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Saturday, April 21, 2012
Arts World party time
Posted By Anita Overcash on Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 7:00 AM
For the culturally merry comes a brand new fest: Charlotte World Parade & Festival at Independence Park. Way too similar to UNC Charlotte's annual International Festival (which happens in September), it offers exactly what you'd expect: cultural displays, a parade (dubbed the "Parade of Nations" ... See, sound familiar?), food, music, dancing and other forms of entertainment and activities.
Colombia, Germany, Turkey, India, South Africa and many other countries from around the globe are already slated to represent the diverse ethnicities of the Q.C. At least now we've got something to hold us over until September. After all, why should a good thing come but once a year? Twice is even better. Free admission. April 21, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Independence Park, 300 Hawthorne Lane. For more information, visit www.worldparadefestival.org.
Film / Film Reviews Weekend Film Review: In Darkness
Posted By Matt Brunson on Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 2:30 AM
Friday, April 20, 2012
News / Democratic National Convention 2012 Democratic National Convention 2012 Notebook: Protesters and Pushback at Romney's 'Prebuttal'
Posted By Mary C. Curtis on Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 12:07 PM
It was a moment of political theater for the Mitt Romney campaign on Wednesday in Charlotte.
The presumptive Republican candidate gave what his campaign called a "prebuttle" close to Bank of America Stadium, where the president will be accepting the Democratic nomination in September. Romney chose the venue wisely, though rain kept the proceedings indoors. Roof with a View was set to hold 100 but filled with at least twice that.
Romney - entering to a soundtrack of Kid Rock's "Born Free" - wore a flag pin as he stood in front of a giant American flag and spoke at a lectern labeled "Obama isn't working." He quoted lines from the president's 2008 Denver speech, pronouncing each promise a failure and concluding that Obama "is over his head and swimming in the wrong direction." (Romney squeezed this open-to-the-media appearance between two closed North Carolina fundraisers, one at a Raleigh restaurant and the other at Myers Park Country Club.)
In the Washington Post, I wrote about the approval of the crowd - cries of "Mitt! Mitt!" filled the air - and the support of many women in the crowd who feel Romney is not really as conservative as his primary rhetoric.
But there were also protesters, including Ron Paul supporters, who also kept vigil outside the Myers Park Country Club, and activists who disapprove of the company Romney keeps on immigration reform and his promise to veto the Dream Act if elected. The act provides a path to permanent residency for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors if they serve in the military or complete college.
With a focus on in-state tuition for undocumented residents, Moises Serrano, 22, of the grassroots group El Cambio, and others traveled from Yadkin County to attend the Romney rally. Serrano's parents brought him to the U.S. when he was 18 months old.
"I want to hold Romney accountable," he said, for the conservative positions the candidate took in the primary season. Despite Romney's appointment of Hispanic outreach officials, particularly in swing states, "he does not have the Latino vote for North Carolina," Serrano said. Though he embraced his support in the past, Romney has started to back away from Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and architect of Arizona's strict immigration law. "It's a political ploy," Serrano said, "a tactic."
Giovanna Hurtado, 22, said it's important for young undocumented immigrants to step out of the shadows and give a human face to a contentious issue. "If he vetoes or wants to veto the Dream Act," she said, "the Latino vote will veto Romney."
Earlier on Wednesday, in a conference call that might be called a prebuttal to Romney's prebuttal, Democratic N.C. Sen. Kay Hagan praised the progress under the president's economic policies. She also said the president "believes in a country where women are given equal pay for equal work." Hagan reminded reporters that almost every Republican in Congress voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first bill the president signed into law, and that when asked, Romney would not say whether he would have voted for it.
Congressman Mel Watt, also on the call, said he was "especially incensed" that Mitt Romney was making "this mock speech in my congressional district." He challenged Romney to release his tax records and specifics of what he would do as president. "It's time for him to come clean," Watt said.
The president returns to North Carolina, according to the White House, in a Tuesday trip to the Research Triangle Park. In the continuing quest for control of the 15 electoral votes in this swing state, expect to see and hear from both candidates in the months leading up to November.
Watch Romney discuss immigration in a 2007 interview with "Meet the Press."
Mary C. Curtis, an award-winning Charlotte, N.C.-based journalist, is a contributor to The Washington Post's "She the People" blog, The Root, NPR and the Nieman Watchdog blog. Her "Keeping It Positive" segment airs Wednesdays at 7:10 a.m. on Fox News Rising Charlotte, and she was national correspondent for Politics Daily. Follow her on Twitter.
