Spoleto Festival USA

Sunday, 6/10, 11:20 p.m.: Ah Aurelia

You couldn't wipe the smile off my face even if you used a hotel wash cloth that hadn't been washed since Spoleto USA began last month. (Well, maybe then, but you'd have to catch me first. And after I put enough distance between us, the grin would return. And I might then taunt you).
Such a wild imagination, right? I've been immensely inspired by "Aurelia's Oratorio," a comedic play, I think. Or was it dance? Or was it, more simply, just theater?
I do know this: I haven't been to a performance of this level of enchantment in recent memory. Aurelia Thierree and Julio Monge, the main characters, were magnetic and sympathetic, as the audience's attention never wavered.
It was pure magic.
Literally.
The duo, and others within the production, used illusions and slight of hand to draw us into a modern version of (Aurelia's) Neverland.
The performance began with a dresser. Then hands, feet, shoes, cake and a bottle of wine communicated through the dresser's five drawers, taking turns tricking our eyes. What was going on? What was the point? We don't see a body until Aurelia (who is the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, hence the performance pedigree) emerged in one piece. The point: We were about to follow an incredible journey into a world where people live upside down, where kites fly on the ground and where objects such as jackets might be confused as enemies.
As Aurelia and Monge danced, shifted (at times in the air like what one might see at a Cirque show), the stage, from the red curtains to the floor panel, participated in the imagery.
And the music, which veered from orchestral to minimalist ambient noise to a thudding bass drum, was perfectly paced. The soundtrack led us into the moment of dread when Aurelia had her leg pulled off by a dragon, and it led us into glee when she knitted herself a new leg. This took place in the span of 30 seconds, maybe, and the illusion was aided by a black backdrop and black stockings.
"Aurelia's Oratorio" was so weird and random, yet it was so amazing and delightful. And it got me thinking about more than smiles.
Ultimately, I think that was the point.
-Otis R. Taylor Jr.

Sunday, 6/10, 6:45 p.m.: Music on the streets and theater

The theaters weren't the only place to see music Saturday afternoon and evening.
At Urban Outfitters on King Street, shoppers were treated to the majestic tunes and tales of singer/songwriter Steven Fiore. It was part of the store's Garden Theater series, which local band The Heist and The Accomplice played June 2. One might associate in store performances with records stores, but with the record industry in steep decline and shoppers not shopping for music at record stores, it is a natural progression for performers to play in hip stores. I didn't buy anything at UA; instead I gazed at Fiore and his band, which featured three string players. The sound, a light acoustic pop with novel-like characters and imagery, made the shopping experience (or lack thereof) enjoyable.
On the streets it can get unbearably hot, but one gentleman in a wheelchair was cooler than the Italian ices being sold by street vendors. Sure he had a red cup for donations and he had a pleading smile, but his wheelchair was decked out with foglights. Even cooler, the dude was blasting tunes such as Patti LaBelle's "If You Asked Me To" and Prince's "Adore" from a boombox. The bluetooth he had in his ear, though, was a bit too cool.
The theater Saturday night, as far as I care, belonged to a guitarist from Argentina making his international debut at Spoleto USA. Agustin Luna packed the theater with old and young who were treated to a stellar display of musicianship. He performed at the Recital Hall, Albert Simons Center.
A fellow chatted on his cellphone just before the performance was to begin. An usher asked him to end his conversation, to which the man responded with: "Am I interrupting your program handing out?" Well, we could hear both ends of the conversation. (Later, during the performance, a young woman's phone rang and that made Luna laugh).
Though he looks like a folk rocker who might play with the likes of Devandra Banhart, Luna played boisterous rhythms that jumped genres from waltz to tango. He kept his head down during songs, only looking up to watch his hands on the guitar's fret board as if he were, like us, amazed by his dexterity.
When he introduced songs, his left hand moved as if he were still playing. His voice was choppy and pleasant, a rhythmic beauty of its own. And he was polite.
"Thank you for the silence," he said. "And the applauses too."
The assembly line of notes Luna creates makes it sound as if four hands and two instruments are at work. But it was just him and his guitar cradled in his lap. The tone and tempo control Luna demonstrates is masterful. His performance, at least for me, was an indication of how grand a festival Spoleto is.
-Otis R. Taylor Jr.

Friday, June 8 2 p.m. Audiences and applause

    One of the big hits of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival was Workshop Theatre’s “The Full Monty.”  The other night at a Charleston restaurant, I ran into Anita Ashley, who acted in and choreographed the production. She told me just about every one of the six shows sold out, the production got a lot of media attention and the responses were excellent
    A Charlestonian had told me a couple weeks ago they were surprised that ”The Full Monty” was allowed to be part of the festival because of the, well “full monty” at the end to it. As Charlestonians have done in the past, they’ve shown they are not afraid of a little, or a lot, of nudity.
     Many of them got perturbed a couple of years ago when a company performing as part of the Spoleto Festival decided South Carolina couldn’t handle the nudity and sex in its play and toned it down. Audiences, in Columbia as well as Charleston, are much for sophisticated and open-minded than many of us give them credit for.

    One slightly disturbing development among audiences at the festival is the automatic standing ovation.
     Sometimes I think it’s because people are ready to get out of the theater and on to the next thing or dinner (I sometimes stand up and walk backward down the aisle while applauding when I’m in a hurry). But probably not.
    I ran into a painter after the premiere of Philip Glass’ “Book of Longing” who was bugged by the audiences getting to their feet so fast.  And it has become not the rare thing it should be, but just the normal response. Someone who works for the festival asked me if people ever boo in Charleston; they don’t any more, I told him.
    And I’m not sure I miss it. The standard standing ovation doesn’t bother me that much either. I’ve been to plenty of performances at Spoleto and other place  where the audience is standing and clapping, but you can tell they don’t really mean it. The performers, if they have any sense, know this too. Sometimes the audience does mean it, but the performers, if they have any sense, know they don’t deserve it. So what does it hurt?
     I’ve been to many Spoleto shows where half the audience just sits and claps, if even that, and the other half is wildly and authentically enthusiastic. Now that’s a real response.  
Jeffrey Day

2 a.m. Thursday, June 6 The poetry sorely lacking from 'Book'

    No, I'm not just cranky from being at the computer this late driving home from Charleston.
    Heard a great concert of Kurt Weill songs sung wonderfully by Tammy Hensrud, who is in Bertolt Brecht and Weill's "Mahagonny" at the festival, and the young baritone Jonathan Michie. It's wonderful to hear someone sing, "Take that  pipe out of your mouth, you rat" in a Lutheran Church from "Surabaya Johnny." The high point for me was "Nanna Lied," one of my favorite Weill and Bertolt Brecht songs, which I've never heard live (and probably never will again, I'm afraid.)
And I had an excellent, unrushed dinner. Ran into a bunch of people from Columbia. And you know, it's Charleston.
But boy did I hate the new Philip Glass piece.
Here's a more formal take on that sentiment:

