It took sculptor and ceramics artist Sarah Spencer White 18 months to hand-craft more than 100 individual pieces of earthenware for an exhibit at the Golden Belt gallery in downtown Durham.
White’s new installation, SPILL, references past and present handcrafted forms, and explores the shift between industrial and handmade, symbolic of the former Golden Belt’s recent past as a functioning factory. SPILL asks us to meditate on what we expect from a vessel. Functionality or dysfunctionality? A sieve or a container? In a Q-and-A with the Indy, White took the time to describe her vision, her discoveries and her inspiration.
Independent Weekly: What brought about this particular ceramics installation, SPILL?
Sarah Spencer White: The work for the SPILL exhibition was conceived and made for this particular space. I wanted to make work that would refer to the industrial production history of Golden Belt and also work well in a gallery that is basked in natural light from the large skylights. These two goals led me to conceive of an exhibition that would be mainly white in color and one that would be a large grouping of pieces. The idea to make pieces that all had a series of holes and perforations grew out of some earlier pieces.
Each vessel has holes that make it useless for the purpose of containing liquids. Why?
I wanted the pieces to reference various vessel and container shapes, but to also have holes that would make these containers unable to contain liquids. I like setting up contradictions. The perforations create a window of sorts into the enclosed space, but they also make it impossible to hold liquid. I think that the function/ dysfunction juxtaposition urges the viewers to ask more questions about the work, to look at it a little bit longer, to engage with it on a deeper level.
I’m curious about the connected network of ceramic pieces.
The table piece is called “Hydropathy.” I have used the table to house other collections of work in the past and originally fabricated it because I was frustrated by the pedestals that [another] gallery had to offer while [I was] planning a show. For this piece I wanted to create a system or network of pieces that implied a filtering-down. The holes in the piece at one end are the largest and the holes get smaller and smaller as you proceed down the table. I also wanted to use this piece for the Golden Belt show because it points back to the industrial history of the building.
You mention you were hoping to discover the shifting barriers between industrial and handmade in creating SPILL. Do you feel you made that discovery?
I have been thinking about and working with the shifting barriers between the mechanical/ industrial and the organic/ handmade in my work for a long time. I don’t know that I can name specific lessons learned from this body of work. I can say that anytime I complete a large body of work or install a show I am aware of how precarious and changing the human relationship with the industrial is. We live in such an interesting time of science, technology and medical advances. It is also a time where a value of the handmade and natural seems to be increasing in response to these advances. Continue reading »
For a film famously reviewed as “Xana-Don’t,” the ill-fated 1980 Olivia Newton-John/ Gene Kelly musical Xanadu lingers in the mind. True, it helped kill the movie musical, along with the careers of most people involved, but the color, spectacle and sheer wrongness of the whole venture gave it a certain cult appeal. And the Electric Light Orchestra songs weren’t bad, either.
As one who has seen multiple big-screen revivals of Xanadu and even butchered the theme song on a few karaoke nights, it’s a pleasure to report that the stage musical, which premiered on Broadway in 2007 and played through the snowy weekend in Raleigh’s Memorial Auditorium, enraptured both those bored silly by the original movie and those who still recall with fondness its laser-riffic effects and nonsensical storyline.
Said storyline involves Sonny (Max Von Essen), a none-too-bright Venice Beach artist with a propensity for headbands and short-shorts, who finds a new inspiration in Kira (Elizabeth Stanley). Kira happens to be an actual muse-disguised as human with roller skates, leg warmers and a horrible Australian accent, and she encourages Sonny to pursue his dream of opening the ultimate center for the arts … a roller disco. Complications ensue that involve Kira’s jealous sisters (Natasha Yvette Williams and Annie Golden) and a wealthy developer (Larry Marshall).
The deliberate goofiness of Douglas Carter Beane’s book includes a Greek chorus of muses, a love duet in a rolling phone booth, leg warmers as a plot point, a love song performed on a hovering Pegasus and a plethora of ELO songs, many of which Stanley delivers in an uncanny mimic of Newton-John mannerisms. The production calls attention to its own artificiality, with audience members seated on stage and a major character disappearing from the climax…because, it’s pointed out, the actor is already on stage in another role.
More than just a genuinely amusing redo of a flop movie, though, Xanadu is a sly critique on the current state of Broadway musicals that’s still accessible to those who’ve never set foot on the Great White Way. In an age where almost every show is either based on a movie or a collection of repurposed rock oldies, Xanadu uses its muse characters and the movie’s infamous history to poke fun at the lack of originality on stage while reminding the audience that this is a stage musical based on a movie that uses old rock tunes for its soundtrack.
Perhaps there’s still a dearth of original songs and stories on stage, but Xanadu gets plenty of laughs and energy out of what one character calls “the box known as juke.” It’s enough to almost make you want to buy some leg warmers at the gift shop afterward (yes, they’re on sale). Perhaps I won’t be the only one mutilating the theme at the karaoke bar. Xanaduuuu….Xaaaaaaaannnnnadduuuuuuuuuuuu….
