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REVIEW: ‘The Broken Chord’ resonates with honesty, simplicity, beauty

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Mother (Saffron Henke, from left), son (Tim Budd) and daughter (Kristy Hartsgrove Mooers) embrace and dance during a March 27 rehearsal for "The Broken Chord," at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City. The play focuses on Alzheimer's disease and dementia, and uses emotion and body movement to illustrate ideas. The show opened April 12 and continues through April 14 at the Englert. (Kaitlyn Bernauer/The Gazette-KCRG9)

IOWA CITY — At intermission, the woman next to me said what I was about to say to her: “This is my life.”

Afterwards, she was in tears and I was fighting back mine. A mutual friend introduced us Friday night, and who knows when or if we’ll see each other again. But for two hours, we were united in the shared experiences of “The Broken Chord,” onstage through Sunday (4/14) at the Englert Theatre.

This is another brilliant Hancher commission by Working Group Theatre, a small professional troupe of the highest achievement. Time and again, founders Sean Christopher Lewis, Jennifer Fawcett and Martin Andrews have gathered their colleagues to cast light on the shadows swirling around us all.

Theater originated to educate audiences through artistic expression — to present complex issues in a way the masses could understand. That is exactly what the Working Group cast and crew have done with the world of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

To call them “actors” seems inadequate. Their specialty is illumination through immersion in some of the most difficult situations facing society today, from Michigan’s crumbling auto industry in “Rust” to race relations in last year’s Hancher commission, “Mayberry.”

They spent a year researching Alzheimer’s disease through the eyes of patients, their families, medical professionals and caregivers. Several of the actors trained as hospice workers, to provide bedside comfort through patients’ final days.

They met with panels of health care professionals, shared their project with students across a wide variety of disciplines at the University of Iowa, conducted storytelling workshops with patients and presented mountains of material to playwright Fawcett.

Their deep, deep delving now sings with the utmost beauty onstage — a poetic ballet of heartbreaking humanity that brought the opening night audience to laughter, tears, gasps, silence and a most deserved standing ovation.

Every aspect of this show is elegant, with director Lewis seamlessly weaving theatrical devices into a rich tapestry that flutters and envelops the audience into the action.

Objects and poles and sails fly in and out, creating scenery real and unreal, sometimes stopping overhead, other times engulfing the characters. Gorgeous music captures the very essence of every mood, from harrowing to humorous, anxious to exhilarating. And the lighting. So stark one moment, so perfect in another, as delicate tubes and twinkle lights take us into the fragile realm of sweet memories.

The main story involves two adult children tearing themselves apart trying to join forces in caring for their stricken mother. This new mission reopens old wounds and their frustration is palpable.

On the periphery is a Greek chorus of actors who present other common scenarios — the husband of a wife with early-onset Alzheimer’s, a chaplain reaching out to physically and spiritually touch the afflicted, an older wife clinging to a lifetime of memories, and adult children on very different, yet similar paths.

All of the performances are stellar, but Saffron Henke is utterly magnificent as the mother, Helen, a Ph.D. archivist — a preserver of memories who cannot stop her own from slipping away. We see and feel her transformation, her anguish and her frailty every step of the way. Tim Budd and Kristy Hartsgrove Mooers sweep us into their journey through sibling anger, resentment, frustration, unity,  resignation and acceptance.

Dancer Elizabeth June Bergman brings fluidity to the churning emotions, like a delicate music box dancer embracing an invisible partner, cradling a child or cradling memories, savoring their touch. The other actors follow her lead, in moments charming and sweet.

This is an experience not to be missed. It will stay with you long after the lights dim and the memories fade.

ARTS EXTRA

What: Hancher presents “The Broken Chord,” by Working Group Theatre

Where: Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., Iowa City

When: 7:30 p.m. April 13; 2 p.m. April 14, 2o13

Tickets: $10 to $35 at the door or Hancher.uiowa.edu

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Memory Play

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In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln spoke of “the mystic chords of memory” strong enough to stretch and bind a nation divided until its people would again sing in harmony.

But what happens when the chords of memory break into dissonance? When memories strong enough to light the corners of our minds fade into darkness?

Iowa City’s Working Group Theatre has devoted the past year to exploring the worlds of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, interviewing patients, their family members, caregivers, social services workers and medical professionals in the Corridor. Some members of the professional theater troupe even trained to became hospice workers, to deepen their research, understanding and experience.

The final product  — “The Broken Chord” — will premiere April 12 to 14 at the Englert Theatre. The event is a Hancher commission, following on the heels of last year’s “Mayberry” commission, in which Working Group explored race relations in Iowa City.

With a similar theatrical structure, nine actors will embody various roles in this memory play, using a full gamut of raw emotions, dance, flying wisps of scenery and dramatic lighting and sound to cast light on a world that touches everyone in some way.

“Anyone who has ever cared for someone with dementia or had any relationship with someone who had a chronic illness will see themselves in the play and will learn something about both themselves and others who have gone through the same thing,” says Dr. Christopher Okiishi, 44, of Iowa City, a psychiatrist who walks in those worlds professionally, personally and as an actor in “The Broken Chord.”

