Review: Tales Transposed, art at City Gallery

By Lucía Camargo Rojas

The infinite possibilities for telling stories through sculpture, painting and collage are evident throughout the Piccolo Spoleto arts exhibition “Tales Transposed: A Celebration of Imagination.” But Nathan Durfee’s work catches more than its share of attention, demonstrating why he deserves the entire first floor of the City Gallery at Waterfront Park.

Durfee is a magician of contrasts. Complementary colors as well as characters harmonize in his work as if they were made for one another. The 24 bright canvases clearly show his desire to depict an understanding between characters from different worlds.

The main character in this series, the dog Bartholomeux, plays the flute or a record player in order to speak the language of the cardinal birds. In the outstanding canvas “Bartholomeux Swallowed in the Red,” the dog is delightfully surrounded by several birds to the point where the two species seem to become one.

Durfee’s strongest tool is his ability to use his background as an illustrator to paint colorful canvases that tell a story. Seeing several of his paintings becomes a reading experience that makes you want to organize Bartholomeux’s transformation chronologically. Durfee’s imagination captivates from beginning to end. Comparing his first pencil drafts with his finished works gives a sense of how this remarkable artist develops his ideas.

The exploration of stories continues on the second floor of the exhibition, with the collages of Lillian Trettin and the sculptures of Judy Mooney.

Trettin’s work is risky. She carefully cuts handmade, hand-painted and commercial papers, then reassembles the pieces to create satirical and colorful scenes based on Flannery O’Connor novels. Some of her pieces are extremely powerful, like “Jesus Was the Jagged Shape in the Back of His Mind” (2012), inspired by O’Connor’s “Wise Blood,” while others lack some energy.

Mooney’s pieces depict the stories of Gullah-Geechee people through rustic clay sculptures that respectfully evoke an ancestral knowledge. The artist’s research into Gullah traditions is evident in the compelling architectural pieces that seem to keep a secret that one would like to find.

Published in The Post and Courier on June 4, 2013

Video: Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía

Haga click en la imagen para ver el video

Por Nick DeSantis y Lucía Camargo Rojas. Publicado el 2 de junio de 2013 en The Post and Courier

Rubén Olmo, director artístico del Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, explica el significado de su obra "Noche Andaluza" que se presentó en el Festival Spoleto 2013. /Rubén Olmo, Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía artistic director, explains the meaning of  the show "Noche Andaluza" performed in Spoleto Festival USA 2013.

Art of Recovery: Coping with mental illness

Image by Vinny Y. Huang/ Special to The Post and Courier

By Lucía Camargo Rojas

In the first of two Brent Ashley paintings at Circular Congregational Church, the artist is depicted as an abstract figure trying to balance seven red stars. The second, more realistic piece features bigger stars that are delicately placed to harmonize with Ashley’s more energetic body.

“In the first one, I’m confused and tired,” he said of the two works. “In the second one, I’m part of my present rather than disconnected from it.”

They represent two very distinct periods in Ashley’s life: before and after he began to be treated for Bipolar II disorder. They are among the 92 paintings shown in the “The Art of Recovery” exhibition, part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.

The exhibition, which was organized by the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, features artwork by people living with mental illness who use painting as a therapeutic tool, often because they were already interested in art.

The Department of Mental Health treats 100,000 patients a year in its 17 state centers, some of which have multiple clinics. Three centers — Greenville Mental Health Center, Coastal Empire Community Mental Health Center and Aiken Barnwell Community Mental Health Center — offer art classes.

Brian Marks was a mental health patient in the late 1990s and now is an art teacher in the Greenville office. Some of his pupils are among those exhibiting their work in “The Art of Recovery.”

“Psychotherapy can help heal the mind, but art takes a step further and helps to heal the soul as well,” Marks said.

The Art of Recovery program, which received the 2006 Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts, frequently looks to exhibit these paintings in settings beyond the department’s administration buildings. Sue Perry, director of community resource development at the Department of Mental Health, said being part of Piccolo Spoleto was a dream come true for both staff members and artists.

