Norman

Ballet: Where Have all the Tutus Gone?

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By Glenda Rice Collins

Oklahoma City, Okla., USA – Oklahoma City Ballet’s recent Future Voices choreographic showcase world premieres responded to familiar pop music history, as well as the classics, for inspiration.

The short, dramatic works were inspired by such themes as: sudden death, Analog Form, and jukebox memories, all in contemporary mode, up-close and personal in the same studio where they rehearse – the Inasmuch Foundation Theater at their home base. –Has spare costuming created a ‘tutu dilemma?’ 

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Oklahoma City Ballet, at 50, spins ‘Future Voices’ this week at Inasmuch Theatre

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By Glenda Rice Collins

Oklahoma City, Okla., USA — Oklahoma City Ballet’s upcoming Future Voices public performances, March 17-20, 2022, will showcase inspired new work from talented young choreographers, “up close” in the 190-seat Inasmuch Foundation Theater at the Susan E. Brackett Dance Center, the company’s architecturally-noteworthy Classen Blvd. headquarters.

The showcased new works provide a transitional program in which to reflect on recent contemporary ballet premieres, current company progress, and preparations to contrast and celebrate a few iconic classics soon across Oklahoma this spring. —A Unique Opportunity for Choreographic Study continues! Continue reading →

OU theatre scene illuminates a “Mad Forest”

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By Glenda Rice Collins

Norman, Okla.–Written by Caryl Churchill, Mad Forest is a gripping account of the Romanian Revolution of 1989 as told by the young and the old, the wealthy and the working class, and by humans, animals and spirits in a mesmerizing play that illuminates the complexities of human nature during troubled times. We do indeed live in a mad, mad world, it seems, as the story unfolds with some intense surreal accounts, both subtle and overt.

Inspired performances continue tonight at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. in the A. Max Weitzenhoffer Theatre of the University of Oklahoma.

Live Stream is available for select performances at a single view price of $10.

Visit theatre.ou.edu for more information.

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Courting Death: From Lorca’s Blood Wedding drama to Mills’ Romeo & Juliet ballet

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By Glenda Rice Collins      (Updated 2-20-20)

Oklahoma City, Okla. USA — From the recent production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Spanish classic, Blood Wedding, at the University of Oklahoma (OU) arts district in Norman –(see a related 2-13-20 article, Renegades…, on this website) –to last weekend’s Oklahoma City Ballet staging of William Shakespeare’s tragic Romeo & Juliet love story at Civic Center Music Hall, reminders loom forth of the fragility of life, and how frequently death is courted as the permanent solution to a temporary situation. Continue reading →

Renegades: From Bruce Goff to Sondheim & Lorca 2020

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Renegades 2020

Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman

By Glenda Rice Collins    (Updated 2-16-20)

Norman, Okla. — Definitions of ‘renegade’ run the gamut from rebel, traitor, and betrayer to the more appropriate concepts for my recent University of Oklahoma arts district observations: revolutionary, radical, and runaway, to define artists, architects, and dramatists, along with musical theater themes and characters.  Continue reading →

The Art of Recovery, Part I: From the Beach to Christ Cathedral

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By Glenda Rice Collins   (Updated September 27, 2019)

Bartlesville, Okla., USA — Personal injury along with physical and mental duress can derail the best of intentions for a fulfilling life. To restore a semblance of “balance,” — Get thee to a beach, and get back to the arts!  Continue reading →

Last Call: Bruce Goff Shin’enKan exhibit ends Sunday at Price Tower Arts Center

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By Glenda Rice Collins

BARTLESVILLE, Okla., USA — This week I felt a vital, revived connection, when I toured the ongoing Price Tower Arts Center exhibition, Shin’enKan: House of the Far Away Heart, which ends March 26.  Bruce Goff’s  spirited and somewhat spiritual, avant-garde Oklahoma masterpiece was engulfed in flames some 20 years ago.   Continue reading →

‘The Garden’ ballet premieres at OU to music by professor Michael Lee

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News from the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts

NORMAN, Okla., USA–The University of Oklahoma Schools of Dance and Music will present, in collaboration,  the world premiere of The Garden, at 8 p.m. March 9 in Sharp Concert Hall of Catlett Music Center, 500 W. Boyd St., on the OU Norman campus. This special event is complimentary to the public.   Continue reading →

REVIEW: Contemporary Dance Oklahoma

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The following guest review, an essay  by University of Oklahoma freshman Nadia Moore, in partial fulfillment of an arts appreciation curriculum requirement for all OU students, reveals more about the stature of contemporary dance and exceptional arts leadership at OU. Nadia, an accounting major, also plays the  flute in OU’s Pride of Oklahoma marching band.           Continue reading →

LAST CALL: Tom Stoppard’s award-winning ‘Arcadia’ masterpiece continues at the University of Oklahoma

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Universal Questions Pondered in OU Arts District Play
By Glenda Rice Collins, Published September 25, 2015

NORMAN, Okla., USA–Never underestimate the power of the precocious mind.  As a central character in the provocative, Tony and Olivier Award-winning 1993 Tom Stoppard play, Arcadia, a current production of the University Theater at the University of Oklahoma, the young Thomasina Coverly (brilliantly portrayed by Calley Luman) repeatedly calls our attention to the value of seeking truth.   Continue reading →