Mark Pointer - Book 11

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Book Eleven : April - May : 2011

features:

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The indiest and the gritiest: Andy Smith Spoleto sorted out Bonnie Goldberg Sara Mearns is a badass ballerina Eric Campos shot rock n’ roll Behold Tom Hall Fork & Spoon Records is earning a place at the table Ray McManus runs with verses

on the cover: Sara Mearns by James Quantz

contributors Cynthia Boiter … Associate Editor Mark Pointer … Associate Editor Kristine Hartvigsen … Managing Editor

Jeffrey Day … Contributing Editor Ed Madden … Poetry Editor Kyle Petersen … Music Editor Jay Quantz … Lead Photographer

Michael Miller … Writer Sarah Kobos … Photographer Eric Campos … Photographer Meg Locke … Photographer

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Write us at: undefined Magazine 709 Woodrow Street : 321 : Columbia, SC 29205 803.386.9031 ©2011 All Rights Reserved undefined : book eleven

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Celebrating 50 years of Columbia City Ballet — founder, Ann Brodie (1929 - 1999)

Off Menu with Kristian A quick guide to world cuisine.

Naples, Italy Everyone loves Tuscany, with its golden hills and sprawling vineyards, but you’ve got to give the southern region of Italy its due. Naples may be considered the birthplace of pizza, but it has so much more to offer.

Crudo Re’ If the freshest seafood is on your mind, Chef Angelo Carannante will have you seeing the gods with his simple, yet innovative preparations of today’s catch. Briny oysters and chopped-to-order fish tartars pair beautifully with owner Gianni Lotti’s enormous collection of sparkling wines from Italy and beyond. Piazza Vittoria 11/12 www.crudore.it

The bare facts There’s not much I won’t do for a story. I’ve taken an unplanned swim in frothy whitewater rapids, crashed magnificently on a Black Diamond slalom course, and gotten stuck in pluff mud up to my derriere. Posing nude, however, is probably the farthest I’ve traveled outside of my comfort zone so far.

I met Bonnie Goldberg in a parking lot behind the Columbia Museum of Art the night of our session. I was a bit giddy and determined to go through with this modeling thing. I’d shaved obsessively and scrutinized myself in the mirror after getting out of the shower that morning and decided what the hell. It just is what it is.

Getting into the basement of CMA is an adventure in itself. Under Fort Knox-like security, everyone is required to check in and get a badge before venturing down spartan hallways to the elevator, which we rode down to the museum’s About Face studio – a sprawling open space with gray cement floors and walls beneath unforgiving fluorescent lights. An underground government bomb shelter comes to mind. I mean, it’s a cold space, in more ways than one.

About Face is the museum’s artists group. They welcome artists of all skill levels to sketch live models (clothed as well as unclothed) every Tuesday evening. Occasionally, the group exhibits members’ work.

Bonnie directed me to a curtained changing area, and while she prepared her paints, I slipped naked into my kimono. All the while, I could hear people arriving for a portrait class on the other side of the studio. (continued on page 22)

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Enoteca Belledonne Looking for a wine bar with a vast array of Italian wines by the glass and some small plates to nosh on? Enoteca Belldonne is perfect! Located on one of the narrow streets within the Chiaia shopping district, this cozy bar feels familiar and inviting. Order plates of local cheeses, charcuterie and olives while sipping on a glass of Serpico from Feudi di San Gregorio.Vico Belledonne a Chiaia 18 www.enotecabelledonne.com L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele If you want the true Neapolitan pizza experience, this is one of the top choices. Old, simple and with only two types of pizza—marinara or Margherita—it is what it is...an institution. Via Cesare Sersale 1 Il Riccio Okay, Il Riccio isn’t in Naples, but when you’re this close to the idyllic island of Capri, you take the quick ferry ride and spend some time on the island made famous by the rich and famous. Il Riccio is located just above the famous Grotta Azzura (Blue Grotto) and specializes in fish and seafood from its own boats and the famous Gragnano pasta. Via Gradola 4/6 www.ristoranteilriccio.com Kristian Niemi is the chef/owner of Rosso Trattoria Italia and Gervais & Vine. When he’s not working, he’s traveling the world in search of food and drink. www.offmenu.net

USC Men of Letters to Hold Joint Book Launch April 21 Ed Madden, associate professor of English and director of the undergraduate program in Women’s and Gender Studies at USC, will join his colleague and former student, Ray McManus, to celebrate the joint launch of their latest collections of poetry on Thursday evening, April 21, at the Columbia Museum of Art. The event begins with a reception at 6:30 p.m., followed by readings at 7 p.m. Admission is free.

Madden’s new book, Prodigal: Variations, explores what it was like growing up gay in the conservative South. The lead poem in the book, “Sacrifice,” is based on the Biblical story of Isaac and Abraham, in which God, to challenge Abraham’s faith, commands him to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

“I grew up in the language of scripture, so when I think about the power of language, I inevitably think through the language of scripture,” Madden said in an interview with Danielle Sellers of The Dog Country Review. “I am interested in how we define ourselves as peoples and as cultures through these stories.”

Madden, who is openly gay, admits that gay subject matter can be risky, especially in the South, but audiences for the most part have been appreciative.

“Madden’s work is evocative and always deeply descriptive, setting a scene so that the reader can connect to the emotions of the speaker, however dark and complex they may be,” wrote Renee Emerson in an online review.

Reviewer Amos Lassen offered this opinion: “The opening poem gives us a hint that this collection will be about relationships; relationships between men, between father and son, between brothers, and between lovers. And in those relationships, we come face to face with the issues of love, memory, exile, home, and the promises and compromises we make.

“When Madden writes about memory, it becomes one with nature, and, even when filled with grief, nature is evident. In fact, I found that nature almost becomes metaphorical for

emotions in Madden’s verse.”

“I’m a poet of the natural world,” Madden told interviewer Sellers. “I think it comes from my background, growing up on a farm, and from my own continuing interest in the botanical world.”

McManus, author of Red Dirt Jesus, is profiled on p. 48.

–Kristine Hartvigsen

A message from the editors.

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“Cartersville“ James Quantz

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story: Cynthia Boiter photography: Thomas Hammond

film

Andy Smith Andy Smith doesn’t speak casually when talking about Indie Grits, the independent film festival he has directed for the past five years. He is contemplative and chooses his words carefully – possibly because words don’t come easily when describing the nuanced quirkiness of the four-day-long festival of (oftentimes) weirdness-committed-to-film that takes place every April in some of the most interesting corners of Columbia, SC. 9

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We aren’t like a lot of other film festivals,” Smith says, nodding his head then breaking into a sideways smile, initially suggesting outré before settling on something almost conspiratorial. “We aren’t trying to create the next big Hollywood film festival. We’ve always known we weren’t going to be Sundance – we don’t want to be.”

He narrows his eyes and explains.

“No matter how good a film might be, if it doesn’t fit the aesthetic we are looking for – indie, gritty, and from or about the southeast – we won’t use it,” he says. “Period.”

To see Smith’s point, one need only look at a list of typical Indie Grits film titles – if, in fact, it were possible to construct a list of typical Indie Grits films given how atypical the films and their subject matter tend to be. Past years have included films with titles like The Gibbering Horror of Howard Ghormley, Three Minutes from Opryland, Divorcing God, and Phil the Dolphin. Subject matter has ranged from the imaginary country of scientific illustrator Renaldo Kuhler, to dancing desserts, to a conspiracy theory into the death of grunge rocker Kurt Cobain depicted with molded plastic dolls.

“First time Indie Grits attendees don’t always know what they’re getting into,” Smith says wryly. “I like it that way.”

A 2001 graduate of Swarthmore College, Smith started out as an anthropology major who stumbled into studying film. “The whole reason I took my first film class was that I was working at the campus radio station as a freshman and noticed that all the cool kids were taking this one specific film class. So I signed up for it, too. It was the hardest undergraduate class I ever took,” he says. Smith went on to study under feminist film professor and graduate from the first class of film majors at Yale University, Patty White, as well as Marxist scholar and filmmaker, Christopher Pavseck. “I approached film as an undergraduate mostly from a critical perspective pertaining to gender, class, race, and the like,” he says. “I liked experimental films and films that challenged the usual narrative.”

After a stint working at a San Francisco wax museum and another selling tickets to a World War II submarine, Smith landed at UCLA, where he earned a master’s degree in film, television, and digital media.

“I was disappointed by UCLA because I realized that so many of the classes were geared toward film appreciation rather than establishing a more critical perspective on what was being produced,” he says. Smith accepted a position in the PhD program there but ultimately changed his mind and left California to come to South Carolina to serve as the deputy director of Democrat Robert Barber’s unsuccessful 2006 campaign for lieutenant governor.

“I liked what I was doing, but I wasn’t very good on the campaign trail,” Smith admits, noting that vegans don’t always fare well at barbecue joints.

Once the campaign was over, Smith realized he didn’t want to leave South Carolina, so in 2007 he sent a copy of his resume to Larry Hembree, executive director of Columbia’s art house cinema, The Nickelodeon. “Larry looked at my resume and wrote back to me saying, ‘Who are you?’ in that sort of dumbfounded way that Larry says things. Later, when I went in

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to see him at the Nick, he was shoveling popcorn in the lobby, and he was surprised that I was me. He said, ‘Holy shit! I thought you were some old man.’ The day after the election recount, Larry took me down to the Hunter Gatherer, and we drank a bunch of beer and then he hired me on the spot.”

“It’s true,” Hembree says. “Andy walked onto the scene, and he was sort of an enigma to me. He was edgy and all about experimental film – something I didn’t know a lot about at the time, but I was anxious to learn – and Andy helped me learn along with the rest of the film community.”

About the same time that Smith had begun to get his bearings in Columbia, Columbia Music Festival Association artistic director John Whitehead became interested in celebrating one of the city’s most successful native artists with a film festival. “I had the idea that we in Columbia needed to honor the energy and creativity that was brought to the world by Stanley Donen,” Whitehead says. Stanley Donen, who was born in Columbia and lived here until moving to New York City at the age of 16, is best known for his choreography and film direction, including the mega-hits Singing in the Rain and On the Town, which he co-directed with Gene Kelly, as well as Royal Wedding, in which Donen directed Kelly in his famous wall and ceiling dance choreography.

