San Diego’s Top Weekend Arts Events: From The Year Of The Rat To Beethoven
Speaker 1: 00:00 On our weekend preview. If you've been feeling like your new year didn't turn out as happy as you hoped, you've got a chance for a new one this weekend. Plus the birthday celebration continues for one of classical music's great composers, San Diego dance theater returns to the stage, and it's your last chance to see a unique photography exhibit. Journey me is KPBS arts editor, Julia Dixon Evans. She's here making her mid day edition debut and Julia, welcome. Hi Maureen. So let's start out with the lunar new year. It kicks off this weekend. What are some of the festivities Speaker 2: 00:34 going on? Well, it's the year of the rat and people born in the year of their rat are clever. They're stubborn, optimistic, and thrifty. But the year of the rat is supposed to be a pretty creative year. Celebrations traditionally run for about 15 days and they're a bunch of events going on throughout these two weeks in town. First step, there is a big Vietnamese Tet festival at the mere Mesa community park that's all weekend long. And another big celebration will take place at the house of China at Balboa park. What can we look forward to at Balboa park? Well, there's of course the traditional lion dance and dragon dances, but there'll be plenty of other performances too, including some traditional Chinese harp instruments, and there's lots of good food. Speaker 1: 01:22 The house of China, Chinese new year festival takes place Saturday and Sunday in Balboa Park's international cottages area. Well, someone we know is celebrating his 250th Speaker 2: 01:34 he has Beethoven turns tune in 50 this year, and the San Diego symphony has been performing his works all season long and cleaning this weekend with his pastoral Egmont overture and Haydn's Oxford symphony. Why is heightened in this Beethoven birthday lineup? Beethoven was a student of Haydn, so it's only fitting that they perform his iconic Oxford symphony to modern audiences. It sounds traditional enough, but I think it was pretty unusual at the time in the way Haydn's structured the piece. To me, it's just very strong and lovely, and there'll be rounding out the performance with Beethoven's pastoral, right, and the pastor, I was such a delightful, lighthearted romp for pull us out of our misery. Speaker 3: 02:41 [inaudible]. Speaker 2: 02:42 The first movement is one of those omnipresent pieces. Everyone's heard before somewhere, but there are five total movements each justice sweeping and beautiful. So there's lots to discover. The San Diego zoo symphony Speaker 1: 02:54 performs Beethoven's pastoral tonight and tomorrow night at Copley symphony Speaker 2: 03:00 San Diego dance theater is the group that puts together trolley dances. But now the returning to a traditional stage for a performance. Yes, after a string of site specific projects, it feels like a long awaited return. There's something really unique about creating or experiencing site specific or immersive dance. The tone is different. The materials, there's no literal stage. So back on a stage, again, with this production of Janus, we can focus differently on the choreography or on the music. Now Janus is an annual program. And can you tell us what it's about? Well, according to ancient Roman myth, Janus is the God of beginnings and endings, and he has two heads. So San Diego dance theaters put together this repertory concert every January, the ultimate beginning for the last four years. Kind of like looking ahead and looking backwards at the same time. So what kinds of works will they be performing? Well, they're spotlighting a new piece of choreography by Jean Isaacs, who's their founder. It's set to music by contemporary composer Caroline SHA. Asics worked on this piece during the company's residency at the airport last summer, which is just a really cool use of the airport. If you ask me and you say the Carolyn Shaw composition is worth a listen. Yes. The composition is called Partita for eight voices and it won that Pulitzer prize in 2012 so let's listen to a bit of Shaw's Partita for eight voices. Speaker 3: 04:40 [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 2: 04:48 She is such an innovative composer and the acapella vocals feel sometimes a bit unsettling and sometimes a bit lovely. There's a new premiere of work by the company's new associate artistic director, Terry Wilson. Tell us about that. This one crossroads features that full company of dancers, so it'd be really vibrant and fun. It's inspired by 1958 film by a Japanese film maker, K a Suki kin Ashita, the ballad of Nara Yama. I don't know if you saw Midsummer, but it feels like mid summer was also inspired by that film. No spoilers, but remote communities with aging rituals and a lot of self-examination. San Diego dance theater, performance Janus for at Seville theater at city college tonight through Sunday. And finally in the weekly KPBS arts newsletter that you're very familiar with, you'll list exhibitions and shows that are closing soon. So what's closing this weekend? Well, it's your last chance to see the Luis Gonzalez Palma exhibition at the free SCSU downtown gallery. Speaker 2: 05:53 So tell us about Luis Gonzalez Palma. He's a photographer and collage artist, and this is kind of a career spanning retrospective for him. It's called constructed mythologies. It's been at the downtown calorie since October. And what I love about these pieces, particularly the portraits, is that they feel like icons, like he's really building his own myths. There's a lot of story captured in these faces and you have until Sunday to see Lewis Gonzalez polymers constructed mythologies exhibit at the SDSU downtown gallery. Be sure to subscribe to the KPBS arts newsletter to get more news and events from San Diego's art scene and find more arts events at kpbs.org/arts and I've been speaking with KPBS arts editor, Julia Dixon, Evans. Julia. Thank you. Thank you.