The details

“People who come to this play will realize they’re not alone, which for me is particularly touching, because my grandmother (a psychologist) ran an Alzheimer’s caregivers’ support group for a number of years. It was one of the last professional activities she continued to maintain as she began struggling, herself, with forms of dementia,” Okiishi says.

“I don’t think anybody has escaped it. It’s out there in everyday life,” Chuck Swanson, Hancher’s executive director, says of Alzheimer’s disease. “It’s one of those issues that’s just tied so closely to the world.”

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, more than 5 million Americans are living with the disease, which is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, and in 2012, 15.4 million family and friends provided 17.5 billion hours of unpaid care to people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

“People are touched by it, but not everybody is involved personally, so to be able to see and really observe what happens in a given situation will be eye-opening” for audience members, Swanson says. “The great power of theater is that we can really feel the difficulties and feel the strains and the day-to-day pressures that people have to deal with in a situation like this.”

The play, based on fact, follows a fictional storyline of a mother afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease and her two children “trying to figure out what to do with her,” says Working Group co-founder and actor Martin Andrews, 37, of Iowa City.

The mother figure is a composite drawn from all the stories presented to Working Group playwright Jennifer Fawcett to distill into a cohesive play structure. Director is her husband and collaborator, Sean Christopher Lewis. Their careers are rooted in creating socially responsible theater.

During the research phase, Working Group participants heard “stories over and over again about families falling apart because of this,” Andrews says. “I haven’t perfected this image (but) if it is a rope stretched out into a line, solving the problem should be going from Point A to Point B. You have all of these family members who can’t solve these problems because there are all these knots in the way — all the baggage that comes with being a human being in a family. When you have this crisis in the center of it, it all falls apart.”

But what Fawcett saw shining through the difficulties, obstacles, heartache and depression was a surprising spirit of resilience, laced with humor.

“I interviewed a woman in Cedar Rapids who nursed her husband through it,” says Fawcett, 38, of Iowa City. “He passed away a few years ago, and she’s amazingly positive and strong and wants to talk about it.”

Through such revelations, Fawcett saw time and again “what we as people are able to do when faced with the situation.”

She was amazed by “people who have had to deal with caring for a spouse or parent as if they were an infant, and doing that on a day to day to day to day to day basis, (can) still be able to laugh and be able to love them after all that.”

Those moments bring charm to the show.

“The play, in addition to being truthful about dementia in all its harrowing ways, is also surprisingly romantic,” Okiishi says, “in that many of the people that are in care-giving situations are caring for the loves of their life, and what that means to be with someone throughout the entirety of the experience.”

Particularly satisfying for Swanson is the way Hancher has been involved with the creative process in this project, taking the University of Iowa arts organization well beyond its usual, primary role of securing grants to cover about $60,000 in artists’ fees and presentation expenses for this show.

“Hancher’s been involved in close to 100 commissions,” Swanson says. “Part of our mission is commissioning new work, is giving artists the opportunity to create art. We want to keep art alive. The joy of being able to work with Working Group Theatre is that they’re right here.”

Hancher helped facilitate workshops that provided the actors with feedback from Alzheimer’s experts and audience members. The project also has taken Hancher and Working Group into UI classrooms, spanning the academic realms of rhetoric, social work, nursing, public health and the anthropology of aging.

“It’s so wonderful to be able to use the arts as a way enrich that classroom experience,” Swanson says, “then we get the students to come to the performances. That’s very important to what we do. … We want to make a difference in the lives of the students,” as well as the community.

Director Lewis is proud of the project and is looking toward its life beyond the Englert premiere.

“I’m hoping that it’s gonna be our coming-out party,” says Lewis, 35, of Iowa City. “The issues and themes of the play are so universal — I think it’s some of the best work that we’ve done, all the way around. It’s the most full realization of the documentary married to the stage poetry married to a visual life.”

 

Related: The Postcard Project — What is a memory you would not want to forget? Write it on a vintage postcard at The Java House, Home Ec. Workshop, The Haunted Bookshop, Oasis Falafel, Iowa City Senior Center, Prairie Lights and T-Spoons in Iowa City. Postcards will be displayed at the Englert and on social media.

(from left) Kristy Hartsgrove Mooers, playing the part of Amy, and Tim Budd, playing the part of Jacob, argue over what to tell their mother, Helen, played by Saffron Henke at rehearsal for the Broken Chord at Englert Theater in Iowa City on March 27, 2013. (Kaitlyn Bernauer/The Gazette-KCRG9)

Actress Amber Tamblyn bringing her poetry to Mission Creek Festival

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Amber Tamblyn

Leave them wanting more. That’s a formula for success in everything from the arts to dating.

Poetic in its simplicity, it’s the driving principle behind The Drums Inside Your Chest Series, a performance poetry project launched six years ago by writers Amber Tamblyn and Mindy Nettifee. It’s coming to Iowa City’s Mission Creek Festival at 7 p.m. April 7 at the Englert Theatre.

