Visual Arts
Art in Movement
Headwaters Dance Co’s “Montana Suite” Showcases Outsiders’ InterpretationsNew York choreographer John Jasperse took audiences to a bleak interpretation of the Montana Hi-line last week.
The piece, performed during the Headwaters Dance Company's concert at the Missoula Children's Theatre last week, is the second part of an ambitious four-year project for the company called the "Montana Suite." The project brings nationally-known choreographers to Montana where they spend 10 days in a specific region and then create pieces based on their impressions of the places.
Last Spring, choreographer Jane Comfort spent time in the Boulder Batholith region and created part one of the suite with that landscape as the inspiration. Jasperse choreographed his work based on his impression of the Montana Hi-line, starting in Browning and ending in Fort Peck, through a ten-day experience interacting with the land, the people, and the area’s sense of space.
Amy Ragsdale, founder of Headwaters Dance Company says it is important to “bring in an outside point of view to see what they really see.”
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Valentine's Day Special
Local Poets on Love
On this Valentine’s Day, contemporary love poetry is in the wilderness. This is strange. After all, we are awash in the runty stepchildren of love poems--the greeting cards, the pop-music lyrics, the bathroom walls. Love poems are ubiquitous in history: from 12th century Persia, where Rumi wrote about how “the lover’s cause is separate from all other causes,” to Elizabethan England, where Shakespeare wrote voluminously on love. A few generations ago, your grandparents probably had to memorize love poems at school from the likes of Yeats and Dickenson.
Today there are 2,105 books more popular on Amazon than the book the Poetry Foundation lists as the current poetry bestseller, Mary Oliver’s “Thirst.” Most people say, casually speaking, that they like poetry. Few of them read contemporary work. But so what if today’s love poetry wears a corset of obscurity to most people? The writing is no less vivid and immediate because of it.
You can find powerful contemporary poetry being written in Montana. A strong poetry community, in fact, homesteads here in Missoula. And despite a near-consensus fear of sentimentality, the Missoula poets represented write about love at least sometimes. For Valentine’s Day, here are five local poets talking about and reading their own love poems.
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New Western Artists
Utah’s Mark England and His Landscapes of Perception
Mark England was recently awarded a $10,000 Fellowship by the Utah Arts Council. His work and that of Jacqui Biggs Larsen of Springville were selected from among 85 applicants for the UAC by New York art critic, writer and teacher Jonathan Goodman.
Said Goodman, “(England ’s) visionary landscapes are genuinely original versions of a theme that is nearly overwhelmed by history.”
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Local currency, big ideas
GLCC Catches Filmmaker’s EyeGorge Local Currency Cooperative will hold a potluck Friday, February 2nd at Acre Coffee. This is an opportunity for member networking, public education, and discussion of "the moneyshot," a documentary by Alan Rosenblith, segments of which will be filmed in the Gorge.
The mechanics of local currency may seem complicated. But how many of us actually understand the intricacies of the Federal Reserve System? It is often easy to confuse simplicity with familiarity.
Not surprisingly, the highly successful RiverHOURS cooperative network, with over fifty local member businesses and a newspaper/trade directory published quarterly, have attracted both national and international attention. Most recently, independent filmmaker Alan Rosenblith.
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Does This Make me Look Green?
An Environmental Color Palette Takes Hold in Boulder
An article in the January 22nd New Yorker ("Made in the Shade" by Eric Konigsberg) about a color consultant who works with siding manufacturers to determine what colors will be available for use in homes across the country got me thinking about how many of the new buildings in Boulder share the same color palette, a range of tasteful hues that is exemplified by the Nature Conservancy Building on Spruce Street, usually including brick or flagstone red, a muted slate blue or plum, cement or steel gray, and sage green. Often the developers behind buildings using these colors purport an environmental approach to design.
I happen to like these colors, and I find that they blend well with the mountains, but I wonder if there's some psychological or marketing component to their recent rash of appearances that seeks to capitalize on their environmental connotations.
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MVP Events
Chris Fairbanks tickles Boise’s Funny Bone
Chris Fairbanks is a stand-up comedian, artist, skateboarder, golfer, actor, designer…and the list goes on. Chris moved away from Missoula seven years ago in search of something bigger and he ended up in Austin. While in Austin he quickly made a name for himself as a force on the stand-up clubs in town. In 2003 Chris was voted the funniest person in Austin.
