Influence Of Roman Culture

The early potters had ample resources with which to experiment, create and develop their styles. The pottery was made as a fairly course, porous clay that when fired, assumes a color ranging from dull ochre to red and was usually left unglazed. The most widely utilized pottery in the Ancient World was oil lamp, bottles, unguentariums, pitchers, bowls and plates, their basic shapes remaining unchanged for over a thousand years and still being used in today's modern world. The oil lamp was the source of light in every household, the bottles and pitchers were used to store wine, water and other liquids, the unguentarium held oils, spices, unguents and balm and the bowls and plates were used to eat from and hold food stuffs. The amphora, classic in shape, was used for storage and shipping in the ancient world and was meant for household use and to hold wine, oil, spice or unguents.

The primary function of any metal industry in antiquity was the production of weapons and tools. A spear point was ranked as the chief weapon used in the battle of ancient Asia and Europe. The famous Greek poet, Homer, tells how Achilles speared Hector with a bronze pole. Ancient Roman spear points have played an important part in history. he range of variation, both in size and layout, is enormous, running from such vast recreation centres as the Baths of Caracalla and Diocletian in Rome, with their libraries, meeting halls, swimming pools, gardens and fountains, down to the domestic bath suites which provided the basic requirements of a cold, a warm and a hot room: frigidarium, tepidarium and calidarium. A keynote of the great public baths was their symmetrical planning around an axis which ran from the main entrance, across the palaestra, or exercise courtyard, and through the centre of the principal frigidarium and calidarium.

In the Forum and Stabian Baths al Pompeii and the Suburban Baths al Herculaneum, a simple range of rooms adjoined a palaestra secluded behind the shops on the street frontage. As at Lepcis, the vaulting is intact; much of the stucco decoration is preserved. We see the attractive but modest surroundings of everyday-life in all ordinary Roman town. A distinctive feature of public baths in such cities as Ephesus and Pergamum is a large rectangular room fronting the palaestra, its walls decorated internally with columns and statuary in the manner of the theatre and nymphacum facades. In many western provincial towns, the baths were second only to the forum and basilica in architectural importance, and notable bath buildings are also a feature of rural religious sanctuaries in Gaul. The Romans emerged from a small settlement near Rome. By the 1st Century AD, Roman territories expanded from Britain in the north to Egypt in the south.

More Information About New York Culture

New York saw many of the popular arty cultures emerging from the cracks of the city. The Harlem Renaissance and Modern Dance developed in the early 20th century, jazz in the 1940's and expressionism in the 1950's were some of the famous creations of this city. New York is also home of Indie Rock, Hip Hop, punk rock and Beat Generation. The mix of culture saw a mix of styles emerging; high culture, street culture and other experimental forms such as modernism and jazz poetry.Music culture diverged from funk, soul and jazz and in the 1960's Disco Music emerged in New York. The trend grew in the 1970's and continued well in to the 1980's. New York was also home to some of the biggest disco nightclubs; Paradise Garage, Studio 54. New York's downtown music scene came up with punk rock in the 1970's. The downtown music scene also led the way to newer styles of rock music.
New York City theatres along Broadway and 42nd Street presented the new stage form of using song in narrative, known as the Broadway Musical. Today the Broadway consists of the 39 largest theatres in New York. Most of Broadway is located in the vicinity of the Times Square and most of its shows have been hits around the world.This exhibition which brought European talent of modern art to the United States saw new modernist movements in New York. The Museum of Modern Art was created in 1929 and influenced the art scene immensely by showcasing American contemporary art. The vibrant visual art scene in New York in the 1950's influenced the pop art movement - reproductions of everyday images and objects of popular American culture.Between Midtown and the Hudson River lies a unique Manhattan neighborhood with a colorful name and a rich history. Like many of the neighborhoods in New York, Hell's Kitchen has recently undergone a massive renovation, creating an unusual blend of wealth, culture and history. You're as likely to find exclusive boutique shops as you are inexpensive ethnic restaurants. Trendy nightclubs frequented by up-and-coming young professionals stand among bars and diners favored by working-class residents.
The museum features the World War II aircraft carrier the USS Intrepid, the submarine the USS Growler, and a Concorde SST, and is open to the public all year. You'll discover what life was like for the 3,000 sailors who lived and served on the Intrepid and see more than 30 aircraft housed on the flight deck of the ship.Overlooking the Hudson River from the center of Hell's Kitchen, the Javits Center is convenient to many of Manhattan's popular destinations including shopping, sightseeing and theater. The lustrous glass and steel building spans five city blocks and sparkles with the light from the city that never sleeps.Its brightness and its layers jump out as its juxtaposed with the other 19th Century architecture in the neighborhood. Inside the museum offers, among others, modern, impressionistic-from early to post, Surrealist, and abstract art. Interestingly, the private collections exhibited at the Guggenheim are viewed as a whole without distinction as to type of medium.

