Steven, Terrence, Caroline, Dale and Columbia’s amazing dancers

This is the first blog post I’ve written since late last winter when I started working on undefined Magazine with Mark and Jeffrey. I thought I would leave blogging behind, but I’ve had the urge to do those things that bloggers do – pontificate and such – so much lately that I’m revisiting the idea of becoming a regular blogger again. This is a test.
An event I attended last night has me feeling rather full of thoughts and theories and observations about Columbia’s dance scene – a subject I hold dear to my heart, as many of you know. I am frequently befuddled by the fact that Columbia produces so many amazing young dancers – many of elite quality – who never stay in town, but rather move on to what is perceived to be greener pastures across state lines. Sometimes these pastures are significantly greener – sometimes they’re just a different shade of the same colors we find at home.
I find it frustrating that we can’t seem to keep these talented young dancers here, performing for us at home. Yes, I’m talking about my child, but I’m also talking about a lot of other people’s kids, as well. The things that are lacking in Columbia’s two professional ballet companies aren’t a mystery – they are money, repertoire, and to some degree, working conditions. Money is a problem everywhere, but especially in South Carolina where our state government considers the arts to be the work of the devil, or worse, the Democrats. Repertoire can be fixed – stop doing the same damn ballets year after year and challenge our dance audiences to learn about the classics – old and new – rather than children’s fairytales; and take a chance on the kind of new choreography that companies are doing pretty much everywhere else in the world. As for working conditions, most of these problems have to do with the eccentricities of artistic directors. We may like to pretend that some other AD at some other company in some other city is more sane than the ones we have here, but that’s a pipe dream and nothing more. Ballet people are crazy everywhere.
But last night, I attended an event put on by Columbia’s dance artists (minus the two big companies) to help raise funds for one of their own, Steven Ferguson. Steven is a local dancer and musician and all around fantastic human who was involved in a terrible accident in March in which both his legs were severely injured. He has had more surgeries than you would believe and is still recuperating in the hospital. The companies and artists who came together to put on the performance did it out of the goodness of their hearts and nothing more. It was an amazing evening filled with joy and emotion. But, more than that, it was an evening filled with some of the best dancing I have seen anywhere – New York, Boston, London, and Paris included.
We have some excellent companies of dancers in Columbia and it is time they get the attention and appreciation they are due. I could care less about the old saw that they’re all competing for the same funding. Dancers dance for money, yes – they have to eat. But for the most part, dancers dance because they can’t help themselves. Most would dance on a dumpster if you asked them to.
What really made the event last night so entertaining was the choreography – I’m talking about choreographers Terrence Henderson of Vibrations Dance Company, Dale Lam of Columbia City Jazz, and Caroline Lewis Jones of Unbound Dance, here. Flipping outstanding and innovative choreography that touched the core of the audience, and was executed with pristine technique and professionalism. The dancers were clearly thrilled to be performing their parts – they were challenged and invigorated.
It’s time to face the facts – Columbia, South Carolina actually is a fabulous dance town without even including the two big companies. The questions now are: Can those two keep up with the smaller companies who have moved on to the 21st century? Sure, the two big companies are mostly ballet-centric where the performances last night were not (although every form of dance starts from a ballet core). And, if not, is it time for yet even another ballet company in Columbia? One that can keep our excellent dancers home dancing for their families, friends, and neighbors where they belong?

Blogging, ballet & beer — with a perturbed poetry mention

I remember when I used to blog.

I know, it’s been a while.  Coming up on a month, actually.  So many cool things to write about and yet I don’t seem to be doing my job.  When we left off, Bonnie and I were just returning from New York City where it was cold and all Alan Shore-y.  Oh yeah, and a nice man in a bar bought me a drink while I was talking to the Beer Doc on the phone.  That still feels good.  I went out to the Art Bar last night to check out the final poetry slam competition — scouting for an upcoming undefined poetry reading (and by the way, Chris McCormick was robbed!) — and couldn’t find anyone to go with, so I put on my big girl panties and went alone.  Lo and behold, another dude tried to buy me a drink while I was talking to my friend Gillian on the phone.  He was creepy though — cowboy hat creepy, to be precise — so I gave him the Nora look and moved into another room.  (The Nora look is this “eat shite you pathetic fool or I’ll burn your house down” snarl that is passed genetically through the Boiter side of my family.  My dead grandmother Nora had it, and my also late Dad had it, then me, then Bonnie.  Bonnie has actually perfected it — you’ve probably seen it before from one or both of us.)

