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Colleges and Schools Try to Do More With LessNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:14:00 +0000

When San Francisco State University’s theater arts department commissioned Mark Jackson to adapt and direct a production of “Romeo and Juliet,” he came up with the unusual idea of creating a version of the tragedy for 14 actors, all cast in the role of Juliet. But because of budget cuts at the university, less money is available for items that affect the look of a production, like sets, lights and costumes. So to save on wardrobe, Mr. Jackson has had to readjust his core creative concept: now he has just eight actors for his new show, “Juliet.”

San Francisco State University is among several Bay Area academic institutions whose resources have been vastly reduced amid California’s fiscal crisis and the recession. A recent rehearsal there was one stop on a survey of artistic endeavors at local schools and universities. Taken as a whole, these works reveal that budget cuts have hardly dampened creative output. Even though the disastrous belt-tightening measures have put tremendous strain on teachers and students, these institutions are continuing to produce remarkable work.

San Francisco State University’s College of Creative Arts is typical of a performing arts institution grappling with reduced finances. Its operating budget has been cut by 15 percent over the last 18 months, and its staff has been thinned because of widespread furloughs, a hiring freeze and the dismissal of most of its temporary teaching staff, said Kurt Daw, dean of the College of Creative Arts.

Even Mr. Jackson, who graduated from San Francisco State in 1993, lost his salaried adjunct professor position in 2008 after a year and half in the job, and is now freelancing as a guest artist — at lower pay.

But you wouldn’t know it based on the quality of his work. Mr. Jackson’s 2008 productions of “Don Juan” (which he adapted from Molière and Pushkin) and Sophie Treadwell’s “Machinal” remain among the highlights of my theatergoing career. They have eclipsed many professional productions I’ve seen, including those directed by Mr. Jackson at spaces like the Aurora Theater and the Ashby Stage.

The way the young cast handled the physically demanding and grotesquely witty sex scenes in “Don Juan” was particularly engaging: one hilarious moment involved the title character dueling with an enemy while enjoying a romantic tryst. And the student actors brought a canny 21st-century sensibility to Ms. Treadwell’s 1920s agitprop drama. The actors sent up the overblown mannerisms of expressionist theater through their physically extreme approach to mundane tasks like washing the dishes. The dehumanizing effect of their actions was at once chilling and comical.

Word has clearly been getting out about the high quality of performances at San Francisco State, where tickets range from free to about $15. So far, in the 2009-10 academic year, the College of Creative Arts has had a 46 percent increase in attendance at its performances over the previous year. Recent productions of “Twelfth Night,” directed by William Peters, and “High Fidelity the Musical,” directed by Stephen Brookins, had capacity audiences.

The Bay Area’s public schools show similar artistic excellence. The San Francisco School of the Arts produced a memorable Christmas concert last December in the face of falling budgets and run-down premises, where classrooms often lack basic supplies.

Parents are helping to keep the high school afloat by donating an average of $300 per year per student, said the principal, Carmelo Sgarlato, who added that some of that money helps to pay for guest artists.

Like many school concerts, the Christmas program was rather long. But the school’s music ensembles gave a polished and spirited performance of a diverse range of work. I was especially moved by the chamber choral ensemble’s spectral approach to plainsong during the opening candlelit processional, and the vocal jazz ensemble’s take on the Sting song “Fragile,” complete with a silken-toned 14-year-old male soloist. The full house responded enthusiastically.

Dynamic performances and creatively inspiring rehearsals are equally evident in Bay Area institutions that don’t specialize in the arts. A recent dance show at Berkeley High School featured a variety of genres, including hip-hop and contemporary ballet. The dancers executed the steps with passion and an engaging sense of ensemble.

The state now provides less money per student, and the school is facing potential cuts in the next academic year that may adversely affect two art courses. But many students have met the arts education shortfall by taking private classes.

The challenging financial climate is certainly forcing educators in the Bay Area to be more resourceful about creating art in schools. What our educational institutions are able to achieve in a time of financial disarray makes me look forward to the dizzy heights of artistic excellence that will be possible in a more prosperous climate.

But I can’t help wishing that the money were around right now to enable artists like Mr. Jackson to channel their entire creative energy into making art. He — and discerning audiences — deserve to see his original vision of 14 Juliets, rather than making do with 8.

Music Festivals Are Siblings, Invisibly BondedNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:29:00 +0000

The British-born electronic composers Kieran Hebden, who performs as Four Tet, and Natasha Barrett are both in San Francisco for concerts. Although Mr. Hebden is closely identified with the indie-pop scene, and Ms. Barrett with the contemporary classical world, they could easily be on the same bill. These musicians, creators of spiraling musique concrète-infused compositions that veer between sound art and trance, allow us to pick out tiny textural details in their work while basking in the music’s overall ambience.

But instead of appearing on the same program, the composers’ music is reaching audiences in entirely different settings. Mr. Hebden’s scheduled appearance on Friday at the Independent was part of the Noise Pop Festival, an annual weeklong indie-rock music celebration, ending on Monday, that attracts around 20,000 people to more than 50 events.

Meanwhile, two of Ms. Barrett’s works will be performed this coming Friday at the Other Minds Festival of New Music, a yearly forum for contemporary classical composers. Its public performance series, held this year from Thursday through Saturday at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, features three concerts of nine composers’ works. Attendance is expected to total around 1,300.

Despite the obvious differences of size, scope and demographics (Noise Pop’s audience skews about 20 years younger on average than that of Other Minds), the festivals have much in common. The crossover potential of artists like Mr. Hebden and Ms. Barrett is just one similarity. Since being founded in the same year, 1993, the festivals have helped to shape the Bay Area music scene.

Each grew organically out of one person’s vision. Noise Pop began life as a one-night stand produced by a local promoter, Kevin Arnold. He was a booker for a small Emeryville agency when a San Francisco club (now the Independent) asked him to find bands to fill an empty January date.

“The original Noise Pop Festival was just a ‘five bands for five dollars’ show,” Mr. Arnold said in an e-mail interview. “But I called it a festival and silk-screened a poster to make it seem more exciting. It was way more successful than anyone expected.” The Other Minds Festival emerged from the composer Charles Amirkhanian’s experience producing a similar event in Telluride, Colo., from 1988 to 1991. When financing for that festival ceased, Mr. Amirkhanian recreated it with new backing in the Bay Area. Combining a private composers’ symposium (held under the auspices of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, of which Mr. Amirkhanian was executive director) alongside three days of public concerts and discussions, the inaugural Other Minds Festival featured Meredith Monk, Conlon Nancarrow and Philip Glass.

From the beginning the two festivals have shared a desire to bring together local, national and international artists at different stages of their careers. This year’s Other Minds Festival features work by young composers like Gyan Riley and Carla Kihlstedt of the Bay Area and Lisa Bielawa from New York, with more established names, like the American composer Tom Johnson, who is based in Paris, and Jürg Frey of Switzerland.

“By having different generations involved, we have a much livelier discussion and interchange of ideas,” Mr. Amirkhanian said in an e-mail message. “We also relish the opportunity to expose Bay Area composers to guests from outside California and vice versa.”

The current Noise Pop Festival lineup has featured international bands, like We Were Promised Jetpacks from Scotland; household names, including Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band; and Bay Area up-and-comers like Deerhoof, Thao Nguyen and Glaciers. It also included the innovative partnership of the Bay Area indie-pop band the Dodos and the Magik*Magik Orchestra, a San Francisco instrumental ensemble.

Both festivals pride themselves on spotting emerging talent. Julia Wolfe, a co-founder of the Bang on a Can ensemble, got a boost from meeting Mr. Glass at the first Other Minds Festival. The next year he invited her to put out her first solo CD on his Point Music label.

The Chinese composer Tan Dun, the Oscar-winning composer of the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” score, appeared at the festival in 1995. And the Noise Pop Festival gave early exposure to well-known bands like the Flaming Lips, the White Stripes and Death Cab for Cutie.

Even the most balanced musical lineup isn’t enough to keep a festival bubbling for nearly two decades. Though serving different markets, the two festivals have devised remarkably similar strategies to enhance the standard concert fare. Each presents films and a visual arts component; broadcasts recorded music (Noise Pop offers podcasts, and Other Minds presents a weekly public radio show, “Music From Other Minds”); and runs live music events later in the year.

The Other Minds Festival presents fall concerts focusing on the music of past luminaries like Henry Cowell. Introduced in 2007, Noise Pop’s fall two-day Treasure Island Music Festival is fast becoming one of the most talked-about Bay Area music events, not least because of its rare location: an island in the middle of the bay.

Mr. Arnold and Mr. Amirkhanian have never met, but they really should; they could learn a great deal from each other. The Other Minds Festival could draw on the Noise Pop model to open up the insular world of contemporary classical music, while Noise Pop could look to Other Minds to build stronger bonds and unusual collaboration among artists. It may not be too long before the two festivals start seeing some audience and artistic overlap.

Feasting on Memories, Serving the FutureNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 17:20:00 +0000

Perhaps more than any other work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, “The Brown Sisters” by Nicholas Nixon captures the essence of the institution’s 75th anniversary celebration. The work is a set of 35 photographic portraits, made annually since 1975, of the artist’s wife and her three siblings standing in the same order. The museum acquired the artwork in 2000, and, as of now, there is no official end date to this act of creation.

Just as the past and future fuse in Mr. Nixon’s photographs, so the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, founded in 1935 as the San Francisco Museum of Art, is taking a Janus-like approach to its milestone year.

Arts organizations often use anniversaries as an excuse for self-flattery and financial opportunism. The recent 30th anniversary celebration for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles — with its ritzy gala headlined by Lady Gaga and the Bolshoi Ballet and a no-holds-barred campaign to raise $60 million — threatened to eclipse the opening of the museum’s important anniversary show, one of the largest exhibitions in its history.

Closer to home, the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s 50th birthday last year focused more on its glorious past than its uncertain future. But SF MoMA has managed to keep in balance the elements necessary to celebrate a major milestone, including innovative programming, fund-raising and outreach.

With new multimedia tours, inventive collaborations with local and international artists and, most significantly, ambitious new expansion plans, the museum is intent on looking ahead. Two weeks ago, officials said they had raised $250 million in just six months, letting the museum double its endowment and put $150 million toward the building of a new wing and other development. These plans emphasize that this institution, unlike others that have been around for a while, is as proud of its present and future as it is of its innovative past.

To be sure, the yearlong celebration, a series of shows and events, offers plenty of backward looks. The freewheeling core exhibition, “The Anniversary Show,” which runs through Jan. 16, 2011, features more than 400 works from the museum’s permanent collection. And “Focus on Artists,” which runs through May 23, explores the museum’s past relationship with 18 influential artists, including Richard Serra, Diane Arbus and Andy Warhol.

Still, the historical “Anniversary Show” doesn’t come across as the typical self-aggrandizing archival survey. The museum may have been the first art institution to give a then-unknown Jackson Pollock his first solo museum show, in 1945, but the exhibition, which features his “Guardians of the Secret” (1943) among others, doesn’t play up such accolades.

At first glance, the second floor appears to resemble the schizophrenic found-object collages of local Mission School artists like Barry McGee (whose “Untitled,” an undulating montage of hundreds of framed drawings and photographs, is on display). Works by such well-known artists as Pollock, Alexander Calder, and Arshile Gorky share space with a selection of 1950s bright watercolors by teenage artists from Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Galleries devoted to the museum’s collection of antique Olivetti typewriters and archival footage of its television programs from the early 1950s contrast glaringly with Jeff Koons’s glossy ceramic sculpture “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” and Penelope Umbrico’s “5,377,183 Suns From Flickr (Partial) 4/28/09,” which consists of snapshots of sunsets culled from the Flickr image-sharing Web site.

Yet for all its eclecticism, the exhibition proffers an interesting, if slightly obscure, curatorial logic, inspired by the museum’s founding director, Grace McCann Morley. By highlighting Morley’s curatorial interests and borrowing her aesthetic, the show provides fascinating insight into the life of this formidable but little-remembered West Coast art trailblazer.

Morley, who died in 1985 at the age of 85, was the sort of curator who responded to the horrors of war by presenting works that engaged directly with the theme of conflict, like Picasso’s “Guernica,” as well as by shows that served as a lighthearted distraction, like the museum’s 1942 exhibition, “Sawdust and Spangles: Arts of the Circus.” With her broad-minded legacy in mind, the seemingly wacky curatorial approach behind “The Anniversary Show” makes more sense.

That eclecticism extends to the museum’s overall engagement with the here and now. It places a welcome emphasis on local culture by commissioning Bay Area artists from a wide variety of fields to engage with works in its collection. For example, a new audio tour features the San Francisco electronica duo, Loop!Station, responding to James Rosenquist’s “Leaky Ride for Dr. Leakey” (1983) with a song that is as bold and angular as Mr. Rosenquist’s Pop Art painting. Similarly, the museum’s “Muse” advertising campaign pairs local cultural luminaries like the couturier Colleen Quen and the author Robert Mailer Anderson with well-known works from the museum’s collection.