    Not much grace, rhythm, insight or humor of Leonard Cohen’s poetry finds its way into Philip Glass’ brand new musical work “Book of Longing.” The 90-minute piece for musical ensemble and vocalists, which had its world premiere in Toronto  last weekend, had its first performance in the United  States Wednesday night at the Spoleto Festival.   
     Inspired by Cohen’s book of the same name, the musical presentation uses his poems for lyrics and his artwork as visuals. Although they are Cohen’s words (and occasionally we get his recorded voice reading them) and his art, Glass’ take on them takes away their power rather than adding to them. Only when his Cohen’s voice is heard, which is all too infrequent, do they resonate.
    The poems in “Book of Longing” are funny, touching and often sad, but almost none of it (except the sadness) comes through in this piece that feels like a rushed and padded composition.
The four vocalists are good, but little is asked of them and they don’t seem well matched with the tunes. The three string players, a saxophonist and an oboe player all have their moments and they play prettily, but rarely does the music itself rise to any high or low emotional pitch. (The other musicians are two keyboard players – one of them Glass – and a drummer/keyboardist.)
Although the singers stand at the front of the stage, they have little to do and when they try to do something, it looks forced. They all come out barefoot for the closing number, which seems rather Kumbaya-ish for Glass and Cohen. Choreographer Susan Marshall gets credit for this. They’re a regular art song version of the Manhattan Transfer.
The musicians perform against a backdrop of 15 of Cohen’s simple drawings hung on a screen like painting on a wall. In one large area of this the images change throughout the evening and what might start as a black and white picture acquires color. But this design focuses ones attention on just a small area of the backdrop and if there’s anything this production needs its variety. The colors at times are gaudy, images are repeated often.
     During the final minutes one after another cartoon-like self portraits of Cohen, make him appear old, self-centered and humorless. His poems, his artwork and his 40 years of songwriting shows that yes, he is self-centered and he’s old, and he jokes about those things.
Many of the drawings also include trite sayings, for example “Life is a drug that stops working,” or longer pieces that one can’t make out or which flash past too quickly.
Should we be listening to the lyrics being sung, read what’s on the screen, watch the singers or stare at the ceiling of the Sottile Theatre? The last seems best, but then all there is the ceiling and the music, and while the ceiling may be enough, the music is not.
One has to feel for these singers, who are given almost nothing to do. Oh, the tempos speed up a little, then slow, then settle into the middle; then the strings start a rousing rally then pull back. The music feels utterly disconnected from the words.
Like many people, Glass also doesn’t know when to stop. At one point, after the work has progressed back around to some of the poetry it started with, Glass moves from the keyboard to a padded office chair, his back to the audience, watching the bassist bow away, both of them in subtle spotlights. She finishes playing and a Cohen drawing of an almost identical chair appears on the screen.
The end.
Not quite. It goes on for another 15 minutes and what was finally starting to feel like a coherent narrative disappears.
Cohen, who began his writing life as a poet and novelist in the 1950s, recorded his first album of songs in 1968. Since then he’s put out a recording every few years, although at times he’s had five or more years between them. These CDs often only have 10 songs on them – 10 songs he’s worked on for five to 10 years. They almost always make perfect sense, lyrically and musically. For “Book of Longing” Glass has put together 22 songs in about 12 months; maybe that’s the problem. But that’s only part of the problem.

“Book of Longing” has performances Thursday and Friday. It’s sold out.

  Jeffrey Day

Thursday 6/7 12:50 a.m. Longing Review

Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen fit together well, but the fit is comfortable and inviting rather than spectacular.

"Book of Longing" made its American premiere at Spoleto Wednesday night. The new work is by Glass,who gained fame with his opera "Einstein on the Beach" and a broader popularity with his music scores for movies, such as "Kundun" and "The Hours." Glass's compositions for "Book of Longing" are based on, and the performance encompasses, the poems and images of Cohen, a Canadian poet and artist best known for the songs he has written and performed for the past four decades.

The 90-minute performance began with Cohen's recorded voice, a distinctively worn voice, claiming in the prologue, "I followed the course/From chaos to art." The audience could follow Cohen with a 4-by-5 inch "Book of Longing," 22 poems composing the libretto, the cover adorned with Cohen's sketch of a bird and seals. The stage, too, included Cohen's sketches, large panels against a shoji-like screen, its colors changing with the poems and music, the main panel projecting dozens of Cohen's works, particularly nudes and self-portraits.

Glass's music stayed respectful of the words, joining with song most beautifully in "You Came to Me This Morning," with its wonderful repetition of "a thousand kisses deep," and "How Much I Love You." Most of the poems were presented, not in Cohen's recitations, but in song: Will Erat, tenor; Tara Hugo, mezzo-soprano; Dominique Plaisant, soprano; and Daniel Keeling, bass-baritone. The singers, with their accomplished and powerful voices, may have seemed at times too polished for those accustomed to Cohen's delivery of his work. Still, Glass has taken distinctive material, added his own distinctive sensibilities and and made something new, layered and rich.

The most remarkable music arrived with the string solos: Tim Fain playing violin, Wendy Sutter playing cello and Eleonore Oppenheim playing double bass. Glass provided them challenges in sustained notes, truly long notes of longing, that took residence in the heart.

An attentive audience chuckled over the shorter poems --"You go your way/ I'll go your way too," -- and offered a lingering ovation at the night's end, particularly rewarding Glass himself, who played keyboards. To give Cohen the respect Glass offered, and the last words: "So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here./It is in love that we are made; in love we disappear."

Claudia Smith Brinson

Tuesday, June 5 2:30 p.m. Party man and late nights

I first spotted Scott Sowell walking jauntily down George Street near the Spoleto Festival office.
For some reason I had a feeling this was the guy I’d heard about; he looked like a young man who’d found his dream job.
And he has.
A few years ago, when he was a USC student, Sowell read in The State about parties held during the festival. He’d been on the USC student entertainment board, planned homecoming activities and worked for a catering company as well.
The next year, he landed an apprentice job at the festival, then got a seasonal gig with the special events (read: Party) office and last year was hired as special events manager.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Sowell, 24, a native of Lancaster.
“I went to school thinking I’d go to law school and get into politics.”
Anyone who can organize three major festival parties a year and help with another 40 probably could make it to public office.

Although my schedule is full, full, full during the festival, most of the performances I attended (at least in this, the year of the short operas) ended around 9:30.
So obviously, that leaves at least three more hours to do things. I’d hoped to use the late, still-energized hours to take in some Piccolo Spoleto plays or concerts or comedy troupes.
One can always count on the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable band playing music in its pajamas the first Saturday at midnight, but I’ve been to that ten times. Other than that I found five 10 p.m. or later events (three on the same night) offered by Piccolo. If you want to see the Late Night Players you need to get there in the daylight - 7 p.m. 
Seems like there’s an untapped market for those who aren’t tired and haven’t an invite to a fancy party.