  In the interim since my last post, the Beer Doc and I spent Spring Break doing some final research on NC and SC beer.  Actually, I’m working on a story for Sandlapper on SC micros and brewpubs — focusing on COAST beer in North Charleston — a wife/husband team who are brewing organic, environmentally conscious beer that absolutely rocks; RJ Rockers in Spartanburg — home of the Son of a Peach summertime sensation; Thomas Creek in Greenville — home of the Deep Water Double Bock which is sumptuous; the Aiken Brewpub, which is in Aiken; and our own local Hunter Gatherer — the place I keep calling “our” pub and for some reason, people who don’t know it think it belongs to us.  I tend to get a little proprietary, I guess.  People who don’t know the Cellar may think I own it, too. 

In any case, much has been written about beer lately and less about my beloved arts.  (No, I don’t own them — it’s a figure of speech.)  However, I have done a couple of reviews for the Free Times of local Columbia dance companies over the past few weeks.  Here’s the piece on Columbia Classical Ballet’s Aladdin, in case you missed it.

And I’ll try to be a better blogger in the future.

 

Issue #23.10 :: 03/10/2010 – 03/16/2010
Aladdin Gives us More — and Less — of What We Expect from Columbia Classical Ballet
BY CYNTHIA BOITER
Columbia Classical Ballet’s Aladdin presented itself last Friday at the Koger Center as something big — something spectacular. In many ways, the company met its objective. Resplendent costuming in shimmering warm shades; a multiplicity of dancers at various stages of training; informed choreography courtesy of the rare former dancer who actually knows how to choreograph; delicate women; threatening thieves; and a plethora of adorable children littering the stage.  There is no arguing — it was a big show. Based ever-so-loosely on a Middle-Eastern folk tale taken from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights (though the characters of Jasmine and a blue Genie do not appear in the story’s history until Walt Disney Pictures adapted the tale in 1992), Aladdin is a classic tale of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back and defeats the evil sorcerer with the help of a genie in a lamp. Choreographed by Classical Ballet resident choreographer Simone Cuttino — a John Cranko Ballet alum — the ballet Aladdin offers quite a lot of dancing. In the first act, some might argue, it offers too much. It’s not that exposition in a narrative ballet is a bad thing, but Act I could have used more of the fine-tuning — the winnowing out of superfluous movement and detail — that Act II demonstrated. In a word, the first act was long. That said, one of the most aesthetically pleasing parts of the ballet came in Scene Two when Aladdin, danced by Aoi Anraku (a Gold Prize winner in the All Japan Ballet Competition in Nagoya), encounters Lauren Frere’s Goddess of Diamonds and her accompanying attendants (danced by Anna Porter, Renata Franco, Kaori Yanagida, Akari Manabe and Dee Dee Rosner).  Though Anraku rarely demonstrated much commitment to his character, stepping in and out of choreography as if it were a series of disconnected exercises, the women accomplished their parts exquisitely. It can also be argued that the ballet itself didn’t fully take off until the very end of Act I when the character of Jafar, danced by the Ukrainian Oleksandr Vykhrest — who heretofore had lacked the menacing energy one might expect from a villain — came alive with malice as he danced the lights down on the act. Once the ballet found itself, the remainder of the program was a delight. The highlight of the night was the desert scene in Act II, when the company rallied to produce a mesmerizing scene of conspiracy and deception. Jasmine, danced by Kaleena Burks (former student of Magda Aunon and Magaly Suarez), demonstrated particularly stunning pointe work and arabesques while committing to her character in a manner she had previously yet to reveal. Vykhrest’s Jafar exhibited not just a capacity for peril, but also for affection, as he pined hopelessly for the princess. Kazuki Ichihashi, in the role of the Genie, might have relied excessively on his turns to wow the audience, but he executed them spectacularly. The lighting, courtesy of technical director and lighting designer Aaron Pelzek, painted the desert scene with subtle, yet beautiful changing hues suggesting the passage of time as the scene progressed. Why did this simple scene with few props and no stage clutter satisfy so? Because big isn’t always better. Give me the respect for the aesthetic of dance, the purity of exquisite technique, the confidence of simplicity audiences have come to expect from director Radenko Pavlovich’s classically trained and, usually, impeccably coached dancers, any day. My favorite Pavlovich productions are the ones with little production at all — beautiful, proficient dancers on a bare stage with nothing but a capable lighting director to illuminate their prowess. We got to see a peek of this local treasure Friday night — but only a glimpse and not nearly enough to last until next season begins.              Let us know what you think: Email editor@free-times.com.

 

 

New York City — for the weekend, a summer, for life

Coming to New York is, in so many ways, like coming home.