Chris will be performing at the Funny Bone Comedy Club in Boise from Jan 17-21 and 24-28. Shows start at 8pm every night with second sets at 10 on Friday and Saturday. Here are some clips from some of Chris’s various performances.
Colin Hickey is the New West Event Editor. Check back for his "MVP Events" or pick your own here: www.boiseevents.net
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NYC doesn't have anything on Bozeman
Artistic Bozeman talks with Katie Goodman
In a day in age where iPods and TV’s are the center of entertainment, and reading books and attending theater is decreasing, the Sunflower Center for the Arts in Bozeman is bringing energy back into what defines a vibrant community culture — its local arts.
The Sunflower Center for the Arts fosters the finding and the use of one’s creative voice by hosting writing workshop in fiction, poetry, scripts, and creative nonfiction.
Most recently, the center budded a salon speaker series, focused on creating conversation on the artistic ideas, values and visions that are thriving in the Gallatin Valley.
This month’s guest brought Katie Goodman, local director, producer, writer and actress.
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FROM BROWNIE TO DIGITAL
A Rural Westerner Reflects On Life Behind The Lens
Marion Dickinson of Greybull, Wyoming is one of New West's most prolific commentors. She grew up on the edge of the Wind River Indian Reservation more than half a century ago. A midwife and a nurse by training who spent years working for the Indian Health Service, she has a perspective on her native region reflecting that of many rural Westerners and her postings frequently take aim at the positions of environmental groups, chafing her intended targets.
One can agree with Dickinson or challenge the veracity of her claims, but what most readers don't know is that she possesses a skilled eye as a wildlife and nature photographer. A vivacious septuagenarian—Marion is 70!— her images have landed on the pages of some of the widest-circulation conservation magazines in America. We've asked Dickinson to reflect on her own encounters with the natural world and how they inform her approach to the lens. In the essay which follows, she offers a little background about her life and how she finally earned enough money to make the switch from film cameras to digital.
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YOU CALLIN' ME SCROOGE!?
Christmas Lights Bring Joyous Gridlock in Billings
Cruising the streets in search of wowing Christmas light displays is an annual tradition in these United States. While some families are ambitious and go all out, it's not often you find a show that knocks one's socks off, or at least leaves the circuit breaker twitching. This year, pilgrims in Billings, Montana will not only encounter bumper to bumper traffic at 1415 Miles Avenue but an illumina-techno extravaganza thanks to an ambitious collegian who has enlisted his computer to do the work. Out front of 24-year-old Craig Hicks' home, this engineering grad student from Montana State University has fired up a 50,000-bulb blaze featuring 21 stars, 10 wreaths, six lighted deer, at least 15 Christmas trees, a 20-foot 6,400-light arbor totem that Hicks has dubbed the "Mega-Tree", and all of it is accompanied by a soundtrack played on a local radio station.
"I'd love to go to work in the entertainment industry, working on lights for Las Vegas or for one of the Disney theme parks," young Mr. Hicks says. "I want to go into pure entertainment. People will always crave entertainment." Writer Tracy Ellig of the MSU News Service notes that not everyone has been impressed. One neighbor described his shining colossus as "junking up the neighborhood." What does Hicks' yard look like?
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Web Happenings
Arts & Culture Web RoundupThis week marks the one-year anniversary of the Tattered Cover's podcast service, Authors On Tour-Live! According to a press release, "more than 100,000 of its free podcasts have been downloaded by book lovers around the country."
The Center of the American West launched its new website this week. The updated site isn't totally completed yet, but it does offer free downloads of documents and reports on such topics as "Abandoned Mine Remediation" and "Boom/Bust Economy." Fans of scholar Patricia Limerick should check out her piece, "Patty's Pedestrian Diet."
The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art offers an online gallery tour and history lesson on its website. Patrons can download the tracks onto their own iPod, or borrow an iPod at the museum to listen to the commentary as they stroll the galleries.
Finally, congratulations are in order for Nick Urata and his band, DeVotchKa. The soundtrack to the film Little Miss Sunshine that they composed is up for a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack. Those of us who have been Urata fans since his days fronting The Reejers in the late '90s in Boulder are delighted. While fellow Colorado Grammy nominee The Fray enjoyed virtually overnight success, Urata has been toiling away at his unique music for decades, and is finally reaping the rewards.
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