— Jeffrey Day

Monday 6/4 10 a.m. A peek at Piccolo

It was raining sideways in downtown Charleston Saturday afternoon. My husband and I were heading for Charleston Ballet Theatre on King Street.
Thank goodness it was just a couple of blocks from the Visitors Center parking garage.
We were in town to see Columbia’s Workshop Theatre’s production of “The Full Monty,” part of Piccolo Spoleto. Of course, we had seen it before, last fall at Workshop, but we were looking forward to seeing how it played to a Charleston audience. (And after all, our son was one of the Montys.)
The theater, a black box in a storefront, was slow to fill up. We spotted a few friends who also had made the drive from Columbia. “You can’t tell anyone you saw me,” one of them said.
Then, suddenly, about 10 minutes before curtain (although, in this theater there IS no curtain), the room was full! And soon they were adding another row of chairs.
The production was full of energy, and so was the audience. The small stage added a “club” feel that was in keeping with the strip show sequences.
Good comments from the theatergoers were in the air. “Is this a professional company?” more than one asked.
We met the director, Greg Leevy, after the show, and a couple of hours later there he was coming out of a tapas bar across the street. He assured us it was a good choice for dinner.
A postscript:  The relentless rain squashed our plans for walking around the city after the “Monty” matinee. But in perusing the Piccolo program, we discovered a chamber choral music program by Lux Aeterna was about to begin in St. Matthews Lutheran Church, in view of the music store where we were having coffee. So we caught a bonus performance, and admission was free.
-Licia Jackson

Sunday 6/3 4:19 p.m. Major Bang

On Saturday night, the audience dripped to their seats in the Emmett Robinson Theatre, using paper towels to wipe off rain-soaked shoes, grousing mildly about the air-conditioned chill. Woes were forgotten though, once each soggy person noticed Steve Cuiffo, already on stage, fanning cards onto a green felt table, his tricks revealed by a tilted mirror.

In The Foundry Theatre's "Major Bang," Cuiffo plays the roles of a teen, the teen's father and a malevolent Scout master (our Major Bang), but before the one-act play began, he demonstrated another gift: He is a magician. Displaying a low-key affable charm, he seemed as amused as anyone else when a card did not cooperate as planned when he flipped them from one hand to another or built towers.

"Major Bang" deals with difficult subjects we still seem tenderfooted addressing: our terrorism fears, our consequent willingness to abandon the Bill of Rights, our daily paranoia. The plot is slender, but based on an actual event: A teen builds a nuclear device at home. In "Major Bang," the father works in a food irradiation plant, and the son borrows dad's badge to obtain the nuclear material. The scoutmaster has evil deeds in mind; the teen wants to be noticed and affirmed; Dad just wants what parents want, a healthy and happy child.

There are explosions, but mostly there is grand silliness. At one point Cuiffo wrestles himself, one side dressed as scoutmaster, the other as father. At another point, silver-wigged co-star Maggie Hoffman tugs at fake legs; at another, the two echo wooden dialogue between Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston while that awful movie "The Bodyguard" plays on a small screen.

All this works very well. But the play turns didactic on occasion as the two struggle with a basic problem they articulate, sometimes in direct address to the audience: that victims of terrorism defy reduction in the manner of "Les Miserables," (their example). Don't you imagine the mobs and aristocrats of the French Revolution could have argued the same?

Even so, the audience greeted with applause and laughter their point that August makes better sense as "preparedness month" than the chosen September, a nostalgia for "police actions" and a regret that concrete bomb shelters have been replaced by the current personal emergency kit of plastic sheeting and duct tape.The play's subtitle, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dirty Bomb," is a direct homage to "Dr. Strangelove." No one could match that madness, but the Foundry Theatre should be thanked for stepping forward, when not enough artists have.

In side trips, Hoffman provides a tale of a backpack left behind and the attendant alert; Cuiffo provides a masterful Lenny Bruce monologue (back from the dead!). The play's success seems as fair a measure as the political polls; the audience is dissatisfied with war and paranoia, willing to find humor, but not quite sure of next attitudes, next steps.

Claudia Smith Brinson

1 p.m. Sunday, June 3 Others in the arts reporting biz

On my post yesterday I praised the rainy weather a bit prematurely. Yes, the rain does make Charleston even more beautiful, but right after the beautiful stage, it becomes the flood stage. So last night in Charleston required some dashing through the rain and dodging deep pools of water, completely worth it though.

Like everywhere, Charleston's taxis float away during rain. So I gave a ride to Lewis Segal, the LA Times dance critic, to his hotel. He was in town working on a story about the Shen Wei dance company which will be peforming at the new Disney Hall in LA in a a few weeks.
We didn't get to talk much because I was busy driving in circles. We could SEE the hotel, but we couldn't actually GET TO IT. Finally we did.
I bring him up because for me Spoleto is the rare occasion I get to spend time around other reporters who do what I do for a living. And there are usually a bunch around during the festival (some of whom don't appear to write about the arts other than during the festival).
This year I got to know Josh Rosenblum, who comes to Charleston each spring to write daily columns about the festival for the Post and Courier. He goes to nearly everything. He's also old friends with Columbia pianist Phillip Bush; the two have known one another since summer music camps when they were kids. When he's not reporting and reviewing, Rosenblum writes musicals and conducts and a lot of other things. He's down to earth and has a great sense of humor - including about himself.
Someone I'm always glad to see is Patrick Sharbaugh who does a big Spoleto blog for the Charleston City Paper. (He's also the arts editor there.) He's really on the ball, funny, smart, hard-working and not at all full of himself.
While all of us are protective of what we're writing about, we also talk and bounce thoughts off one another, something most of us arts writers in mid-sized cities don't get to do often.
If you go to spoletousa.org there's a link to their blogs as well as this one.
While in Charleston I usually drop in at the press office in the Gaillard Auditorium to file blogs and stories and just hang out a bit. I'm often afraid that that the few seasonal press people and the gaggle of interns are thinking, "Oh, no, not that guy again."
But they've been unfailingly helpful. One reason I like working there is the constant buzz, kind of like the newsroom. Also like a newsroom if you get brain freeze on something you can just shout out..."Hey does anyone know..."
This has served me well in locating the correct spelling of a gelato place and a composer. Ask for directions and the interns, who are from all over the country and Scotland, will bring out a map taking you right there.
For those of  us working away from home, its a godsend.
Speaking of home, that's where I am. I'll be going back to Charleston midweek to hear and see the new Philip Glass work "Book of Longing." But keep an eye out here for the next couple of days - they will be something new up.

Oh, and if you decide to try to catch something in the next few days, I'd suggest "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny," "MedEia" by Dood Paad Monday and Tuesday only, Verdi's Requiem Monday, the orchestra concert (Mahler and Strauss Tuesday). I  have to miss the orchestra concerts, but I can tell you those young players are incredible), 
Jeffrey Day

Saturday, June 2 7:45 p.m. Old and new music - all good

Two of the Bs - Bach and Brahms - were the stars of Saturday's chamber music concert at the Dock Street Theatre.

The first was the rarely played Concerto in D minor by C.P.E. Bach which is a showcase for the flute and in this case for flautist Tara O'Connor. It was a full stage with host Charles Wadsworth on harpsicord, two cellos, bass, viola, violins. Even those who aren't great fans of the flute (that would be me) were knocked out.

Brahms String Sextet in G Major brought together the St. Lawrence String Quartet, along with an extra violin and cello. The extra cello was handled by Edward Arron who Columbia audiences got to see in a Wadsworth concert at the Columbia Museum of Art. Arron was a last minute substitute for Carter Brey who had jury duty. Arron got about one rehearsal before that concert and was incredible. He also introduced this piece which Brahms wrote for a girlfriend he was leaving. It was a moving, emotional work, expertly played - as usual.

