PubDate: 09-06-09
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ARTS&LIFE Coming next week
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 2009
Brainteasers
FALL FILM PREVIEW Movies to watch for
Crossword, Jumble, more E11
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Online
NICK CHORDAS ON ‘EXTRACT’ Dispatch.com/reeltalk
SO TO SPEAK
Arts help us handle information overload
Delightful dozen Our faves: 12 options for the NEW SEASON 1 “Luc Tuymans,” the first U.S. retrospective by the painter, Sept. 17 to Jan. 3, Wexner Center for the Arts
2 George Manahan, conductor of New York City Opera, with the Columbus Symphony, Jan. 8-9, Ohio Theatre
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wans and monsters, poets and pop stars, clowns and comics: With a cast such as this, who can blame us for getting revved up about the new season? It wasn’t easy, but we selected a few shows and events (in no certain order) that you simply shouldn’t miss in the fall, winter and spring. Inside, we offer highlights of the centr al Ohio calendar in music, dance, film, theater and visual arts. — Nancy Gilson, ngilson@dispatch.com
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3 Ben Folds, pop singer and pianist, with the Columbus Symphony, Oct. 28, Veterans Memorial
4 Leonard Cohen, singersongwriter and poet, on a rare North American tour, Oct. 27, Palace Theatre
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David Sedaris, author and humorist, Oct. 17, Palace Theatre
Swan Lake, a BalletMet/ Cincinnati Ballet production, Oct. 16-18, Ohio Theatre
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Young Frankenstein, a Mel Brooks stage adaptation of his film, with the original Broadway co-stars, Oct. 27 to Nov. 1, Ohio Theatre
Pierce to the Soul, a worldpremiere drama about artist Elijah Pierce, Contemporary American Theatre Company, April 7-25, Riffe Center
9 Pagliacci, the great clown tragedy, Opera Columbus, Oct. 23 and 25, Ohio Theatre
10 In the Heights, a rap- and salsa-flavored Broadway touring production, Nov. 24-29, Ohio Theatre
11 “Chihuly Illuminated,” a series of six new glass installations, including neon works, Sept. 25 to July 4, Columbus Museum of Art
12 Miley Cyrus, the pop phenom, Oct. 7, Nationwide Arena
INSIDE: ART E10; CLASSICAL MUSIC E5; COMEDY E7; COMMUNITY EVENTS E7; DANCE E2; FILM E6; LITERARY EVENTS E6; POPULAR MUSIC E1, E8; THEATER E4
POP MUSIC
A wealth of fresh and old goodies in store By Kevin Joy THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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n the fall, an indie-rock pianist will join forces with a symphony, a Disney starlet will shed her blond wig (and ditch paper tickets, too), and a duo of cr itically acclaimed Buckeye State blues rockers will team up to break some hearts. Audiences in central Ohio will find plenty to like in a range of genres and prices — a lineup sure to produce enough heat to offset the oncoming seasonal chill. kjoy@dispatch.com
Southern royalty. The Tennessee rockers known as Kings of Leon have broken from their Baptist upbringing to create some of the most appealing music about lust and loving (Sept. 23, Value City Arena). A more intimate alternative: blues guitarist — and, at age 28, old
soul — Jonny Lang (Sept. 23, Lifestyle Communities Pavilion). Jazz it up. The Columbus Jazz Orchestra will begin the “Great American Songbook” series with smooth-jazz guitarist Earl Klugh Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon
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(Sept. 25-26, Southern Theatre) — followed by a “Swingin’ at the Southern” tribute to jazz great Duke Ellington (Oct. 28 to Nov. 1, Southern Theatre). Far-out. Avant-garde fare awaits at the Wexner Center for the Arts performance space — as in the Canadian indie rockers the Rural Alberta Advantage (Sept. 27); German industrial pioneers Faust (Oct. 8); British cabaret-rock outfit Tiger Lillies (Oct. 29); and cellist Erik Friedlander, whose performanceart project is titled Block Ice and Propane (Dec. 4). The British are rocking. The overnight sensations Arctic Monkeys, whose 2006 debut album became the fastestSee POP Page E8
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I heard a commentator on National Public Radio describe the life of Sen. Edward Kennedy as Shakespearean. And I thought: Yes, that’s it. And the first good play wr itten about Kennedy will tell us more about him than 100 TV news retrospectives on his life and death. That’s one of the reasons we JOE have the arts: to interpret a BLUNDO maddening world and its big, complex personalities. In a country saturated with — maybe even tormented by — information, it’s a relief to think that every year at this time a new arts season will begin and people who see the universe in unique ways will show us what sense they can make of things . Art is such a compelling human impulse that I think it might even be what keeps us sane. I don’t know whether the problem was too much information or too much noninformation, but at times this summer I felt as if I would lose my mind if I heard one more word about Michael Jackson. I don’t mean that as a comment on his talent: He was immensely talented. I mean there was just too much of him. The man alone was baffling enough. The nonstop reporting about him made it only worse because, the more the media obsessed over him, the more obvious it became that we would never know who he really was. So someone needs to write a great Michael Jackson opera. And someone probably will. And then we might gain more than a glimmer of understanding about him. Art can do that. TMZ.com can’t — although it did r eport on Jackson’s credit score last week. Sheesh. The new season in the ar ts coincides with the new season in football — which I find an interesting parallel. They aren’t really that far apart. The typical football broadcast is a strenuous attempt at transforming a brutal sport into something like art. Every game has to have staging, music, costuming and, most important, a “story line.” It might be about redemption (the ex-felon quarterback returns to the field seeking to regain lost glory), rivalry (“These two teams don’t like each other”) or the rise of the underdog (Cleveland and/or Cincinnati — dare we hope?). If football games came with ingredient labels, “artificial drama” would be second on the list, right behind “shoulder pads.” Why? I think we crave the elevation. A few suspenseful games are great entertainment in themselves, but, really, most of them are just 22 guys wrestling on the lawn. We depend on Al Michaels, laboring mightily up in the booth with back stories, to jack up the lev el to more meaningful heights. Likewise, someone has to make sense of the infor mation torrent that deluges us 24 hours a day. Enter art. I don’t know enough about the history of theater or music or dance to know whether they always had seasons and whether those seasons always began in the fall. But it seems no accident that, as we head into the dark months, we renew our relationship with activities that illuminate our crazy world in ways that the waning sun and nonstop news can’t. Joe Blundo is a Dispatch columnist. jblundo@dispatch.com