Fame or Famine

As we come back to following the progress of July 20th, the GREAT BLOG OFF around the globe, we come to Newfoundland, home of Artistic Fraud. Specializing in “chorus based work,” the group is directed by Jillian Keiley and Robert Chafe.
All About Numbers
As the video on their site will tell you, in the past 9 years Artistic Fraud has called for:

81 school desks
 32 flourescent semaphore flags
790 maps
36 vibraphone keys
2400 square feet of polyester wedding dress lining
Over 300 performers.

You can see a short film about the relatively small production Fear of Flight on YouTube now, and hear the ensemble as they …read more

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A little bit of live singing from across the globe: we don’t get to hear much of the fine arts from North Korea, but I found this particular YouTube Video strangely compelling as the lovely waitress sang.

As part of the blog off, I think this is a good example of the value of the fine arts. In spite of all our differences, and not knowing anything about what she’s singing – it’s beautiful. It touches me. It means that there is something inside of us all that brings us to a common place.
We need more fine artists in politics, …read more

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We all know and love Julianne Hough, the champion of Dancing with the Stars twice over. You probably are also aware that she has dipped her toes in the waters of recording stardom, with a debut album with tracks like

That Song in my Head
Jimmy Ray McGee
Hide Your Matches

You can hear excerpts and learn more over at JulianneSings.com .
But Wait, There’s More!
Because I love you all so much, and because I visited my friends over at Fred Astaire Dance recently, I can share with you a coupon code that you can use for a free download at Julianne’s site. It …read more

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I swear, I couldn’t make this stuff up.
In the category of “stage to screen” I could probably somewhat justify Al Gore’s famous slideshow, An Inconvenient Truth. After all, it went on to become not just a book but also a Nobel-Peace-Prize winning movie. Well, ok, Mr. Gore got the prize, but it wasn’t for his work as V.P.
Turning It Up to Eleven
Now, however, it’s going the other way, as Giorgio Battistelli of Milan’s La Scala opera house is going to undertake to turn it into an opera, set to debut in 2011. Yes, that’s right, an opera about global warming.
Battistelli …read more

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This was going to be an entry about Janine Jansen, the virtuoso violinist reviewed in this article. I was excited by the fact that she seems to be leveraging the power of the web (“…downloads count for 75% of my Vivaldi recording’s sales.”) into supporting her career.
Then this statement caught my eye:
“…while Jansen won’t make a prurient spectacle of herself, we’re reminded that she could (and pull it off, visually, like Mae did) if she wanted to.”
This is apparently in comparison to Vanessa Mae, another concert violinist who has the audacity to blatantly take advantage of the fact that she …read more

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I’ve had the same guitar for about 13 years. Her name is Agemaki, after a kabuki character, appropriate for the Japanese-made Takamine guitar. I have ridden my bike miles with it to play at preschools with it strapped to my back; it has been my solace during breakups, and has been the source of joyous camaraderie around campfires. It’s been used as a tool of seduction on dates. It has made my children laugh.
It hangs on my wall, taken down now and again for pleasure and (recently) to go into the burlesque show with me. So I understand something of …read more

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There’s a bit of a theme going in the B5Media entertainment community, where each blogger is supposed to write a valentine post. For people like the LOST and Soap bloggers, it’s a fun exercise of the imagination; you can just aske the question “Who would you like to be your valentine from the show?” The answers are entertaining, to say the least.
However, when your beat is “performing arts”, it’s not quite that easy. Sure, you could just say “Wouldn’t you like a valentine from Ethan Steifel?” but the realm is so large, the pool of people so vast and yet …read more

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OK, this is stretching the “performance art” umbrella a little far, but I don’t get to do as much with the celebrity thing as my fellow bloggers here at B5Media, so I’ll take what I can get.
Tonight I’m going to be running a video camera for the Mad Rollin’ Dolls, the Madison Women’s Flat Track Derby team.  And as it happens Jane Wiedlin, the pixie voiced singer for the Go Gos, will be the singer of the National Anthem for tonight’s bout.
I can’t claim to be a diehard fan, but I do like them better than the Bangles, since they …read more

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I’m lucky enough to be in Lansing, MI tonight working with a web client, and she has invited me out to Magdalena’s Teahouse tonight to see Medicine Crow perform.
” Teaching himself the guitar at the age of twelve, Mike began playing earnestly, but being self-taught, it took him a lifetime to learn what theoried guitar players learn in weeks and months of formal study. Realizing that, though eventually finding his own style, he concentrated on what he is best known for now: song writing. The result produced what could be argued as a sound that is perhaps best summed up …read more

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I’m sure you’ll be able to hear this kind of thing on the DVD when it comes out, but meanwhile, here’s a nice treat: learning about the process of taking Sweeney Todd from stage to screen – including interviews with cast members, and more.

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