The audience also made music during the concert. The chamber music players had a picnic planned for Saturday afternoon, but rain was threatening. Wadsworth asked the audience to sing "Rain, rain go away..." but gave explicit instructions about how to do it. The audience did well - going from a whisper to a shout - in just eight words. But it didn't work; by midafternoon not only was it raining hard but there was a stiff wind as well.

Although the Brahams is fairly full, more than full would best describe the two works on the Music in Time concert later in the afternoon. Ensemble Sirius did two pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen - the new "Heaven's Door" and "Kotakte" from 1960.

The first consisted largely of Stuart Gerber playing a large door with table legs. The door, about 10-feet-tall and five-feet wide is a giant box drum, different parts of its 12 panels producing varying tones. He beat on the door, kicked it, banged his feet on a platform, fell down and scraped his shoes on the floor. It was part musical job, part acting job, and all a good job. Finally, the doors opened. He entered and started making more sounds on various instruments the audience couldn't see. And then a little girl entered the doors without struggle.

"Kontakte" is played by Gerber and Michael Fowler, performing on about a dozen percussion instruments each (Folwer also attacks the piano in a percussive way.) The live stuff is augmented extensively by sound projection by Bryan Wolf. It difficult at times to distinguish what's recorded, what's completely live, what is feeding back live into a sound system. Not having all the sound generated live is a little bothersome, but that's what the composer wrote. In the end this is a huge wall of dense, complex sound that's nearly overwhelming in a good way.

Jeffrey Day

Saturday, June 2 12:30 p.m. Great weather and cranky audience members

Charleston has been blessed with incredible weather during this year's Spoleto Festival. I've been attending since 1990 and I cannot recall a more pleasant vist weather-wise. I told someone that Spoleto days are usually three-shirt, two-shower days, but this time around you can actually go all day and most of the night without starting to reek. This morning the all-too-rare rain moved in and I simply took a walk up and and down King Street and through the farmer's market held in Marions Square Park. The city is always beautiful, but the rain brings it out even more, the wet walls and brick streets taking on even more depth and character.

Getting ready to run off to another Chamber Music Series concert - they're always a surprise, literally, because the program is announced from the stage by host Charles Wadworth just before the players come out. Yesterday's concert marked the departure of several musicians, notably singer Courtenay Budd and cellist Andres Diaz.

The festival has been remarkably free of cell phones ringing this year. The applause during yesterday's chamber performance was really bugging a woman a couple rows in front of me. The players were performing four individual pieces and the audience was clapping between them. When they did she's swing her white head around and glare. Later, the audience actually applauded BETWEEN movements - I thought her head was going to come unhinged and land in the aisle.

It's nice to know she let us all know how much smarter she is than the rest of us. The rest of us were just appreciating some great music.

Wadworth summed it up well after  violinist Daniel Phillips and pianist Wendy Chen plays four romantic works by Dvorak. (Phillips wife Tara O'Connor watched appreciately, actually lovingly, from the wings):

"You must be aware this is what it's all about."

Gotta run, next concert starts in 12 minutes and I'm 13 minutes awary.

Jeffrey Day

Friday 6/1, 11 p.m. Art is everywhere (and don't mind the trolleys)

I ran into Jeffrey Day on East Bay Street while I was trying to decide where to eat lunch. He wasn’t much help on that, rushing off to one of Charles Wadsworth’s midday chamber concerts, but he did suggest I make my way over to City Gallery at Waterfront Park and see the exhibition of politically-charged works by Charleston artist Fletcher Crossman. I did - but was surprised to walk in on a rehearsal by Chamber Music Charleston smack dab in the middle of the gallery. The group was preparing for its Monday-evening concert there, and it was fun to listen (I pretended to study the paintings) as they played a short passage over and over, patiently seeking perfection.
It made me think about how easy it is to stumble upon art in Charleston during Spoleto. This year there are several dozen wildly-decorated fiberglass turtles scattered around town, a fundraiser for the S.C. Aquarium.  And the annual art show in Marion Square. Waiting for a matinee of “The Constant Wife” at Dock Street Theatre, I sat in the shade of St. Philips Church, amid gravestones two centuries old, and listened to the organist practice. And of course, there are street musicians, from guitarists to violinists, some worth stopping a minute for, others more bold (or shameless) than talented.
I ate an $8 slice of caramel apple pie a la mode at East Bay Coffee House (a schizophrenic little place with a bright, airy cafe in front, a dark bar in back) and read the letters in the City Paper to see what folks are worked up about these days. According to one writer, at least, Charleston is on the road to ruin because the Regional Transit Authority is selling ads  on the trolleys that run in the historic district. I hadn’t noticed, really, because ads on buses are pretty common (if nothing else, think about the opening credits to “Sex and the City”). Maybe I had just been distracted by the crazy traffic, the sandwich-board signs in front of almost every restaurant, the Italian ice vendors, the smelly carriage horses clop-clop-clopping around ... No, I don’t think ads on trolleys are going to spoil Charleston.
By the way, I have to disagree with Jeffrey about “The Constant Wife” (his review is posted on this site with the rest of our Spoleto coverage). The Friday matinee played to a full house, and all seemed to enjoy Somerset Maugham’s witty tale of a seemingly-clueless woman who thoroughly turns the tables on her philandering husband. This is the first time I’ve seen Dublin’s Gate Theatre though - so, unlike Jeffrey, I can’t say whether this year’s Spoleto appearance equals their past efforts. But I found it more comic than tragic, and it made for an entertaining 2 1/2 hours.
- Mark Layman

Friday, June 1 9:45 p.m. Moving and Disturbing and disatisfying

Dutch theatre group Dood Paad's "MedEia," a take on the tragic, ancient story of a mother who kills her children, is brilliant, moving and exasperating. Three members of the chorus normally found in Greek theater tell the story, but can only tell and watch; they cannot act, so to speak. At the same time they are often inside Media's head. The three actors stand nearly motionless on stage and tell the story in a long, disjoined manner that builds and builds, like a something inevitable, like a glacial, with all its slow, grinding  power.

Along the way these "everymen" (actually three superb actors) toss in lines from pop songs (it's all in English) from the Beatles, Prince, Joe Jackson, Madonna, even Joy Division. It's funny, breaking the building tension, but oddly wrong, which may be what makes it so right. For just three people standing on stage mostly talking, it is deeply emotional and moving.

It connects us to all the huge issues "Media" has addressed for 2,000 years; love, power, money, passion, hate...and on and on and on...and does so in an incredibly imaginative way. The work was written by one of the company directors, along with two of the actors in the show. It shows that this kind of collaborative theater, similar to what went on in creating the play "Major Bang" produces something that the old fashioned writer, director, actors division doesn't.

But still - why the need for pop songs? I get it on one level, but is it necessary?. Why the need for a simple obscenity to end it? But still - it's one of the most powerful things to be seen at the festival.

"MedEia" marks the theater's group's first U.S. performance. It continues Monday and Tuesday.

A few other things:

Guy Klucevsek's solo accordion concert Friday evening was standing room only - a great performance not even marred by someone's phone playing "When the Saints Go Marching In."

In the audience were a bunch of people from Columbia: pianist Phillip Bush of Columbia who has known Klucevsek for about 20 years, Lynn Kompass, who teaches music at USC, Ken May, deputy director of the S.C. Arts Commission and an accordion player as well, Martha Brim, director of the dance group the Power Company, and Kevin Green, who has been doing new music programs in Columbia for years.