“So I wrote a grant for a cinema festival that would also include dances from Donen’s films,” Whitehead continues. “We brought every dance company in Columbia, with the exception of one who declined to come, to the Township Auditorium stage for an event called, Steppin’ on Hollywood, directed by McCree O’Kelley.” O’Kelley is a Columbia native who danced internationally, including a stint playing the part of Mr. Mistoffelees in the touring cast of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, Cats.

Whitehead, Hembree, and Smith decided they wanted to distinguish the event in a way that would express a more Southern flair, he says. “So, we brainstormed, and, somewhere out of it all, we came up with the concept of the Indie Grits Film Festival. It just stuck – it fit perfectly.”

The first year of the festival brought more entries from a wider range of talent than Smith expected. Among the entries was a feature-length film chronicling the fictional search for a

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Scene fom “Training Wheels”

mythological creature throughout North Carolina’s Transylvania County. The Long Way Home: A Bigfoot Story, written and directed by Columbia attorney and former South Carolina legislator James “Bubba” Cromer, in many ways set the stage for expecting the unexpected from Indie Grits films.

Inspired by transgressive cult filmmaker John Waters, The Long Way Home: A Bigfoot Story makes use of Southern gothic comedic characters who melodramatically sort out cultural constructs while keeping tongue firmly in cheek. The Long Way Home went on to win the Best Narrative Feature at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in 2007.

Cromer returned to the festival two years later with an even more absurd venture into Appalachian culture and its characters, The Hills Have Thighs: An Appalachian Comedy, which delves into the realm of missing persons, aliens, murder, and large-legged mountain people. The Hills Have Thighs was also recognized at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival as the Best Cult Feature.

“I still don’t know what to make of Bubba’s movies,” Smith says. “I’m not sure anyone does, but they’re oddly good – there’s no mistaking that.”

As good, or at least as interesting, as Cromer’s first film was at the first film festival, not everything went off without a hitch.

Despite rain and celebrity contributions that barely made the deadline, it all came together in a unique fashion that served to almost telegraph the character and climate of future festivals.

“A lot of things went wrong with that first festival,” Smith admits. But he claims that out of it all he learned something that would indelibly impact all the festivals that were to come. “At one point we passed the word to all of the filmmakers to meet with me and Larry at the Nick without any of the other audience members. We sat there and drank all of the beer in the fridge and just talked about all the shit that had gone wrong. I learned then

that independent filmmakers are zero-ego people. I learned that I loved them and that what I wanted more than anything out of future festivals was just to be able to provide them with a place to hang out and to talk about one another’s films. It was like an epiphany.”

As the years progressed, and with the support of several key players, Indie Grits moved from being under the umbrella of the Columbia Music Festival Association to that of the Nickelodeon.

Entries have increased with each subsequent year, and word of the festival has spread to other parts of the country. When Smith took the show on the road to Park City, Utah’s Sundance Film Festival earlier this year – a decidedly larger, and particularly non-Southern festival of somewhat higher acclaim – he found that he rarely had to explain who we was.

“People had heard about us there, and I had people contact me after I got back home with an interest in showing their work at Indie Grits,” he says. “This means something to me.”

“Five years ago I wouldn’t have dreamed that – and there are people in this city that literally made it happen,” he continues, rattling off a list that includes John Whitehead, Betsy Newman, Suzie Sheffield, Beth Slagsvol, Sanders and Donna Tate, Amy Shumaker, and others.

But Hembree is quick to give the lion’s share of the credit to Smith.

“Andy is a great lessen to me in sticking to your mission and staying true to your idea,” Hembree says. “That’s his real strength. It’s in his head and he’s fixed in his vision.” Hembree goes on to explain how Smith is dependably true to the stated mission of the Nickelodeon, as well.

“If something smells insecure, Andy won’t have any part of it. ... He created a reverence and a respect for all genres of film – be they shorts, experimental, student, whatever – and, at the same time, he respected and supported our desire at the Nick to

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Scene from “The Redemption of General Butt Naked”

steer away from gratuitously violent, homophobic, or misogynistic representations,” Hembree says.

In an industry is which sex and violence are default themes in lieu of more sophisticated and intellectually challenging subject matter, this is no small sentiment.

“I also want our films to move beyond the low-budget Southern redneck genre,” Smith says. “There are tons of that out there, and there’s rarely anything special about it. Besides, we have people here in the South who are doing some good quality work, and I want us to claim them.”

Despite the growth of the festival, and in many ways as a response to it, Smith and his crew – who are primarily student interns like Karis West and Tyler French from the University of South Carolina – have adjusted their vision for the festival in ways that allow them to honor its mission without having the festival swell to an unmanageable size.

“The whole idea coming into this year was that we knew it was time to grow some, but we wanted to stay true to our ideal of low-budget film in the Southeast,” Smith says. “So instead of broadening the scope, we changed the name from the Indie Grits Film Festival to just the Indie Grits Festival. We’re not just about films anymore. The idea is to turn the original Indie Grits into a festival that maintains its focus on DIY (Do-It-Yourself) issues in the Southeast.”

To that end, this year’s festival features, among other offerings, art demonstrations presented by Izms of Art; sewing demonstrations that piggyback on the feature film, The Florestine Collection by the late DIY filmmaker and Columbia native Helen Hill; children’s crafts; and, a bicycle valet sponsored by the Palmetto Cycling Coalition – most of which has been organized into a cohesive one-day event on Saturday,

undefined : book eleven story: Kyle Petersen photography: James Quantz

April 16, under the auspices of Crafty Feast, an indie juried craft fair and the brainchild of local grass roots guru Debi Schadel.

Opening night will also feature a sustainable chefs tasting party sponsored by Slow Food Columbia. “We’re having tasting tables from all of Columbia’s most sustainable chefs as well as a juried host committee of food and sustainability luminaries who will each bring a sustainable potluck dish,” says Tracie Broom, events manager for Slow Foods Columbia. Music will be provided by the Immaculate Underground String Band, with victuals from the likes of local restaurants Motor Supply Company, Gervais and Vine, Rosewood Market, and more.

And then there’s the music.

“Musically, we’ve tried to stay true to sort of that punk ethos that pushes boundaries without being overly elitist,” Smith says.

“We want to keep things fun and welcoming.” The Thursday night (April 14) concert will feature a lineup of bands including Coma Cinema, Say Brother, Those Lavender Whales, and Sweet Vans – all from the local label, Fork and Spoon Records.

When all is said and done, Indie Grits has grown into a calculated and carefully constructed celebration of alternative Southern lifestyle with a respectful, in-your-face flair. “We want to be hip and gritty but still Southern and true to our roots – and we want to find all the areas of culture that we can do that with,” Smith says.

Indie, gritty, hip, Southern – terms that rarely run in the same circles. The New South is newer in Columbia, SC, and with the help of Andy Smith and the Indie Grits Festival, made less of myth and more of the marrow that makes living in the 21st century South quirky, interesting, and, sometimes, oddly amazing.

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To love a painting is to feel that this presence is... not an object but a voice. – Andre Malraux

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Shen Wei Dance Arts Photo by Lois Greenfield Comparis Is Violence or the Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook

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Photo by Ves Pitts

W

hen people look at the Spoleto Festival USA, they’re sometimes overwhelmed. Where to start? If you’re interested in traditional classical music and opera, it should be simple enough, but it isn’t. And what’s with these operas you’ve never heard of? Or the ones that are very well known, but you can’t understand why the festival is doing such popular pieces?

Then there’s the lineup of solo performers – doing what exactly? It also looks like most of the world has been imported for the jazz series.

OK, relax. This is how it’s supposed to be. The Spoleto Festival isn’t for those with narrow interests; it’s for those who want to explore perform- The Gospel at Colonus Photo by Andy Phillipson ing arts of all kinds from all decades if even then. The Spoleto Festival is still the biggest and over. Let us provide you with a little helpful and honest guidance best multi-disciplinary fine arts festival in the nation. for the 17-day festival that starts Memorial Day weekend.

Written in 1946 and set in a war-devastated country, The The festival was founded by Gian Carlo Menotti, who was Medium focuses on a fortune teller who, to her own surprise, born 100 years ago. One might think the festival would open the summons up spirits. With The Medium, Menotti took opera to floodgates to celebrate this anniversary, but it won’t. The festival places it had never been. It ran on Broadway for 100 performwill mark the event with a production of his one-hour opera the ances, was made into a film that won a top prize at the Cannes Medium. That’s it. film festival and was nominated for an Academy Award, and was Menotti, who is frequently viewed as the fickle and fightperformed live on the groundbreaking Studio One television prone founder of the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy in program. At this year’s Spoleto, The Medium will be performed 1958 and the Spoleto Festival in Charleston in 1977. He quit the by five singers and a chamber orchestra conducted by Joseph Charleston festival in 1993, but continued with the Italian festiFlummerfelt, who began working at the Italian festival in the val until his death in 2007. Menotti has long been a lightning rod early ‘70s and has been with the Charleston festival since the for criticism both as an impresario and a composer, but those start. who dismiss him don’t have a very good grip on his accomplishMaybe The Medium can call up the spirit of the festival ments. founder and make us appreciate him anew.

