Walking around with art, singing, dancing, music - the usual

Thursday, Nov. 19

Vista lights - yes, there is still art in the Vista

Vista Lights is more the launch of the holiday shopping (or maybe drinking) spree in the Congaree Vista than an art event. Still, you’ll find some art during the party from 5 to 10. Actually this year it appears  more than usual.

A batch of art shows will open that night.
Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, with 13 resident artists, is always a don't miss spot. Among the artists are sculptors Pat Gilmartin and Sharon Collings Licata, Kirkland Smith who is making art from “non-recyclable” waste, Deanna Leamon, who does figurative drawings and Susan Lenz, who has created a series of portraits of people who have made important stands.

Painters Wanda Steppe and Harriet Marshall Goode will be at City Art Gallery; Terry Hutto, Debbie Martin, Laurie McIntosh, Melony Stuckey, Cindy Roddey and Heather LaHaise are showing at Wink Art; Kim LeDee is will have her paintings at the Adams Group; and the About Face art group shows at 300 Senate Street which is a welcome addition.

You can also have a free look at “From the Pee Dee to the Savannah: Art and Material Culture from South Carolina’s Fall Line Region” at the S.C. State Museum which has some art, a batch of decorative objects and something that is either a giant pie safe or an awfully nice chicken coop.

A couple of dance groups will also perform. Unbound Dance will be near the River Runner at 8 p.m. and the Wideman/Davis Dance Company performs at City Art at 7:30 and several music groups will be around as well.

Everything is free – unless you decide to buy something. We’d suggest art. That would help the last artistic holdouts in the Vista.

(Friday - noon posting. By the way, most of these art exhibitions will be up for a couple of weeks at least so if you didn't go last night, with all the distractions of pagan trees being lighted and wedding dress shows and horrible traffic, you can still see them. There was more art than usual, but I'm afraid it wasn't much better than usual.) 

From top: painting by Wanda Stepp at City Art, drawing by Deanna Leamon at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios and dancers/choreographers Wideman/Davis who will perform at City Art.

Full houses at university theaters

Three, yes three (3, III) plays are running at USC.

As of tonight anyway, when “Language of Angels” opens at the lab theater.  The work by Naomi Iizuk is a cycle of ghost stories tied to the disappearance of a young woman in of a North Carolina cave and how those who were with her deal with it – or don’t. Amy Boyce Holtcamp, who has directed several shows at USC and around the country, directs.

Performances at are 8 p.m. through Nov. 22 with an additional 10:30 show Friday, Nov. 20. The theater is on Wheat Street between Pickens and Main streets. $5.

 (803) 777-4288.

At the Hamilton Gym, which has been turned into a performance space, you can find the play “Flight,” by USC faculty members Steven Pearson and Robyn Hunt. The play, which includes a nearly life-sized airplane, is about early women aviators. It's almost three hours long, wordy, full of interesting information and ideas - a long way to go but quite enlightening.

Performances are at 8 p.m. tonight, Friday and Saturday and 10:30 p.m. Sunday. $10. (803) 777-4288.

And at Longstreet Theatre you’ll find “Radium Girls,” which tells the true story of woman who suffered radiation poisoning from painting glow-in-the dark paint on watch dials.

8 p.m. tonight and Friday, 7 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. (803) 777-2551.

Friday, Nov. 20

Sterling Chamber players start season

and welcome back an old friend

Columbia’s resident chamber music group The Sterling Chamber Players starts its season with “Trio Pathetique” by Mikhail Glinka and Concert Piece No. 2 by Felix Mendelssohn, both for piano, clarinet and bassoon, and the Johannes Brahms G major violin sonata.

The first two will be performed by Doug Graham, clarinet, Michael Harley, bassoon, and Janice Zamostny, piano. For the Brahams, Zamostny will be joined by Eric Chu, founder of the group that became the Sterling Chamber Players. Chu was concertmaster for the S.C. Philharmonic and is conductor of an orchestra in Chengdu, China where he recently conducted concerts with pianist Lang Lang, Yundi Li and San Chen.

Music starts at 8 p.m. at 300 Senate. That's just before the street lands in the river. $12 in advance and $15 at the door, $5 for students. (803) 252-2001 or www.sterlingchamberplayers.org.

500 years of singing

You’ll either be bummed or beaming when the USC Chorus hits the final notes of “Life, Loss, and Love.” You will definitely be well-educated in the history of choral music; the concert covers 500 years of music from Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who worked in the 1500s, to Morten Johannes Lauridsen, who was born in 1943.

The free concert is at 7:30 p.m. St. Andrews Baptist Church, 230 Bush River Road.

