Arts + Entertainment Blog

• Crowes Eye
• Dance Kaleidoscope's 2012 Cole! was its best attended production in its 40-year history.

Obviously, expenditures exceeded income for the 2011-12 season, so what happened this year to break Virgin's 15-year run of balancing lean budgets? Virgin describes a perfect deficit storm swirling around unprecedented increases in line items including insurance, renting studio, storage and performance spaces and touring. Add all that to DK's largest expenditure - the costs associated with mounting each production.

Meanwhile DK received less contributions this year than expected. Individual giving and special projects came in under 33 percent of what was anticipated; corporate and sponsorships were 28 percent less; the annual gala brought in 15 percent less; and foundation grants were down 12 percent.

"In spite of multiple successes, including the highest attended production in DK's 40 years [Cole!], largest ticket revenue for one production [two weekends of Super Soul] and largest number of students reached in our educational programs [15,000, representing an increase of 6000 over 2010-2011] and "Conversations With David" programs drawing capacity audiences, DK still recognizes a shortfall," Virgin says. "So much is out of our control - interest rates and personal income are down, some of our past biggest individual donors have moved elsewhere, in-kind giving is harder to come by. Everyone else has to meet their expenses so we can't ask for special breaks. It's a domino effect."

Virgin explains everyone connected with DK is "addressing every aspect of the budget while not harming the artistic product. We are small and we are close to each other. We all are doing this together to reach more supporters and gain more audience while making our usual lean operation even leaner."

Yet there are realities - a dance company can't be too small. A season has to introduce challenging new work to stretch audiences beyond name recognition pieces. Touring, which at best breaks even and most often causes a deficit, is a necessary for maintaining a professional year-round company.

"Touring keeps dancers dancing beyond the four-production season; with every performance, every new community, every new audience dancers learn and grow," she explains. "They renew energy, gain increasing synergy through different partnerships."

While going public was painful, Virgin says it has shown her "the worst of times can be the best. It's heartbreaking and heartwarming. Trimming is a reality - 10% across the board: no new hires, stay with what we have for production elements, be even more inventive with marketing."

She reports individuals are responding, making their own sacrifices to ensure DK remains viable. Directors of other non-profits are offering ideas and possible collaborations to widen DK's audience base. "It's a combination of people being a family sharing a feeling of empowerment through love and support."

Donate via the web, by calling 317-940-6555 or by the post (Dance Kaleidoscope, 4603 Clarendon Rd, Suite 32, Indianapolis, IN, 46208).

Slideshow

Indian Market at Military Park (Slideshow)

By Ted Somerville

Click to View 18 slides

Scenes from the Eiteljorg's Indian Festival and Market, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last weekend at Military Park.

Slideshow

Run For Your Lives 2012 [Slideshow]

More than 4,000 runners participated in the Run For Your Lives event in Knightstown, in which they braved water, the elements, electricity and the walking dead for fun and fitness.

By Paul F. P. Pogue

Click to View 23 slides

As a combination of haze, smoke and kicked-up gravel settled over Boondocks Farms, it wasn't hard to imagine it as the site of the zombie apocalypse. More than 4,000 runners spent their Saturday there, dodging hundreds of made-up zombies and some surprisingly difficult obstacles as they negotiated the Run For Your Lives 5K obstacle course.

"I am not surviving this zombie apocalypse!" someone cries out early in their race. No kidding. Every racer starts with three red flags on a belt, representing life, and the zombies make a grab for them every chance they get.

People go nuts at the choke points. It only takes one zombie standing menacingly at a creek crossing to create complete chaos as people stumble over and around each other. It's a literal feeding frenzy; the crossing points frequently boast dozens of flags sitting on the ground, prize trophies for the well-fed zombies.
They don't make it easy on you. A LOT of obstacles involve crawling on your belly or maneuvering under creek branches. And even the wide-open prairies often hide hordes of the dead waiting to spring.