Years ago, when Bonnie and Annie were mere babes and their arts studies took them to NYU for Annie to study viola and to the American Ballet Theatre for Bonnie to study ballet, the Beer Doc and I decided that, if we were going to pay for anyone to spend the summer in Manhattan, then we might as well pay for everyone to spend the summer there.  So, for four summers in a row the Boiter-Jolley clan hunkered down in Greenwich Village for 6 to 8 weeks.  For the first two summers we resided in two bedroom apartments on 5th Avenue between 8th and 9th streets — just a block and a half up from Washington Park.  The next summer we opted for a two bedroom in the meatpacking district at the edge of the west village.  Then the next year we scored a three bedroom townhouse owned by the dean of NYU’s Graduate School of Public Service which was also on 5th Avenue and Washington Mews, a half block off of Washington Square.  We were in heaven.

The results of out extended time in the city, in addition to an elevated credit card balance and the reality that the Beer Doc would be retiring a few years later than planned, were a comfort and familiarity with the city as well as the sensation that in some small way, the city is ours, just as it belongs to the millions of people who either live here or have lived here in the past.

Spending so much time in New York taught us that while the arts and adventures in the city are certainly spectacular, the real wonders are found wherever the sidewalk leads you.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that Christopher Walken and Liev Schriber and Kristen Chenoweth are all performing on any given night within a few blocks of one another; just walking past Lincoln Center gives me chills — not to mention climbing to the upper realms of the New York State Theatre.  But the best things about the city are the conversations you overhear at crowded bars in Chelsea late at night; the best sites the ones you happen upon rounding the corner of Bleeker and McDougal or near the smoking area at Lips in the Village.

So when Bonnie decided to venture up for a weekend of auditions in the city, once again I figured, we’re going to be paying for a hotel room anyway — I’ll just go along, too.

Being a Southern girl by nurture and nature, New York winters offer me less opportunity for freelance adventures — the streets get pretty cold uptown — and spending only 48 hours anywhere puts a damper on too much wondering aimlessly around.  But we did take advantage of a couple of arts opportunities I’ll share.

Friday night found us at the Joyce Theatre in Chelsea — one of my favorite theatres in one of my favorite parts of town.  We were there to see Parsons Dance — we had no idea what we were going to see, we just knew we wanted to go.  To our thrilled surprise we got to see one of David Parsons’ most famous pieces of choreography, entitled Caught.  First performed in 1982 by David Parsons himself, Caught depicts a single dancer who dances to the music of Robert Fripp’s, “Let the Power Fall,” while incorporating the use of strobe lighting.  This may sound like something from a 1970s disco, but it is not.  The lighting is specifically timed as if the performer is dancing with the light itself — at times the light captures (i.e., “caught”) the dancer in a variety of series of midair jumps and leaps so that she or he appears to be completely suspended and flying through the air in circles and across the stage.  Verbal description fails this piece of choreography.  We got to see Zac Hammer perform this number — it was spectacular.

We also saw a rock-dance opera called Remember Me, performed by Parsons Dance and members of the East Village Opera Company.  Julie Blume danced the lead, and she was absolutely glorious.

Another highlight of the trip was seeing David Mamet’s new play, Race, starring Alan Shore — I mean, James Spader — with David Allen Grier, Richard Thomas (aka John Boy Walton), and Kerry Washington.  The cast was excellent and Mamet’s dialogue shot through the stage like an automatic weapon.  The plot deals with a law firm’s (unfortunately not Crane, Poole, and Schmidt’s) preparation to defend a white man who is accused of raping a black woman.  Of import is the way that we as white people and Black people speak of race — when we have the audacity to even do so.  Interestingly enough, the only time the play addresses the issue of gender is in the last line of the first act.  Alan, I mean James, states that race and sex are the same thing, then the scene goes black.  “Yes!” I thought — finally we were going to be talking about the woman (and women) at the heart of the issue, but disappointingly, we did not.  Someone needs to have a sit down with David Mamet and introduce to him the concept of intersectionality — the sociological theory that socially contructed categories of discrimination interact on multiple levels contributing to a variety of arenas for social inequality.  The absence of consideration for sex and gender in the play Race detracts from its efficacy — however, I am not oblivious to the title of the play — Race; not Race and Gender.  That said, writing a play about any form of rape without considering sexual politics is like writing a play about bread making without considering the role of yeast.  Given this caveat, the play is excellent and it raises questions that must be raised by someone, at sometime,  in some forum, if we are going to intellectually and spiritually progress as a human race.

On a far more frivolous note, Bonnie and I got our Boston Legal on after the play when we stage-door stalked James Spader, got his autograph and our photos taken with him.  Drat my daughter for taking my photo with her broken camera — yes, she has broken yet another camera — so I may never have evidence of my conquest.