As the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s current efforts show, anniversaries can have a galvanizing effect on an institution and its community. But they must be approached with caution. These celebrations should do more than dwell on the past; they should take stock of the present. And to have something to celebrate 25, 50 or 75 years from now, they should always keep an eye on the future.

VoiceBox: February 19, 2010 -- Beatbox BadassesKALW 91.7 FM

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 07:28:00 +0000

Click here to hear the eighth program in the first official series of VoiceBox, a new public radio show on KALW 91.7 FM dedicated to the art of singing. The show, all about vocal percussion in general and beatboxing in particular, originally aired on Friday February 19, 2010.

VoiceBox: February 12, 2010 -- Songs of SeductionKALW 91.7 FM

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 07:04:00 +0000

Click here to hear the seventh program in the first official series of VoiceBox, a new public radio show on KALW 91.7 FM dedicated to the art of singing. The show, all about the art of singing and writing a great love song, originally aired on Friday February 12, 2010.

VoiceBox: February 5, 2010 -- So You Want To Be An Opera Star?KALW 91.7 FM

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:20:00 +0000

Click here to hear the sixth program in the first official series of VoiceBox, a new public radio show on KALW 91.7 FM dedicated to the art of singing. The show, which explored the training of opera singers, originally aired on Friday February 5, 2010.

Two Cities, One Lasting Cultural ExchangeNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:08:00 +0000

To many people who have never been to China, myself among them, San Francisco’s Chinatown — the oldest and one of the largest districts of its kind in North America — still largely represents Chinese culture, despite the popularity of films like Zhang Yimou’s “Hero”; international tours by the country’s top ballet, opera and circus companies; and the fame of Chinese composers like Tan Dun. Most Bay Area residents see beyond the usual representations of Chinese New Year parades, dragon dances and Ming Dynasty vases gathering dust behind glass in museums. But even so, when lipstick-colored pagodas, soggy dim sum and mass-produced, paw-waving porcelain cats come to represent an entire civilization, it’s time to take a step back and look beyond the Disneyland view.

For years organizations like the Chinese Culture Center and Chinese Historical Society of America have been working hard to change this image by demonstrating a sophisticated view of Chinese culture that challenges clichés and pushes us to think differently about the relationship between our two nations. And the conventional notions of Chinese culture will continue to be challenged as San Francisco begins Shanghai Celebration, a yearlong arts festival honoring the longstanding cultural connection between the two cities through concerts, films, exhibitions, discussions and other special events.

Inspired by the 30th anniversary of San Francisco’s sister-city relationship with Shanghai, as well as by the 2010 World Expo there, an event of this scope is a significant step forward.

Leading the effort is the exhibition “Shanghai: Art of the City,” opening on Friday at the Asian Art Museum. In contrast to that institution’s last major exhibition of Shanghai art in 1983, which focused strongly on traditional representations of Chinese heritage, the new show surveys the tension between the forces of outside influences and the push to stay loyal to Shanghai’s own visual culture. The work on display extends from 1850 (when Shanghai emerged as an international city as a result of clashes over trade between China and Britain) to the present day, and it reflects an artistic perspective that is at once intrinsically Chinese and more international in scope.

For instance, a bedroom suite from the 1920s demonstrates a strong European influence, with its Art Deco-inspired asymmetrical contours and use of bold geometric shapes. But the furniture reveals Chinese interests too: it is built out of a locally grown rosewood and inlaid with a typically Chinese bamboo design.

Works by the 20th-century Shanghai painter Liu Haisu suggest the tension between newer, more Western-influenced styles and time-honored Asian approaches. Mr. Liu’s ethereal “Blue-and-Green Landscape” (1978) depicts a traditional Chinese scene with craggy mountains rising out of the mist, and delicate trees in the foreground. It was created using the standard scroll and ink, but he eschewed longstanding ideas about Chinese composition by painting the trees in bright reds and greens rather than muted hues and by arranging the foliage in horizontal clusters instead of opting for the more typical zigzag pattern.

Other local arts organizations involved in Shanghai Celebration are taking similar approaches. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music will be cementing its ties with its Shanghai counterpart on Monday night with a concert featuring the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao, who is based in San Francisco, as well as faculty members, students and alumni from both schools.

A graduate of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Ms. Cao will perform new works composed by members of each institution. Instrumental pieces on the program include the United States premiere of “San,” a chamber music piece written for Western orchestral instruments that features Chinese elements like pitch-bending.

Later this month the Bay Area Chapter of the American Jewish Committee is mounting a photography exhibition, “The Jews in Modern China,” that will explore a little-known area of Shanghai’s heritage. It chronicles the lives of Jewish immigrants who came to Shanghai in the 1840s from countries as diverse as Russia and Iraq to avoid persecution.

In May the Chinese Culture Foundation is presenting a music festival in Chinatown that will combine traditional Shanghai opera with Asian-American jazz and, for an extra twist, Latin music.

Representations of Chinese culture in the Bay Area have come a long way since Chinese immigrants arrived in the middle of the 19th century to work the railroads and gold mines. The evolution in the understanding of Chinese culture in the Bay Area can be seen in, among other things, the changes that have taken place in the programming of art exhibitions and the developing relationships between arts organizations.

In previous decades the Chinese Culture Center imported works from China for display, like a 1979 exhibition of Chinese woodcuts; these days the organization is offering innovative exhibitions like last year’s “Present Tense” show, aimed at creating dialogue among the work of native Chinese, Chinese-American and non-Chinese artists.

“In the past, we were borrowing from museums in China for our exhibitions,” said Mabel Teng, executive director of the Chinese Culture Center. “Now the two cultures have merged, and the art reflects the old and new.”

VoiceBox: January 29, 2010 -- Mavens of CabaretKALW 91.7 FM

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:51:00 +0000

Click here to hear the fifth program in the first official series of VoiceBox, a new public radio show on KALW 91.7 FM dedicated to the art of singing. The show, which explored the current cabaret scene and its development, originally aired on Friday January 29, 2010.

Conservatory Theater Still Seeks Its OvationNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:38:00 +0000

Like the thrill of settling into a plush seat as the curtain rises on a highly anticipated production, there’s the excitement over the announcement every March of the American Conservatory Theater’s coming season, with its promises of innovatively staged classic plays, bold new works by powerful writers and acclaimed productions imported from beyond the Bay Area.

Yet every year my expectations are dashed. More often than not, I feel emotionally disconnected from what’s on the American Conservatory Theater’s stage. (Engrossing productions brought in from the outside, like John Doyle’s Broadway staging of “Sweeney Todd,” are an exception.) This is troubling. A bustling cultural hub like San Francisco deserves a jewel of a flagship theater company, one that, like the San Francisco Ballet, attracts the attention of the broader arts world.

The company’s current production of “Phèdre,” Racine’s tragedy about a Grecian queen’s illicit passions, underscores the problem. On paper, the play looks promising: it’s the world premiere adaptation by the British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker featuring actors from the acclaimed Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada.

But Ms. Wertenbaker’s text, which retains all of the stiffness of Racine’s original but little of its lyricism, manages to excise much of the story’s poetic intensity and savage emotion. With a declamatory acting style and ponderous blocking, the work comes across as an intellectual exercise rather than a theatrical experience that engages both the heart and mind.

The same criticism could be leveled at many of the company’s recent productions, like “After the War” and “Happy End.” It took risks in staging these works, which all involved large casts and, in the case of “After the War,” significant development time. Although the productions featured impressive sets and lighting, the efforts did not pay off because of cumbersome mise-en-scènes and emotional flatness.

Founded in 1965 by the director William Ball in Pittsburgh before relocating to San Francisco a year later, the American Conservatory Theater became widely known for its expansive core acting company and dedication to training. During its first San Francisco season, the company staged 27 productions in two theaters to critical acclaim. Actors were sometimes cast in two productions at once and could occasionally be seen running from building to building between scenes.

The company’s fortunes have vacillated since. Initially, its work was well received; in 1979 the theater won a Tony Award for theatrical achievement and excellence in repertory performance. But eventually the resources dried up, the acting company faded out, and the theater’s reputation waned.

When the current artistic director, Carey Perloff, took over in 1992, she reinstated a small core acting company, expanded the educational offerings and earned praise, in particular, for her productions of Tom Stoppard plays. But other shows, like Mark Lamos’s deliberately shocking take on Christopher Marlowe’s “Edward II,” turned many people off. These days the smaller Berkeley Repertory Theater is doing more innovative work and gaining national attention.

Box office figures suggest the audience’s growing discontent with the American Conservatory Theater’s output. According to company officials, in the past five years subscriptions have fallen to 14,939, from 17,574.

But the organization is working hard to attract audiences. As part of the recent centennial celebration of the theater’s historic auditorium, it instituted a two-day $19.10 ticket sale.

One former subscriber I talked to said she canceled her subscription after seven years partly because she found many of the productions too avant-garde. No one could accuse Ms. Perloff of pandering to the masses. Despite bringing in stars like Olympia Dukakis (who is starring in “Vigil,” starting in late March), Ms. Perloff’s programming choices are often inspiringly risky — especially in the company’s grand home theater, which is ill suited to difficult, small-scale works.

This season features a formidable three world premieres: a dance-theater collaboration with the San Francisco Ballet titled “The Tosca Project”; a new translation of Bertolt Brecht’s play “The Caucasian Chalk Circle,” directed by Mr. Doyle; and “Phèdre.” The theater has eight playwrights under commission, including a local rising star, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb.

Meanwhile, the organization continues to grow its core acting company — a remarkable investment in Bay Area talent — and remains committed to importing foreign productions.

Balancing a quest for innovation with the realities of producing theater today is undeniably tough. But the American Conservatory Theater is making moves in the right direction. The company is searching for a more convivial second space to nurture new work. (Its current alternate site, Zeum, feels like a sterile lecture hall.) The theater is also sending its students out to perform in the community.

The future success of the American Conservatory Theater may also depend on the leadership’s ability to understand its patrons better. “Our audience over time has grown to hunger for challenging material,” Ms. Perloff said in an interview. “If you expose people to great storytelling told beautifully, they will respond to it even if they spend all day on Facebook.”

What Ms. Perloff perhaps fails to recognize is that as much as theatergoers like to be intellectually stimulated, first and foremost they want to be moved, whether to tears or laughter. Finding an additional space and reaching out to the community are both laudable steps. But the effort is wasted if the company fails to connect with the audience at the visceral level when the curtain rises each night.

Nonfiction Filmmakers Still Tell Rich StoriesNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:41:00 +0000

The Bay Area has long been known as a center for documentary filmmaking. Many local documentarians have won or been nominated for Academy Awards, including Sam Green (“The Weather Underground”) and Robert Epstein (“The Times of Harvey Milk”). The area is home to the Independent Television Service, a major financer of documentary films, as well as some of the most respected film schools in the country.

But the success of local documentaries can’t be attributed to education and financing alone. The region itself seems especially tight-knit and supportive.

“The Bay Area is a very good place to be a documentarian because of the cooperative nature of the community,” said Janis Plotkin, a programmer for the Mill Valley Film Festival. “For a small city, San Francisco has amazingly supportive resources for independent filmmakers.”

But fundamentally, the success has to do with storytelling. Some local filmmakers, like Christian Bruno, are pushing the limits of narrative. Mr. Bruno’s jewel-like film “Strand: A Natural History of Cinema” mines the history of the region’s once-opulent movie palaces in a lyrical manner that makes it feel like an archaeological dig. He burrows through time with the aid of diverse interviews, archival footage and contemporary scenes shot on 16-millimeter film to convey the idea of cinemas as sites of social interaction and imaginative exploration.

But as three compelling new homegrown documentaries show, local filmmakers are also using more traditional storytelling techniques, like character-driven narratives with a strong three-act structure, in powerful ways. The Talbot Players’ “Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders” series; Katherine Bruens’s “Corner Store”; and David Silberberg’s “Oh My God! It’s Harrod Blank!” tell engrossing tales by focusing on key characters.

The tried-and-true storytelling formulas clearly work. The slow-burning “Corner Store” follows the journey of Yousef Elhaj, owner of a Mission district corner deli, as he travels from San Francisco to his native Palestinian territories to be reunited with his family, which he hasn’t seen in 10 years. The film provides a moving insight into one man’s struggle to reconcile the kinship he feels for his adopted Bay Area home with his Middle Eastern roots.

“Corner Store,” which will be screened at next month’s San Francisco Independent Film Festival, trundles along languorously, with atmospheric shots of bustling Palestinian marketplaces and San Francisco streets.

