, of course, is all flower leis, kahlua pork and the ukulele (which, incidentally, is Portuguese).

We do it to ourselves, too. America is hamburgers, cool cars and rock ‘n’ roll, right? We reduce culture to things we can consume, and in doing so, we gloss over the purpose the arts have to connect us to the realities of human love, human joy and human failing. I don’t know if the Hawaiian people ever developed a theatrical or poetic form into which they might pour the saga of the Night Marchers, but if that were done, it would go far to dispel the Hallmark image of luau and the hula.

Every time a people looks at itself plainly and honestly in the mirror of art, great stuff happens. In the 19th century, a group of Italian composers, Verdi chief among them, stared down the violence and the intrigue of the Europe around them and put those elements into the music they wrote for the operatic stage. Long before that, the ancient Greeks found the rhythm of tragedy and composed dramas that live to this day as embodiments of human feeling at its most profound.

When one people oppresses another, it invariably makes the oppressed culture look “cute” through cheap art. While England beat up the Irish with one hand, they created silly music-hall ditties like “My Wild Irish Rose” with the other, songs that no more resemble real Irish music than Playboy pinups look like real women. Notoriously, the American South created blackface entertainment to keep the slaves looking less than dangerous.

The oppressed eventually get theirs back, and when they do, it’s through art. The Irish produced Joyce and Yeats, a literature that beat the English at their own game. The African-American experience compressed suffering into blues and jazz, still the most distinctive forms of American art. Some people would call this art’s “political” function, but it’s not that, really. Rather, it’s artists breaking through political (and economic and social) restraint to get to what politics and economics and society always try to guard us from: reality, in the form of unrestrained human experience. If anything, it’s anti-political.

What American art today looks past distractions to embrace the real world of feeling?

Let me know your nominations.

– Ken LaFave

Here and there in Phoenix arts

In The Next Room, or The Vibrator Play

Contrary to every review of it I’ve read, Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play, is not about Victorian mores and the treatment of women. It’s about how we – now as in the past – closet sex away and treat it, not as in integral part of our lives, but as something “in the next room” – literally in the play, figuratively in the play. The Actors Theatre production of the hit comedy, an Arizona premiere, ends its highly successful run this weekend, with last shows tonight (Nov. 13) and tomorrow.

There are many poetic moments in the script, brought out wonderfully by the production. The one that touched me most personally was when the character Mrs. Givings points out it is the “unfinished” woman, the incomplete female, who most deeply attracts a man. Exactly! (How’d she – I mean the playwright – know that?)

***

The use of surtitles for Arizona Opera’s recent production of The Pirates of Penzance prompts the question, “Do we really need to see the words as well as hear then, when the words both heard and seen are…English?” It’s standard practice, I know, for operas in English to receive sub- or surtitles, the reason supposedly being that operatic singing is not conducive to being understood. But it seemed odd-nigh-ridiculous for a Gilbert and Sullivan piece, with its emphasis on the humor of Gilbert’s clever rhymes, to have the words appear above the action in advance of their being heard.

For instance, in “A Modern Major General,” the general’s famous rhyme for “strategy” appeared a good ten seconds before the singer delivered it, stepping on the joke. (Yes, I know most of us already know what the rhyme is – that’s not the point.) I’m of a mind to try to ignore the surtitles for Arizona Opera’s upcoming production of Carmen, as I imagine many who know the opera well are also inclined to do. Would that Arizona Opera’s titles were not so IMPOSING, writ large as they are. Too bad Arizona Opera hasn’t the money to do what Santa Fe Opera does: provide titles on the back of the seat in front of you, with the option of turning them off.

***

The Balinese gamelan is one of the most mesmerizing aural experiences available on the globe. Our own Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) will present a rare opportunity to hear this consort of bells, chimes and gongs in concert Sunday and Monday, Nov. 14 and 15. If you haven’t taken the time to view the MIM yet, combine a visit with this concert. I guarantee you won’t soon forget it.

– Ken LaFave

 

 

World-class dancing, world-class philanthropy

The blogging has slowed in response to requests for articles. You remember “articles”: short pieces written for publication, containing reportage, research and interviews, as contrasted with the even shorter, subjective blasts called blog posts. The fine new magazine AZ Lifestyle asked me for two articles, one on Ballet Arizona’s 25th anniversary, and another on Rosie’s House.

Ballet Arizona you know about.  It’s an Arizona treasure that’s earned the admiration of the classical-dance world and praise from The New York Times. Rosie’s House you should know about.  It’s the only place in the United States where underprivileged children can take music lessons completely free of charge, including both teacher fees and instrument rental.

You can read these at the magazine’s website, or ask for AZ Lifestyle magazine at your nearby bookstore. If you go to the website, click on “view our current issue.” My stories are near the end of the book.