German Culture

　　
       Every country has a rich background in their culture, and the forms of expression of these countries are very different, some are very diversified, while some are very intent, before the late 19th century the culture of German was very separated, so that the form of German culture has been diversified so far. If you want to learn more about the German culture, so why are you so interested in German culture? First, the most popular reason for you to learn this kind of language is that you want to learn German language much more easily. When we learn a new language, we may find that any kind of language would not exist alone, along with many other additions such as background as well as language culture and its economy and so on.
　　For example, when you want to learn a new language, you must knowledge about some rule of this kind of language. Some of these can show you the speaking habit of the speaker who speak this kind of language. From these language habit, you will find that the method in which they deal with something general is mostly very different from other people who are from other countries. So from this we can see that the method people deal with things can show a kind of attitude to their life, so we can communicate with them much more easily if we know their view of their life. Generally speaking, when we communicate with others, in a large extent we make use of not only the language which both we and the other know but also we make use of our body language as well as some talking skills which contain much our respect to other people. So how we can respect other people? First we must learn about their culture of themselves. We learn a kind of language for communicating with others, but we communicate with others not for learning a kind of language alone. So this is the reason why we should learn other cultures if we want to learn a new language. Second, German is a famous language and it is very useful in the modern times. Learning german can benifit you very much.
　　For example, if you learn this kind of language well, you will get more chances about your career as well as your life. Then your view will become more and more wide, and you will see much more beautiful prospect. When you are learning this kind of language, you had better own some good software to help you deal with some problems. For example, you can make use of Rosetta Stone German which can help you with as many vocabulary problems as possible. Browsing through all the things above, maybe you have learned something on learning a foreign language, especially the one you have chosen.

Indian Culture

 
   India is known for its cultural heritage all over the world. It has a long cultural history that stretches back to 5000 years.
   Indian culture is deeply rooted with various religion, practices and norms. India is a religious land with major surviving religions as Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Jainism, and Buddhism. Indian people are associated a lot to the religion and have adopted the culture from the religion to which they belong. India is an ancient country which was the hub of ancient activities and cultural practices. From the time of Harappan civilization India is rich in culture with still continuing practices to promote cultural heritage.
   India is a land of diversification whether it is geography, history, culture, religion or people. This diversification over the years has led to the transformation and strengthening of the modern culture. Indian culture involves celebration of festivals, art, drama and theater, literature, music, philosophy, television, monuments, architecture and much more.
   Ancient India has been invaded by various foreign rulers and they all have brought up their culture with them. As a result of this Indian culture has been amended every time but this addition was always positive and has strengthen up the culture. Initially mughal emperors who came to India added up to the culture and then later in the ages British, Portuguese, France and Spain invaded India and added to the Indian culture. But more recently after the free India when government policies changed and after 1991 various foreign companies entered India and they have formed Indian culture a modern and dynamic one.
   Indian culture is a big collection of heritage, art, architecture, social norms, customs, tradition etc that India is following from the ancient ages. One must learn something about Indian culture. Indian culture has various things that can make heart and mind blissful.

Vikings Navigated With Translucent Crystals?

Vikings may have navigated by looking through a type of crystal called Icelandic spar, a new study suggests.

In some Icelandic sagas—embellished stories of Viking life—sailors relied on so-called sunstones to locate the sun's position and steer their ships on cloudy days. (See Iceland photos submitted by readers like you.)

The stone would've worked by detecting a property of sunlight called polarization.

Polarization is when light—which normally radiates randomly from its source—encounters something, such as a shiny surface or fog, that causes the rays to assume a particular orientation.

Due to this property, as sunlight moves through the atmosphere, the resulting polarization gives away the direction of the original source of the light.

Detecting light's polarization is a natural ability of some animals, such as bees. (See "'Weird Beastie' Shrimp Have Super-Vision.")

In 1969, a Danish archaeologist suggested real-life Vikings might have used sunstones to detect polarized light, using the stones to supplement sundials, stars, and other navigational aids.