Despite its meandering pace, the film is engaging because of Ms. Bruens’s deep, meditative portrait of the protagonist and the straightforward narrative arc. Moving from San Francisco to the Palestinian territories and back to San Francisco, the three-part structure makes viewers feel as if they were traveling alongside Mr. Elhaj.

The layout of “Sound Tracks” is equally pronounced. The documentary, which begins on Monday night on most PBS stations, comprises three distinct and fascinating narratives about the intersection of music, travel and politics. The segments provide fresh angles on relatively well-known subjects by offering miniature character studies.

The first story explores the genesis of the hit Russian pop song “A Man Like Putin,” a peppy piece of musical propaganda that has grown to be something of a calling card for Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. The segment focuses on the song’s composer, Alexander Yelin, a rock music dissident turned promoter.

The next section delves into the legacy of the Nigerian music pioneer and political activist Fela Kuti. It centers on Mr. Kuti’s youngest son, Seun, who stepped forward as a teenager to lead his father’s band after Mr. Kuti’s death in 1997.

The third segment follows the Kazakhstani virtuoso violinist Marat Bisengaliev as he tries to recoup the battered reputation of his country in the wake of “Borat,” Sacha Baron Cohen’s blockbuster 2006 mockumentary that didn’t do much for Kazakhstan’s global reputation.

“Sound Tracks” makes a virtue of its three-part structure; the individual narratives come together cumulatively to make its resounding overall point: music is a powerful agent of community building and social change.

Meanwhile, Mr. Silberberg’s engrossing documentary “Oh My God! It’s Harrod Blank!” explores the life and work of Mr. Blank, a Bay Area artist and filmmaker best known for building art cars (vehicles festooned with different objects) and documenting that scene. The film, also showing at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, not only creates a vivid, fond portrait of the eccentric Mr. Blank (a man who seems to love chickens more than people), but also provides a profound meditation on the pros and cons of rugged individualism. Although the film moves back and forth through time, it basically unfolds in three stages: Mr. Blank’s youth, his growing interest in art cars and his more recent activities.

All three films palpably demonstrate the power of traditional storytelling. But there seems to be a push on the local documentary scene for a more innovative approach, like Mr. Bruno’s, as well.

“There are many types of documentaries, and the form is not limited exclusively to stories driven by characters,” Michele Turnure-Salleo, the San Francisco Film Society’s director of filmmaker services, said in an e-mail message. “A compelling subject or inquiry can form the backbone of a nonfiction film, and funders are supporting work that extends beyond traditional character-driven storytelling.”

As long as the rich filmmaking community and resources continue in the Bay Area — and as long as the documentarians put their narratives front and center — the combination of experimental and trusted approaches should further the success.

VoiceBox: January 22, 2010 -- Men Up HighKALW 91.7 FM

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:22:00 +0000

Click here to hear the fourth program in the first official series of VoiceBox, a new public radio show on KALW 91.7 FM dedicated to the art of singing. The show, which explored male singers who sing high across many different vocal genres, originally aired on Friday January 22, 2010.

Broad Minds Encourage Broad LaughterNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:32:00 +0000

It’s often been said that stand-up comedy is the most subjective art form. What’s side-splitting to one person is seditious to the next. Yet while the evolving dynamics of the Bay Area entertainment scene have broadened traditional definitions of what constitutes comedy, some of the audience still takes a narrow view of what’s funny and what isn’t.

With its kaleidoscopic lineup, the SF Sketchfest comedy festival, which opened on Thursday, should help audiences understand that there are many paths to humor beyond the traditional setup-and-punch-line-centric patter. As in previous years, the program, which features some 200 artists of local, national and international prominence, stretches standard notions to their limits.

The festival includes the embattled talk show host Conan O’Brien (Sunday); impressionists, among them James Adomian (next Sunday); improv and sketch comedy troupes, like the San Francisco-based Kasper Hauser (Tuesday and Jan. 30); absurdist comedians like Animosity Pierre (Tuesday and Thursday); sitcom actors like Scott Adsit of “30 Rock” (Jan. 30); solo theater artists, including Sara Benincasa (Saturday); and even a comedic jazz outfit, the Be-Bop Heroin Hour (Jan. 29 and 30). The festival perhaps went a step too far by inviting the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, a musician whose plaintive ballads aren’t generally known for their laughter-inducing qualities.

Cultivating broad-mindedness toward these many forms of comedy is important. If audiences were open to a wider range of humorous performance, the demand for live comedy might grow. This would in turn lead to the rejuvenation of the once-lauded but sadly long-dormant San Francisco comedy scene, an arena that helped forge the careers of Phyllis Diller, Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams.

If audiences were willing to expand their definitions of comedy, they might relax and enjoy themselves rather than fret about how what they’re seeing onstage doesn’t conform to their expectations. Their heightened pleasure would doubtless have an overall positive effect on the community. In these dark times we can use all the opportunities for laughter we can get.

Personal taste notwithstanding, the negative reaction to a recent show I attended suggests that some Bay Area audience members may not have caught up with the changes that have taken place on the local comedy scene over the past decade or so. Or perhaps they chose to ignore the words “unconventional” and “groundbreaking” on the flier advertising the “Not Your Normal New Year’s Eve” comedy night at the Herbst Theater.

“The worst comedy lineup ever, full of nonsensical stream-of-consciousness musings and pathetic revelations,” wrote one reviewer on the ticketing site Goldstar.com. Another wrote, “We only stayed because our car was not ready to pick us up.” Contrastingly, I was thoroughly entertained.

The comedy scene has transformed partly because of the shuttering of several Bay Area comedy clubs in the 1990s and early 2000s, which forced artists to develop their work in other settings, like theaters and the Internet. While many local stand-up acts once focused on observational or autobiographical material, these days the scene is much more fragmented.

But there are still plenty of observational comics around. Of those who performed on New Year’s Eve, many of whom are also on the SF Sketchfest roster, Brent Weinbach most closely reflects that tradition.

But the other acts demonstrated radically different approaches. Will Franken, named “Best Alternative to Psychedelic Drugs” by The San Francisco Bay Guardian, offers an erudite brand of stream-of-consciousness comedy that encompasses bits like a poetry slam match between George Milton reciting the opening of “Paradise Lost” and a poetically challenged modern teenager doing some rap.

Mary Van Note’s humor hinges on misplaced sexual advances; this comedian is best known for her 10-part online video series about trying to woo Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Meanwhile, the surreal theatrics of We Are Nudes balance the over-the-top physicality of a former Cirque du Soleil performer, John Gilkey, against the awkward introversion of his comedic sidekicks, Donny Divanian and Alec Jones-Trujillo. The group’s act reaches its zenith with a protracted tirade from a supposed audience member about the performers’ lack of comedic skill.

Of course, the many people in the Herbst audience who responded unfavorably to the entertainment may simply not share my sense of humor. It may be that people need to get out and see a diverse range of live comedy. But the incentive to do so lies partly elsewhere.

While the SF Sketchfest helps to expand an understanding of the art of comedy, local promoters and clubs need to play a role year-round too. Bay Area audiences are by and large enlightened. If they shy away from the stranger side of comedy, it may also be because of the local industry’s narrow approach to programming and reluctance to book any act that steps beyond conventional realms. The Bay Area’s eclectic landscape should operate along the same lines as many an effective comic act: with a good punch line set up to defy expectations.

VoiceBox: January 15, 2010 -- Community ChorusesKALW 91.7 FM

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:47:00 +0000

Click here to hear the third program in the first official series of VoiceBox, a new public radio show on KALW 91.7 FM dedicated to the art of singing. The show, about the extremely rich and diverse Bay Area community choral landscape, originally aired on Friday January 15, 2010.

When a Word’s Look Counted as Much as Its MeaningNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:01:00 +0000

Typography is ubiquitous. A world without letters, numerals and symbols designed by skillful font makers would consist of boring billboards, pages and street signs. Yet unlike other forms of applied design, typography remains an obscure and little-understood field. When buildings are constructed, they make news. A new font barely registers in the public consciousness.

In the 1980s and ’90s, however, the Bay Area was at the forefront of a movement to change this reality. The work of the graphic design company Emigre, based in Berkeley, is the focus of an exhibition of artwork and artifacts at Gallery 16 in San Francisco. An accompanying book, “Emigre No. 70: The Look Back Issue — Celebrating 25 Years in Graphic Design,” further stresses the efforts of a group of graphic designers (mainly locals) to elevate design in general — and typography in particular — to an art form.

But over the years, frictions between the forces of art and commerce have hindered Emigre’s cause. In today’s environment, where fonts can be created and replicated by anyone with a personal computer (United States copyright law does not extend protection to typeface design), the idea that a font can be an objet d’art in its own right seems like a utopian reverie.

“Emigre was born out of a ‘digital dream,’ ” the graphic designer Erik Adigard, based in Sausalito, wrote in an e-mail message. “But it was short-lived. Emigre is history, even if still somewhat of a cult.”

Yet the marriage between a font’s beauty of form and the context in which it is employed is what makes the written word jump off the page. In striving to demonstrate this truth, Emigre deserves our attention.

Founded in 1984 by the husband-and-wife team of Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, Emigre was influential on the graphic design scene in the ’80s and ’90s. This was partly because of the company’s magazine, also called Emigre. First a quarterly and later a seminannual, it featured innovative typefaces and posters; eye-catching photography; offbeat profiles of writers and artists; and wide-ranging critical essays on subjects like the Bauhaus movement and the legibility of fonts. Although the magazine no longer exists, Emigre still operates as a font foundry; its library houses more than 300 typefaces.

From 1984 to 2005, Emigre magazine achieved cult status. With their unconventional and striking use of fonts, publications like Wired and McSweeney’s, both based in San Francisco, owe it a debt. In 2006 the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired the entire Emigre magazine canon for its permanent design collection, and put the magazines on display for a year.

“For me, like many others galvanized by graphic design during Emigre’s heyday, the magazine was the most consistently interesting design publication produced anywhere by anyone,” the design journalist Rick Poynor wrote in 2005.

Emigre chronicled a revolution in typography that went hand in hand with the birth of the personal computer, which brought new methods for creating type. (It’s perhaps no accident that Emigre and the Macintosh computer made their debuts in the same year.) The transformation also ran in tandem with the rise of postmodern theories then popular in art schools concerning the aesthetics of utilitarian design.

Such ideas helped to free font design from the constraints of functionality. Possibly for the first time since the elaborate but often illegible opening capital letters of medieval illuminated manuscripts, font designers didn’t have to worry about readability and reproducibility.

Going beyond the no-nonsense look of archetypal typeface families like Times and Helvetica, designers in Emigre’s orbit, like John Hersey, Joachim Müller-Lancé and Ms. Licko, saw font design as a form of creative expression. With its thick-contoured, cartoonish forms, Mr. Hersey’s Blockhead typeface won’t be used for street signs anytime soon, but the fonts are eye-catching. The same could be said of Ms. Licko’s aggressive and angular Oblong typeface.

For all the theoretical debate and creative output inspired by Emigre, the font-as-art movement seems to be over. The commercial interests in the fast-paced digital age have reduced typeface design to cookie-cutter templates and formulas. Unbridled innovation has largely been supplanted by nostalgic exhibitions and commemorative books.

Emigre magazine’s demise may be symptomatic of the fact that it was primarily a showcase for the company’s fonts. Its journalistic endeavors often supported the founders’ business goals, as is evidenced by its numerous articles denouncing designer-unfriendly typeface copyright laws. But Griff Williams, owner and director of Gallery 16, wrote in an e-mail message: “For me, the lesson learned from Emigre is that business and art can coexist. The typeface business was a guise to deliver content in profoundly interesting ways. Not the other way around.”

Mr. VanderLans was grappling with the tension between art and commerce while publishing his magazine. “The entrepreneurial element, which is crucial to the existence of any subculture, avant-garde or underground work, is largely overlooked when assessing the work, because to most people, whenever the commercial aspects become prominent, it somehow taints the work and renders it less pure or authentic,” he wrote in Emigre in 1995. “Yet it’s difficult to imagine how any movement can operate without a concentrated effort to make money.”

VoiceBox: January 8, 2010 -- Ella FitzgeraldKALW 91.7 FM

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 01:25:00 +0000

Click here to hear the second program in the first official series of VoiceBox, a new public radio show on KALW 91.7 FM dedicated to the art of singing. The show, about the golden voice of Ella Fitzgerald, originally aired on Friday January 8, 2010.

Asking Stars Not Just to Play, but Also to StayNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:50:00 +0000

The relationship between the rock stars of classical music and the orchestras and audiences that interact with them can generally be characterized as a series of memorable one-night stands. When the Lang Langs, Joshua Bells and Renée Flemings of the world arrive in town for an evening or two, tickets fly, and standing ovations shake concert halls. But no sooner has the applause died down than the artists are on a plane to the next city.

