Michael Janairo

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Author: Michael Janairo

  • New York City Ballet’s Justin Peck talks about new work

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    By Dayelin Roman

    Justin Peck said his first inspiration was the power of male dancers.

    The 24-year-old New York City Ballet dancer and choreographer was 13 when he saw a performance of American Ballet Theatre in San Diego and began practicing plies afterward.

    On July 14, he will present his first choreographed ballet for the New York City Ballet — a world premiere at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center set to composer Philip Glass’ “Four Movements for Two Pianos,” the first time a ballet has been set to the music. (more…)

  • Phish returns to SPAC for three-night run

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    Phish won’t be in any hurry to leave once they roll their summer tour into town this week. The seminal Vermont-based jam band is set to spend three nights at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, their longest stint at the amphitheater. Phish has played SPAC 11 times since 1992, most recently on June 20, 2010, according to fansite Phish.net (http://www.phish.net). The band is in the middle of an extended summer tour that kicked off in June and will bring them south and west before wrapping up with three shows in Colorado on Labor Day weekend. As for what Phish might play, only they know for sure. Then again, that’s part of the magic of a Phish show — you never really know what Phish is going to play live until they play it. 7:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday. $45-$60. Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Spa State Park, Saratoga Springs. 587-3330; http://www.spac.org

  • Winners are announced at Fence Salon show

    The winners of the 2012 Fence Salon exhibition were announced Friday night at the Arts Center of the Capital Region during the monthly Troy Night Out.
    The Fence Salon, an annual exhibition open to members of the Arts Center in Troy, had a record number of submitted pieces, 511, from 241 artists. The exhibition runs through July 15.

    Jim Richard Wilson, director of the Opalka Gallery at the Sage Colleges in Albany, was the juror of this year’s show. He picked 50 pieces for the Fence Select show, which runs from July 27 through Aug. 31. He also selected the winners.

    The President’s Award, which includes a solo exhibition in the President’s Gallery at the Arts Center during next year’s Fence Show, went to Channing Lefebvre, for his piece “Associations 117,” 2011.

    Adult artists winning $100 awards were John Hampshire for “Labyrinth 276: Tornadic Panorama,” 2011; Gary Masline “Disconnected,” 2012; Wendy Ide Williams “Flare of Flexibility,” 2011; and Sandra Dwileski “Bramble,” 2011.

    In the children’s category, $25 awards went to Christopher Quinones for “Zow,” 2012; Lily Eastman, “Reflections of My Purple Purse,” 2011; Devannie Simpson, “Patchwork Tree,” 2012; and Olivia Howie, “Untitled,” 2012.

  • The Blue Deep @ Williamstown Theatre Festival, 6/29/12

    Grief can take myriad and unexpected forms, making it ripe for both comedy and drama. In the world premiere production of “The Blue Deep” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s smaller Nikos Stage, playwright Lucy Boyle dives into both with mixed results.

    The comic bits are clear, as in the slapstick moment when the mother, Grace, and her 20-something daughter, Lila, find themselves superglued together. Or when Lila, a smoker, catches her mother, who often douses Lila’s cigarettes, smoking pot with her longtime friends, Roberta and Charlie. In a gently clever play on words, Lila says, “Look who’s calling the pot — pot.”

    Roberta and Charlie are the best characters in the play. They are lively and funny, and, unfortunately, almost completely irrelevant to the muddled mother-daughter drama.
    (more…)

  • From the Archive: Walt Whitman at The Hyde Collection

    Thomas Eakins, American (1844-1916), Walt Whitman (1819-1892), 1887-88, oil on canvas, 30 1/8 x 24 1/4 in., Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. General Fund, 1917.1

    The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls is offering visitors an unprecedented opportunity to see Portrait of Walt Whitman (1887-1888) by Thomas Eakins (1844-1914).

    The Whitman portrait is considered one of Eakins’s finest paintings, and only rarely leaves Philadelphia, where it is a featured work in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA). This image of one of America’s most influential poets, by one of the nation’s greatest artists, will be in Glens Falls for six months, as a second exchange for the year-long loan of The Hyde Collection’s Portrait of Henry Ossawa Tanner (ca. 1897) by Eakins.

