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Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

Dance fans have several treats in store in early May, with the Kansas City Ballet’s final performances in the Lyric Theatre featuring the choreography of Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp and Ballet Artistic Director William Whitener, along with the Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company’s 20th anniversary season finale, a production centering on “hits” from the company’s two decades of performances.  For something more unusual in dance, check out the literally high-flying acrobatic dance company Quixotic performing with the Kansas City Symphony, and The Aluminum Show, a most unusual production which wraps up this season’s Harriman-Jewell performances. 

Choral and vocal aficionados have a Kansas City Chorale concert on tap, featuring music inspired by Shakespeare. Opera fans can enjoy the evergreen classic Hänsel und Gretel at the University of Kansas School of Music and Dance. The Greater Kansas City Guild of Organists presents its marathon Bachathon concert and we also have season wrap-up concerts by several good community orchestras around the area.

Kansas City Symphony
Stern Conducts Dvořák and Brahms
Friday and Saturday, April 29 and 30, at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 1, at 2:00 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
11th St and Central Ave, Kansas City, MO

For tickets call 816-471-0400 or visit online at www.kcsymphony.org.

As noted in our last column detailing events for the last two weeks of April, this weekend’s Kansas City Symphony concert includes at least two works featuring the theme of “Creation,” including “The Representation of Chaos,” the opening section of Franz Joseph Haydn’s monumental oratorio The Creation, and La création du monde, by the early 20th-century French composer Darius Milhaud, who has a very different “take” on the same theme.

Also on the program are Dvořák’s romantic Symphony No. 8 and another premiere by Avner Dorman, who seems to be one of music director Michael Stern’s favorite contemporary talents, called Frozen in Time.

 Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company
Free Concert at the Nelson Atkins
Sunday, May 1 at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
4525 Oak St, Kansas City, MO

For more information visit http://wylliams-henry.org/

These two free concerts will feature a newly-commissioned work to celebrate the art opening of Ferment by Roxie Payne.

 
Greater Kansas City Guild of Organists
Bachathon XXXII
Sunday, May 1 at 2:00 p.m.
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral
415 W 13th St, Kansas City, MO

Free admission. For more information visit http://www.kcago.com/

For 32 years, performers from throughout the Kansas City area, consisting of organists, choirs, instrumentalists and vocalists, have been presenting the music of Johann Sebastian Bach each spring at Bachathon. This year’s session starts at 2:00 p.m. and lasts until…who knows when? “Come when you can…leave when you must” is this group’s tag line.

Performers will include the choirs of Village Presbyterian Church, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Community of Christ Stone Church, Valley View Methodist Church, Colonial Presbyterian Church and many others, along with Ray Smith, David Pickering and Jan Kraybill, among others.

University of Kansas School of Music
Hänsel und Gretel
Sunday, May 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Continuing on May 3, 5, and 8 at 7:30 p.m. (May 8 performance at 2:30 p.m.)
Crafton-Preyer Theatre, Murphy Hall
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
For tickets call 785-864-3982 or visit online at www.music.ku.edu.

Despite its fairy tale origins, Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel is not just for kids.  The story itself, like many of the Grimm Brothers fairy tales is, well, rather grim, as was the custom in early 19th-century Germany where such “children’s tales” often dealt with real life horrors such as trickery, child abandonment, death of parents, being lost, and being the victim of criminals.  The music, moreover, is hardly childlike; Humperdinck was a disciple of Richard Wagner’s, and followed his master’s inclination towards complex musical language and intricate harmonic fabric.

It is also one of the most tuneful, spirited, and altogether delightful operas ever composed.  So it is especially appropriate for student performances, and here done by young talents from the University of Kansas School of Music.  Check out the conducting of David Neely, a fine orchestra master who works during the summertime directing professional singers at the Des Moines Metro Opera, and also the choreography of Jerel Hilding during the dance sequences.

 
Philharmonia of Greater Kansas City 
Tour of Europe
Sunday, May 1 at 3:00 p.m.
Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel, Park University
8700 NW River Park Dr, Parkville, MO

Free admission. For more information visit http://www.kcphilharmonia.org/

Conductor Travis Jürgens brings his Kansas City Philharmonia’s season to a close with the music of several European composers. Featured will be the Finlandia of Finnish giant Jean Sibelius, Les Preludes of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, Silouan’s Song by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, and the German composer Robert Schumann’s challenging Symphony No. 4.

 
Kansas City Ballet
Jerome Robbins’ Moves
Thursday, May 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, May 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, May 7 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, May 8 at 2:00 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
11th St and Central Ave, Kansas City, MO

For tickets call 816-931-2232 or visit online at www.kcballet.org.