Lately, however, orchestras across the country have been looking for ways to deepen their relationships with top-tier musicians. Artist residencies, ranging from one week to two years, are now de rigueur. The baritone Thomas Hampson and the composer Magnus Lindberg have lengthy residencies with the New York Philharmonic; the Chicago Symphony recently announced the appointment of the Bay Area composer Mason Bates as a composer in residence; and last year the Los Angeles Philharmonic created the position of creative chair for another Bay Area composer, John Adams.

In a similar vein, the Berkeley Symphony recently hired the composer Gabriela Lena Frank as its creative adviser. She will help shape programming and guide outreach projects.

Now the San Francisco Symphony’s new Project San Francisco aims to enhance the audience’s appreciation of classical music through a pair of residency programs with the composer George Benjamin (Thursday through Jan. 16) and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma (Jan. 20 to 26). The program will include performances, educational activities and community events.

But whether the orchestra succeeds in enriching the experience of San Francisco’s rather conservative classical music audiences will depend on how much it can realistically hope to derive from the artists’ intensive yet still truncated sojourns. One thing is sure: the Symphony intends to make the most of its visiting artists’ time and energy.

In addition to conducting the San Francisco Symphony, Mr. Benjamin will play the piano in a chamber music concert alongside Symphony musicians; give a series of pre- and post-concert talks; take part in a colloquium with San Francisco Youth Symphony players; and mentor students from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Mr. Ma (also recently named creative consultant to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) will give orchestral and chamber music concerts, as well as a recital with the pianist Emanuel Ax. He will coach two student chamber music ensembles as well.

Building on the success of similar pilot residencies with the Chinese pianist Lang Lang and the respected though not widely known Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, the orchestra is taking an approach to Project San Francisco that is artistically and fiscally canny. Ms. Gubaidulina’s two-week residency last February helped to familiarize Bay Area concertgoers with her work; the performance I heard, featuring the North American premiere of her “Violin Concerto No. 2,” was well attended. Meanwhile, Mr. Lang’s high profile most likely helped to offset the financial risk of devoting so many concerts to a relatively unknown composer.

The Symphony seems to be repeating this formula with the combination of Mr. Ma, a household name, and Mr. Benjamin, who is not well known to American audiences despite having a more than 20-year relationship with the San Francisco Symphony. Mr. Benjamin’s local recognition is likely to grow this June when he serves as music director of the Ojai Music Festival.

It is worth noting that tickets for Mr. Benjamin’s concerts are not being bought as swiftly as those for bigger-name artists; the same was true for Ms. Gubaidulina.

“Yo-Yo Ma’s performances are selling strongly, with very limited availability at the present moment, and George’s residency continues to sell, and we expect more last-minute sales as people learn about the concerts,” said Louisa Spier, a Symphony spokeswoman.

(In March the Symphony will announce next season’s residencies, the first of which will take place before the end of the year.)

Orchestral artist residencies are a relatively new phenomenon. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra broke ground in this area, starting in 2004, with its appointment of diverse artists like the soprano Dawn Upshaw, the conductor Roberto Abbado and Nicholas McGegan, music director of the Bay Area’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

The San Francisco Symphony also played a role through its partnership with Mr. Adams, who served as resident composer from 1982 to 1985. “More typically, these composers in residence amounted to an ephemeral phenomenon,” said Joseph Horowitz, a classical music historian. “But Adams really became integral to the orchestra.”

While residencies seem to be fashionable, and are a positive step for orchestras, maximizing their productivity is hard. The amount of time an artist works with an orchestra and the depth of the engagement are probably the two biggest factors in determining the success of these residencies. The San Francisco Symphony is certainly capitalizing on the time it has with Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Ma. But packing so much activity into three weeks may end up exhausting both artists and audiences.

It takes time for concertgoers to familiarize themselves with an artist’s work. Ten days may not be enough to persuade ticket buyers to take a chance on Mr. Benjamin. Although logistically challenging, a slow-burning residency lasting several months or longer, like the one now under way between Mr. Hampson and the New York Philharmonic, may ultimately be more fruitful than the fast-paced model favored by the San Francisco Symphony.

VoiceBox: January 1, 2010 -- "Why We Sing"KALW 91.7 FM

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 07:15:00 +0000

Click here to hear the inaugural program of the official series of VoiceBox, a new public radio show on KALW 91.7 FM dedicated to the art of singing. The show, entitled "Why We Sing," originally aired on Friday January 1, 2010.

Voice Check: 10 Tips for Healthy SingingAMERICAN THEATRE MAGAZINE

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:52:00 +0000

Voice therapists, trainers and performers give expert advice on how to protect and maintain your singing voice

Theatre lore is packed with horror stories about performers cracking or missing notes on stage or—even worse—losing their voices completely. Luciano Pavarotti had, near the start of his career, a disastrous concert in the Italian city of Ferrara around the time that a nodule first developed on his vocal chords; as a result, he gave up singing for a while. In 1997, Julie Andrews's voice was seriously damaged after she underwent surgery for polyps that developed on her vocal chords while she was performing in Victor/Victoria on Broadway. And Nathan Lane frequently missed performances of the Broadway production of The Producers owing to a polyp on his left vocal chord.

Without a doubt, the care of the voice is as essential to the business of being a professional actor or singer as remembering one's lines. But hectic schedules, smoky bars, flu season and countless other challenges constantly conspire to derail attempts to sing in public with confidence, comfort and ease. Here, a wide range of singing experts—voice therapists Joan Lader, Joanna Cazden and John Haskell; voice trainers Judith Farris, Kate DeVore, Joan Melton, Janet Rodgers and Scott Kaiser; performers Susan Graham and Kristin Chenoweth, as well as choral director Ian Robertson—impart their top tips for maintaining a healthy and successful singing career.

1. Technique is King

Maintaining great technique is without question the basis for a healthy voice. Good technique prevents injury and enables performers to sing at the top of their game every time. "With proper training, the singer/actor learns to release excess tensions in the body and throat muscles," says Rodgers. "This means that the vocal mechanism is sitting in a muscular environment that will allow it to function at its best. Proper vocal technique means that the singer/actor has learned to use 'diaphragmatic breath support' in singing. This moves the effort of support to the abdominal muscles and away from the muscles that are closest to the throat. Proper vocal technique means that the singer/actor has trained the vocal folds to respond to pitch changes and that the singer/actor can maximize the gifts that nature has provided."

"Improper technique can lead to vocal injuries, which can be annoying and limiting at best and career-ending at worst," says DeVore. "Most common vocal injuries (nodules, polyps, bruising, swelling) are caused at least in part by the vocal cords slamming together too hard when we speak, sing, shout, scream, wail, keen, sob and so forth. There are ways to do all of those things healthily, which ensures that a performer will have a flexible voice to last through his or her career."

Like many experts, Farris believes that proper technique begins with the breath. "The only physical part of singing should be breathing," she says. "That should be naturally obtained and constantly maintained. It is much like a violinist practicing bowing. I know a good violinist is always attentive to balancing the bow on the strings. In singing, if one's breath is balanced, it is nearly impossible to have any kind of strain on the vocal apparatus, and the easiest and most beautiful sound is achieved. Thus obtaining a correct vocal technique is the key to the prevention of vocal problems. The vocal cords themselves are muscles. Athletes and dancers know that any muscle that is used correctly gets stronger with use, not weaker or injured."

However, good technique cannot be gained through a "one-size-fits-all" approach, says
Cazden, who explains that "many vocal techniques work but for a different reason than the teacher proclaims. The field of voice is still emerging from centuries of speculation, guesswork and secretive folklore. A singer needs to trust his or her own experience, use what works and not get distracted by flowery explanations."

Adds Melton: "Each performer is unique, so the to-do list that answers all the issues does not exist. However, to quote Mary Hammond, head of musical theatre at the Royal Academy of Music in London, 'Technique frees the imagination.' The better, more solid and more unconscious the technique, the freer the performer is to grow, explore and mature."

2. It's All about Prevention

Prescription medications might get a singer under duress through a performance, but they are not the way to solve vocal issues in the long-term. "Many singers resort to doctors who fill them with cortisone shots to get through a performance or audition," says Farris. "But if the cause of the problem is not corrected, the issues continue and these so-called 'remedies' can cause additional problems of their own. At that point, the singer should have vocal rest and then seek out a good teacher to help correct the issue. Prevention, however, is key."

Cazden concurs: "The absolute biggest problem that singers have is not visiting a doctor soon enough. Financial pressures and a mistrust of mainstream medicine lead people to 'muscle through' or 'get by' for months longer than they should. This adds layers of bad technique onto the original injury, and delays recovery. Unless you have terrific insurance, set up a medical savings account and stash whatever you can every month so that when you need a voice doctor you can afford a good one. Plan ahead, and before you need help, locate a laryngologist with videostrobe exam equipment and experience working with singers. Exams without videostrobe are only accurate about one-third of the time. You might need to travel to get to a good clinic, but in the long run, the right diagnosis will save you time, money and anguish."

Warning signs can help performers identify and take care of potential problems early: "Missing warning signs of a vocal injury can be a problem," says DeVore. "Common warning signs include hoarseness in the absence of an illness (or hoarseness that hangs around after cold symptoms have cleared up); decrease in speaking or singing range; change in voice quality (breathiness, gruffness, a veiled sound); increased physical effort to speak or sing; physical discomfort or pain when voicing; something just not feeling right with the voice."

3. Calisthenics Count

Warming up the voice is absolutely essential to a singer's ability to prevent injuries. Just like going for a run without first stretching, the voice can easily strain if pushed too hard and without first being primed. "Develop a warm-up routine that slowly 'wakes' the voice and brings it into alignment with breath control and natural support," says Robertson.

4. Happy Talk

"A common mistake performers make is forgetting to have good technique not only when singing but when speaking," says Chenoweth. "That is a tough one for me, because the speaking voice I am most comfortable in isn't the best for my voice in general."

Haskell adds: "Most singers are talkers by nature. Their biggest mistake is talking too much before and after a performance. Talking in noisy environments can be a particular problem when a singer is on the road as producers often expect artists to meet patrons to talk about their work after they've performed. This is often part of a performer's contract, so it's hard to hold back."

5. Enlist the A-Team

Singers need to find the right teachers throughout their careers. Chenoweth, for instance, still takes voice lessons with teachers in New York as well as with Florence Birdwell, the performer's mentor and professor at Oklahoma City University, where she went to school. Haskell says that vocalists should "follow their instincts about what feels right and what doesn't with regards to voice training. Some voice teachers push students too much to point of discomfort or even pain. The muscles and coordination of the vocal mechanism can be achieved in a gradual way." According to Lader, the best teachers have a good grasp of how the body works from a mechanical standpoint: "A singer needs to find a teacher who is knowledgeable in anatomy and physiology, who has good eyes and ears and can direct the student in a healthy manner to achieve whatever it is the student has set out to accomplish."

Cazden adds: "Singers often make the mistake of staying too long with a teacher who is not taking their voice in a good direction. If the process or relationship doesn't feel right, you shouldn't feel obligated to continue with that person. Take sample lessons with a few other teachers for perspective. If you think something is medically wrong with your voice, but your teacher claims to be able to fix it, get a second opinion."

Singers, however, often need more than one expert to help guide their careers. Haskell believes that performers should surround themselves with a group of trusted professionals across a range of disciplines in order to develop performance skills, prevent injury and troubleshoot problems as they arise. "In addition to the voice teacher who concentrates on helping a performer to develop great technique," Haskell says, "a singer might also benefit from the services of a vocal coach, an acting coach, a voice therapist, a physical therapist, as well as an ear, nose and throat physician. There has to be communication between the different parties so that everyone is on the same page regarding the singer's issues and progress."

6. The Power of Cross-training

Performers, who are often asked to sing in many different styles, frequently have to be as adept at singing numbers from the musical theatre repertoire as they are at performing opera arias, folk songs and jazz standards. Training to sing healthfully across multiple styles is even important to singers who specialize in just one genre.

"Cross-training across all styles is the key to being able to perform them in artistically coherent and safe way," says Lader. "If you sing opera you should also practice singing pop songs. This is important, because it prevents injury and strengthens, balances and coordinates the many parts of the laryngeal musculature. Plus, singing in a different style from what one is accustomed to can help to raise a red flag if there is something wrong with the vocal chords that needs special attention."

7. Salvation through Hydration

Drinking water is crucial to maintaining a healthy voice, because it prevents the delicate vocal chords from drying out. "Drinking about two liters of water a day is helpful for most people, but they need to compensate with extra water for things that dry them out (like caffeine, alcohol, smoke and certain medications)," says DeVore.

