the CAB - arts news & notes

Today's random Internet search term:

New Orleans

To some it's the best party destination in the world. To others, it's a deserved, glorious Super Bowl Champ. To others still, a lost bet.

And for those looking a little farther down the road: New Orleans and its surrounding wet lands are "Ground Zero for climate change."

This video, from a group that also covered the vivacious aftermath of last night's game, serves as a reminder of the work that's left to do when the party's over. (I promise it's not a total downer.)

Turning The Tide from Cottage Films on Vimeo.

Today in local conversation

One Pot and the Sorrento Hotel have partered to bring you Night School: a year of creative and stimulating programming, from Drinking Lessons, to chamber music, to books to Midnight Symposiums, which is what's on this evening.

It's too late to buy tickets online for tonight's event (try your luck at the door if you're optimistic), but it seemed worthwhile to know about their guest, Garry Wills. Even if you can't break bread with him tonight, he is the sort of prolific thinker to be aware of. From the Night School blog:

Garry Wills is a Puitzer Prize winning author, journalist, and historian specializing in American politics, American political history and ideology and the Roman Catholic Church. He has written nearly 40 books and has been a frequent reviewer for the New York Review of Books since 1973.[1]

A conservative and early protégé of William F. Buckley, Jr as a young man, Wills became increasingly liberal through the 1960s, driven by his coverage of the civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movements. Although a Catholic, he has been an excoriating critic of the Vatican and its policies and theology.

He won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction[4] for Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1993), which describes the background and effect of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. He was awarded the National Medal for the Humanities in 1998. He has twice won the National Book Critics Circle Award, including as a co-winner for nonfiction in 1978 for Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.

Book covers from Amazon.com.

Taking pleasure in the fairy-tale grace of the old school.

written by Mary Murfin Bayley

In a city that offers a rich range of innovative contemporary dance, it is surprisingly pleasurable to return to the 19^th century and the joys of the predictable such as are evident in Pacific Northwest Ballet's "The Sleeping Beauty."

British choreographer Ronald Hynd created this version of the fairy tale in 1993 based on the Royal Opera Production, which, in turn, was based on choreography created by Petipa in 1890 for the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Petipa. Mariinsky. The Royal. It is impossible to list the provenance of such a classic without dropping the big names of its great tradition.

The linkage to a grand past does not stop, of course, with the choreography.  Every time a Princess Aurora enters the stage to perform the delicate balances of the Rose Adagio, or the triumphant arabesques of the final grand pas de deux, the ghost figures of Auroras-past step onto the stage with her, including, most famously, Margot Fonteyn, partnered by Rudolf Nureyev.

Kaori Nakamura as Aurora in Ronald Hynd’s The Sleeping Beauty.

To these ghostly images of exquisite Auroras that will haunt future productions of “Sleeping Beauty,” add Kaori Nakamura.  How she builds amplitude in movement from petit battements to grand developpe is beautiful— in other words: from feathery touches of her toe to ankle, to a slow expressive unfolding of her leg to above head height.  The way she can build and crescendo a line of steps across the stage, her musicality, her ability to go from lightning quick to lyrical stillness within a phrase, all these, despite one or two moments of uncharacteristic tentativeness on opening night, make her interpretation of the role indelibly lovely.

"Every time a Princess Aurora enters the stage to perform the delicate balances of the Rose Adagio, or the triumphant arabesques of the final grand pas de deux, the ghost figures of Auroras-past step onto the stage with her."

“Sleeping Beauty” is not a ballet of haunting passion like “Giselle,” or of evocative poetry like “Swan Lake;” but it is packed with cameo dances and wonderful roles that can show off many levels of a ballet company from the smallest of carefully picked students on up.

The plot is the simple re-telling of the familiar French fairy tale. In a fit of fury at not being invited to the christening of baby Aurora, an evil fairy Carabosse (Olivier Wevers) casts a spell on the princess: Aurora will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die on her sixteenth birthday. The spell is intercepted by a good fairy and changed to impose, not death, but a sleep that can only be broken by a kiss.   

The Lilac Fairy was danced with exquisite softness by soft Carla Körbes (above) — her shoulders and arms’ roundness and morbidity hark back to the pure Romantic, pre-Balanchine style. 

When Carabosse sneaks a spindle into Aurora’s sixteenth birthday party, the girl snatches it playfully, pricks her finger and performs a dance in which she spasmodically shakes and seems to hallucinate to a woozy series of notes Tchaikovsky created for this moment (surely a pre-cursor to the frantic spasms and face scrubbing so current right now in some dance).