An award-winning poet, Tamblyn, 29, a California native who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., is perhaps better known for her lead role in television’s “Joan of Arcadia,”  young Emily Quartermaine on “General Hospital,” 15 episodes of “House” and in cinema’s “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and its sequel, as well as “127 Hours.”

She’s been acting since age 9, but discovered another voice through poetry at age 12.

She came to Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City in 2009 to read from her critically acclaimed collection, “Bang Ditto.” There, she heard about the Mission Creek Festival. Intrigued, she attended in 2010 and gave a reading at The Mill last year when actor/comedian David Cross, whom she married in October, presented a sold-out Mission Creek show at the Englert.

She loves that so many top artists and writers are gathered in a small space, small festival that feels huge.

“If South by Southwest and AWP (Association of Writers conference) had a baby, it would be that,” she says of Mission Creek, which is centered in various downtown Iowa City venues.

She’s looking forward to turning even more people onto the joys of poetry in her own Englert event, billed as a “shoulder-shaking, heart-charging poetry variety show experience.”

The shows typically blend poetry with art — like her book in progress, a melding of her poetry and Marilyn Manson’s artwork.

The details

  • What: Write Now Poetry Society Presents: The Drums Inside Your Chest Series
  • Featuring: Amber Tamblyn, Emily Wells, Beau Sia, Patricia Smith, Derrick Brown, Jennifer L. Knox and Rachel McKibbens
  • When: 7 p.m. April 7
  • Where: Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., Iowa City
  • Tickets: $10 to $15 general admission, at Englert Box Office, (319) 688-2653 or Englert.org
  • Information: Missionfreak.com
  • Artist’s website: amtam.com and Thedrumsinsideyourchest.com

The first “Drums” show, staged in Los Angeles in 2007, brought together top poets from the academic and slam worlds, for crisp, tight 12- to 15-minute vignettes with music or comedy in between to “cleanse the palette.”

“What an amazing, great way to expose people to poetry shows (who) cannot stand poetry, that loathe it,” Tamblyn says by phone from Los Angeles, where she’s shooting an action pilot for CBS, titled “Anatomy of Violence.”

That initial poetry show was so successful that Tamblyn helped establish the nonprofit Write Now Poetry Society to create a new audience for the literary art all over the world.

“Our idea is to create unique poetry programming and to widen the audience for poetry shows physically, which then, by its own merit, will get more poetry fans onboard,” she says.

That concept evolved into a 2011 “Drums” show at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles that blended commissioned poems inspired by 18th and 19th century watercolors, some set to music, all read by the celebrated poets, as well as actress America Ferrara and goth-rocker Manson.

“That’s our idea of what a poetry show is. It’s a large, large landscape,” Tamblyn says. “We’re not interested in open mic. We’re not interested in anything other than a very tight, succinct show in which you leave an audience going, ‘I would love to have heard 15 more minutes of that poet.’ Leave them wanting more. … Tight and short and to the point.”

The Iowa City show will feature a who’s who lineup, including Tamblyn, Nettifee, Patricia Smith, Beau Sia, Rachel McKibbens, Derrick Brown and Jennifer L. Knox, with musician Emily Wells.

Tamblyn’s artisty is a combination of nature and nurture. One grandfather performed in vaudeville, another was a violinist; her father, Russ Tamblyn, is a singer, dancer, actor who played Riff in the 1961 film version of “West Side Story”; and her mother, Bonnie Murray Tamblyn, is a singer and recording artist.

“I was raised around a lot of poets and artists,” Tamblyn says. Family friend, the poet Jack Hirschman, nurtured her interest in writing, encouraging the 12-year-old to read her poetry out loud at the dinner table.

She says she felt and understood the power of poetry at that young age and became “obsessed” with chapbooks, selling her own at school.

“I still have the two that I published that were really beautiful,” she says. “One is called ‘Plenty of Ships’ and the other one is called ‘Of the Dawn.’ … It’s what any kid would do when they’re trying to discover themselves. It’s part of the beautiful thing that is juvenilia. I don’t believe anyone creates anything bad in that time period. … I look at them and I see a young girl who was on a soap opera for seven years, trying to define herself outside that superficiality.

“That’s where it started,” she says of her reflective poetry that blends her career paths. It gave her a way to make sense of the make-believe world of acting.

“I wrote a lot, and it was very important that I wrote a lot,” she says. “I documented so much, so many of these experiences, which has made me the writer that I am today.”

She’s developed an edgy style that’s infused with humor, to strike a balance and perspective between her professional worlds, oftentimes stripping away the celebrity to show the real person beneath the facade.

“I have a poem called ‘Headlock Heart Choke,’ about drinking heavily with Hugh Laurie. It turns into this really dirty, over-sexualized poem, and Hugh loves it,” she says of the “House” star. “He’s a big supporter of my poetry. He gave Mindy and I a huge donation to our poetry nonprofit.”

Tamblyn calls writing “an exorcism and a haunting, at the same time.”

“It’s therapeutic,” she says. “It’s important, because I feel like some of the great writers have something to say, that there is a story about them that is unique. … My hope is to at least let people feel that, ‘Hey, that’s interesting. I learned something from that poem.’ If I did that, then I did my job.”

