NEWS/ARTS K RYS TA FIC C A
ARTS/VISUAL COURTESY BALLET IDAHO
SWORDS AND TUTUS Daniel Orozco lands a Whiting Writers’ Award.
TWO IDAHO AUTHORS TAKE HOME PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS Big news for two local authors. Daniel Orozco and Kerri Webster both received a 2011 Whiting Writers’ Award at a banquet in New York City on Oct. 25. Each year, the prestigious $50,000 Whiting award is given to 10 up-and-coming writers from across the United States. According to Cort Conley at the Idaho Commission on the Arts, this is an unprecedented honor for the state. “For Idaho to get two, and in the same year, is astounding,” Conley wrote. Whiting Awards have been bestowed upon such household names as Jeffrey Eugenides, Michael Cunningham and Kim Edwards before they were famous. Denis Johnson, a currently Idaho-based author, received a Whiting Writers’ Award in 1986, before he moved to Hope. In visual arts news, Enso Artspace is featuring an exhibit called the Nature of Things, which is comprised of artwork that explores trees and other flora. The show includes paintings, sculptures, drawings and mosaics from Enso members Andrea Merrell, Cate Brigden and Lisa Pisano. The exhibition runs through Friday, Nov. 11, at Enso Artspace, 120 E. 38th St., No. 105 in Garden City. If you’re looking to learn more about the Nature of Things and connect with the artists directly, visit Enso on Saturday, Oct. 29, from 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. for Coffee-Talk-Art. Jacqueline Crist, former owner of Boise’s J Crist Gallery, is giving a presentation about the artwork, and there will be a light brunch served. For more information, visit ensoartspace.com. Theater enthusiasts haven’t been left out. Alley Repertory Theater’s Salons in the Alley allows theater-goers to participate in the plays they watch through conversations about the play’s cultural context and meaning. Participants can watch a rehearsal, meet the playwright and tour backstage before they take their seats in the audience. The first Salon will focus on HEAD, a play about crime and punishment in modern Iraq, written by Oliver Russell Stoddard. The performance examines a beheading and its consequences with more gallows humor than most of us are used to seeing on TV news. If you’re interested in the story and people behind HEAD, head down to Visual Arts Collective for free Salons on Thursday, Oct. 27, Thursday, Nov. 3, and Thursday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. Email Artistic Director Buffie Main at buffie@alleyrep.org for more information. Early bird tickets for HEAD, which runs Wednesday, Nov. 9-Friday, Nov. 18, at Visual Arts Collective, are $10 through Tuesday, Nov. 1. For more information about HEAD or Salons in the Alley, visit alleyrep.org. —Tara Morgan and Talyn Brumley
Let Ballet Idaho’s “Aarrrg! Pirates!” hold you captive SHEREE WHITELEY It’s not often that a Ballet Idaho rehearsal begins with Artistic Director Peter Anastos crying: “Slash harder. You’re not going to break the swords,” and “He doesn’t need both his eyes anyway.” But Anastos recently delivered these instructions with the same frequency as more common ballet directions like “attitude front.” The dancers laughed, and it was immediately clear that this wasn’t the rigid ballet atmosphere that blockbuster dance movies Prepare for some Corsair flare at Ballet Idaho’s “Aarrrg! Pirates!” so often depict. “We like being a company,” Anastos said. tos said. “The whole idea of pirates is a “I think our dancers genuinely like each other let if you can get them to laugh,” he said. great fantasy, and I thought it would make “If people can laugh, and come in and be and that helps. But I think that’s partly Boise, a super ballet. This music is sort of riotous really entertained in the theater, they will too. I think Boise does that to people.” and funny, so I thought I could make a come back. I love ballet, and I want people The environment in the studio was strikto love ballet. The chief thing we need to do farcical ballet about pirates.” ingly casual, and the content of the ballet Anastos credits the music for bringing is entertain. We want to be entertaining. We being rehearsed was equally surprising. It the ballet together, although he had a few want to have fun.” was evident from the get-go that “Aarrrg! ideas about what he wanted