"Operation Human Shield!" someone remarks as they skirt alongside an incoming crowd, using the mass of bodies to protect them from the zombies. Can't trust anyone in Armageddon. Possibly the most accurate component of this game is how completely it encourages you to throw your friends to the undead in an effort to save yourself. It's like the midway point of every zombie film ever where everyone turns on each other.

Some of the obstacles are easily skipped — but that usually leads to a much more heavily infested route.
At the bridge, Staff Sergeant Fish, the active-duty Army guy serving as emcee, yells "Watch out, it slopes!" You'd think people would listen, but no, again and again they go tumbling.

The nastiest is a long fence just 18 inches off the ground near the end where you have to crawl on your belly just to make it under — and for added laughs, it's electrified to the touch. A friend of mine nearly bit through her lip when she got a jolt. I hear they turned it off midway through.

At one desolate point of the prairie, a schoolgirl zombie waits, arrayed in plaid skirt, hairbows and bloody lips. Someone yells out "I'll trade you a flag for your phone number!" No such luck. She's not that innocent. It's the end of the world. None of us are.

• Mélanie Laurent in Jennifer Devoldere's 'The Day I Saw Your Heart,' part of Indy Film Fest 2012.

As in recent years, the Indianapolis Museum of Art will host the majority of screenings for the 2012 Indy Film Fest, which runs July 19-29. But the Earth House, the new home of the IFF and host to Wednesday's season announcement party, has its fair share of films as well - particularly late-ish night screenings (10 p.m.) on the festival's closing weekend.

110 features and shorts are on the bill, organized into the categories of World Cinema, American Spectrum, Matter of Fact (or documentary) and Hoosier Lens. The complete list of features is below, as well as a teaser for the festival that pulls together clips from several films.

AMERICAN SPECTRUM
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, Terence Nance
Caroline and Jackie, Adam Christian Clark
Cinema Six, Mark Potts
Crazy Eyes, Adam Sherman
Gayby, Jonathan Lisecki
General Education, Thomas Morris
Kings of Yorktown, Darren Marshall
Rubberneck, Alex Karpovsky
Searching for Sonny, Andrew Disney
See Girl Run, Nate Meyer
Somebody Up There Likes Me, Robert Byington
Without, Mark Jackson

MATTER OF FACT
311: In the Moment, Kyoko Gasha
American Man, Jon Frankel
Andrew Bird: Fever Year, Xan Aranda
Brothers on the Line, Sasha Reuther
Detropia, Heidi Ewing
Ecstasy of Order, Adam Cornelius (sponsored by Horrible Night)
Girl Model, David Redmon, Ashley Sabin
Show Must Go On, Paula Froehle
Side by Side, Christopher Kenneally
WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan (sponsored by O'Ryan Law Firm)

WORLD CINEMA
Aficionados, Arturo Dueňas
Bisperas (Trespassers), Jeffrey Jeturian
The Day I Saw Your Heart, Jennifer Devoldere
Dollhouse, Kirsten Sheridan
Found Memories, Julia Murat
Lotus Eaters, Alexandra McGuiness
Madonna's Pig, Frank Van Passel
Man Without a Cell Phone¸Sameh Zoabi
Patang, Prashant Bhargava
Teddy Bear, Mads Matthiesen
Tilt, Viktor Chouchkov
The Woman in the Septic Tank, Marlon Rivera

HOOSIER LENS
Billi & Theodore, Ronald Short
Late Summer, Ernie Park
Video Stop, Adam Newell

• Indianapolis Opera's 2012 'Faust.'

Just a couple weeks back I grumbled about the lack of contemporary opera on Indianapolis Opera's calendar, so let's just say that I'm pleased with this turn of events. Two 20th-century operas will be presented during the opera's 2012-13 season - Philip Glass's 1984 Akhnaten and Gian Carlo Menotti's 1951 Amahl and the Night Visitors - with Wagner's The Flying Dutchman closing things out in May 2013.

Amahl, the first opera written for television, has remained a Christmas favorite since its premiere; its story of a physically handicapped boy who encounters the Magi gestures toward both Biblical parables and Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Joachim Schamberger, who created the green screen-centric sets for this year's production of Faust and was recently appointed an Affiliate Artist of the Indianapolis Opera for the upcoming season, will return to direct. The opera runs under an hour, making it a viable alternative to The Nutcracker for those looking for a tolerable holiday experience.