Want more? Check out our Mission Creek map for updates.

 

Excuse My French

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Tracy Morgan

 

Tracy Morgan is a comedy chameleon, but when he hits the Englert stage Saturday night live, he’ll be Tracy Morgan — not a parody of himself or anyone else.

“You will get to know me as a person, my life experience,” Morgan, 44, says by phone from his home in New Jersey. “That’s what I’m talking about — my life experiences, but in a funny way.”

His life hasn’t played out in a funny way. All the hardships that have killed plenty of his peers are chronicled in his 2009 autobiography, “I Am the New Black.”

“I want to be an example of a guy who made something of himself out of nothing,” he writes in the memoir. “A guy who overcame the odds of a tough childhood, who worked hard, who didn’t let his surroundings get the best of him and lead him to jail or the graveyard.”

He survived the rough days in Brooklyn and the Bronx, when he says the neighborhoods became hoods.

“My backyard became the city’s market for crack and heroin, and our people were right there to participate in every way — as dealers, as addicts, and as statistics days after day,” he writes. “ … My own family was no different. We were torn apart by drugs and AIDS.”

His father, a Vietnam veteran, came home changed, hooked on heroine, moved in and out of his family’s lives and eventually died of AIDS.

“I lost a lot of role models to that terrible twosome: dirty needles and a disease society didn’t understand,” Morgan writes. “Like a lot of the young men in my neighborhood, I ended up on the streets dealing just to get by. We dropped like dominoes, pushed over by the end of a gun or the tip of a needle.”

Comedy was his ticket out of that darkness. Fighting playground bullies with humor, he turned his coping mechanism into a career. After playing Hustle Man on TV’s “Martin” in the ‘90s, Morgan became a star when he joined the ranks of “Saturday Night Live” in 1996. His trajectory has propelled him into such films as “Rio,” “Death at a Funeral” and “Cop Out.”

Perhaps his biggest impact on our cultural consciousness, however, came via NBC’s recently wrapped “30 Rock,” where he again teamed up with SNL alum Tina Fey to create Tracy Jordan, the show’s wacky, unpredictable divo.

He’s quite clear in separating real life from reel life as he tours his new stand-up touring show, “Excuse My French.”

Audiences “will get to know who I am, and they won’t confuse me with Tracy Jordan,” he says. “Tracy Jordan is a character I portrayed on TV. Tracy Morgan is a person who lives a life, and that’s what I’m talking about. Hopefully, no matter who you are or where you come from, you’ll be able to identify and relate to some of the stuff that I’m talking about.

“That’s the first thing I like to put in my act, more than being funny. I want people to identify and relate to me,” he says. “The last thing I want is a misunderstanding. I know with my forte, some people say, ‘He’s crazy’ or ‘He’s unbelievable,’ and I will lose some people, but I don’t mind.”

Comedy has helped him find his voice.

“Watching Richard Pryor and those people express themselves has taught me how to express myself a little bit more,” he says. “It’s taught me how to see things and it’s enlightened me, and so when I’m enlightened, I like to enlighten other people. It’s given me insight, and insight always provides the proper guidance, so at the end of the day, it’s about guidance. Comedy has guided me in a way in my life that nothing else could have guided me in.”

That voice has gotten him in trouble onstage — most notably for riffs on homosexuality and people with disabilities — but he doesn’t see it that way.

“My mouth hasn’t gotten me into trouble over the years,” he counters. “I just think some people don’t get my material. I don’t feel like I’m in trouble — I’m doing stand-up comedy. But if that’s the case, then I think that George Carlin got in trouble, and I guess that Richard Pryor got in trouble, if that’s what you want to call it. I’m just doing comedy on stand-up.”

He loves connecting with live audiences and has kept his foot in the stand-up spotlight while juggling various TV and film projects.

“There’s nothing like live entertainment,” he says. “I like taking ‘me’ to the people. What they see on TV and the movies is one thing, written by other people. This is my voice, and I never want to lose my voice, and that’s what keeps me going. I know I’m speaking for a whole lot of people around the world who don’t have a voice, so that’s why I’m rockin’ and that’s what keeps me rollin’.”

He’ll be rollin’ into Iowa for the first time, with shows in Des Moines on Friday and Iowa City on Saturday.

The details

“I’ve heard other comedians talk about it being a really hip place to play,” he says, “so I’m looking forward to playing in front of hip people. I don’t like squares and I don’t like lames, so if you’re a square or lame, stay home. I’m dealing with hip people who are hip to what’s going on.”

He’ll be paying a bit more attention to what’s going on at home this year, too, when he has another go-round at fatherhood. Morgan has three sons in their 20s from his first marriage, and now he and his fiancee are expecting a child together.

Through hard work and success, he says he’ll be able to spend more time with this child than in the career-building years when his sons were little. He’s enjoying good health more than two years after receiving a kidney transplant, and his idea of a great day is one spent with his family, “watching them have fun.”