Since then, researchers have been probing how such a sunstone might have worked. On that point, though, the sagas were silent.

Sun-Revealing Crystal

Now, Guy Ropars, a physicist at the University of Rennes in France, has conducted an experiment with a potential Viking sunstone: a piece of Icelandic spar recently found aboard the Alderney, a British ship that sank in 1592.

In the laboratory, Ropars and his team struck the piece of Icelandic spar with a beam of partly polarized laser light and measured how the crystal separates polarized from unpolarized light.

By rotating the crystal, the team found that there's only one point on the stone where those two beams were equally strong—an angle that depends on the beam's location.

That would enable a navigator to test a crystal on a sunny day and mark the sun's location on the crystal for reference on cloudy days. On cloudy days, a navigator would only be able to use the relative brightness of the two beams.

(See "'Thor's Hammer' Found in Viking Graves.")

Icelandic Spar "Ideal" for Navigating

The team then recruited 20 volunteers to take turns looking at the crystal outside on a cloudy day and measure how accurately they could estimate the position of the hidden sun.

Navigators subdivide the horizon by 360 degrees, and the team found that the volunteers could locate the sun's position to within 1 degree.

The results confirm "that the Icelandic spar is an ideal crystal, and that it can be used with great precision" for locating the sun, said ecologist Susanne Akesson of Sweden's University of Lund, who was not part of Ropars's research team. (See gemstones pictures.)

In 2010 Akesson and colleagues showed how local weather conditions may have influenced how light polarizes in the sky at Arctic latitudes, something Vikings would've needed to account for in their navigation.

"But the question remains," she said, "whether [Icelandic spar] was in common use" in Viking times.

On that point, physics is also silent.

The Viking-sunstone study was published online November 2 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

The Tempest at the Dallas Theater Center

This Tempest is still very much in the mode of Kevin Moriarty’s easy-access, short-attention-span Shakespeare. It’s an approach — seen previously in Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry IV — that frankly, I’ve not been bowled over by.  Of course, as with the dance-party Midsummer two years ago, this approach can provide an invigorating and popular introduction to a play. And certainly, there’s often a case to be made for simplifying and re-wording Shakespeare’s works. When it’s done on this scale and this regularly, though, it seems like a lack of faith in the plays or in the actors. It’s as if even the great ones can’t succeed without some serious re-tailoring.

With The Tempest, Moriarty has cut down Shakespeare’s late comedy to an hour and 45 minutes — without intermission. He’s stripped out much of the historical context and classical references, dropped the masque (which many directors do) and modernized the language throughout.

Paradoxically, Moriarty’s overall approach can be jokey-trendy  — given the chance, the drunken clowns Stefano and Trinculo eagerly sport hoodies and Juicy Couture. Yet his production is also retro, even traditionalist. In addition to the cuts just mentioned, the DTC Tempest forgoes any of the colonialist overlay that’s become conventional in recent years — with Prospero as the Western master of science and power, and Caliban as an oppressed Third-World native. (Coincidentally, Adrian Hall’s production at the Theater Center — the last Tempest done by the company — brought this interpretation to Dallas in 1987. Most elaborately perhaps, director George C. Wolfe brought it to Broadway in 1995 in a Jamaican-island version featuring Patrick Stewart as Prospero).

Yet here, Moriarty’s simplifications work wonderfully well. That’s because what he’s given us is The Tempest as pure fairy tale. Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, was banished to an island where he’s raised his daughter Miranda. For twelve years, he’s used magic and the island’s magical creatures to prepare his revenge against his usurping brother, Antonio.


It’s a fairy tale, but Moriarty gives it a contemporary gloss. Instead of a shipwreck, the play opens with a lame airplane crash (onboard, there’s not much in the way of smoke, warning lights or even passenger panic). But our castaways then find themselves on set designer Beowulf Borrit’s silvery dreamscape, which recalls Arthur Rackham’s children’s book illustrations or the fantasy worlds of album-cover artist Roger Dean. This is a desert island where it snows, an island where even Caliban, the island’s monster, is amazed by the music he hears and the dreams they cause.


Hunter Ryan Herdlicka as Ariel, Cliff Miller as Trinculo, Joe Nemmers as Caliban and Lee Trull as Stephano in The Tempest

This fairy tale succeeds not because of Borrit’s beautiful set or the music (provided by Broken Chord) or even the special effects (some of which, like the plane crash, the flying harpy and a magic dog, aren’t that impressive). It’s plain Moriarty wants to remove a lot of the antiquated language to get to these characters’ human essence, and several performers succeed. They make this a heartfelt Tempest as well as a lovely one.

