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September 18, 2008
September 01, 2008
Just Sisters: "Irishman's Heart for the Ladies"
We were walking Chaplin and decided to have lunch on the patio at Molly Malone's on Pleasant Ridge when a pair of young ladies sat down and played some fiddle tunes. I asked if they were in a band, and they said, "We're Just Sisters." Merril Flanary on fiddle, Julie Powers on bodhran. You can hear Chap chime in on the last chorus.
July 28, 2008
Quadriplegic I Am
Here's a three-minute condensattion of "My Left Thumb" using Slammin' John's poem "Quadriplegic I Am" and some of his musical improvisations. I put this together for a couple of contests. Please go to filmaka.com, register and vote for us in the "What On Earth" contest. There are two $10,000 cash prizes at stake, and the drinks are on me if we win.....
April 09, 2008
Watts Prophets leave a trail of poetry
JournalNews feature
HAMILTON — The paper can’t be as old as it looks. The poem was written just last week by a student at Talawanda High School, but already it’s creased and wrinkled and showing the wear and tear of continued admiration.
Amde Hamilton, one of the Watts Prophets, reads from it:
“You know that’s pretty bold coming to our school
Even though you’re so old, but it’s cool that you’re here.
It shows that you have no fear.
It shows that you care.
And let me tell you, that’s rare.”
And it’s cool that after 40 years of working with young people, helping them express themselves through words written and spoken, that the Watts Prophets would still be moved enough by the words of a teenager that they carry something like this around to share.
The Watts Prophets — Hamilton, Richard Dedeaux and Otis O’Solomon — first came together in 1967 at the Watts Writers Workshop in Los Angeles, which was created by screenwriter Budd Schulberg (“On the Waterfront”) from the ashes of the riots two years earlier.
“When we first came down there, Watts was called ‘Charcoal Valley’ because it was so burned up,” said Prophet Richard Dedeaux, “and there was still a lot of tension.”
Because so much of what was going on at the Watts Writers Workshop was for the theater and performing arts, the Prophets got the idea of making poetry more performance-oriented, thus becoming one of the early practitioners of what evolved into hip hop.
“We were the ones to take poetry from the podium to the stage,” Dedeaux said. “At that time they’d just stand up at the podium and read their poetry. We decided to add a little drama to it and take the paper away.”
“Each poem became a complete play with a beginning a middle and an end,” Hamilton added, “with call and response, add music and a rhythm section.”
“We did a performance at a talent show at the Inner City Cultural Center, which is similar to the Watts Writers Workshop but located in another part of town,” O’Solomon said.
“They had singers, dancers, comedians and musicians, but never had any poets before and we came out with poetry and won second place,” Hamilton said.
While getting the award, someone asked them what their name was.
“We said ‘Watts Fire’ or something like that,” Hamilton said. But one of the young women in their group at the time shouted out that they were the Watts Prophets, and that name stuck through the years.
Their early success found them performing in Los Angeles-area clubs, opening for Earth Wind and Fire, the Fifth Dimension, Richard Pryor and other popular acts.
“A lot of college students would come through and a lot of them would ask us to come and perform there during the day,” O’Solomon said, and thus began the educational wing of the Watts Prophets.
A few years ago, a request from U.C.L.A. resulted in a change in the way they present themselves in communities around the nation. Rather than come in, conduct a few classes, do a show and then move on to the next city, they decided to create a “hip hop poetry choir” during their residencies and hope that they would continue beyond the Prophets’ stay.
“They scatted, chanted, hummed, sang, danced, painted, whatever creative way they can present their poetry,” Hamilton said. “We bring the community to the university and the university to the community. Some last; some fade out.”
But when they came to the Booker T. Washington Center last week for the first time, they discovered a hip hop education program already in place: The BTW Hip Hop Institute.
Even so, the center’s executive director Kelly Dukes said she was excited about the chance to have her 45 students work with hip hop pioneers like the Prophets.
“Part of the focus of the Hip Hop Institute is to teach them about hip hop history, to teach them something about music, so to have some of the founding members has really hit home for our students,” she said. “They have really helped them clean up their performance skills and to pay more attention to their writing technique.”
There are about 45 students regularly attending the group, the the Watts Prophets sessions helped narrow down the number to a select few who will join students at other sites from the residency — Talawanda High School, the Middletown Community Center and all three branches of the University — for a show at Hall Auditorium for the Miami University Performing Arts Series.
There, the students will practice “the three Ps” — posture, presence and projection — that are the heart of the Prophets’ technique.
“Those three things empowers them,” Hamilton said, “and we require 100 percent participation, so everyone gets involved. Once we’re through with them, they handle the whole show.”
But there is more for them to teach than just technique.
“We teach them to believe in themselves,” Hamilton said, “that they can change this horrible world that we have here right now.”
“When they respect themselves, they respect others,” Dedeaux added.
“We get them thinking about being the replacement generation, they’ve got to replace the group that went before them and they can change things and turn things around,” Hamilton said. “So it’s a combination of things.”
And as in most learning situations, the teachers are sometimes the students, too.
“We learn to listen more, to get more involved,” Dedeaux said. “We realize how intelligent they are. They have solutions to a lot of problems if you listen to them.”
- WHAT: The Watts Prophets and the Oxford Area Hip Hop Choir
- WHERE: Hall Auditorium, Miami University, Oxford
- WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 11
- COST: $10 adults, $9 senior citizens, $5 for students/youth
- MORE INFO: (513) 529-3200; www.muohio.edu/PerformingArtsSeries
Photos by Nick Daggy
November 19, 2007
A different kind of Cirque in the arena
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The big yellow and blue tents are missing, but Cirque du Soleil is still as colorful and lively as ever with “Saltimbanco,” one of two arena-style touring shows operating under the Cirque banner.
