1.31.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

Music at the Museum

Host Organization: San Antonio Museum of Art and San Antonio Symphony League
Date: Monday, January 31
Time: Cocktail reception and silent auction at 5:30 p.m., Symphony concert begins at 6:45 p.m.
Venue: San Antonio Museum of Art
200 West Jones Avenue, San Antonio, Texas 78215

It will be an evening of music from some of the premier musicians of the San Antonio Symphony. A Maestro Reception, featuring new Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing, follows the concert.

For more information and tickets: samuseum.org or (210) 978-8121

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org

1.30.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

The Fidelis String Quartet

Host Organization: Fredericksburg Music Club
Date: Sunday, January 30
Time: 3 p.m.
Venue: Fredericksburg United Methodist Church
1800 North Llano, Fredericksburg, TX 78264

The quartet is comprised of four Houston symphony musicians: sisters Rodica Oancea-Gonzalez and Mihaela Oancea-Frusina are violinists; Wei Jiang on viola, and Jeffrey Butler on cello. This group made its debut at Carnegie Hall in 2005 and performs throughout the United States.

Admission Price: Free will donation
For more information: FredericksburgMusicClub.com

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org

1.29.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

Mame

Host Organization: San Pedro Playhouse
Date: Saturday, January 29
Time: 8 p.m.
Venue: San Pedro Playhouse
800 West Ashby Place, San Antonio, TX 78212

The madcap Mame is entrusted with raising her nephew, Patrick, after the of his missionary parents demise in Africa. Mame is set to one of Jerry Herman’s greatest scores. There will be weekend performances through February 20.

For more information and tickets: (210) 733-7258 or sanpedroplayhouse.com


Pecos Bill

Host Organization: The Magik Theatre
Date: Saturday, January 29
Time: 2 p.m.
Venue: The Magik Theatre
420 South Alamo Street, San Antonio, TX 78206

This Magik Theatre original follows the legendary cowboy from his early beginnings (raised by coyotes) to becoming the first and greatest cowboy in Texas history. Guests will see Bill create the Gulf of Mexico and the Grand Canyon and lead the first trail drive. This wild and crazy trip through Texas history will run through February 3, 2011.

For more information and tickets: (210) 227-2751 or magiktheatre.org


Mexican Cinema Cycle: Santo vs. Las Lobas (Santos vs. the She-Wolves)

Host Organization:
Instituto Cultural de México en San Antonio
Date: Saturday, January 29
Time: 5 p.m.
Venue: Auditorium of theInstituto Cultural de México
600 Hemisfair Park, San Antonio, TX 78205

The film is in Spanish with English subtitles. The film is directed by Jaime Jiménez Pons and Rubén Galindo. Queen Luba will lead the fight against good alongside Lican, the king of the werewolves. She will have to destroy Santo who will fight without rest against these creatures before he eliminates the people he has sworn to protect.

Admission Price: Free
For more information and reservations: (210) 227-0123

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org

1.28.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

Mame

Host Organization: San Pedro Playhouse
Date: Friday, January 28
Time: 8 p.m.
Venue: San Pedro Playhouse
800 West Ashby Place, San Antonio, TX 78212

The madcap Mame is entrusted with raising her nephew, Patrick, after the of his missionary parents demise in Africa. Mame is set to one of Jerry Herman’s greatest scores. There will be weekend performances through February 20.

For more information and tickets: (210) 733-7258 or sanpedroplayhouse.com


1st Peek Staged Reading Series: Carmen De La Calle by Amelia Ortiz

Host Organization: Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center
Date: Friday, January 28
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Venue: Guadalupe Theater
1302 Guadalupe Street, San Antonio, TX 78207

The event will feature a reading by Tejana performance poet Amalia Ortiz. She is a CantoMundo Fellow and has appeared on three seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO and the NAACP Image Awards on Fox. There will be a Q&A session to follow.

For more information: (210) 271-3151 or guadalupeculturalarts.org


Pecos Bill

Host Organization: The Magik Theatre
Date: Friday, January 28
Time: 7 p.m.
Venue: The Magik Theatre
420 South Alamo Street, San Antonio, TX 78206

This Magik Theatre original follows the legendary cowboy from his early beginnings (raised by coyotes) to becoming the first and greatest cowboy in Texas history. Guests will see Bill create the Gulf of Mexico and the Grand Canyon and lead the first trail drive. This wild and crazy trip through Texas history will run through February 3, 2011.