Kenneth Strong, an actor and teacher with PlayMakers Repertory Company and the Department of Dramatic Art since 1979, died Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 12. Strong had fought glioblastoma brain cancer since 2007, a battle whose early rounds were documented by arts journalist Orla Swift in a Nov. 25, 2007 feature story in the Raleigh News and Observer.
Strong had achieved distinction for his memorable contributions to over 50 PlayMakers productions, including Pericles, The Little Prince, God’s Man in Texas, and Art. He also performed in a 1996 Broadway revival of “Inherit the Wind” with George C. Scott, in addition to roles off-Broadway, in television series including “Law and Order,” “Spin City” and “In the Heat of the Night,” and in films.
According to the biographical information on the PlayMakers company website, Strong had also been originally cast to play Newman Noggs in PlayMakers’ 2009 production of “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby.” Weston Blakesley appeared in the role instead.
Strong had been in hospice for just under a month at the time of his death. Heidi Reklis, PlayMakers general manager, posted on his hospice website that at the end, Strong “was very much at peace and had his [wife] Kee, his mother, his brother and Kee’s brother in the room with him. His very last moment was a brilliant Ken Strong smile and a quiet breath. While we are all very sad, you could not ask for a better moment.”
A memorial service will be held Mon. Jan. 18, at 1 p.m., at Paul Green Theater.
In lieu of flowers, Strong’s family has requested that donations be made in his name to the Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University Medical Center. Click here for a link to their online donation page.
Longtime Indy theater and dance critic Byron Woods has been invited to teach the National Critics Institute’s theater criticism intensive seminar and to serve as critic-in-residence for the 2010 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). KCACTF serves more than 18,000 college and university theater students each year, in programming all across the country. Woods is one of eight theater critics nationwide chosen to serve this festival, and he will be the critic in residence in Region VI, which includes Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and New Mexico. The Region VI conference will take place at Amarillo College, located in Amarillo, Texas, from Feb. 22-28.
Jennifer Coolidge in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call—New Orleans, which plays its final Triangle engagement Thursday, Jan. 14, at the Carolina Theatre in Durham. (Photo courtesy of First Look Pictures)
It took one simple acronym to put Jennifer Coolidge in the public eye: “MILF.” Since her appearance as the teen-deflowering Stifler’s mom in 1999’s American Pie, the actress says she’s been inundated with scripts for “horny mother and trophy wife” roles. But she looks back on the part with fondness: “It’s gotten me a lot of dates.”
Coolidge will appear at Goodnight’s for a stand-up comedy show beginning tonight and continuing through Sunday, though she doesn’t quite know what her set will be: “Probably a lot of weird stories about being an actress.” She should have plenty of those, for the last decade has made her a familiar face in film and TV, particularly in such films as Legally Blonde, A Cinderella Story and Best in Show.
“Kids will go up to me who’ve seen Cinderalla and go ‘Are you a bad witch?’ Sometimes you’ll get someone who goes, ‘You’re the crazy evil lady in Pootie Tang! Someone said they loved the girl I played on an episode of Friends, and I forgot I did Friends. It all becomes a distant memory.”
In the past year, Coolidge has played a hooker on ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a plastic surgery addict on Nip/ Tuck, another mom in Gentlemen Broncos, and a small part in Bat Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans for Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage.
“It’s honestly my favorite film from last year,” says Coolidge, who that both Cage and Herzog were a pleasure to work with, despite their gonzo on-set antics. “I had no idea what it would be like working with Nic Cage, but he’s just such a nice person, a real professional.”
And she’s a big supporter of the film, which is still playing in the Triangle: “I think it’s one of the best movies of the year, and not just because I have a small part in it. Watching it, it was just brilliant. And I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever seen Nic Cage in. He takes such huge risks sometimes, and he just went for it.” She also praises Werner Herzog as “un-Hollywood,” and reveals that despite the outrageous content of his films, he’s “never taken anything stronger than an Aspirin.”
Who would she like to work with? “I always liked Jack Nicholson, and I always hoped one day to get in a movie with him. I’ve always been obsessed with him and Anthony Hopkins. I would love to be like the mother or mentor of Angelina Jolie, or some up-and-coming young actress and show her how to operate the high-powered guns.”
Despite her prolific output, Coolidge says her acting plans this year are unclear.” “I’m doing the standup so I don’t get bored with my life,” she says. “When you live in Hollywood, it’s like you’re behind a tall hedge, this life that doesn’t feel normal. When I started doing standup as a lark, you have to fly everywhere and hang out with people at hotels and get to know the area. I’ve gotten to see all these parts of the United States I never would have seen otherwise. It’s like there’s this whole life I’ve been missing.”
She’s looking forward to checking out the local sights in Raleigh, which could include the flea market. “I have yet to go to a city where they don’t have a good flea market,” she says.
“It’s hard to find places where people are enthusiastic about what’s local,” she says. “I went on a date with this guy at one stop, and he took me to the mall.”
Word to the slammers — and all of the other spoken word and poetry performance practitioners in the region: Following the Friday, Jan. 15 performance of The Big Bang by Universes, PlayMakers Rep will sponsor aspoken word performance competition in Kenan Theater. Prizes to be awarded include a 3rd-generation Apple Ipod Touch.