HEY! Since you are here go to the right and sign up as a follower of 
Carolina Culture by Jeffrey Day. Thanks, jd.




Movies back on stage

The NiA theater company has brought back its “Whisper: The Movies,” based on scenes from films.  The 8 p.m. event tonight and Saturday takes place at the future home of the Nickelodeon Theater,  1607  Main St. $10.Half the money raised will go to name something at the new Nick for the late Greg "Bougie" Leevy – actor, director and great guy. (803) 553-2536.

Dancing around

The Columbia Conservatory of Dance dances in honor of the late Serge Lavoie, who taught at the school and was dancer master for the Columbia City Ballet. It takes place at 7:30 at USC's Drayton Hall Theatre and will feature conservatory and City Ballet Dancers. Admission is $10 in advance and $12 at door. The money got to the American Heart Association. (803) 252-0555.

The Columbia College dance department will be dancing about glass,  making nests, watching ourselves and others and demented urban fairies. All original works by college faculty members and one graduate of the program. Tonight and Saturday at 7:30 in the Cottingham Theatre at the college which is located on North Main Street about two miles north of downtown. $10.   (803) 786-3850.

Saturday, Nov. 21

Double reed day and concert

Double reed instrumentalists, mostly oboe and bassoon players, have been working on their technique all day during Double Reed Day at the USC School of Music.

This afternoon at 5 a group of them will give a short concert, probably 30 minutes long, concert featuring two new pieces by composition students and a few older bits. It's free. (Look at the story posted Wednesday, Nov. 18 for a story on the archaic art of reed making.)
Then go grab a bite to eat somewhere cheap and return at 7:30 for a concert to raise money for an emergency fund for student musicians. The suggested donation is $25, but I'm sure they'd be happy with any reasonable amount.

Walking and drawing

Pick up your drawing pad and grab pencils, charcoal and if you’re feeling ambitious, some paint. Head to the USC Horseshoe right in front of the McKissick Museum. Draw for a while, walk a little, draw some more. Do that again and again and again and you will be part of Sketchcrawl – a nice change from a gallery crawl isn’t it. (You will end up in Five Points where you can go to some galleries but will probably want to have a drink instead.) Such movable drawing feasts have been taking place all over the world for the past five years.  The art making starts at 10 a.m. and goes to 3 p.m.

Reading and signing

Columbia writer Janna McMahan will read and sign copies of the “Snow Angels,” which includes her novella “Decorations.” The collection of holiday-related stories is on The New York Times and USA Today best-seller lists. McMahan is also author of two recent novels, “The Ocean Inside” and “Calling Home.” The event is at 1:30 at Ed’s Editions, 406 Meeting St., West Columbia. (803) 791-8002.

Three strange instruments in a week

Last week, Columbia concert-goers got to hear Wu Man play the pipa, a Chinese lute,  with the S.C. Philharmonic and in a solo concert. Early this week, the USC Symphony featured a shofar (ram's horn) soloist for Columbia composer Meira Warshauer's "Tekeeyah."

Now's time for the h’arpeggione.
And what is that, you may ask? It’s an 18-string cross between a cello and guitar. The instrument is part of the trio, with double bass and percussion, that is  Pocketful of Claptonite, an Athens, Ga., improvisational trio. the h'arpeggione was was made specifically for Killick! who plays in the group.

The group (which has nothing to do with Eric Clapton or the Spin Doctors that had the record call “Pocketful of Kryptonite”) hits the stage around 8 p.m. at if Art Gallery, 1223 Lincoln St. $6.

 Go to http://bigsphinx.com/

Sunday, Nov. 22

More music

If you're not out buying a bird that looks unnaturally large and filling wheelbarrows with cranberries already, the USC Palmetto Concert Band plays a free concert at 4 p.m. with guest artists the Triangle Wind Ensemble from North Carolina. It’s at the Koger Center.

More reading and signing
The terrific Dacusville, S.C., writer George Singleton will be reading new poems and prose at 2 p.m. Actually Singleton is too big for Dacusville, from where he commutes to teach at the Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities.
Oh, and Singleton has published several novels and his writing has appeared everywhere from Playboy to The Atlantic.
The reading is at 701 Center for Contemporary Art, 701 Whaley St. $7. (803) 779-4571.

Monday, Nov. 23

The slide zone
I believe that every musical group,
regardless of genre, should have
a trombone.
And tonight is the night for
all trombones in a concert
at the USC School of
Music. The free concert is at
7:30 in the school recital hall.
(These gals, the Japanese bikini trombone group   Futomoto Satisfaction will not be playing.