For more information and tickets: (210) 227-2751 or magiktheatre.org


The History of Texas... in one darn easy lesson!

Host Organization: The Company Theatre
Date: Friday, January 28
Time: 7:30 p.m., doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Venue: The Big Apple Room at Little Italy
824 Afterglow, San Antonio, TX 78216

The Dinnerbox Series continues with The History of Texas ... in one darn easy lesson! The show is a rollercoaster ride through 500 years of Texas in 5000 seconds. Great fun for the whole family!

For more information and tickets: (800) 838-3006 or thecompanytheatre.org

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org

1.27.2011

Local Arts Groups Host Festival of Avant-Garde Music and Dance

Courtesy of No Idea Festival.

Today string players, percussionists, electronics tweakers, a clarinetist and a dancer will turn the SMART Art Project Space into a performance hall for the eighth No Idea Festival of improvised music and dance. It features twelve artists from across the country (one from Mexico City) and is sponsored by San Antonio's heavy Denim and FLIGHT Gallery.

The No Idea Festival has brought experimental musicians and dancers to Texas since 2005. This year's festival will feature solo and collaborative performances of diverse avant-garde music, with many of the pairings being the first collaborations between these artists. Today will also be the first time violinist Alexander Bruck (Mexico City) has performed in Texas.

Those interested in making electronic music and discussing it with two musicians who are passionate about it should attend the pre-performance workshop at the SMART Project Space with Vic Rawlings and Bryan Eubanks, where the artists will talk about making music on their homemade electronic instruments. Admission is free to the workshop.

Tonight's performance begins at 8. If you can't make it tonight, the festival travels to Austin tomorrow for the weekend.

Today in Arts & Culture

Ensemble Pamplemousse

Host Organization: Northwest Vista College
Date: Thursday, January 27
Time: 7 p.m.
Venue: Palmetto Center for the Arts, Northwest Vista College
3535 N. Ellison Drive, San Antonio, TX 78251

Brooklyn-based musical group Ensemble Pamplemousse will bring its futuristic sounds to the Palmetto Center for the Arts at Northwest Vista College. The group’s performances include theatrical presentations, video projections, and improvisation.

For more information: (210) 486-4681 or alamo.edu/nvc


Sweet Thunder

Host Organization: Delfeayo Marsalis
Date: Thursday, January 27
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Venue: Charline McCombs Empire Theatre
226 N. St. Mary's Street, San Antonio, TX 78205

This evening of family fun and entertainment combining the works of Duke Ellington and William Shakespeare, with full stage set and costuming, will feature actor Kenneth Brown, Jr. and the Delfeayo Marsalis Octet.

For more information and tickets: dmarsalis.com and ticketmaster.com

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org

1.26.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

Texas Watercolors in the McNay Collection Exhibition Opening

Host Organization: McNay Art Museum
Date: Wednesday, January 26
Time: 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Venue: McNay Art Museum
6000 North New Braunfels, San Antonio, TX 78209

This exhibition demonstrates the growth of the watercolor collection since the founding of the museum and focuses on the richness of the McNay’s Texas watercolors. The works of the San Antonio Watercolor Gang, including Ivan McDougal, Clay McGaughy, and E. Gordon West are among the most accomplished in the exhibition. The McNay recently acquired two McDougal watercolors, Irish Sea Stories and Doubtful Canyon, from the artist’s estate. This exhibition is the first opportunity for the public to see these works, which the artist considered his best. The exhibition will run through May 29.

For more information and museum hours: (210) 824-5368 or mcnayart.org


Vince Gill in Concert

Host Organization: Arts San Antonio
Date: Wednesday, January 26
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Venue: Laurie Auditorium at Trinity University
715 Stadium Drive, San Antonio, TX 78212

Vince Gill is an award winning Country musician and has sold more than 26 million albums. He will be performing for one night only.

For more information and tickets: (210) 226-2891 or artssa.org

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org

1.25.2011

Artpace Executive Director Steps Down


The Executive Director of Artpace San Antonio, Matthew Drutt, left his position today after having served there since 2006. Under Drutt's leadership, Artpace hosted many popular exhibitions, commissioning works by Kate Gilmore, Marie Lorenz and Gabriel Vormstein, among others, for the gallery's large Hudson (Show)Room and WindowWorks space.

Drutt's vision for Artpace was international and ambitious.

"Matthew has been instrumental in furthering Artpace's history," J. Travis Capps, Jr., Chair of Artpace's Board of Directors, stated in a press release, "Under his leadership Artpace mounted the most ambitious exhibition in its history-- the statewide presentation of Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Billboards-- and developed a professional staff that provides unmatched contemporary art programming that is accessible and free to the public."

