PREVIOUS ISSUES : CULTURE : Performing Arts / Books Last Updated: April 23, 2008 - 9:57 AM   Perfoming Arts/Books: March 19-25 By Daniel McNichol Published: March 19, 2008   Email this article   Printer friendly page   Items for calendar consideration may be submitted via mail, fax, e-mail (culture@sfreporter.com) or online and must be received two weeks before publication. >>> Designates items highlighted in this week’s issue. BOOKS/LECTURES | DANCE | EVENTS | MUSIC | THEATER BOOKS/LECTURES Joan Kwuon vocalizes on the violin at the Lensic. ANCIENT ATHENS MY ARSE About 500 years before that Jesus guy came around there were about 10,000 people living in Athens, Greece. A big city back in the day, no doubt, but in Sisupalgarh, India, UCLA professor Monica Smith estimates there were at least twice as many people. Smith fills in the gaps of the lost city with her lecture, “Ancient Urbanism in the Indian Subcontinent: Recent Fieldwork at the Fortified City of Sisupalgarh.” Noon Wednesday, March 19. Free. School for Advanced Research, 660 Garcia St., 954-7203 OVER THE HILL THE RIGHT WAY Fast approaching the half-century mark and dreading it? Garcia Street Books has the antidote. Regrettably, it is not the fountain of youth, but the next best thing: a youthful exuberance that endures through the “golden years.” Perky pentagenarians Shiela Key and Peggy Spencer discuss the lust for post-50 life that suffuses their new book, 50 Ways to Leave Your 40s: Living it Up in Life’s Second Half. Key is an award-winning writer and graphic artist, and Spencer practices at the Student Health Center at UNM. Both are residents of Albuquerque. 5 pm Wednesday, March 19. Free. Garcia Street Books, 376 Garcia St., 986-0151 >>> ALL EMPIRES FALL Our days as the world’s superpower are numbered, says David Boren, former state legislator, governor, US senator and current president of the University of Oklahoma. Sometime soon we will be making the crucial decisions that will determine how our fall from sole-superpowerdom will play out. Boren’s new book, A Letter to America, petitions us to make the decisions and changes necessary to ensure that our fall from hegemony will not also be a fall from grace. Boren discusses and signs A Letter to America (see SFR Picks). 5:30 pm Wednesday, March 19. Free. Collected Works Bookstore, 208-B W. San Francisco St., 988-4226 IT’S NO NINJA WARRIOR Before Japan did high-octane American pop culture better than we do, it was our bitter enemy and any embrace of its cultural forms might be perceived as an act of treason. In his lecture, “Bachelor Japanists: Constructing Dissident Masculinities Through the Aesthetics of Japan,” Lake Forest College professor Christopher Reed explores the phenomenon of American men who adopt Japanese art forms as expressions of outsider identity. 7 pm Wednesday, March 19. $5. Members free. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Education Annex, 123 Grant Ave., 946-1039 ZODIAC CHAT AND MORE The stars are aligned. That perennially ill-fated pick-up line, “What’s your sign?” might finally succeed when Arielle Guttman and other Santa Fe astrologers gather for Star Talk, a discussion of the current planetary picture at the time of the spring equinox. Also, Kendall Scott introduces the “Venus Sequence,” ostensibly a new astrology-ish method for understanding fear patterns hidden in our personal relationships. Scott will also conduct a workshop. Star Talk: 7 pm Wednesday, March 19. Free. Venus Sequence: Introduction: 7 pm Friday, March 21. Free. Workshop: 2-5:30 pm Saturday, March 22. $35-$45. Body, 333 W. Cordova Road, 986-0362 IMPOLITE CONVERSATION Religion and politics have no place in polite conversation, the old axiom says. There will be no room for polite conversation, then, when Alan Paton’s book, Cry, the Beloved Country, is discussed. In 1940s South Africa, it is the dawn of apartheid. Cry follows a Zulu pastor and his son through these perilous times when the dignity of entire peoples teeters on the edge of the abyss of racial hatred and colonialism. The group discussion is led by Natalie Goldberg and Eddie Lewis. 6 pm Thursday, March 20. Free.  