Perry has been in charge of the program since its beginning in 2001. She believes that when patients show their art in public, their illness becomes secondary and they can see themselves first and foremost as artists.

For the festival, the Art of Recovery committee selected pieces related to recovery and hope. They also tried to include different painting media to show the diversity of artwork produced throughout the state.

All of the artists involved have stories related to their mental health struggles, Ashley said.

“There are a lot of things that people who have the illness don’t understand,” he said. “On this side you are sane, and on the other side you are crazy. You are walking on a tightrope between it.”

In cases like these, Marks said, art becomes an opportunity for people to express themselves when words may fail them.

Ashley believes that art helps him get control of his thoughts. “I went from being a college graduate to sleep as a homeless man in Arizona because I didn’t want to confront who I was,” he said.

But after undergoing therapy and getting back to his art, he began to believe in himself again. His hope is represented by the green hands in both of his current pieces — and especially by the second one, which clearly depicts someone looking toward the future.

Published in The Post and Courier on June 2, 2013

Flamenco dance writ large: Esteemed company to light up arena stage

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Flamenco dance writ large: Esteemed company to light up arena stage

Image by Miguel Ángel González. Especial for The Post and Courier

By Lucía Camargo Rojas

When the Spanish flamenco dancer and choreographer Ruben Olmo is on stage, he feels as though he’s spread his wings and started to fly. He believes in Nietzsche’s premise that dancing is a metaphor for thinking.

In “Noche Andaluza” (“Andalusian Night”), his first piece of choreography as artistic director of the renowned Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia, Olmo shows how dancing gives wings to body and mind. The Spoleto Festival show opens tonight and runs through June 2.

“Noche Andaluza” is an adaptation of “Metafora” (“Metaphor”), which was selected in a 2011 Spanish public competition as the production that would begin a new era for the company after it had been closed for two years.

The 17-year-old Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia is a state-sponsored company of Andalusia, Spain, that keeps alive the flame of large-format flamenco and Spanish classic ballet, according to the flamenco writer Juan Vergillos.

“With Olmo’s direction, the company has acquired youthfulness, new ideas for the choreography and a personal understanding of flamenco and Spanish dancing,” Vergillos said.

Olmo, 32, said he has been more or less in constant movement since he was 9, and that he has never limited himself to one style of dancing.

“Noche Andaluza” certainly showcases traditional flamenco — castanets, fans and bata de cola dresses — but it also depicts a more avant-garde style represented in the solo of one of the most important contemporary flamenco dancers, Pastora Galvan.

The production marks Galvan’s first performance since having a child. At the beginning, she didn’t feel in shape for the rehearsals; even the bata de cola was very heavy for her, she said. But “Noche Andaluza” quickly rejuvenated her. “I added my art, my picaresque and avant-garde dancing style and all my heart.”

Olmo and Galvan have studied together since they were children.

“We are like siblings,” Olmo said. “It has been a dream come true to have her as a guest while I’m directing.”

“Noche Andaluza” has everything you would expect in a flamenco ballet, according to Vergillos. “Charleston audiences probably will find it very eye-catching, showy and colorful,” he said, and it’s an unusual opportunity to see Galvan in collaboration with the group; she typically dances only for her own company.

“There is no tragedy or drama in Olmo’s choreographies,” Vergillos said. “He adds color and balance. He has a soft vision of a whole universe.”

“Metafora” has been performed in Greece, the U.K., Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia and several American cities, including Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York. This is a huge achievement for a company that prepared the production in just a month and a half, and with a reduced budget due to the current economic crisis in Spain.

“I had to adapt to the situation and to make this an artistic experience without much budget,” Olmo said. “At the end, we got good results.”

The 10 young dancers, who were selected from 400 candidates through public auditions, had to learn various dancing styles. But despite these different styles, Ballet Flamenco de Andalucia’s name gives a clear indication of Olmo’s main concern.

“Flamenco is a brand that we cannot mistreat,” he said.

Published in The Post and Courier on May 31, 2013

Review: Women of Lockerbie

The Post and Courier image

By Lucía Camargo Rojas

“Women of Lockerbie” is a moving play that deals with the psychological effects of a tragedy. Devorah Brevoort’s script, which hinges on the 1988 crash of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, tells the story of fictional characters whose grief for the loss of a loved one is transformative.