– Ken LaFave

Phoenix arts events for Oct. 16 and 17

The newly renovated Herberger Theatre Center in downtown Phoenix feels both more comfortable and somewhat more elegant than before. Most of the change is in the lobby and to the outside of the building. The exterior is now emblazoned with the names of the three companies resident there: Arizona Theatre Company, Actors Theatre, and Center Dance Ensemble. Today and tomorrow (Oct. 16 and 17) you can check out the first and third of those. ATC is doing Backwards in High Heels: The Ginger Rogers Musical in the larger theater, while Center Dance is opening its season in the smaller one.

For its season-opening concerts, titled New Beginnings, Center Dance will present a number of local modern and contemporary companies alongside performances by its own dancers – an annual service that avails you the opportunity to sample a variety of Valley dance troupes for the cost of one ticket and a single evening.  Also promised is a restaging of the first work Center Dance ever performed at the Herberger. Hmmm….

Conductor-composer Warren Cohen and his soprano wife Carolyn Whitaker have relocated to the New York area to be with their prodigious son, Graham, who recently became the youngest student in the pre-college division of The Juilliard School.  But Warren has not given up on Musica Nova, his ambitious grouping of orchestras in the East Valley. He’s back this weekend to conduct an intriguing program called “Compromised Voices” (Sunday, Oct. 17, 4 p.m.) at Musica Nova’s new home, the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. Anyone who values finding new gems in the more  obscure corners of symphonic repertoire will value Musica Nova.

– Ken LaFave

 

 

Training the ears not to hear

From a somewhat rambling but useful entry at Canadian composer Colin Eatock’s blog, this spot-on observation:

“What concerns me is the hegemony of pop music, which has, I think, had a profound effect on the way people listen to classical music – indeed, on their ability to listen to it. People who have heard nothing but popular music all their lives (again, a considerable chunk of the population) will, of necessity, develop certain assumptions about what music is “supposed to” sound like. Someone who only knows a repertoire of three-minute Top 40 songs in verse-chorus form may find a lengthy, textless orchestral work daunting and interminable. Someone weaned on percussive rock or rap music at high volumes may hear a string quartet as feeble and wimpy. And someone who admires the “natural” voices of Bob Dylan or Tom Waits may experience Plácido Domingo as artificial and overwrought.”

Teaching general music K-8, I constantly encounter kids who find classical and jazz pieces “scary” (their word) because they’re long and they change tempo and dynamic and do other “weird” things. In short, Beethoven and Coltrane are not what music is “supposed” to sound like. It’s “supposed” to sound like the pop music they hear every day.

Pop music’s hegemony is destructive of musical diversity, and deadly to the ear. It should be understood to be one kind of music among many, many others. Instead, the culture represents it as the totality of the musical universe.

– Ken LaFave

Events for the weekend of Oct. 8-10, 2010

Above: DESERT DANCE THEATRE’s KARATECHOP

Think there’s no culture in the Valley of the Sun? Then you haven’t been paying attention.

For instance, you live in a great place for contemporary dance. ASU’s dance program has spun out a lot of small local companies, which in turn have attracted small companies from other cities to come visit and perform here. One annual celebration of Valley dance culture is the Arizona Dance Festival, put together by the folks at Desert Dance Theatre. Its 2010 edition rolls out this Friday and Saturday night (Oct. 8 and 9) at the Tempe Performing Arts Center; click here for info or call 480-962-4584.

The festival presents different groups each night. A list of company names indicates the tempting variety of styles:

Friday – Chaos Theory Dance, CONDER/dance, Desert Dance Theatre, Dulce Dance Company, Germaul Barnes/Viewsic Expressions Dance, Movement Source Dance Company, Moving Arts Dance, Nannette Brodie Dance Theatre, Step’s Junk Funk, Yumi La Rosa.

Saturday – Anca Mihalcescu, Arathi School of India Dances, Astarte Belly Dance Company, Beauvais Ballet, Chaos Theory Dance, Desert Dance Theatre, Dias Dance Life, Dulce Dance Company, Instinct Dancecorps, Nannette Brodie Dance Theatre, Scorpius Dance Theatre, Step’s Junk Funk.

There’s also opera this weekend. Some people think all the operas have already been written, but new ones are coming out all the time, including one by composer Kirke Mechem on the classic Moliere comedy, Tartuffe. Alas, professional opera companies are among those who think all the operas have already been written – ironic, ain’t it? – so it falls to ASU’s Lyric Opera Theatre to stage this work Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. For more information, click here.

My composition teacher Ned Rorem used to pounce on any mention of Fred Astaire with the comment, “Ginger was better. She had to do everything backward and in high heels.” I have no idea if Ned’s comment had anything to do with the show opening Arizona Theatre Company’s new season this weekend, but the title is: Backward in High Heels. And yes, it’s about Ginger. Click here for info.