Also around town:

Make a point of seeing the exhibition "Fletcher Crossman: Illumintions in the Shadows" at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park. A native of Great Britian who lives in Charleston, Crossman's (mostly) large paintings address the personal (who he wanted to be when he was a kid) to the locally political (the development of Mount Pleasant) all in an ideosyncratic approach to paint that layers shadows and light so one looks at the images as though in a dream.

Friday 6/1 10:50 a.m. Synesthesia

The dancers, in darkly color-spattered leotards, slowly and smoothly move from posture to posture in isolation and silence, as if each attends a master yoga class. Then the music starts, and in a golden light a pair of dancers carefully and with great fluidity move each other from pose to pose with the lightest touch or slightest pressure. Their shifts in position flow so elegantly, you expect to see oil drip from human hinges or, perhaps, to realize all swim underwater.

"I want to see how movement relates to music, how music and dance relate to visual art, and how these elements can combine," says Shen Wei, the artistic director and choreographer of Shen Wei Dance Arts. His intention in  "Connect Transfer," performed again at Gaillard Municipal Auditorium on Saturday,  is "to see the circular, cumulative energies that fuse movement to paint to light to sound in space and time."

As the music changes, so does the energy. Dancers reappear singly, one hand now covered, transformed into a paint brush. As each dancer rolls and slides and slithers and arches and somersaults across stage, he or she paints swirls of color. At another point, the music is absent, then the dancers create it, their feet pushing at the surface they have painted, making a sound familiar to those who remember wax paper. At times, the energy is almost silly: a scampering. At times, startling: a woman twirls across the stage, arms and head a propeller's blur as people gasp at her speed.

At some point, the audience realizes the floor is a canvas, the dance a painting, that movement, come and gone, has become memorialized in color. At the dance's end, the stage presents not only the dancers' vertical selves but the blue and red and green and purple swirls of their bodies' signatures underfoot. At the night's end, after a prolonged standing ovation, audience members troop on stage or climb to the balcony to appreciate the art remaining and to, of course, photograph with their phones.

In synesthesia, senses combine; a particular smell could evoke a particular color, for example. Shen Wei makes each of us so gifted; there it is, purple and red and green and blue movement.

P.S. What happens to the painting? Shen Wei is storing the dance groups' art works for some other use at some other time. So if you want to see one of these paintings, you'll have to attend Saturday's performance.

Claudia Smith Brinson

Friday June 1 10 a.m. An explosive play

Sometimes the small theater pieces at the Spoleto Festival are the most enlightening offerings.

"Major Bang or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dirty Bomb" isn't going to go down in the festival history as one of the best, but it is an imaginative, very funny play about what to do when there's nothing you can do.

The play is a collaborative undertaking that emerged from the way life changed for many people after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. And it's a comedy, with two versitile performers, Steve Cuiffo and Maggie Hoffman, doing a bunch of different things - and people. Cuiffo actually plays two people at the same time wearing two costumes. The production, a creation of New York's Foundry Theatre, is filled with such wild sight gags, as well as a complete admission of its own theatricality. About halfway through, they sort of stop the show, and explain the big problem with the show, using a clip from the Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston movie "The Bodyguard" for illustration.

This is a kind of grab bag show that depends on everything from government web sites which suggest plastic and duct tape as protection from dirty bombs to Cuiffo's talents as a magician. At the heart of it, past the criticism of U.S. crackdowns on individual rights, is a surprisingly tender story of a father and son. Although a little dated, "Major Bang" still provides a fresh look at topics that have faded - or at least been accepted.

It continues Saturday night and with two performances Sunday.

Jeffrey Day

Thursday, May 31 7:35 a.m. Back into the fray

After a couple of days away from the Spoleto Festival, headed back this morning. Actually it hardly seems I've been away because I've been talking to everyone about what I saw and heard last weekend - whether they wanted to hear about it or not. (And the day I got back I took people to the airport at 4 a.m.).
I found myself most often talking about the silly and wonderful production of "Merlin's Island," a 1758 work by Gluck, who is best known for his big serious stuff. I talked most about that because most of the people I was talking to are not what I'd call opera fans - most have never seen an opera. So I guess I was sort of selling opera. (Look at the blog item a few days back for more about the opera.)
It's not hard to do with something like "Merlin..." because it's so fun and accessible. I did find myself trying hard to describe the "robots" that carry people and objets on and off the stage. The best description I came up with was a sleek, soap box derby cart without the cockpit.
The other operas were also what grabbed me and made it into my conversation most often. "Faustus" is brilliant even if you can't follow the story - it's about the music. "Mahagonny" was the first thing I saw which always gives something a disadvantage, but it was great as well.
I suppose my best recomendation is this: I'd see them all again if I had time.
But instead, I will be hearing a concert tribute to festival founder Gian Carlo Menotti this morning,
and seeing the play "Major Bang" this evening. Looking forward to both, especially the latter. I interviewed the two actors in it, Maggie Hoffman and Steve Cuiffo, early this year in a restaurant/bar in Brooklyn one night after Maggie did a performance next door.
Also on tap for me: chamber music, Music in Time, more chamber, "MedEia" (yes, that's correct), more Music in Time,  Shen Wei dance and  I hope  a couple more things as well. I"ll keep you posted.

Tuesday, May 29 2 p.m. What's missing from the festivals

Some random observations, but mostly  questions, about Spoleto, Charleston and art, after a few days in the Holy City. I had a great time, but .....

1. “Why don’t they do the same thing for the visual arts they do for performing arts?”
That’s what a Columbia artist asked as I was telling her about the festival. I couldn’t  agree more and I’ve been saying it for years.

2. If the Spoleto Festival isn’t going to do art shows, wouldn’t it be nice if the City of Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival made a serious visual arts undertaking instead of spending most of its time and money on things Spoleto already does better (music)?

3, Haven’t we had enough of giant Fiberglas animals?
The city has been infected with large plastic turtles. They’ll be sold to raise money for the S.C. Aquarium. They block sidewalks and entrances and don’t look very good, especially the ones that are being kept upright by sandbags.

2. Would it kill corporate offices to loosen the reins a little bit?
Around Spoleto time, businesses in Charleston have always made it their business to put together window displays connected to the festival. Some just celebrated the festival, but often times the displays were also be critical of the festival. It was refreshing. Now as the main shopping streets, especially King Street, are more and more dominated by national chains, the window art has nearly disappeared.

5.  Why would anyone pay $25 to see a condensed version of Workshop Theatre’s production of “The Full Monty” when they could have seen the whole deal for less than $20 in Columbia?  Or $17 for a one-hour dance performance by an unknown group? Or $30 to see a musical review? Those are some of the prices for Piccolo events. Yes, there are free events, but not that many. Most show, especially the classical concerts, are around $12 a ticket which isn’t bad. But you can hear the Spoleto Festival Orchestra for $10.

