San Diego Weekend Arts Events: City Ballet, DNA New Works, Sparks Summer Showcase, 'Beehive' And Julianna Zachariou
Speaker 1: 00:00 This weekend city ballet returns to the stage. There's a chance to check out brand new works of playwriting in person at the LA Jolla Playhouse. There's an art exhibition made of plants and a collaboration of visual art and music at the Casbah. Joining me with all the details as KPBS arts editor and producer Julia Dickson Evans, and welcome Julia. Speaker 2: 00:23 Hi Maureen. Thanks for having me. So Speaker 1: 00:26 City ballet kicks off their new season. This weekend. Tell us about these shows. Speaker 2: 00:30 This is not only the first in-person season for them after what's been a pretty productive virtual pandemic season, but it's also their first ever season in the summer. It's usually an off season or a festival season or teaching season for dancers. So this seems like a nice gift for the dancers, as well as for the audiences and kind of to celebrate that each of the shows this weekend we'll have a reception outdoors with the dancers and the whole company as well. And what will they be performing? So they're doing two new pieces. There's choreography by their own Jeff Gonzalez, who he often does really emotive and powerful stuff for them. And city ballet does this blend of classical and contemporary ballet from everything, the choreography, the costumes, and the music choices. So one of these pieces this weekend is called unbroken, which is about resiliency. And the other is within the hourglass desert, which is a reflection on time. I've seen tiny bits of rehearsals for these two pieces and they look really fantastic. Speaker 1: 01:37 Okay. City ballet returns to the stage with two shows at the Horton grand theater downtown tonight and Saturday night at seven 30, the LA Jolla Playhouse is offering free performances. This weekend, part of their DNA new works series. So Julia, what can we expect? Speaker 2: 01:55 DNA new works. That's a two week festival and it just kicked off this weekend. They're doing readings of four new plays onsite at the Playhouse. And this weekend's works include Sumo by Elisa Sanai. Drang Sumo is set in S Sumo wrestling training center, and it follows six men who have who've committed to this tradition, this lifestyle. And there's another play. All the men who frightened me by no ideas. This one is a Playhouse commission and the story follows tie the main character. Uh, when his wife finds out that she can't get pregnant, Ty decides to wean himself off of his testosterone to carry the baby himself. And many of the characters in the story are actually in the forms of hauntings of men from their past the Speaker 1: 02:46 DNA new work series runs through next weekend. This weekend, all the men who frightened me takes place tonight at seven 30 and Saturday at 2:00 PM. And Sumo is Saturday night at seven 30. Now for green thumb art lovers, you're recommending an unconventional solo exhibition in a new spot for the more unconventional side of art. Tell us about what's on view at trash Lam gallery. Speaker 2: 03:12 Yeah, this isn't a shopping gallery in south park. And right now they're showing work by artists Britton, new backer. She's a former dancer and also has roots in the punk and DIY scene and not necessarily in the trained art world, but what she does is these incredible sculptures. They use things from the natural world like animals and plants, and she'll build these incredibly intricate sculptures using succulents planted into skulls, like a, like a form of plant taxidermy and at the gallery, there's fine. Art photographs of these sculptures. Plus some of the actual sculptures. One is this massive piece with mosses and grasses and then tiny bones and teeth sticking out. Also, the gallery has a stack of magnifying glasses, so you can get way up close to see all the detail, Speaker 1: 04:04 Brittany new backers exhibition in the middle between this and that guardians of the fertile void is on view through August 8th, trash lamb gallery is open Thursday through Saturday, noon to six and Friday noon to five in the music world. The band, the color 49 is holding a record release show tonight at the Casbah, but there's a special visual art connection here. Tell us about their new animated music video, Speaker 2: 04:30 The color 49. They worked with two collaborators from, from Mexico on a song, musician, Rubin Allbritton, and then border artists. You go CrossFit. I just profiled CrossFit this week. He's one of the recipients of the 2021 San Diego art prize. And his work is great. He's a draftsman. So everything he does is drawing. He's very improvisational, meaning he has a general idea of what he's doing, but the process of making the art informs a lot of these details. One of these trademarks is stop motion animations. They use the process as a part of the story. In fact, he won the Smithsonian national portrait gallery competition in 2019 for an animated portrait. He did of a migrant, his work really challenges. The idea that visual art has to be static, a Hugo CrossFit illustrated and animated this song. What would I know for the color 49? He used a handheld camera to take something like 700 photos per drawing. And it kind of looks like a ghost is drawing them on the page. I talked to CrossFit a little about this process and what inspired the book Speaker 3: 05:39 To just be reading the lyrics immediately. I know I could already see if the video and I can see the imagery that I wanted this idea of, um, of how, um, you know, in a way, love is interrupted by this border and then love always triumphs over the border, but then the border comes back. And so then it's, there's this idea of this discussing struggle of things trying to come together, but then being torn apart by this very geometric element of the line of a border, Speaker 1: 06:07 The color 49 will perform at the Casbah tonight in a fundraiser for the museum school doors open at eight 30 and the performances begin at nine 30 are music video for what would I know a collaboration with artists? Ugo Crossway is out on all platforms today for details on these and more arts events and to sign up for Julia's weekly arts newsletter, go to kpbs.org/arts. I've been speaking with KPBS arts editor and producer Julia Dixon Evans, and as always, thank you, Julia. Thank you, Maureen. Have a great weekend. Speaker 4: 08:55 [inaudible].