Before he turned his attention and energy to running festivals, The chamber music series is the most widely recognized Menotti was one of the most famous 20th century opera aspect of the festival. Charles Wadsworth began a series at the composers, breaking new ground in a form that was largely irrelFestival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, in 1960. When the evant in the post-World War II world, especially in America. For Charleston festival started, he did the same there. Wadsworth a couple of decades he created very 20th century, very American retired from Spoleto after the 2009 festival, but the chamber operas. He wrote the first operas specifically for radio and teleseries continues under the direction of Geoff Nuttall, violinist vision (Amahl and the Night Visitors), took opera to Broadway, with the St. Lawrence String Quartet. and won the Pulitzer Prize twice. Much of Menotti’s music has Nuttall, with his ever-changing hair and intense performance been tossed into the dustbin of recent history, but often after a demeanor, has helped attract new young musicians and infused few decades folks go running to the trash when they realize the series with new life. He talks about the composers and music they’ve tossed out some jewels. with as much enthusiasm as he plays violin. The concerts can be Nor should his impact on the arts in America and on expected to serve up a healthy dose of the classics as well as new Charleston be underestimated. When Menotti arrived to start music. his festival, Charleston was a faded city. The South, let alone The series has stuck with the format Wadsworth set originally South Carolina, barely had any major cultural institutions, and at the Italian festival: you find out who is playing and what certainly no world-class arts festivals. No other city in the counthey’re playing when you show up. The goal is to encourage peotry even came close to having such a festival for another two

story: Jeffrey Day

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ple to come for music, not specific who has been singing lead roles at the works or players. Many of the operas Metropolitan Opera for a decade, is and the festival concert of big orchescoming to the festival for the first time tral works usually are conducted by the to take the title role. director of orchestral and opera music, The Gospel at Colonus, gospelmusical version of an ancient Greek but this year that position is empty story, had a short run on Broadway in after the departure of the dynamic 1988. A few years later, it became anEmmanuel Villaume at the end of the off Broadway sensation starring 2010 festival. As a result, several guest Morgan Freeman and the Five Blind conductors are coming in.

Boys of Alabama. The musical came The 32-year-old conducting wunout of the always-adventuresome derkind James Gaffigan will be on the Mabou Mines theatre, which has done podium for the festival concert. He will a number of works at Spoleto (Peter lead the even younger orchestra in a and Wendy, Doll’s House). The concert of all 20th century works: Gospel at Colonus was revived last Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, Dance of the Seven Veils, from the year in Scotland and is coming to opera Salome by Richard Strauss, and Spoleto for the first time this year.

Fragments from the Martyrdom of England’s Kneehigh Theatre made a Saint Sebastian by Claude Debussy. big splash with its U.S. debut at the After the festival Gaffigan takes over as 2005 festival with Tristan and Yseult chief conductor of the Lucerne and since then has appeared all over, Symphony Orchestra and Principal including on Broadway. This year, Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Kneehigh brings a dark version of Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Magic Flute Photo Courtesy of Angers/Nantes Opera Each year, the festival does at least The Red Shoes. The theatre turns one well-known opera. This year it’s familiar tales into something new with The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Mozart. A few years ago, the fesits brash, colorful, and musically-rich productions. tival’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni found the title charFew playwrights in recent years have received as much attention, both positive and negative, as Martin McDonagh. The acter in dreadlocks and wearing a Speedo, while the cast cavorted in pools of water. This Magic Flute is the product of a French Druid Theater from Ireland comes to the festival for the first team that has worked with the festival for 23 years. This productime with McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishman. Between 1996 tion was first performed in France several years ago, so it’s not a and 2001, McDonagh created a six connected plays set in rural Spoleto original. But these guys always come up with something Ireland, among them The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in moderately outrageous, and everyone should expect a good Connemara, and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Along the way, production of an old standard. Steven Sloan, music director of he also won a short film Academy Award for Six Shooter and the festival from 1996 to 2000, is returning to conduct. wrote and directed the hilarious hit-man movie In Bruges. The The other opera is one as unknown as The Magic Flute is Cripple, which doesn’t have all the violence and gore usually familiar. Emilie, produced once in Europe in 2010, has its found in his plays, is set in the 1930s on a remote Irish island American premiere at the festival. where a Hollywood movie is being made.

The opera, by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, is about Most years the festival brings in at least one dance company Emilie du Châtelet, a larger-than-life 18th century woman who with a big name and storied history that offers a program that might be called “Resting on Our Laurels” along with several is credited with inventing the concept of financial derivatives in young companies. This year, it’s just the latter thank goodness. order to pay off a $1 million loss she suffered in a poker game. In The new dance companies often have mixed results both on a single night. stage and with audiences. Some people knock them because This opera has only one character, who is female, which is their technical abilities aren’t always those one would find in a something of an operatic trend. Last year the festival produced a ballet company and others think they’re just too damn weird. new, one-woman-character opera based on the Persephone These criticisms are sometimes accurate, but what’s also true is myth, and the Southern Exposure new music series at the that the new dance lineup is among the most exciting and engagUniversity of South Carolina last year offered excerpts from ing things the festival offers. This year looks to be particularly another one-woman-character opera. solid because most of the companies are headed by folks with Women play significant roles, aside from the protagonist, in serious dance resumes. this opera. The presentation of Emilie marks the first time an opera by a female composer has been performed at the festival.

Corella Ballet was founded in Spain two years ago by Angel Marianne Weems of New York’s Builder’s Theatre Association Corella, longtime principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. He and choreographer Jerome Bel, both of whom makes her opera directing debut with Emilie. Elizabeth Futral,

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worked for many years with Merce Cunningham, have created a piece that examines the life of dancers through narrative and movement.

You can’t have dance at Spoleto without some cultural expansion. That’s being provided by a dancer and choreographer who trained with the Royal Ballet of Cambodia and has merged classical Khmer dance with some western moves and narrative. The most established of the dance companies coming is Shen Wei Dance Arts, which also touches on Asian culture in its contemporary works.

This year it seems like more performers than usual are parachuting in, but that’s always the case with the solo shows. The parade of one-person theater pieces often has little connection to the festival, the city, or the audience. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good – some have been thrilling – but often they are terribly self-indulgent, poorly written and conceived. These are the crapshoots of the festival, but once in a while you’ll hit a jackpot.

This year brings back the glitter covered drag-queen-on-steroids Taylor Mac, who will be doing something called Comparison is Violence or Ziggy Stardust Meet Tiny Tim Songbook. When he appeared at the festival in 2008, Mac was a huge hit, and shows had to be added. In two more very New York-centric shows, Edgar Oliver reminisces about his life on the Lower East Side of New York during the past 30 years, and Lemon Anderson serves up a hip-hop narrative of a life that took him from drugs and jail to a Tony Award.

The jazz lineup is its usual international, eclectic mash-up: four-time Grammy winner and festival regular Diane Reeves, as well as a Norwegian pianist, a Brazilian accordion player and a bassist from Argentina.

Those who don’t care much for classical music, opera, theater, contemporary classical music, or dance have more choices than usual in music verging on pop. Trombone Shorty, who has performed with U2 and recently gained widespread attention on the HBO series Treme, will play, as well as space banjo player Bela Fleck and the reunited Gian Carlo Menotti original lineup of the Flecktones. Last year for the first time, the festival orchestra did not perform at the finale. Instead, the string band, Carolina Chocolate Drops, entertained the crowd at Middleton Place plantation. The new tradition continues with bluegrass from the Del McCoury Band.

Those looking for something offbeat that meshes art and music may enjoy 13 Most Beautiful... Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests. The work couples the pop artist’s silent black-and-white footage of Paul America, Jane Holzer, Dennis Hopper, Billy Name, Nico, Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick, and others with live music by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, formerly of Luna. We’re predicting this will be the sleeper sensation of the festival.

For the best and most authentic festival experience, mix it up. Go to something you think you’ll love, but attend something completely out of character for you. You might find out you’re a bluegrass junky who loves opera, or vice versa.

The festival of 150 performances runs May 27 through June 12 at various locations in Charleston. Tickets range from $10 to $130 and can be purchased at spoletousa.org or by phone at 843-579-3100.

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artist

Bonnie Goldberg loves the spirit and strength of women Standing naked, I tried not to stare directly into the bright light. I felt completely outside of my body, and a little bit faint, until a calming voice urged me to relax and breathe, to just shake the stress out of my arms and shoulders. The voice had the consistency of warm caramel, and within moments, I was again conscious and aware that I was safely with Bonnie Goldberg in the basement of the Columbia Museum of Art’s “About Face” studio. story: Kristine Hartvigsen photography: Sarah Kobos

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his out-of-body moment was inspired by a conversation I had with Goldberg during her solo show in December 2010 at Frame of Mind, a local eye-wear boutique that doubles as a gallery. Goldberg expressed that the emotional connection she felt with a model was far more important than a model’s physical qualities. The idea intrigued me, and I later suggested, in writing this story, that I pose for Goldberg as a way to understand firsthand what it is like to model for her. I also wanted to be nude, or at least partially so, because I love the way Goldberg paints nudes, which were plentiful at her December show. And though I didn’t know Goldberg very well, I felt a natural trust in her.

“I love the spirit and strength of women,” Goldberg said over a glass of wine at Hampton Vineyard after our session. “I think women who are modeling feel empowered by the experience, and I want to translate that into my drawings and paintings.

“I am not very academic,” Goldberg said. “The people I studied with were chosen by me because they offered something that I was looking for in their work. A few were hard on me, but I want to be pushed. What would you get from a pat on the back if you were trying to grow? You learn so much from your failures.

If you always succeeded, how would you know where to go?

“I worked really hard, and I just realized this is who I wanted to be. It was almost ‘Bonnie Part 2.’ I love the doors it has opened for me and the people I have met.”

It may seem difficult to understand Goldberg’s embrace of failures. Except for her own self-identified failures, there’s been little evidence that she wasn’t a success right from the very beginning. In fact, Goldberg actually sold the first painting she ever completed. After an art class, a woman saw her place the finished canvas in the back of her car. The woman seemed immediately intrigued and began to ask questions.

Women offer so much. We are not afraid to cry, to care, or to express tenderness. I want that strength and love in my work.”

Goldberg says she does occasionally paint men but prefers female subjects because she believes the female form more naturally lends itself to her style of expression.

“When I look at men, they have very square shoulders and straight lines. But women have beautiful gestural bodies with curve and feel. It is not just their bodies, it’s also the feeling and emotion they emit,” she explained. “There is something about men that is just too structured for me.”