Travel Bug Coffee Shop, 839 Paseo de Peralta, 992-0418 WAS IT ALWAYS GRAND? Pumped on prehistory and geological formations? Who isn’t? Well now there’s a place for us. “Research on the Edge of Splendor: Discovering Grand Canyon Prehistory” is the latest in the Archaeological Conservancy’s Anthropology/Archaeology lecture series. Dr. Douglas Schwartz, archaeologist, author and president emeritus of the School for Advanced Research and the Human Experience, discusses new research. 6 pm Monday, March 24. $10. Hotel Santa Fe, 1501 Paseo de Peralta, 466-2775 CANCER PREVENTION Daniel Cobb, DOM—Doctor of Orthomolecular (read: alternative) Medicine— discusses cancer prevention techniques, including dietary changes, nutritional supplements and lifestyle choices. 6:30 pm Monday, March 24. Free. Integrative Holistic Healing Center, 826 Camino del Monte Rey, 424-9527 IT’S NOT JUST FOR LOOKING ANYMORE The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum brings the second installment of its new Readers’ Club, which meets monthly to discuss readings with modernist art themes. Early readings include Marsden Hartley’s Essays and Mabel Dodge Luhan’s Winter in Taos. 6 pm Tuesday, March 25. Free. Georgia O’Keeffe Education Annex, 123 Grant Ave., 946-1007 EVENTS return to top “Look,” Anna Karenina says. “Up there in the sky. It’s not Superman, it’s Tolstoy.” MEN AND VIOLENCE “Nonviolence: A Dangerous Idea” is the third workshop in Ray Lopez’ Creative Nonviolence Project: A Series of Workshops for Men. The project takes a creative approach to the epidemic of violence, engaging men in a collaborative process intended explore the roots and nature of violence. Facilitators work with participants to forge creative answers to a stubborn, age-old predicament. This week, prominent theories of nonviolence are discussed and methods are demonstrated. 7 pm Wednesday, March 19. $10. Santa Fe Rape Crisis and Trauma Treatment Center 6601 Valentine Way, 471-7501 SHABBAT SOCK-HOP The Mik’dash Center for Hebrew Heritage, Wisdom and Embodied Jewish Practice hosts “Wild Play,” an unusual celebration featuring a short Kabbalat Shabbat ritual, Purim ceremony, dinner theater and dance party. If you can pronounce any of this or understand what it means, then odds are this party is the one for you! Attendees are invited to dress in masquerade as their favorite Purim character and to bring a dish and drink to share. The press release says that alcohol is traditional, so call me the fiddler on the roof! 6:15 pm Friday, March 21. $20. The Center in Tesuque, RSVP 349-4009 PARTY FOR PEACE The Human Rights Alliance Santa Fe hosts a gala replete with cocktails, comedy, dancing, dinner by Peas n’ Pod Catering and a silent and live auction. Auction items include a MINI Cooper (yes, the car), a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a five-day stay at a Costa Rican hotel. Handling entertainment duties will be political humorist Kate Clinton and DJ Pax. It’s true what they say: freedom isn’t free. Come put the extravagant in extravaganza and have a great time for a great cause. 6 pm-midnight Saturday, March 22. $100. Schelleberger Tennis Center The College of Santa Fe, 1600 St. Michael’s Drive, 988-1234 DANCE return to top DANCE WITH THE PROS You know it’s a special night in the club when most of the people there can actually dance. Moving People Dance, a contemporary dance company, offers the opportunity to blend in with real, live rump shakers at the kick-off bash for the henceforth monthly social dance party. From swing to salsa, hip-hop to jive, rousing rhythms abound! 7:30-10:30 pm Thursday, March 20. $3. Fusion, 135 W. Palace Ave., 438-9180 ZIMBABWEAN MARIMBAS Yawn. Another eight-piece family marimba band playing Zimbabwean folk-inspired dance tunes. When will this shtick go the way of boy bands and “Macarena”? J/K! There is nothing familiar about the Trillium Marimba Ensemble or its prancing polyrhythms and overlapping melodies. The band is based around the four-member Swing family and fashions its unique sound around its members’ backgrounds in folk, classical and ragtime music, as well as the influence of Zimbabwe’s music. Children under 10 get in free to this bona fide family affair. All proceeds help send Tutorial School students to the 16th Annual International Democratic Education Conference, where they will meet with other students of schools subscribing to the radical notion that students should have a voice in their education. 