Ballet West's Nine Sinatra Songs

One of the last performances that I attended at Capitol Theatre before everything was canceled and everyone went on lockdown was Ballet West's beautiful production of Giselle so I was especially happy to be back there yesterday afternoon for another Ballet West production.  I found Nine Sinatra Songs to be incredibly moving and I absolutely loved all three pieces.  The program began with the world premiere of Tides, a ballet commissioned by Ballet West featuring choreography by Jennifer Archibald and traditional music that is almost primal.  Several different groupings of dancers, both soloists and couples, form intricate patterns pushing and pulling against each other which represent the complicated ebb and flow of human history.  The backdrop alternates between blinking stars in a night sky, the rising and setting sun, and then back to the stars again and the costumes mimic the ocean.  I really liked the athleticism of the choreography and the timeliness of the theme.  The second piece was another world premiere by Ballet West's Resident Choreographer, Nicolo Fonte, called Faraway Close.  This is another powerful commentary on our times with various groups of dancers downstage and other groups of dancers on an elevated platform behind a scrim upstage.  The dancers upstage sometimes mimic those downstage and sometimes they move in opposition to or in reaction to the movements of the dancers downstage.  I loved the imagery of finding a way to connect with people even when you are physically separated and I loved the evocative music by Harry Escott and Max Richter.  Katlyn Addison is one of my favorite dancers in the company so it was nice to see her featured in this piece.  I was particularly excited for the final piece, Nine Sinatra Songs, because I was a little bit obsessed with Frank Sinatra when I was in my late twenties.  His music is used by choreographer Twyla Tharp to showcase various types of relationships through the medium of ballroom dancing.  Emily Adams and Beau Pearson portray glamour and romance in "Softly As I Leave You," Victoria Vassos and Hadriel Diniz portray seduction in "Strangers in the Night," Beckanne Sisk and Chase O'Connell portray the bittersweet end of a relationship in "One For My Baby," Lillian Casscells and Beau Chesivoir portray the awkward nervousness of first love in "Somethin' Stupid," Jordan Richardson and Adrian Fry portray abiding love in "All the Way," Olivia Gusti and Tyler Gum portray a playful fling in "Forget Domani," Beckanne Sisk and Chase O'Connell portray love on the rocks in "That's Life" (my favorite), and all of the couples are featured in two different versions of "My Way" to showcase the ultimate power of love.  I loved the costumes by Oscar de la Renta and I was very impressed by the ability of the dancers to convey so many emotions with just movement (they were all wearing masks so they couldn't rely on facial expressions).  All of these pieces emphasize the importance of connection during difficult times and I thoroughly enjoyed them.  I highly recommend this production which runs at Capitol Theatre through November 15.  Go here for ticket information (many performances are sold out but a matinee performance has been added recently). 

Revolution: The Music of the Beatles

It should be no surprise that I love the Beatles so, when I created my Utah Symphony season package last spring, a concert featuring new symphonic arrangements of classic Beatles songs was obviously the first on my list!  However, when I learned that the 2020-2021 season was being re-imagined because of Covid-19, I felt certain that this concert would be canceled in favor of something simpler.  I was thrilled when it was announced that it was still on the schedule and I was thrilled to be at Abravanel Hall last night listening to my favorite songs performed by the Utah Symphony under the baton of Conner Gray Covington.  The orchestra was joined by guest artists Colin Smith on vocals, Zach Jones on vocals and drums, Paul Loren on vocals, Greg Mayo on guitar and vocals, Josh Myers on bass, and Andy Roninson on keyboard.  They didn't particularly look like or dress like the Beatles (as most of the tribute bands that I have seen do) but they sounded great!  They performed fantastic renditions of "Get Back," "Ticket to Ride," "Yesterday," "Penny Lane," "Lady Madonna," "Blackbird," "Eleanor Rigby," "Here Comes the Sun," "Hey Jude," "Come Together," "Something," "I am the Walrus," "Golden Slumbers/ Carry that Weight/ The End," and "Twist and Shout."  The guest artists returned without the orchestra to play "Can't Buy Me Love," "A Hard Day's Night," and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as an encore.  I think that the music of the Beatles is particularly well suited to symphonic arrangements and I especially loved their versions of "Yesterday," "Blackbird," and "Something."  I also loved Travis Peterson's trumpet solo in "Penny Lane."  Listening to these songs was so much fun because it actually felt like a rock concert (I haven't been to one since February) complete with clapping, cheering, singing along, and holding up flashlights on phones!  We may have been a smaller audience than usual but I think we did justice to the chorus of "Hey Jude."  I really enjoyed all of the images of the Beatles (some of which I had never seen before) projected on the screen during each song. The guest artists, who hadn't performed with each other since March, told us how happy they were to be on stage in front of actual human beings and dedicated "Here Comes the Sun" to the crowd.  I loved every minute of this concert (I was actually a little bit sad when it came to an end because I had been anticipating it for so long) and I highly recommend getting a ticket to tonight's performance of the same program (go here for more information as seating is limited).

