Enter Offstage

by Guest Contributor Becky McGarvey  This year’s Winter Footholds dance show at UH Mānoa, Dusk and Daybreak , is consistent in the Footholds tradition of collecting a wide range of different types of dances and themes and shaping them into one interesting dance concert. This year’s audience has the pleasure of voyaging to Japan and India (to name a few) and also through some out-of-the-ordinary places existing somewhere in each individual choreographer’s psyche. One such piece is choreographer Antonia Brown’s “Red-Handed.” This captivating duet features a young dancer, Alison Burkhardt, with one arm completely covered in red paint up to her elbow. Not only is this a striking image against the black box Earle Ernst Lab Theatre and the dancers’ simple black costumes, but it becomes even more outstanding as Burkhardt touches her partner, Mercedes Johnson, and paints parts of her neck, arms, and back red. Beautiful quality of dancing aside, the final image of Johnson dr

Since October of 2009, all manner of creative “writers” have been taking the stage once a month to share their work, whether it be poetry, fiction, essay, music, song, or some other type of performance. This is NOT an open stage. The talent is booked in advance. In other words, M.I.A. focuses on quality, not quantity, with 4 or 5 performers per event. M.I.A.—which stands for Mixed Innovative Arts—is usually held every third Monday of the month in the Loft at Fresh Café. As the series has grown—from a seed in the mind of then-newly-arrived-to-the-island UHM English department PhD candidate Jaimie Gusman—to the popular place-to-be that it is now, it’s been exciting to see all the community support. This isn’t some rinky-dink, tortured artist clubhouse. You don’t have to wear black and smoke cigarettes to attend—it’s not the 90s and this isn’t, oh I don’t know, Seattle… (Oops, isn’t that where Gusman moved here from?) Anyway, my point is that M.I.A. is for everyone. What keeps t

After seeing the preview of The Vagina Monologues last night, I  now have a pressing urge to talk about my vagina. That's the kind of effect this show has — an opening-up effect. The only way in or out is through the giant Vagina. One of the six directors, Michelle Umipeg It is wonderful, miraculous, empowering to hear so many women speaking openly and honestly about their Vaginas. Viva La Vaginalution! What do they call it where you're from? Pam Schildknecht had me swimming in her flooded waters. Maybe you just call it "down there" if you mention it at all. Tracy Okubo wrote on the walls with chalk to illustrate her visit to "The Vagina Workshop." How would you draw your Vagina?  Okubo's performance was physical and emotional, quite captivating! Sheela Sharma told me about her friend Bob. Every girl should meet her Bob, "Because He Liked To Look At It." Amina Peterson, quietly commanding in "W

This is not a review! Look for my reveiwerly insights in the 2/22 issue of Honolulu Weekly . But I did want to get the word out that TAG's sold-out production of August Wilson's play Seven Guitars has added two more shows: Friday 3/2 and Saturday 3/3. Call (808) 722-6941 for reservations. What I will say is that this is a beautifully written play —I had never read it before going to the show last Friday and it was such a pleasure to see and hear this story happen for the first time. For instance, there’s a great scene where the “ bluesmen" engage in a series of clever back-and-forth rhyming, full of contradictory verses like, “One bright morning in the middle of the night / Two dead boys got up to fight / Back to back they faced each other / Drew their swords and shot each other / A deaf policeman heard the noise / And he came and killed those two dead boys.” The play is engaging from beginning to end, despite the moment in the second act when it dawned on m

Whatever your plans are for Friday night (2/17) do the right side of your brain a favor and start off your evening on the lanai in front of Kumu Kahua Theatre in Chinatown. There you'll find artists like Solomon Enos, Ryan Higa, Jon J. Mu rakami, Aaron Padilla, Cade Roster, and Mike Watanabe to name a few, all creating in their own artistic styles — live!  I attended the event last year and have my very own made-to-order Solomon Enos original to prove it. I'm looking at it right now. An impression of two people on the beach watching a full midnight moon set over the water. My honey surprised me. He described to Enos a very special moment — a memory from our early days of courtship — which the talented artist then turned into a work of art.  So sweet. Just the thing to melt a girl's heart...a belated valentine, maybe...Each piece sells for $20 with all the proceeds going to support the theatre. This year, as if the art wasn't reason enough to go, Stephanie Keiko K

by Guest Contributor Marcus Lee Calvo & Nichols Cop-Out is, visually, a clever and cool production. With just a hundred dollar budget, Late Night Director Joe Winskye, Scenic Designer Meg Hanna, and Lighting Designer Ray Moschuk manage to evoke a film noir world using little more than a cardboard-and-foam cityscape, lights, and a projection screen. Two “living set” cast members dressed in black bodysuits—Haile Baehr-Gutierrez and Amanda Stone—complete the aesthetic. They cast atmospheric shadows, provide silhouettes, become a faceless mob, and even, literally, function as furniture. They are meant to be simultaneously seen and unseen. The precision with which they perform is comic, intriguing, and praiseworthy. Cop-Out itself is a comic piece that follows the interlaced stories of a soft-hearted policeman and his hardboiled, film noir alter ego—Arrow—both portrayed by Tyler Nichols. While the policeman struggles with insecurity about his identity, masculinity, and

by Guest Contributor   Nicole Tessier The Genteel Sabai , playing at Kennedy Theatre through February 12, marks only the third time that UH Mānoa has presented Randai, a traditional martial arts–based theatre form of the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra. I was fortunate enough to perform in the previous version seven years ago, so the following are observations from an Anak Randai (child of Randai).   The performers enter from the back of the house, which gives the audience a taste of what it feels like to be up-close and personal. But if you want to get the true Randai experience, arrive early to grab a space in the first-come, first-served “on stage” seating area. This will allow you to be just inches away from the performers, similar to a traditional village experience. Sitting on stage, I could literally see the sweat on the brows of the hard-working dancers. This is an extremely physical theatre style based on the Indonesian martial art form of Silek and the perfo