Also opening this weekend (at Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre in Mesa) is Sugar, the musical based on the classic film comedy, Some Like it Hot. It’s one of those shows I’ve never seen, because I love the movie so much I’ve been fearful the stage adaptation would fall short. This week I intend to cast my fear aside and check it out. Click here for more info.

– Ken LaFave

Food you can get anywhere – but where will the music go?

NICOLE PESCE AT MY FLORIST CAFE

I’m just catching up with the news that My Florist Cafe has closed its doors. The restaurant at McDowell and Seventh Avenue was a popular hangout for Bohemians and the people who like to watch Bohemians for nearly 20 years. A story in the Arizona Republic Oct. 1 claimed the recent growth of downtown Phoenix had provided too much competition for My Florist, and maybe that was true apropos food and drink.

But where the heck can you find another Nicole Pesce? Pesce is the pianist who for the last ten years of My Florist’s existence lent it her fifteen fingers and a repertoire that comprised more than 10,000 pieces of music from Rachmaninoff and Gershwin to Radiohead and Coldplay. She’s the the only cocktail pianist I know who can somehow convincingly segue from the Beatles to Tchaikovsky to Super Mario Bros.

Word has it she’ll continue her afternoon gig playing high tea at the Ritz Carlton uptown, but I always think of her serenading post-theater and post-concert crowds with the sort of music that keeps the magic going late into the night. Let’s hope she finds a nighttime gig soon.

Click here for a YouTube video of Nicole’s take on “The Pink Panther,” posted about a year ago to my old blog at ShowUp.com.

– Ken LaFave

Seinfeld in Phoenix: The truth about Nothing

As all fans of the New York Four know by now, Jerry Seinfeld will be in Phoenix this week, appearing Friday night at the Dodge Theater.

That’s the truth – but not the truth about Nothing.  For Nothing long ago landed in Phoenix.  Yes, sad to say, Jerry and the gang found themselves homeless after their cruel incarceration and fled subsequently to that oasis for the disowned and disempowered: Phoenix, Arizona.

Don’t believe me?  Click here.

Waiting hundreds of years for a premiere…

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA – coming soon to Arizona

Last weekend, listening to Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy in the form of Southwest Shakespeare’s single-shot condensation, Blood Royal, I pondered the fact these words had never before been spoken on a stage in Arizona.

Director Jared Sakren had announced prior to curtain that Blood Royal constituted the Arizona premiere of Henry VI. He then added that the company’s upcoming Antony and Cleopatra (slated for spring) would also be an Arizona premiere.

We somehow have the idea that everything “classic” has been done, that the great plays, operas and symphonies have received their exposure to all willing audiences. Not true. Not, at least, in Arizona.

George Bernard Shaw, for example, is grossly underproduced. Southwest Shakespeare recently brought us Pygmalion and Arms and the Man, and Arizona Theatre Company (ATC) once did a Candida. Saint Joan, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House – these have never been staged, so far as I can tell. Ibsen goes pretty much by the wayside as well. ATC did Ghosts about a decade back, and someone must have done A Doll’s House – right? But I can find no record of The Wild Duck or Enemy of the State having been produced here.

We’ve had an opera company for over 30 years, so all the major Mozart operas have been done, one might reasonably assume. (We’re not counting obscurities like Lucio Silla.) But no. When Arizona Opera stages Abduction from the Seraglio in the spring, it will be the Arizona premiere of that sparkling comedy. We’ll have to wait a little longer, I guess, for Idomeneo.

The list of symphonic scores never performed locally is too long to print. But it will soon be at least two scores shorter, courtesy conductor Warren Cohen’s Musica Nova group. Musica Nova’s upcoming season will include the Arizona premieres of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6 and the Violin Concerto No. 2 of Shostakovich.

We often complain we don’t get enough new art, and I would second that emotion, adding that one can’t get enough new art. But it seems we could use a lot more of the old, too.

– Ken LaFave

A Dizzy-ing encounter

From the sub-department, “Quick-before-it-fades,” the first in a series of memories recounting encounters with some of the greatest artists of my time:

Meeting fabled jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie on his last swing through Tucson in 1978 was an amazing experience in itself, one I owed to the Arizona Daily Star, which had asked me to interview him and review his concert. But when the first words from his mouth were, “You look like Bill Evans,” I was so flummoxed I didn’t know what to say and had to excuse myself (falsely) to the bathroom to regain composure and to look in the mirror. With a thick sweep of dark hair and a full, dark beard plus glasses, I actually did look like Bill Evans back then!

The interview went well enough, though Gillespie wanted to talk about his Baha’i faith and I wanted to talk about Charlie Parker. But the concert! Those cheeks blew out in exact proportion to the quality of the playing, and that night he was one helluva bullfrog.

– Ken LaFave