Still, I do so love new York.

Joshua Drews, Undefined, 3 Popes, Compass 5, tonight

Fun stuff in Cayce tonight when the artist Joshua Drews opens his show at Compass 5 at 1329 State Street.

The show is sponsored by the Partners at Compass 5 and the newly resurrected magazine, Undefined, with Mark Pointer, Jeffrey Day, and myself at the helm.

Josh is a printmaker who specializes in monotypes — he’ll be offering a talk on his exhibit tonight at 7 pm.  The reception runs from 6 – 8.

Check out Joshua’s work on his website at http://www.joshuadrews.com — see it in person tonight at Compass 5.

The show runs from February 18th – March 18th.

Cabaret Comes to Trustus Wednesday night with Marjorie Barnes & Wideman/Davis Dance

If you can tear yourself away from the Olympics on Wednesday night, (did somebody say Tivo?), race on down to TRUSTUS Theatre on Lady Street for a taste of New York City, Columbia Style.  The brain child of former Broadway star – now Columbia arts supporter, Gillian Albrecht, TRUSTUS Theatre presents an innovative series of monthly cabaret events starting Wednesday night with Thaddeus Davis and Tanya Wideman-Davis of Wideman/Davis Dance Company and featuring the huge voice of the beautiful Marjorie Barnes.

Marjorie Barnes may be best known for her work with the musical group The Fifth Dimension (can you suuuuuurry, can you picnic? wo-o-o-ah) — Marjorie replaced Marilyn McCoo in the mid-seventies — but she has also enjoyed a stellar career as a jazz vocalist both on Broadway and throughout Europe.  Among the shows she has starred in are Hair, Dream Girls, Bubbling Brown Sugar, and Pal Joey.

The fund raising event starts at 7:30 and tickets are $30 in advance and $35 at the door, with student rush tickets available at 7 pm at the door. But don’t dally — there were just a few seats left by Tuesday night — and seating is general admission. For tickets call 254-9732.

Watch this space for more info on the upcoming shows.

Valentine’s Day = Pressure; What’s Love Fest = Pressure Release

As a woman of a certain age, I’ve suffered through many a Valentine’s Day.

Suffer, you say?  Why, I thought you had married your high school sweetheart — a boy you met on the football field when you were but fifteen years old?  I thought you had never dated another boy since and that you were living happily ever after in a little white house in an enchanted forest? Isn’t all of this true?

Why yes, yes it is. So if someone like me, who is married to the Beer Doctor, who just happens to have exquisite taste in all things romance, jewelry, wine, chocolates, flowers — the whole bit — if someone like me has suffered through Valentine’s Days galore, then please do pity the poor girl or boy who:  doesn’t have a love interest; only has a like interest; isn’t sure where she or he stands on the like/love scale.

The fact of the matter is that, more than anything, Valentine’s Day means pressure — even for those of us long in-love.  If it’s not deciding what to do, because God forbid you act as if it’s just another night, then it is deciding what to do soon enough lest every table in town be booked.  Pressure.  Then there is the question of gifts.  Women are easy — there is tradition behind what women expect from their beloveds on Valentine’s Day — gentlemen may make their choices from any variety of candies, jewels, and floral designs.  For women of the enlightened sect however, (those who recognize that loving and cherishing is a two-way street and that boys like to have love professed to them as much as girls), it is slim pickings.  We can only give so many wallets, money clips, and boxers with hearts all over them.  Women have to get creative.  Personally, I’ve given the Beer Doc so many baskets of craft beers by now that I just can’t go that direction again.  Pressure.

Don’t even get me started on Valentine’s shopping for parents, grandparents, and kids; what to wear over & what to wear under; performance anxiety; and the fact that a major candy holiday comes around in the middle of the biggest diet season of the year.  Pressure.

At least there is something we can do in Columbia that is pretty much pressure-less for those who just have to show up, and a pressure-release once we get there — the What’s Love Fest at 701 Whaley Street — one of the best arts events of the year.

With too many artists to mention — but I will say a few names like Bonnie Goldberg, Anastasia Chernoff, Michael Krajewski, Alejandro Garcia, Caroline Hatchell, and Billy Guess; plus performance art à la Wideman/Davis Dance, Unbound and more; music from Danielle Howle, Unresolved and Les Paramours; food, including an offering by Chef Kelly and a cash bar with Magic Hat brew; plus all kinds of surprises, I’m sure — The What’s Love Fest is the answer to the second most stressful holiday of the year.  Simply suit up in something sexy (ok, a little pressure there), and show up.

Below are the details lifted from the What’s Love Fest Facebook page — I hope I get to see you there.