  Jeffrey Day

Monday May 28 5 p.m. Birthdays and Samuel Beckett

    There was a big celebration at one of the big houses on the Battery in Charleston Saturday night. The first production of “Faustus, The First Night” had just ended and just about every involved appeared quite pleased with the first ever production of a Pascal Dusapin opera in the Western Hemisphere. Everyone, from festival director Nigel Redden, to Emmanuel Villaume, festival director of opera and orchestral music, to Dusapin himself appeared thrilled with what had transpired.
     And it was Dusapin’s birthday – so Redden presented him with a big white birthday cake. It was also Rubberbandance Group dancer Lila-Mae G. Talbot’s birthday and she got a smaller chocolate cake. And everyone at the outdoor party got to eat them both. The two birthday folks made quite a contrast. Dusapin, who just turned 52, was wearing a slim, dark suit and was about the tallest guy in the garden. Talbot, who turned 23, was almost undoubtedly the smallest.
    Michael Colgan, the irrepressible director of the Gate Theatre of Dublin (in town to perform “The Constant Wife”) was regaling Dusapin with tales of Samuel Beckett. Dusapin is a great admirer of Beckett and uses some of his writings in “Faustus.” Colgan had used some of Dusapin’s music for a play he directed. “I hope you got paid,” Colgan said.
It’s not often that one gets to talk to someone who was friends with a giant such as Beckett.
“I told (Beckett) that there was going to be a production of ‘Waiting for Godot,’ on Broadway,” Colgan said. “It was going to star Robin Williams and Steven Martin. ‘So how do you feel about that Sam?’” “He just looked at me and said, ‘Gloomy.’”  
_Jeffrey Day .

Monday, May 28 4 p.m. Finding the fantastic with Faustus

The Spoleto Festival USA did the first ever production of a Pascal Dusapin opera, “Faustus, The Last Night,” Saturday night. And what a night it was – certainly one of the festival’s most momentous undertaking.

Conductor John Kennedy said that few people would have heard this kind of music before and he was right. Rarely does one hear music of such complexity and strange beauty. The orchestra handled the difficult music with perfection and the five singers did even more, it that’s possible.

Those looking for a straight-forward telling of the Faustus story, about a man who trades his soul for knowledge and power, won’t find it here. Dusapin, who is well-known in

Europe

, but whose work isn’t often performed here, pulled his text (sung in English) from various sources, from Goethe to Shakespeare to Samuel Beckett. The text is layered and indirect abstract in the extreme. But that doesn’t really matter because what comes across is the intellectual and emotional struggled in which Faustus is engaged.

Director David Herskovits has offered up a simple and largely elegant staging, almost conservative. It’s a good decision with such textured and multi-layered music and text.

As Faustus, John Hancock goes places where voices rarely travel and that’s true for all the singers.

“Faustus” is a rarely and remarkable happening.

There are only two more performances ‑ Tuesday and June 2.

‑ Jeffrey Day

 

Sunday, 5/27 5:30 p.m. Hardly Abominable, Unless You're Thinking Snowman

Maybe it was the leopard-skin tights on such shapely legs. Maybe it was the rhinestone-studded high heels. Maybe it was the skill, those high-to-the-sky tosses of baton caught, those enthusiastic kicks that showed a flash of panty, but the bearded major(ette) was the hit of the 11:30 p.m. Saturday show.

"I love you," screamed a 20-something fan, "in a friendly heterosexual way."

Another twirl and the kid yelled happily, "It doesn't get better than this."

Well, yes it did. Because there in competition with the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable's renditions of "Louie Louie" and "The Pink Panther" -- and the bearded baton twirler -- was the big and burly, Fu-Manchu mustached pom-pom guy in neon orange mini-dress, so very much enhanced by blinking red and blue lights and hairy shoulders.

The Seed and Feed Marching Abominable attends Spoleto each year in a swirl of horns, drums and flashy get-ups. A marching band born because its members could not get over their high-school band experience, Atlanta's Abominable has lasted 33 years. Band members perform on the street, at the Piccolo Children's Festival and in concerts throughout the Memorial Day weekend.

My children and I discovered them by accident years ago. We were on a stroll from one free Piccolo event to another, and there they were, these maniacs, making music and sprinkling fairy dust and waving wands, burly guys in tutus and grandmotherly types in boots and tiaras creating a friendly noise right there on the street. We couldn't get enough.

Saturday night's audience felt the same way. The Abominables marched up the steps to the U.S. Custom House, each performer adorned head-to-toe in Oscar-worthy interpretations of the night's  "Midnight Pajama March" theme: a headband of flashing red arrows, a dragon hat with spines down the back, a fiercely stiff wig of flames, blinking-light glasses and earrings, a red union suit, silk bathrobes, penguin slippers. The second band director looked like Mrs. Doubtfire in his prim blonde wig and bright yellow nightgown; the 6-foot-tall (in zebra platforms) cymbal player must have escaped from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

When the show ended after midnight, the drummers kept drumming, one musician with a coconut added to his tomtom set, another bouncing a plastic water jug, and the audience kept cheering and dancing.

As the 20-something guy said, in his deliriously happy adoration of the baton twirler: "You can't teach that; it's real talent!"

Claudia Smith Brinson

Sunday, May 27 1 p.m.Small and large festival view

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Spoleto time in Charleston is the place to catch up and pick up bits of information about everything from the quality of productions to the quality of the grits.

At a luncheon for the media and Spoleto artists, the talk turned to girts, yellow, stone-ground ones most of us were digging into. Some of those at the table "from off" didn't understand the appeal ('Grits is grits," intoned one.)

Pierre Ruhe of the Atlanta Journal Constitution said Spoleto was the only place where he made a point of not missing the press brunch. Most places, the food is an afterthought. Not here. The chef was Michael Kramer, who was at McCrady's in Charleston, then went to Chicago, but decided, after one winter, to come back. He's rounding up backers for a restaurant.

"I snapped him up before anyone else," said lunch host Judith Moore. Moore runs a mean kitchen as well. She owns the Charleston Cookie Company. It will not be disclosed how many were consumed at our table.

Bill Struhs, longtime photographer for the festival, noted that prior to the festival's founding in 1977, Charleston had about two decent restaurants.

Also at the table was Harry Bicket, conductor of the opera "L'ile de Merlin," a hilarious romp from, oh, 1758. He's a very nice guy, but was talking too much about the opera, which I hadn't seen yet. He and Tammy Hensrud were discussing it and I had to tell them to hold off. (It actually wouldn't have mattered - at the end of the opera, I was ready to watch and hear it again immediately.)

Guy Klucevsek, who plays accordion in the "Mahagonny" orchestra and is doing a solo peformance Friday, and I sat next to one another during a Music in Time concert. I'd interviewed him at his home in New York in January. A very nice and talented man.

He had plenty of praise for Emmanuel Villaume, director of the festival orchestra, who he was working with for the first time.

"He has very specific ideas, but he gives them in a very positive way," he said."He's working with all these young musicians and he just does a great job with them."

Having coffee early in the afternoon, I ran into Sermet Aslan, who owns Sermet's Corner restaurant. We talked about our mutual friend Michael Tyzack. Tyzack, who headed the College of Charleston art department for many years, died unexpectly early this year.

"This is my first festival without him," said Aslan. "We'd always talk about what he saw and what he thought."

I had my dinner Saturday night at the bar of the restaurant, a couple seats down from Michael's regular spot. I miss him.