Proper hydration also means finding creative ways to counterbalance arid environments (caused by air-conditioning and hot climates) that can dry out the vocal chords. Steam inhalation, for example, moistens the vocal cords and thins out mucus. Graham proposes additional techniques for performers who travel regularly: "When I'm flying, I put a damp cloth on my face, because airplane air is so dry. I also keep a humidifier in my room."

Kaiser adds: "Drinking water to keep the folds of the vocal chords lubricated is important, but there are other things that performers should reduce such as the consumption of dairy products and cold and allergy medications, because they coat the vocal chords and dry out the voice."

8. Food Glorious Food

Acid reflux and other problems of the digestive system can cause serious issues for singers. "The acid that comes up through the stomach can literally eat away at the delicate tissue at the back of the larynx and affect the posterior part of the vocal chords," says Haskell. "If a singer gets a reflux diagnosis from an ear, nose and throat specialist, he or she has to start observing a reflux regimen. This may mean eliminating caffeine, carbonated drinks, citrus fruits, spicy foods and chocolate. Also, the evening meal should not be eaten too late or too close to bedtime, which can present a problem for performers who don't want to eat much before they go on stage."

9. Rest Up

The voice is a fragile instrument. Singers should be in touch with how they're feeling on any given day enough to know when to pull back or even take some time off. "If you're tired, ill or hungover, sing less," says Cazden. "If you feel great, don't be stupid and sing so much that you wreck your instrument."

Rodgers believes that rest is important even while an actor or singer is working. "During rehearsal breaks, avoid chitchat," she says. "Really rest the voice for those 10-minute breaks."

DeVore says that performing full-throttle with an illness rather than resting is one of the worst things a performer can do for his or her voice: "Succumbing to pressure (either internal or external) to 'push through' an illness is, unfortunately, a common mistake performers make. 'The show must go on' is so ingrained in a performer's psyche—and this belief is reinforced by the entire production team—that they forget that 'the show' doesn't have to include performing at every rehearsal at full tilt. Pushing through an illness is a textbook cause of vocal injuries, and many problems can be avoided if people take the time to rest and heal."

Getting good amounts of sleep is absolutely crucial to vocal health. "The most important thing for me—which I struggle with—is getting enough sleep: I need at least eight hours, but nine is best," says Chenoweth. "My friends and family understand that sometimes I can only converse via e-mail or watch a movie with them, because the voice is a muscle that must be rested!"

10. One for the Road?

The pressures of a life on the stage can lead to some unhealthy choices for performers. "The most common mistake you see in actors, particularly young ones, is that they don't know how to pace themselves," says Kaiser. "They'll rehearse till midnight, drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes and expect voices to respond. It doesn't take much to strain a voice—even talking over loud music in a dance club can cause damage."

That's why many performers avoid drinking, smoking and noisy environments. "I don't drink very much alcohol when singing, because it dries out the voice," confesses Chenoweth. "I do not smoke or use drugs. I sort of live like a nun."
Journalist and singer Chloe Veltman is the Bay Area culture correspondent for the New York Times and the host/producer of "VoiceBox", a new public radio series about the art of singing.

Biographies of the Experts:

John Haskell has maintained a private practice in speech-language pathology in New York City for more than 25 years. He has held faculty positions at Pace University, Rutgers University and William Paterson College of New Jersey and is co-founder and co-director of the New York City Voice Study Group.

Kate DeVore is a theatre voice, speech and dialect trainer, speech pathologist and personal development coach based in Chicago. She is the co-author of The Voice Book: Caring for, Protecting and Improving Your Voice with Starr Cookman.

Scott Kaiser is director of company devel-opment and head of voice and text at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where he has spent 20 years as an actor, director and voice coach.

Judith Farris is a soloist, contralto and voice trainer who maintains a studio in New York. She is presently artist-in-residence in the theatre and music departments at Southeast Missouri State University.

Janet Rodgers, the editor of The Complete Voice and Speech Workout, is a past president of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association and an associate professor of theatre at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Joan Lader is a voice teacher and therapist. Her patients and students include some of the world's leading performers, such as Patti LuPone, Madonna and Roberta Flack.

Joanna Cazden, the author of How to Take Care of Your Voice, is a speech pathologist, singer, voice coach and teacher.

Joan Melton is a voice teacher based in New York City. She is the author of Singing in Musical Theatre: The Training of Singers and Actors andfounded the voice/movement program for the Department of Theatre and Dance at California State University—Fullerton.

Susan Graham is a Grammy Award—winning mezzo-soprano who performs leading roles in some of the world's greatest opera houses, including the Metropolitan opera, the Royal Opera House and La Scala.

Kristin Chenoweth is a Tony and Emmy Award—winning singer and musical theatre, film and television actress. Some of her best-known Broadway roles include Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Glinda in Wicked.

Ian Robertson is the chorus director of San Francisco Opera and the artistic director of the San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Festival Chorale.

Guerrillas of Agitprop Fight to Stay RelevantNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:29:00 +0000

As part of its 50th-anniversary celebrations, the San Francisco Mime Troupe recently led its first “Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Consumption” street-theater workshop. That afternoon-long event culminated in a performance outside the flagship Old Navy store on Market Street in downtown San Francisco.

Pretending to be sales assistants and shoppers, troupe members led the workshop participants underneath a gaudy “Time to Shop” sign and then mechanically exchanged fake dollars for bits of cardboard with the word “stuff” scrawled on them. At the end of the sketch, counterfeit coins flew, as the performers engaged in a frenzied stampede for last-minute bargains.

Ed Holmes, the workshop leader and a longtime company member, said the three-minute “live political cartoon” attracted around 15 passers-by with an additional 5 to 10 stopping when the fake money started flying. “A few people got the point,” he said.

With television, blogs and social networking Web sites able to disseminate political messages far more widely than live theater, you have to question the relevance of the Mime Troupe’s polemical approach today. For the first three decades of its existence, this political theater group openly questioned United States policy and helped root out political hypocrisy.

But times have changed, and the company’s brand of broad political satire steeped in zany commedia dell’arte traditions feels outmoded. Theater can still be taken seriously as a medium for political discourse, but the Mime Troupe — with its limited reach, old-fashioned aesthetics and small budget — struggles to make a political and theatrical impact these days.

The dancer, director and mime artist R. G. Davis founded the San Francisco Mime Troupe in 1959 as a vehicle for radical political commentary and theatrical experimentation. Despite the word “mime” in its name, the group was far from silent. For a while its brand of guerilla theater, performed free in public spaces throughout its Bay Area home and as far away as Berlin, earned the company a reputation as a grass-roots political power. Troupe members were arrested on obscenity charges on more than one occasion in the early 1960s. The group was also one of the first American theater companies to perform in revolutionary Cuba and Sandinista Nicaragua.

In 1967 the troupe caused an uproar when it traveled around universities in the Midwest presenting “L’Amant Militaire,” a Vietnam War satire adapted from an 18th-century Carlo Goldoni play, at the same time recruiters from a napalm manufacturer were visiting those campuses. Closer to home, the early troupe helped derail a proposal to use public funds to tear down a building that housed grass-roots community organizations for the construction of a parking lot for Davies Symphony Hall.

In recent years, however, the Mime Troupe’s efforts have had considerably less impact. It still performs free shows in parks around the Bay Area and other parts of the state, and its longstanding appearances in Dolores Park on the Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends continue to attract hundreds. But many people seem to attend the productions these days to have their liberal political views confirmed or simply to enjoy a picnic and show in the sun.

Every now and then the company creates a production that engages the intelligence. In 2006 “Godfellas,” a show about the ills of spiritual dogma, married a wisecracking text with pithy musical numbers to examine not just religion but also blind faith in all its guises. More often than not, however, Mime Troupe productions end up subverting artistry in favor of left-wing dogma.

This year’s “Too Big to Fail,” about the implosion of the credit system, bashed audiences over the head with simplistic moral fables and told a tale of a greedy lion named Citibank. And the boringly liberal “Doing Good” (2005) was less effective as an agitprop pamphlet against American intervention in the third world. Meanwhile, a decade has passed since the troupe performed its last guerilla theater act: a version of “Ubu Roi” outside the Federal Building to protest cuts in arts financing.

It’s telling that the Mime Troupe is celebrating its golden anniversary with documentary screenings and exhibitions that focus on its early heyday; the company’s more recent history just isn’t all that enthralling.

Yet political theater is alive and well in the Bay Area, as proved by engaging productions like “This World in a Woman’s Hands,” Marcus Gardley’s drama for the Shotgun Players of Berkeley, about female workers in the Richmond, Calif., shipyards in World War II. And the Mime Troupe, with its intimacy, ability to respond quickly to current events and stealthy approach to infiltrating public spaces, can demonstrate that live performance is still, in some ways, an ideal medium for political commentary. Getting the message across, however, requires a level of subtlety and imagination that lies beyond the reach of many theater artists.

To survive, the Mime Troupe may need to find a new theatrical vocabulary for expressing its political viewpoints and work harder to question lazy liberal mores. The members may also have to take greater risks again. A three-minute sketch outside Old Navy might make an impression on just a few onlookers. But taking their antics inside the store would most likely get greater attention.

When Businesses Move Out, Art Moves InNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:07:00 +0000

No one likes empty storefronts; they make streets look like gap-toothed smiles. Now that San Francisco’s business districts are feeling the economic pinch, city officials, like dentists, have been scouting for ways to fix the cavities. Whether business picks up next year remains to be seen, but in the meantime, civic leaders and neighborhood associations have turned to artists for a temporary solution.

The Art in Storefronts initiative, introduced in the fall in San Francisco, is probably the most comprehensive project of its kind in the city. The program, which has received applications from nearly 200 local artists to date, has filled 20 empty commercial storefronts in four areas — the Tenderloin, Bayview, Central Market and the Mission — with temporary art installations. Plans are afoot to expand the project to additional neighborhoods like Chinatown.

According to Kate Patterson, public-art project manager for the San Francisco Arts Commission, the proposals are chosen for aesthetic appeal, innovation, neighborhood context and diversity of subject matter, content and media. Each selected artist receives a $500 stipend.

A city’s artists are often the first to be shut out in hard times, and these recent projects are certainly thought-provoking. On the one hand, the artwork in windows formerly occupied by electronic gadgetry and mannequins dressed in designer denim seem to make time stand still: They encourage passers-by to take a break from the holiday shopping frenzy to linger over something unusual and, in some cases, beautiful.

On the other hand, the transience of these projects — and the “placeholder” mentality behind them — points to the perpetually fraught relationship between commerce and art.

Alexis Amann and Jonathan Burstein’s “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” at 986 Market Street, is a wonderful example of storefront art. This duo’s luminous, marine-hued installation depicting an underwater landscape — complete with sharks, seaweed and a newspaper-reading deep-sea diver — playfully stands out against the strip clubs, boarded-up facades and 24-hour doughnut shops of Central Market.

The cardboard-cutout montage has a children’s comic-book feel. But on closer inspection, the piece has a satirical, dystopian edge more akin to the work of Art Spiegelman or the local graphic novelist Jon Adams than to Richard Scarry. The diver’s newspaper carries the headline “Homeowners Underwater! Tsunami of Foreclosures”; miniature human heads bob forlornly atop seaweed strands; and a menacing shark has the word “loans” painted on its side.

Although delivered with humor, the message is clear: the Central Market neighborhood is underwater, and locals must fight to stay afloat.

Chris Treggiari and Billy Mitchell’s installation at 144 Taylor Street in the Tenderloin has a similarly powerful neighborhood connection and strong visual appeal. Unlike the other projects around town, their work, “Fight for Your Neighborhood,” stands in front of a derelict restaurant — a shuttered facade that once belonged to the San Francisco institution Original Joe’s — rather than behind the safety of glass.

This colorful, street-level artwork, with its painted prizefighter and wooden boxing ring surrounded by posters of local residents with their fists raised, pays homage to the neighborhood’s boxing history. It also physically mimics the challenges facing the area as it fights for survival in a depressed economy.

Mr. Treggiari said his artwork had been vandalized a few times. (When I recently visited, a piece of wood had been torn off and thrown into the boxing ring.) But residents have reportedly rallied around the installation.

“The neighborhood has truly taken ownership over the project,” Mr. Treggiari said. “I’ve recently received reports from friends who have seen paintings left by my piece. I hope it continues to inspire creativity within the community, because this is really what it’s all about.”

Just as this artwork mutates over time, the other San Francisco installations (as well as similar storefront projects in cities as diverse as New York, London and Cape Girardeau, Mo.) face change — and ultimately eviction.

According to Daniel Hurtado, executive director of the Central Market Community Benefit District, planned retail projects in the area will soon force out two artworks. And in the Tenderloin, Elvin Padilla, executive director of the Tenderloin Economic Development Project, expects the Original Joe’s site to be developed in 2010.

