Arts Info Newsletter

Leaving Iowa

Arthur Miller Theatre
May 3-6; 8pm Th-Sat, 2pm Sun

A loving ode to the great American road trip, Leaving Iowa finds middle-aged writer, Don Browning, on a quest to take his father's ashes to Don's childhood home. Upon finding the family's home has become a grocery store, Don traverses Iowa in search of a place for the ashes. Along the way he attempts to reconcile his past with the present. Ann Arbor Civic Theatre's production brings Leaving Iowa back home to Michigan, where it received its world premiere at the Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea.

Leaving Iowa was written by Tom Clue and Spike Manton, and is being directed by Michael Schacherbauer.

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Life Sciences Orchestra concert: A Flood of Sound

Hill Auditorium Thursday May 3, 7:30pm
FREE

A wave of music will wash over the audience on Thursday, May 3, as the University of Michigan Life Sciences Orchestra plays a free water-themed concert of classical works to celebrate spring. The performance, which will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Ann Arbor's famed Hill Auditorium, will feature works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Respighi and Wagner.

It is free and open to all ages, with a suggested admission of $1. No tickets are required. Martin Philbert, Ph.D., dean of the U-M School of Public Health, will give opening remarks. LSO music director Oriol Sans has chosen water-inspired pieces from four major classical composers, which he and assistant conductor Matthew B. Dell will conduct The Hebrides Overture by Felix Mendelssohn, Fountains of Rome by Ottorino Respighi,The Overture to The Flying Dutchman, from an opera in which Richard Wagner, and Symphony No. 6, op. 68, in F Major by Ludwig van Beethoven,

Sans is a recent graduate of, and Dell is a student in, the noted orchestral conducting program at the U-M School of Music, Theatre, and Dance.

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Link of the Week: Amazin' Blue turns 25

Amazin' Blue just celebrated 25 years of making a cappella. Watch their concert from March 31, 2012 online.

Each week we feature a new interesting arts website or video in our newsletter and on our website. Do you know of a cool artsy website you've been telling people about, or an amazing video you can't stop watching? Maybe even a video you made? Email us and we might feature it!

Robert Wilson: Video 50

UMMA, New Media Gallery
Through April 29, 2012

The tiny dramas that comprise Robert Wilson's Video 50 contain aspects of his hallmark aesthetic: surreal or dream-like imagery, the absence of a linear narrative, the conflation of seemingly unrelated characters and micro-stories, and a mesmerizingly slow pace. Video 50 consists of a randomly arranged set of 30-second "episodes," a few of which feature notable French personalities of the 1970s-perfumier Hélène Rochas stares down a mugger, culture minister Michel Guy struggles to open a dresser drawer-and Wilson thought of these as miniature portraits or character studies. The creator and director of aggressively experimental theater, Wilson first came to prominence with works from the mid-1970s such as The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin (1973) and Einstein on the Beach (1976). These lavish, unusually long productions broke and then redefined every convention of theater. In Video 50 his shorter time-based portraits explore the intersection of narrative and still-life, seductively dissolving the distance between viewer and subject.

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