For its final performances in the Lyric Theatre before moving to the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts next fall, the Kansas City Ballet has programmed three different ballets showing the talents of three major American choreographers, one of them the company’s own Artistic Director.

The program will open with The Catherine Wheel Suite by Twyla Tharp, performed to music by David Byrne of The Talking Heads. Created in 1981 for BBC television, The Catherine Wheel was originally an evening-length series of episodes presenting the disintegration of the nuclear family, while ruminating on the detonation of nuclear weapons. The dance ensemble includes specifically defined characters: The Leader and The Chorus, The Mother, The Father, The Sister, The Brother, The Maid, The Pet, and The Poet. A pineapple prop plays a part as its natural self and as a symbol for explosive devices. The New Yorker calls work “a multi-level poetic fantasy with a twist of scalawag comedy.” The Catherine Wheel Suite consists of excerpts from the full-length production.

Tharp, one of today’s most talented choreographers, created Nine Sinatra Songs, performed several years ago by the Ballet, and Billy Joel’s Movin’ Out as well as a number of other works.

Second, the Ballet will perform a world premiere by its Artistic Director William Whitener, called Mercy of the Elements, set to music by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Whitener says “I have chosen the rarely-performed Quintet in B-flat Major for Flute, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon, and Piano as the music for my new ballet because of its unusual combination of instruments and its element of surprise. The score is filled with quirkiness, gorgeous melody lines and great depth of feeling all of which lend themselves to dancing—especially when played live by musicians at our May performances.”

The third and eponymous work on the program is the Kansas City premiere of the ballet Moves by the legendary Jerome Robbins, who created the dance sequences for West Side Story, The King and I, The Pajama Game, Gypsy, and many other Broadway shows. Performed without musical accompaniment, Moves debuted in 1959 and was a revolutionary step in modern ballet. It is subtitled “A Ballet in Silence About Relationships,” and is peopled with characters working out their problems. Today the ballet speaks to an entirely different generation than that for which it was created, but illustrates that relationships today are both as timeless and effervescent as they ever were.

Harriman-Jewell Series
The Aluminum Show
Thursday, May 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, May 6 at 8:00 p.m.
Folly Theater
12th St and Central Ave, Kansas City, MO

For tickets call 816-415-5025 or visit online at www.hjseries.org.

The Harriman-Jewell Series concludes its 2010–11 season this weekend with one of the most unusual dance performances you will ever see.  The Aluminum Show is a production by a series of modern dance performers that “uses special effects, creative mechanisms, and acrobatic dance to make inanimate objects come to life.” The show’s creator, Ilan Azriel, developed this avant garde use of metallic elements, and is assisted by Yuval Kedem, an expert in designing accessories and effects. The result is a kind of acrobatic machine-assisted dance performance, which according to the publicity materials is “a foil-packed performance full of energy, emotion, and personality, as the silver industrial materials create a luminous and reflective world.”

Materials used in the show are recovered from industrial uses, so this has to be one of the most imaginative examples or recycling you can find.

The story of the show concerns a young machine determined to reunite with its parents. According the program notes: “During its travels through a futuristic world ruled by bizarre technology, it finds adventure, excitement and even a human friend, and does whatever it takes to get back home in one piece.”

A review in Theatre Mania describes one of the segments of the show: “A phalanx of black velvet screens—the sort used by puppeteers to levitate their iridescent creations in black–light shows—is stretched across the stage. Little aluminum inch-worm ducts then appear, peeping out of the numerous orifices along the black wall, singing and dancing to a medley of Stayin' Alive and Ghostbusters. At one point, the six lead performers—four wielding appendages attached to wands and the other two manipulating a head and chest—form a rudimentary giant creature onstage that is then marched out into the theater.” The music ranges from “heavy metal to electronic minimalism,” according to The Independent of London.

Words probably don’t do it justice; you have to see it to understand.  Or, check out one of the many video clips on YouTube.

Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance (KcEMA) presents
Dark Matter: Orbit
Friday, May 6 at 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, May 7 at 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.
Arvin Gottlieb Planetarium at Union Station
30 W Pershing Rd, Kansas City, MO

For tickets call 816-460-2020 or visit online at www.unionstation.org.

Dark Matter is a collaboration of composers, performers, and scientists, which “fuses cutting-edge technology with exceptional musical artistry.” The result is an art form that blurs the boundaries between performance, education, and composition. The group returns to the Planetarium at Union Station to perform Orbit, an original production featuring live electro-acoustic music by Daniel Eichenbom and Richard Johnson, performed by Rebecca Ashe and Cheryl Melfi. The music is accompanied by a full-screen projection with surround sound, with narration by astronomer Bob Riddle.