The Art in Storefronts project is undeniably laudable from a social and cultural standpoint. Both residents and artists are benefiting. Christopher Simmons, one of the creators of the work “Everything Is O.K.,” at 998 Market Street, said that he had had an increase in visitors to his Facebook page since the unveiling of his installation, and that he was in talks with galleries about future commissions.

It’s great that San Francisco is taking an art-forward stance during the recession. Care, however, should be taken to preserve these artworks and prevent commerce from dictating all the rules. Let’s hope that the city continues to support local artists when its “storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light” — as Allen Ginsberg irreverently depicts the urban metropolis in “Howl” — once again ring with the sound of jangling cash registers.

Seeking High Notes in Bay Area Concert HallsNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:55:00 +0000

What would the holiday season be without classical music concerts? Bay Area residents who normally wouldn’t set foot in a concert hall find themselves irresistibly drawn at this time of year to places like Grace Cathedral and Davies Symphony Hall to get their seasonal music fixes.

Those concertgoers’ ticket-buying decisions are often influenced by recognition of the artists involved. Handel and Bach are big sellers at Christmas around the globe, as are the American Bach Soloists and Chanticleer closer to home. For Chanticleer, the all-male chorale, revenue from Christmas concerts represents a quarter of its performance income. The group’s scheduled appearance at Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland on Saturday was a sellout.

Far fewer people, however, make decisions based on the concerts’ locations. This is a shame. But in contrast to major cities like Los Angeles, New York and London, San Francisco (and the Bay Area in general) lacks a plentiful supply of first-rate spaces for experiencing live classical music.

Because these sites enhance their interiors with festive decorations, and people are generally in a holiday mood, it’s perhaps easier to tolerate poor acoustics, insufficient restrooms, nonexistent temperature control and a lack of nearby restaurants and bars. But if Christmas audiences, high in number, had a more all-encompassing experience with the music, perhaps they would come back in July.

These auditoriums certainly have positive aspects. Some are visually stunning. The Paramount Theater in Oakland, where the Oakland East Bay Symphony is leading a holiday concert on Sunday, is a gorgeous Art Deco building. Sweeping, gilded staircases; bold frescoes; and plush carpets make for a fairy-tale concertgoing experience.

A number of spaces, like the Herbst Theater, the site of the signing of the Charter of the United Nations on June 26, 1945, have a fascinating history. Others still, like Davies Symphony Hall, offer amenities like comfortable seats, a well-stocked bar and ample restrooms.

The Cathedral of Christ the Light is earning raves among musicians for its acoustics.

“The acoustics are for me the best in the Bay Area for Renaissance and Baroque choral and orchestral music,” said Vance George, director emeritus of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. “I heard ‘The Art of the Fugue’ played by a brass ensemble in the cathedral. I was amazed at the clarity of the musical lines. Each line had integrity but with added warmth and depth.”

But no single setting satisfies all of a concertgoer’s needs. The de Young Museum’s Koret Auditorium provides comfort and great acoustics, but its remote location in Golden Gate Park makes it difficult to reach. Davies Symphony Hall (whose Christmas events include Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” and an appearance by the San Francisco Girls’ Chorus) is a great space to hear large orchestral works. But that 2,743-seat auditorium overwhelms smaller ensembles.

Sound quality is perhaps the biggest challenge facing Bay Area concert halls. For Renaissance and Baroque music, the Cathedral of Christ the Light might deliver fantastic results. But when I heard gospel music there, the sound was far from crisp. The lyrics were barely distinguishable above the rhythm section’s blaring reverberations.

Meanwhile, places like the Herbst, Old First Presbyterian Church (where the ensemble Golden Bough is performing a Celtic holiday concert) and Grace Cathedral (whose offerings include concerts by its resident Choir of Men and Boys) seem to have spotty acoustics.

Sitting front and center at a recent Trinity Choir of Cambridge concert at Grace Cathedral was, sonically speaking, a heavenly experience. Yet I had trouble distinguishing individual lines during a performance last summer of Handel’s “Music for the Royal Fireworks” by the American Bach Soloists. Maybe the lack of auditory crispness had something to do with where I sat, toward the back and slightly to one side of the church. I find I obtain more clarity from the balcony than in the orchestra seats at the Herbst and Old First Presbyterian Church.

Of all the classical concert locales in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s 450-seat Concert Hall (where the Sanford Dole Ensemble will perform “Messyah,” a contemporary take on Handel’s famous oratorio) comes close to being ideal. The vibrant acoustics suit both large and small ensembles. With its symphony-size performance platform, tall windows and elegant Beaux-Arts décor, the auditorium feels intimate yet expansive. It helps that its location in the Hayes Valley puts it close to public transportation and great restaurants and bars.

Yet it doesn’t say much for San Francisco that its most enticing classical-music setting is part of a school. A great city needs great spaces for all art forms, including classical music. Maybe when the holiday concertgoing hordes start raising their voices and stop buying tickets, producers, building managers and civic leaders will take note.

A Vanished San Francisco, Black, White and ColorfulNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:19:00 +0000

In 1952, when the budding photographer Gerald Ratto was a 19-year-old student at the California School of Fine Arts, he spent much of his time in the Fillmore district of San Francisco. Wandering around the neighborhood with his Rolleiflex camera and a bottle of brandy, he shared drinks and conversation with the residents and snapped pictures of the local kids as they played in the street.

Nearly six decades have passed since he photographed those children. Mr. Ratto, now 76, went on to lead a successful career as an architectural photographer. And the neighborhood, a bustling hub of black culture in the late 1940s and early 1950s, underwent an ill-conceived redevelopment in the 1960s and then significant growth in recent years.

When viewed against the backdrop of that tremendous transformation, Mr. Ratto’s images poignantly recall a vanished landscape. Although the pictures demonstrate an artist’s promise, his photographs do not quite satisfy as either works of art or social documents.

On display in downtown San Francisco at the Robert Tat Gallery, a space specializing in vintage photography, the compact show “Children of the Fillmore, 1952” consists of 52 silver gelatin prints, 18 of which are on display. (The other 34 pictures can be viewed upon request.)

The quality most evident in Mr. Ratto’s photographs is their innocence. Images like one depicting three small girls cuddling and smiling at the camera in what looks like their Sunday best (No. 5 in the series) and another of a boy with a cardboard box on his head and a clownish, gap-toothed grin (No. 14) convey a sense of pure-spirited delight. Meanwhile, there’s an arresting candor and warmth to the photograph of a boy sitting on a staircase with his elbows propped up behind him (No. 20). His posture and face display unfettered openness.

Most of the pictures are posed. They are also uncompromisingly shot head-on and close to their subjects. Yet they refreshingly lack affectation. Clearly, taking the time to get to know the people he photographed paid off for Mr. Ratto. Using the kind of camera that could be operated down by his waist rather than in front of his face, thus allowing him to maintain eye contact with his subjects, doubtless also helped him to earn the trust of the local youngsters.

But pictures depicting the freshness of childhood, though they look great on kitchen calendars, can veer into cutesy cliché. There’s something static and lifeless about Mr. Ratto’s portraits that undercuts their artistic strength. The images of great chroniclers of urban life, like Helen Levitt and Henri Cartier-Bresson, avoid this problem. Levitt’s famous picture of two children, one white and one black, dancing in the middle of a New York street, and Cartier-Bresson’s image of a boy rounding a corner cradling two enormous glass bottles, possess a kinetic energy and distinct personality that ultimately tell the viewer much more about the lives — and environments — of their subjects than Mr. Ratto’s photographs.

The grown-up worldliness that tinges Ms. Levitt’s pictures of children sharply undercuts their sweetness. “In each child, from very early, the germ of the death of childhood is at work,” the author James Agee says of Ms. Levitt’s photographs in his preface to her 1965 book, “A Way of Seeing.” It is this germ that makes Ms. Levitt’s photographs so powerful from a social as well as an artistic perspective. Lacking this quality, Mr. Ratto’s pictures don’t carry the same weight.

If they don’t function completely satisfactorily as works of art, the “Children of the Fillmore” images similarly lack strength as social documents of a neighborhood’s lost heritage. To the extent that the figures depicted in Mr. Ratto’s photographs appear frozen in time, the series draws attention to the vast gap between the neighborhood’s glory days and now. But with their atmosphere of utopian innocence and no hint of foreboding for the neighborhood’s future fall, the images seem naïve when viewed with contemporary eyes.

Gentrification has changed the face of the neighborhood once again. Although the area has revived, thanks to the appearance of institutions like the jazz club Yoshi’s and the spruced-up Sundance Kabuki cinemas, the black population has dwindled, owing to steep rises in the cost of goods and housing.

The district has been trying hard to reconnect with its past in recent years, with the Fillmore Heritage Center at the forefront of the campaign. The center presents historically oriented art shows, like the current exhibition of photographs of musicians shot by Dan Dion at the famed Fillmore Auditorium and a recent show of Mr. Ratto’s work.

These exhibitions might pique the curiosity of a tourist, rock music fan or local historian. But nostalgia for a bygone era ultimately isn’t very helpful to a neighborhood like the Fillmore, which, like most communities, can never hope to recapture its past in any concrete sense.

“Children of the Fillmore, 1952” continues through Jan. 30 at the Robert Tat Gallery, 49 Geary Street, No. 211; (415) 781-1122, roberttat.com

Culture Clash of the TitansANGELENO MAGAZINE

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:47:00 +0000

The rapid expansion of LACMA and the fall and rise of MOCA provide a drama-filled backdrop for the increasingly knotty relationship between hotshot director Michael Govan and uber-philanthropist Eli Broad.

The L.A. art world, it seems, is beginning to resemble one of Damien Hirst’s head-reeling spin paintings: The Broad Contemporary Art Museum debuts at LACMA. A financially hollow MOCA comes back from the brink. LACMA director Michael Govan ascends to stardom (with a few hiccups along the way). Art star-in-the-making Mark Bradford scoops the MacArthur genius grant. Wallis Annenberg launches Century City’s Space for Photography. Board members play musical chairs. And everyone, as always, is wondering what Eli Broad—a life trustee of both LACMA and MOCA—will do next. The guessing game du jour is predicting just where in L.A. Broad will build his own art museum (à la Armand Hammer) for spotlighting his blue-chip collection of Neshats, Warhols and Koonses.

Perhaps never before has L.A.’s art world enjoyed so much incredible growth as well as international attention. Just last month, the jet-setting Art Basel crowd descended on downtown for a star-studded gala thrown by MOCA for its 30th anniversary. The evening, which raised more than $4 million, was capped by the auction of a Damien Hirst-customized pink piano, on which Lady Gaga had just performed, for $450,000.

Yet as much as L.A.’s rise has provided a canvas for creativity, it has also unleashed a parallel amount of ambition. Power plays have been as much in the public eye as pointillism, pop art and steam punk.

At the center of it all is the complicated relationship between Broad and Govan. “There are two art titans in L.A. right now: Michael Govan and Eli Broad,” says ACE Gallery director Douglas Chrismas. “They are like our version of Nicholas Serota [the director of London’s Tate museum] and Charles Saatchi.”

Broad, 76, the co-founder of KB Home, is used to being L.A.’s unquestioned art oligarch. With an estimated net worth of around $5.2 billion, Broad—a voracious art collector whose air of Midwestern practicality is paired with a reputation for getting what he wants—has done more than any other individual to grow L.A.’s cultural scene, from serving as MOCA’s founding chairman to being instrumental in the construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Together with his wife Edythe, he has donated $60 million and numerous artworks to LACMA as well as raised $40 million for the museum to date. And, with his pledge last December of $30 million to MOCA, he has brought the museum back to fiscal health and even luster.

But Broad—who Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight has described as someone who “exchanges project involvement for near total control”—may have met his match in Michael Govan, age 46, the man whom the philanthropist for all intents and purposes hired to run LACMA in 2006. “We needed someone with energy and charisma who could bring younger people to the board,” Broad tells Angeleno of his decision to recruit Govan. “Michael had all of those attributes.” A passionate go-getter who offsets a driving sense of purpose with debonair looks and an affable chuckle, Govan has more than lived up to his reputation since arriving in L.A., both in terms of undertaking large-scale projects and building LACMA’s board. The former director of New York’s Dia Art Foundation (known for its innovative focus on contemporary art), Govan is intent on making the encyclopedic LACMA a major player in the contemporary field as well; he just hired the high-powered modern art curator Franklin Sirmans away from Texas’ respected Menill Collection.

Nowhere has the muscle of Broad and Govan been more on display than in the back and forth over LACMA’s newest buildings, both designed by architect Renzo Piano: the 72,000-square-foot Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM), opened in 2008, and the forthcoming Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion, situated directly behind BCAM. Broad donated a prodigious $50 million to build BCAM and personally lobbied Piano to design it. The building is nothing if not a statement of Broad’s power—after all, it takes a particular kind of audacity to name an exhibition hall that exists within the campus of a larger art institution a “museum.”

