Annie York (from left), Pam Joyce, Teresa DeBerry and Eve Krueger appear in Synchronicity's remounted "Women + War" at 7 Stages.

Theater review
‘Women + War’
Grade: B
Through March 7.  8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 7 p.m. Sundays. $18-$23. Synchronicity Performance Group at 7 Stages, 1105 Euclid Ave. (Little 5 Points). 404-484-8636, synchrotheatre.com.
Bottom line: Something truly great becomes something merely good.

By Bert Osborne

Even as a shell of its former self, Synchronicity Performance Group’s “Women + War” is undeniably powerful theater.
Years in development, it’s an intricately woven series of scenes based on interviews with 50 Atlanta-area women (some natives, others immigrants from around the world). Their myriad recollections span time and place, but this much is the same: War is hell, regardless of one’s religious, political, economic or geographical circumstances.
My review of the company’s original 2005 staging of the play contained …

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Redemption Dance Theater (Photo by Will Day)

Dance preview
Modern Atlanta Dance Festival
8:30 p.m. Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28. $15-$20. Marcus Jewish Community Center, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. 678-812-4002, www.atlantajcc.org.

By Pierre Ruhe

The Modern Atlanta Dance Festival is the sort of energizing event that is common in America’s culture capitals but is unique in this region.
Yet the festival’s 2010 edition — in two shows Saturday and Sunday — comes at what might be a pivotal time for the popularity and exposure of modern dance throughout metro Atlanta.
Founded in 1995 by Douglas Scott, the festival presents the best of local modern dance choreography as decided by a three-member panel of judges, none of them from Georgia.
This year the festival includes seven pieces performed by seven companies, from Melanie Lynch-Blanchard’s “Click” for the Zoetic Dance Ensemble to “The Last Day” by Terry Slade’s Redemption Dance Theater.
As always, Scott’s …

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Film screening

“We Live in Public.” 9 p.m. March 1, Eyedrum, 290 MLK Jr. Drive, Atlanta. RSVP at rsvpwlipAtlanta@gmail.com.

Fascinated by how technology and media affect social interaction and personal identity, webcast pioneer Josh Harris launched a social experiment in December 1999. Called Quiet: We Live in Public, the project required 100 artists move into an underground bunker in New York City to live, 24-7, under video surveillance for the viewing pleasure of voyeurs and curiosity seekers. On Jan. 1, 2000, FEMA proclaimed the project a “millennial cult” and shut it down.

So Harris devised a new project. He rigged his own loft with 32 cameras and began streaming video of himself and his girlfriend around the clock. The girlfriend ultimately left and Harris, some say, went a little bonkers.

“We Live in Public” is director Ondi Timoner’s documentary about Harris and his projects. The 2009 Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance will be screened 9 p.m. March 1 at …

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Feb. 24

Lisa McMann, “Gone” (Wake Series, Book 3)

New York Times bestselling paranormal teen series author of WAKE and FADE has written the conclusion in this series. Janie knew what her future held and she had made her peace with it – she thought. Despite what she sees in her boyfriend’s dreams, she knows the only way to give him the life he deserves is to disappear and never see him again.  When a stranger enters her life, her choices become dire and she realizes she must decide between the lesser of two evils – before time runs out.

Talk and signing at Little Shop of Stories, 133A East Court Square, Decatur, GA at 6:30 p.m.

Feb. 24 – 25

Dr. Deborah G. Plant, sSpeaker for The Big Read, an initiative of the National Endowment of the Arts

“Every Tub Must Sit on its Own Bottom: The Philosophy and Politics of Zora Neale Hurston and

“Zora Neale Hurston: A Biography of the Spirit” (Women Writers of Color Series)

Zora Neale Hurston is regarded as an integral part …

Continue reading Esther Levine’s book tour calendar »

Book signings
Elyssa East’s readings and signings are free and open to the public:
7 p.m. Sunday. Eyedrum, 290 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive S.E., Atlanta. 404-522-0655, www.eyedrum.org.

7 p.m. Monday. Kennesaw State University, University Room B in the Student Center, 1000 Chastain Road, Kennesaw, 770-423-6000, www.kennesaw.edu.

6:45 p.m. March 3. St. James Episcopal Church, 161 Church St., Marietta, 770-428-9961, www.stjamesmarietta.com.

By Bob Townsend

The eerie landscape and haunted history of Dogtown — an abandoned 3,000-acre expanse in Gloucester, Mass. — inspired and obsessed writer and Atlanta native Elyssa East.