“Fun for me these days is just watching other people have fun,” he says. “Fun at this age is different than fun at 22, when I was having fun. I had a little too much fun. So now fun for me these days is just watching my family have fun.”

He’s proud of the men his sons have become, and calls them his “kings.” He raised them with concrete principles: “Respect yourself and respect others,” he says. “Be strong and have love in your heart, and if you see people, see them with your heart and not your eyes.”

From his own tough beginnings, never did he imagine the life he’s now living.

“I don’t think anyone does,” he says. “My father instilled in me, ‘Never ask why, ask why not?’ So growing up, I always said, ‘Why not?’ Somebody got to come out of Brooklyn and be a comedy superstar, why not me? Somebody got to have a beautiful fiancee like I have, why not me? Somebody gotta love her — and somebody gotta love me.”

He lives a life of no regrets. He’s proud of “all of it.”

“When I look back on it — the good, bad and the ugly — all of it.”

With “30 Rock” finished and his new child on way, he demur’s from saying what’s next on his career arc.

“I can’t call it, I might spoil it,” he says. “I just like to leave that in God’s hands — those are the right hands to be in. I just enjoy each day.”

REVIEW: India Jazz Suites suits combined talents, traditions and styles

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India Jazz Suites

IOWA CITY –  “India Jazz Suites” is  a fascinating comparison of two dance styles, from ancient India and contemporary America.

As performed by two masters of their traditions, classical dancer Pandit Chitresh Das and tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith, the Hancher audience at the Englert Theatre was blown away by their skill Thursday night (3/7/13).

The evening was all about percussion, all about feet and drums, and how they can work together across the divide of two cultures to make a new music.

First up was the American tap dancer, all energy and power, all hard-driving percussion. Even though there is a tap language now, with a recognizable series of moves and sounds, it has an improvisatory feel. For the most part, the dancer follows the music, adding his sounds in a playful, challenging way. There are times when the dancer leads, and then the drummer leads, the percussive equivalent of call and response.

Smith has the look of a contemporary American, and even raps at one point to the Indian drums (tabla), commenting on the evening: “take a risk, throw the disc, ” as well as the cold evening outside the theater.

American tap dance has elongated roots, as does the Indian classical dance. Certainly in English clogging styles and Irish step dancing, but way back into African cultures, as well.

As presented, the tap dance is an “entertainment” and the Indian classical dance comes from religious ritual. This particular style of Indian dance can be traced back to performances in the temples, as far back as the 4th century B.C., as a form of worship. It then moved into the courts and became more secular.

Classical dancer Das is an accomplished master of his highly refined style, Kathak. At age 68, Das is a dynamo. He conducts his musicians with precision and counted out the complex beats for us, and for drummer Biplab Bhattacharya.

Das dances barefoot, and his ability to pound out complex rhythms is astounding. At one high point, with the help of his drummer, he becomes a galloping horse. His costume is age-old India, and each foot has 5 pounds of bells on it.

The blending of the Indian and American styles creates an entertaining, joyous event. It contains an essential playfulness, a sense of mischief  at the heart of each dance style. And these two dancers love working together.

It is also an important experiment, deliberately seeking a kind of fusion, defined in the Oxford American Dictionary as a “process of joining two or more things together to form a single entity.” The progress of all culture is based on ongoing fusions, like jazz assimilating the sounds of rock and roll, or vice-versa. Or Picasso’s use of African masks. Or George Harrison’s study with Ravi Shankar. And so on and on.

This evening represents a successful experiment, one that that may very well have a future. The finest moment of the performance is in the tap dancer working with the Indian drummer, with a remarkable synthesis of sound, of call and answer, of mutual challenge that became, perhaps, a new music. Can this synthesis be a starting point for these artists? Or other artists? The possibilities are myriad.

The results confirm the power, as well as the yearning, of the human imagination. Our culture remains an open book, with an infinite number of blank pages. And the desire of artists from all over the planet to work together, to learn from each other, to take inspiration from each other is very, very strong.

From the perspective of “India Jazz Suites.” our future is awesome.

 

 

REVIEW: eighth blackbird flies in the face of convention with new music program

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eighth blackbird

IOWA CITY — Chicago new-music ensemble eighth blackbird has built a fine reputation, and lived up to that billing at the Englert Theatre on Wednesday night (2/6/13).

This is a lively, talented group of six musicians who are very well matched in their abilities. New-music can be quite demanding, and this gang plays very well together. They obviously enjoy each other’s company. And we enjoy being in the theater with them.

The Hancher program was wildly varied, featuring seven composers, six of whom are American. The best-known composer of the evening was Phillip Glass (“Knee Play 2″ from “Einstein on the Beach”), with an 8-minute segment of one of his major works. Ironically, it was the weakest piece of the evening. Of interest to aficionados, perhaps, but not particularly successful.

Another well-known composer in new music circles is Gyorgy Ligeti, with “Etudes for Solo Piano,” arranged for the sextet. It is a very difficult work to perform, with swiftly changing dynamics. It is also a difficult work to listen to. However, eighth blackbird artists have remarkable charisma to go along with their musicianship, and their energy and commitment is most persuasive, even if the music is tough sledding.