The Lilac Fairy puts all the rest of the court to sleep too. A hundred years later she finds the wistful Prince Florimund and with the help of a dream version of Aurora, convinces him to follow her. Lucien Postlewaite and Nakamura brought to this “Vision” duet a beautiful tenderness. 

Some of the finesse and freshness of the dancing throughout must be attributed to retired ballerina Annette Page, who with Hynd, her husband of many years, came to Seattle to work on details.

Olivier Wevers as the evil Carabosse and Carla Körbes as the Lilac Fairy

By Act Three the story is wrapped up and put away so the rest of the evening can be dedicated to pure celebratory dancing and music. Masked fairy tale characters, Puss n Boots (Jordan Pacitti), White Cat (Lesley Rausch), the Wolf (Barry Kerollis) and Little Red Riding Hood (Leanne Duge), all straight from the British Pantomime tradition, earned their laughs.  Mara Vinson and Jonathan Porretta in the Bluebird pas de Deux whipped the audience to a frenzy of cheers and applause. Porretta in his batterie, a series of small and large jumps in which the pointed feet beat back and forth at the ankle too rapidly for the eye to see, appeared to hover just above the stage like a hummingbird. 

The ballet closed with Postlewaite and Nakamura in the grand pas de deux.  Here the pleasure of the familiar really kicked in as the audience, understanding the sequence of alternating and intensifying solos and duets, got caught up in the excitement. Fortunately the 19^th century choreographers figured out a long time ago that these dances in accelerating alterations are irresistible and they build in a finale pose for each sequence so that we can clap. 

"The Sleeping Beauty" continues at Pacific Northwest Ballet through February 14, 2010.

Photography by Angela Sterling

For many, a warm salad seems in conflict with the very nature of a salad.

However, warm salads are a great way to access many ingredients that need a bit of warmth to bring out their flavors and make their textures more appealing — or easy to chew.

In this week's CAB recipe, hearty and sweet mushrooms and figs balance the bitterness of arugula and vinegar.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound oyster mushrooms
• Sherry vinegar (or standard white vinegar)
• 6 to 8 dried figs (any variety; dried golden figs pictured here)
• 1 shallot, thinly sliced
• 4 cups arugula
• Red wine vinegar
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil 

Today in local music

To the Sea, the band

To the Sea is a band I very much enjoyed seeing last year at The Mix in Georgetown. Not only do they have a nice sound, reminiscent of Coldplay, but they also seem to have a good sense of humor, which I appreciate in my artists. From their Myspace page:

Here's What the Press Thinks [about To the Sea]:

"Their sound mixes melancholy with sometimes sharp, sometimes soaring guitars."
-SeattleConcerts.com

They opened like a hurricane, rocking the crowd with their sweet almost europop sounds.
- Kate Sparrow - seattlerepresent.com

"You guys are the first band I've ever heard!"
- Some Ahmish Guy

"We don't just give out random reviews to every band that comes along. Stop asking."
- Rolling Stone Magazine

"The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again."
- Steven Spielberg

I bought their EP at that show, and now you can too. They're playing tonight at the Skylark in West Seattle at 9:00pm, along with Modern Athletics and Loaded for Bear. Use the money you won't have to spend on cover to buy something at their merch table.

Marie-Caroline Moir offers more cheap and accessible ways to achieve the "Zelda Fitzgerald look," which she used as her theme on page 24 of City Arts Seattle this month.

Fringed necklace (hand-painted) from Two String Jane on etsy, $25.

 
Great finds from Buffalo Exchange in Ballard: Salvatore Ferragamo shoes, around $25; bracelet, around $8; and headband, around $12.
(Prices and selection may vary.)

 
Another set of shoes, bracelet and headband found at Buffalo Exchange. Similar prices as above. 

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City Arts cover woman, Brenda Peterson, will speak at Elliott Bay Book Company on Thursday at 7:00pm about her new memoir, I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth. Touted by Sy Montgomery and Diane Ackerman, the memoir follows the Seattleite's childhood, which included time in the deep forests of the high Sierra, time with Southern Baptist relatives and time for introspection about what Heaven is, and isn't.

If you haven't read our feature story in the February issue yet, pick up your copy now.

The day after New Year's Day I had the opportunity to see two visiting opera stars perform at China Harbor as part of Celebrate the New Year with Chinese Opera Masters and CCTV, sponsored by Asia International Cultural Exchange and the Seattle Chinese Opera Association. The celebration was well-attended by an enthusiatic, primarily Chinese-speaking audience. A month later, the experience stays with me, as one of the more notable events I have attended in the past few months.

While all of the music for the "Chinese Opera Masters" concert came out of the tradition of Beijing (Peking) Opera, the performances at China Harbor were presented concert-style, that is, not staged with costumes. There were, however, two gorgeous and elaborately embroidered silk opera costumes displayed in the lobby.