In her new book, “Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town” (Free Press, $26), the otherworldly atmosphere of the wilderness area becomes the setting for a true crime story, as well as East’s explorations of the spell it casts over nearby communities.
East was first drawn to Dogtown by the paintings of American modernist artist …

Continue reading Q&A with Elyssa East author of ‘Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town’ »

Nonfiction
“Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation”
By Rawn James Jr.
Bloomsbury Press, $28.00, 276 pages.

By Jordan Michael Smith

Before Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, before freedom marches and sit-ins, before Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Act, the fight for African-American civil rights was a struggle waged largely through the courts. As supposed bastions of impartial justice immune to prejudice, the courts seemed the best hope for African-Americans looking to attain their civil rights. And two of the most important warriors in these legal battles were Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, the subject of Rawn James Jr.’s new dual biography.

James, a D.C. lawyer and first-time author, recounts the lives of Houston and Marshall from their meeting at Howard University to their cooperation on Supreme Court cases. Their family lives and interactions with the larger black …

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Schism, by Rocío Rodríguez, Oil on canvas Gift of CGR Advisors

Exhibit previews
“Twenty Georgia Masters” and “Recent Acquisitions”
Through March 27. Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. 75 Bennett St., Suite A2. 404-367-8700. www.mocaga.org.

“Artists in Georgia: Contemporary Works from the Collection”
Through May 16. Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. 557 S. Kilgo Circle. 404-727-4282. www.carlos.emory.edu.

By Catherine Fox

“Georgia Masterpieces: Selected Works from Georgia Museums” is a book published last year by the Georgia Council for the Arts, honoring 27 state artists and 14 museums that preserve and show their work.

Now two museums are returning the favor: The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia offer exhibitions featuring works by these artists from their permanent collections.

Between them, there are pieces by 21 artists, plus other worthy practitioners who weren’t in the book.

MOCA …

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Left to right: Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio in SHUTTER ISLAND.

By Gina Piccalo

Mark Ruffalo is having a good year already. The actor, best known for his roles in 2000’s Academy Award-nominated “You Can Count on Me” and Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” was the toast of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. His long-gestating directorial debut, “Sympathy for Delicious,” a drama about a paraplegic who seeks faith healing (played by his best friend, paraplegic Christopher Thornton) earned a special jury prize. And his performance in Lisa Cholodenko’s indie drama “The Kids Are All Right” as the birth father to the children of a lesbian couple (played by Julianne Moore and Annette Bening) was touted as one of his best.

This month, he co-stars with Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s psychological genre thriller “Shutter Island,” Scorsese’s first film since winning an Oscar for “The Departed.” It’s a bittersweet …

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Nate Parker who plays Dr. Benjamin Chavis in “Blood Done Sign My Name.” Photo courtesy of Allied Integrated Marketing.

By Adrianne Murchison

The civil rights movement and its aftermath continue to create many bonds, tying together the people who experienced or witnessed racial injustice.

It’s true for Benjamin Chavis, Timothy B. Tyson and Jeb Stuart, brought together in director Stuart’s new film “Blood Done Sign My Name.” The movie opened the Pan African Film and Arts Festival in Los Angeles last week and is set for wider release Friday. It tells the story of the 1970 murder of Henry “Dickie” Marrow in Oxford, N.C., and the unrest that followed, including a boycott of white-owned businesses led by Chavis, Marrow’s cousin. Then a young high school teacher and civil rights organizer, Chavis is co-chairman of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network and former head of the NAACP.

“It’s not a movie that is easily told,” Stuart said. “It’s not an apology for …

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The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company

Dance preview
Dayton Contemporary Dance Company
8 p.m. Feb 20. Rialto Center for the Arts, 80 Forsyth St. N.W. $32-$56 404-413-9849, www.rialtocenter.org.

By Pierre Ruhe

Five years ago, the prestigious Dayton Contemporary Dance Company commissioned four choreographers to turn the brilliantly colored, emotion-charged paintings of Jacob Lawrence into dance.

Now, for the first time since the premiere run of the project called “Color-ography, n. the dances of Jacob Lawrence,” the Ohio company — known as DCDC — will gather them together on stage Saturday at the Rialto Center for the Arts.

The Harlem-raised painter, who described himself as a “dynamic cubist,” remains among the most recognized of American artists.

Lawrence’s canvases, for much of his career, captured the black experience.

“Considering the violence and pathos of so much of his subject matter — prisons, deserted villages, city slums, race riots, labor camps — …

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