Famously, however, in January 2008, just before the building’s debut, Broad announced that, despite expectations, he wouldn’t be giving the bulk of his collection to LACMA after all and would offer up a majority of the works as a sort of international lending library. While Govan spun the news as a positive act, enabling the works to remain in the public domain, there was almost as much ink spilled over Broad’s latest maneuver as there was over the opening of BCAM itself.

Much of the drama has played out behind the scenes, however, such as over the completion of the Resnick Pavilion, due to open in fall 2010. According to a LACMA board member who wishes to remain anonymous, Broad was making arguments to the board that constructing the pavilion would strain the museum’s finances.

The prospect of a delay couldn’t have made Govan happy. Getting the Resnick up and running quickly was crucial to the director’s plans. The exhibiton hall promises to give him a 45,000-square-foot exhibition hall, open to easy reconfiguration, that can accommodate the sort of momentous contemporary art shows that generate serious buzz.

On top of that, the LACMA board member who spoke to Angeleno believes that Broad was also motivated by a more personal concern: that constructing the new building would steal some of the spotlight from the philanthropist’s own edifice.

Broad’s chief communications officer, Karen Denne, disputes that account and insists that Broad’s concern about the Resnick building being completed was only about timing. “Mr. Broad is fiscally prudent, and he was concerned that it was not the right time to move forward with a new building, given the amount of debt LACMA had and the state of the economy,” says Denne. Either way, the board wasn’t swayed.

Denne, underlining Broad’s commitment to the museum, adds that, “Mr. Broad was the largest donor and fundraiser in the history of LACMA.” But Lynda and Stewart Resnick—the mega-moguls behind such brands as FIJI Water and POM Wonderful—might just well break that record. Before BCAM opened, the couple had pledged $25 million to open a new visitors’ center on the campus. Ultimately, Broad solicited and persuaded British Petroleum to fund the visitors’ area.

To make the exhibition hall possible, the Resnicks raised their ante. At a splashy September 2008 press conference, Govan announced that the Resnicks had stepped up with a $45 million gift to erect the Resnick behind the Broad. Before 2010 is out, Govan will have a space on par with MOCA’s Geffen facility, where the museum has mounted such swarmed shows as Ecstasy and Murakami. Says Chrismas: “Michael needed a place you could drive a tractor through.”

Who gets the credit for pulling in the Resnicks’ largesse is a matter of dispute. “In fact, Mr. Broad solicited the Resnicks for their gift,” says Denne. But Resnick spokesman Rob Six as well as a LACMA spokeswoman insist that isn’t the case.

At the Resnick, Govan won’t have any restrictions when it comes to programming shows, which hasn’t been true at BCAM. Indeed, the Govan and Broad are, to this day, at odds over whether LACMA is honoring its contractual obligations over the display of art there. “When we opened BCAM, Michael met his obligations by contract,” says Broad. “Since then, we’ve been saddened that he hasn’t lived up to these obligations. The reason we funded BCAM was to show contemporary art, and have two-thirds of the building to show our collection. LACMA could do what they wished with the remaining third. That hasn’t been the case recently.”

But LACMA spokeswoman Alliston Agsten denies this claim: “There is no language whatsoever in the contract that refers to any amount of square footage, not to mention two-thirds of the space, that is to be devoted to the presentation of the Broad collection.”

For a time, LACMA’s director and Broad seemed to be in harmony. Govan inherited a $156 million museum redesign plan (which included BCAM) from his predecessor Andrea Rich and presided over its opening, a major symbol of Broad and Govan’s achievements as partners. According to KCRW art critic Edward Goldman, who spoke to Angeleno in 2008, Govan’s aesthetic sensibility made a big impression on Broad. “I think they collaborate very well, and I also think that it is because of Michael that the entire project has become more sophisticated.”

With all these ups and downs, it’s no wonder one of the L.A. art world’s favorite obsessions of late has been trying to decipher the dynamics of the Broad-Govan relationship. “A lot of controversy centers around whether Michael is happy with Eli and Eli is happy with Michael,” says collector Stefan Simchowitz, the stepson of former MOCA board member Jennifer Simchowitz.

Few would dispute that a genuine desire to improve L.A.’s cultural offerings and a belief in the power of art are the biggest motives behind the actions of the city’s two art barons. And Los Angeles’ museums often work together as much as they vie for visitors and resources. In 2011, for example, LACMA, MOCA and 23 other area arts institutions will join in mounting a citywide arts initiative, Pacific Standard Time, funded in large part by the Getty Foundation, which will take a sweeping look at the history of art in California since WWII. “The fact that our museums have great directors and are doing important exhibitions is what’s attracting the world’s attention,” says Elsa Longhauser, director of the Santa Monica Museum. “The brouhaha is not what brings people here.”

But underneath these laudable intentions may lie a craving for control. Being a potent force in the art world is first and foremost about influencing the caliber of the art that goes before the public. L.A. is still a young city and its museum landscape is still crystallizing. So the opportunities to impact the art world’s development here are enormous.

Across town, at around the same time LACMA was moving ahead with its grand building plans, MOCA was going through its own tumult. Over the three decades of its existence, the museum has built one of the foremost troves of postwar modern art in the world. Its special exhibitions, such as Wack! and A Minimal Future, have garnered the institution resounding critical acclaim.

But its finances had become increasingly dire, a situation that exploded in the press in December 2008. Unlike LACMA, which currently receives 38 percent of its operating funds from L.A. county, MOCA depends much more heavily on private donations and ticket sales with an average of 80 to 90 percent of its income coming from those sources. And, over the course of a decade, MOCA’s expenses had so far outgrown its income that the museum was forced to dip into its endowment. In 1999, MOCA had $38 million in invested assets and an $11 million budget. By 2008, those investments had dipped to $5 million, and the operating budget had swelled to $22 million. As the financial debacle came to light, nine trustees exited the board over a period of six months. Director Jeremy Strick resigned after nine years at the helm. The money troubles had been brewing for years. Two years earlier, Susan Bay Nimoy, the wife of Leonard Nimoy, and former UPN network CEO Dean Valentine had both left MOCA—decamping to the Hammer Museum—owing to concerns about the museum’s financial recklessness.

MOCA needed a savior. Not surprisingly perhaps, two men stepped forward with visions for the museum’s future. Govan proposed a merger with LACMA. “The civic responsibility was to offer options,” says Govan. “We talked about partnerships. I said, ‘We don’t want to be perceived as taking you over. But we can argue for the potential benefits of working together and presenting innovative ideas.’ We are proud that we were able to offer exciting options in a difficult climate. ‘Museum failing in L.A.’ is not a good headline. It was all in our interests that MOCA had alternatives to succeed.”

Broad came up with an alternate plan. He told MOCA’s trustees that he would pledge $30 million to replenish the museum’s sagging endowment and support exhibitions, thus keeping MOCA independent if they could come up with $15 million in matching funds. “I said, ‘We have to save MOCA,’” says Broad. “I got Disney Hall funded and built. I knew I could get MOCA back on its feet. It had to be right-sized expense- and staff-wise. I could see that MOCA was clearly worth saving. MOCA’s board members became very contentious, a problem that started between five and eight years ago in response to financial trouble. There was no unity of vision.”

There were pros and cons to both pitches, and wariness among the MOCA board of each man’s intentions. Were Govan and Broad motivated purely by a desire to save the institution? How much did the prospect of exerting control over one of the world’s finest modern collections influence them? Govan’s plan would have enabled MOCA’s collection to survive, albeit under LACMA’s roof and as just one part of its wide-ranging collection. A number of trustees got behind his idea, arguing for the merits of having MOCA and LACMA geographically close together on Wilshire Boulevard. LACMA already owned a good portion of the property surrounding its campus, which theoretically would create a highly desirable hub for art in central L.A.

But Broad doesn’t see Govan’s intentions so magnanimously. “Michael would have liked to have taken over the MOCA collection but we took a different view. It wasn’t a merger. It was simply a way for LACMA to get a great collection without paying for it. LACMA should have been supportive of its sister institution and help it to survive independently rather than take it over.” And The Young and the Restless co-writer and MOCA co-chair Maria Arena Bell (whose husband William serves on the board of LACMA) also had reservations: “I felt it was really important for L.A. to have a contemporary art museum that was thriving and separate from LACMA,” says Bell.

Broad’s strategy, meanwhile, would allow the museum to remain self-governing but it came with hefty conditions, including aggressive cost-cutting and fundraising demands. “Eli required that the museum get financially stable, cut expenditure, raise funds, not borrow from its endowment, limit expenses from the endowment, maintain a strong and vibrant exhibition schedule and bolster its capital campaign,” says MOCA CEO Charles Young.

MOCA’s choice to go with the Broad plan is mutually beneficial to both sides. Broad may have breathed new life into MOCA, but MOCA may have done the same for Broad: Becoming deeply involved with the museum’s regeneration campaign not only provided the philanthropist with the perfect escape route from LACMA, it also enabled him to stay on top of L.A.’s museum hierarchy. And while there’s no evidence this was in Broad’s mind, the stakes were high for another reason: If MOCA were to migrate to the Miracle Mile, its exit would come with terrible consequences for the ongoing regeneration of downtown L.A., where one of Broad’s biggest investments, the stalled Grand Avenue Project, is still trying to get out of the gate.

While Eli Broad is used to holding all the purse strings, Michael Govan answers to a board and must work within that context, an environment in which he, by all measures, excels. LACMA’s leader has arguably transformed art philanthropy in L.A. from the polite pursuit of a small and doddering group of lifelong local benefactors to the cause absolut for the hip, globally minded, jet-set crowd. In a city whose millionaires and billionaires tend to favor political and environmental causes over cultural ones, Govan’s appearance could not be more welcome.

Since arriving on the West Coast in April 2006 from New York (where he successfully created the critically acclaimed, nearly 300,000-square-foot Dia:Beacon museum in the Hudson Valley), Govan has raised the prestige level of the LACMA board to the point where Forbes now ranks it as the third most powerful billionaire board in the country, after MoMA and the Robin Hood Foundation.

Unlike other art museums in town like MOCA (whose trustees include John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha) and the Hammer Museum (whose board includes Lari Pittman and Barbara Kruger), LACMA’s current board lineup doesn’t boast a single visual artist. But it does read like a who’s who of the business and entertainment world. Additions during Govan’s tenure include Barbra Streisand, producer Brian Grazer, songwriter Carole Bayer Sager, television anchor Willow Bay, L.A. Dodgers ex-CEO Jamie McCourt, former Warner Bros. head Terry Semel, and billionaire art collector/investor Nicolas Berggruen. “Boards have become different organisms over the last 30 years. In the old days, entrepreneurship wasn’t part of a museum’s operational charge. Now, people critique organizations for their lack of entrepreneurship. So we’ve started to attach the language of corporate growth to museums,” says Govan.

But Govan has suffered a few setbacks. A decision earlier this year to shutter LACMA’s beloved 40-year-old classic movie screening program for financial reasons led to a huge outcry, with Martin Scorsese denouncing Govan in a letter to the Los Angeles Times. Soon after, information about the museum director’s hefty salary and perks amounting to $1 million leaked to the same publication, further angering film lovers. The film series has been reinstated for at least another year. Meanwhile, Govan’s plans to erect a Jeff Koons installation featuring a chugging, 70-foot replica of a 1940s locomotive suspended from a 161-foot-tall crane, may have hit an impasse. In a recent Vanity Fair profile, LACMA board member Wallis Annenberg, who donated $2 million to conduct a feasibility study for the sculpture, said: “I personally think Los Angeles deserves a much finer icon than a train hanging from a crane.” Annenberg reportedly intends to leave the rest of the funding of the $25 million project to other trustees. Seeking to clarify the situation, LACMA’s vice president of development, Terry Morello, has this to say: “Wallis Annenberg agreed to pay $2 million to get the drawings done. She didn’t make a commitment to pay for the train.”

Meanwhile, MOCA has recovered much of its former sheen since accepting Broad’s pledge. The museum’s white knight, whom Bell affectionately describes as “a demanding giver who insists that his money is being well spent,” coaxed Charles Young, UCLA’s no-nonsense chancellor emeritus, to shepherd MOCA through a huge recapitalization campaign. Says Young: “Eli made it possible for the museum to survive—not only to come out of the doldrums it was in but also to move to greater heights. He made the museum’s future possible but he didn’t ensure it.”