What’s Love? This is What’s Love!
Over 40 visual and performance artists showing You the Love!

SAT. February 13th @ 701 Whaley
The main event:
“What’s Love Fest 2010”
7pm-midnight

Sun. Feb. 14th CLOSING
2pm-5pm

Tickets are $15 advance $20 at the door
Advance tickets:
Sid & Nancy – 5 Points
S&S Art Supplies – Rosewood Dr
Frame of Mind – Main St.
WEB – http://www.palmettonluna.org paypal

It’s Valentines weekend and whether you are single or have a love to bring you won’t want to miss this night of tantalizing art and entertainment!
Sponsored by:
Free Times
Baileys
Magic Hat
Sid & Nancy
Comunicar
Smoke
L.A.Kornegay, Media Productions

SAT. FEB 13th 7-midnight

Music by:
Les Paramours featuring:
Don Russo: Vocals/Guitar
Nick Brewer: Piano
Reggie Sullivan: Bass
Tony Lee: Drums
PLUS
Danielle Howle
Unresolved

Performances by:
Unbound Dance Company
Wideman/Davis
Sherry Warren & Kirrill Simin
Penthouse Playhouse

Also enjoy DR SKETCHY! The most rambunctious sketching session you’ll experience.

ART ART ART ART ART
With sexy, humorous, erotic and romantic art – starting with return artists or “The Love Hangovers”
* denotes part of juried show
Heidi Darr-Hope
Anastasia Chernoff
Melissa Ligon
Britta Cruz
Jeff Smith
Alejandro Garcia
Molly Harrell *
Michael Krejewski *
Melinda Register *
Bonnie Goldberg
Leslie Pierce *
Diana Farfan
Lee Ann Kornegay
Travis Teate
Billy Guess *

“Puppy Loves”
Betsy Newman *
Wade Sellers *
Michael Dixon *
Half & Half – Nick & Sarah *
Ted Sbardella *
Melissa Buckner *
Lindsey Wolf *
Izms of Art – Cedric & Mustafa *
Shannon Purvis *
Roe Young *
Caroline Hatchell *
James Shealy *
Lucy Bailey *
Dawn Hunter *
Sarah Kobos *

Kelly Courtney of Sugarhill will have something yummy and chocolate!

You can also shop for the perfect Valentine’s gift with:
Sid & Nancy
Bohumila Augustinova
Tom Chinn – Love Taps
S&S Art Supplies
Frame of Mind
Danielle Howle – Jewelry

Looking for the perfect Valentines Experience?
How bout the DELUXE LOVE package?
Details coming soon!

What’s Love Fest 2010
Jurors

1. Todd Herman, Chief Curator of the Columbia Museum of Art.
2. Karen Watson, Director of the Sumter Gallery of Art.
3. J.J. Ohlinger, Director of CAFfeine, Contemporary Art Forum in Greenville, SC.
4. Alejandro Garcia-Lemos, What’s Love Jury Coordinator.

This year’s event supports Palmetto & LUNA, a non-profit organization promoting Latino arts and culture in South Carolina. Latino theme not required.

FREE TIMES, Sid & Nancy, BAILEYS, Magic Hat and COMUNICAR are sponsors of the event.

For more information
lakorn@bellsouth.net

Susan Lenz & Blues Chapel, women’s work, working women, women who WORK & Eboniramm

I’ve written about my friend, local fiber artist Susan Lenz, before — that’s because in many ways she is one of my she-roes.  The work that Susan does resonates with me on so many different levels — much of it going back to the core of who I am.  Many of you lovely readers may know that, in addition to writing about beer and arts and travel, I am also an adjunct lecturer on women’s and gender studies at the University of South Carolina.  I came to this academic place in my life after spending many years studying sociology, focusing on gender roles and women’s experiences.  When I was in grad school in DC, I read Alice Walker’s book — still one of the most important books in my life — In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.  In this book, Walker talks about how poor, unschooled, and under-valued women have not always had the luxury of canvases on which to express their creativity, and therefore, they captured canvases wherever they could find them.  In the way they planted their gardens, for example, with the deep green of sweet peppers juxtaposed against shiny red tomatoes — in the arrangements of carefully canned produce on their pantry shelves — in the quilts and hooked rugs they made for their homes.  Thus, in so many ways, the work that women traditionally did became, for many women, an expression of the creativity residing in their souls fighting its way out.  This is yet another reason why no one has the right to say what is art or not.  Art is gut and soul — the quilter and embroiderer feel this no less than the ceramicist or sculptor.