Artpace's Board of Directors has already begun a national search for the next Executive Director.

In the meantime, Associate Director of Development, Mary Heathcott, will serve as Interim Managing Director at Artpace. She will oversee upcoming exhibitions of work by artists like Tracey Moffatt and projects like Potter-Belmar Labs , for which the bulk of curatorial work has already been done.

"We on staff are fully confident Mary will make a great Interim Director," says Artpace's Manager of Public Affairs, Matt Johns, "We're really excited about the upcoming year."

Heathcott also anticipates a busy, productive year for the gallery, which showcases contemporary art year round in downtown San Antonio.

"We have an exceedingly talented staff and talented artists working with us," she explains, "Artpace continues to flourish."

Drutt has not publicized his reasons for leaving.

Contemporary Art Gallery Welcomes Readers to Zine Library

Photo by Veronica Salinas
Photo by Veronica Salinas

It's easy to pass Unit B (Gallery) without noticing it. Besides the huge backyard (furnished with cartoonish plywood cutouts of longhorn steer), Unit B looks like any other house in its Southtown neighborhood, with a chain link fence and cars in the carport. Unit B has indeed always been an extension of its Director, Kimberly Aubuchon's, home, which she relocated from Chicago in 2006. But you'd never suspect the building's spare bedroom lodges contemporary art from around the country.

It seems fitting then for Unit B to host the Trouser House Zine Library. Zines are low-circulation publications, usually intended for a specific, small community (like skaters, anarchist vegans or anarchist vegan skaters). It is a form that has incorporated eccentricity and intimacy so much into its aesthetic that it seems to resist art and literary criticism as we're used to reading it in newspapers and other mainstream sources.

The Zine Library was originally hosted by Trouser House in New Orleans, a non-profit contemporary art and urban farming project that wants to educate NOLA about food and art as a way to improve citywide well-being. Emily Morrison, who works at Trouser House, guest curated the San Antonio exhibition of the Zine Library, hanging 50 diverse zines sourced from New Orleans, Austin and Mexico City.

And by "hanging" I don't mean from hooks on the walls, but rather from 50 clothes hangers dangling from the ceiling by fishing twine. Morrison chose the hangers as a way to riff off the space's domestic qualities. The translucency of the fishing twine makes it appear the hangers are suspended surreally midair.

The exhibition is indeed an "open-stack" library: you're free to handle and read the various zines. They range from the fairly heady, artsy Pazmaker to the beer-fueled, irreverent skater zine Thing Bad to the squiggly, scatological cartoons of The Rotten Pathway Through the Painful Digestive Tract. Some are primarily literary, like Vagrancy, while others resemble scrapbooks, like the bizarre its not yours, which features mostly blurry photos and superimposed, fragmentary handwriting. Some are fine prints, silkscreened with care onto expensive card stock, whereas others are photocopied onto crookedly-bound, coffee-stained printer paper.

Walking around the exhibit, you feel like you're accessing very personal spaces. This might be a strange experience in an imposing, humidified gallery downtown, but feels totally ok in a domestic space like Unit B. By displaying work by over 50 artists in a small room in a quiet neighborhood, the Zine Library works less like a usual art exhibition and more like a low-key block party. And if you fall in love with any zine you meet there, each is for sale for $15.

The Zine Library is open to readers until March 5.

Today in Arts & Culture

Middle East Journey

Host Organization: SOLI Chamber Ensemble
Date: Tuesday, January 25
Time: 7:30 p.m. (pre-concert talk 7 p.m.)
Venue: Trinity University, Ruth Taylor Recital Hall
715 Stadium Drive, San Antonio, TX 78212

The world premiere of San Antonian Jack Stamps' The Sensuous Terrain is featured with Edward Hines, Behzad Ranjbarab and Richard Danielpour. A special presentation by photojournalist Iason Athanasiadis will follow the performance each night. A reception with the artists will close the evening.

For more information: (210) 485-9330 or solichamberensemble.com


Afternoon Classical Music Concert

Host Organization: Tuesday Musical Club Artist Series
Date: Tuesday, January 25
Time: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Venue: Laurel Heights United Methodist Church
227 West Woodlawn Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78212

The concert features Cellist Scott Kluksdahl.