A wife and mother of two grown children, Goldberg entered the art world a little later than many of her colleagues in Columbia’s art scene today. She’s largely self-taught and only began to take workshops after a painter who lived next door suggested it. Her children were about high school age, and she found herself with new pockets of time and was looking for something else to do. Most notably, she studied with internationally renowned artists, including Alex Powers and Katherine Chang Liu, at the twice-annual Springmaid Watermedia Workshops in Myrtle Beach. She was a regular at the workshops for more than 10 years and found the experience quite encouraging.

“She asked if she could buy it,” Goldberg recalled. “And I pretended that I do this sort of thing all the time. She asked how much, and I just threw out an amount off the top of my head − $300. And she bought it on the spot!”

That evening, she went home to her husband, Harry, and children, Lisa and Daniel, eager to share her news. She made copies of the check and displayed them all around the kitchen. It was a thrill. These days, she is a little more reflective about sales of her work.

“I am always grateful and appreciative that someone would want something I created as part of their life,” she said.

Over the 20-odd years Goldberg has been a professional artist, she’s found challenges with commissioned work and adapted to ensure her clients are satisfied. In the beginning, some clients mistakenly expected a portrait in the conventional sense. But Goldberg is an abstract figurative artist, meaning that she doesn’t translate images literally to the canvas. Instead, her paintings reflect the energy and spirit of her subjects. That may mean that a feature might be incomplete or unusually shaped or even blend into the scenery. Often her figures seem to have radiant, colorful auras. Sometimes they closely resemble the model; sometimes they do not.

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She first realized the need to modify her approach to commissioned portraits when a client took issue with the way Goldberg painted her arm.

“I didn’t meet her expectations, but it became a good experience for me,” she explained. “Now I will do two pieces for a commission. It allows me the freedom to paint what I want to paint” while creating an alternate that may better satisfy the client’s expectations.

“I don’t want somebody to have something they don’t like. I paint commissions very consciously. I make sure they (clients) listen to me. I am not a portrait painter. If that is what they want, then I can introduce them to many wonderful portrait artists.”

Few people know that Goldberg’s nude self-portrait was included in her Frame-of-Mind show last December.

“I posed myself into a contented pose, kind of folding into myself,” she said. “Then I had my husband take a photo, and I worked from that.”

Still, Goldberg has never posed nude for a figure class. She prefers to be on the other side of the canvas.

She is thoughtful and deliberative as she poses her models, using directions such as “turn your head that way,” “look down,” or “move your shoulders to the right.” Every instruction is intended to catch the model at her best angle for the painting that is coming clearer into view with each movement.

While many of Goldberg’s figure models are young and technically beautiful, she also paints women with more years on their frame. She finds beauty in all of them.

“My figure work is the embodiment of who I am as an artist,” Goldberg says in her online artist’s statement. “I connect to the lines and shapes of the pose, the gesture of the model, and find the essence of the person who is posing.”

Goldberg feels that contemporary women enjoy the freedom to explore and express their full creative potential, and that liberation is expressed in the positive energy they radiate.

“I don’t think we depend on men and their opinions the way our mothers did,” she said. “Women can learn to grow old gracefully and define themselves by more than what they look like. You can only look like you are 30 for so long. There are a lot of ways to be beautiful.”

As she sips her wine and listens attentively, Goldberg exudes grace. She is ageless and quite beautiful in her own right. And while she does not volunteer her age, she notes that she is the mother of grown children in their 30’s. She is not fazed by aging in the way so many women are, the ones who obsessively examine with dismay every new line in the bathroom mirror.

“The hardest part about being older for me is the realization that life is finite,” Goldberg said. “There are so many things I want to do.

That is when I realize I don’t have forever.”

Goldberg’s artist’s statement also asserts that “art teaches us what is important in life.” I asked her to elaborate on that thought.

“I think, honestly, whether we go to the theatre or movies, read a book, or view visual art, we see ourselves, and we see the way the world can be or should be. And it makes us think about our own lives and our own priorities,” Goldberg explained. “It’s not just with painting. It is with all the arts. …

“With all that is going on in today’s world, with the economy, I think we need to be very, very careful that we don’t take so much away from life by cutting the arts and not exposing our children to anything other than the basics of learning. What kind of life are they going to live? Creativity is where your heart and soul come from.”

A couple of years ago, Goldberg received a phone call from a woman who had seen a painting of hers and was moved to write a poem about it. The poem dealt with the woman’s childhood and her bittersweet personal journey. She hadn’t realized until she noticed the title of Goldberg’s painting how relevant it was.

“I had named the painting ‘I think I saw you crying,’” Goldberg recalled. “The woman had written her poem about some things that made her cry. That particular painting affected her that way.

When things like this happen, it makes you realize the impact that your work has on other people and the impact other people

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can have on you. That really touches my life in an amazing way.”

During a trip to France about five years ago, Goldberg found herself reflecting again on where she still wants to go with her art and about life being finite.

“There was gallery after gallery of gorgeous art. It was almost an epiphany of what people can do with art,” she said. “I met this artist, and we were sitting on the floor of a gallery and talking art in two different languages. It is not that I think that I don’t have time. It’s just that I know I don’t have forever. … Actually, I hope I am never finished, that I never see what I am capable of. It’s all about getting there – the journey.”

Goldberg’s work is represented in Columbia by Paul D. Sloan, Interiors. Her paintings also appear at Nonnah’s in the Vista. Goldberg and artist Kirkland Smith, who paint together with About Face, are contemplating a joint show in 2012. For more information about Bonnie Goldberg, visit bonniegoldberg.com..

The bare facts (continued from page 6) We were on the figure-sketching side, reserved for just us, but it wasn’t entirely private, as artists could peer across the 30-foot expanse to see what was going on.

Bonnie had warned me it wouldn’t be completely private, and some artists might walk over and begin to draw me as well. She offered to discourage them, but I told her it was OK. I had mentally prepared myself for this. I imagined I was an actor playing a role, that I was completely comfortable with my body and did this sort of thing all the time. I wondered if I could even make strangers believe I was a pro. Hah! As I emerged from the curtain, Bonnie directed me to a small raised platform with a stool covered by a sheet. She maneuvered me into my first pose sitting on the floor with my robe open, knees up, tilted slightly with one arm casually draped across one knee. It was impossible to suck it in, so I just let my stomach bunch up in little rolls and tried to feel attractive. A single, blinding spotlight bore down on me. Bonnie sketched me for about 5 minutes in this position.

Next, she had me stand, kind of half sitting, half leaning on the stool. It felt natural to plant my hands on the stool behind me, so this pose ended up being simply me standing with hands behind and robe open. I was actually beginning to perspire and felt uncomfortably hot, declining when Bonnie offered to turn on the small space heater they keep on hand for the figure models.

Then she drew me from behind with the kimono off the shoulders, held down below my bottom. This was the most naked I got, and while she sketched me in this position, some of Bonnie’s fellow artists strode across and spoke to her. She introduced each to me as I posed. I nodded and tried to keep my eyes on a distant point. I mentally regarded the artists as doctors with a purely clinical interest in my anatomy. They even have a medical mannequin and anatomy posters on the wall in the studio. There is nothing sexual or titillating about it.

With each new pose, Bonnie was thoughtful and reassuring, directing me to turn this way or that, until she would say something like, “Hold it there. That’s so pretty.”

I truly felt that she was seeing my whole self, not just the outside. She was responding to my energy and finding beauty in me.

“The experience for me is very rewarding,” Bonnie said. “And when I introduce a model to the artists in the studio, they are immediate friends. It’s a very giving and caring atmosphere. The models never leave without giving me a hug goodbye.”

I’ll admit I was relieved when it was over and I could get dressed again, but I also felt immensely empowered by doing it. And I felt I had made a real friend in Bonnie, a connection I’ll always remember and feel every time I see her. And, yes, I too hugged her goodbye.

–Kristine Hartvigsen

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The Cultural Council’s 7th Annual

Friday, April 29 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.

First Citizens Center (Corner of Main and Lady) Columbia, SC

Juried Art Show Live Music & Performances Auction Advance Tickets $50 Call 803.799.3115 ColorTheArts.info

Presenting sponsor:

Major sponsors:

Featured Artists: Additional sponsors: State Farm® Chao & Associates, Inc. Richard A. Harpootlian, PA Palmetto Health Affirmm, Inc. Terratec, Inc. DuBose-Robinson, PC Richardson, Plowden & Robinson, Inc. Fisher & Phillips SCBT Trust Asset Management China Construction America, Inc. Davidson McNair Group at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney First Community Bank McClam & Associates, Inc. Elliott Davis Law Offices of Robert Dodson, PA Zion & Company, Inc. undefined magazine

William Carl Bell Jennie Branham Rachelle Brundage Warren Brussee Sam Compton Colin Dodd Joshua Drews Dawn Faber Mary Gilkerson Richard Glover Frances Grosse

Geoffrey Harris Amanda Ladymon Karen Langley Alicia Leeke Tommy Lockhart Ethan Mongin Bettye Rivers Cindy Saad Joseph Shull Mark Woodham

Sponsors as of 3-8-11

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dance

Sara Mearns is a badass ballerina Sara Mearns walks into a Columbia coffee shop in shorts and sandals, no make-up, hair doing whatever it wants to do, with about as much artifice as a puppy coming in to play. Long-legged and strikingly beautiful, yes, but possessing the stereotypical postures of what The New York Times calls “the great American ballerina of our time” – not so much.

Then she speaks and her voice is nothing like what you might expect from a dancer who many say will change the face of ballet with her career. There is nothing prissy or delicate about it. It isn’t affected or lilting.

It is authentic and strong, like the New York City Ballet principal dancer herself, solid and real and ready to show the world that ballet dancers are badass and this one, in particular, takes her art form and her responsibility to it more seriously than anyone ever before. story: Cynthia Boiter photography: James Quantz

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hings looked good for Mearns from the get-go. A student of Columbia’s legendary dance instructor Ann Brodie, Mearns was identified early on as a child with talent.

When she was 7 years old, Brodie began dancing Mearns en pointe, teaching her all the great classical pas-de-deux, and preparing Mearns’ mother, Sharon, for the day when her daughter would eventually need to go to New York to get the dance instruction that her degree of talent would require.

