It’s only a preview, but it’s a breath of great things to come: the review of the premiere of “Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition,” by Bill T. Jones seems to hint at a magnificent work to come. Commissioned to create a work celebrating the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, it’s a pretty tall order for anyone but Mr. Jones.

He assembled, along with his usual fantastically talented company, an amazing creative team: Janet Wong on video, singer Lisa Komara, score by Jerome Begin and Christopher Antonio William Lancaster, Liz Prince’s amazing costume design and a set consisting of moveable columns by Bjorn G. Amelan.

The review describes some tricks not working so well – video flames on the columns, for example – but on the whole it sounds like Jones once again is exploring a subject that seems so incredibly overdone in new and amazing ways. It’s a disjointed but serious look at war, racism, and other themes of the day, and his choreography, always pushing the limits of the human form, addresses it like a hologram – in pieces, but each piece containing suggestions of the whole.

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Who are you, and what have you done with Simon Cowell?

The easiest place to start is Britain’s Got Talent, the equivalent of American Idol. I even saw the biting and critical Simon Cowell there in the judges chair. But what’s this? Rather than looking disgusted, he looked engaged! Interested! He was actually the friendliest of all the judges for this first act! See if you can guess why:

And in the second one he is just one of many supportive judges, and it just almost seemed spooky to see him being so positive:

Apparently, the key to a nice Simon is to be an attractive, scantily clad British woman. Who knew?

A Civilized Culture

I do have to give kudos to the judges and the audience – I can’t see women who did this kind of act in the U.S. being treated with anywhere near as much respect and cheering. I have friends who are belly dancers, and the odds of a judge knowing that there’s a difference between belly dancing and exotic dancing, and that exotic and erotic dancing is, in fact, still dancing – well, in this country, those odds are long, indeed.

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I’m sure I won’t get to see it on Broadway, but I’m also sure it won’t be far from a movie, probably with the same cast.

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Well, the excellent writers over at Dane101.com have gone to the musical and have given their own review. And with apologies to my content editor, who hates it when I use block quotes (which is why, I’ll point out, I usually don’t) I’m going to include the full gush about my lady’s performance:

“Dana Pellebon’s sultry jazz numbers, as Vivian, sparkle. She literally sneaks up on you at the start of the second scene and continues to slink in when you don’t expect her for the rest of the show, but she quietly steals your attention and Terry’s too. She seduces you just the same, because you are merely an invisible aspect of her surroundings.”

Yep, that’s my girl.

Tickets to PULP are still available from StageQ through next Saturday…

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Incidentally, for those So You Think You Can Dance fans: number one on the evening’s ticket was a piece called “Le Grand Futur is Here!” choreographed by our favorite judge Mia Michaels. It was described as “enormously tricky and difficult”; why am I not surprised?

This is the promotional video they put out for this particular performance; not sure if parts of it are showing Mia’s work or not, but it certainly gets the blood moving anyway:

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And that did it – I needed to find out more, not that I’ll get to actually see it any time soon. But surely I can catch glimpses of it via the web?

Stalking Passing Strange

Starting at the website of the show, I’m glad to see that they are making excellent use of Web 2.0 style marketing: they don’t make you pay for the songs, they give it away. Within seconds I had

• Arlington Hill – Slow, electronic mellowness reminiscent of Strawberry Fields
• Amsterdam – a folk rock ensemble piece as clear and bright as an espresso
• Come Down Now - Reminded me of Indigo Girls (minus guitars) with a R&B feel.
• Keys – This one seemed the most like a typical Broadway musical song – more oratorical in feel.

I went from there to look at the “behind the scenes” video, and then the photos, and then the story of Stew…the backstage blog was a bit of a disappointment, as it consisted of little one line messages from the cast and low-quality candid pics.

What’s it all about?