For more information: (210) 832-0861 or satmc.org

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org

1.24.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

Middle East Journey

Host Organization: SOLI Chamber Ensemble
Date: Monday, January 24
Time: 7:30 p.m. (pre-concert talk 7 p.m.)
Venue: Gallery Nord
2009 NW Military Highway, San Antonio, TX 78213

The world premiere of San Antonian Jack Stamps' The Sensuous Terrain is featured with Edward Hines, Behzad Ranjbarab and Richard Danielpour. A special presentation by photojournalist Iason Athanasiadis will follow the performance each night. A reception with the artists will close the evening.

For more information: (210) 485-9330 or solichamberensemble.com


For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org

1.23.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema

Host Organization: AtticRep
Date: Saturday, January 22
Time: 8 p.m.
Venue: AtticRep in the Attic Theater in the Ruth Taylor Theater Building at Trinity University
One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212

Sans Souci is a film festival showcasing the art of dance through a unique lens, with an expansive definition of dance, this unique festival exposes audiences to a variety of film, video, and performance possibilities. Screenings include works of dance cinema artists from around the world.
Note: There will be different programs Friday, Saturday and Sunday

For more information and tickets: atticrep.org or (210) 999-8524


Renaissance & Response: Polyphony Then and Now Defining Mastery

Host Organization: Cospirare
Date: Saturday, January 22
Time: (pre-concert talk 3 p.m.) 4 p.m. concert
Venue: St Martin’s Lutheran Church
606 W. 15th Street, Austin, TX

Five-time Grammy®-nominated choir Conspirare explores the riches of Renaissance polyphonic music in a dramatic concert series over a single weekend. Robert Kyr will create a musical response to Orlandus Lassus’ Third Lamentation for Maundy Thursday, in a setting based on Psalm 69 and the Book of Jonah. Kyr’s Santa Fe Vespers 2010, premiered last summer, will also be performed.

For more information: (512) 476-5775 or conspirare.org


For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org.

1.22.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

Mame

Host Organization: San Pedro Playhouse
Date: Friday, January 21
Time: 8 p.m.
Venue: San Pedro Playhouse


The madcap Mame is entrusted with raising her nephew, Patrick, after the demise in Africa of his missionary parents. Mame is set to one of Jerry Herman’s greatest scores. There will be weekend performances through February 20.

For more information and tickets: (210) 733-7258


Debbie McMahon Fiber Arts Symposium

Host Organization: Southwest School of Art
Date: Saturday, January 22
Time: 1:30 p.m.
Venue: Russell Hill Rogers Lecture Hall, Navarro Campus

The lecture and panel discussion at this annual symposium will feature acclaimed fiber artist Jon Eric Riis as keynote speaker, with Liza Collins and Ann Matlock as panelists. There will be a reception for the artists at 4 p.m.

Admission Price: Free and open to the public
For more information: (210) 224-1848 or swschool.org



Renaissance & Response: Polyphony Then and Now Defining Mastery

Host Organization: Cospirare
Date: Saturday, January 22
Time: (pre-concert talk 3 p.m.) 4 p.m. concert
Venue: St Martin’s Lutheran Church
606 W. 15th Street, Austin, TX

Five-time Grammy®-nominated choir Conspirare explores the riches of Renaissance polyphonic music in a dramatic concert series over a single weekend. Robert Kyr will create a musical response to Orlandus Lassus’ Third Lamentation for Maundy Thursday, in a setting based on Psalm 69 and the Book of Jonah. Kyr’s Santa Fe Vespers 2010, premiered last summer, will also be performed.

For more information and tickets: (512) 476-5775 or conspirare.org



James Dick in Concert

Host Organization: Round Top Festival Institute
Date: Saturday, January 22
Time: 3 p.m.
Venue: Round Top Festival Institute
248 Jaster Road, Round Top, TX 78954

The program will featuremusic fromBeethoven and Franz Liszt. Guests are also invited to a reception and dinner, wine included as well as accommodations. Advanced reservations are required for both.

For more information and reservations: (979) 249-3129 or festivalhill.org


Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema

Host Organization: AtticRep
Date: Saturday, January 22
Time: 8 p.m.
Venue: AtticRep in the Attic Theater in the Ruth Taylor Theater Building at Trinity University
One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212

Sans Souci is a film festival showcasing the art of dance through a unique lens, with an expansive definition of dance, this unique festival exposes audiences to a variety of film, video, and performance possibilities. Screenings include works of dance cinema artists from around the world.
Note: There will be different programs Friday, Saturday and Sunday

For more information and tickets: atticrep.org or (210) 999-8524

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar at tpr.org.