7 pm Saturday, March 22. $7. The Tutorial School, 400 Brunn School Road, 474-6088 MUSIC return to top A CLASSY AFFAIR The Santa Fe Concert Association presents “Great Symphonic Forces,” which sees the 100-piece State Symphony of Mexico in its first-ever visit to Santa Fe. Performances include Bernstein’s “Candide Overture,” Tchaikovsky’s “Violin Concerto” and Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 in D Minor. Conducted by Enrique Bátiz and featuring guest violinist Joan Kwuon.   7:30 pm Thursday, March 20. $30-$85. Lensic, 211 W. San Francisco St., 988-1234 NOT BAD FOR A NAZI Even after Nietzsche disavowed Wagner, he still proclaimed the latter’s opera Tristan und Isolde an extraordinary work of genius. Not for nothing, the quasi-Nazi’s (perhaps lesser) magnum opus still is among the most revered in the operatic repertory and is credited by many for igniting the spark that set the modernist atonal experimentations of Shoenberg and company ablaze in the 20th century. If the most damning readings of Wagner’s voluminous, often hateful and generally abstruse writings prove true, it would not be the first time—and probably not the last time—an artist of great consequence was revealed to be a despicable human being. Go and enjoy the extraordinary musical expressions and tragic love story, but don’t dwell too deeply on the philosophical underpinnings or political imports. Deborah Voigt plays Isolde, Ben Heppner plays Tristan and James Levine conducts while Dieter Dorn directs. 10:30 am Saturday, March 22. $15-$22. Lensic, 211 W. San Francisco St., 988-1234 ISLAND MUSIC One doesn’t usually think music from England qualifies as “island music,” but you gotta hand it to The Ethnosphere Music Lab, technically, they’re right. The same is true for the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Cape Verde, Sicily, Crete, Martinique, Japan, Hawaii, Ireland and Bali—all the locales represented in the lab’s “Easter (weekend) Island Music Show.” In addition to this musical island tour there is a shadow puppet circus, silent auction, kid’s activities and instrument-making workshops by reservation. 7:30 pm Saturday, March 22. Free. Center for Contemporary Arts, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, 913-0426 STUDENT OPERAS Students from Salazar Elementary present operas produced under the guidance of Santa Fe Opera’s artists-in-residence.   6 pm Tuesday, March 25. Free. Scottish Rite Masonic Center, 463 Paseo de Peralta. THEATER return to top MYSTERY PLAY Joan of Arc is a perennially inspiring and mysterious historical figure. Alfredo Cordal’s play, Our Lady of Buenos Aires, follows Maria Falconetti, whose role as Joan of Arc in Carl Dreyer’s classic 1928 film is said to have changed her life, in her last day on earth. Themes from Falconetti’s life, Dreyer’s film and Cordal’s experience as a Chilean are woven together in this mysterious production. 8 pm Wednesday-Sunday March 19-23. $0-$12. Wise Fool Studio, 2778 Agua Fria St., Unit D, 473-9339 ENCHANTMENT COMES HOME Adapted from the same novel as the 1992 film, Enchanted April is an uplifting tale of four unfulfilled women who recapture the simple magic of life and love while vacationing in an Italian villa. Written by Matthew Barber and directed by James Hatch. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday March 20-22 2 pm Sunday March 23. $0-$20. The Santa Fe Playhouse, 142 E. De Vargas St., 988-4262 RUSKII THEATER No one does love like the Russians. We should perhaps rejoice in this fact. Anna Karenina is Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel of aristocratic love and loss. It is here interpreted for stage by Helen Edmundson and directed by David Olson. Russian cultural productions are best appreciated in low spirits and the bitter cold, so hurry up and see it before spring moves in and seasonal affective disorder moves out. 7:30 pm Friday and Saturday, March 21 and 22 2 pm Saturday, March 22. $10-$18. James A Little Theater, 1060 Cerrillos Road, 471-1799 © Copyright 2000-2008 by the Santa Fe Reporter Save This Page to del.icio.us Top of Page