The show itself is “…A rock ’n’ roll autobiography of an artist in search of himself,” according to this rave review from the New York Times That artist would be Stew, the moving force behind this musical that’s not really a musical, a show that seems to have breathed fresh life into the genre by keeping to its roots – not, as you might think, traditional African-American culture, but rather to a young man raised on Zen Buddhism and world travel. Stew is the leader of the L.A. based music group The Negro Problem, and he seems to have taken his musical skills successfully across the country to land unconventionally in the middle of a tired musical theatre scene, where even the rebel musicals like RENT! still cleaved to the standard two-act song-filled formula.

But you can see for yourself: enjoy the songs from the site and see how it develops. Parts of the site are still coming, but there’s a lot to enjoy. And I suspect we’ll see a lot of them at the Tony’s, as well.

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In 2004 he starred in the revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s classic, Raisin in the Sun, which garnered Tony awards for co-stars Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald. It’s a powerful play about the struggles of an inner city black family, and other great actors including Sidney Poitier, Danny Glover, and Lou Gossett Jr. have played roles in the past.

While Combs’ acting skills were deemed less than stellar, even his harshest critics give him credit for taking on this kind of challenging work, and further kudos should be given by the fact that he also helped bankroll the tonight’s production on ABC as co-executive producer. I think they’re too harsh – it’s kind of like the defense of Mel Gibson’s Hamlet: if you’re only so-so at one of the hardest, most powerful roles out there, that’s still pretty damn good.

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Danica’s not the first.

“…actually, Janet Guthrie was the first woman to compete in Indy car races, back in the 1970s. See: http://www.janetguthrie.com/biofr.htm”

Thanks, Sandy, for pointing that out. My daughter and I talked about it some more yesterday, also. “I heard Danica Patrick is not that good,” she said, kind of embarrassed.

I looked at her. “From a male, I bet.” She nodded. “Well…does she come in last?”

“No…”

“So just because she’s not the best Indy driver out there (yet) that’s somehow related to her being a woman?” She nodded thoughtfully. “But what will really be funny is when she does win…and those guys in speedos are prancing around her with the trophy…”

Me Forgot Tarzan!

James summed up the previous entry about Disney on Broadway with some eyewitness accounts: “I saw Finding Nemo at Animal Kingdom and thought it would not play well on Broadway – it doesn’t have the creativity that Lion King displayed – just copies it…. Disney’s last two productions (Tarzan and the Little Mermaid) have not been met with the kind of Broadway love that Beauty, King and Mary Poppins were/are. I think they need to go back to the drawing board and develop outstanding shows that bring the Disney magic to the stage.”

Who would you like to see on Dancing with the Stars?

Apparently, if this whole Presidential thing doesn’t work out, Hillary Clinton has considered Dancing with the Stars. Which has led me to change that poll over there on the right side of the screen (nobody was interested in the first question, anyway): If Dancing with the Stars was Dancing with the Candidates – who do you think would win? And bonus points if you pick out what dancer you would like to see paired with which candidate…Dancewatcher, I’m looking at you for this!

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I was fine – excited, even – when the Lion King came out. Even though it took until last month for me to actually see it, the fact that it was directed and designed by Julie Taymor was more than enough to make me forgive Disney for taking a cartoon and using up valuable stage space – space that could have been used by the next Neil Simon or Stephen Sondheim.

Then came Beauty and the Beast. Haven’t seen it, but I hear it’s impressive. The costume of the candlestick alone was pretty cool, and I raised four daughters who loved to play “Gaston”, so the musical had a soft spot for me.

Next, a practically perfect in every way Mary Poppins debuted in Great Britain but swiftly came over the waves to land in New York City. Now we were going into my childhood favorites (I had a secret urge to grow up and be Bert, playing his one-man-band in a park somewhere).

Then along comes the Little Mermaid, which from its first reviews (“Will Mermaid Sink of Swim?”, “Mouse of Blues” and “Overproduction weighs down lively ‘Mermaid’”) seemed destined to (ahem) tank. But it’s good enough to attract the attention of David Beckham and kin, spotted going to see it just a few days ago, and with the monetary might of Disney behind it, could probably last long enough to spawn a touring company or two.