“I give Miss Ann a lot of credit for that,” Mearns says. “Had she not started challenging me early, I wouldn’t be this strong. She made me aware of and comfortable with the classical repertoire so when I went other places to study, I already knew the variations, and I knew the stories. I was ready to dance.”

Mearns believes the relentless work ethic that Brodie taught her is still evident in her dancing today. “We had so many recitals,” she says. “We were always on the stage, and you just couldn’t be nervous. That has stayed with me. The safest and calmest place for me to be today is on the stage, even in front of hundreds of people. …When I’m there I don’t have to deal with anything or anybody but myself and the music. It’s incredibly liberating.”

At the age of 13, and with Brodie’s illness and subsequent death, Mearns began searching for somewhere to continue her dance education, and she found her way to Patricia McBride, former principal dancer with George Balanchine’s New York

City Ballet and associate artistic director of North Carolina Dance Theatre in Charlotte. “I had been spending my summers at SAB since I was twelve, and that, combined with training with Patricia, took me in a whole new direction.” SAB – the School of American Ballet – is the educational arm of NYCB. It offers summer programs for young dancers as well as a yearround residency program. Entry to both programs is highly competitive.

“Learning from Patricia was like being taught by Balanchine himself,” Mearns says. “I knew she had so much to tell me and so much to give – she just wanted to give it all. That’s when I really began to learn the Balanchine way. She would teach me the variations that were made on her when she was at New York City Ballet. I didn’t want to miss any classes because I didn’t want to miss a thing she had to give.”

Mearns returned to New York’s SAB session the next summer and was disappointed when she wasn’t asked to stay for the yearround program. But the young dancer bucked up, vowed to work harder, and applied to the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville to study with dance department chair and artistic director Stanislav Issaev.

“Sara is such a complex dancer, and she was even back then,” Issaev says. “Of course she is a beautiful dancer, but she has unlimited musicality. At the age of 14, she already looked like a 25-year-old ballerina. She was amazing.”

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“It ended up being a really good year for me,” Mearns recalls.

“It was a great program. We did a full-length performance of Coppelia, and Stas made a ballet on me and my partner Bucky Gardner. There were good, talented people there who challenged me, … people like Joseph Phillips and Rachel McKeever. I made progress.” Phillips, also from Columbia, is currently a member of the American Ballet Theatre’s corps de ballet; McKeever went on to dance with Boston Ballet, American Repertory Ballet, and Atlanta Ballet.

By the next year, however, Mearns was more committed than ever to staying in New York once the SAB summer program had ended, but by the last week she still hadn’t been asked to stay.

“So I went to them and I basically said, ‘Can I stay? I want to stay. I have to stay.’ Finally, on the last day of the program, they said yes, but they only offered me a scholarship that was half of what my brother Keith, who was already in the year-round SAB program, was getting. It didn’t matter. I was staying.” Mearns was 15 years old at the time.

It wasn’t an easy climb to the top for the young dancer. A week after she moved to New York, the twin towers of the World Trade

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Center were bombed in a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.

Mearns recalls being evacuated from Lincoln Center, where SAB is located, and walking to the homes of faculty members for shelter. The rest of the year proved uneventful, and surprisingly, sometimes Mearns questioned whether she actually belonged at the ballet institution she had dreamed of attending all her life.

“There were so many incredibly talented dancers there, and, while I was having a great time, I didn’t really feel like I fit in,” she says. “The teachers didn’t seem to like me – they weren’t showing any interest in me at all.”

Mearns came close to leaving the city after the next summer when she was offered a position in the year-round school of the San Francisco Ballet, but she decided to give New York another try.

“Suddenly,” she says, “it was like it was out of nowhere and they could see me. I was at the barre one day and I could feel it. They saw me and it felt wonderful.”

That year, Mearns was nominated for the Princess Grace Award for dance, cast as the lead in two workshop performances, and finally, asked to join NYCB as an apprentice in 2003 at the age of 17.

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Within the next year, Mearns was invited to join the corps-de-ballet but admits that the first couple of years in the corps were rough. “I didn’t really know what I was doing,” she says. “I had body issues, and for some reason I questioned whether I was really serious enough about being in the company. I didn’t know my place. The company wasn’t happy with me either. They came to me and said, ‘what’s going on; … we don’t really see your talent.’”

And then, just as suddenly as before, something clicked. “It was like I remembered that I had to be there,” she says.

That year, out of nowhere, and to the surprise of no one more than Mearns herself, NYCB Ballet-Master-in-Chief, Peter Martins chose Mearns from the ranks of the corps to learn the Odette/Odile part for Swan Lake. “People thought he was crazy,” Mearns says. “I had three weeks to learn the part, and I was placed in the last cast behind people like Wendy Whelan, Jenifer Ringer, and Ashley Bouder; but I got to perform the part two times and it all felt so right to me – like that was what I was born to do.”

Her reviews were uniformly favorable, and by the next season she had been promoted to soloist, followed two years later by a promotion to principal dancer.

This was it. By anyone’s standards, Mearns had arrived, and she had done it before she was barely old enough to legally raise a toast to celebrate the occasion.

But the drive to excel didn’t subside in her with the accomplishment. “You can’t stop working,” she says. “You can’t stop having a dream to aspire to. It was my dream to dance Swan Lake for New York City Ballet and I had done that. So I had to find something else to up the level.”

Rehearsal plays a large role not only in the dancer’s work ethic and ideological approach to her art, but also in the hours of her life. “I rehearse like crazy,” she says. “If I’m not scheduled for rehearsal, then I find a space that I can use and I run my parts over and over again. I feel like it prepares me for whatever is going to happen on the stage so that I’m not surprised by anything. The more confident I am about the time I’ve put into working on a dance, the more I enjoy dancing it, and the more I can devote to the emotionality that I need to put into it. I spend hours and hours dancing every day.”

Mearns explains that another particularly proven method of upping the level of her dancing is for her to emotionally commit each performance to a specific person or cause. “I dance for people,” she says. “When my uncle Jeffrey died, I performed for

him. I sometimes dance for Suzie (Hendl), my coach – she’s been through a lot, and she came back, so I dance for her. It’s not about me – it’s about the people I love and the people who are watching.”

“It’s not just about the technique and the turns either,” she continues. “It’s about taking the performance to a whole new emotional level. You have to go in and figure out something you didn’t do or didn’t see in the part before.”

Mearns had the perfect opportunity to do precisely that earlier this year when she was once again cast as the lead in Peter Martins’ Swan Lake, partnering with Jared Angle as Prince Siegfried. “It was the second show,” she remembers, “and everything just happened. We didn’t know why – maybe it was because we were completely exhausted and we couldn’t worry about anything. But it was like magic. We looked at each other and said, ‘Oh my God.’ I knew I had danced at an emotional level that I had never danced at before. It was like I broke down a wall inside myself.”

The critics agreed.

Dance Magazine Editor-In-Chief Wendy Perron called Mearns “authoritative, fearless. … She cut the cloth of the choreography on a wild winging bias.” Noted dance bloggers spoke of never having been so moved before by a performance and collapsing into tears. Alistair Macaulay’s review for the New York Times, citing Mearns’ phrasing to the music, the “heroic scale of her dancing,” and her “remarkable interpretation,” stated “Ms. Mearns … lead me back to much of what moved me in the ballet decades ago.” In another review, Macaulay declares that Mearns “has suddenly become the company’s most remarkable dancer; I’m inclined to think she is now also New York’s finest ballerina, even America’s.”

That’s high praise for the dancer and a subsequently higher self-assigned bar to aspire to.

But that’s OK. Mearns is not afraid of the hard stuff; she relishes it and uses it to separate the girls from the women with a strength and drive to take on challenges that would leave a lot of other dancers shaking in their pointe shoes. “The great American ballerina of our time” is from Columbia, SC, and she has a job to do in the world of ballet. There is little doubt that she will get it done.

This was it. By anyone’s standards, Mearns had arrived, and she had done it before she was barely old enough to legally raise a toast to celebrate the occasion.

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presence for many bands an ge sta us ito iqu ub a be to between b Jack Daniels whiskey seems rson Hood passed the bottle tte Pa Patterson Hood: A bottle of n ma nt fro e, cor en bottle to fans in Truckers. During an knelt down and passed the holds true for the Drive-By he en Th s. uth mo ir the o e straight int mselves. members, pouring the booz took swigs of the booze the d an l va pro ap h wit red roa front row who story: Michael Miller photography: Erik Campos

nd it band the

photography

Erik Campos shot rock n’ roll It happens at almost every rock show.

You’re right down front, being elbowed and jostled. The band is roaring, the crowd is screaming, the lights are dancing across the stage, and suddenly it hits you. “This is magical,” you tell yourself. “If I could only bottle this and take it home.”

Erik Campos knows the feeling well. An award-winning photographer with a passion for jangly, overdriven guitars, he relishes being as close to the action as possible. He has a knack for recognizing those transcendent moments, those testaments to rock’s transformative power.

“I’ve always loved music,” he says, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands in a booth at a local coffee shop. “I get the storytelling part of it. I get the writing that conveys an emotion because that’s what I try to do with my photography. I get what’s happening. I totally dig it.”

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U2: I camped out for most of the day to secure standing room near the apex of the stage to see U2. Halfway through the show, Bono joined Adam Clayton wandering the platform and taking a closer look at the faces in the crowd, then slung his arm around the bass player in a playful way. U2 started as school mates in Ireland back in 1976 and I like how that camaraderie shows in their body language.

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is eyes gleam excitedly, like all this rock n’ roll talk has transported him back to the mosh pit at a Social Distortion show. It’s the same excitement he’s carried to assignments around the world, from the war in Iraq to Super Bowl XXXV. Campos earned a reputation for being one of the finest photo-journalists in South Carolina during his 14-year career at The State newspaper. But in 2010, during one of the newspaper’s downsizing sprees, the rug of daily journalism was yanked from beneath his feet. It was disorienting, but instead of plunging directly into a shrinking, cutthroat job market, Campos took a deep breath and stepped off the hamster wheel.

