Do you hear what I hear? Yes, it’s a December concert that doesn’t include music once sung by Andy Williams! The Prometheus Trio stretches itself into a quartet (with the help of French Horn player William Barnewitz—although the four of them never play together) for a concert that leans toward the late romantic (Brahms and Saint-Saens) with a little neoclassical detour courtesy of Czech Bohuslav Martinu, and splash of postmodern jazz from David Amram. A perfect little respite from planning gift lists and holiday menus. Two nights only at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.
And it turns out that this week is a great one for experimental film in Milwaukee. As part of their holiday celebration, Woodland Pattern Book Center is showing Polis This Is: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place, a 2005 documentary by Henry Ferrini about the American postmodern poet’s engagement with his native landscape. Several talking heads are on hand, John Malkovich among them, to contribute to the mantra: “We must rediscover the earth or leave it.”
Landscape is also the theme (and language) of another film, Profit motive and the whispering wind. John Gianvito’s tribute to the progressive political tradition in America uses images still images of graves and historical markers to tell the story of social and political change in America, courtesy of famous thinkers and doers who made it happen. Contempletive and elegant, the film was good enough to win the Best Experimental Film award from the National Society of Film Critics. Another great event at UWM’s Experimental Tuesdays series.
There’s bound to be a bit of the experimental at the UWM New Dancemakers concert as well, which features work by undergrad and graduate students at the UWM Dance Program. After all, dance in December shouldn’t be only about princes and sugarplum fairies.
And if you just can’t repress that jones for Christmas traditions, why not kill two nostalgias with one stone. It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play turns the script to Frank Capra’s beloved film into an old-fashioned radio style, complete with live sound effects and Electro-Voice microphones. The show has been a Chicago institution for six years running, and now Acacia Theatre brings it to Milwaukee. If only George Bailey could have explained to the Bear-Stearns folks how a bank is supposed to work.