Young has since cut the institution’s annual budget from more than $22 million to $15.5 million (LACMA, by contrast, has an operating budget of $53.5 million.) At the same time, the organization has been working hard to rebuild its board. Broad, among others, persuaded music exec Gil Friesen and Hard Rock co-founder Peter Morton, who had previously resigned, to return as trustees. Five new members have joined up, including Sex and the City creator Darren Star. And MOCA’s board has started an international search for a new director aided by the recruitment firm Russell Reynolds Associates. “We’re looking for somebody who is extraordinarily dynamic with great vision and who is very charismatic and good at bringing people together,” says David Johnson, co-chair of MOCA’s board. “We’re not looking for somebody super young, but someone on the younger side.” In other words, MOCA is looking for someone who can take on Michael Govan. Says ACE Gallery’s Chrismas: “What MOCA will have to do is find a director who can be as creative as Govan—and as ambitious.”

A visionary and ambitious Govan-like operator is unquestionably what MOCA needs. But could Broad’s recent experiences color the process? What happened at LACMA has almost Oedipal overtones. Broad hired Govan, only to have his spiritual heir turn on him. In not leaving his art collection to LACMA, Broad in turn abandoned Govan. Will Broad want to recruit another person who might undermine his authority?

Meanwhile, Govan seems to be looking to take on the Getty as well. As he recently told the Los Angeles Times, he is intent on turning LACMA into a major tourist attraction: “The first on anybody’s list,” said Govan. Chris Burden’s already-iconic Urban Light sculpture, situated directly on Wilshire Boulevard, is only Govan’s first step. The museum’s website vaunts that the proposed Koons train sculpture—which would be visible from virtually all corners of the city—will be L.A.’s answer to the Eiffel Tower. Another showy art project-in-the-making is the installation of Michael Heizer’s Levitated/Slot Mass, a boulder weighing more than 400 tons that will be suspended on two concrete rails.

Not to be outdone, Broad is busy creating his own L.A. museum, which he hopes will rise as early as three years from now. The project represents the biggest chess move yet for Broad, whose plans envision a space of up to 43,000 square feet funded with a breathtaking $200 million endowment. Both Santa Monica and Beverly Hills are briskly working up proposals to win the project. But Broad, keeping his cards close to his chest, has also said he is discussing building the museum in a third location, which he declines to name. (Broad is also constructing an art museum at his alma mata, Michigan State University; Govan serves on the institution’s advisory board.)

Of course, the bigger each man’s ambition, the better for Los Angeles. By any measure, the developments of the last few years are stunning. Between 2008 and 2010, LACMA will have added 100,000 square feet of exhibition space to its campus. In November, MOCA debuted its blockbuster anniversary exhibit, Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years. Sprawling across the museum’s Grand Avenue and Geffen buildings, the show, which includes 500 permanent collection works, makes an inarguable case for L.A. as one of the world’s great art capitals. And Broad asserts that, with the addition of his own museum, L.A. will have more square acreage devoted to contemporary art than any place in America.

As L.A. comes into its own as an art town, Broad and Govan will doubtlessly continue to jostle for supremacy. Yet despite some bones of contention, the two men still hold each other in high esteem. “Michael Govan is a great asset,” says Broad. “We don’t agree on everything. Our relationship is not perfect, but nor is any marriage perfect. We all live in the same community and will work everything out.” Chuckles Govan: “I don’t think I can compete with Eli Broad. He’s a restless and never-satisfied philanthropist. He loves to provoke institutions to do better, bigger, more.”

An American Export Comes Home, Still PoppingNEW YORK TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:46:00 +0000

Krumping, clowning, strobing, turfing, breaking, locking. Few art forms boast as many subgenres as hip-hop dance. Though the differences between its various styles may be inscrutable to most people, mavens like Popin Pete of the seminal West Coast hip-hop dance crew the Electric Boogaloos have been known to split hairs over its terminology. “There are people who wave, and there are people who tut,” he told Dance Spirit Magazine last year. “They’re not popping.”

But at this year’s San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest, an annual festival held last weekend that showcases the work of dance crews worldwide, being able to tell “tutting” apart from “waving” hardly matters. Instead of compartmentalizing the myriad subgenres that fall under the hip-hop dance umbrella, the event, in its 11th year, illustrated just how easily all the different styles bleed into one another — even across geographic boundaries.

If this year’s event is anything to go by, what sets a Bay Area dance crew apart from, say, a South Korean one doesn’t really have much to do with the local group’s immersion in turfing — a hip-hop dance genre that started in Oakland and stresses theatricality and gliding footwork. The South Korean crew Last for One makes as much use of these elements as regional ensembles like Funkanometry and the DS Players. It is the level of artistic finesse versus attitude that seems to be the greatest differentiator between American groups and those from abroad.

Just as the music that accompanied the festival’s acts fused rap staples like Lil Wayne and the Wu-Tang Clan with Beethoven, Bjork and Britney Spears, among others, the choreography brought together steps from the different subgenres. “Invasion Involved,” a piece from New Style Motherlode of Oakland includes a heady array of hip-hop and hip-hop-derived movement. The dancers shake their bodies intensely, execute machinelike robotics, zoom around on skateboards and perform kung fu-inspired kicks and jabs.

Loose Change, a San Francisco ensemble, combines earthy, contemporary dance choreography with steps informed by funk and jazz. In his Michael Jackson tribute, Kenichi Ebina, a Japanese dancer based in New York, pushes Mr. Jackson’s signature steps like the moonwalk and the slide to their aesthetic limits.

A presentation by ILL-Abilities, a Chilean-Californian-Canadian break-dance crew whose members have a variety of physical impairments, powerfully demonstrated the innovative, inclusive and international state of hip-hop culture today. At one point, the dancer Lazylegz (who has arthrogryposis, a joint deficiency that affects his legs) leapt on his crutches over the prostrate frames of his cohorts Guns (who spins on his head with the ease of revolving vinyl though his right leg is amputated at the knee) and Kujo (whose deafness doesn’t prevent him from bouncing around the stage on his forearms with the rhythmic precision of a jackhammer).

Hip-hop dance is of course an urban art form that came of age on the streets, not in the studio. Improvisation and aggressive competition is a central component; it grew out of 1970s New York gang culture, after all. So many of the American groups in the Hip Hop DanceFest take a scrappy-streetwise approach to their art.

The Los Angeles crew One Step Ahead’s playful yet formless piece “Escalate” riffs on classical music themes. The three performers wear mismatched orchestral conductors’ coattails and dance to a distorted version of Pachelbel’s Canon, among other standards of the classical repertory. Their movements have a roomy, improvisatory feel but lack focus. Meanwhile, the raunchy “Final Call,” from Mind Over Matter of San Francisco, recalls the steamy videos of Madonna’s “Erotica” period. Dressed in assorted ’80s-style street clothes, the dancers perform simulated sex routines under sultry red lights. These efforts, though brimful of attitude, feel obvious and canned.

In contrast, the international groups have among the most technically precise and artistically imaginative performances at the festival. The six members of the Norwegian dance crew Deep Down Dopeizm move in perfect synchronicity in their playful piece “The Cube.” Their bodies morph together at various intervals during the work to create a compact human cube. This recurring motif is as visually arresting as it is physically demanding.

Last for One builds its piece, “Soul River,” on standard break-dancing and popping moves. But the physical agility, ball bearing-like bounce and showmanship of the six-strong group outpace similar pieces by others on the festival program. And in the London group Plague’s “Embodiment of MUSIC!” a reeling, kinetic tap-dance sequence performed in sneakers, sometimes on tiptoe, to Ray Charles’s “This Little Girl of Mine,” reinvigorates an old dance form. The performers in these three groups wear loose hip-hop clothes. But unlike the American ensembles, their Adidas and Pumas match perfectly.

Synchronized footwear isn’t terribly important though. What matters most is innovation. It’s telling that in this respect, the United States, though the originator of the art of hip-hop dance and its many subgenres, could learn something from the rest of the world.

Bad RapSF WEEKLY

noreply@blogger.com (Chloe Veltman) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:34:00 +0000

Celebration of Jewish affinity for black culture skews more vaudeville than hip-hop.

The Jewish love affair with hip-hop — a romance grounded in the art of the Beastie Boys, the High and Mighty, Lyor Cohen, MC Serch, DJ Steinski, and Blood of Abraham, among many, many others — has been thoroughly documented over the last few years. Countless books and blogs by Jewish authors, most of them male, describe the historical and cultural affinity Jews feel for black culture. "Hip-hop is the music of struggle, and we, because of our history of oppression, are naturally drawn to narratives of resistance and civil rights," author Jason Tanz (Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America) wrote in 2007.

A Jewish rapper and actor's passionate engagement with hip-hop culture is at the heart of Stateless: A Hip-Hop Vaudeville Experience, a rap-and-beatbox–infused world premiere theater production at the Jewish Theatre. Stateless is primarily the work of performer Dan Wolf and his frequent artistic partner, African-American beatboxer and actor Tommy Shepherd. Shepherd and Wolf comprise the live hip-hop band Felonious, and last year joined forces for the engrossing stage adaptation of Adam Mansbach's novel, Angry Black White Boy, at Intersection for the Arts.

Inspired by Wolf's ancestral roots in German-Jewish vaudeville, Stateless reconstructs his legacy through weaving together old-school, Mittel-European stage traditions with hip-hop to create an intriguing if ultimately unsatisfying visual, choreographic, and musical collage. Low-slung pants, turntables, and breakdance steps are as much a feature of Wolf and Shepherd's performance as are jazz hands, Holocaust references, and songs about German cuisine. But as much as their latest collaboration aims to fuse Jewish and black traditions to demonstrate a shared heritage of persecution and "statelessness," the production ends up feeling lopsided. Despite the equal billing of the progenitors, this "hip-hop vaudeville experience" feels more vaudeville than hip-hop.

This is partly because Stateless places the greatest emphasis on Wolf's personal story, specifically his journey to Hamburg to learn about his past. The history of his vaudevillian ancestors is fascinating: Under the stage name of the Gebrüder Wolf (the Brothers Wolf), a German-Jewish performance troupe of the 1920s, Wolf's great-grandfather and great-granduncle composed what grew to become a popular German tune. According to Wolf, "Tüdelband," a comic song that takes its name from the then-popular children's pastime of chasing a rolling metal hoop while hitting it with a stick, became such a huge hit that the Nazis declared it too German for Jews to sing.

Contrastingly, Shepherd's poignant personal narrative about returning to his hometown of Lake Charles, La., feels comparatively inconsequential. It just doesn't get the same amount of airplay and depth of development as Wolf's more exotic tale of international intrigue. This is a shame, as Shepherd is a charismatic storyteller and soulful musician. One of the highlights of the show is "Durge," a slow-burning, intricate vocal solo written and performed by Shepherd. He uses loop pedals and the simple refrain "My people come from ..." to build a beautiful, thick-textured musical contemplation on our complex relationship with our roots.

The production's core performers come from entirely different backgrounds. Hip-hop culture is their main shared point of reference. As such, the movement vocabulary of Stateless marries vaudevillelike shtick (lots of flapping arms, hammy facial expressions, and fast footwork) with the looser-limbed, earthbound body language employed by MCs. Meanwhile, the musical soundtrack, much of it created by the New York–based whimsical alt-rock band One Ring Zero, leverages the beats, rhymes, and structures of rap. But Wolf's Jewish heritage remains a near-constant presence throughout. Many of the musical numbers, such as "Comet Song" (which showcases Allen Willner's gorgeous starry-night-sky lighting design) and "Scheisse" ("Shit") are based on original material by the Gebrüder Wolf.

The cultural mashup makes for some inspiring scenes, such as a hilarious rap version of a Gebrüder Wolf song about gorging on "Snuten und Poten" — a German, if not very kosher, delicacy consisting of various parts of a pig. But Stateless never quite jells as a whole. The show was developed over six years through intermittent workshops and miniperformances. Today, in its full-length form, it still feels like a series of isolated, work-in-progress moments rather than a full-fledged piece of theater with a strong dramaturgical shape — and, most crucially, a sense of balance between the disparate cultures it seeks to mesh.

That balance issue in Stateless might simply reflect the reality of the relationship between Jews and blacks in contemporary culture. Hip-hop has many Jewish fans: An online search for "Jews and hip-hop" brings up millions of hits, but blacks don't seem to share nearly the same level of interest in Jewish culture as Jews have for theirs. (There are only a handful of hits for "African-American and klezmer.") Where, for instance, are the black community's answers to Danny Hoch and the Klezmatics? Why are there so few black rabbis? Perhaps that's why the Borscht Belt factor in Stateless overpowers its B-boy side. Ultimately, the black experience of struggle and oppression may have less in common with that of the Jews than the Jews would like to think.

Signing-off note: After nearly five years as SF Weekly's chief theater critic, I am moving on. Thanks, dear readers, for your attentiveness and to the ever-creative local performing arts community for continuously engaging my heart and mind. You can now read me every Sunday in The New York Times, where I am the Bay Area culture columnist, and I can always be found online at www.chloeveltman.com.