1.21.2011

Festival Celebrates Work Between Dancers and Filmmakers

Screen capture from "Persecution" (2009) by John T. Williams

The French expression "sans souci" translates "without worries." For a few hundred years it has been used as a name for luxurious real estate, for example the baroque Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, or the 200-year-old Sans-Souci in Haiti.

It is also the name of the trailer park in Boulder, CO where in 2003 Michelle Ellsworth and Brandi Mathis dreamt up a festival of dance on film. They were uninterested in dance troupes simply taping their performances, rather they wanted video artists and choreographers to collaborate, designing dances that could only be fully realized on film. The result is dance that integrates digital editing and multiple angles to create movements impossible to recreate live.

What began as a low key local art project is now an internationally touring festival drawing submissions from all over the world.

This weekend AtticRep theatre company hosts the Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema in its space at Trinity University. This year's festival features over twenty film-dance collaborations, with most of the work coming from California-based artists (none from Texas). There are no video samples on the festival's website, but the entries seem to cover a wide variety of dance styles, including ballet, modern dance and breakdance.

I'm especially anxious to see "She" by Kathy Rose, which seems to incorporate some kind of robotics in its execution and is described on the website as "an insectoid fantasy with an indio-arachnid soundtrack." Awesome.

Since 2005, AtticRep has been a source of contemporary theater in San Antonio, and their hosting of the Sans Souci Festival adds to that tradition. The festival begins tonight at 8 p.m. Tickets are available through the AtticRep website.

Today in Arts & Culture

Mame


Host Organization: San Pedro Playhouse
Date: Friday, January 21
Time: 8 p.m.
Venue: San Pedro Playhouse


The madcap Mame is entrusted with raising her nephew, Patrick, after the demise in Africa of his missionary parents. Mame is set to one of Jerry Herman’s greatest scores. There will be weekend performances through February 20.

For more information and tickets: (210) 733-7258


Renaissance & Response: Polyphony Then and Now Early Voices
Host Organization:
Cospirare
Date: Friday, January 21
Time: (pre-concert talk 7 p.m.) 8 p.m. concert
Venue: St Martin’s Lutheran Church
606 W. 15th Street, Austin, TX

Five-time Grammy®-nominated choir Conspirare explores the riches of Renaissance polyphonic music in a dramatic concert series over a single weekend. The program will feature the music of Josquin Des Prez (1450-1521), recognized as the greatest composer of his era. Robert Kyr has studied Josquin for over thirty years and is the editor of the Josquin works on this program.

For more information: (512) 476-5775 or conspirare.org


Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema
Host Organization:
AtticRep
Date: Friday, January 21
Time: 8 p.m.
Venue: AtticRep in the Attic Theater in the Ruth Taylor Theater Building at Trinity University
One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212

Sans Souci is a film festival showcasing the art of dance through a unique lens, with an expansive definition of dance, this unique festival exposes audiences to a variety of film, video, and performance possibilities. Screenings include works of dance cinema artists from around the world.
Note: There will be different programs Friday, Saturday and Sunday

For more information and tickets: atticrep.org or (210) 999-8524


For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar, tpr.org

1.20.2011

Art Featured Throughout Renovated Lila Cockrell Theater

The interior of the Lila Cockrell Theater. Photo Courtesy of Ansen Seale.
The city has rededicated the renovated Lila Cockrell Theater with a birthday celebration for the former mayor. Officials also dedicated new art by Ansen Seale and honored some older works. Texas Public Radio's Eileen Pace reports. -more-

Today in Arts & Culture

Waiting For Superman Private Screening

Host Organization:
Y.E.L.L. - Youth Engaging in Leadership & Learning
Date: Thursday, January 20
Time: 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Venue: Santikos Bijou at Crossroads
4522 Fredericksburg Road, San Antonio, TX 78201

Waiting For Superman sheds light on the shortfalls of the public education system. The purpose of the film screening is to create a positive stir in the community about the challenges the school system faces.

For more information: (210) 563-4108


Ann Matlock: Journeys

Host Organization:
Southwest School of Art
Date: Thursday, January 20
Time: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Venue: Ursuline Hall Gallery, Ursuline Campus
300 Augusta Street, San Antonio, TX

Ann Matlock combines pictorial traditional techniques with brocade stitches to create graceful weavings that explore natural forms.

