Opera follows funk as inspiration for Augusta singer

Now she is excited about making her first Augusta Opera appearance in “Sweeney Todd” Sept. 19-20. Offstage, her plan is for the Opera Guild to meet before every production in a social setting to eat, drink and absorb the sights and sounds of the upcoming opera. There are currently about 30 people in the guild, which she says is “open to men and women, old and young.” More information is available from the Augusta Opera office at (706) 826-4710. 

Guild members will also provide volunteer support for the opera’s fundraisers.  The first of those will be Sept. 4 at Sacred Heart Cultural Center. A Happening on Fleet Street takes the Sweeney Todd theme and invites patrons to dine on fish and fowl at Mrs. Lovett’s, delight in the sounds of Sondheim, and “take a stroll down Fleet Street for an evening of merriment and maybe a touch of London fog.” Tickets are $75 and are available at the Opera office or on the website: www.augustaopera.com

That event is the same night as the Central Savannah River Land Trust’s 5^th annual Backyard Barbecue fundraiser, honoring the Knox Foundation.

Edward Rice’s 1994 painting, “The River,” is the image chosen this year by Historic Augusta as the theme for the Perfectly Aged: Antiques and Wine benefit auction to be held Sept. 11.  Rice’s painting, from the Morris Museum of Art’s Southern landscape collection, depicts a view from the canal towpath across the river to the South Carolina side on a sunny day in late January, with the river reflecting a bright blue sky and golden afternoon light.

Historic Augusta has a new location for the fundraiser this year: St. Paul’s River Room at the church on Reynolds Street. Robert S. Brunk, president of Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C. is the auctioneer. Tickets are $100 per person, or $50 each for those 35 and younger. A preview of arriving auction items can be found at www.historicaugusta.org.

Those special events are squeezing in before the mid-September double cultural explosion of Arts in the Heart and the Westobou Festival.

Rick Davis, multi-talented actor, director, playwright and professor of English at Augusta State University, was a winner in a monologue competition sponsored by the Emerging Artists Theatre Company in New York.  He was one of 17 writers chosen out of a competition pool of 500, he said.

“We performed at the Roy Arias Theatre Center on West 43^rd Street, right off Times Square – what a rush!” he said. “The week-long festival, called One Man Talking, was just that – a series of short monologues running from May 20-24. I went on first on that Saturday at 7 p.m. I was a nervous wreck, but once I got on stage, I calmed and everything just seemed to flow.”

His monologue, “The Sword Swallower’s Husband,” ran about 18 minutes, he said. “I got a really good response from the audience and answered a lot of questions during the post-show talkback.”

He passed along this description from the printed program: “The Sword Swallower’s Husband. A darkly comic monologue in which a man at the edge of suicide remembers his life in the circus: his sword swallower wife, the Amazing Tattooed Man, his pet goat (Bucky), and his decision to end it all. Written and performed by Richard Davis Jr.”

We’ll get a chance to see him perform that monologue on Sept. 23 as part of the Augusta Authors Club’s two-night showcase of local writers at Le Chat Noir. Also featured will be work by young poets, a play by Lowell Greenbaum, readings by established poets Starkey Flythe and Mike Lythgoe and fiction writers Hawk McKinney and Karin Gillespie. Details can be found at www.westoboufestival.com.

Gearing up for an arts event on a grander scale, photographer David Michalek was in town recently to meet with Augusta Ballet supporters and potential sponsors for his production of “Slow Dancing,” to be presented nightly from Sept. 18-27 at the Augusta Common.

It’s a show unlike anything you’ve ever seen, unless you caught it at Lincoln Center in New York, or in Los Angeles, Toronto or at the Venice Biennale.  It’s a big deal to have it come to Augusta. There will be three panels, 30 feet high, on scaffolding erected across the center of the common. Projected on these screens will be dancers in motion – very, very slow motion.

Michalek used high definition video technology to show 43 dancers moving at less than one one-hundredth of their original speed. He did this by shooting at 1,000 frames per second and using software to slow down the video even more. So a segment of motion that took five seconds in real time stretches out for eight to ten minutes. If you want the technical details, there’s an article in Wired magazine, issue 15.08.

His first trial run was photographing his wife, Wendy Whelan, the NYC Ballet superstar who dazzled audiences in the Augusta Ballet’s Gala performance last March. But “Slow Dancing” is not just about ballet, it’s about dance and human movement. You’ll see all kinds of dance – classical, modern, hip hop and street, sacred, flamenco, tap, jazz, acrobatic – with dancers from Bali, Africa, Japan, India and elsewhere, dancers young and old. And you’ll see slightly different versions every night, since the images are randomly selected by computer. Get a preview at www.slowdancingfilms.com

Michalek says that in other cities, audiences have come with blankets and picnics and have come back night after night. The show will unfold slowly from 8:30 to midnight, so you can drop by after other Westobou Festival performances. And it’s free.