Decking the Halls a Little Early

I usually do not decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving (I like to celebrate Thanksgiving before I start celebrating Christmas).  However, I was self-quarantining over the weekend (someone in my family was waiting for the results of a Covid-19 test and I thought it best to stay home until I knew if I had been exposed) and, with zero trick-or-treaters at my door, I decided to bring a few Christmas decorations up from the basement.  My sister recently made me this new runner because she knows I like the color black.

After I put the runner out I spontaneously decided to put up my tree!  I didn't have a tree last year because I couldn’t get the lights on the new one I bought to work so I sent it back and didn't get another one.  It made me so sad not to have a tree (I had a few meltdowns) so I bought one for this year a few months ago.  It felt a little bit weird to put up my tree on Halloween but it made me so happy.  A lot of my ornaments have sentimental value to me because I collect them from my travels and I try to buy a new one to commemorate each year (some recent favorites are a Kylo Ren figure and one from Hamilton).

It makes me so happy to sit with just the lights from the tree illuminating the room.  I decided to order a few more decorations (I am a minimalist and don't have a lot) so I bought some pillows and a new tree skirt.

I am loving buffalo checks right now!

I really love the overall effect!  Some people may object to decorating for Christmas so early but it makes me happy and this is definitely a year for doing what makes you happy!

Note:  I’m almost finished with my Christmas shopping, too.

Synchronic

I was really intrigued by the premise of the movie Synchronic so I decided to see it last night and it is so much more than I thought it would be.  Dennis (Jamie Dornan) and Steve (Anthony Mackie) are long time friends and paramedics in New Orleans who are called to a series of unusual cases where victims have unexplained injuries, including a man who has been stabbed by an ancient sword and a woman who has been bitten by an exotic snake that is nowhere to be found.  As they investigate these strange occurrences, we learn that Dennis has a troubled teenage daughter named Brianna (Ally Ioannides) and a marriage that is deteriorating while Steve is a hard-drinking womanizer who can't commit to anyone because of a tragedy during Hurricane Katrina.  They eventually learn that the victims have been taking a designer drug called Synchronic which transports them to another time period in the same geographic location.  When they are called to another case involving the drug, they learn that Brianna has taken it and disappeared.  Steve is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given a short time to live so he makes the decision to take Synchronic so he can find Brianna.  The story is interesting and there are some really trippy images but I particularly enjoyed the philosophical exploration of time, relativity, perception, and fate.  There is an absolutely brilliant discussion between the two characters about their perceptions of time based on their experiences and why it is more interesting to live in the present, which is filled with variables, and not fear the end of your life, which is not.  I loved the description of time as a record album.  The needle is dropped in one groove which represents one point in time while all the other points in time still exist simultaneously in the other grooves.  I found this fascinating.  I also found the subtle commentary on race to be interesting because Steve runs afoul of the Ku Klux Klan when he is transported to a Depression-era homestead and is mistaken for a slave during a Civil War battle, which is to be expected, but he is also mistaken for a criminal by the police at a crime scene in the present.  Both Dornan and Mackie give riveting performances but I was especially impressed with Steve's character arc as a bitter man obsessed with death who learns the value of life.  This is an incredibly thought-provoking movie that is more than just a sci-fi thriller and I highly recommend it.

The Empty Man

I really like seeing horror movies during the month of October (I guess it is my way of getting in the mood for Halloween).  Last night I went to see The Empty Man because, despite having a similar plot to Slender Man which was absolutely awful, it sounded very intriguing to me.  It opens with a long (over twenty minutes!) prologue involving a group of hikers in the mountains of Bhutan who inadvertently discover a supernatural creature called the Empty Man which possesses one of them and then kills the rest.  Twenty-three years later, a group of Midwestern teens discover the urban legend of the Empty Man.  They perform the ritual to summon the mysterious creature and then they disappear.  James Lasondra (James Badge Dale), a former cop who is haunted by a recent tragedy, begins looking for Amanda Quail (Sasha Frolova), one of the missing girls, because she is the daughter of Nora (Marin Ireland), a woman who is somehow connected to his tragedy.  His investigation eventually leads to a cult-like organization, led by the charismatic Arthur Parsons (Stephen Root), which practices physical manifestation through the manipulation of thoughts.  Then there is an almost incomprehensible plot twist that focuses on the manifestation of a physical host for the Empty Man to possess.  The premise of this movie is extremely ambitious but it goes completely off the rails in the third act and I still don't entirely understand what happened because it is so convoluted and there are a number of plot holes and inconsistencies.  I did, however, find it to be very compelling and it kept my attention throughout the 2 hour and 17 minute runtime.  Even though The Empty Man feels more like a psychological thriller than a true horror movie, it incredibly scary because there is a feeling of dread that permeates every single shot and the atmospheric score adds greatly to this sense of unease.  Dale gives a strong central performance as a troubled man who is slowly drawn into something that he can't explain but begins to feel very personal and Root is fantastic as the cult leader.  This is definitely much better than Slender Man (the bar was pretty low) and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would but there are some problems that keep it from being a great movie.