The ensemble engages the audience right away, and holds onto us for a couple of hours. What the artists play is often impossible to comprehend at first hearing, but it urges us to keep listening and to identify promising composers.

They are the scouts out ahead for new sounds, for explorations that may produce a different way of hearing and apprehending our sonic environment. I applaud their quest and value what they are up to.

Last night’s concert offered much to enjoy. “Pieces of Winter Sky,”  a piece commissioned by Hancher in league with the Music Accord consortium, is evocative of an environment Iowans know all too well: a cold, harsh winter. At times it reminded me of sleet hitting my face in sub-zero weather. At the same time, it has a kind of calm inside: lonely and still, with the quiet beauty of the end of a winter storm.

In the midst of the blizzard created by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, birds are trying to sing, trying to find their voices. And, thankfully, they do. Their music will survive.

Commissioned works are almost always a roll of the dice, as you never quite know what you’ll get, even if you support the very best artists. But it’s a suitable activity for an enlightened presenter like Hancher Auditorium, if ambitious music is to have a future.

I also liked the new work by Andy Akiho that concluded the program. A steel band percussionist, Akiho has created a terrific composition called “erase,” that ends with very strong drumming by Matthew Duvall. It is a perfect “closer” for an eighth blackbird concert.

Please be on the lookout for this remarkable band of committed music-makers. They are up to something good.

 

Chase Garrett boogies back to Iowa City with piano stomp

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Chase Garrett’s boogie shoes are bringing him back to the Englert on Saturday night (11/3).

The Iowa City native, who moved to New York City about two months ago, is staging his third annual Blues & Boogie Woogie Piano Stomp. The rollicking sound will feature a mix of keyboards and combos.

Joining Garrett in the spotlight are guest pianists Jean-Paul Amouroux of France, Julian Phillips of England and Silvan Zingg of Switzerland. Putting some zing in the swing are Juilliard students Gabe Medd of Iowa City on trumpet and New York native Joe McDonough on trombone;  local musicians Craig Dove on upright bass, Nate Bogarto on tenor sax, Dan Padley on guitar and Cassius Goens III on drums; and Chris Davidson from England, coming to play bass with pianist Phillips.

Garrett, 23, used to fire up the pianos on the Ped Mall in Iowa City, then spent part of August playing at a festival near Paris. He came home, packed up and headed east to spread the feel-good gospel of boogie woogie in a place that already has embraced swing, a form he also wants to explore.

The details

“I’m trying to get more into swing music and jumpin’ blues,” he says. “They’re very similar, that early ’40s style of music. I like it a lot so I came here to try to do that.”

He’s also hoping to expand his producing acumen and networks.

“One advantage of being in New York is the larger venues,” he says. “Larger venues mean more face-time with people and a larger audience that can come see the music. It’s not necessarily that I came out here because I wasn’t happy in Iowa — I love Iowa. I just wanted to come out here because I wanted to pursue my passion in a little bit bigger venue and a new area, and see what’s out there for me.”

Moving his base to the Big Apple also lets him gauge where interests lie for music of bygone eras.

“New York is so different from Iowa,” he says. “The people are different, there’s a wider diversity. I wanted to see who really is interested in this music, who the audience is for it, and to see where it sits in the world today, as far as what its popularity is — and if it actually is possible to keep it around.”

Living in Brooklyn, he’s experiencing the typical culture shock of how expensive and expansive his world has become.

“At first, I found it very difficult just to ride the train everywhere, because I’m so used to having a car and being able to go wherever I want,” he says. “It made me rethink how I get around, how to get to places and the fastest ways to get there. I’ve gotten lost a few times — more than a few times, actually. It’s definitely part of the learning curve.

Chase Garrett

“The city is just so astronomically enormous. Honestly, I could live here a hundred years and not see the same corner twice.”

He brought an electronic keyboard and amp from Iowa, and enjoys sitting down at new friends’ pianos. He’s already had some gigs, playing at a hotel restaurant in Times Square and on a white grand piano from the 1920s in Brooklyn. He played a wedding in Brooklyn in October and even had a couple of gigs in upstate New York.

He’s also getting to put the stomp on a really big piano, landing a job at toy store extraordinaire FAO Schwartz on Fifth Avenue, a block from Central Park. He’s taking pictures of kids and families by the piano Tom Hanks played with his feet in “Big.”

Maybe Garrett will get to jump aboard and see if he has fire in his feet, too.

 

Related:

Iowa City pianist trumpets music from bygone days

Chase Garrett’s Blues & Boogie Woogie Piano Stomp

Chase Garrett brings music of ’30s, ’40s to Coralville

Review: Kronos Quartet shatters boundaries on wild musical ride

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Members of San Francisco's Kronos Quartet are (from left), John Sherba, violin; Hank Dutt, viola; David Harrington, violin; and Jeffrey Zeigler, cello. (Jay Blakesberg photo)

IOWA CITY — An evening with the Kronos Quartet is a mind-bending experience.