The play is being performed at the Chapel Theater by the College of Charleston Department of Theater and Dance as part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.

Madeline (Ryan Gunning) and Bill Livingston (Peter Spearman) are a couple from New Jersey who travel to Scotland seven years after the crash, hoping to find some belongings of their son, Adam. While the mother looks fiercely for her son’s remains, the father meets a group of women who wants to persuade U.S. government official George Jones (Bronson Taylor) not to burn the passenger’s clothing, sealed in bags.

At the beginning, the story’s pace is a bit slow, with the main characters not getting as much attention as, for example, a scene-stealing Scottish woman with a walking stick. Gradually, though, Madeline, an unstable woman unable to deal with her grief, becomes the center of the story.

Even though Gunning is a young woman, she convincingly portrays a mature mother, and among her finest moments is the delicate way she describes the realization that her son was on the plane.

Indeed, this vibrant role overshadowed that of her husband. One would expect a more dramatic explosion from a father who has hidden his feelings for so many years. Simultaneously, the character of Olive Allison (Brenna McNamara) is quite rigid, although she seems much more vivid when it becomes evident that she has also been affected by the crash.

What is remarkable about this play is the ability to depict the different aspects of grief: fault (“Why did I tell him to come for Christmas?”), anxiety, frustration (“Why did this happen to me?”) and hate, to the point that the audience shares the distress of the characters. The simple stage helps to create a mournful and respectful environment reinforced by a chorus that highlights the pain and simultaneously gives rhythm to the plot.

Even though Brevoort at times over-explains the characters’ pain, she does succeed in showing their need to achieve peace of mind.

The strength of “Women of Lockerbie” is its ability to describe suffering in a way that goes beyond a particular tragedy and applies to any calamity, and also the way it highlights the difficulty of true forgiveness.

With such dramatic scenes, several moments — featuring the chorus; Taylor’s strong performance; Allyson Musmeci’s funny portrayal of Hattie, who works for the U.S official; and especially a scene of the women washing the clothes — are a necessary relief for an audience seeking a similar serenity as the characters.

Published in The Post and Courier on May 27, 2013

Moveable sculpture: Handspring Puppet Company and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’

Image by Simon Annand published in The Post and Courier

By Lucía Camargo Rojas

Handspring Puppet Company has made puppet horses strong enough for men to ride, puppets that fight apartheid in South Africa and much more.

For Spoleto Festival USA, the company will exhibit its latest invention: puppets that recite Shakespeare. They will add a magical element to a fantastical production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the result of a collaboration between Handspring and the venerable Bristol Old Vic company.

“In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ everything from the floor goes up and sometimes comes alive,” Handspring Executive Producer Basil Jones said. “There is kind of magic in all the objects.”

Magic is central to the South African company’s artistic mission: Objects have the right to live.
“The struggle of the puppet is to live; otherwise, it is always death, and to give it life is the job of the puppeteer,” said Adrian Kohler, Handspring’s artistic director.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is the first collaboration between Handspring and Bristol Old Vic since their Tony Award-winning “War Horse.”

The Shakespeare play is a new challenge for a puppet company that has helped integrate puppetry into the theater mainstream.

In this adaptation, Handspring experimented with figures they hadn’t made before: more than 20 carefully carved puppets from small birds to enormous masks.

The company is fearless and imaginative, showing the influence of Western Africa in its work, according to Mervyn Millar, author of “The Horse’s Mouth: Staging Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse.’ ”

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is also funny, Kohler said.

“All our plays have been a little bit serious, from political plays to opera,” he said. “We are not great at being comedians, but in Shakespeare’s play, we have broken the mold. There are some wonderful clowns, and it is very funny.”

Jones and Kohler founded Handspring in 1981. They met 10 years before, when they were studying sculpture at the University of Capetown.

Kohler grew up in a house that had a little theater in the garage, he said. His mother was an art teacher who encouraged him to make and perform with puppets. Their influence was evident in his artwork.

