Seattle Gay News
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Issue 11, Volume 43, March 13, 2015
Seattle Men’s Chorus’ upcoming concert to honor two icons in Gay Rights Movement
Critically acclaimed LEGACY concert to celebrate key tipping points in Seattle’s Gay Rights Movement
SEATTLE MEN’S CHORUS “LEGACY” TWO MEN, TWO STORIES: HARVEY MILK AND TYLER CLEMENTI MCCAW HALL March 28-29
Two critically acclaimed choral works, “I Am Harvey Milk” and “Tyler’s Suite” will be performed by the Seattle Men’s Chorus (SMC) and presented together as one powerful concert: LEGACY on March 28 and 29
inside Seattle’s McCaw Hall. (A special preview concert will be presented on March 21 in Renton and in April outreach concerts will be performed in Olympia and Bremerton – see details below.) For the highly anticipated spring show LEGACY, SMC will
Mark Morris Dance Group beguiles the viewer with a profound depth of movement and meaning
MMDG’s “Crosswalk” – photo by Elaine Mayson
by Sharon Cumberland SGN Contributing Writer MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP UW WORLD SERIES GEORGE MEANY HALL UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON March 4-6 It has been ten long years since the Mark Morris Dance Group has been part of the UW
World Dance Series, so its return for three nights this month was a wonderful gift to the grateful audiences who packed Meany Hall. Yes, we’ve seen MMDG at the Paramount over the years, and looked down on the dances from the massive distances of those huge balconies, but to see them in the intimacy of Meany Hall again was a tremendous gift for which dance lovers can thank UW World Dance director Michelle Witt and the many generous donors who
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made the MMDG return possible. And what a great return it was! We were treated to four Seattle premieres, including a re-working of “Pacific,” a ballet Morris choreographed for the San Francisco Ballet and that we have seen here at the Pacific Northwest Ballet en pointe, but now given to us in its barefoot mode without any loss of soaring quality. The other three dances were delightfully familiar in that Morris is always determined to beguile the viewer, but with a depth of movement and meaning that places Morris in the top category of living choreographers and, in my opinion, of artistic genius in any category. In spite of the impossibility of describing the non-verbal complexity that makes MMDG so unique, here is my take on the dances, which I was fortunate to see on all three nights they were presented: “Pacific” to Lou Harrison’s “Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, Movements 3 and 4”: Morris is famous for using live music in all his performances because, as he told an audience at a UW interview, “dancing to recordings eliminates the possibility of music to influence the choreography.” In this gorgeous work for nine dancers in flowing skirts, an array of gestures is developed first by a trio of men in blue, then by a quarsee mmdg page 9
shine an extra-bright spotlight on their mission, their vision, and the power that hundreds of voices can have to unify and make change. The assassination of San Francisco politician and activist Harvey Milk and the suicide of 18-year-old Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi have represented critical tipping points for the Gay rights movement in our country and helped galvanize Seattle’s local LGBT community into action. On the night of Milk’s death in November 1978 the national Gay choral movement was born when a group of men, who would later become the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, performed at Milk’s candlelight vigil. A few months later, in 1979, Seattle Men’s Chorus was formed. On September 21, 2010, spurred by a growing number of Gay teen suicides across the country earlier in the year, Seattle Stranger Editor Dan Savage recorded his landmark “It Gets Better” video. One day later, on September 22, 2010 Tyler Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge as a result of cyber-
bullying and the locally grown “It Gets Better” campaign snowballed into a worldwide movement. Inspired by their own true stories, LEGACY is a soaring celebration of the human spirit that provokes as many emotions as it has musical stylings. From disco to Broadway, classical to operatic, LEGACY’s musical storytelling spans despair, love, and hope as it remembers these men through the song cycles of their lives. The uplifting nature of these moving works from some of America’s great contemporary composers demonstrates that together we can continue to build a powerful legacy. For Tyler Clementi and Harvey Milk, their legacy is the evergrowing number of advocates and activists that are motivated to better the lives of others as a result of their tragic deaths. Members of Tyler Clementi’s family will be in attendance on March 28 and 29. “Tyler’s Suite,” presented in collaboration with the Tyler Clementi Foundation, is an eightsee smc page 5
ArtsWest’s production of Chinglish is whip smart and sharp
Evan Whitfield (Daniel) and Kathy Hsieh (Xi Yan) in Chinglish – courtesy of Arts West
by Paul Torres SGN A&E Writer CHINGLISH ARTSWEST Through March 29 Cross-cultural miscues and absurdity abound in Chinglish, the current production at ArtsWest. Presented as a PowerPoint presentation, culturally naïve Ohioan Daniel Cavanaugh describes his last ditch effort to save his family’s sign making company by going to mainland China for a big sale. He does not know the language, but he is assisted by Peter, an English businessman, who lives and conducts business in China. He promises to help Dan-
March 13, 2015
iel with the translation and navigate the cultural nuances. Daniel, played with accurate Midwest affable dorkiness by Evan Whitfield, has a sales pitch in Guiyang for its new international cultural center. He believes his family’s business can handle the complexities of creating bilingual signs that will not end up with embarrassing translations. The vice-minister of culture, Xi Yan, wonderfully played by Kathy Hsieh, carefully listens to the business dealings. As Xi, Kathy Hsieh combines professionalism with a foreboding sultriness. Hsieh is a good reason to see Chinglish. Daniel, a sad sack involved in a well-known fisee chinglish page 5
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