Jeffrey Day

Saturday 5/26 8:55 p.m. Deciphering Deca Dance

Too much and not enough, Deca Dance both underwhelmed and overwhelmed. Batsheva Dance Company's performance at Gaillard Municipal Auditorium, to be repeated Sunday afternoon and evening and again Monday, seemed a patchwork, sometimes a mishmash, but even so, sometimes brilliant.

The two-hour performance was comprised of around 10 dances; they were drawn from eight or nine works' sections, broken down then reconstructed, acording to choreographer Ohad Naharin. Dances ranged from electronic and robotic to dance hall swirls to samurai-like rituals. At times repetitive movements were pleasing and celebratory, at times more like an articulation exercise.

However, the audience fell in love with the troupe when black-suited men and women strolled off stage, selected partners and took them up the steps and into the lights, where the new partners responded either awkwardly or enthusiastically to ballroom swoops and jazzy bopping.

The piece offered quite a contrast: the dancers' black-tailored selves pulsing with energy, their movements just somewhat replicated by their brightly colored, flattered and bewildered partners while the rest of the audience laughed and cheered.

SuSu Johnson, of Spartanburg, in floor-length sunset colors, ended up the star, swirled to the middle as others were escorted off stage, then bid farewell by a spotlight all the way back to her seat.

"Oh my gosh!" she said during intermission.

"Actually, Stefan (Stefan Ferry, her partner) was very kind. He was saying, 'You're moving so gracefully.' He was talking and dancing at the same time -- what breath control! I kept saying, 'Is it time to go now?' But he said to me, 'Now we are going to go into the middle,' and when I looked up, most everybody was gone!"

Batsheva Dance Company was founded in 1964 by Martha Graham and Baroness Batsheva De Rothschild. Its prestige seems secure: 40 dancers, two companies, 250 performances annually in Israel and worldwide, important festival appearances, a choreographer who has won a variety of awards and honors. But sometimes a buffet of wonders ends up too rich, and that seems the story of this presentation.

However, at Spoleto, there's always the next great thing to anticipate; thanks to Piccolo Spoleto tonight includes the Reggae Block Dance until 11 p.m., followed by the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable's Midnight Pajama March at 11:30 p.m.

High and low art? Or intellectual challenges followed by family fun? Sometimes a buffet is just fine, if your appetite is big.

Claudia Smith Brinson

Saturday, May 26 p.m.All kinds of wacky music

At the end of the performance of the Bowed Piano Ensemble, accordionist Guy Klucevsk (who plays in the "Mahagonny" orchestra) turned to me and said it reminded him that he needed an oil change. He wasn't putting the group down; watching 10 people reaching into a piano to play it from the inside did look a bit like folks working on an old car.

It's almost as much a dance as a music performance with the players jostling one another, moving around the pianio and one another and sometimes crawling beneath it.

The group spent most of its concert in the Music in Time series performing a 45- minute work "The Deep Spaces" by group founder Stephen Scott. The players started by tapping portions of the inside of the piano and the case and moved along to the strings joined by singer Victorian Hansen.

I'm never sure how the audience is going to respond to these new music concerts. Certainly many people are there because the like new work, but others may have just stumbled in because they had time to see SOMETHING. So I was amazed at the very warm response the group got. (They liked it better than I did, which isn't usually the case.)

After the concert the audience was invited to come up on stage and see how it's done (with lots of fishing line used as "bows," guitar picks, and various makeshift implements. And a group of young, enthusiastic players who gladly explained it all. They were glad to do it.

"Sometimes there are more of us on stage than people in the audience," one told me.

A missed ride.

Leaving the concert I ran into festival director Nigel Redden and told him my impressions and audience response to things I'd seen today.

"I'm sorry I can't get to everything so I have to depend on what others tell me," he said.

As I was heading for a between-performance gelato at Modica on George Street, Redden slowed his car and asked if I needed a ride.

"No, I'm just going here," I said pointing the the ice cream joint.

As he pulled away, I noticed a woman looking at me.

"Yeah, I know, I should have taken that ride," I told her.

Redden drives a Rolls Royce during the festival.

But I did get a great ride a litle later. It came from a 1758 opera that hasn't been performed anywhere for about 200 years. Christophe Gluck is one of the most important opera composers, but his comic piece "L'ile de Merlin" (Merlin's Island) isn't one that anyone seems to care much about because he wrote several masterpieces that everyone knows about. And if no one knows or cares much about it, well that makes it perfect for having fun with. And this production directed by Christopher Alden does just that.

At the start of the  opera two buddies are shipwrecked on an island. They discover it is enchanted because they're starving and a box of Cheerios shows arrived atop a robot-like contraption. This gives you some idea of what's to come. The island is a kind of fancy hotel lobby waiting room, the two buddies are out of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" and there's also a bit of "The Jetsons," "The Stepford Wives" and "Austin Powers" in it as well. It is hilarious, the orchestra is terrific and the singers are great and do some amazing physical things. I can't remember when I laughed so hard. Lawrence Toppman, who works for the Charlotte Observer and is writing about the festival for Opera News, were about the loudest people in the place. A woman next to us thanks us: "I felt like I could laugh at anything too."

Saturday, May 25 The big wing-ding 11:45 a.m.

It is very difficult to sit in front of a computer this morning because the weather is absolutely gorgeous in Charleston - a breeze, fat clouds, blue sky. Drove over the big bridge this morning and it takes great willpower to not just stop and get out of the car.

OK, on to the arts.

There are some cold, cold characters in "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny," the 1930 opera that opened last night. Sotille Theater though was steaming which was bad for everyone but must have been nearly unbearable for all the Spoleto big wigs who were wearing tuxedos.

They all showed up later at a cooler venue the big Bedon's Alley party that always takes place opening night. The place was decorated with monkeys and disco balls which was lost on those who didn't go to "Mahagonny." I spent a good portion of the party trying to find a bathroom for one of my companions. The party is throw by the people who have houses along the alley and at one point we just ducked into one of them hoping to find a place for her to ....well you know. A guy and his dog sort of greeted us. He didn't throw us out or invite us in either.

Just about everyone was in the alley .... performers and conductors, the music publisher for a French composer, former governor and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley and a goodly contingent from Columbia, including most of my traveling companions.

Wrapped it up around 1 this morning.

We'll have more about "Mahagonny" soon.

Jeffrey Day

Saturday, 5/26 3:48 p.m. Receiving Our Blessings

Sekou Sundiata's "Blessing the Boats" is spare and elegant -- and to death and back.

Sundiata, through dialysis and then a kidney transplant, survived end-stage renal disease. "Blessing the Boats," a performance theater work offered again Monday and Tuesday evening, traces Sundiata's travels. He talks on a mostly bare stage: a music stand, a desk, an office chair that rolls, a screen that occasionally offers mostly abstract images. Sundiata is our focus, and among his strengths is how quickly he charms us, gains our good wishes and hopes for his healing.

He tells us, "I didn't learn a thing, but I found some ---- out." And so do we, about "rescue from divine bungee cord," about the trapdoor "made of space and time," about reality's shifts between hard and soft, solid and liquid when death becomes a believable, any-second possibility.

"The biggest most important part of the body is the part that hurts," Sundiata warns. He excels at taking the clinical -- medicines and side effects, surgery, dialysis --- and making it not just interesting but vivid. He does so by keeping the scale personal and intimate with rich but simple language.