Admission Price: Free
For more information: (210) 224-1848 ext 403 or swschool.org

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar, tpr.org

1.19.2011

De-installation Art

Tree climber on the River Walk. Photo by Veronica Salinas.
Photo by Veronica Salinas.


It takes three months to string the trees of the River Walk with holiday lights. That's seventeen miles of lights and 140 trees, with some reaching 95 feet in height. The installation crew begins hauling bulbs, plugs and RoMax hose up into the crowns of San Antonio's cypresses around September and works right up to Christmastime when the lights turn on.

The lights are one of San Antonio's most popular tourist attractions, inspiring many to drive hundreds of miles just to stroll under them and sip a margarita on the riverbank.

But in mid-January, just a month after the last bulb got screwed in, the project to strike all the lights starts. Squirrels gnaw and birds peck at the cables, and the intense summer sunlight scorches the color from the bulbs, necessitating the yearly build-up and breakdown. The deinstallation project lasts two months.

The crew responsible for both jobs, which altogether provide nearly half a year of steady work, consists of only three members. One, the supervisor, is an employee of the city's Downtown Operations department (DTOPS); the other two, independent contractors to the department (through Preferred Landscape and Lighting), are tree climbers.

The process is slow and straightforward. David Cervantes and Cris Galvan, the climbers, ascend the trees, hoisting themselves up with nylon ropes tied to their harnesses, and disconnect the strings of lights, which are all knotted together in the topmost branches. Juan Hernandez, the supervisor, then goes around the base of the tree with a hook yanking the disconnected lights to the ground, causing lines of blue, red and green bulbs to burst rapidly against the concrete.

"Sounds like popcorn," says Hernandez, hooking another string, "Poppoppoppoppop!"

Because of the River Walk's unusual layout, the city employs tree climbers instead of traditional electrical maintenance crews.

"There's no access to the lights at ground level," explains Paula Stallcup, Downtown Operations Director, referring to the sunken nature of the River Walk, which positions it below the city's streets. "The crew can't park a truck next to a tree and just send a bucket up to get the lights."

So the city resorts to hooks and ropes, turning the River Walk into a sort of Ewok village.

The crew averages eight trees a day, working seven hours a day, five days a week. Cervantes, who has worked as a landscaper and arborist for 16 years, rises up into the trees effortlessly like a human spider. Galvan was only recently hired by the company and is still being trained by Cervantes, so his ascent is a little slower.

"Lift yourself up with your legs," Cervantes advises while Galvan scales the first tree, a tall cypress at Houston Street. Galvan slides the tight Blake's hitch knot forward and straightens his legs as if rising out of a squat. He gains a foot on the tree.

While Cervantes and Galvan are climbing, Hernandez waits with the hook, waving and hollering to all the passing riverboat drivers, whom he knows from over twenty years working for the city. Most of the year he transports downtown garbage to the landfill, but because the DTOPS Senior Electrician, who normally leads the project, is on vacation, Hernandez has taken over.

"Ready!" Galvan calls from the treetop when he's loosed the stringers from it. He's so high up and skinny that he's camouflaged, making it seem briefly that the voice came from the tree itself.

When Hernandez jerks the first string, it gets tangled on the branch. He tries again, still unsuccessfully. He puts all his weight into the third heave and tears the heavy-duty plastic of the string, snapping it in half. The broken strand sways awhile, then stops.

The crew pulls the rest of the stringers, clearing the walkway by blowing glass shards into the river with a leaf blower. The snapped strand is still hanging when they move on to the next tree.

"Oh that?" says Hernandez when I ask about it, "We'll get it. In September when we come back."

Cervantes, Hernandez and Galvan will be climbing trees along the River Walk until early March.


Today in Arts & Culture

Steve Reynolds: Serial Investigations in Sculpture Opening Reception

 Host Organization: UTSA Department of Art & Art History and the Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation of 1992 along with Texas Commission of the Arts
Date: Wednesday, January 19
Time: 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Venue: UTSA Art Gallery
One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249

The exhibit runs through February 23. Catherine Lee is the curator.

Admission Price: Free and open to the public
For more information: (210) 458 -4391 or art.utsa.edu

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar, tpr.org

1.18.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

New Year, New Works

Host Organization: San Antonio Watercolor Group
Date: Saturday, January 15
Time: 11:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Venue: Los Patios Gazebo Restaurant & Gallery
2015 NE Loop 410, San Antonio, TX 78217

Works by some of the area's best artists will be on display and available for purchase through March 7.