The three-round competition is for original works, performed by their creators, on any subject, in any style. Performances in each round will be timed, and must be under three minutes in length (with a 30-second grace period before penalties will be assessed). Each poem may only be used once during the competition. Contestants are advised to leave musical instruments, pre-recorded songs, props and costumes at home.
The competition will be hosted by CJ Suitt, a poet and facilitator with Sacrificial Poets, a youth performance poetry team in Chapel Hill, and judged by the members of Universes.
To register, email Jeffrey Meanza, PlayMaker’s Director of Education/Outreach, at meanza@email.unc.edu. Participants may also show up on the night of the event, but night-of competition spots will be held on a first-come, first-served basis.
Up in the Air likely will open in the Triangle Christmas week. (Photo by Dale Robinette/ Paramount)
Earlier today, the Southeastern Film Critics Association (SEFCA) released its year-end awards. Up in the Air, the acclaimed comedy adapted from the Walter Kirn novel, received three nods, including best picture, best actor (George Clooney) and best adapted screenplay (Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner).
Other top awards: Meryl Streep took best actress honors for her turn as Julia Child in Julie & Julia, Christoph Waltz received best supporting actor for his sensational turn as a Nazi officer in Inglourious Basterds and Mo’Nique claimed best supporting actress for her role as an abusive mother in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.
Taking the Wyatt Award for best Southern film was That Evening Sun, with Hal Holbrook. Ramin Bahrani’s Goodbye Solo, which was shot in North Carolina and played in the Triangle last summer, was the runner-up.
The complete press release is below. Indy freelancer Neil Morris is a member of SEFCA and participated in the voting.
It’s easy enough to say that Gaspard&Dancers posted the strongest opening bid of any regional dance company in recent years in their Sunday, December 6 company premiere at Reynolds Theater. In a region where dance in general and modern dance in particular has waned over this decade, there’s been precious little competition for such a superlative. Still, if a Durham audience gave their opening work, Anemone, a somewhat subdued response, by evening’s end the crowd was on its feet in support of choreographer and dancer Gaspard Louis and his new modern dance group.
And yet, for a dance critic—and, I strongly suspect, for Mr. Louis himself—such accolades seem, in retrospect, a bit beside the point: If standing ovations in Durham are better than the proverbial sharp stick in the eye, they still don’t always indicate if dance creators have truly achieved their artistic goals.
In the “oh, no, not again” category of pop culture news, Kate Gosselin of “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ fame was spotted by WRAL “working” for a day in a Raleigh eatery this week, probably for some new reality show.
The hush-hush location shoot is not the only North Carolina showbiz connection for the octo-mom with the Flock of Seagulls hairdo. Her recently-canceled reality series on TLC was shot for three years by Figure 8 Films in Carrboro, which created the series. (Figure 8 did not respond to repeated requests by The Independent Weekly for an interview this year, when revelations of dad Jon Gosselin’s infidelity derailed the marriage, and, soon after, the series.)
UPDATE 12/4/09: Still no news of Main Street. Sundance announces out-of-competition premieres. Main Street not included. We’ll have to wait for a different occasion for this film’s emergence.
In the category of “the news is that there’s no news….”
We looked up the Sundance competition lineup, which was announced yesterday, with the eager hope of seeing MAIN STREET, the Horton Foote-scripted drama that was filmed last summer in Durham. There are some good looking films in the competition, but no Main Street. We don’t know if it was submitted to Sundance or not, but it would be unusual for a film of this profile—with a literary pedigree, a respected, well-known cast, a modest budget and no distributor—to not be entered into Sundance.
This year’s Sundance is under the leadership of John Cooper, after 19 years of stewardship by Geoff Gilmore. Cooper told The New York Times that he, naturally, wanted to put his own stamp on the festival.
“We really tried to hunker down and make some hard decisions,” Mr. Cooper said. “We tried not to be wishy-washy about what is independent, which I know has been a criticism in the past. We weren’t going to be swayed by the marketability of a film.”
This seems to mean that he wants the festival’s programming to be about the quality of the filmmaking, not the Q-rating of the casts (we’ll see what the sponsors say about that!).
On the documentary side (which is where the best films ALWAYS are), we see new work by filmmakers who’ve been fixtures at Full Frame and elsewhere in the doc world these last few years, including Laura Poitras (Flag Wars, My Country My Country and now THE OATH; Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern (The Trials of Darryl Hunt, The Devil Came on Horseback and now JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK); Amir Bar-Lev (New Orleans Furlough, My Kid Could Paint That and now I’M PAT _______ TILLMAN); Jeffrey Blitz (Spellbound and now LUCKY) and Davis Guggenheim (The First Year, It Might Get Loud, An Inconvenient Truth and now WAITING FOR SUPERMAN).
Let’s hope Full Frame can land most or all of these films next April.
And let’s hope to see MAIN STREET emerge somewhere. All is not lost for Sundance, by the way: The festival has yet to announce its out-of-competition special premieres. These films tend to star-driven titles that already have distributors.
SPILL