Longtime Dallas actor Joe Nemmers makes Caliban a tender monster, not the usual “thing most brutish,” to quote Miranda. To be sure, Nemmers snarls and threatens and contorts his muscular body into an Igor-like crouch (one half-expects him to lisp, “Master!“). But his Caliban is more akin to a resentful teenager, hating to obey, hating his chores, yet secretly aching for adult attention and guidance. There’s a wounded soul in this beast. In fact, at the end, when Prospero acknowledges “this thing of darkness” as his own, the reconciliation is more touching than the entire Miranda-Ferdinand courtship, which in the hands of Abbey Siegworth and Steven Walters feels formulaic. The clowns (Lee Trull and Cliff Miller) are much the same — good but not great.

The island’s other magical servant-creature, Ariel, is given a more human interpretation as well. He’s not as ethereal-extraterrestrial as some Ariels, but he ends up relatively unsurprising as a kind of choirboy Puck. Hunter Ryan Herdlicka is a handsome, agile presence with a clear, pure voice but he’s also somewhat bland in the role, the likable puppy to Nemmers’ attack dog.

It’s Chamblee Ferguson’s Prospero that ultimately makes this Tempest beat with a big heart. Ferguson doesn’t have a duke’s commanding presence, the kind classic tragedians like Patrick Stewart, Michael Hordern or Christopher Plummer bring to the role with apparent ease. At first, Ferguson seems to be trying to make up for that lack by bellowing too much. But in his last great speeches, he truly comes into his own, bringing to bear an emotional openness not often seen in the old wizard. For his powerful ‘farewell to magic’ speech, lighting designer Clifton Taylor has pulled out a few effects that complement the verbal fireworks.

It’s among those speeches that Ferguson finds The Tempest’s emotional core — in a few lines that are often overlooked: Prospero’s rejection of revenge. Too many actors make Prospero’s choice seem pre-ordained: We all knew the old sorcerer was too nice a fellow to do any serious damage. In a smart move — Ferguson’s or Moriarty’s — this Prospero diligently sharpens the knife he intends to use on Antonio (the smoothly sly J. Brent Alford). Ariel brings him the news that all is ready for his revenge. But he adds, almost as an afterthought, if Prospero saw how wretched his brother and his entourage are now, he might feel differently.

Fahari Arts Institute of Black, Gay and Southern

Harold Steward kept getting those requests because he’s the performing arts coordinator for the South Dallas Cultural Center. Black gay arts organizations using the center would ask: Did he know of any dancers who’d collaborate on this event? What about painters? Or spoken word artists?

Steward: “And so I began to match artists with organizations, and it got me to thinking about what a black queer multi-disciplinary arts organization would look like. And I was really just playing around with an idea because there is a gap between organizations and artists.”

Then African-American novelist E. Lynn Harris died in July 2009. The openly gay writer had had 10 consecutive novels on the bestseller lists. But when no public tribute in North Texas seemed forthcoming, Steward helped arrange one — with readers, visual artists, dancers and a singer. After that, the Fahari Institute grew – as Steward says – “organically.” Fahari means ‘pride’ or ‘royalty’ in Swahili. But for Steward, it could well mean ‘things keep happening every month.’

Steward: “The next month, an opportunity came to hold a monthly poetry and spoken-word event called Queerly Speaking. And then, shortly after that, another opportunity came with the Queer Film Series at the Cultural Center.”

Then came a three-day film festival and then fundraisers. Fahari Arts Institute is now the only black gay arts organization in North Texas to offer a full array of programs year-round: dance, theater, lectures, films and readings. A new season began this month with two gallery exhibitions, marking the fact that this is the 30th year of the HIV epidemic: One is a solo show, Poz Eyes, about photographer Terrance Omar Gilbert’s battle with HIV; the other is Our 30, a group show of different artworks, such as “Scarlet,” below, by Lovie Olivia (print on plaster, 2011).

Steward says Fahari is as much a Southern organization as it is a gay, African-American one – because the South is different for blacks and gays. Patrick Packer is the executive director of the Southern AIDS Coalition.

Packer: “Nine of the top ten cities with the highest HIV case rates are in the South. If you look at the states – and Texas being one of those states – eight of the top ten states with the highest HIV infection case rates are in the South.”