Jones, instead, wasn’t very interested in puppets until he graduated and went to live with Kohler in Botswana. During one trip to South Africa, Kohler found some weird puppets. When Jones saw them, he fell in love with them. The mysterious objects had been made in Mali, a region of Africa with a rich puppetry tradition.

When Kohler suggested starting a puppet company, Jones saw the potential.

They began by developing a series of children’s plays but turned to adult audiences in 1985 with “Episodes of an Easter Rising,” a play about people joining the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

“We wanted to be taken seriously in the theater,” Kohler said. Puppetry is a powerful medium and certainly not only for children, he said.

In 1986, they moved to Johannesburg and met artist William Kentridge, who became the director of their next six productions. Four years later, after Nelson Mandela was released from prison and South Africa started to move toward democracy, it became possible for South African artists to perform overseas. With Kentridge, they performed in Germany, France, Czech Republic, U.S., England and Colombia.

Handspring still was characterized as a small company despite this growing success, but that changed in 2008, when it received a call from stage director Tom Morris, who then was working with the National Theater in London. He suggested creating puppets for a theater adaptation of a children’s novel about horses in World War I.

Kohler designed life-size puppet horses made with leather, aircraft and steel cables, and other material. It was the beginning of “War Horse,” a production that would win five Tony Awards in 2011, including Best Play, and enjoy successful runs around the world.

“When you are going into puppet theater, you aren’t expecting to have an international hit play in your hands,” Kohler said.

Now Handspring is in demand. Puppets are produced at a fast clip, and the staff has expanded from seven to 25. In 2010, Jones and Kohler created the nonprofit Handspring Trust for Puppetry Arts to identify and assist the next generation of puppet artists.

Millar said the company creates some of the most beautiful puppets in the world and has a quality of acting not easy to find.

“The level of subtlety that they give to a performance has changed what people expect from puppetry in theater,” Millar said. “They are always looking to make puppets do something people think puppets can’t do.”

Published in The Post and Courier on May 25, 2013

Uncaged: A Q&A with choreographer Mourad Merzouki

Image By Michael Cavalca published in The Post and Courier

By Briana Prevost and Lucía Camargo Rojas

In 2002, young dancers from the shantytowns of Brazil who had been discovered by a French choreographer, took to the Spoleto stage combining a mix of salsa, hip-hop and native capoeira movements into their choreography.

Mourad Merzouki, who has Algerian roots, started the all-male dance group several years earlier. It has since gone on to tour the world. At Spoleto again to perform for the first time in more than 10 years, the group is presenting a new production, “Correria/Agwa.”

In an email interview, Merzouki, the artistic director of Compagnie Kafig, discussed his dance background, his take on combining modern and traditional styles and his impression of the company he started.

Q: What do you remember the most about your last performance in Charleston?
A: We performed the show Dix Versions, I had a really good experience there.

Q: What made you write “Correria/Agwa”?
A: I wanted to tell a story on a universal theme, that means a lot to every people in every country. For Agwa, I wanted to work on a project which was not only linked to what we already know about Brazil, the favelas, etc. Water and running were very interesting to me because they concern dancers and also the rest of the world. In today’s society, we need to run, and water is a vital element.

Q: You started working in a circus and then became a hip-hop dancer. What are the similarities between circus and dance?
A: That is right, I first started with circus. I was an acrobat and I had a passion for performing arts. Hip-hop dance allowed me to bring both together. I also had a strong desire to share and introduce this form of art to the public.

Q: What does hip-hop have that other arts don’t?
A: Hip-hop dance is particularly interesting because it managed to shift from the streets to the stages, without being locked in one or the other. Both styles are developing and are complementary to each other, they still exchange a lot and dialogue together. For me, these two forms of expression are really different but equally important as sources of creativity, and I am still creating for both. In this way, hip-hop is very different from other dance traditions.

Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of mixing different kinds of dancing and working with people with a variety of cultural backgrounds?
A: The advantages are that dance is a universal language, therefore we do not need words to understand each others. As far as dance is concerned, I only see advantages! Sometimes it becomes more complicated when we get into logistics, but I always find it interesting.