For more information: (210) 655-6171 or watercolorsanantonio.org



Poetry Out Loud

Host Organization: Gemini Ink
Date: Saturday, January 15
Time: 2 p.m.
Venue: Gemini Ink
513 S. Presa, San Antonio, TX 78205

Gemini Ink hosts the south Texas regional semi-finals of the Texas Poetry Out Loud competition. High School students recite some of literature’s most amazing poems.

Admission Price: Free and open to the public
For more information: (210) 734-9673 or geminiink.org

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar, http://tpr.org/

Today in Arts & Culture

Mariangela Vacatello in Recital

Host Organization: Arts San Antonio
Date: Tuesday, January 18
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Venue: University of Texas at San Antonio Recital Hall
One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249

Internationally acclaimed pianist Mariangela Vacatello will be making her San Antonio debut.

For more information: artssa.org

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar, tpr.org

1.16.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

Andrea Lam in Concert

Host Organization: Coker United Methodist Church
Date: Sunday, January 16
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Venue: Sanctuary of Coker United Methodist Church
231 E. North Loop Road (off 281 between Bitters and Nakoma)

Pianist Andrea Lam will be performing as the 24th season of The Arts at Coker is underway. Andrea Lam holds degrees from the Yale School of Music and is a member of Astral Artists.

Admission Price: Free, donations are appreciated
For more information: (210) 494-3455 or coker.org

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar, tpr.org

1.14.2011

Today in Arts & Culture

“Discordant Processes”

Host Organization: Serendipity Artspace
Date: Friday, January 14
Time: 6 p.m. -10 p.m.
Venue: Serendipity Artspace
1908 N St Mary’s Street, San Antonio TX 78212

The exhibit will feature new works by Grayson Bagwell, Nick Glenn and Angela Weddle.

For more information: (210)214-0437 or contact@enriquegtz.com



High Wire Sculpture Show

Host Organization: High Wire Arts
Date: Friday, January 14
Time: 6 p.m. -10 p.m.
Venue: High Wire Art Gallery
326 West Josephine Street, San Antonio, TX 78212

The show features works by the following artists: James Wyatt Hendrix, Joan Frederick, and Kevin Erben. The artwork will be mostly three-dimensional. Hendrix will be showing more of his large and striking steel sculptures. Kevin Erben is known to utilize manmade steel with natural materials like live plants and natural wood. Joan Frederick’s work is centered around photography. She will be revealing some new pieces, including many abstract landscapes made of fused glass. There will also be live music. The exhibit will run through February 4.

Admission Price: Free
For more information: highwirearts.com



Art on the Hill

Host Organization: Tobin Hill Art Alliance
Date: Friday January 14
Time: 6 p.m.
Venue: The trolley will begin at the triangle at N St Mary’s and W Josephine (339 W Josephine)
The Tobin Hill Arts Alliance is 10 venues ‘strong’ showcasing over 25 artists at their 2nd Friday “Art on the Hill” art walk. THAA is providing a trolley to transport art lovers to and from the various art venues. Artists are on-site to interact with visitors about their inspiration and experience at creating their art work. Venues will provide refreshments and musicians will perform at various venues along the walk.

For more information: (210) 785-0743

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar, tpr.org

1.13.2011

New Work Explores Art-Viewer Relationship

Joshua Bienko's painted Louboutins. Photo courtesy of Artpace San Antonio.
Gabriel Vormstein's "The Teeth of the Wind and the Sea." Photo courtesy of Artpace San Antonio

Last night ArtPace San Antonio premiered new work by two very different young male artists, Joshua Bienko (College Station, TX) and Gabriel Vormstein (Berlin, Germany). Artpace, which throughout the year rotates locally, nationally and internationally sourced contemporary art, commissioned the artists to build works specifically for their space. The resulting pieces feature both artists composing on unusual "canvasses" in order to explore two distinct effects of art and the materials constituting it on the viewer.

Vormstein's project, The Teeth of the Wind and the Sea, covers the walls of Artpace's spacious Hudson (Show)Room with pages of the German daily newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The fragility of newsprint has appealed to Vormstein for several years, who has incorporated its impermanent, crumbling qualities into his painting to explore ideas of history, failure and death.

This is the first time Vormstein has worked on such a large scale. He took a romantic approach to the space, imagining his work as a landscape in which the viewer "loses himself." Fragmentary images cover Vormstein's newsprint canvas, including references to several moments in art history (Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, Italian Renaissance). A swirl of information results, with the viewer surveying Vormstein's landscape of images and text and never really gaining his orientation. The experience might remind one of the famous Caspar David Friedrich painting, The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, only in this case the landscape is made of media.

