Arts picks for 2011

The audience liked Chris Brubeck's "Travels in Time for Three" a lot more than I did -- but I'm not going to second guess the vox populi. The premiere of the piece by the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra probably showed the group making its best effort. Two violin soloists, Nicolas Kendall and Zachary De Pue, teamed up with bass player Ranaan Meyer and percussionist Matt Scrano in a concerto for pop ensemble and orchestra in an eclectic "gumbo" of styles. Recalling it whets the appetite for the ASO's February program of hits by Queen, again with a pop band on stage.

Anchorage Opera's updated version of "La Boheme" was the best-conceived and executed production from that company that we've seen for a while. It has me looking forward to February's "Macbeth." Speaking of opera, I've become a great fan of the live HD broadcasts of Metropolitan Opera productions shown on the big screen at local theaters. The series resumes with "encore" presentations of Handel's "Rodelinda" featuring Renee Fleming on Jan. 4 and Gounod's "Faust" on Jan. 11.

Dance

Gillmer Duran's rethought version of a local favorite, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," completely won me over. Alaska Dance Theatre performers picked up the production from the Music Machine, complete with sets and costumes that included the adorable Baby Dragon. But the charming Dance of the Brooms is what sticks in my mind. It will be a totally different kind of choreography, but I'm eagerly anticipating what Duran will do with "Othello" this spring.

Theater

The periodic productions of four locally written one acts, "Fourplay," is always worth catching. But the latest quartet included what I thought was exceptionally good writing, although it was a monologue. "The Big Guy," by Tom Moran of Fairbanks, featured David Haynes as a soul-searching Godzilla. Last year, "Fourplay" produced at least one genuine award-winning play, Dawson Moore's "Six Dead Bodies Duct-Taped to a Merry-Go-Round." It's a testimony to the work being stimulated by the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, where we understand Haynes may reprise the role this summer.

Though it closed last December, Valley Performing Arts' Southcentral premiere of "King Island Christmas" was arguably the theatrical highlight of the last season. Frankly, I went to the Machetanz Theatre in Wasilla braced for something embarrassingly awful and -- yeah, the Christmas-themed show abounded in sweetness. But so do truffles. What most persuaded me to set my preconceptions aside was the heart that the all-ages cast brought to the performance. It may not be great art, but it's definitely a guilty pleasure.

Art

The Anchorage Museum hit us with everything from Andy Warhol to mammoths this year. But the show I'll remember is "SuperTrash," a fabulous feast of lurid movie posters from the 1930s through the 1980s. In addition to being a sometimes hilarious stroll down Nostalgia Alley, the show also tests the boundary between what is trash and what is art. The happy news for readers is that it will continue on display through Jan. 8. If you haven't caught it yet, you really should -- especially old movie fans.

Literature

Two books about Alaska by former Alaskans tied for my vote in the fiction category. David Vann's "Caribou Island" came out in January, between the story collection "Legend of a Suicide" and his nonfiction "Last Day on Earth." Both were relentlessly dark, as is "Caribou Island." But "Caribou Island's" setting on the Kenai made it a lot closer to my experience and the full-length fleshed-out story brought the characters closer to my heart. Vann wins awards for his writing all the time, but I hope this novel is what people remember in the years to come.

Melinda Moustakis' debut collection "Bear Down, Bear North" also struck me as a piercingly honest look at Alaska presented in beautiful prose and with elegant structure. This one, I have no doubt, is an enduring masterpiece.

In the nonfiction department, Lael Morgan's biography of Ray Mala, "Eskimo Star," pops out of the confines of academic writing to present a much needed biography of Alaska's own Hollywood legend.