But then things start to get insidious. Have you heard of “High School Musical“? How could you not? I’ve never seen it (my kids have grown out of that demographic) but posters and soundtracks and clothing lines abound everywhere you look (not just in America) these days. Disney came up with an amazingly clever gimmick to ensure a long run on the great white way, because having the best-selling album in 2007 and the most-watched movie in Disney history wasn’t enough: take the script and songs from the hit movie (and sequel) and let high schools put it on as a musical! It is estimated that over 2000 local high schools have put on this show, and the other numbers around the phenomenon are a textbook lesson in Good Marketing.

I’m not really complaining – with all the cuts in arts funding, having an easy-to-relate to, fun and well-written musical just handed to high schools across the country was actually quite a cool thing for a megacorporation to do. But, if you’re keeping count, that’s five major – and I mean major – Broadway productions. And while these are good, fun musicals…I can’t help but feel that they’re cheating, just a little, in having such a large corporation back these musicals. How many RENTs are we missing to make room for the next Pixar/Disney collaboration?

Finding Nemo, featuring original songs by Avenue Q co-composer Robert Lopez and his wife Kristen Anders-Lopez – is an example of what I mean. It’s a great show; demand became so great that they had to go from 4 shows daily to 5 (and oh, the poor cast). But while it had a preview on Broadway, it plays at Walt Disney World. Which is great; it gives another venue for stagehands, costumers, performers. I’d be happy if they produced all of their movies as musicals, and created a whole new Broadway inside of their theme parks.

Does this mean that if I got free tickets to see Mary Poppins I’d turn them down? Not a chance. Come on, don’t be silly! I’d be there in a heartbeat. But in an era of megacorporate mergers, I’d really rather see the floorboards trod by those who are taking a risk, not regurgitating surefire hits, no matter how pleasant they seem.

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Tomorrow is the primary in my home state, and I’ll be honest: I hope that this post doesn’t sway anyone one way or another in terms of who they choose to vote for. I know who I’m voting for, and why, and none of the issues which sway that decision have anything to do with the Arts. Personally, I feel that there are more important things like the War in Iraq to worry about than arts funding.

That being said, looking at the arts policy papers of Obama, Clinton, and Huckabee, I do notice a few things. Ron Paul ad John McCain do not have policy statements on the arts as far as I can find on their sites.

First, Huckabee seems to be the most friendly towards the arts…simply by the fact that he is a musician himself, playing Bass for his band “Capitol Offense” (he loses points, however, for a pretty bad band name for a law maker). However, at closer glance, he seems more concerned with providing education in the arts to kids in school – a noble goal, of course, but then it stops. He talks of giving them “Weapons of Mass Instruction” (again, we take away points for a really unfortunate name) but then he kind of just stops – as if once the arts are given, they should be (like they are for him) a hobby, or so commercially viable that they support themselves. And there is perhaps some merit in that – but I personally think that there needs to be some funding afterwards, as well.

Senator Clinton is more cognizant of this, and actually brings up the spectre of the National Endowment of the Arts and pledges to support it. She also brings up other past events where she actually has taken the problems of artists to heart – such as the Economic Development Grant she secured in Buffalo, NY to provide affordable living spaces for artists.

However, short of some vague promises of “support” there’s no actual plan in her policy statement – which puts the arts in sort of a “yeah, we’ll get to it” category. Senator Obama, on the other hand, has not one, but two policy papers out on the arts, each with distinct and clear plans – we’re talking dates and solid numbers – outlining his proposals for the NEA. And more than that, he has a much longer list of his contributions to the arts of Illinois, and as a frequent visitor to Chicago, I’m pretty impressed with their arts scene. Millenium Park is amazing.

So…in my non-expert opinion, and with the caveat that there are much more important issues to deal with – my vote for the arts goes to Obama. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll sing some Basso Profundo, or just do a little live version of the Black Eyed Peas tribute:

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