“I wanted to re-prioritize my life,” he says. “I wanted to spend time with friends and family and not worry about work and career. So I took some time to go visit folks.”

Campos made plans to hit the road, but an alternative agenda lurked behind his desire to re-connect with people … something to do with a certain Southern rock band and those aforemen-

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tioned transformative powers of rock ’n’ roll. “The Drive-By Truckers …,” he says, his voice trailing off in reverence. “They’ve been a favorite of mine for so long.”

So Campos plotted his trip carefully, making sure that every time he rolled into a town to visit old friends, the Drive-By Truckers did the same. He saw the band four times over a twomonth period, and when all was said and done, he’d been saved by the power of rock ’n’ roll.

“Hearing that music was my therapy,” he said. “Hearing the audience sing the songs back almost as loud as the band, that was my church. I needed that creative energy to rejuvenate my spirit and help me remember there’s a big world out there and you don’t have to serve the man.”

And, of course, he took photos at all the shows.

“Because I wanted a personal record of that frozen moment of the passion of rock that I could put on my wall, look at it everyday, and remind myself, ‘Yes! Push forward!’ ” Campos’ interest in both music and photography began while

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Steven Tyler: Light is such a crucial ingredient to a successful photograph. Light is very dynamic, especially in a performance setting, and I use it as a compositional element. I'm not afraid to shoot into the light. Sometimes it will flare out in the lens with distracting geometric shapes. But other times I can work the light and get a glowing shot.

he was growing up in San Francisco. His dad was a doctor in the U.S. Army, and his family lived on the Presidio.

“I have this memory that is so burned into my life,” he says.

“My dad smoked a pipe and he used to go to a tobacco shop that sold all sorts of exotic tobaccos from around the world. I remember the smell of those tobaccos, and also all the great music that was playing in that shop. The Doors. The Stones.

Beatles. Eagles. My dad was a big classic rock fan, so it was the same songs I was hearing at home.”

Around that same time Campos’ mother began taking a photography class at a community college, and she would take her little boy on her field trips.

“I still have a photo of me, 8-years-old, taking pictures of my sister playing soccer, one of my mom’s hand-me-down cameras hanging around my neck by a big old fat hippie camera strap.”

Like many military families, the Campos clan called many places home. They migrated from San Francisco to Washington to Texas to North Dakota, and finally back to Washington where

Erik attended high school in Tacoma. It was in the grungeheavy Pacific Northwest that his passion for rock music and photography began to intersect.

“My friends and I used to literally scrape together whatever money we could find to put gas in the car to drive up to Seattle and try to sneak into a show,” Campos says. “I remember one time trying to get into a club to see Alice in Chains. We were young; we all had fake IDs, standing around the door trying to get in.”

At the same time, Campos was taking photos for his high school newspaper, and entertaining the notion of maybe someday becoming a professional photographer. The idea took hold on the day he rode with a photographer from the Tacoma News-Tribune on his daily rounds.

“It was a crazy day,” he says. “He had two or three assignments, and the last assignment was a memorial service for soldiers from Fort Lewis who had died in the (1989) invasion of Panama. That really opened my eyes.”

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At the end of the day, the News-Tribune photographer tried to deflect young Campos away from the photo-journalism trade.

You don’t want to do this, he told Erik. The pay’s bad. The hours are worse. Don’t get into it.

Campos wasn’t having it. He was hooked and eventually landed at Ohio State University, where he studied in one of the best photo-journalism programs in the country. He graduated in 1996 and ended up in Memphis, another musical hotbed, where he served a summer internship with the Commercial-Appeal.

The newspaper was impressed with Campos’ work and asked him to stay on in the fall. A few months later, however, an opening appeared in The State’s photo department, and Campos applied for the job. He found himself on the road again, this time to South Carolina.

“The photo department here had such good people,” he says.

“Those were the days of Peggy Peattie, Pam Royal, and Jamie Francis. All the photographers were really supportive, especially to a young photographer like me. We shared knowledge and tried to build each other up in the craft. You won’t find that in many work environments.”

Campos began to sharpen his eye and develop a style. His work took on a bold intimacy, whether it was a ballet performance, Gamecock touchdown, or Bruce Springsteen concert. In 1997, he was named clip photographer of the year by the South Carolina News Photographers Association. He was the association’s photographer of the year in 1998, and runner up in 1999. In 2001, he won a first place Green Eyeshade Award for print photography, a competition that includes photographers from across the Southeast.

All the while, Campos followed a credo made famous by the noted World War II photographer Robert Capa, who said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

“That’s always been true with me, and I think it’s very true when it comes to shooting rock shows,” Campos says. “You’ve got to be up in the front.”

But it takes more than being close to the action to truly capture the transcendent quality seen in Campos’ photographs.

If that were the case, everyone with a cell phone would be staging an exhibition.

For Campos, it’s a matter of being in the right spot, being patient, and having a sixth sense that tells you something special is about to happen.

“First off, I’m just really in the moment,” he says. “I’m there, enjoying the music and not looking for a certain shot. I’m looking to get myself in a position where I think things might come together with the lights, the stage, and how people are moving.”

Campos admits that he has no musical talent of his own, but he considers photography to be his music. It’s his way of giving back to the art form that’s seen him through some tough times.

“Rock ’n’ roll photography is great for me,” he says. “It has its own aesthetics beyond just the documentation of some dude playing guitar. I’m always looking for something that’s accurate and represents what the band is trying to say, but is also visually arresting and conveys that sense of energy and passion.”

Keith Richards might have said that rock ’n’ roll is “music for the neck downwards,” but for Campos and other photographers who like to be right up front, it’s a feast for the eyes as well.

Britney Spears: Divas (and boy bands) come and go for every new generation and they use sex appeal to sell a lot of music for the record industry. Photos can be equally suggestive and provocative.

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Ice-T: Rap, like rock, is an outlet for anger and Ice-T breathes that anger into issues like police brutality and poverty. Capturing that swagger, fury and attitude is why photography partner s so well with music.

Perry Ferrell: Jane's Addiction was the headlining act of the first Lollapalooza Festival. It rained most the day, soaking Gore-tex and fleece-clad fans relentlessly until the night cooled. They played a ferocious set to the delight of the moshing crowd as Ferrell bounced around the stage. That sweaty heat and the cold air provided a contrast in the atmosphere accentuated by the grain in the black & white film. Conditions come together in strange and satisfying ways.

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s like "Can I Take My Gun Up to Heaven" Cracker: Cracker is known for the snarky songwriting (song David Lowery and the sassy twang of and "Don't Fuck Me Up with Peace and Love") of front man goes from simply playing a sequence of Johnny Hickman. But the moment of transcendence that emotional expression is one I think the notes to deliberately and delicately performing music with artist and audience both feel.

Ralph Stanley: The bluegrass legend played a few songs during a campaign event for Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards that also featured Ben Jones who played "Cooter" on TV's The Dukes of Hazzard.

While fans mobbed Edwards and Jones for autographs and snapshots, Stanley, in contrast, was approached with reverence. When he sang "I'm a Man of Constant Sorrow" I could feel the chills on my arms as I held the camera. My heart was still and I absorbed the sounds as if the Pope were announcing my salvation. undefined : book eleven

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Stevie Ray Vaughan: R letting me experience in a helicopter crash a supernatural level hands strummed stri down, fast, slow, pick, school when I took th

Ray Charles: I saw Ray sing "America the Beautiful" before the kickoff of Super Bowl XXXV to a positively adoring stadium crowd. Seeing legends like him is pretty damn humbling. I remember hearing his voice and being struck that it couldn't be mistaken for anyone else's ever.

Rarely a night goes by when I don't thank God for e Stevie Ray Vaughn twice in concert before he died in 1990. Seeing him play live was to see talent on and it flowed so freely in his guitar playing. His ings and ran along the frets so effortlessly. Up, , pluck. Eyes closed, behind his back. I was in high his photo.

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film

Behold Tom Hall

T

om Hall has a way of making things happen. Music, barbecue, poetry, law.

homestead outside of Columbia and set to original music with lyrics inspired by and taken directly from the prose of the book.

Sure, there are some stereotypical Saturday-afternoon-cowboyand-Indian-movie moments in the film, but the sincerity of Hall’s voice when he belts out lyrics like “Behold” time and again attest to the integrity with which he approached the message of the man, Black Elk. It started back in August of 2009 when Julie, Hall’s wife of 17 years and an attorney like her spouse, took their three children and left for her yearly retreat to her childhood home on the Mississippi Delta.

“She tries to keep me busy while she’s gone,” Hall says, “so she gave me this book to read.” The book was Black Elk Speaks and, as Hall says, he “devoured it.”

“I couldn’t put it down. It inspired me like I had never been inspired before. I’m not a religious person, though my parents

With an imagination and determination that are both exhilarating and frightening, Hall is the kind of guy who gets a bee in his bonnet and isn’t happy until he has it captured, saddled, trained to do circus tricks, and ridden into glory.

Witness his newest obsession – Visions of Black Elk. Based on the book, Black Elk Speaks, a narrative of the life and visions of an Oglala Sioux healer and priest named Nicholas Black Elk (1863 – 1950), written by poet John G. Neihardt, Visions of Black Elk, is one man’s interpretation of not just the messages the holy man had to offer, but the beauty behind them.

The film, which is more a tribute to the aesthetic of the Native American way of life than a factual representation of it, is an assemblage of visual imagery shot on location at the Hall

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Visions of Black Elk is a grand compilation of song, dance, abstract and interpretive performance art, and some pretty damn good visual art by local artists like Thomas Crouch, Alejandro Garcia, Jack Gerstner, Hall’s mother – Lois Brice Hall, as well as Tom Hall himself. “I’ve kept it all local,” Hall says, citing his relationships with Coal Powered Film Works, a local production, design, and editorial company headed up by Wade Sellers, Lee Ann Kornegay, and Erin Curtis, as well as The Half and Half, a local design and print making company under the direction of Nick Wilson and Sara Thomas.