“Saltimbanco,” which comes from the Italian “saltare in banco,” which literally means “to jump on a bench” — is an allegorical look at becoming human, according to gymnast Anna Ostapenko, now on tour with this, her second Cirque production.
“It’s about the way life goes,” she said. “There are a lot of characters with a lot of different personalities that makes it all very colorful.”
“Saltimbanco” premiered in 1992 and toured under the big top for 14 years, visiting 75 cities on five continents, for a total of more than 4,000 performances given before a combined audience of over 9.5 million people.
In 2007, the show was reconfigured for large arenas for a 40-cities-a-year touring schedule.
Acts include an artistic bicycle rider, Chinese poles, high-speed juggling, boleadoras (twirling percussion instruments used by hunters in the South American pampas), the Rusian swing, The family of baroque characters invades the stage (with characters leaaping 30 feet into the air) and a show-stopping elaborate bungee ballet finale, one of Ostapenko’s favorite acts.
“They’re so much more than just acrobatics,” she said, “they race in the show and become much more than human beings.”
Ostapenko was recruited from her gymnastics school in the Ukraine for the show “Varekai,” and said the hardest routine for her to learn for this production is the artistic hoop in which the performers become part of a giant wheel they each control.
“It takes a long time to learn how to do it and it’s very energetic and difficult to get into the flow,” she said.
- WHAT: Cirqu du Soleil’s “Saltimbanco”
- WHERE: Nutter Center, Dayton
- WHEN: Through Sunday
- COST: $35-$65
- MORE INFO: (800) 863-3336; www.cirqudusoleil.com
November 09, 2007
Mozart for the TV generation
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When Mozart was writing his operas, life was very different for the audience who came to be entertained.
“People expected to be in the theater for four or five hours,” said Nicholas Muni, former artistic director of the Cincinnati Opera who has served as a concept designer for Miami Univerity’s production of “The Magic Flute.
“So one of the things we have done is edit it to a ‘movie lenghth’ version, from three and a half hours to two hours and 45 minutes,” he said. “The Met (New York Metropolitan Opera) really did a ‘family version’ that was 90 minutes long and very successful, but we didn’t go that far.”
The culture of opera, Muni said, is evolving to be more visual, more theatrical, and part of his job as a consultant was to put the orchestra in a better acoustic space for the venue.
This cast includes 75 singers and 35 orchestra members represents, the greatest number of students ever in a Miami University opera, so Muni worked with set designer Geoffrey Ahlers to incorporate the orchestra into the scenic design.
“The Magic Flute” premiered in 1791 in Vienna, just two months before Mozart’s death. Today one of the most frequently performed operas in North America, the story concerns a wicked sorcerer who has stolen the daughter of the Queen of Night who is restored by a Prince by means of magic.
“The Magic Flute” is written as “singspiel” rather than grand opera, referring to broad comedy and a combination of spoken dialogue with singing. Many music critics and scholars have also dubbed the production “The Freemason Opera” as it is full of the ideals and symbols of the Masons who were prevalent in Vienna in the late 18th century.
- WHAT: “The Magic Flute” by Mozart
- WHERE: Hall Auditorium, Miami University, Oxford
- WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 15-17; 3 p.m. Nov. 18
- COST: $10 adults; $8 seniors; $5 students
- MORE INFO: (513) 529-2232; www.tickets.muohio.edu
A pre-show talk will take place in the Green Room of Hall Auditorium one hour prior to each show.
‘Balanchine’s muse’ recreates his ‘Chaconne’
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When 14-year-old Roberta Sue Ficker — left Cincinnati to audition for the famed George Balanchine at the New York Ballet in 1960, there was some concern about her being able to be a professional dancer.
“When I was younger, my foot had been kicked by a horse,” she said, and so Balanchine had been alerted about concerns for her long-term prospects.
Not knowing what to expect and unprepared, the young dancer nervously hummed a tune from her recital while she performed for the master, but was taken aback when he had her take off her shoes and began examining her foot.
“He tried to pull my toes back and I wouldn’t let him,” she said. “But he was very kind.”
She was soon enrolled in the School of American Ballet on a Ford Foundation scholarship and joined Balanchine’s company for the 1961-62 season, when she changed her name to Suzanne Farrell to become the youngest ballerina in the New York City Ballet’s history, and eight months later Balanchine was featuring her in solos.
“Mr. B. did 23 ballets for me,” she said, in a professional relationship that lasted (except a five-year estrangement in the early 1970s) until his death in 1983. She retired from dancing in 1989, a remarkable 28-year career, and has since devoted herself to keeping the work of “Mr. B” alive.
Among their collaborations was “Chaconne,” first performed in 1976, which Farrell has revived for the Cincinnati Ballet.
Balanchine derived the music for “Chaconne” from C.W. Gluck’s 18th century opera “Orpheus and Eurydice,” part of which is actually a ballet within the story that is often cut from opera productions, Farrell said.
“‘Chaconne’ doesn’t have that specific of a story as the opera, but it has the same themes running through," she said.
Also on the bill with “Chaconne” are Trey McIntyre’s “Chasing Squirrel” and Viktor Kakaniaev’s “Pairs,” an intense examination of contemporary relationships.
Later this month, “Chaconne” will be performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., where the Suzanne Farrell Company is in residence.
- WHAT: Cincinnati Ballet presents “Chaconne: A Celebration with Suzanne Farrell
- WHERE: The Aronoff Center for the Arts, 650 Walnut, Cincinnati
- WHEN: 8 p.m. today and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.
- COST: $21-$66
- MORE INFO: (513) 621-5282; www.cincinnatiballet.com