San Diego's Top Weekend Arts Events: From Civic Art To A Modern Dionysus

February 14, 2020 at 8:03 AM PST

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:31 Speaker 3: 01:13 Speaker 2: 01:13 Speaker 1: 01:41 Speaker 2: 02:07 Speaker 1: 03:11 Speaker 4: 03:20 Speaker 2: 03:30 Speaker 4: 03:34 Speaker 1: 03:58 Speaker 2: 04:09 Speaker 1: 04:20 Speaker 2: 04:25 Speaker 1: 05:13 Speaker 2: 05:30 Speaker 1: 05:43 Speaker 2: 05:48 Speaker 3: 06:18 Speaker 1: 06:19 Happy Valentine's day, love and culture go hand in hand. On this weekend preview, we're looking at a love song production by the San Diego ballet plus civic art, surf punk at the Oregon pavilion and a local band writing original music for an award winning play. Journey me is KPBS arts editor, Julia Dixon Evans. Julia, welcome. Hi Marine. The San Diego ballet presents a romance filled performance, dances of love and laughter and that's all weekend long. What can we expect? Well, if you want to get fancy and celebrate romance this weekend, it looks like a really joyful and diverse lineup. I like that it's not taking itself too seriously. Voices of spring in fact is this pretty famous choreography by the Royal ballet's Frederick Ashton. It's set to the fooling Shiman waltz by Johann Strauss, and it's actually kind of cheeky, but it's still very Regal and traditional [inaudible] and it's the San Diego premiere of that choreography, which is kind of amazing since it's from 1977 and also in the program, San Diego valleys. Favorite romantic pieces set to teens by Nat King Cole, Roberta flack, Rachmaninoff to name a few and plus artistic director. Have you ever Alaska's interpretation of a Midsummer night's dream to quote the barred the course of true love. Naira did run smooth, ain't that the truth? The San Diego ballet performs dances of love and laughter at the Lyceum theater tonight and Saturday at 8:00 PM and on Sunday at two 30 in the afternoon, the Greek gods give love and odd twist of their own in a West coast debut at the old globe, Pulitzer prize finalist playwright Madeline George brings her play. Hurricane Diane to San Diego. Tell us a little bit about hurricane Diane. Yeah, so this plate just opened at the Oak globe last night. It's a reimagination of the story of the Greek God Dionysus. If Dionysus returned to the modern world and what the globe described as a Butch Gardner called Diane. She is tasked with seducing a bunch of Housewives. What's more romantic than that? For Valentine's day? Nothing. Now the old globe tapped a local band to write an original score for this production. Tell us about the music. Yeah. The band is golden house based in San Diego. They have this folksy and soulful indie sound and what I've heard from their songwriting and composition is really impressive. Not only did golden hell write the music, they did musical direction for the plays run here. So what did that involve? And they were pretty involved in the production. They wrote music lyrics and theatrical harmonies and they produced the recordings with San Diego producer Jeff Berkley. They also work closely with the cast and crew taught the actors the songs too. Let's listen to a clip from golden held performing some of their original music for hurricane Diane, the silver August Dionysus. So day we're seniors. Yay. You have stung us with ducks to Sealy posts. You had turned us from the kitchen to the fish store, the old Globes production of hurricane Diane will run through March 8th now a brand new exhibition that celebrates public art opens on Saturday at the central library. What's that all about? Well, this is a small fraction of the city of San Diego's civic art collection plus new works by contemporary San Diegans. In kind of a conversation with those pieces and the title, the exhibition is fear, no art. What does fear have to do with public art? And we'll ask, I asked the curator, Dr. Lara Bullock about this and she said that their aim in this exhibition and with the civic art collection in general is to show San Diegans that art doesn't have to be intimidating by interacting with are seeing it everywhere and it's sparking discussions and learning. The more people will feel like there are no barriers to creating or consuming art, it's to break down the fear. How big is the city civic art collection? It's big around 800 pieces, but what's impressive to me is the scope. So there is a portal on the city website where you can explore the collection online or you can find, um, public art pieces on display using an interactive map of the city. Fear. No art opens on Saturday at the central library gallery with a reception at noon and the exhibition runs through mid-May. Now, speaking of public art, there's something unexpected happening at Spreckels organ pavilion on Saturday night punk rock, the frites are coming home to perform a free Alegis show at the Balboa park, Oregon pavilion. And they started in Poway. So they kind of have that blink one 82 Cinderella story arc going for them. They have a brand new album out, everything seems like yesterday. Tell us about their sound. Well, they're classified as surf punk, which makes more sense with our earlier work. That early stuff is real gritty, kind of like the strokes, but this new is almost tender. It really seems stripped down sonically mellow, but emotionally rot, like a good Valentine's antidote. [inaudible] the frites perform a free all ages show at the Spreckels organ pavilion on Saturday at 8:00 PM. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly KPBS arts newsletter to get stories, news, and events in San Diego's art scene. Sign up and find more arts events at kpbs.org/arts I've been speaking with KPBS arts editor, Julia Dixon, Evans and Julia. Thank you. Thank you.

By KPBS Public Media

It's Valentine's Day weekend. There's a lot of arts and culture events in San Diego, from surf rock to Johann Strauss and Greek god modern gardeners to civic art, and we have all the details.