Q: What about the movements of capoeira urged you to include that type of dance in your routines?
A: In this piece, I did not particularly want to integrate capoeira or specific movements, I used the dancers’ vocabulary as a starting point, and, of course, we can felt some capoeira influences. But there are many other influences.

Q: First circus, then hip-hop, then samba, then capoeira. What’s next?
A: My approach is still to bring many different styles and artistic disciplines into hip-hop. I try to add circus, martial arts, visual arts and live music in most of my pieces. There are still martial arts aspects in street dance, it’s all connected. I am always imagining creations with an accent on openness to the world. I just ended a project with Taiwan, but it’s only the beginning. I hope I could have new projects with other countries, such as Japan, etc. I keep working on opening and sharing my way of dancing — hip-hop — to other styles and other cultures.

Q: Do you think the Brazilian dancers in the group have a sense of nationalism performing capoeira?
A: These dancers are very open-minded, curious of the rest of the world, and open-minded dancers. They don’t wonder about nationalism, on the contrary they’re eager to discover the world and they are very generous. Touring the world like they do is a wonderful and unique experience, and they are grateful for that.

Q: What types of cultural influences do you see that style of dance having not only in its country of origin, but also in the places the group has toured?
A: My work is deeply influenced by the artists I meet through my travels and the tours. But once the piece is created, it doesn’t change much, I try to stay as close as possible to the initial work.

Q: How was the experience of working with people who lived in the favelas?
A: I have been introduced to Brazilian dancers by Guy Darmet, who used to be the director of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon and lives between France and Brazil. He knew these dancers very well and as he has been following me for more than 20 years, he asked me to create a piece for them. These young dancers, mostly from Rio’s favelas, were dancing to express themselves, to exist, to survive ... the rhythm and the passion is really present within them. It really fascinated me and I decided to create the piece “Agwa” for them. When I first met these dancers, I really took their vocabulary as a starting point; I took their movements to create the piece. I also gave them “homework” and then my job was to connect the pieces and refine the whole choreography. For them, it is a very special experience because it totally changed their approach to dance. As they were initially dancing in the streets, they now became real professional dancers.

Q: Why “Kafig”? What does it mean?
A: In 1989, with a group of friends and dancers, we created the Company “Accrorap,” among them was Kader Attou, who is now the director of the Centre Choregraphique National of La Rochelle in France. After creating our piece “Kafig” in 1996, I wanted to put together my own project, more personal. This piece gave the name to my new company, Kafig which means “cage” in German and Arabic (in relation to the dancers’ backgrounds): the theme of this piece was about being locked up. We chose this theme because at the beginning, hip-hop was often locked up in one style and one specific representation. The point was to deliver the dance from this “cage,” to push it out of its boundaries.

Q: What are the characteristics of a performance made by Compagnie Kafig?
A: In my pieces, I try to tell stories on universal themes, and topics that mean a lot to every people in every countries. I don’t necessarily want to deliver a particular message through all my creations. For example in my last piece, “Yo Gee Ti” that I made with five contemporary dancers from Taiwan and five hip-hop dancers from France, I worked on the theme of fiber, knitting and building fabrics as if we were “sewing the bodies,” but the point is really to share some poetry and emotions through the piece. The objective is also to spread this form of dance, to make it accessible and also to raise awareness in all audiences. I am always imagining creations with an accent on openness to the world. I keep working on opening and sharing my way of dancing, hip-hop, to other styles and other cultures.

Q: How do you go about choosing the music that’s used to choreograph the dances?
A: I choose music that inspires me, that calls to my mind and reminds me of interesting topics. Then I choose according to what I want to tell. In these pieces, I did not want to choose music that would match too much to their styles, I wanted to push out the boundaries through music and dance, by using different styles together.

Q: What should the audience of the Spoleto Festival 2013 expect from Compagnie Kafig’s return performance?
A: I hope they will spend a great moment of dance with the Brazilian troupe, and that this piece will bring them inspiration, motivation and the willingness to open themselves to the rest of the world.

Published in The Post and Courier on May 24, 2013