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You’re reading the Culture Report, our weekly compilation of the region’s arts and culture news.
Happening Here
• An intriguing art event that lets people participate in making art happens this weekend in Chicano Park. The event, called “Figment,” is free — which organizers hope will help them in “removing the barriers of museum and gallery walls and entrance fees and blurring the lines between those who create and those who enjoy art.”
Kinsee Morlan tracked down a few of the artists who are planning to bring their work — including the creator of a giant kaleidoscope. (CityBeat)
• The auction of Anthology, Little Italy’s jazz and dinner venue, was postponed again, this time to April 30. The venue’s Yamaha grand piano has already been removed. (U-T San Diego)
• American poet Billy Collins visited San Diego last month, and UCSD-TV just posted video from a reading and interview he did.
• Quite a niche: Local actor Jeffrey Jones is San Diego theater directors’ “go-to guy” for characters that are “dark, miles-deep, edgy and often-crazed,” according to the U-T’s Pam Kragen. He’s currently playing Randle McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“At local theaters in recent years, the 49-year-old Coronado actor has played a psycho on a park bench, a Nazi prisoner, a one-handed murderer and a fierce, aggressive man mourning his brother’s death,” Kragen writes.
• La Jolla Playhouse associate producer Dana Harrell is directing a play at Moxie Theatre, across town from her day job, called “References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot.” She tells the U-T the play is, appropriately enough, “probably the hottest show I’ve ever worked on.”
Local Roots
• Architect Nathan Lee Colkitt took over a space in a Little Italy building to build both his personal living space and his professional studio. “Like every designer, I tried to find the one with the most problems, because that brings out your creativity,” Colkitt told Dwell magazine in a feature that includes a slideshow of the space. “This unit is oddly shaped, with every wall at an angle and I wanted to do something more interesting than just putting up a wall in the middle.”
• Chef Rob Ruiz is tagging his sushi at Harney Sushi with edible QR codes so customers can look up where the fish they’re eating came from. (San Diego Magazine)
• Local artist Inocente Izucar, whose daily life was filmed for the Oscar-winning documentary named after her, appeared on KPBS last week with Matt D’Arrigo, who founded the arts organization that gave her classes. D’Arrigo said the teen has quite a year ahead: An artist’s residency in Denver in June and shows in Washington, D.C. and New York in the summer. The City Council honored Izucar last week. (KPBS)
• A 16-year-old pop singer from Santee named Dylan Hyde recently signed contracts with two major labels: Universal-Motown Records and Island/Def Jam Music Group. (San Diego Reader)
• Sculptor Michael Leaf has been combing the rubble of the South Bay power plant for inspiration and materials for a project that will memorialize the plant in Chula Vista.
“People called it ‘an eyesore, it’s blocking my view,’ and it’s sad in a way,” he told the U-T. “I hope to do the opposite. I want to remind people of how it served the community and was a staple of South Bay.”
You can see one of the pieces Leaf dug up in this NBC7 San Diego interview.
• New music connoisseur Bonnie Wright chatted on the radio last week about a few different approaches she uses to connect San Diego audiences with electronica, noise, avant-garde and experimental music — including “soiree” discussions at her home. (Jazz 88)
• NPR featured San Diego native Ari Seth Cohen’s photographs and blog write-ups on older women’s fashion on “Morning Edition” Monday.
• A musical quintet shares more than practice space: The five siblings live together in their family home in Chula Vista and go to school together at San Diego State. Both of their parents died of cancer in the last few years. (KPBS)
• On stage now at the Civic Theatre downtown, San Diego Opera’s “Murder in the Cathedral” production involves new costumes, lights and stage designs. The U-T profiled those designers, KUSI gave a sneak peek and we also featured Denitsa Bliznakova’s research into centuries-old garb at our recent “Meeting of the Minds.” After opening night last weekend, the U-T’s Jim Chute raved about the show’s star, bass-baritone Ferrucio Furlanetto, but was less a fan of the opera itself, which composer Ildebrando Pizzetti based on a T.S. Eliot play.
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I’m Kelly Bennett, reporter for Voice of San Diego. You can reach me directly at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0531.
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