Saw Absinthe at Spiegelworld in New York. Wow, I was impressed with the performances. I think every act had something to recommend it -- straps, swinger clowns, balloon, skaters, pair balancing, hoops and hand balancing and contortion, duo static trapeze, tumbling, and maybe another one or two that's slipped my mind now. And it was great to be just a couple rows away from the action. I'm definitely keen to go to another show there, even if not this year.

Saw New York City Waterfalls by Olafur Eliasson: the one in Brooklyn at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, another between Piers 4 and 5 near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and a fourth on the north shore of Governors Island. I was charmed by the waterfall under the Brooklyn bridge. The other two that I saw just looked like giant scaffolds with water flowing down the side like a big fountain. I suppose the combination of the bridge pier masking the scaffolding, and the juxtaposition of a waterfall under a busy old bridge made that one work for me. Glad I made a point to go.

I (and hundreds of other people) participated in the Improv Everywhere MP3 Experiment 2008 in New York City on Governor's Island. It was lots of fun to see hundreds of other people in red, blue, yellow and green shirts looking knowingly at each other and anticipating a fun bit in the afternoon. I wore my Dartmouth 'GREEN' shirt and got a few smiles and snickers and a few recent- and soon-to-be Dartmouth graduates introduced themselves. The Improv Everywhere site gives good coverage of what the event is actually like, so I won't elaborate on it here. Plus I've only found one picture where I can tell I'm in it.. It's certainly different and fun to be participating/playing/performing/having fun than just reading about it and looking at pictures and imagining it. It was also nice to see Charlie Todd there in the fray.

Saw Ka with DK in Las Vegas. I was afraid it would basically be an apparatus/scenery-driven show, but was pleased that it was better than that. In particular, the duo strap act in the second half was quite impressive, as was the big spinning apparatus act. In addition, the moving stage platform that went towards vertical (and was covered with arrows and ripples) was a platform for engaging acts. While quite simple, the bird puppetry was lovely. I wasn't quite as taken in as other Cirque du Soleil shows, but was not disappointed, either.

Saw Tropic Thunder with DK and really enjoyed it. It reminded me lots of South Park's sensibility, but live action with a big budget, and quite well done.

Saw Le Reve in Las Vegas with DK. It was cool to be in a smaller venue (than O) and seated in the round around the water. The mood and such for the show was well done, but I wasn't impressed by anything in the show. I felt like it was a lot of people on winches. If there weren't winches, I think I'd have been bored to tears. I much preferred O, which had a lot more variety and lots more impressive acts.

I've now seen both the world's largest cut diamond and the world's largest rhinestone. DK and I went to the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas. It was pretty cool, actually. A bunch of fancy cars and pianos and outfits, staffed by friendly people.

I went to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. Unfortunately, it just didn't do much for me. The harbor location is lovely, the flow around, to and from, and on top of the building seemed awkward, and the monumental cone is, well, monumental. It was interesting to watch glassblowers at work (and have seen that other places before), and there was lots of art glass, particularly lots of Chihuly. It's clear to me that the skill required to create the works is impressive, they just didn't grab me. As I reflected on that, I was thinking that just being around one Chihuly piece would probably be more engaging for me than being around hundreds.

The one thing that I did particularly like was the exhibit Contrasts: A Glass Primer. From their own description: "The exhibition is comprised of international, historically important, and visually stunning works of glass art that are grouped to illustrate opposing ideas, techniques, and styles." It was quite engaging, and got me to look at the items with much more engagement than just "that's lovely" or "that's impressive" or "I don't care for that".

At the NC G&L Film Festival last night, I saw a particularly beautiful short about a boy who discovers he has a crush on his piano teacher done without words called Trystan. The last movie I remember being quite so charmed and enthralled by the visual storytelling was the Triplets of Belleville. Mmm...

Saw the Carolina Chocolate Drops string band then The Great Debaters movie at the NC Museum of Art outdoors with Dan. The group was good fun with some lively playing and dancing and singing (on-stage and off-). The movie was well-done and engaging.