Arts Same address, funnier bigots
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:34 AM
Depending on how recently you've seen or read Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the name Karl Lindner and the address 406 Clybourne Park may or may not be meaningful to you. Lindner was the chairman of Clybourne Park's New Neighbors Orientation Committee who attempted to dissuade the black Younger family from moving into his lily-white neighborhood — arriving at the Youngers' Southside Chicago tenement on moving day just to add to the imposition.
Well, in Bruce Norris's Pulitzer Prize-winning Clybourne Park, which opened a couple of nights ago on Broadway, ole Karl retains his pinpoint timing, paying an Act 1 visit to 406 Clybourne Park just as the white family, Russ and Bev, are getting set to move out — in an effort to get his neighbors to nullify the sale. Aside from the crosstown 1959 setting, the biggest difference when comparing Norris's whites and blacks with Hansberry's is that the disputes at Clybourne Park aren't nearly as eloquent — and understanding between characters, even husbands and wives, is far worse. Add to this a stultifyingly trivial level of interests, preoccupations and discourse, and Norris's Chicago is far more comical than Hansberry's. In a perversely satirical way, because of the basic failures to communicate, Norris's assessment of Americans is far bleaker and more hopeless.
An extra difference between the two plays is deliciously layered on by the Actor's Theatre of Charlotte version directed by Dennis Delamar, which celebrated its opening night a week before the Broadway opening. Delamar casts Robert Lee Simmons as Karl and eggs him on to add a buffoonish edge to his unctuous boosterism, discarding the starchiness we normally see in Raisin and giving us a more sweaty, compulsively chatty nervousness. A brilliant portrayal, not to be missed.
Arts / Today's Top Five Today's Top 5: Friday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:16 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, April 20, 2012 as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
* First Run Films screening Tyrannosaur at The Light Factory
* Chris Kattan at The Comedy Zone
* Play It Again, Sam at CPCC's Pease Auditorium
* 9th Annual Cash Bash at Puckett's Farm Equipment
* Jon Lindsay's Midwood Spring Party at Petra's Piano Bar
Thursday, April 19, 2012
News / Opinion Mitt Romney ignores himself in Charlotte 'prebuttle'
Posted By Erin Tracy-Blackwood on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 3:20 PM
In a move clearly designed to pander to the Animal Right's crowd, which is already so fond of him, Mitt Romney kicked off his North Carolina visit this week at a place in Raleigh called "The Angus Barn." It was the presumed GOP presidential nominee's first foray of the 2012 election into our grape-hued swing state.
He then descended upon the Queen City for an appearance on the fifth floor of an Uptown building with a great view of our skyline, which his campaign completely obstructed with the most enormous American flag money can buy. It's not about you, Charlotte.
His 13 minute speech, characterized by his campaign as a "prebuttle," or a pre-emptive strike of sorts, was filled with a list of President Obama's shortcomings and broken dreams. Romney implemented the Simon Cowell strategy of gaining America's attention by blasting another person's work while offering no indication of his own abilities to do a better job. He did not lay out a single solution or platform of his own. Even the candidate's podium didn't reflect his personal campaign: It simply read "Obama isn't working."
Yeah, neither is 10 percent of America, but sipping all this Haterade isn't what is going to help.
He ended his trip with a private fundraiser in Myers Park for local politicians and business owners. Republican officials estimated he would raise $500,000, or in other words, a solid year's salary for 10 out-of-work, management-level employees.
News / Opinion Virginia Foxx: Creative Loafing's dunce of the week
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 1:32 PM
Virginia Foxx infuriated more than a few co-eds this month when she made it clear she didn't tolerate any who graduate with thousands in debt. She had to work her way through UNC Chapel Hill, she said, even graduating three years later than expected because of her toils.
Well, turns out the infamous Tar Heel representative didn't have to pay nearly what Carolina students pay now. Yep, even after inflation.
Foxx paid $87.50 per semester back in the '60s. That translates to $671 in 2012 - about what the average community-college student pays per semester.
Writes education website The Quick and the Ed:
In-state students at Representative Foxx's alma mater pay $7,008 - more than three times what Foxx paid. It took Foxx seven years to graduate, probably because she was working to put herself through college. During the 7-year period she was at UNC, tuition and fees increased about 0.6 percent per year. Compare that to UNC students who have seen their tuition and fees increase on average 7.2 percent per year since 2005. UNC students who take fewer classes in order to subsidize their tuition through work have found themselves in a losing battle with steep tuition increases.
Not only does Foxx represent a state that prides itself on its public and private higher-education institutions, she also chairs the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training.
Madam, your dunce cap is in the mail.
Read quickanded's story here.