for a pirateBalletmaster Alex Ossadnik doesn’t want Pirates!” isn’t your typical fluffy-tutu, themed ballet. attendees to arrive at “Pirates” with any marvel-at-the-unbelievable–beauty, lullaby“I always let the music tell me what preconceptions. on-stage kind of performance. Dancers to do,” said Anastos, who was a pianist “I’d like them to get in there like they’re performed the leaps, pirouettes and changebefore he became a choreographer. “It going to a fun movie and just have a good ments expected from a professional ballet time,” Ossadnik said. “There’s nothing to un- always does. If you have good music and a troupe, but their ethereal facial expressions derstand. There’s this perception about ballet fairly good idea, you’ll make a good ballet, were replaced with grins and snarls. The because the music always tells you what that you have to know what you’re seeing. clinking of metal swords coincided with comes next.” If you have to know what you’re seeing, it’s Anastos’ counts, and dancers brandished Johnny Depp may have had a little to lousy ballet. their weapons in Zorro-worthy fashion. do with it, too. Anastos said he enjoyed the “Ballet is enterBallet Idaho will famed Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but tainment,” he added. premiere “Aarrrg! they didn’t provide much in the way of in“If it is good, it will Pirates!” on Friday, Mix It Up runs Friday, Oct. 28, 8 p.m.; Saturtouch you some way.” spiration for movement. They did, however, day, Oct. 29, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. Oct. 28, at the Boise 30, 2 p.m.; $35-$55. provide some ideas about characters. The music for the State Special Events “I like how [Depp’s] character was sort of “Arrrg! Pirates!” is ESTHER SIMPLOT CENTER FOR THE Center. “Pirates” goofy, maybe sort of drunk,” Anastos said. a mash-up of opera PERFORMING ARTS is the final piece in 516 S. Ninth St. Although intentionally farcical and hucomposer Giuseppe Ballet Idaho’s Mix It 208-426-1494 morous, “Aarrrg! Pirates!” isn’t an amateur Verdi’s “Jerusalem,” Up, a performance balletidaho.org production. The steps are technical, and “Il Trovatore” and consisting of three may even be considered virtuoso pieces. “Les Vepres Sione-act ballets, which “I wanted it to be a technical challenge ciliennes.” Although includes Anastos’ triple pas de deux, “Clair for the dancers,” Anastos said. “There’s Verdi composed ballet music out of obligade Lune” and Principal Dancer Ryan Nye’s tion (operas of the time had to have a ballet lots of solos. There’s a big pas de deux, and modern ballet “City Symphony.” there’s solos in the pas de deux, too. That’s sequence), his music is nonetheless inspirAccording to Anastos, “Pirates” will not in every ballet. I wanted to show how ing, especially for Anastos. involve a ship, a female-pirate island and good our company really is.” For “Aarrrg! Pirates!” Anastos employed several other surprises meant to make audiThe evening promises to be a mixed bag of his humor and creativity to invent an entire ences laugh. modern, classic and just-plain-entertaining. background for the production, which “What’s nice about Peter is his creativ“Everything is completely different—it’s involves a performance by a pirate ballet ity and sense of humor. That’s not typilike a really great buffet,” Anastos said of troupe in the middle of a fantasized Verdi cally associated with ballet,” said Ballet Mix It Up. “Also, it helps to develop taste. opera called La Regina Trovatiara (The Idaho Board Chairman Chris Privon, as he It forces an audience to say, ‘I like that. Queen Found Her Hat). watched the artistic director morph into a I don’t like that,’ and that’s a good thing “This music is all kind of crazy and ship captain and instruct his pirates on the because then you become discriminating in nutty, and there’s a fast finish to everything. right way to slash. a really good way. You can’t like everything Watching the rehearsal, it was impossible It’s one finale after another one. There’s a in life, and you can’t hate everything—alsort of zaniness to being a pirate—they lead not to crack a smile, which is Anastos’ goal. though some people try.” “I find it’s easier to get people to like bal- these adventurous, dangerous lives,” Anas-
32 | OCTOBER 26 – NOVEMBER 1, 2011 | BOISEweekly
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