And as the sun sank dramatically over Lake Union, shining very camera-unfriendly, but beautiful red-golden light through the large picture windows of the restaurant's enormous ballroom, a festive atmosphere accompanied the stellar and varied performances from Rujun Wu, Xiaomei Wu and Guijuan Liu and local performers.

Rujun Wu is well known as one of the few remaining male "Dan" performers - men who perform women's roles in the opera - but he is also an accomplished performer on the jinghu, a traditonal Chinese bowed string instrument. He is often compared to the legendary performer Mei Lanfang, who was largely responsible for introducing Beijing Opera to the world outside of China through his tours of Japan, the Soviet Union and the United States in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Wu himself has brought great exposure to Beijing Opera throughout Japan, where he lives and records, and thoughout the world. This particular celebration was a rare one, but Rujun Wu will be performing again in Seattle later this month - also part of a New Year celebration, but this time for Lunar New Year, as celebrated in China.

Rujun Wu performs a solo on the jinghu

Xiaomei Wu, Wu Rujun's sister and president of the Chinese Opera Association in Seattle, teaches the traditional musical arts used in the Peking Opera locally. A group of her students - ages 12 to 80 - performed at the concert. The jinghu is a remarkable instrument in its versatility and range of expression, considering its humble appearance and construction of just two strings, generally tuned a fifth apart. The sound produced by a jinghu is one that was familiar to me, although I could not have identified it by name before I had seen it played in live performance.

Xiaomei Wu and her ensemble of student jinghu players

Cheng-style qinyi player Guijuan Liu, the other master opera singer, visiting from China, performed “Suo Lin Nang,” demonstrating why she was awarded the National Young Peking Opera Actor Best Performance Award and Chinese Theatre Arts Award. She was also recognized as "most outstanding Asian Artist" at New York’s Lincoln Center in 2006.

Guijuan Liu performing

One of the most impressive and moving performances was by Madame Mai (below), who lives on Mercer Island and has been singing and studying opera since she was 14. At the age of 92, her mobility is limited and her speaking voice when interviewed is a little shaky. But her singing voice was fabulous and strong as she performed “Lady General Mu Takes Command.” I had to admire the confidence and determination that brings such a woman to sing before an audience at this stage in her life. And seeing the way that the other guests at the celebration responded to her - both on stage and off - it was clear that she is an esteemed member of the local Chinese community.

Dong Yi, of CCTV with Madame Mai

The show was moderated by Dong Yi, host of the show "Follow Me," and filmed by CCTV, China's largest television network, which will be documenting the rest of the group's tour as well. Part of the intention behind this show and the rest of the tour by the opera masters is to bridge cultural connections between China and the West, and to spread awareness of the rich wealth of art that makes up Beijing Opera. The tour has not yet completed, but we will keep an eye out for footage becoming available online.

Discover the power of the paczki — available only two weeks out of the year.

text and photography by Tracy Schneider

 
William Leaman, owner of West Seattle’s Bakery Nouveau, bakes paczki.    

If you popped into Metropolitan Market yesterday morning, you may have noticed a new selection of perfectly round, glazed and filled doughnuts, neatly arranged in the bakery case. If you passed them up only to return later to pick up a few, as I did, you’d have been disappointed. They had sold out hours earlier.

Such is the power of paczki.

Paczki (pronounced “pooch-key”) are Polish glazed and filled doughnuts that date back to the Middle Ages. Traditionally, they created a way for households to use up the sugar and fat in their cupboards before Lent, explains William Leaman, head baker and owner of West Seattle’s Bakery Nouveau. They also offered a way for bakeries to use up their candied fruits left over from Christmas baking. Chef Leaman’s recipe was passed down to him from a chef who made paczki from a family recipe that dated back to the 1930s.

Paczki dough is much richer than a typical doughnut, and Bakery Nouveau’s version contains more egg yolks, more sugar, plus lots of candied orange peel. Each paczki is filled with the Bakery’s own luscious crémeux custard, be it chocolate or lemon, strawberry or raspberry, and then thickly glazed or covered in powdered sugar.

While paczki are well known in the Midwest, where people buy dozens at a time to share, they only arrived in Seattle last year. Find them now at Bakery Nouveau and Metropolitan Market, but don’t tarry. They sell out in a flash, and they’re here for a limited time only.

Tracy Schneider, a “foodie” long before the term was coined, scours farmers markets, specialty food shops and out-of-the-way eateries for the choice morsel. She has eaten her way across Europe and Asia and now forages in and around the Pacific Northwest. Follow her weekly on the CAB and daily on Twitter.