Akhnaten - Glass's opera about the titular pharaoh whose elevation of the sun god, Aten, above all others anticipated later monotheistic religions that gained more traction - will be presented in collaboration with IU Opera, with students cast in all performing roles. That's a money-saving measure, to be sure, but also an opportunity to shine some light on one of the best college opera programs in the world. This is the first time the Indianapolis Opera has presented work by Glass, and one of the first contemporary operas ever staged by the company (Menotti was performed several times during the late '70s, but this also marks his return after a long absence from the schedule).

Using set designs similar to those employed for Faust, Schamberger will likewise direct The Flying Dutchman, presented upon the 200th anniversary of Wagner's birth. It's among the more user-friendly of Wagner's works, but full of his characteristic tricks (leitmotifs, etc.) in nascent form.

Amahl and the Night Visitors @ Basile Opera Center, 4011 N. Pennsylvania St.
December 5, 7-9, 12, 14-16, 2012

Akhnaten @ Clowes Memorial Hall, 4602 Sunset Ave.
March 8 and 9, 2013

The Flying Dutchman @ Clowes Memorial Hall, 4602 Sunset Ave.
May 10 and 12, 2013

• Ben Valentine's "Shipping Hazardous Material Never Solved Anything," from Installation Nation 2010.

Sometimes a blank page (or an empty space) is just too overwhelming; restraints can help encourage creation, particularly with others along for the ride to encourage and hold one accountable. Something to keep in mind with the return of Installation Nation, a juried installation art exhibition featuring nine pieces, each installed in its own 640 square foot metal shipping container.

This will mark the third time Primary Colours has hosted the event and the first time it will take place at Big Car Service Center; previous incarnations took advantage of empty lots in the Mass Ave area. Food trucks and the like will be on hand, with adult beverages available. The show runs from 6-11 p.m. tonight (June 15) and 4-11 p.m. on June 16. Admission is $5, or free for 12 and under.

This year's lineup - drawn from applications collected on an international scale - includes plenty of Indy-area talent. The list: Aaron Nemec and Jordan Cleland, Nathan Gorgen, Brandy Graham, Jeffrey S. Martin, Jessica Dunn and Justin Shimp, Chad Sines, Jacob Stanley, Matt and Holly Sommers, and David Yosha.

Let's take a look at previous Installation Nation reviews, starting with Susan Watt Grade's take on 2009's inaugural effort: "Can evocative environments be constructed within the confines of a shipping container? Absolutely. Some artists attempted to provide conceptual and sensory contrast, such as the smell of a pine forest in work by Brent Aldrich and Julie Cifuentes. Jeff Martin's "Conditioning p2" successfully coaxed viewers, one at a time, to lie on a motorized, Styrofoam bed that transported them behind a black curtain into a confusing, claustrophobic MRI-like construction. Michele Bosak's installation questioned past/present consumerism and design through transforming the shipping container into a retro living room lined with watercolors that documented her acquisition of specific vintage furniture items. Will today's mass-produced, imported goods be collected and recorded with such care?"

And Dan Grossman visited the 2010 edition (Installation Nation took 2011 off): "One of the most engaging installations was the cannon-sized kaleidoscope created by Andrew Ball with Todd Bracik and Matt Warren. They attached two 55-gallon oil barrels together lengthwise to construct the torso of said kaleidoscope; they lined the barrel interiors with acrylic mirrors. While this contraption had to be turned with a hand-crank, Sala Wong's "To Tell a Secret" brought you back into the 21st century with the latest technology and projected the images of words spoken by visitors into four microphones onto the shipping container's inner walls; you could have taken the title of said installation to heart by absorbing others' very intimate sentences strung together in cool blue-lit lettering and/or by telling your own. Xiaoou Sun's confused paper moths (confused by artificial light, that is) were also conceptually intriguing."