Packer will give a gallery talk sponsored by Fahari on Friday. He said he chose to speak at an arts institute  because gay artists, for 30 years, have been some of the loudest voices in the fight against HIV.

And there’s a grimmer reason.

Packer: “The arts community has been one of the hardest hit with HIV and AIDS.”

Steward says all of that leads to a different conversation about the arts, HIV, race and the South – about access to medical care in underserved areas, for example. Or even access to the arts. Steward wants Fahari to serve North Texas in ways he felt weren’t available to him when he graduated 10 years ago as a theater student from the Booker T. Washington Arts Magnet High School.

Steward: “When I was thinking about where I would go after high school, the East Coast or West Coast was constantly on my mind. But what does that do to my local community if everyone moves to a different community to produce their work?”

Fortunately for Steward, he’s always found strong support in his family. When he decided to come out to family members two years ago, he wrote them all — parents and siblings, aunts and nieces — a Christmas card that “really laid out who I was.” (“It wasn’t necessarily a cowardly approach,” he says with a chuckle.) Family members individually gave him more or less the same response: They loved him and were happy for him.

Steward: “OK, here we have 10-15 people who get the same Christmas card and they all have the same reaction. For a black queer theater practitioner, I can’t do nothing with that. [laughs] I can’t even sell my coming-out story.”

Steward and Fahari must be doing something right: In its second year, Fahari won three Dallas Voice Awards against more established organizations.

Steward: “Of course, it’s all based off of popular vote. But you know, we looked at it, and said, ‘Here we are, a volunteer staff, an even more volunteer budget because we don’t know what it is, and how do we come away with three awards when no other organization does? What we’re doing is building community.”

Unfortunately for him, it also means Steward has to juggle the technical and scheduling needs of a whole range of different kinds of artists. And he does that on top of balancing the overlapping but different interests of the gay and black communities. What happens when his programs are seen as not‘black enough’? Or not ‘gay enough’?

A Slew of Art Events This Weekend

Guest blogger Danielle Marie Georgiou is the Artistic Director and Choreographer of DGDG: Danielle Georgiou Dance Group. She also serves as the Assistant Director of the UT Arlington’s Dance Ensemble.

It’s another art-filled weekend for North Texas! Not only is the Dallas VideoFest back, but the Deep Ellum Art Walk is this Saturday from 6-10 p.m., and CentralTrak is just one stop on that walk.

On Friday at 7 p.m., CentralTrak is hosting a showcase of spoken-word performances, curated by Dallas poet Michael Guinn. Guinn, a native Texan who holds a masters degree in social work, uses his experience as a caseworker for Child Protective Services as inspiration for his poetry and spoken-work performances. Guinn is the founder and “Slam Master” for the historic Fort Worth Poetry Slam Team, and his workshop for creative writing and performance poetry have received national acclaim.

For Friday’s event, Guinn has assembled a group of dynamic writers whose work relates to the social and political themes in the visual artwork of El Franco Lee II. “LIQUID ANALOG,” painting and drawings by Lee, continues at CentralTrak through Oct. 8.

The 11th Semi-Annual Deep Ellum Art Walk is Saturday, from 6-11 p.m. in both Deep Ellum and Exposition Park. The galleries of Deep Ellum and Expo Park will open their doors to the public for art viewing, shopping, music, food and drink. The galleries will feature paintings, photography, sculpture, experiential and performance art ranging from the classical to the contemporary.

Participants include: Kettle Art, Tony Horton, Kirk Hopper Fine Art, 29 Pieces, CentralTrak, Factory Girl, Latino Cultural Center, The Mitchell Lofts, Mokah Art Gallery, Chi Gallery, 500X, 3025 Main, MG Painting and Design, 2826 Arnetic, Steve Paul Productions, Calais Winery, In Accord, Demeter Project and The Ravach Arts Company.

The event is free, and each gallery is in easy walking distance from one another. The DART Green Line is available to you from Deep Ellum to Expo Park. The official starting point is Kettle Art.

Since Wednesday, the Dallas VideoFest has taken over the Angelika Film Center in Mockingbird  Station and the Texas Theatre. DVF is one of the oldest video-based festivals in the country and has a legacy that is both memorable and innovative, and this year is no different. The festival started with a screening of Film Socialisme, the new feature from legendary director and French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard. For the mixed martial arts lovers, the documentary Once I Was A Champion, about the life and struggles of former UFC Champion Evan Tanner, will be screened later in the week. Two works from director Spike Jonze, a short titled Mourir Auprès de Toi and a vintage skating video of his creation, also will be featured at the festival this year.