The celebrated San Francisco string ensemble turns music on its ear, upside down and sideways, often layering otherworldly upper stratosphere sounds over cello drones or plunging the ocean depths with something akin to whale song.

If you close your eyes, you might not even realize you’re hearing two violins, viola and cello. But this is eyes-wide-open music, dripping with drama and visual impact as the four men throw their entire beings into music that challenges listeners to expand, release and enjoy the wild ride.

Thursday night’s concert (10/18/12) was the signature event for the Englert Theatre’s month-long centennial celebration.

“It’s so nice to be back in Iowa City after 10 years,” founder and violinst David Harrington told the nearly full house. “We think of Iowa City as the liberal heart of America. Don’t forget to vote.”

The love affair goes both ways. Every single song — seven programmed and two encores — drew cheers from the crowd. The couple seated next to me, however, left after intermission. I suspect they didn’t realize and embrace the sonic assault of the concert’s first half. The second half, however, led off with a lush arrangement of Wagner’s Prelude from “Tristan und Isolde.”

This is an ensemble that never intended to create comfort. All four members have embarked on a mission of “fearless exploration” while expanding string quartet repertoire. Both aims have been met, as they have commissioned more than 750 new works.

Most of the pieces on the Englert program were composed specifically for Kronos; others were arranged for the quartet.

From the first frenetic strokes of “Aheym (Homeward)” by Bryce Dessner, we knew the evening was going to be unsettling and unusual, but also very special. This composition invokes the composer’s heritage, capturing the feelings of flight and passage his Jewish ancestors experienced coming to American from Russia and Poland. Various themes and techniques explore a jumble of emotions, from intense movement to disjointed syncopation to fleeting traces of melodious turns and lightly skipping plucking of the strings, before whirling into a frenzy and an abrupt ending.

For two-and-a-half hours, we traveled through time and space to musical landings in India and Europe, weaving threads of folk music and traditions through discordant experimental tapestries. Others, like the ethereal, butterfly-inspired “Clouded Yellow” and “A Thousand Thoughts” from Sweden, gave us moments of sheer loveliness. “Death to Kosmische” explored the realm of ‘60s and ‘70s German electronica, evoking a sophisticated, trippy “Lost in Space” or “Edward Scissorhands” haunting.

Closing the program with the intensely thrilling “…hold me, neighbor, in this storm …” brought everyone instantly to their feet, shouting for more, which the ensemble obliged with multiple encores. But first, this haunting explosion of power rooted in the Balkans strife, infused with gypsy dances, drum beats, chimes, chanting and foot stomps, punctuated by low, slow explosions.

This evening of high emotion, filled with the depth and breadth a soul can reach, was a wonderful way to propel the Englert into its next century.

To see the full lineup for the historic venue’s celebration, go to Englert.org

REVIEW: Loudon Wainwright III and Dar Williams mesmerize Englert crowd

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"10 Songs for the New Depression," Loudon Wainwright III

IOWA CITY — Loudon Wainwright III sings of the wisdom that comes with age, Dar Williams sings of gods and goddesses. Together on the Englert Theatre stage Friday night (9/21/12), these folk music titans transported their fans to heavenly realms.

I’ve been in love with Williams since I first saw her on the CSPS stage in Cedar Rapids in the mid-90s. As for Wainwright, he gave this Iowa farm girl more than a few shudders and laughs in the ’70s with “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.” (Thanks to a Facebook friend for reminding me of that one. For kicks, go to YouTube to see him sing it at Rockpalast in Germany 40 years ago.)

Williams stepped into the intimate Englert spotlight first, just her and her guitar — until she broke a string and had to borrow Wainwright’s for a moment.

She has a long-standing love affair with Iowa and Iowa City, built by visiting a friend at the University of Iowa years ago, so each visit to these parts is like a homecoming for her. And each time, she makes me feel like I’m catching up with an old friend, through her easy-breezy style that melts away the years.

She wrapped her wispy, wistful alto around several tunes from her new CD, “In the Time of Gods,” singing of Poseidon and Persephone, but dipped back into her magical earlier albums with the hauntingly gorgeous “The Beauty of the Rain” and my all-time favorite Dar song, “The Babysitter’s Here,” her homage to every little girl’s first hero, the immortally cool, perpetually hip babysitter.

Naturally, she closed with the bouncy “Iowa,” a sure-fire crowd-pleaser in the Hawkeye State.

Her every appearance is a crowd-pleaser. Williams not only casts her spell through her magical mirror to the plagues of modern society, she also weaves magical tales between each song, making us laugh and sigh at the way she sees the world around her. It’s a beautiful world of joy and pain filtered through humor and hopefulness. Her rhythms range from gentle to rocky, just like her path.

Wainwright has been doing the same thing, walking that same path for about 20 years longer than Williams, now 45 and the mother of two.

He’s the proud father of musical daughters Martha and Lucy (who spent a summer as nanny to Williams’ children) as well as his son, Rufus Wainwright, who married his longtime boyfriend in August in New York. When Loudon was asked to give a toast at the summer wedding festivities, he instead wrote a song, “The Idea of Us,” which he graciously shared during the concert. It’s sweet and fun and beautifully sentimental — just a really lovely real-life moment for a son who obviouisly makes his father proud.