Susan Lenz’s primary medium of choice is embroidery.  She calls herself a contemporary embroiderer — I call her a genius.  Susan has taken this traditionally female art medium from the quiet laps of working women (all women are working women — whether they get paid for it or not; and by the way, most don’t) and placed it on the walls of galleries and art exhibits where it rightly belongs.  But don’t expect samplers and doilies when you see Susan Lenz’s work — expect to be moved, shocked, overwhelmed, elated, and devastated.  It can be intense.

Susan’s upcoming exhibit at Gallery 80808 on Lady Street is called Blues Chapel and Last Words.  In it she has taken the images of 24 blues divas and adorned them with the gilded glory anyone who made the contributions they did, deserve.  People like Ma Rainey, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, and Nina Simone.  Susan has literally coronated these women with golden halos endowing them with dignity, engendering reverence.

I’m lifting the following quote from Susan’s blog —

“Early female blues singers lived in a male dominated society, in a segregated country, and worked in an industry that took advantage of their lack of education and opportunity,” Lenz said. “Physical abuse, drug and alcohol dependence, and poverty plagued most. They struggled, made sacrifices, and sang of their woes. They helped change the world for today’s young, black, female vocalists.”

Last Words, the accompanying exhibit which has been integrated very well into this show, represents the miles and hours Susan spent visiting cemetaries, literally across continents, collecting silken grave rubbings from headstones and monuments then bringing them home and transforming them into 30 art quilts.  The arrangement of the exhibit is such that if Blues Chapel represents the Church, then Last Words serves as the church yard.

The opening of the show is Friday night, February 5th from 6 to 8 pm, with a performance by local blues artist Eboniramm beginning at 7 Pm in conjunction with The Blue Martini, which shares a hall with Vista Studio’s gallery.  Eboniramm will be the lady singing the blues in tribute to the artists we will all be honoring on Friday night.  My friend, the artist Susan Lenz, included.  The reception will end at 8, but the gallery will be open until midnight, and the exhibit will also remain open for viewing as well.  Then at 9, Eboniramm will reprise and expand her tribute at the Blue Martini for a $5 cover charge.

It’s going to be a beautiful night — I hope I get to see you there.

For more info visit Susan’s blog at http://artbysusanlenz.blogspot.com

Chef Kelly Courtney

Just in case you haven’t gotten your hands on a copy of the February issue of Lake Murray Magazine, here’s a copy of the text from the article I wrote about our newest gourmand, Chef Kelly Courtney.

Hope you enjoy.

Chef Kelly Courtney and a Manageable Valentine’s Day Meal –

Keep it Simple, Pure & Exquisite

Chef Kelly Courtney’s connection to the land goes back to her childhood in Richland County and rural South Florida where hauling catfish from the water and slicing sugar cane into strips of juicy, sweet candy were her introduction to the perfection of simple local foods. That early appreciation for the pure, simple and exquisite has guided the nationally renowned chef from her Southern roots all the way to presiding over some of the country’s best restaurants, and back again to her South Carolina home. And it is what continues to drive her in her quest for making magical and meaningful meals – especially on Valentine’s Day, when passion and romance are essential ingredients on everyone’s menu.

Named by Food and Wine Magazine as 2001’s best new American chef, Chef Kelly Courtney could easily dazzle her audience with complicated combinations and impossible processes like those she oversaw as Executive Chef at Mod in Chicago or Firefly in Los Angeles. But rather than intimidate, Chef Kelly focuses on empowering her followers by focusing on simplicity.

“So many of the most pure ways of preparing foods are just more meaningful to you and who you are cooking for,” she explains. “Better yet, make the meal together. Plan the menu, shop for your ingredients, and prepare the meal together. Cooking is one of the most passionate ways a couple can spend their time.”

An advocate of sustainable farming and shopping local, Chef Kelly also recommends that cooking couples look first to seasonal produce when planning their romantic Valentine’s meal. “Go with the freshest ingredients you can find,” she encourages. Even in the chill of winter, crispy fresh greens and tasty root crops are still abundant and bursting with more flavor than out-of-season fruits and vegetables which can be stale and tasteless, not to mention shipped from miles away, leaving a carbon footprint that, these days, no one wants to claim. Saturday mornings always find Chef Kelly at the All Local Farmers Market at 701 Whaley Street where she loads up on local breads, cheeses, meats, and produce. After seeing what is fresh and available, she then plans the meals she’ll be making.

“A wonderful way to start preparations for your meal is with a little something to munch on while you’re cooking,” she advises, recommending a slice of local honey comb, dripping with gooey goodness and served on a pristine white plate. Paired with a tasty cheese, served at room temperature so the flavors are at their fullest and richest, the contrast of sweetness and nuttiness is a tempting introduction to the meal to come.

