Electric cherry blossoms light D.C.

All hail the power of flowers!  Lift your hands and watch flowers move in the design made by Akiko Yamishita with Sachiko Yamashita & Mikitype, Hana Fubuki, 2019 at Artechouse/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A little girl atop a man's shoulders is mesmerized by the power she weaves at Artechouse.  Digitized art reflects a pond of colors /Photo by Patricia Leslie

And you just thought they were gone.

At Artechouse, you can still see them, an inside, electric visualization with womanmade flowers which fill walls from floor to ceiling in a dream-like world.

And the floor reflects them.  

It's like skating on a frozen pond of glass, with colors and shapes to cover the floor and take you to fantasy land in a psychedelic swirl.

Flowers, flowers everywhere at Artechouse /Photo by Patricia Leslie

He raises his arms and like swim strokes making waves, he moves flowers at Artechouse /Photo by Patricia Leslie

Bend this way and that at the Artechouse and command the universe/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Artechouse is not only for adults; children are welcome and encouraged to visit this "new age" experiment in "augmented reality," a different expression of art, digitized with music to deepen the experience.
 
Here visitors weave magic with a sweep of their hands or arms. Watch synchronized flowers move with human motion. See them sway with the "wind."  Or, dance a jig and observe the power of humans to make blossoms respond.

 

Not mannikins but figures enveloped by surround sights and sounds in a starry night at Artechouse/Photo by Patricia Leslie

By Lisa Park, Blooming, 2018. This is a hi-tech cherry blossom tree with changing colors in its very own gallery at Artechouse/Photo by Patricia Leslie

If we point that way, the flowers follow our movements. At Artechouse /Photo by Patricia Leslie
 
And if we point both ways, they match us in floral movements. At Artechouse/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Touch a plant and turn on a light.

Enchanted Garden is found in another section of the gallery, created by "augmented reality" using natural and recycled materials to tell the story of a Japanese folk tale, the Rabbit in the Moon. 

Paige, an Artechouse employee, turns on a light by touching the plant. Must see to believe! /Photo by Patricia Leslie

The designs are creations of two Japanese sisters who were inspired by their grandfather, a poet and nature lover whose adoration of the outdoors was passed to his progeny.

Come on in and take a peek. Or a sweep, and experience art in a new way.
 
A bar is onsite.

What: In Peak Bloom

When:  Now through May 27, 2019. Sunday - Thursday, 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. After Hours, 7 - 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. After Hours, 5:30 - 11:30 p.m.

Where: Artechouse, 1238 Maryland Ave., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20024. A few steps from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

Admission: Adults, $16 (online), $20 (onsite); students, seniors, and military, $13 or $15; children (2-14) $8 or $10 plus tax and processing fee.

Metro station:  Smithsonian, exit 12th and Independence Avenue; walk 10 minutes (.3 mile).

The bar: Opens at 11 a.m.
   
Footcovers:  Mandatory and available. (No charge.)

For more information:  No telephone number found. Email: tickets@artechouse.com.

patricialesli@gmail.com     

Birmingham photos close Easter at the National Gallery of Art

Dawoud Bey (b. 1953), Michael-Anthony Allen and George Washington, 2012, 
The Birmingham Project, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The complete photo series may be found at the National Gallery website here. 

When he was just a boy of 11, Dawoud Bey (b.1953) saw a photograph in a book his parents brought home which profoundly affected his life, haunting him, and laying the foundation for his pursuit of photography as a profession.

Now, his works are collected throughout the world and are found at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Barbican Centre in London, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the High Museum of Art, London's National Portrait Gallery, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington where an exhibition, the Birmingham Project, by Mr. Bey is displayed through tomorrow.

 

Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) with Betty Selvage and Faith Speights, 2012, The Birmingham Project, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 11, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The life-changing photograph showed a girl near Mr. Bey's age who lay in a hospital bed, her eyes covered with cotton balls, blinded in one eye, her face embedded with glass, caused by the bomb explosion at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963.

The Ku Klux Klan attack on the church took the life of the girl's sister and three other young girls as they got ready to sing at church.

Dawoud Bey at the exhibition, The Birmingham Project, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 11, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie


The exhibition includes diptychs of photos of four adults who are the ages the children would be today, and four children at ages the victims were in 1963.

Mr. Bey spent seven years on the project which includes a video of two screens which shows scenes in slow motion the girls might have seen from a car on their way to church that Sunday morning, and every day city sights from 1963 in Birmingham. Original music composed by Mr. Bey's son, Ramon Alvarez-Smikle, accompanies the presentation.

Dawoud Bey introducing the exhibition, The Birmingham Project, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 11, 2018/Photo by Patricia Leslie


The girls who died were Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Carol Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (age 14).  All but Ms. McNair were born in April, 1949 which would make them 70 years old this month.

Seven hours after the Ku Klux Klan's bomb killed the choristers, two more black youths, Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware, were shot to death in Birmingham. 


It took the U.S. government 14 years to prosecute the first murderer, and one of the four suspects was never tried.

