Family Affairs

This gallery contains 8 photos.

Which matters more, family or ideas? That’s the core of Anthony Giardina’s “The City of Conversation” in which ideas, or ideologies, win out, as the arts of conversation and compromise lose ground in D.C. party hostess Hester Ferris’s family and politics in the Capitol. Over the course of the three…

Continue reading

Mixing It Up

This gallery contains 9 photos.

Compagnie Accrorap/Kader Attou dancer Babacar “Bouba” Cissé began his UCSB Arts & Lectures sponsored classes in a friendly low-keyed manner teaching some hip-hop inflected movements that immediately entranced his pupils, first with students Santa Barbara High School and then with community dancers at the Santa Barbara Dance Network’s space. Fluid, elastic,…

Continue reading

It’s Not All talk

Sharon Lawrence and Meredith Baxter rehearsing "The City of Conversation" - Ensemble Theatre Co.

This gallery contains 4 photos.

In these days of a gaping partisan divide in Washington D.C., Ensemble Theatre Company’s new production of Anthony Giardina’s “The City of Conversation” is especially timely. Though written in 2010, it digs into the roots of our current sad state of political affairs, evoking many moments of déja vu and…

Continue reading

For the Kids

This gallery contains 8 photos.

I’ve seen many wonderful performing arts groups’ presentations for elementary school children and none has held their attention better than the UCSB Arts & Lectures show featuring the Pilobolus dance theater company recently at the Granada Theatre. The kids had no chance to get fidgety or bored. Things started with…

Continue reading