Art and Performance April 2-8, 2009

Visual Art

Art in Bloom, Milwaukee Art Museum. 4/2 through 4/5.

Celebrating springtime, Art In Bloom showcases the talents of more than 40 renowned floral designers interpreting masterworks from the Museum’s Collection. This year’s expanded exhibition also includes lectures and workshops with celebrity floral designers and master gardeners, book signings, plein air painters, a multi-vendor indoor marketplace, a garden sculpture sale, and floral-inspired dining in the Café Calatrava Garden Room.

Presenting lectures, demonstrations, and book signings will be Michael George—one of the most sought after floral designers in the United States; Milwaukee native Michael Weishan, former host of PBS television’s The Victory Garden; Portland-based vine expert Linda Beutler; landscape designer Craig Bergmann; Chicago Master Gardener and radio host Mike Nowak; local horticulture expert Melinda Myers; renowned children’s book author Lois Ehlert and many others.

Awesome Art Sale, Racine Art Museum, 4/3

Get down with the (original) Green Gallery on their momentous fifth anniversary with an exhibition of new works by Frankie Martin,  whose work was a part of the very first Green Gallery show.

In Life or Death?,  Martin will show new video work as well as paintings and video  stills. Who Died? is a five part, non-linear narrative video that reinterprets popular representations of death and the transcendence of the human body. Some light paintings will accompany this piece.

Frankie will also present part of her series Left Behind which features paintings and mobiles based on the idea of what normally gets discarded. To do this she stretches her drop cloths as finished paintings that expose the materials and process of the work done in her studio. Frankie also incorporates objects from her neighborhood or from her own garbage into the work. In Frankie’s words “the idea is that these things become non-things, then become re-contextualized as things again.”  Frankie will also exhibit Born Again, a video in which Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is translated into the video format.

Frankie Martin’s work has appeared in galleries all over the world, from Milwaukee to Oslo to Paris to San Francisco and New York, where she now lives. Bon anniversaire, Green Gallery!

Marina Bychkova: Enchanted Doll, Villa Terrace, 4/8

Exploring the dark, dreamy side of folklore and fantasy, Bychokova transforms a children’s toy into an exploration and reinterpretation of femininity, tradition and fairy tales. Says the artist, ““Creating a visual narrative is the most intriguing way of articulating my ideas and a doll is a perfect medium because of its potential for such visual story. My strong tendency for escapism has made the make believe narrative of fairy tales very appealing as a context for my dolls. What interests me most about fairy tales is the implicit and often explicit violence that lies just beneath the surface of the magic.”

Families be warned: these dolls are not necessarily appropriate for the children as they deal with adult themes of violence and sexuality.

Multimedia

Multimedia and Performance, Inova/Kenilworth, 4/4

This event is so unusual (and wonderful) that we had to create a whole new category just to list it. UWM’s Peck School of the Arts brings together three residencies in one day of music, dance, performance art and visual media.

Each of the three projects — Inova’s Jefferson Pinder: Anthology, the Music Department’s American Sounds Project with residency artists sfSound, and the Dance Department’s Nikolais Project — approaches multimedia and performance from different disciplinary and historical perspectives. Performances, open rehearsals, a guided tour of interactive installations, talks and a panel discussion will enable the public to experience and consider multimedia, performance and their varied intersections over the past half-century. Participants include residency artists Jefferson Pinder, Matt Ingalls and Kyle Bruckmann (sfSound), and Peck School artists and scholars Christopher Burns, Iain Court, Simone Ferro, Kevin Schlei, Luc Vanier, and Heather Warren-Crow.

Multimedia & Performancewill take place in spaces throughout the Kenilworth Square East building. The event, organized by Polly Morris, is free, and the public may stop in at any time. The day will begin at 10:30 am with an artist talk by Jefferson Pinder and will conclude with a reception for the artist in Inova’s West Gallery beginning at 4:30 pm.

For a complete performance schedule, visit arts.uwm.edu/multimedia. Several related projects and performances take place throughout the weekend, including a free performance of electro-acoustic improvisations by sfSound at the Borg Ward (7:30 pm, 4/4) and a recital of student compositions, the result of a year-long collaboration between UWM students and sfSound (Peck School Recital Hall, 7:30, 5/5).

Theater

The Pavilion, Next Act Theater. 4/2 through 5/3.

Join Next Act for this tale of love lost and sought again. Peter and Kari were voted Cutest Senior Couple when they graduated high school in 1980; by the time their 20-year reunion comes around, the perfect life they were meant to lead has cracked into a thousand pieces. Peter is determined to win Kari back using the memories of high school to soften her heart. But will it work?

I Just Stopped By to See the Man, Milwaukee Repertory Theater. 4/8 through 5/3.

Jesse Davidson is the greatest living bluesman, although no one knows it- because most people think he’s dead. He lives a simple life in a shack in the Mississippi Delta with his daughter (an activist) until an English rockstar named Karl starts to dig into his life. The confrontations that stir up reach mythic proportions in this passionate and political ode to the truth inherent in blues music. The Rep presents this piece in the Steimke Theater.

Music

Unruly Music Series, Peck School of Arts. 4/2.

Part of the American Sounds Project, this concert brings the ingenuity of sfSound to Milwaukee, blending high-level performance with improvisation, creative transcription and electronic noise. All members are both performers and composers, and the goal of the American Sounds project is to connect American masterpieces of the past with the music, musicians and composers of the future. One-night performance at 7:30 pm in the UWM recital hall.

Cantos de las Americas, Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. 4/3.

Cantos de las Americas, presented Friday, April 3 at 6:30 p.m. in the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 N. Water St., brings 14 MPS schools together for an annual celebration of culture, traditions, folk dancing, music and learning. Mariachis, Dominican bachatas, salsas, Native American dances, European dramatic skits, cumbias, African American and Southeast Asian dances, contemporary American pop music, and more will be featured.

The student participants work with choreographers committed to the preservation of international folklore in the Greater Milwaukee metropolitan area. The event is presented by M& Bank and Time Warner Cable. Cantos is sponsored by the Marcus Center, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Division of Academic Affairs and the Milwaukee Public Schools Bilingual Education Division. The schools attending are Burbank, Allen-Field, Kagel, Forest Home, Holmes, Hayes, Riley, Longfellow, Rogers Academy, Milwaukee German Immersion, Lincoln Street, Morgandale,Vieau and Fratney.

Cantos de las Americas is free and open to the public. The event will be narrated by Abe Caceres of World House Music and Jill Geisler of the Poynter Institute. For additional information, phone Janice Shogren at 414-777-7838, Rafael L. Fernandez at 414-438-3499, or Linda Huang at 414-229-5433.

Stuff and Nonsense, Milwaukee Choral Artists. 4/4.

When life gets serious, find lighter music. This one-night performance by the Milwaukee Choral Artists will bring laughter and joy as the women of MCA tease, cajole and tantalize you with a selection of music celebrating the lighter side of life. Show is in the UWM recital hall at 7:30 pm.

River Child, Milwaukee Children’s Choir. 4/4.

Celebrate the great rivers of the world with River Child, composed by Chicagoan Rollo Dillworth. Travelling from the Nile to the Mississippi, the Amazon to the Rhine to the Yangtze, you will come away with a new appreciation for the phrase “Water is life!” The Prelude and Concert choirs, as well as guest choirs from all over the area, perform at Milwaukee Lutheran High School at 4 pm.

For venue, tickets, showtimes and more, visit Footlights Milwaukee online.