Color is another important consideration when planning a Valentine’s meal. “Most people associate Valentine’s Day with colors in the red and pink family,” she says. “Following this pattern is not only sweet, but it’s sexy, and it’s easy to do while still focusing on fresh, seasonal foods.” Chef Kelly recommends cooking with beets for a slightly atypical, but perfectly fresh and beautiful romantic dinner. “The colors are rich and gorgeous, and beets are abundant during February – it’s a natural choice,” she says.

Another fresh and colorful Chef Kelly recommended option for the day is fresh tuna from your local fish market. “Simple pairings of small plates is the key,” she says.  No one really wants to eat a heavy meal for a romantic dinner – tuna is light and flavorful, also a beautiful color, and easy to work with.”

Of course, no Valentine’s Day dinner would be complete without chocolate and Chef Kelley advises that sweethearts never skimp on quality when purchasing fine chocolates.

“Visit a local gourmet grocer and purchase just a few delicious truffles or excellent-quality chocolate candies containing varying percentages of cocoa content, from thirty to forty to seventy percent,” she says, and serve them on a beautiful plate with dried cherries or candied orange peel. Adding thin slices of a hot chili pepper to the chocolates allows for complementary tastes, as well as a double dose of endorphins – compounds produced naturally by the pituitary gland which resemble opiates and result in a general feeling of well-being.

Whether you achieve it via the food you prepare or how you prepare it, that feeling of well-being should not be underestimated as a necessary ingredient in a pleasant Valentine’s Day dinner experience, according to Chef Kelly. “Cooking with the person you care for is a wonderful way to share the intimacy of the meal and to show them you care,” she says, but it is also fun and it takes the pressure off one individual to perform for the other.

Everyone can relax; everyone can feel good; everyone can have a Happy Valentine’s Day.

Think about W. Heyward Sims & Cage Match: Clarity vs. Chaos

It may just be me, but I think the local visual artist/musician W. Heyward Sims is a bit of a character.  He’s pretty young now, but he already has this quirky, alt-hipster thing going on and, being a woman of a certain age, I can almost see the old coot he is one day going to be.  I like it that the boy has this uncultivated scruffiness about him — affectedness in an artist (in anybody, really) drives me crazy — people need to just be, dammit, and see what happens.  And I like it that he can hold up his end of a conversation.  Hell, I’m thrilled when I can talk to anyone who came out of  the South Carolina public education system and they voluntarily introduce subjects like Mark Rothko and Marcel DuChamp into the conversation.  So, I’m feeling a bit intrigued by Sims’  upcoming show at Frame of Mind.  He’s calling it Cage Match:  Clarity vs. Chaos.  I’m thinking we might just have some thought-provoking art coming our way.

Sims works in mixed media and, from the handful of pieces I’ve seen and heard will be in this show, it looks and sounds like that’s what we’ll get a lot of — think the addition of paper, glass, or even appliance for that matter, to oil, acrylic, or another medium.  I also know for a fact that he is introducing one or more pieces that by their very nature will be controversial.  Hmmm …, art that makes you think, and possibly banter and debate.  I’m down.  One of the pieces already has my feminist ire on end, as much as I appreciate the potential race-relation subtext — without even seeing the piece, it contextually makes me want to laugh at the silly little white  boys I grew up with and the men I fear too many of them became.  But hey, that’s just me — it’ll be interesting to see what other people think.

Thinking is the thing.  The whole premise of Sims’ show demands the viewers to think or walk away confused.  This is good.  I mean, flowers and landscapes are nice but we can all pretty much agree on that.  There’s certainly a place in the art world for pretty.  But what I really like is art that I’m not sure that I like or not.  That sounds antithetical, I know, but think about it.  Isn’t it more challenging to you as a viewer — and more rewarding — if you have to spend some time with a piece of work before you feel like you know it — and possibly love it?

I’m not pretending that the world isn’t full of too many people who feel way too comfortable in their little black and white realms.  It’s easy when you only have two choices to make:  chocolate or vanilla, good or bad, hate or love, right or wrong.  But that kind of artificial reality, and the reticence to recognize that life takes place in the gray areas, is nothing more than a sham existence for lazy people, fearful people, and wimps. As much as those of you who  know what I’m talking about should come out and see Heyward Sims’ show, those of you who don’t, should come and see it even more.

Thinking.  It’s a good thing.

Cage Match:  Clarity vs. Chaos, the February installation in the FOM series, opens on February 4th at 7:05 at Frame of Mind — 1520 Main Street.  See you there.

