By Howard Pousner
hpousner@ajc.com

The Alliance Theatre nabbed 30 nominations in the 2010-11 Suzi Bass Awards, Atlanta’s version of the Tonys, with Atlanta Lyric Theatre scoring 21.

Three Alliance shows helped Atlanta’s largest stage pile up the nominations for the seventh annual honors: “August: Osage County” (including best play, two best actress ones, for Brenda Bynum and Tess Malis Kincaid, and a best director for Susan V. Booth) and “Bring It On: The Musical” each took eight, and David Mitchell Robinson’s “Carapace” (produced as part of the theater’s Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition for emerging writers) drew six.

Horizon Theatre received 19 Suzi nominations and Aurora Theatre, 16.

While there were Tony winners (Andy Blankenbuehler, Judith Ivey) and a Tony nominee (Debbie Allen) on the 25-category Suzi list, the nominations, as usual, focused on metro Atlanta talent. Jeff McKerley received two acting nominations as well as one for best choreographer. Leslie …

Continue reading Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Lyric lead 2010-11 Suzi Award nominees »

By Cynthia Bond Perry
For the Journal-Constitution

Visitors to Castleberry Hill or several Atlanta BeltLine sites will find these public spaces teeming with vibrant, contemporary dance at certain times this fall. Proliferating site-specific performances are fostering robust relationships between local dance troupes and audiences. Public enthusiasm for dance is on the rise. Innovative collaborations, new companies, daring programming initiatives pack the fall season with high-quality shows. Here are a few highlights, of many:

“Maá.” The timbres of Kaija Saariaho’s score will likely envelop the Woodruff Arts Center’s Symphony Hall, as Lauri Stallings’ contemporary performance group gloATL joins with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra conductor Robert Spano, music ensemble Sonic Generator and a 51-dancer chorus to create a three-dimensional environment of sound, choreography, scenic design, multimedia imagery and light. Sept. 9 & …

Continue reading Details on this weekend’s movement-music collaboration at Symphony Hall and more fall dance »

Narrative Urge. That’s right, I’m talking to you.

Just wanted to say thanks.

In case you’re unfamiliar with him/her/them, Narrative Urge is the anonymous presence behind Atlanta’s $10 Art Mystery letter, the first of which was originally sent to news weekly Creative Loafing’s Arts & Entertainment editor, Debbie Michaud.

Each letter contained a ten-dollar bill, a note urging the recipient to “find me,” and a strip of paper with a sentence or two typed on it.

When the sentences were published, Atlanta writers recognized them as excerpts from longer stories and essays they’d written.

There were other clues: a drawing of a UFO, references to French stuntman Henri Rechatin, and to the Biltmore Estate, and to Horace Burgess, who built a 10-story tree house inspired by a divine vision.

In June, Michaud and CL Events editor Wyatt Williams went in search of answers.

They didn’t solve the mystery, but they did smoke out an entity called Narrative Urge, who thanked …

Continue reading $10 Art Mystery continues »

By Howard Pousner
hpousner@ajc.com

Chamber schedule begins Sept. 16
The Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta, the city’s largest chamber music organization, has announced its 2011-2012 season. Highlights include:

Multiple appearances of the Vega String Quartet, the artists-in-residence who return with newly appointed first violinist Domenic Salerni. Along with works by Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven, the quartet will perform several new pieces, including a world premiere by Emory music professor Steve Everett for string quartet, electronics and video. Vega String Quartet launches the chamber society season at noon Sept. 16 with a concert in the Michael C. Carlos Museum Reception Hall.

A celebration of Franz Liszt’s birthday bicentennial continues with guest pianists Philip Thomson and Victor Asuncion performing with ECMSA artistic director William Ransom and Emory organist Timothy Albrecht on Oct. 23.

All performances are on the Emory University campus. Details: …

Continue reading Culture notes: Season information for Emory Chamber Music Society, Pro-Mozart Atlanta, Georgia Festival Chorus »

ARTS
Emory to honor leaders at free cultural sampler
Emory College Center for Creativity & Arts has announced recipients of its 2011 Creativity & Arts Awards, recognizing significant contributions to Atlanta’s arts. Winners include Chris Appleton, leader of WonderRoot arts center in Reynoldstown; James W. Flannery, Emory prof and director of the W.B. Yeats Foundation; Malina Rodriguez, Dance Truck artistic director; and D. Patton White, Beacon Dance artistic director. Awards will be presented at the Creativity & Arts Soiree, a free sampler platter of Emory arts, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Sept. 9 in Emory’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. Details: www.arts.emory.edu. HOWARD POUSNER

THEATER
Theater Emory announces season
Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” will launch Theater Emory’s season, Sept. 29-Oct. 9.
A highlight of the 2011-12 season will be the fifth and final production, when Theater Emory partners with Actor’s Express in presenting …

Continue reading Culture notes: Emory cultural sampler on Sept. 9 includes awards; Theater Emory’s ‘11-12 season highlights »

VISUAL ART
Spelman Museum targets 15 artists
The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, which focuses on art by and about women of the African diaspora, is making a strong push to enhance its permanent collection.

The museum will celebrate its 15th anniversary with a public launch party for its “15 x 15 Acquisitions Initiative” at 7 p.m. Sept. 8. The result of a yearlong planning process, the initiative has pinpointed notable works by 15 black women artists that the museum hopes to acquire.

A number of pieces on the wish list will be included in the “15 x 15: The 15th Anniversary Acquisitions Exhibition,” opening Sept. 8 for a run through Dec. 3.

They will be shown alongside works by celebrated artists including Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence and Hale Woodruff that long have been in Spelman’s collection.

Spelman refers to the contemporary artists selected for acquisition as “The Fifteen.” They are: Sheila Pree Bright, María Magdalena …

Continue reading Culture notes: Spelman Museum targets 15 artists; MOCA GA collection showcased at High Museum »

DANCE
Tharp’s new ballet coming into view
Atlanta Ballet’s much-anticipated world premiere for February now has a name: “Twyla Tharp’s The Princess and the Goblin.” Co-commissioned with Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the work will be performed Feb. 10-19 at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center. The Canadian premiere follows in fall 2012.

Tharp was back in Atlanta recently to work with the company to create and choreograph the dance based on Scottish author George MacDonald’s 19th century children’s tale “The Princess and the Goblin,” something of a departure for the thoroughly modern choreographer. Befitting MacDonald, if a bit of a surprise for Tharp, it’s set to the Romantic music of Franz Schubert (arranged and orchestrated by composer and Schubert scholar Richard Burke).

In addition to the full professional company, “Princess,” a blend of classical ballet and modern movement, taps 13 students from the Atlanta Ballet’s Centre for Dance Education. It marks …

Continue reading Culture notes: Catching up on Twyla Tharp and Atlanta Ballet; CORE to dance in 25-year celebration »