Citizen Action NY (a group looking to introduce publicly funded elections in New York) will be hosting a free screening of PRICELE$$ in Albany, NY at the Spectrum 8 Theaters on May 2nd, 7:00pm.
Director Steve Cowan will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A with Rep. Paul Tonko.
PRICELE$$ is a 60-minute documentary produced and directed by Steve Cowan of Habitat Media.
RSVP Required: http://fairelectionsny.org/pricelessalbany
So I just wrote that headline, and though it is about making movies and money, it sounds like a boring way to begin.
My apologies to the panelists and the moderator, who happens to be my boss, Rex Smith.
At 10 a.m. Thursday, May 3, at the UAlbany’s Performing Arts Center (on the campus at 1400 Washington Ave.) Craig M. Hatkoff, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival, will speak at a Town Hall meeting about expanding film production opportunities in the Capital Region.
The panelist will be
• Deborah Goedeke, Albany County Film Commissioner
• Pat Swinney Kaufman, Executive Director of the Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development
• Philip Morris, CEO of Proctors
• Heidi Philipsen, writer/actor/director
Here’s how the PR for the free event describes what’s happening:
The event will also launch UPSTATE.N.Y.SCREENS, an initiative joining together humanities, cinema arts, and economic development in the Capital Region. The University at Albany Foundation in partnership with the Center for Humanities, Arts, and TechnoSciences (CHATS), the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Albany Convention and Tourism Bureau are incubating the UPSTATE.N.Y.SCREENS initiative.
The launch announcement will provide details regarding a regional cinematic exposition offering master classes and workshops, screenings, and a celebration/retrospective of an iconic filmmaker whose work will be the centerpiece and focus of the events.
UPSTATE.N.Y.SCREENS is currently developing a documentary film, “The Albany Mummies: Unraveling an Ancient Mystery” by UAlbany Associate Professor of English Mary Valentis and retired English professor William Rainbolt. The film is expected to make its debut in late 2012.
To register for the May 3 Town Hall, please RSVP to events@albany.edu or call (518) 442-5373.
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation announced today that 21 performing artists will share $5.7 million in grants.
Each recipient gets a multiyear grant of $225,000. They’ll also receive up to $50,000 for retirement savings and audience development.
Among the awardees are dancer-choreographer Wally Cardona, who will be performing Friday and Saturday night at EMPAC at RPI in Troy; theater and opera director Anne Bogart, who founded the SITI Company, which holds its summer residency at Skidmore in Saratoga Springs; and performers who have appeared regularly in the greater Capital Region, such as jazz pianist Vijay Iyer, choreographer-dancers Eiko & Koma and choreographer Reggie Wilson.
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Albany
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s concert Monday night at Times Union Center started nearly an hour late, but all was forgiven once the 16 musicians took the stage and gave the packed house a night of power, emotion and showmanship.
Highlights included a video tribute to saxman Clarence Clemons, who died last June; the many sax solos by Clemons’ nephew Jake Clemons, which often left Springsteen’s face beaming with pride in classics such as “Thunder Road”; Springsteen’s solo performance of his rarely played “Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart,” an outtake from 1983’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” which began with his tentative finger picking on his guitar, as if trying to relearn the song; the dueling guitar leads between Stevie Van Zandt and Springsteen during “Murder Incorporated”; hits such as “Badlands,” “The Promised Land,” and the evening ending string of “Born to Run,” “Dancing the Dark” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”; and 62-year-old Springsteen’s amazing energy and connection with his fans, pulling three people out of the audience to dance or sing with him.
Wow. And did I even mention Springsteen pouring a fan’s bottle of water down his back, then downing another fan’s beer before diving into the crowd and letting himself be carried back to the stage? (more…)
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Call her the original Hollywood cougar.
Long before Demi Moore or the Courtney Cox TV show, Norma Desmond sunk her claws into the young struggling writer Joe Gillis in Billy Wilder’s classic noir film “Sunset Boulevard.”