Looking at LifeChance

It was so nice to see such a great crowd at LifeChance Saturday night — and not just folks who got trucked in, but just a whole lot of people from the community. Here are a few observations:

• The show was great — I love it that the show even exists and that Radenko Pavlovich brings in such fine talent from the far corners for us to see.  The talent and choreography should help to inspire local companies and dancers, especially the contemporary pieces performed by Lia Cirio, her brother Jeffrey Cirio, and Sabi Varga and James Whiteside.  Lia, who literally just got word that she was promoted to Principal dancer at Boston Ballet, is a force to be reckoned with.  Her exhibition of controlled energy is a tutorial for aspiring dancers — every inch of her body  was expressive and beautiful — not a wasted second or movement in her performance.  Total commitment to the dance — amazing.

• Brooklyn Mack rocked.  I am completely biased because I love the boy so, but he was totally on — ON, and it was glorious to watch him take in all the love from the audience.  You have to know how humble he is to understand this.  He continues to see himself as a student, as a struggler, as someone who is working so hard to get where he wants to be — no fears about resting on one’s laurels here.  Not all the stars and wannabes from Columbia are this way, so it’s very refreshing to see.
• That said, who was the chick he was dancing with and where did she come from?  This is a rhetorical question because I know the answer to both of them.  But what I want to know is why she was dancing with Brooklyn.  I’m not going to criticize her and say that she had a bad show — I’m not even going to say the child’s name — I think she just wasn’t up to the part.  Le Corsaire, the pas that she and Brooklyn danced, is all about lightness — we expect our dancers to skitter across the stage — to take flight.  That just wasn’t happening with her last night.

• OK, and while I’m pretending not to be critical, (should I add a “bless her heart” here?), here’s my take on classical variations.  I ONLY want to see them if they are excellent — not just good.  Because any student of ballet who has been at it a while and has some hope of ever having a career even at a fourth or fifth tier company knows how to execute these classical variations.  They may not be excellent or even very good — but they can get ’em done.  If I want to see a future star of tomorrow, I’ll go watch a class or sit in on a YAGP competition.  For $30 — I want to see a pro.  Like  Meaghan Hinkis out of ABT II who we only got to see dance Don Q. This chick took a part that I’ve seen done way too many times and added her own energy to it to such a degree that I actually liked it.  So many dancers, when they do these tried and true (read dull and boring, imho) classical variations, work so hard to be precise that they suck the very soul from the dance.  This is why I shudder a little bit every time I hear music by Minkus, Asafiev, or Adolphe Adam.  Here’s to being so good that you add your own interpretation to ancient choreography. Go Meaghan Hinkis.

• I’ve never seen the Trey McIntyre Project perform before, but after watching two of their dancers last night — I’m going to put it on my to-do list effective immediately.  Dylan G-Bowley and Chanel DaSilva brought synergy to the stage last night in a way you don’t always see in modern dance.  Loved it.

• Can we talk height for a minute?  Little DeeDee Weatherly-Rosner, who went to NCSA with Annie and Bonnie, is s0 short — she’s like a tyke, right?  Well looking at Radenko’s corps last night, DeeDee was, well, she was mid-sized.  For some reason the Columbia Classical Ballet company this year appears to be made up of very talented kinder-gardeners.  This isn’t a criticism — it’s just an observation.  Wee dancers.  Tiny.

• And speaking of DeeDee — good show, Child.  You stood out on the stage and, as an NCSA mom, I was proud of you.

• OK, another observation — are we dressing up again?  I say this because, back in the day, LifeChance was the night that we put on the ritz — tuxes and sequins and faux fur (yeah, I know this is magical thinking on my part — I have to pretend that all fur is fake to suppress my compelling desire to drench it in a gooey red substance).  I’m thinking that we started dressing down after 9/11 — is that right?  At the risk of sounding like my friend The Shop Tart, who is clearly the authority on finery, I couldn’t help but notice a bit more bling last night.  And black velvet — which I was even wearing myself — and I loved it –ain’t nothing that feels any better on the bod that black velvet.  I’m OK if we are dressing up again — I was telling Jeffrey that since we don’t go to the Phil anymore that I rarely get to do it up.  To which he replied, Come to the Phil, then.  Probably not.  I’m betting that next year we’ll see more tuxes — which is good for me.   The Beer Doc looks especially fine in his tux.

• Finally, I just want to give a shout out to Lee Lumpkin — who may be the most generous woman in town.  Her devotion to Radenko and Columbia Classical Ballet is the sole reason that company is alive, especially in the recent economic malaise.  I’m sure Radenko knows this.  Her support has allowed him to realize his dream — and it has allowed us to attend some quite excellent after-parties year after year.  Thanks to Lee and Mike for their hospitality and generosity.  You both rock.