Heritage Philharmonic
Young Artist Showcase
Saturday, May 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Performing Arts Center , Blue Springs High School
2000 NW Ashton Dr, Blue Springs, MO

Free admission. For more information visit http://www.heritagephilharmonic.org/

The Heritage Philharmonic performs a concert featuring the winners of the annual Young Artists Scholarship Program, which it co-sponsors with the Kansas City Music Teachers Association. On tap for the concert are Bizet’s Symphony in C, Schubert’s Overture to Rosamunde, and piano and string solos by the young artist winners.

Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company
20th Anniversary Season Finale
Friday, May 13 at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, May 14 at 8:00 p.m.
White Recital Hall, James C. Olson Performing Arts Center
4949 Cherry, Kansas City, MO

For tickets call 816-235-6222 or visit online at http://wylliams-henry.org

It is hard to believe that Mary Pat Henry’s Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company has been around for two decades, but so it is. Celebrating the group’s 20th anniversary, this final concert of the season will feature the best pieces from the twenty years of the company, plus a company premiere of Session for Six, by renown modern choreographer Anna Sokolow in celebration of her own anniversary…her 100th birthday.

Kansas City Symphony
Symphony Quixotic
Friday and Saturday, May 13 and 14, at 8:00 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
11th St and Central Ave, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-471-0400 or visit online at www.kcsymphony.org.

Musicians of the Kansas City Symphony join with the eclectic dance group Quixotic in this production featuring classical music and acrobatic aerial modern dance. According to publicity materials, the performance will feature “classical music, modern dance, aerial acrobatics and contemporary design.” No specific program for the performance has been announced as of press time, but Quixotic is always highly entertaining and it will be interesting to see the results of the group's collaboration with the symphony.

Kansas City Chorale
Shakespeare in Song
Saturday, May 14 at 7:30 p.m.
Country Club Christian Church
6101 Ward Parkway, Kansas City, Missouri
Sunday, May 15 at 2:00 p.m.
Asbury United Methodist Church
5400 W 75th St (at Nall Ave), Overland Park, KS

For tickets call 816-235-6222 or visit online at www.kcchorale.org

This unusual KC Chorale concert will feature choral music spanning several centuries and inspired by the plays of William Shakespeare, interspersed with scenes from Shakespearean dramas as performed by Kansas City actors Robert Brand, John Rensenhouse, and Cinnamon Schultz. 

The concert, developed in coordination with the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, will present text both spoken and sung from The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure, Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale, and this summer’s Heart of America Shakespeare Festival production, Macbeth.

Lee’s Summit Symphony
Family Concert: A Night of Movie Magic
Saturday, May 14 at 7:00 p.m.
Lee's Summit High School Bernard C. Campbell Performing Arts Center
400 SE Blue Pkwy, Lee's Summit, MO

Tickets available in advance at Hy-Vee East or Hy-Vee West, Lee’s Summit, MO, or at the door.  For more information visit http://www.lssymphony.org/

The Lee’s Summit Symphony wraps up its 2010–11 concert season with a concert of theme music from popular movies. 

By Don Dagenais

City Classics Music and Dance Columnist; Classical Contributor

A lifelong classical music fan, Don Dagenais is a frequent preview speaker for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and has taught classical music and opera courses at several Kansas City venues. He has served on the boards of directors of a number of performing arts organizations including the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Lyric Opera Guild, UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, Opera Volunteers International, the Civic Opera Theater of Kansas City, Inspiration Point Fine Arts Colony, Octarium, and the Friends of the Symphony.  He has been the past president of most of these organizations and is current the president of the Friends of the Symphony. 

Dagenais co-authored a history of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, published on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (2007) and has written books on the histories of both the Lyric Opera Guild and Opera Volunteers International, as well as an introductory book for opera novices (Your Passport to the Opera).  He has received several local and national awards for outstanding volunteer work for the arts, including a lifetime achievement award from The Coterie Theatre in 2000, the Kansas City Musical Club's annual award in 2001, a Partners in Excellence Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2002, a Bravo Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2004 and a community service award from the Daughter of the American Revolution in 2008 honoring him for his community service to the arts.

In addition to his music interests, Don is president of the board of directors for the Metropolitan Ensemble Theater and has served on the boards of The Coterie Theatre and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, serving as president of each organization.  He publishes newsletters for seven arts organizations.  When not involved in the performing arts, Don is a senior real estate attorney with Lathrop & Gage LLP in Kansas City, Missouri, where he has practiced law since 1976 after graduating from the Cornell Law School.