Arts Sensoria starts to make sense
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 10:18 AM
As a literary festival, Central Piedmont Community College's ArtsFest was cohesive and sensible, but when it expanded into its current Sensoria form a couple of years ago, it had a thrown-together aspect - not unlike the late, unlamented Charlotte Shout or the newborn Ulysses Festival. But there are encouraging signs of coalescence. While you won't find a festival program booklet, such as the one UNC Charlotte produced for its current Violins of Hope celebration right out the chute (their first inner-city festival ever), CPCC did put up a website exclusively devoted to Sensoria. And they've mobilized both of their main performance venues for Sensoria 2012, Halton Theater and Pease Auditorium. With the Overcash Rehearsal Hall coming into play on April 26 with a brief run of All in the Timing, five days after this year's festival concludes, Sensoria 2013 could be even more theatre-rich.
Meanwhile, Play It Again, Sam at panoramic Pease remains a vibrant piece of Sensoria 2012, with Charlotte fave Hank West channeling Woody Allen in the lead role. Allen's distinctive writing for himself no doubt has a neurotic aroma that's difficult to resist, and most theatergoers will be quite happy that West surrenders totally to the Woody cadence in his portrayal of Allan Felix. Decked out in the classic trench coat as he counsels the lovable bumbler reeling from divorce, Scott C. Reynolds is Bogey. You can go over-the-top imitating Bogart, as stand-up impressionists usually do, or you try for a more lifelike Bogey lite. Reynolds takes the latter route, oozing film noire self-assurance, and it works nicely.
The married couple that attempts to help Felix, Dick and Linda Christie, has no observable chemistry as played by Oyebola Ande and Karina Roberts-Caparino. But that's okay, since Felix will have a semi-affair with Linda because of the breach between the two. Ande is serviceable as the preoccupied careerist husband, but Roberts-Caparino is giving her best-ever performance as Linda, warming up and texturizing the evening every time she and Felix are alone.
Directing the comedy, Charles LaBorde judges all the characters shrewdly, never attempting more depth than the script offers. The ex-wife, Nancy, could merely be normal to reach the end of her rope with Allen, but she appears here like Bogey as an apparition, so Joanna Llambias plays her as the alluring hellcat of his dreams, assisted by Jamey Varnadore's bold costuming. More normal - but incompatible - are the women that Felix meets on the rebound, tossed his way by the Christies, all precisely gauged by Marcie Levine Jacobs.
CPCC Opera Theatre opened Sensoria with a large-scale, small-budget production at Halton Theater, Made in the USA. The tribute to Gershwin and Bernstein offered a reduction of Porgy and Bess and excerpts from three of Bernstein's dramatic works, West Side Story, Trouble in Tahiti, and Candide. Unfortunately, quality was as varied as the programming. The 52-piece CP Opera Orchestra and the CP Chorus were dependable enough, but the broad median level of solo vocalists and dancers is best described as works-in-progress. At the high end of the wide spectrum were Rebecca Cook-Carter's "My Man's Gone Now" from Porgy and Bess, Stephanie Levi's "Glitter and Be Gay" from Candide, and every powerful bass note that Jeffrey Braaten sang as Sam from Trouble in Tahiti.
News Early voting begins today
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 10:14 AM
If you're registered, take the time to exercise your right.
If you're in Mecklenburg County, stop by the first floor of the Hal Marshall Annex in Uptown, 618 N. College St., from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays until April 27.
Gaston County, stop by the Gaston County Board of Elections Office, 410 W. Franklin.
Click here for some additional polling places. Click here for more information or here to find out how to register.
Now, who's pumped about being an American!?
Arts Hit the high notes for World Voice Day
Posted By Anita Overcash on Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 10:00 AM
These days there seems to be an internationally designated day for pretty much everything. If there's a day for pancakes, there might as well be a day for voices - hence today's World Voice Day.
The Carolina Voices' Festival Singers have partnered with The Voice and Swallowing Center (that sounds so wrong) to celebrate this special day at Myers Park Baptist Church. Special sessions include Voice 101, Laryngitis 101, and other topics geared towards actors and singers. As weird as the event may sound, aspiring singers and actors shouldn't scoff at it. Taking care of your voice is paramount to having a long-lasting performing career and apparently there's a lot more to preserving your vocal chords than refraining from smoking, avoiding dairy products, and wearing scarves around your neck. Free food and beverages as well as a concert by Carolina Voices' Festival Singers is also in the mix.
Free. April 19, 5:45 p.m.-9 p.m. Myers Park Baptist Church, 1900 Queens Road. For reservations, call 704-374-1564. - Tricia Bangit
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