    Admission is $8 per person and is free for Hyde members and children under fourteen years of age and includes access to most exhibitions and events. Every Wednesday is free. A fee may be charged for special exhibitions and events. The Hyde Collection is a non-profit institution located at 161 Warren Street, Glens Falls, New York. From January – May 31:  open Wednesday-Saturday from 10 am – 5 pm; Sunday 12noon – 5 pm; closed Monday, Tuesday and national holidays. From June 1–December 31: open Tuesday–Saturday from 10am – 5pm; Sunday from 12noon -5pm; closed Monday and national holidays.  For information, visit www.hydecollection.org or call 518-792-1761.

  • 10 cool things to do this summer for free

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    Railbird

    • When: 7 p.m. Friday, June 8
    • Where: Upbeat on the Roof, the roof of the Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs
    • Why: Though Railbird’s website says the band is based in Brooklyn, Capital Region residents know the band is led by Saratoga Spring’s own Sarah K. Pedinotti, the daughter of the owners of the restaurant-nightspot One Caroline. Since 2008, when the Sarah Pedinotti Band became Railbird, the band has been performing and released its debut album, “No One,” last year and then toured the country, supported by a Kickstarter fundraising campaign. This Upbeat on the Roof show launches the free weekly series at the Tang, but is also in conjunction with the Saratoga Arts Fest. Here’s your chance to catch, or re-catch, homegrown talent on the rise
    • Info: (518) 580-8080; http://tang.skidmore.edu

    — Michael Janairo, arts and entertainment editor

    Bootsy 
Collins at 
Alive at Five

    • Where: Albany Riverfront Park amphitheatre at the Corning Preserve
    • When: 5-8 p.m. Thursday, June 14
    • Why: Collins rose to prominence in the late 1960s with James Brown and with Parliament-Funkadelic in the 1970s. He is known for his bass playing and funk sound, which redefined popular music. Collins became one of the leading names in funk and a music industry legend who earned a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with other members of Parliament-Funkadelic in 1997. He has chart-topping songs such as “Bootzilla” and “The Pinocchio Theory.”
    • Info: 533-5331; 
http://www.albanyalive.com

    — Hina Tai, intern

    (more…)

  • Ray Bradbury, 91, dies

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    The AP is reporting that Ray Bradbury, the science fiction-fantasy master who transformed his childhood dreams and Cold War fears into telepathic Martians, lovesick sea monsters, and, in uncanny detail, the high-tech, book-burning future of “Fahrenheit 451,” has died. He was 91.

    I read “Farhenheit 451” when I was in eighth grade and my teacher didn’t know what to do with me anymore, because I had completed all the SRA reading levels by October (see ya, aqua!).

    The reading experience was transformative. I got to read this sci fi book for credit? And while my classmates toiled away at the SRA cards, I kicked back with Bradbury and this crazy book filled with characters who had memorized so many other books, because, as everyone knows, Farhenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper burns.

    I didn’t even have to write a paper about the novel. I just sat and had a 20-minute talk with the teacher about it, and then I was free to move on — so then I read Martian Chronicles, and then other sci fi, such as Heinlein’s Stranger in a Stranger Land and Frank Herbert’s Dune.

    In many ways, Bradbury was my introduction to sci fi as something more than an escape, but a means for intellectual pursuit.

    What’s your Bradbury story?

  • Share your first concert experience

    The Psychedelic Furs’  concert on Saturday, June 2, at The Egg in Albany has got me thinking about my first concert experience.

    This was in the early 1980s in Pittsburgh, where I grew up. I was 14 at the time, and the P-Furs post-punk pop had an edge to it that my mother didn’t understand. But I also had older brothers who had gone to concerts for bands such as The Clash and Black Sabbath the previous year, so I suppose the P-Furs seemed tame by comparison.

    What I remember most about the concert isn’t the music or the people I was with, but the atmosphere of the concert hall. The PFurs played the Syria Mosque, a venue that has since been replaced by a parking lot. After a drive in a packed station wagon from the suburbs, we entered another reality.

    (more…)

  • Robin Gibb, of Bee Gees fame, dies

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    Rolling Stone reports that Robin Gibb, 62, has died.

    Gibb was one-third of the band The Bee Gees, formed with his twin, Maurice, and his older brother Barry.

    The group was known for such 1970s hits as “Stayin Alive,” “Night Fever” and “How Deep is Your Love.”

    The AP reports:

    Gibb’s representative Doug Wright announced in a statement that Gibb passed away Sunday “following his long battle with cancer and intestinal surgery.”

    What are your memories of Robin Gibb and the Bee Gees?

    (more…)