Draw Out The Blue Line's Magic

The Blue Line is a DC phenom, four rockers who met out of college and took their passion for music out of the garage and into the nightlife in Adams Morgan and U Street combining musical talents, rocking out with their own tunes to a driving, insistent beat that is at once passionate and musically adroit. The sleek tones and satiny vocals of lead singer and rhythm guitar Ben Payes synchronize with lead guitarist Ross Jacobson's intensely saturated riffs sending out a strong emotional energy. Nick Scialli on bass and Dave Chaletzky's percussion demonstrate strong command of their respective instruments to stand out in harmonic and sometimes dissonant counterpoint to create the band's unique sound.

Aranoyas, Fantasy Girl and Underwater Dreams are first out of the box on the new CD. Hear 'em all at Blue Line Rock.

The band - sounding a high octane blend with mellow notes - creates a magical energy all its own.

Dialogue in the Digital Age

"The act of theater is the act of communion between someone in a living space with other people in that space. What's important about theater is
actually its scarcity. As you enter the digital age and everything can be
digitized, a live event where someone is physically present cannot actually be
commodified" [i.e., bought and sold as a product].

"The core experience cannot be reproduced, and that's incredibly precious."

Mike Daisey, on state of American theater
Quoted in The Washington Post, January 2, 2009

Yoga Shalom

Combining the ancient spiritual practices of yoga with the Jewish morning service that celebrates the Sabbath may seem a bissle unconventional but, in fact, a "yoga shalom" service I participated in this morning provided an ideal immersion into prayer, music, meditation and movement. The Hebrew word shalom means peace - a perfect focus for attuning mind and body, to take a rest from the normal rush and preoccupation that fills our daily lives that too often keeps us from indulging in the day of rest that the Sabbath is designed to afford us.

Cantor Lisa Levine, who led the service, has modified the Shabbat morning service to couple the elements of traditional communal prayer and yoga practice with a very personalized spiritual experience. The congregants from Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase, Md., participating in the service this morning, who traditionally come to services wearing kippahs and talit (yarmulkas and prayershawls) prepared for traditional worship instead donned sweats and workout clothes crowding into a candlelit classroom to the mellow tones of Hebrew prayers on a specially prepared CD, laying down yoga mats, warming up and stretching while preparing to celebrate the Sabbath in this unique way.

The mindset for prayer in Hebrew is called kavanah, meaning "intent". In traditional mediatative practice, kavanah would be the idea of being "in the moment". As a welcome into the service, Cantor Lisa invited us to determine for ourselves what our kavanah would be for this moment, this particular morning of prayer, this day of rest, then led us through a flow of yoga poses to the calming melodies of the Sabbath. It was a wonderful way to pray and a welcome spiritual immersion into Shabbat peace, Shabbat holiness, Shabbat neshama.

And All That Jazz...

First, true confessions: last time I took dance class was during the Carter administration.

But I was very young then. Now, not so much, but interested in seeing what it feels like to move this middle-aged body as a dancer.

So I signed up for a class at Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in Takoma Park, Md. Yesterday was the first class. And while moving my body vigorously in rhythmic sequence over and over to music felt familiar, the body itself didn't look too familiar. And it didn't respond to my brain's commands to turn out, to lift, to kick and lunge to the insistent hip-hop beat in quite the ways I'd expected.

But here's what I can say in my body's defense: while it couldn't quite reach its former agility in limber kicks, gravity defying leaps, and perfect turnout, it could still deliver in style.

Today, I'm just sore. But the best part of the exercise -- not just lamenting the loss of my youth -- was how much fun it is to d-a-n-c-e, and all that jazz. Photo credit: Liz Lerman Dance Exchange

The Soul of the Refrigerator

So, when my artist-friend Rosana told me she was redesigning refrigerators to enter into an art exhibit, my first question was, "What the heck for?" Then, she told me this was to be an entry in a "recycled" art exhibition, and I thought, why not.

Her latest creation, entitled Hearts and Minds and done in collaboration with the teaching staff of Creative Adventures, the non-profit arts education program in elementary schools that my friend created, is the proof of the pudding. Hearts and Minds inspired students at Creative Adventures' summer camp to "tread lightly on the earth" and reclaim natural beauty out of manufactured stuff. This refrigerator door was rescued from the snack bar of a suburban swimming pool and was transformed using brown paper packing from a mail-order delivery, bottle caps, telephone wire and cast-off materials from several junk drawers.

To see details on the coming exhibition on recycled refrigerators and energy savings as an art form at Washington, D.C.'s, National Building Museum in the dog days of August and early September, visit this cool spot for a breath of fresh air.

What Price Art?

Not Van Gogh's Sunflowers
Don't quit the day job. For artists of every hue, this has become conventional wisdom. After all, Van Gogh died destitute in 1890, yet just under 100 years later, in 1987, Japanese insurance magnate Yasuo Goto paid $39,921,750 for Van Gogh's "Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers" at auction at Christie's London, at the time, a record setting price for one of the now venerated artist's work.

What of talented artists who today labor under guise of anonymity, or try mightily for recognition in a marketplace where "what is art" is defined as subjective and "what is popular" might be a better guide to how collectors and amateurs alike purchase paintings, sculpture, multimedia and other pieces?

Or what of this: the award-winning painter and sculptor Dorothy Silverstein Stevens who has her first one-woman show at age 85 to great acclaim but no public notice; whose work is admired but undervalued; who sells work to admiring friends but really deserves to be in public collections?

Now 90, with a life of art behind her, she paints out of passion and inspires awe among admirers. Price is not the object, yet the artist and her art deserve to be appreciated. For what is art if no one sees it? Dorothy Silverstein Stevens creates just such inspirational artistry. I post one of her paintings here: you be the judge.

D.C. on the Fringe

Speaking of off-beat, Washington's 2008 Fringe Festival is currently in full swing. According to its organizers, the Capital Fringe is about "unjuried, risk taking, independent performing arts." The city provides a cornucopia of performances - more than 600 individual performances involving over 200 companies in 30 venues, located all around the District. A moveable feast.

The festival inspires artists and arts organizations to venture into uncharted territory. So it was fitting that a Theatre Lab production called Parade would also push the edge of entertainment. A critical hit on Broadway during its brief run in 1999, the musical was conceived and directed by Hal Prince. It is not a musical in the traditional sense of the American musical, but a serious look at a little examined time in American history: the trial and lynching of Leo Frank in the Atlanta of the 1910's - a place still unashamedly racist and anti-Semitic. The crime Frank was accused of, murdering a 14-year old factory worker in his pencil factory, and the subsequent trial where witnesses were coached to testify against this Jewish man from Brooklyn who was and would always be a stranger in white Southern society, is portrayed affectingly by Buzz Mauro.

Musical it is, though a tragedy at that. According to the program notes, the musical score is one of the toughest in all of musical theatre. Atonal, with complex harmonies, an experience professional company would still have difficulty telling this long, complicated story through music and dialog. Performing in the auditorium of a church near the National Museum of American Art and the Verizon Center, this cast - a mix of amateurs, professionals and newcomers, teens and adults - brought the story to life with uneven finesse but great passion.

And the story of Parade, difficult though it may be, is worth hearing. Fitting within the context of the Capitol Fringe Festival, this was "unjuried, risk taking" performance artistry. A moveable feast, Washington's cup overfloweth. I urge natives and visitors alike: partake.