Garth Fagan is building a mecca
Maybe you can come home again. In 1991, three acknowledged masters — choreographer Garth Fagan, musician Wynton Marsalis, and sculptor Martin Puryear — collaborated on an evening-long work, Griot New York. The premiere at Brooklyn Academy received rave reviews, as did the international performances. The artists’ schedules didn’t permit Fagan to bring the work…
Call of the congas
None of the women in the little club are standing still. Short-skirted and spike-heeled, they risk spilling Sangria as they hip-sway to the relentless Latin beat. Horns wail. Congas throb. Couples dance. Everybody is touching somebody. Tapas, a small club in the St. Paul Quarter, is hot and intimate, its dance floor swelling to capacity,…
Treating decay with boredom
Beginning with its title, which promises something quirky and unusual, the new movie from Alan Rudolph depends upon a number of deceptions, intended or not, that may fool the public (as, judging by the superlatives in the advertisements, they have already fooled the reviewers) into actually paying money to see it. Rudolph himself has spent…
Losing their way in the Middle East
There are a pair of 40-minute Middle Eastern films screening at the Dryden Theatre this Saturday (September 6). Each makes its Rochester debut and each arrives with buckets full of praise from people whose hearts go out to the ridiculously oppressed citizens of the countries represented by the shorts (Yemen and Iran). I don’t…
Rochester unplugged
Let me be Systems Analyst for a day. As I see things, the health-care, financial system, and energy systems are like Tinker Toys. Stick the pieces together and hope they stay stuck. Controlled chaos masquerades as policy. It’s so crazy, it just might work. Then comes the wake-up. We’re seeing this now…
News briefs 9.3.03
Labor Day off the farm Despite their vital role in our lives, locally employed migrant farmworkers — the people who pick the fruits and vegetables we eat every day — seem to be the great unknown. Many of them spend the summer working on area farms, isolated from the people who benefit from their labor.…
Reader feedback 9.3.03
‘Business as usual’ Strong Board or Weak Board? There has been little thoughtful weighing of this question, but the community must understand what is at stake before any further snuffing out of democracy for city residents in that most American grassroots institution — the elected local school board. I write this as a fan…
Chili: exit to primary
The town of Chili has almost classically developed a “negative capability.” The town’s politics are to a large extent defined by something that’s not there, a plan that didn’t happen. The non-entity is the Chili Thruway exit, which, had it become a reality, would have brought heavy traffic onto Route 259 in the southern part…
Henrietta’s electoral seasoning
“We’re having a fun summer in Henrietta,” says Jim Breese, town supervisor for 18 years now. Breese is referring to a rift in Henrietta’s Republican political establishment, which definitely hasn’t been amusing itself lately. The rift will be on display in Henrietta voting booths September 9. Breese, running for re-election, is facing off in…
