Transforming a homely, second-rate child actress into a scorching-hot indie rock femme fatale is an endeavor usually plotted more with wishful thinking than actual viable talent. But Jenny Lewis, whom you’ll remember from, well, nothing (her acting career included Beverly Hills Troop and other 1980s atrocities), has a sweet and silky voice that deftly plays … Read more
Nick Cave has forged an incredibly sprawling, prolific career. The brooding Australian punk rocker, novelist, and Goth balladeer has been known to leave his audiences in tears of rapture with live renditions of his exquisitely miserable music. He’s enhanced the film world with his soundtracks for several Wim Wenders films and the 2003 documentary Winged … Read more
We have to admit it: Sheer exoticism is part of the appeal of this group from the tiny Siberian republic of Tuva. Elaborate silk outfits, stringed instruments with horse-head headstocks, and an otherworldly singing style in which one man produces up to three tones simultaneously–it doesn’t get much “other” than this. But the remarkable thing, … Read more
I wonder: If I live to be ninety-three years old, will I fundamentally be the same person I am now, only four inches shorter and with twenty-seven additional cats? The people who extol the virtues of “clean living” say it’ll add ten years to your life. Like that’s some big incentive. I love and worship … Read more
This audacious revision turns Tchaikovsky’s dainty and classic ballet on its head. And in the process, it shakes out a story with more complexity, emotional depth, and humor than any production of Swan Lake we’ve seen before. A bare-chested bevy of cobs–that’s the word for male swans, you know–helps express the frustrations of a young … Read more
Minneapolis’ Theatre de la Jeune Lune and Cambridge, Massachusetts-based American Repertory Theatre seemed to be a match made in heaven when the pair put on Molire’s The Miser last year. But the dream team will wander into uncharted territory this year with a joint adaptation of Franz Kafka’s unfinished book, Amerika. Kafka, whose feet never … Read more
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of Henrik Ibsen’s death. And what better way to commemorate the solemn dramatist than with a wallop of theatrical desperation, accompanied by some Norwegian rosemaling workshops? Around these parts, there’s no finer Ibsen-obsessed company than Commonweal Theatre. Based down in the hip hamlet of Lanesboro, Commonweal Theatre is firmly … Read more
As portraiture exhibitions go, this one is pretty crackling: Osama bin Laden in airbrush, five-foot-square photographs of blood-soaked extreme fighters, a painstaking oil rendering of Louisa May Alcott, a Marlene Dietrich-inspired video presentation, and a sculptural self-portrait using years’ worth of garbage are just some of the faces greeting viewers here. In all, nine local … Read more
The art of book illustration is particularly revered in Iraqi culture; traditionally, artists have enhanced religious, contemporary, and political texts with highly detailed, almost baroque imagery. Today they are equally likely to turn to abstract, colorful expressions that tell new stories in a new way. The three-dimensional works of seventeen Iraqi book artists are on … Read more
Duckworth is most often celebrated for her work in porcelain, which has the opaque, milky presence of bone, gives off a sensual glow, and inspires a surprisingly emotional response. As she says, “there’s no other material that so effectively communicates both fragility and strength.” The steadily productive eighty-seven-year-old artist has been sculpting evocative forms from … Read more