In the roles of the younger and older Black Elk, respectively, Hall cast his eldest son Brice, 12, and local musician and food

did raise me right, but this book spoke to me on a spiritual level that was enlightening. So I got with Chris Lawther of the Plowboys, and we put some music together with the words and the sentiment of the book,” says Hall. The Plowboys are a local group of musicians who play an eclectic mix of music from Zydeco to rock to country. In addition to Hall who plays guitar and Lawther, who picks the banjo, members include Bill Stevens, Bert Cutts, Andrew Hoose, Dave Michelson, and Phil Hurd.

“We beat it out and worked out the chanting like it was all we were ever meant to do,” Hall remembers, adding that nothing in his life had ever happened so easily. “It was like the old saying of ideas coming down so hard they were falling from the sky like rain.”

The inadvertent rock opera having been written, Hall and the boys just needed a place to perform it. An opportunity soon presented itself in the form of a gig at the Columbia Museum of Art. Hall, who wears the term impulsive like a moonshiner wears a sorry grin, jumped on it, even though the event was only three weeks away.

Inspired by musician and spoken word artist Andy Friedman, Hall wanted to produce a multi-media presentation for the performance, much in the manner he had done for a previous rock opera, The Sharecropper’s Daughter.

“We had rehearsed the music but we hadn’t recorded it,” he remembers. “Then on the day of the performance at the art museum, we had a computer problem and we lost everything. I’m still not sure what happened, but I knew that I had 45 minutes to put it all back together again so that we could go on with the show. I didn’t even bother putting the film in the correct order – I just knew we needed film behind us. I basically filled in the blanks.”

To Hall’s surprise, the final product, though not in its original form, turned out to be pretty good.

“That’s when I decided that I wanted to up the ante; up the professionalism,” Hall says, “and make the film good enough to get into Indie Grits.” To that end, early in 2011, Hall sent out the call for actors, amateurs and professional alike, to show up in the woods by his house to begin filming scenes that would expand on the original Visions of Black Elk movie. Several weekends spent filming in not always pleasant weather and making use of the wide variety of wildlife and domestic animals at the Hall farm yielded positive results and, this year, the neophyte filmmaker’s wish came true.

story: Cynthia Boiter photography: Meg Locke

steward, Henry Thomas.

“Tom is a very persuasive person,” says Thomas, who invested himself in the project from the very beginning and often found himself covered in red paint, wearing nothing but a loincloth and an uneasy expression. “He came up to me and said, ‘let’s do it,’ and I said ‘okay Tom.’ But at the time, I didn’t know about the red paint, and I didn’t know he wasn’t going to let me use his shower to wash it off,” he kids, explaining that, at the end of filming, he had to be rinsed off with a garden hose in the Halls’ backyard.

Most of the remaining characters in the film were played by friends of Hall’s and included several musicians, attorneys, academicians, and local social activists. Attorney and musician Bentz Kirby, along with his wife, May, were cast to play young Black Elk’s parents during a scene in which the boy, ill with fever, is visited by some of the first of his lifetime of spiritual apparitions.

“Tom has us in the teepee wrapped in blankets,” Bentz recalls,

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Tom is a very persuasive person,” says Thomas, who invested himself in the project from the very beginning and often found himself covered in red paint, wearing nothing but a loincloth and an uneasy expression.

“He came up to me and said, ‘let’s do it,’ and I said ‘okay Tom.’

“and he gave me a rope to hold onto and, at the other end of the rope, there was this pygmy goat. Tom told me to hold on to it tight so, of course, I immediately let it go, and the goat got away.

Everybody went running after the goat and, of course, they eventually caught it. But I did hold onto it better the next time,” Kirby says. “I still don’t know why we had a goat in the tent though.”

Not everything in the film meshes exactly with what one might expect from a narrative of the life of an esteemed Native American leader, but at no point does Hall claim to have made a documentary. The subjective nature of interpretation means that not everyone would be moved by the same parts of the story.

Hall organized the film into the three components of the book that were most meaningful to him. It opens with the story of the presentation of a pipe to Black Elk’s people by a beautiful woman who had materialized from the clouds and the attendant spiritual revelations that smoking the pipe provided. The narrative reads, “Let us smoke together so that there can only be good between us.” undefined : book eleven

Later sections of the film, all accompanied by Hall’s music, detail Black Elk’s great vision, followed by his experience at the Battle of Wounded Knee, during which he had a vision that his life would be protected by a sacred bow.

In one particularly moving segment, Black Elk is surrounded by a group of six distinguished local men who play the young Indian’s grandfathers. The familiar faces of these men, again mostly musicians and friends of Hall’s, adds a sweet intimacy to the scene and grounds the film in the community of Columbia.

Other outstanding moments involve surprisingly stunning cinematography depicting horses, their manes bristling in the wind, and beautiful children – notably the freckle-faced Hall boys – running and playing in the fields.

The film runs just over 90 minutes and opens the 2011 Indie Grits Festival. The Art of Black Elk Speaks will be exhibited in the undefined magazine tent on opening night at 701 Whaley Street as part of the Slow Food celebration at the All Local Farmers’ Market.

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music

is earning a place at the table

D

espite the countless number of great bands that have Jose!, Heist & the Accomplice, Toro y Moi, Blinded By called Columbia home over the years, the idea of the Underpants, Alaska the Tiger, Those Lavender Whales and more town as a musical backwater persists. “What bands have – all of which trafficked in the kind of cutting-edge music come out of Columbia,” people ask, “aside from Hootie and the Columbia is so often accused of lacking.

Blowfish 20 years ago and that From the beginning, the one hard rock band?” The group recorded on Aaron's naysayers aren’t wrong. four-track recorder and later Surrounding college towns with a computer recording with state schools like Chapel program. “We could have way Hill and Athens, can give you a more tracks than we were used laundry list of their great to with the four track, and musical exports, while since it was on a computer, it Columbia’s past underground wasn't as fuzzy, so we thought greats languish in obscurity. we were pro,” Aaron laughs.

Aaron Graves, Jordan All the bands ended up practicBlackmon, and Chris Gardner ing and recording at Aaron's are out to change that. house, largely because his parThe three men have joined ents didn't mind the racket, together to turn their loose and “everybody ended up just collective of local bands and hanging out there.” musicians into a real record It was there that the group label while maintaining the hit upon the name of the label, feel of a tight-knit community.

Fork & Spoon Records, which Using the model set by the came from the giant wooden Elephant 6 collective and early fork and spoon that hung on Merge Records, over the past the wall of the Graves' house.

Coma Cinema's "Blue Suicide" 12” Cover two years the label has The Fork & Spoon collecreleased vinyl records by Columbia bands Mercy Mercy Me, No tive's dream was of a group fund that would pay to put out everyWay Jose! and Coma Cinema, with upcoming releases by body’s records – an ambitious goal for a bunch of high school Chemical Peel and Those Lavender Whales already in the works. skateboarders in garage bands. Still, when the various members The label’s recent activity has been a long time coming – the of the collective began moving on to college and other cities (at founders and their friends have been kicking around the idea one point the three label heads lived in Philadelphia, Nashville since their high school days at Ridgeview and Spring Valley High. and San Francisco), they kept trying to keep the idea of Fork & The guys recall that time fondly, each speaking of the sense of Spoon going. community that growing up in this town gave them.

“We really felt the need to highlight all of the really good things “We all met skateboarding in high school and they were in a that are coming out of this town and this area,” Chris says, band – a punk band,” Aaron recalls. “I played drums, so we because “for the most part [the bands] were on such a small scale started playing music together, and that kind of spread out to that nobody ever really got to see them.” everybody we knew playing music together.”

Although the level of activity of the label fluctuated over the This “everybody” would go on to be a part of some of the best years, there were some high water marks the group is particularly local acts in Columbia over the last 10 years, including No Way proud of: in 2006, for instance, the label helped put out The Heist undefined : book eleven

42

and the Accomplice’s third full-length Connections Work, The Choir Quit’s self-titled effort, and another Those Lavender Whales record. In addition, numerous Fork & Spoon showcases over the years have highlighted not only the collective's own bands, but also other local acts they believed in. Such general enthusiasm is how Fork & Spoon has grown over the years beyond the initial set of musicians, even as it maintains its emphasis on personal relationships.

However, what is most exciting about the label is its re-emergence over the last two years as one of the central players in the Columbia music scene. “In late 2009, Jordan sent both me and Chris an email that said something like 'Why aren't we doing this for real [anymore]?' and we were both like 'Yeah, why aren't we? Let's do it, right now,'” Aaron says.

Jordan doesn't remember it quite the same way, but recalls “kinda feeling stressed out, working a desk job for 60 hours a week, having lots of money and no time to spend it.” At the time, none of the three principals lived in Columbia.

“It didn't seem that weird, actually. ...We just kinda knew that we would be in and out of Columbia,” Jordan says. “We were getting ready to do a No Way Jose! [reunion] show and really wanted to have that record on vinyl. I just felt like something more should be happening.”

While each of the member's employment status has shifted over the past few years, they have consistently made an effort to balance each other out. “We’ve all gone through different periods of unemployment or positions where we could put money aside,” says Aaron. “So it would be like, ‘Hey, I don’t have a job so I can really work on Fork & Spoon now’ or ‘Hey, you are the only with a job so you have to fund the next record!’”

Part of the label's mission is to not “require anything from the band. We want it to be like an actual record label, where we believe in something and fund it,” Aaron says. “It’s important for us to be excited about what they’re doing and for them to be excited about it, too.” The latest release by the label, Coma Cinema's Blue Suicide, is a prime example.

“We didn’t really know him before – but we just kind of contacted him and said ‘we’re really into what you are doing’ and ‘we’re really based on the relationships and stuff like that – so we’d like to put out your next record if you think we can help in any way,’ Aaron enthuses. “Now we hang out when he’s in town.

It’s cool because it turned into a good friendship and relationship.

And that’s kind of what our goal is.” Chris even eventually joined the Coma Cinema live band, illustrating the kind of support the label gives.