The photograph of Sarah Collins is included in an 11-minute interview with Mr. Bey which is shown in a nearby gallery and may also be seen here. He says that the Sarah Collins photograph "shook me to the core." In his research, he discovered the two boys' deaths have mostly been overlooked.

The children's deaths outraged the public and helped produce more support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act the next year.

With continuing public exhibitions and education about the tragedy and infinite focus on the lives of innocents taken by intolerant extremists who live among us today, the legacies of six Birmingham children live.

What: Dawoud Bey:  The Birmingham Project

When: Now through tomorrow (Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, 11 a.m.to 6 p.m.). Open on Easter.

Where:  Gallery 22 on the ground floor of the West Building between Third and Ninth streets at Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. On the Mall.

Admission charge: No charge

Metro stations closest to the National Gallery of Art are the Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives and L'Enfant Plaza.

For more information: 202-737-4215
 
patricialesli@gmail.com

Olney's terrific 'Tenors'

From left are Matthew Schleigh as Max, John Treacy Egan as Beppo, and Alan Wade as Saunders in Ken Ludwig's A Comedy of Tenors /Photo by Stan Barouh

What is opera without sex?  Not opera!

The year is 1936 in Paris where a zany group of stars beset by egos and threatened manhood (imagine) jeopardize the staging of the sold-out "concert of the century."

The show may not go on, after all.

The hand-wringing producer (Alan Wade is Saunders) has become a madman with only three hours left to get the team ready for the really big show.

From left, exiting over the balcony is Allyson Boate as Mimi, Alan Naylor as Carlo (hidden behind the door), Emily Townley as Maria, and John Treacy Egan as Tito in Ken Ludwig's A Comedy of Tenors /Photo by Stan Barouh


A Comedy of Tenors by Tony winner (Lend Me a Tenor ) Ken Ludwig, with some Shakespeare on steroids and Verdi and Puccini thrown in, is the featured performance at Olney Theatre Center, but you don't have to like opera to laugh a lot.  

Just come for the enjoyment.

We did and got our just rewards, all right.

Temperaments, mixed-up identities, and escapades fill the show.

John Treacy Egan is Beppo and Patricia Hurley is Racón in Ken Ludwig's A Comedy of Tenors /Photo by Stan Barouh


In an elegant hotel suite (designed by Charlie Calvert) the opera star, Tito (John Treacy Egan) arrives after a flight (a fight?) with his wife, the animated and dynamic Maria (Emily Townley) whom Tito shortly "discovers" is having an affair with their daughter's fiancé (Carlo is Alan Naylor)! A man, 20 years younger! (Imagine)

Heartbroken, the inconsolable Tito forfeits his stage appearance, unable to sing one possible note.


Producer Saunders is beside himself.  Now, two hours and counting. Whatever shall he do?


To the rescue from out in the hallway comes a super bellman bearing a striking resemblance to Tito with a voice to match (and a lover of Tito's "fruits," too).


Also arriving in town is a Russian diva and "other woman"(!),  Racón (Patricia Hurley), a former Tito paramour, who wants to partake of Tito's "talents," too. 

From door-to-(four)-doors and woman-to-woman, the men doth move, and over the balcony railing, to the gasps of the audience, daughter Mimi (Allyson Boate) throws herself, dress billowing, and arms flailing as she makes one giant leap for womankind (which was sur real). 

The outstanding, sonorous voices of the three tenors singing together (Egan, Naylor, and Matthew Schleigh as Max) soon gave me pause to wonder if it was a tape, but my seatmate, Olney apprentice, Meghan McVann, set me straight, that the voices were real, belonged to the artists, and were on stage. (Kudos to McCorkle Casting.)


All the performers excel at their assignments but it is Maria, Mrs.Tito, who especially shines among the stars, a standout whose exaggerated mannerisms, dramatic gestures, and histrionics more than effectively convey her character.

Director Jason King Jones deserves much applause for getting the performers to their places on time.    

Seth M. Gilbert's costumes are perfect for the period (and now), upper-class smaltzy, elegant, and operatic.


Mr. Ludwig attended the opening night show and afterwards, cast, crew, and audience celebrated another big hit in Olney.


Other crew members are Sonya Dowhaluk, lighting; Casey Kaleba, fight director; LaShawn Melton, wigs; Justin Schmitz, sound; Brianne Taylor, dialects; Cat Wallis and Ben Walsh, stage managers; and Dennis A. Blackledge, director of production.

What: A Comedy of Tenors by Ken Ludwig


Where: Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832.

When: Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Wednesday matinee May 1 at 2 p.m. An audio-described performance for the blind and visually impaired Wednesday, April 24, at 8 p.m. and a sign-interpreted performance Thursday, May 2 at 8 p.m. 

Tickets: Begin at $42 with discounts for groups, seniors, military, and students

Ages: Olney rates Tenors as "PG-13."  

"Afterwords": After Saturday matinees on April 20, 27 and May 4 and 11.
  
Duration: Almost two hours with one 15 minute intermission

Refreshments: Available and may be taken to seats

Parking: Free, lighted and plentiful on-site

For more information: 301-924-3400 for the box office or 301-924-4485.

patricialesli@gmail.com