The schedule of films gives you an idea of a little something to do every day and night until Sunday. And if you’re into short experimental films, be sure to check out the block of videos being screened on Sunday at noon at the Angelika, featuring a little piece by me!

Talking With Choreographer Michelle Gibson

Guest blogger Danielle Marie Georgiou is the artistic director and choreographer of DGDG: Danielle Georgiou Dance Group. She also serves as the Assistant Director of the UT Arlington’s Dance Ensemble.

Michelle Gibson is a choreographer, teacher and performing artist who you might have seen in such films as Interview With a Vampire, Ray, and Just My Luck. Or maybe you’ve taken one of her classes at the South Dallas Cultural Center. Or maybe you saw her choreography in the Dallas Children’s Theatre’s production of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters (which ran Sept. 17-18 at the Winspear Opera House).

Gibson originally choreographed the work in 2008, but she was called back in to re-stage it for 2011. In both instances, the play immediately called to her, as it represents the African myths and histories she so loves and personally relates to. And as a mother, the classical story’s embedded values and morals hit home. She found herself wanting to help the story not just for an audience, but also for her family, both on and off stage.

As the choreographer, Gibson found that creating the work was not just about the movement being movement, but also about it being true to African culture itself, and African traditions. As a mother, she wanted to create a movement vocabulary that children could relate to.

Her passion to educate her actors and her family came across as a passion for life when I spoke with her earlier this month:

Danielle Georgiou: How did you first get into dance?

Michelle Gibson: Oh wow, I could spend maybe a couple of hours on that one! But I’m a preacher’s daughter, a minister’s daughter, and being in church as a little girl, I was always a mover. I could never keep still! And my mother noticed that and she said, “Let’s try this dance thing.”

I’m from New Orleans, and the first dance school I went to was in a 67-year-old woman’s garage. No dance floor, just carpet and a revolving fan. We used chairs as a ballet barre. That was my first experience in dance.

D.G.: From there did you move on to a studio?

M.G.: Well, she was like a studio for me. But after that, I was accepted into the performing arts after-school program at the New Orleans Center for Performing Arts. I started in the fourth grade and I went all the way through middle school to high school. From there, I graduated from high school and went straight to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. After that, I was going to every intensive I could! I wanted to know it all. I went to Jacob’s Pillow, the American Dance Festival and the Bates Festival. I was exposed to so much of what dance really is for me.

I then went to college and received my BFA in Dance from Tulane University. And last month, I just finished my MFA in Dance from Duke University (whose program is through Hollins University and the American Dance Festival). I just finished my thesis, and that’s pretty much how it all happened.

D.G.: Well, congratulations on finishing your thesis. I know how hard that is! And what a relief it must be.

M.G.:Thank you! It’s like I can breathe just a little bit more again!

D.G.: When did you start choreographing?

M.G.: I’ve been choreographing since I was 14. I’ve always been a choreographer. And performer, that’s a blessing! I can say I was blessed with both of those talents.

D.G.: Were you always involved in theater productions? Or just dance? Maybe a combination of both?

M.G.: I think a combination of both. I teach Afro-Modern, which is a mixture of African Diasporas and modern techniques — Horton and a little Dunham. And sometimes I do this Afro-Funk thing, which mixes the Diasporas with hip-hop. I think any style of dance, for me, I can choreograph. I guess because I exposed myself to so much … musicals, contemporary works, community works …

D.G.: Right now, is Afro-Modern, Afro-Funk, your focus?

M.G.: That’s my style. That’s what I have ordained myself. It’s who I am, it’s what I do. It takes awhile for you find your funk, your style.

D.G.: I’m still trying to find mine.

M.G.: Let me tell you, it’s a process. For me, I’m doing this because it’s who I am. It keeps me tied to my ancestral history and keeps me connected to my art as an artist.

D.G.: You’re both an educator and artist – how do you manage to balance both roles?

M.G.: They have become one and the same for me. I’m lucky that I can do both, and that my career affords me to do both. But really, I’m just working.

You can catch Gibson at the South Dallas Cultural Center on Tuesday nights, when she teaches her Afr0-Modern technique at 7 p.m.