Sundiata does not belabor the agony of waiting for a transplant, the creepiness of looking at each friend and family member as a possible kidney, a "blood and tissue twin," but makes his points with humor. Four friends not only offer a kidney but qualify, and so he continues, and yes, there is "learning." As he tells us, "All of a sudden is all the time," and "Every experience is a near-death experience."

Because Charleston is beautifully walkable and the weather is beautifully balmy, one Spoleto art experience can follow another so quickly  -- just a stroll away --- that they seem the same conversation. We walked through Fletcher Crossman's "Illuminations in the Shadows," at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park before hearing Sundiata.

Crossman was inspired by cave paintings to address life in post 9-11 America. He believes cave paintings were not magic for hunting but art by artists called to use their gifts, according to the curator's statement. Crossman shakes up assumptions about how well we're recovering. With muted earth colors, blurred boundaries but realistic scenes -- "Fat People Buying Stuff" or "The Development of Mount Pleasant" or "America You Thirsty Thing" -- we're face to face with our continued spending.

From that to Sundiata's praise and warning that we cherish all that will perish: This is what makes Spoleto the best opportunity you'll have each year to wake up.

Claudia Smith Brinson

Friday, 5/25 9:48 p.m. Hip Hoppin' to La Traviata

Rubberbandance Group, which performs again Sunday and Monday, offers a sense of humor with its troupe's athleticism and grace. No matter what the movement -- an angular reach from modern dance, a balletic kick or a spin on shoulder or head -- the dancers are up to all challenges, and it's a joy to watch.

Formed in 2002 by Victor Quijada, choreographer and co-artistic director, Rubberbandance Group captured the audience in its Spoleto opening with its first offering, "Secret Service," performed to Sergei Prokofiev's "Dance of the Knights" from "Romeo and Juliet." Sometimes in dance, choreography and music seem twinned; the dancers so in sync to the rhythms that the music seems to emanate from their bodies. That's how "Secret Service" worked.

Quijada started out in hip hop clubs and marries that style of movement with classical music to great effect in this program, tagged "Elastic Perspective."

Quijada, who danced in "Secret Service" as well as the following "Meditations on the Gift," offered a solo in "Exercise in Wholeness and Awareness." Performed to Saul Williams' "Ohm" (as in a measure of electrical resistance), the dance begins with the sound of Tibetan monks chanting. The dance is performed in a grid of light and dark, conveying both spiritual imprisonment and escape.

The audience took greatest pleasure from the sly jokes about relationships, played out most effectively when Lila-Mae Talbot danced with Joe Danny Aurelian, also known as B-boy Dingo. An excerpt from "Hasta la Proxima," a finalist in the 2004 American Choreography Awards, begins with a woman's voice asking, "Okay if I manipulate you?" The poor guy's reply, not quite a protest, "I'm fragile," is met with "You can trust me." The audience knows what's coming, and it's fun to watch Talbot shape and reshape Aurelien.

But the big hit was the last performance (a good way to say good-bye), "The Traviattle," also performed by Aurelian and Talbot. To the familiar melodic explosions of "La Traviata," the duo challenges the audience to reconsider or see fresh hip hop, juxtaposing talent and the new with the old, beloved and once -- but not after Rubberbandance gets hold of it -- familiar.

Claudia Smith Brinson

Friday May 25 Getting things started 6:30 p.m.

.

As usual many people gathered at the corner of Meeting and Broad streets for the opening ceremonies of the Spoleto Festival USA. One day someone will come up with something new to say, but not this year. The mayor of Spoleto, Italy, spoke (so the interpreter told us) about how culture builds bridges and Charleston Mayor Joe Riley talked about how the festival had changed Charleston (for the better, he implied.) Festival founder Gian Carlo Menotti, who died in February, was mentioned several times, but there wasn't anything like a tribute.

Before the ceremony, Charles Wadsworth, the charming host of the chamber music series, was washing up in the Dock Street Theatre bathroom. He was all cleaned up and as talkative as usual during the 1 p.m. concert which opens the festitval each year. Wadsworth, who knew Menotti since the late 1950s, played plenty of attention to the man he said was in many ways, "closer than my own father."

Menotti hired Wadsworth, who turns 78 this week, to start a chamber series for the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto in 1960. The unannounced program of each concert was Menotti's idea, Wadsworth said. It was a way to make sure people didn't skip out on the unknown artists (many of which would go on to great fame.)

And then the players in the Dock Street performed suite for two cellos and piano by Menotti. that was a worthy tribute.

Jeffrey Day

Thursday 5/24 4 p.m. Getting geared up

The question I usually get, or the assumption anyway, is “So you spend the entire Spoleto Festival in Charleston?”
I wish.
Well, actually, I don’t.
The festival lasts 17 days, which is beyond the endurance of our travel budget and my tolerance for hotel rooms, hurried restaurant meals and the hot streets of the Holy City.
No, I usually spend two long weekends, a total of six or seven days, at the festival, going to an average of two performances a day. That could be an hour-long chamber music concert, a three-hour opera or something in between. I also try to squeeze in a few art shows taking place during the festival and on occasion will go to a Piccolo Spoleto event. In any case, I see most of what I need and want to see.
It sounds like a lot and it is, but I wouldn’t trade it for days on the beach (well, that depends on the beach.) Although at times it can be a bit overwhelming, I’ve attended the festival every year since 1990, so I have a certain physical and mental system to deal with it. I drink a lot of water, ride my bike between venues, try to squeeze in a few naps and make sure that some of my meals involve fresh fruit and vegetables.
Going into each festival, I’m usually already jacked up about what’s being offered. But not always. Last year, I wasn’t, but I ended up thinking it was one of the best ever. This year I am, but expectations can be a tricky thing. And each festival kind of has to measure up in my mind to the one before - and the one before that and the one before that.
The other question I usually get is “What’s going to be good?” (Or “What should I see?” or “What are you looking forward to?)
Without pause, I can say this year it’s the operas.
There’s a 1758 comic opera by Gluck; the 1930 “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” by Kurt Weill (my favorite) and Bertolt Brecht; and a new version of the Faustus story by French composer Pascal Dusapin. Since I started attending the festival I’ve become a huge fan of opera in (almost) all its forms. Frankly, I can hear a terrific new music series in Columbia (Southern Exposure at USC); I can even go to chamber music concerts put together by Spoleto chamber king Charles Wadsworth at the Columbia Museum of Art. I can see some great plays here (I’m specifically thinking of USC’s production of “As You Like It” this spring, which to me felt just like a Spoleto play). I can usually see better art in Columbia all during the year than I can see in Charleston during Spoleto. And recently some of the USC dance performances have even given some Spoleto dance a  run for the money. (Still I will see the Bathsheva Dance Company at Spoleto on the recommendation of Stacey Calvert,  former dancer with the New York City Ballet and now with the USC dance program.)
What disappoints me is how many people around Columbia who are involved in the arts don’t go to the Spoleto Festival. Most cite time and money as the main factors for not taking part. But there are some things worth spending time and money on. And many people would be surprised at how reasonable some performances are: You can see “Mahagonny” for $25 in the cheap seats, hear the festival orchestra play or see a dance company perform for as little as $10; or a chamber music concert for $25 ($5 less than at the art museum.)
So, I’ll see you there.
- Jeffrey Day