tuesday november 18th 2008
An English Play With A Japanese Style By An Irish Poet
buffalorising
Jublith Moore, co-artistic director of Theatre of Yugen in San Francisco, spent a week in-residency at the Buffalo Seminary back in October. She imparted on the students Noh techniques – also known as Japanese musical drama. From their learning experience, the students are pleased to present their fall production – “At the Hawk’s Well” by William Butler Yeats, the first English play to use those techniques.
The Theatre of Yugen is 30 years old and is an experimental theatre ensemble dedicated to discovering that which can never be obtained – yugen, an essence so mysterious that it defines explanation. The theatre is founded in traditional Japanese theatre, including an active repertoire of traditional Kyogen comedies in English. This background enabled Moore to teach the Buffalo Seminary students how to best perform the 1916 work by the Irish poet.
The play is loosely based on the mythological Irish hero Cuchulain. It is written in verse and the main body of the play involv…
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buffalorising
Whether you’re entertaining a dinner guest or having a sleep over, everyone’s experienced a bad guest - that person who won’t be invited back (unless they’re family and you have no choice). That happened to a man named Moss Hart back in the 1930s. Hart constantly collaborated with famed playwright George S. Kaufman and had just entertained Alexander Woollcott, a famous radio personality from that time period, and had quite a traumatic experience. From that, “The Man Who Came To Dinner” was born.
Hart was remarking to Kaufman what a horrid experience it was – Woollcott complained about the food, was mean to the servants, invited his own friends to tag along to the dinner, and then when he left, wrote in Hart’s guestbook that he had had a terrible time! Hart was mortified and while talking to Kaufman said something along the lines of, “wouldn’t it have been ter…
sunday november 16th 2008
Buffalo Design Entrepreneurs
Wudenbachs
Steven Heller is the art director of the NY Times Book Review and has authored dozens of books on graphic design and popular culture. One of his latest books covering international design world: The Design Entrepreneur: Turning Graphic Design Into Goods That Sell features 2 Buffalo based designers: Julian Montague and Richard Kegler.
The book surveys "the innovative entrepreneurial options a broad group of contemporary graphic designers have engaged in over the past decade, while also addressing the creative, fabrication and promotion issues necessary to bring unique products to the marketplace." The book features such design superstars as David Eggers of McSweeney's fame and Shepard Farey whose iconic "Hope"…
buffalorising
Ever since the piano was invented, it has been an instrument to draw crowds to hear those talented enough to wield its keys. As an artist grows in prowess and fame, their crowds get larger, the venues get more spacious, and to be fair, something is lost. What could be more pleasurable, more intimate, than sitting in the same room as a talented musician as his fingers dance along the ivory? You certainly can’t find that at any concert hall – not unless you’re willing to shell out large sums of money for front row seats.
What would it have been like to sit in the same room as the composers of eras gone by and watch as they made the piano sing? Harry Mursten isn’t a composer, but as a talented musician, he can bring composers like Debussy, Gershwin, Chopin, and Beethoven come to life. You'll think you went back of time and while sitting in an intimate setting, just like the…
friday november 14th 2008
The Young and the Restless
BRO Reader Submission
By Shanice Cherry
Lyndsey D’Arcangelo’s “The Trouble with Emily Dickinson” is a refreshing novel that tells the tale of a childlike love between two High School girls, JJ and Kendal. As a result of Kendal, a popular cheerleader at Sampson Academy needing help in her Women’s Literature class she meets JJ a not so popular, intelligent writer/poet and basketball player who happens to be a lesbian. The saga begins when an unlikely love begins to flourish and High school social scenes begin to collide as a result Kendal and JJ’s interaction with one another.
What makes “The Trouble with Emily Dickinson” especially interesting is the novel’s ability to draw readers in by pulling them back into the realm of High School. We are made to feel eighteen again as we remember what it was like to be deeply immersed in high school culture. Where a great importance is given …
Joanna Gillespie
Buffalo is among 149 of the coolest cities in the world. Why, you might ask? Well, our fine city is one of 149 cities, from Adelaide to Zürich, to host a Pecha Kucha Night. Pecha what? I thought you'd never ask. Perhaps the founders of Pecha Kucha Night in Tokyo explain it best:
Pecha Kucha Night, devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture, Tokyo), was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers and architects to meet, network, and show their work in public.
But as we all know, give a mic to a designer (especially an architect) and you'll be trapped for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more…
Kate Sorice
If you have yet to find yourself in the holiday spirit, Alleyway has the cure for the holiday blues. Back for its 26th season is Charles' Dickens A Christmas Carol.
Renowned British actor John Smeathers returns to Buffalo to portray Ebenezer Scrooge. Alleyway boasts that this is one of the longest running annual productions in the country and has touched people's hearts for decades during the holiday season, playing to over 100,000 people since its premiere at Alleyway. Directed and adapted by Neal Radice. Even in troubled times, Neal Radice is certain that this show will remind us of the importance of family, friends and show us what the true meaning of Christmas is. “I am more convinced than ever that audiences want of A Christmas Carol on stage, the same thing they want of the carols we sing: to be unchanging, timeless, as familiar as the memory of a favorite Christmas mor…
thursday november 13th 2008
El Museo
Carolyn Batt
You won’t find Monet, Picasso or van Gogh lining the walls of El Museo. Looking into the gallery’s windows at its location on Allen Street, you might however find a sight that is seldom seen in major galleries and studios—you just may find you see your own life reflected on the walls.
El Museo specializes in all types of minority art—from Hispanic, African American and Asian to underrepresented groups in the community such as LGBT and elder art. Exhibited artists come not only from Western New York but from across the world. Presenting exhibits that reflect their own experiences, the artist attempts to take the observer away from how he or she may initially perceive something and transport them to another place.
The last exhibit at the gallery, Uganda: Children & War, photographs by Errol Daniels, was a collection of portraits of children affected by poverty, AIDS and…
wednesday november 12th 2008
Pedal Printing
Elena Cala Buscarino
There's a new print shop on Tonawanda Street in Buffalo, and they're doing some very cool artwork. Pedal Printing's Isaac Menge and Eric "Biff" Bifaro have opened shop at 547 Tonawanda Street, and the posters are rolling out.
In business for just over a year, they have a current list of clients that include local businesses like Campus Wheel Works and Righteous Babe Records, as well as Vegan Treats Bakery in Pennsylvania. The also do a lot of work for national touring hard rock and punk bands, such as Polar Bear Club, the Constantines and Built to Spill, as well as European bands that come into the states and key into Pedal by word-of-mouth.
Additionally, Pedal Printing works with
sunday november 9th 2008
A Special Performance From Shakespeare In Delaware Park
Eli George
The economic crunch will soon be taking its toll on some things you may not expect. Yearly events like Shakespeare in Delaware Park that are partially funded by Erie County are having their budgets slashed in the interest of spreading the budget as far as it will go. Currently, their summer productions are facing a 53 percent reduction in the funding that they receive from the county. That significant slash is one that may cut them too deep to be able to perform next year. Though they have a letter you can send to the county legislator to show your support, you can also help out by attending their fall fundraiser.
Their fall fundraiser isn’t just a wine tasting and hor d’oeuvres – it’s a performance. Christina Rausa will star in as Emily Dickinson in “The Belle of Amherst” at the third annual fund…