Echo Theatre’s ‘A Most Dangerous Woman’

Like Virginia Woolf’s, the life of George Eliot is one of those defining, literary-feminist archetypes: the woman whose creative genius and independent spirit could not save her from deep self-doubts about her own physical appearance. Yet she also overcame hurdles put in her way as an unconventional female writer with an unconventional sex life  (Woolf’s bisexuality and Eliot’s long-term relationship with a married man).

Woolf’s life has received at least some stage-or-movie time in Eileen Atkins’ superlative one-woman show, A Room of One’s Own, and the less-than-superlative novel-turned-film, The Hours. But it’s only with Echo Theatre’s new production, A Most Dangerous Woman, that Eliot gets anything similar. Too bad playwright Cathy Tempelsman seems to have followed Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss as a model: It’s far too long and has an ending so clunky one seriously starts re-considering what came before it.

That’s the bad news; the good news is that with some smart pruning, Dangerous Woman could be an effective bio-drama.

Tempelsman fails at the central trick of the stage biography: giving a creative person’s messy life and art the compelling shape of drama. That’s why some playwright’s concentrate on just a pivotal moment or relationship (the way John Logan’s Red, for instance, treats the painter Mark Rothko). Otherwise, they can end up with a story that sings and dances and wanders on like Will Rogers’ Follies because, well, so did Rogers — until his abrupt, meaningless plane wreck. That’s how a chronological life goes, one thing after another until it stops. Not the best formula for drama.

Marian Evans-turned-George Eliot confronted two connected issues of identity throughout her life. Born and raised a country girl in Warwickshire, she up-ended mid-Victorian literary proprieties by writing about ordinary country people. In an era when Dickens and Thackeray extolled Londoners (Dickens’ creation of London may be his greatest fiction), Eliot argued for the moral and political value in village clerics, social outsiders and Calvinist sects. Her finest novel, Middlemarch, is pointedly sub-titled, A Study of Provincial Life. So she fought simultaneously to be accepted as a serious female writer — period — but also as a “regional” social realist (one of Templesman’s best touches is her inclusion of Eliot’s life-changing, put-up or shut-up essay, “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists”).

Hence, the awkward irony of Evans’ decision to take a masculine nom de plume. She wished her work to be judged not by gender, yet disguised like this, no one would know she was a female novelist. So she didn’t actually score any points for the cause until the mask was lifted.

But the decision was also motivated by her (non-) marital status:  She’d fallen in love with writer-philosopher George Henry Lewes and lived with him, although he was married to another woman. Lewes had an open marriage, but because his wife’s children were legally designated as his, he was tacitly agreeing to her adultery and could not divorce her. Even so, Eliot and Lewes considered themselves married, and Evans even took his name.  But it was not a name (nor a relationship) she was prepared — yet — to reveal on the cover of a book.

All of these conflicts are laid out promisingly in Dangerous Woman’s first act. The play is an ambitious project for Echo, requiring dozens of characters and scene changes, interspersed with front-of-curtain set pieces from Eliot’s novels. All of which they handle very capably. Kudos to Tempelsman and director David Meglino, by the way, for not sticking with ordinary stage realism: Occasionally, critics or “society” are amusingly represented by a cluster of caricatured types loudly gossiping about Eliot or objecting to her latest scandalous action.


Or by death. Yes, Tempelsman follows chronology all the way to the end — which pushes her into a post-mortem corner. She has to have another character (Eliot’s friend Barbara Bodichon, played by Jessica Cavanagh) step in to wrap things up. The sudden appearance of a voiceover in a film is often a sign that a problem in writing and editing couldn’t be resolved or that the creators didn’t trust the material and couldn’t agree (see, for example, the added-on narrative voice in the theatrical release of Bladerunner). A character suddenly stepping out of character at the end of a drama to explain things carries the same import. Is this really necessary?

The bio-drama is a middle-brow, Masterpiece Theatre-sort of achievement — condensing an artist’s life and work into a life-like package that lets us think we’ve grasped both life and work. I don’t mean to belittle it; I happen to think some of Masterpiece Theatre’s shows are terrific.  But all of Dangerous Woman’s central conflicts — and most of Eliot’s own literary and feminist achievements — are actually tied up with the central relationship of her adult life, her soul union with George Henry Lewes.  It’s that relationship which forced Marian Evans to create a literary pseudonym while also passing herself off as “Mrs. Lewes” — the intertwined questions of identity that are the heart of the play. Everything that comes before and after in Dangerous Woman is mostly intro or repetition.