Bienko's installation, Ever So Much More So, also uses readymade materials for canvasses, but its effect distances the viewer from the piece rather than incorporating him. It is the first Artpace "WindowWorks" exhibition of 2011, viewable from outside the gallery through the building's front windows. A pair of high heels by the French luxury designer Christian Louboutin hangs on a wall, with their trademark red soles prominently on display. Bienko was inspired by his own feeling of consumer desire when he first learned about these shoes, and decided to locate his next paintings on that "prime real estate."

"Desire" is the theme of Bienko's piece, more precisely, frustrated desire. He hopes that the sight of high-end footwear will arouse longing in the viewers, and because the shoes are not for sale, virtually unobtainable, force them to reflect upon that feeling. Their location behind the window pane has the effect of a retail display full of products one may look at, but not touch.

The shoes are surrounded by strange symbols that resemble brand marks. This is Bienko's LOUIS LE'CON pattern, which he has incorporated into previous work. This pattern was inspired by Takashi Murakami's use of the Louis Vuitton pattern in large-scale pieces. Because of most viewers' familiarity with the Louis Vuitton mark, Bienko believes Murakami's pieces effortlessly evoke desire. Bienko wanted a similar effect, and therefore turned to Jacques Lacan's personal iconography of human desire, which the famed psychoanalyst developed to try to explain psychology through inscrutable equations. Bienko uses Lacan's objet petit a, which represents the unobtainable object of desire, and the Greek letter phi, which represents a phallus or sexual desire itself, to try to evoke a similar consumer longing in his work.

Accordingly, the Louboutin paintings are photorealistic renditions of pieces by Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Murakami, artists who have diversely explored consumer desire in their work. The different paintings will rotate throughout the exhibition.

The exhibitions run until May 1.




Today in Arts & Culture

Backstage at the McNay: Touring Fiddler on the Roof
Host Organization: McNay Art Museum
Date: Thursday, January 13
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Venue: McNay Art Museum, Chiego Lecture Hall
6000 North New Braunfels, San Antonio, TX 78209

Trinity University Speech and Drama faculty members Sam and Steve Gilliam converse about designing three national tours of the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof.

For more information: (210) 824-5368 or mcnayart.org

For a complete listing of community events, visit the TPR Community Events Calendar, www.tpr.org

1.11.2011

Maya Angelou at La Cantera



The beloved author and public figure Maya Angelou will appear at the La Cantera Barnes and Noble tonight to sign her new cookbook, Great Food, All Day Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart (Random House). The author of the acclaimed memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) has written a book of recipes for savory dishes that promote weight loss through portion control. The idea is to divide one rich meal like barbecued ribs into numerous small snacks nibbled at throughout the day. Other meals include creamy pork hash, pork fried rice, open-faced roast beef sandwiches... Basically, this book is a decadent, home-cooked meal wrapped in a suggestion of self-restraint. Good luck.

The event begins at 7, but because this is Maya Angelou, you should plan to arrive at least an hour ahead. Happy salivations!

1.10.2011

Piano Sensation to Play Majestic Theatre

Update: This concert is now SOLD OUT-- however, as the SA Symphony just tweeted, there is much more piano music to be heard locally this January.


Lang Lang in Adidas only a world famous concert pianist or Greek god could pull off


Celebrated concert pianist, Lang Lang, will perform Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto this Wednesday at the Majestic Theatre. This concert represents the crown jewel in the Majestic's new season, pairing Lang Lang with the equally talented and highly respected conductor, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, who became Music Director for the San Antonio Symphony last October. The concert is sponsored by the Russell Hill Rogers Fund for the Arts.

Originally from Shenyang in northeast China, Lang Lang ranks among the world's most recognized pianists, having played with the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics as well as with many top American orchestras. His latest recording, Lang Lang Live in Vienna, features critically-acclaimed performances of Beethoven, Chopin, Prokoviev and Albéniz. Recently, Lang Lang also recorded the soundtrack for Sony Playstation's racing game Gran Turismo 5. Time magazine included him in its 2009 "100" list, which records the year's 100 most influential people (his entry was written by the legendary jazz pianist and musical innovator, Herbie Hancock, with whom Lang Lang has extensively collaborated).

Tickets for this one-night-only event are still available. Reserve your seat for a great performance of "the romantic piano showpiece."

KPAC has also blogged this event.