But the meat of the concert came from Wainwright’s new CD, “Older Than My Old Man Now.” He tosses his head back and punctuates every bouncy beat with a little kick and sweeps of his tongue, pouring out all the questions and quandaries and wisdom of his years into the title track, as well as others like “Double Lifetime” and the hilarious “My Meds.”

Like Williams, he prefaces each song with a little story — or even better — by reading some of the Life magazine articles his father wrote. The elder Loudon imparted a legacy of depth, intellect and charm to his son, captured perhaps best in an utterly shattering, yet somehow humorous, column about the life and death of the family dog. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one crying after son read father’s pitch-perfect writing.

Too soon, the concert was over. Sort of. We just couldn’t get enough, so Wainwright and Williams joined forces for the first time anywhere, to sing harmony and trade melodies on each other’s songs. They started with the gentle, lilting “Over the Hill,” which Wainwright wrote with his late wife, Kate McGarrigle, and ended with a lightly rocking note, singing about living for today and the uncertainty of tomorrow.

Perfect ending to a perfect evening.

 

 

REVIEW: Hugh Laurie knows how to whip up a party in the house

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Musician and actor Hugh Laurie, best known for his starring role on the hit television series House, made his musical debut at the Englert backed by the Copper Bottom Band as part of the world tour in support of his new album, "Let Them Talk."(Justin Torner/Freelance)

IOWA CITY — Hugh Laurie’s joy is infectious, but don’t call him by his alter egomaniac, Dr. House. The 725 cheering fans filling the Englert Theatre on Friday night (8/17) didn’t want to be cured.

Not only is the dashing Brit a great actor, he’s a great blues pianist and an even better singer in person than on his new CD, “Let Them Talk.” It’s the visual that punches up the vocals.

He strolled onstage precisely at 8 p.m., looking rather Edwardian punk in his formal black longcoat, pants and pinkish ruffled tux shirt. Kneeling very properly, he hoisted a shot and saluted his cheering fans. Then he got down to business. The business of performing, which he knows so well.

“Until very recently, I was an actor,” he said to another round of cheers. “Imagine if a pilot said, ‘Until a couple weeks ago I was a dental hygienist,’ ” and then his voice trailed off amid the laughter.

Instantly, he proved he’s a great pianist who knows how to set a scene. He surrounds himself with the fantastic Copper Bottom Band — five musicians covering everything from accordion and electronic keyboards to a full range of guitars, saxes and other “blowy” things, double bass and drums — as well as some fine, wailing soul from Sister Jean McClain on background and solo vocals.

Their New Orleans shabby chic environment includes a soft glow from a chandelier and six lamps — several sporting beaded fringe —  and touches of whimsy with a hatrack, a pheasant, a framed photo on a table behind Laurie’s gleaming black grand piano and mic stands wrapped in heavy drapery tassels.

 

What really lights up the stage, however, is Laurie’s megawatt smile, framed by his to-die-for dimples. He just exudes joy from his entire being, fingertips to smile to stomping feet to goofy dance moves and silly walks from piano to center stage microphone, where he occasionally picked up an acoustic guitar and sang in the spotlight.

His concert runs the gamut of blues, focusing largely on a New Orleans tradition that teeters into Dixieland and taps into jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and gospel.

Every song has a little back story, some of them poignant, but most of them hilarious, with a comic timing honed in the early days of his career.

He came out stomping with “Mellow Down Easy,” before launching into a technically dazzling classical prelude to “St. James Infirmary,” which he calls “a very old song with a venerable history.” It’s the first track on his new CD. Seeing it live however, blows the recorded version right out of the water.

The Copper Bottom Band matches his virtuosity and powers up the drama with haunting clarinet, crashing cymbals, walking bass, amazing guitar and growly tenor sax. Followed by a story from Laurie about how the building that once treated leprosy and venereal diseases is now St. James Palace in London, ”where the Queen does whatever queens do — play Twister?”

It’s so hard to narrow down the highlights from more than two hours of nonstop music and laughter.

What makes Laurie unique is the way he takes songs we all know and totally reinvents them, breathing new life and surprises at every turn.

An eerie aura perfectly captures “Battle of Jericho,” but Laurie and company take the battle to new heights. I don’t know how he did it, but sax man extraordinaire Vincent Henry actually played tenor and soprano saxes simultaneously, with McClain adding her best gospel wail. The effect was simply stunning.

Another standout is “Swanee River,” sounding like nothing you’ve ever heard before, with mysterious clarinet and French accordion laying the groundwork before Laurie tears loose with boogie-woogie piano. Stephen Foster must surely be smiling and clapping with the rest of us.

Laurie’s favorite song, “Tipitina,” became our favorite song, because of his fervor. His first encore, with new lyrics set to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” even drew an “amen” from the audience.

And everybody jumped to their feet, clapping and dancing to a Dixieland ode to the British gin, Tanqueray, to close out the evening with plenty of cheer.

Laurie knows how to whip up a party in the house.