This attitude is already paying dividends. The Coma Cinema record has been a “status booster,” says Jordan, since the act has gotten some national press and Mat Cothran, the band leader and mastermind, “blindly emails [industry] people” to publicize his record, which has resulted in a lot of recognition of the Fork & Spoon Records brand. Jordan was amazed during his recent visit to SXSW. SXSW, or South by Southwest, is one of the biggest annual music industry festivals and takes place in Austin, Texas – to be recognized for his work with the label.

Of course, Coma Cinema also marks the first step outside of Columbia for the group; Cothran resides in Spartanburg. “It

story: Kyle Petersen

Chemical Peel

started out as a tight-knit group of people who just play music together all the time, but it’s all kind of blowing up and out now,” Chris says. “We still want to keep that feeling of a tight-knit community though, and just expand it as much as we can.”

Aaron gives a similar summation: “It’s not about keeping it based in Columbia completely, but we feel like Columbia has taught a certain sort of musical ethic that runs strong in Columbia’s roots – so we want to show that same hospitality to everyone we work with.”

As of this printing, the three label heads are in their usual state of disarray. Aaron is out of work and devoting “all of his time” to Fork & Spoon, which is setting up to release, among other things, his new record under the Those Lavender Whales moniker. Chris is gainfully employed, playing a big part in funding the label's operating costs, and performing with, in addition to Coma Cinema, Those Lavender Whales and Cassangles. Jordan, meanwhile, is touring the globe as a guitarist for Toro y Moi, the big shining success story from the collective's origins. But all three still speak hopefully and excitedly of the label's future. The profit margins aren't great for the physical production of recorded music these days, but the label believes it will soon reach a point where “the label sustains itself – where we don’t have to put money into it to release something when we want to,” Chris says. Aaron even hopes that the label could eventually be a full-time thing, calling that situation “ideal.”

Most importantly though, they are documenting some of the great music being created around them and around Columbia, SC. As Aaron repeatedly says, “I feel like we’re lucky—we know a lot of very talented people.”

Such words need to be spoken more often in this town.

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poetry

Ray McManus runs with verses “Everybody has a past. I guess I will have to talk about it,” says Ray McManus with a reluctant sigh. “I just don’t know what the statutes of limitations are.”

The 38-year-old married father of three admits he may be the unlikeliest of former small-town rabblerousers to emerge as one of South Carolina’s most celebrated contemporary poets. McManus grew up in the working class community of Boiling Springs and attended, at least some of the time, Gilbert High School, graduating “thank the laude” with mediocre grades and a path ahead of him that seemed full of nothing but snakes and brambles.

“I was a teenager in an area with absolutely nothing to do,” McManus recalled. “We had a small juke joint called Joey’s, where we would drink and get high. Eventually we moved on to a place we called ‘The Pipeline,’ which used to be a natural gas pipeline. We would build bonfires and drink and do drugs. It only helped the restlessness for a little while. I vandalized a lot of stuff around the school and local churches.”

Even so, McManus was raised in a good Southern Baptist home. His father was a church deacon, and his mother taught Sunday school. But he and his sister were latchkey kids with working parents and plenty of free time. Add to that McManus’s lack of connection with the accepted mainstream and a rebellious bent, and you had a recipe for delinquency.

“I hated everything about school. I never felt like anything other than an outsider,” he explained. “I missed a lot of school.

It was easy to skip. My parents didn’t know anything about it.”

That McManus went on from this past to excel in college, earn three degrees, publish award-winning collections of poetry, and teach English at the University of South Carolina Sumter is beating the odds in spectacular fashion. He is quick to credit good fortune, caring mentors, and the influence of grounded people in his life.

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“There was always a voice saying you need to find a way out.

It may have been that voice that kept me from getting in a car with someone. It could have been that voice that said you don’t need to be on the back of that motorcycle,” McManus said.

“Most of my childhood friends, except for two or three, are either dead or in jail.”

What pointed McManus in the direction of poetry and language was an unlikely event back in high school.

“I was actually at a urinal using the bathroom when a teacher came into the boys’ room,” McManus said. “She thought I was smoking and asked me what I had in my hand, and, well, I told her. Of course, she didn’t like that answer.”

For that incident, McManus was given an in-school suspension. Perhaps the school considered the library to be a form of punishment, because that’s where they sent McManus to serve his time. Part of the punishment was an assignment to read a book and write a one-page synopsis each time he was there.

“I learned that you can just read the back of the book, and there was your synopsis,” he said. “One day I came in, and one of the books was Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. I started reading. I remember in that book was the poem ‘Mending Wall’ by Robert Frost. I loved the way he played with language. I loved that book so much that I stole it.”

McManus still has that purloined library book today. It is a symbol of how poetry basically saved his life. Of course, it would be a long, arduous journey. After high school, McManus worked for a year cutting trees. But the poetry seed had been planted, and he eventually made his way to USC in Columbia. While working on his bachelor’s in English, a professor who must have seen something in the pot-smoking slacker delivered an ultimatum: Do not come to my class again if you’re high, and take (USC Associate Professor) Ed Madden’s workshop.

“Ed challenged us in the classroom,” McManus said. “I quit playing and got serious about what I was doing.”

It was while taking Madden’s workshop that McManus began to feel acceptance from his peers. More importantly, he received academic acceptance in the form of the Academy of American Poets Award, presented to him in 1997. And it was his mentor, Madden, who persuaded McManus to enter USC’s celebrated master of fine arts (MFA) program.

As he gained confidence in academia, McManus also continued to win fans. In the 2001-02 school year, the Graduate English Association named McManus the recipient of its Most Exciting Classroom Presence Award. It was a fruitful year all the way around. In addition to the “Exciting Presence” and other

44

awards, he also received the James Dickey Writing Award for Poetry.

“I am not shy, and I don’t get embarrassed often,” McManus said. “I have a big mouth, and I talk a lot. I love to stir the pot, and I have always loved playing devil’s advocate. In the classroom, I always challenged things but not confrontationally.

My parents raised me to respect people’s beliefs and opinions.

“As a grad student, you’ve got to have humor, because it sucks in grad school. I saw so many people living miserable existences and hating life. Regardless of what I have to do, I am going to make it fun. Otherwise, I won’t want to do it.”

This spring, Marick Press published McManus’s latest collection, Red Dirt Jesus, which won the first annual Marick Press Poetry Prize in 2010. It follows his previous award-winning poetry collections: Left Behind (Stepping Stones Press, 2008) and Driving Through the Country Before You Are Born (USC Press, 2007).

Invoking themes from the Bible, particularly Jesus, could prompt the non-investigative among us prematurely to label McManus a “Christian writer.”

He is long past caring about such tags but addresses the new book’s title directly.

“I am not trying to write in that genre. I am a Christian, yes.

But I don’t go to church. I have never been a very churchy person. I subscribe more to the Walt Whitman kind of understanding of God. It’s about this energy that surrounds us and is in us,” he explained. “I needed to write this book because there is so much I just never understood and could never get answers from anyone. What about Jesus between the ages of 12 and 30? Jesus was a man. I have lived between 12 and 30, and there was a lot of temptation. I couldn’t help but think, if Jesus was human and God said I want you to do these things and then I want you to die, I would be angry.”

McManus says the book actually has very little to do with Jesus. It’s really about the working class – gritty and unkempt yet romantic and lovely at the same time.

“The human spirit is a beautiful thing. It is a limitless thing,” he said. “The human body can be an ugly thing, a limited thing.

It’s about finding that space where we are supposed to be.

Ultimately we have to give in to be something better. We can all be better.”

McManus posits that, at some point in the human continuum, people trade their attachment to the body for a focus

story: Kristine Hartvigsen

on the spirit. “That is what sets us free,” he says. “That is what is beautiful about us. … Metaphorically, you can’t find a better example of that than Jesus, wrestling between the body and the spirit. And the ‘red dirt,’ I don’t think you can get any more common and basic than that. I am definitely one who is in touch with the red dirt and the clay.”

Renowned poet Alicia Ostriker, who judged the Marick Press Poetry Prize competition, commended the way McManus navigated the cycles of life and death in his book.

“A unique American voice enters poetry here, emerging from monkey grass and moon, from the ditch between father (or Father) and son (or Son),” Ostriker said of Red Dirt Jesus. “It is crisp, laconic, parodic, mysterious. It blesses the diesel and the mud-flap sinner. Maybe it is Tom Sawyer’s dark sexy side.”

McManus feels Red Dirt Jesus is his most personal work to date. While he received fine consultation from Madden, Kwame Dawes, and wife, Lindsay, the ably edited volume nonetheless is the least filtered of McManus’s work to finally make it to the printed page.

“My first collection, most of it was written while in grad school,” he explained. “It was workshopped and went through a lot of revisions. I felt like it wasn’t purely all me. But Red Dirt Jesus was all me. I just took it and ran with it. … When Marick Press called me and told me that it had won, I think I was speechless for about two minutes. It was the affirmation that I needed.

I thought, OK, I can do this on my own.”

Like many old-school poets, McManus begins by writing in longhand first before transferring material to a computer for editing and revising. But he must convert the longhand to electronic text while the ink is still fresh in his mind because, he admits, “I have the handwriting of a serial killer.”

McManus tries to write in the mornings in his home office.

It’s the most creative time of the day for him. But when a line or idea haunts him all day, he records things on his Blackberry during the long drive from his home in Lexington to USC Sumter, where he teaches.

“Ultimately, it starts there on the page,” he said. “I think it kind of has to.”

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poetry

Baptism for Michael I can’t stop dreaming about conversations I never had. They replay, loop in sequence, haunt frame after frame, all the things left unsaid.

We are in a parking lot.

You say you’ll pray for me.

I say, don’t bother.

We are in the country, and the trees hang over, heads bowed, limbs crossed, eyes closed. And you tell me to bathe in the river, cleanse my flesh, soften my soul. I do it, and ask you not to look.

Ax Like death, leaves will drop at their own pace.

And the children who crush them under foot, need to know that their time will come too.

Ray McManus (from Red Dirt Jesus)

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If there were dreams to sell / What would you buy?  – Thomas Lovell Beddoes

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