Andrew Lloyd Weber’s version of “Sunset” opened Thursday night at Cohoes Music Hall in a solid production directed by Jim Charles that captures the musical’s creepy psycho-sexual tension that veers more toward the Gothic than the noir. (more…)
The Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan is known for descriptive language and delicate narratives, dealing with history, exile and return.
Zaqtan, who is also a novelist, playwright and newspaper editor, is slated to discuss “Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me,” his first collection of poetry published in English. Zaqtan, however, hadn’t yet arrived in the U.S. by Thursday afternoon. The local appearance is part of a two-week tour, originally scheduled to begin Tuesday in California, that is co-sponsored by groups hosting his readings and underwritten by the Poetry Foundation.
The New York State Writers Institute announced on its Facebook page that the PEN American Center and the ACLU are pressing the State Department to grant the poet a visa. The organizations have suggested that the visa is being held up for political reasons.
Don Faulkner, director of the Writers Institute, says Zaqtan’s work has a political component, but he is generally considered uncontroversial and has been involved with numerous … conferences and seminars.
“What we’ve gleaned is by all estimations he’s very much seen as a a bridge-builder,” says Faulkner. “He’s regarded, at least in intellectual community in Israel, as a very positive force.” The Writers Institute has received no complaints about booking Zaqtan, Faulkner says.
If all goes as planned, Palestinian-American poet Fady Joudah, who translated “Straw Bird,” will appear with Zaqtan.
If Zaqtan can’t make it, Joudah, who recently won the Yale Younger Poets Prize for his own work, will still appear 4:15 p.m. seminar, 8 p.m. reading; Tuesday. Free. Standish Room, Science Library, UAlbany, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany. 442-5620; http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst
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In his new work, “(glowing),” onstage at EMPAC Friday, Japanese choreographer Kota Yamazaki creates minimalism out of information overload.
His inspirations include, in no particular order: an essay by author Junichiro Tanizaki on the Japanese aesthetics of darkness and shadows; the moody, slo-mo dance form known as butoh; Japanese home design; traditional African dance; and contemporary and classical movement.
In Friday’s premiere, Yamazaki’s ethereal-looking dancers will be joined by dancers from Senegal and Ethiopia. The choreographer studied fashion design in Tokyo before segueing into the dance world, and won a Bessie Award in 2007 for his work with the Senegalese company Jant-Bi.
He’s now based in New York City with his company, Fluid hug-hug.
On Saturday, March 31, Yamazaki and his dancers led a free public dance workshop at EMPAC that featured both traditional African dance and butoh.
At a glance
KOTA YAMAZAKI/FLUID HUG-HUG: “(GLOWING)”
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: EMPAC, 110 Eighth St., Troy
Tickets: $18
Info: 276-3921 or http://empac.rpi.edu
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Here’s a video primer of Season 1, with some teasers of Season 2 of the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones,” which returns to the cable channel on Sunday night.
I’ve had the chance to watch the first four episodes of the new season. If you saw the first season, then you’ll be happy to know that Season 2 is even better so far. If you’ve never seen the show, perhaps you’ll want to join in.
Sure, some people are turned off by the very notion of fantasy, even if it is an HBO-style Soprano-esque hard-hitting cut-throat adult kind of fantasy (with nudity and sex thrown in). But what makes the story work is not only the hard-hitting politics, but the great development of multiple characters, especially the clear-headed (and hedonistic) Tyrion Lannister, a role played by Peter Dinklage who won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his portrayal.
In recent weeks, lots of people have joined Pinterest. That includes the Times Union at http://www.pinterest.com/timesunion. But the sites terms of service had people scared about content ownership, copyrights and legal ramifications.
Now Pinterest has announced it is changing its TOS, especially by eliminating the part that said it could sell your content. That should make users happy.
Here’s the text of the email:
