Texas UnBound, the first weekend of Festival #5

I would like nothing more than to sit and regale you, class, with the details of this weekend's performances, but I have more work than one woman can do this week to try to do today. So. "Reader's Digest version":

(thursday: teaching, so can't say, am sure was astonishing, as was Tim Seilbles, a poet beyond all description whose books you should buy, now, now dammit!)

Friday: plays by John Fullinwider and Alex Argyros. I worked the box office during John's play, Shadow City, but I heard the cries and laughter out in the lobby and so assume that it was a hit. Alex's play, Bronx Vic, figured space and time as a married couple, she a lust-struck woman, he a cartographer, she interested in change and movement, he in mapping and perfection of plan before action, who have been married twenty years and never, well, consummated. Jokes, metaphors, playfulness, metaphysical and social implications everywhere, and then a tragic bit of hope at the end. Completely satisfying.

Saturday: Will Richey and Artists Night Out hooked up with WordSpace for spoken word backed up by Faint Image's cool cabaret jazz. Hook up with these people. This must be the best open mic in town. The poetry was tight, the band was flexible, getting in and behind whatever words and rhythms came out of our mouths. Will is the world's most charming host, and quick with the freestyle compliments and loving jibes at readers and audience. I'm telling you: if you need a charming MC, get you one of those Louisianna men. What they do to get that way is a mystery to me, but it Works. Three poets displaced to Dallas by Katrina read, some about that unholy cluster of a governmental failure, some about more pleasant existential conditions. By the time the night was over, nearly everyone in the room had stepped up to the mic, and the bonus acoustic guitar players with their beautiful songs let us rest from the intensity.

Sunday: Venus Opal Reese presented the one-woman show, Split Ends. Which blew my mind. A history of black women and their hair, its social construction, role in revolution, use as a tether by those who would hurt a girl. Video, dance/mime movement, poetry, monologue, exerpts from interviews with one hundred women about their relationship with their hair and through it the larger social world in which white is still the only beautiful, much to Progress's chagrin. Dallas is not a city opening its arms, minds, and pocket books to the more experiemental of the performing arts by artists like Reese. Dallas needs to stop trying to look comsopolitian and get cosmopolitian. Build all the condos you want, honey, unless there is some serious artistic life in this berg, you will remain just one of the fly-over cities. Reese graced the audience with a few new peices she's working on, and some time to answer questions. Kudos to the audience and to her for the care and smarts in the questions and generous honesty in her answers. --- (Girlfriend, you need a website. I should think you had one, what with that crackin' laptop you read from!!!) Googling this artist is an education, class, get on it.

Next weekend promises the same level of intense and delightful happiness. Y'all get your butts down to the Undermain. --- To my friends and competitors for the arts audience here in the Capitalist Megalopopolis: I do love you, admire and support your work, but I want those people in my seats this weekend. ;-)

To the cats over at Metroblogs and Upcoming.org, thanks! Thanks and love for covering the vibrant arts scene, and thanks for hipping your peeps to our shows. You rock, darlin's.

And to my students who showed up, one of you TWICE, this weekend: good on you! Literature is a living thing, and now you know that in your bones.