I saw Brideshead Revisited last night. (As I approached the cinema, I saw the marquee said Eraserhead and not Brideshead and I was briefly confused.) I liked it -- it's the first costume drama I've seen in a while, and I'd forgotten how engrossed I get in them. And the whole thing just seemed very well crafted to me all around from concept and plot to dialog to cinematography, with none of the craftsmanship calling attention to itself.

GALA Choruses Festival in Miami, July 12-15. Highlights for me (besides our chorus singing) were Coro Allegro, Boston, Washington D.C. and Atlanta Gay Men's Choruses (with a sighting of a friend of mine I didn't expect to see), and San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus's USS Metaphor (with great lines like 'I want to speak with your top man'.)

Leslie Jordan at Progress Energy Center July 11 was a fun one-man show. Lots of laughs, some tender moments and no doubt that he has great performing (and ad libbing) chops. Honestly, I don't think I'd really heard of him before, but on a friend's recommendation went, and I'm glad I did.

Pilobolus at American Dance Festival June 19, 2008

I liked one of the new pieces (Laterna Magica), and kind of liked their new projection/puppetry one, but wanted more physicality than was in it. The bodily engagement of the dancers and the fun they have is something that draws me in, and I just didn't get much of that in that new piece. Since I saw them here, I won't be heading to New York to see them.

Radio Gals, Raleigh Little Theatre, Sutton Theatre, June 6, 2008 -- When with Chris N and enjoyed the fun show. Well performed, cute, sometimes a bit of a pastiche and fluffy, and fun. Looking forward to more shows at the Raleigh Little Theatre.

NC Pride Band May 17th.
Went to see the NC Pride Band (as in concert band) concert tonight. I didn't know what to expect, and my heart sank during the first number which sounded note-y/play-by-numbers, and I heard intonation problems throughout.Fortunately, the rest of their playing was pretty solid and fun. The Duffy piece called Snakes was mercifully short. (Snakes in a band!) And they had a sax quartet play, and I liked them (I'm not fond of sax). And there was a jazz band from Atlanta (called MetroGnomes, heh) that was excellent. Now I want to play in a jazz band. (I still don't want to play sax, though.)

Avenue Q May 7 In Raleigh
Great Show, Great to see it again. (Blogger ate both my previous write-ups so I'm not writing any more.)

Bent April 25 by the Raleigh Ensemble Players. This was a rich, intimate, deep, challenging performance.

The play follows Max's life from dissolute young partying life in Berlin in the 1930s to his time at Dachau concentration camp. He confronts everything from cold-blooded murderousness to grace around him and many sides of himself from manipulative self-promotion to overwhelming love.

The performance was done with a small audience (I think there were about 40 of us) moving through dark shifting spaces at the barked orders of guards in swastika-emblazoned uniforms to stand and sit around events as they unfolded. There was no hint of a third wall.

The actors themselves generally got me to forget that I was watching actors playing parts, which doesn't happen so often or easily for me. It was the occasional slip of southern drawl onto a word or a brush against someone in the audience that reminded me of their being actors. I was impressed.

It seems rare for me to see in a play (or most anything, for that matter) an earnest and wide-ranging set of situations, conflicts, values, emotions and motivations that is both difficult because it gets at painful things that happen in life and yet engaging as a story rather than a lecture or schematic. To be faced again and again with people in terribly difficult and often shocking situations and see what they do and wonder what I would do and why and how to decide what to do is both uncomfortable and a way to learn more about myself and what goes on with other people.

I don't think I can write positively enough to convey how much I value having gone to the performance. At the same time, I remember that only a few years ago, I just don't think I'd have been ready to go to the show or, if I had, that it would have touched me and moved me the way it does now.

Bravi!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum performed by the Pauper Players, April 24 at UNC. This was a modestly-budgeted and -staged (most or all student) production of the show (which I'd never seen before, but had heard a couple of songs from). The performances were solidly comic and musical (with just one number sounding off to me). I was impressed with the energy and willingness to really go for large silly performing, while keeping a fast tight pace and sounding good -- Lovely, even. I'm looking forward to the next Pauper show, and think I'll enjoy seeing this particular show another time.

NC Master Chorale April 19 - Verdi Requiem was well done. I wished I could hear more of the chorus, generally and in relation to the orchestra too often. I was actually most impressed with the pre-show talk by one of the cellists about the piece, the history around requiem compositions, and the performance itself.