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

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