Spring 2008
Arts Life
Flight of Fancy
Colin Mackenzie regularly visits "little workshops in China that have been making kites with bamboo frames, silk and paper for centuries." The net result of his travels will hang at Middlebury College's Kevin P. Mahaney Center for the Arts, beginning April 3. He expects the exhibit, "Wafting on a Heavenly Breeze: Hand-Painted Kites from China," to include about 50 of these elegant pieces.
"Many of the kites depict centipedes, goldfish, phoenixes and other figures from popular Chinese mythology," says Mackenzie, an adjunct professor and the school's curator of Asian art. "Kites are a Chinese invention, or so they claim, dating back to the 3rd century B.C. It's still a cottage industry there."
Most in the collection come from Weifang, considered the birthplace of kite-making. This endeavor once may have been more about espionage than recreation. Some kites could lift human beings for reconnaissance missions.
One centerpiece of the show will be a 70-foot-long kite topped by a colorful dragon's head with eyes that rotate. Another, swallow-shaped and 6-feet wide, is being specially constructed for Middlebury by a master craftsman in Beijing.
"These things are brightly painted to be seen at a distance when flying," Mackenzie points out. "They are delightful."
- WHAT: "Wafting on a Heavenly Breeze: Hand-Painted Kites from China"
- WHEN: April 3 through November
- WHERE: Mahaney Center for the Arts, Middlebury College
- COST: Free
- INFORMATION: www.middlebury.edu/arts or 443-6433
— Susan Green
Cape Crusader
When scores of Scots began to settle Cape Breton in 1775, they brought along a reverence for the fiddle. Natalie MacMaster, a world-renowned virtuoso on the instrument, helps keep the culture of her Canadian island alive through exciting concerts that also include Celtic step-dancing.
"Natalie is the queen of Cape Breton music," suggests Robert Resnik, host of "All the Traditions" on Vermont Public Radio. "She's always been really connected to her roots, but also has that pop-star thing going."
Her husband, fiddler Donnell Leahy, is an Ontario native who works with family members in the band Leahy (on tap March 17 at the Flynn Center in Burlington).
MacMaster started fiddling at 9, paused long enough for a teaching degree, but has recorded 10 albums since 1993. Many of those releases include collaborations with esteemed artists such as bluegrass singer Alison Krauss and banjo wizard Bela Fleck.
"She puts on a great show for all ages," Resnik says. "A friend's young daughter, who was 8, came out of a performance shooting sparks. It's a joyous kind of experience."
- WHAT: Natalie MacMaster concert
- WHEN: 7:30 p.m., Feb. 26, 27
- WHERE: Chandler Music Hall, Randolph
- COST: $35
- TICKETS: www.chandler-arts.org or 728-6464
— Susan Green
Tall Order
Although the Carpetbag Brigade has never played Vermont before, there may be a hint of déjà vu when the San Francisco-based experimental dance company hits Woodstock in March. Jay Ruby, the director, says it's no coincidence their shows feature the kind of acrobatic stilt-walking familiar to fans of Bread & Puppet Theater. "I spent a summer at the Domestic Resurrection Circus," he says, referring to the annual outdoor pageant once presented by puppeteer Peter Schumann's troupe, based in Glover. "I was inspired mostly by their sense of community celebration and ritual, using art as a tool with which to reshape reality."
Reality is seriously reshaped in "The Vanishing Point," on tap at Woodstock Town Hall Theatre on March 15. This Brigade piece is populated by fanciful otherworldly creatures that express "the wonder and sadness of what it means to be — or become — human."
Ruby says that all Brigade works incorporate modern dance, contact improvisation and Butoh, a Japanese technique in which performers wear ghostly white makeup. Plus, he and his colleagues continue to defy gravity while balancing atop long aluminum poles. Ruby notes: "I do hope to be as agile on stilts in my 70s as Peter Schumann still is."
- WHAT: Carpetbag Brigade's "The Vanishing Point"
- WHEN: 7:30 p.m., March 15
- WHERE: Woodstock Town Hall Theatre
- COST: $18 and less
- TICKETS: www.pentanglearts.org or 457-3981
— Susan Green