Published: March 26th, 2008 11:06 PM
Last Modified: March 26th, 2008 11:06 PM
Erica Essner Performance Co-Op
The Erica Essner Performance Co-Op incorporates movements inspired by local journal entries into performances this weekend at Alaska Dance Theatre.
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New York group interprets emotions
This weekend, Erica Essner Performance Co-Op gives Alaska a glimpse into New York's contemporary dance scene.
And Alaska's giving something back.
Essner asked Alaska Dance Theatre company members to journal about their lives, then interpret their writing physically. The choreographer collected the resulting movements to create a new dance, which ADT's company will perform during the Essner concert.
Essner's company will perform three repertoire works, including 2007's "Back to Tijuca," a Brazil-inspired series of rousing duets set to spare, percussive beats. Of that dance, the New Yorker wrote: "Choreographers who work in an expressionist vein tend to be overwhelmed by influence -- by Martha Graham, with her heavy- handed symbolism, or preachy Alvin Ailey, or Abject Pina Bausch. But Erica Essner, a recent transplant from San Francisco, takes up big and dark subjects without resorting to expressionism's broad strokes."
Performances will be at 7 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday at Alaska Dance Theatre, 550 E. 33rd Ave. Tickets are $15. (277-9591, www.alaskadancetheatre. org, www.eecop.org)
-- Sarah Henning
visual art
Fiber exhibit goes deeper than surface
For the uninitiated, "fiber art" can sound like just a fancy name for quilts. But the fiber exhibit at Artique Ltd. goes beyond bedding.
Take Lucy Zercher's "Gull Rock," a wall-mounted sculpture with spiky, 3-D sea anemones and hot-pink coral. Or Linda Schwamm's "Mud Cloth," which is positively bursting with activity, including intricately sewn African women with water jugs on their heads.
The fiber works are woven in between another exhibit, large-format oil paintings by Linnea Ratcliff featuring fields of color: burnt orange, cinnamon and peach.
The free show runs through March at 314 G St. (277-1663)
-- Sarah Henning
dance
Folk icon Gorka joins Werner
When John Gorka played in Anchorage in 2005, a Daily News critic found his "jittery East Coast mien and nervous patter between songs" a deep contrast to the warm, polished voice singing tunes with a "lived-in depth."
The lively acoustic folk singer and songwriter had played Alaska six times by then and filled the house in Wilda Marston Theatre that night. This time, he'll play with guest artist Susan Werner, who synthesizes elements of jazz and pop into her dazzling folk style.
Whistling Swan Productions brings the ever popular and dynamic performers to Sydney Laurence Theatre in the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $25 (263-2787, www.centertix.net). Werner also performs a solo show at 6 p.m. Sunday at Vagabond Blues in Palmer (1-907-745-2233); tickets are $20 at www.centertix.net.
Find out more about their music at www.whistlingswan.net, www.johngorka.com and www.susanwerner.com.
-- Dawnell Smith
music
Fantastic four make symphony super
Any one of the four pieces in Saturday night's concert by the Anchorage Symphony would be enough to make me part with the price of admission.
Samuel Barber's Second Essay for Orchestra shows the American master at the height of his powers. The modern orchestration of Baroque organist Dietrich Buxtehude's Chaconne in E, by Mexican composer Carlos Chavez, paints the stately dance form -- which some say originated in Aztec America -- with fiery color. Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4 is 15 minutes of pure fun, and Brahms' Fourth Symphony -- which closes with yet another fabulous chaconne -- is a monument of stoic nobility.
I'm already weeping, even though the downbeat won't come until 8 p.m. in Atwood Concert Hall. Tickets are $20-$42, youth and seniors half price. (263-2787, www.anchoragesymphony.org)
-- Mike Dunham
visual art
'Forbidden Fruit' takes unusual look at life, sin
The collaborative art exhibit "Forbidden Fruit," by Jim Dault and Shala Dobson, deals with the story of human life and sin through a twist of artistic process and thought.
The two artists do plenty in the public art arena and only sometimes show full bodies of work in galleries. This time, they used a process of turning clay into molds and molds into resinous pieces of art, some figurative and others abstracted landscapes but all relating to some form of forbidden fruit.
Let's just say "Adam's Apple" does not look like an apple. Just consider this line from their pithy and telling artist statement: "So here are some ideas about fruit and what's essentially left after superior beings are done messing with it."
The show ends Sunday, so see it while you can in the Grant Hall Gallery of Alaska Pacific University (4101 University Drive, 564-8202).
-- Dawnell Smith
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