Bountiful Ballet Footnotes Unmasked, Part 1: Tulsa Ballet Revives ‘Tchaikovsky: The Man Behind the Music’ this weekend

By Glenda Rice Collins

Tulsa, Okla., USA – Just three years ago, in March 2020, as the COVID 19 pandemic lockdown went into full effect, Tulsa Ballet employees geared up to make and widely share much-needed health-protective (and scarce) masks made from humanitarian efforts in their costume department.

Now, following recently dazzling 2022-23 season world premieres of unmasked, seductive Carmen and elaborately-staged Cinderella productions, Tulsa Ballet artistic director Marcello Angelini brings us Ma Cong‘s poignant and beautiful masterpiece, Tchaikovsky, the Man Behind the Music, March 23-26 at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.

Cong’s brilliant-tribute ballet made its World Premiere just four years ago on March 29, 2019 here. the performance then called “…simply, a triumph,” by the Tulsa World, just a year before the pandemic lockdown. Creative genius now prevails once again!

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OKC Lyric Theatre Homecoming Performances Continue with ‘Head Over Heels’ Hijinks

By Glenda Rice Collins

Oklahoma City, Okla., USA — From a high-profile, expanded American Indian-themed outdoor Distant Thunder world premiere to a current COVID pandemic-delayed homecoming return to the indoor Plaza Theater, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma continues to celebrate dramatic diversity with the ongoing Head Over Heels musical production, continuing through April 30, 2022.

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Art in Bloom blossoms this weekend at Oklahoma City Museum of Art

Annual Festival of Flowers On view for one weekend only, April 8 – 10!

Compiled by Glenda Rice Collins

Oklahoma City, Okla., USA —Art in Bloom 2022 features 13 fresh floral sculptures – each one an interpretation of a work of art on view at the museum. These living sculptures are being created by 13 local florists for the short-term exhibition, opening tomorrow.

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OKC: Get your GLOW on at Scissortail Park this weekend

Compiled by Glenda Rice Collins — Updated April 7, 2022

Community Celebration at Scissortail Park to feature lighted hot air balloons and drones!

Scissortail Springtime in the Park at Dusk: Photo by Glenda Rice Collins.

Oklahoma City, Okla. USA–In conjunction with the currently engaging GLOW interactive, lighted exhibition (continuing through April 10) Allied Arts and Inasmuch Foundation will present a community celebration on Friday, April 8, 7 – 11 p.m. at Scissortail Park, –featuring: a hot air balloon night glow, a synchronized drone light show, glow-in-the-dark art from local makers, live performances, music, food trucks and more. The event is free and open to all ages.

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Ballet: Where Have all the Tutus Gone?

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

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

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

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

OKC: Painted Sky Opera continues weekend productions of amusing ‘Souvenir’

 

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Rob Glaubitz

News from Rob Glaubitz, Artistic Director 

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. —  Painted Sky Opera features OKC native Molly Cason Johnson as the comically terrible singer Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster  Jenkins continuing  at 8 p.m. Feb. 24 and March 2 – 3; and at 2 p.m. Feb. 25 and March 4 at the intimate CitySpace Theatre within Civic Center Music Hall. 

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

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

Oklahoma Osage Ballet Santa Fe Bound

By Glenda Rice Collins, Arts Columnist

BARTLESVILLE, Okla. USA — “I love making beautiful things,” says Osage Ballet director Randy Tinker Smith, “Whether in music or ballet, …getting everybody to work together to produce a beautiful piece of art…That’s our goal, that we always represent our tribe well, …and to keep getting our story out.”  Continue reading