The Gusto Blog

The final day of the 2012 Buffalo Infringement Festival, sadly, is upon us. If you still have any fuel left in your tank after yesterday's onslaught of Infringey activities, here are my five final picks for some Infringement activities to cap off the festival:

• Habit Dance performs "Dance Works & New Ideas" at 2 p.m. in the Alt Theatre at the Warehouse.

• Keith Michaud, seen below performing his song "The Ghost of New Orleans" a cover of John Prine's "Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)" outside Rust Belt Books on Friday afternoon, plays today at 2 p.m. outside Cafe Taza.

• Aside from Babushka!, the comedy duo that's been performing at Infringement for the past few years, there isn't an overwhelming amount of comedy at the fest. But today, you can catch members of Stand Up Buffalo performing at El Museo at 8 p.m.

• Word on the street is that the Slyboots Drumming Ensemble is worth catching, which you can do today at Duke's Bohemian Grove Bar during "Clams and Jams: Infringement Edition" at 6 p.m.

• The only place to be tonight is, of course, the Infringement Festival Closing Ceremonies. That gets started at 8 p.m. in Nietzsche's and features plenty of musical performances along with the festival's annual Iffy Awards.

It's been a great festival, and I've had a blast covering it. Hope everyone else had at least as much fun as I did. Till next year, Infringe on,

--Colin Dabkowski

On this, the penultimate day of the 2012 Buffalo Infringement Festival, in the neighborhood of 100 separate performances are slated for venues across the city. It's perhaps the busiest day of Infringement so far. If you need some help deciding what to do, here are my suggestions for the day:

• At Old Wondermoth, the Buffalo Contact Improvisation Jam Performance Group perfroms their show "Random Contact" from 12 to 1 p.m. Contact improv (of which you can see an example in this video at around the 3:58 mark) is a form of dance in which the participants' bodies are always touching in some way during the performance. Done well, it can be beautiful to watch.

• Also at noon at the Occupy Buffalo house, a whole host of bands will play for the Occupy Buffalo-sponsored "Anti Warped Tour," which also features art from the Occupy movement and other events/activities.

• I have it on good authority (that of "Incident at Deer Lick" author and performer Franklin LaVoie, if you must know), that Erin Bouvy's performance of "Knot… My Best Moments" is an absolute must-see. The piece is a clown show "for mature audiences," featuring burlesque, physical comedy and character intensive acting." The show runs at 5 p.m. today and 6 p.m. Sunday in El Museo.

• At 7 p.m. in Wasteland Studios, the Francis Bacon Experiment presents "420 the Musical," a project in development about which the word-of-mouth is quite good.

• The Buffalo Burlesque Collective, along with Jayme Coxx and The Bad Grils, presents "A Midsummer Night's Drag" at 7:45 in the Alt Theatre at the Warehouse. A trio of naughtily named hosts will "lead the audience through a mystical, hysterical and off-color version of the classic Shakespearean comedy."

--Colin Dabkowski

It's the eighth day of the 2012 Buffalo Infringement Festival, and things are heating up in Allentown. Check out my suggestions below, or wade through the official schedule. Either way, today's a good day to get out there and Infringe:

• Franklin LaVoie, the gifted artist and storyteller behind "Incident at Deer Lick" has also been giving a performance of three Celtic stories. You can check that out today at noon in Westside Stories. LaVoie will also present "Incident at Deer Lick" in the same venue at 5 p.m.

• Sticking with the storytelling theme, the five-minute short story open mic "Buffalore" is slated for 5 p.m. at Sp@ce 224.

• At 6 p.m., Montreal-based singer-songwriter Elgin Skye performs at Night House. Here's the description of her work from the Infringement website: "Elgin-Skye McLaren lives in Montreal where she writes poems, songs and lonely love letters. Armed with an electric guitar and a looping pedal, she plays lo-fi indie-pop with a style reminiscent of artists such as Regina Spektor, Bjork, and Braids. Elgin-Skye’s politeness and humble disposition betray her booming, buoyant voice. Her songs are thoughtful reflections on love, loss, and woodland creatures. Her sets may include, but are not limited to: clapping, whistling, cooing, singing, stomping."

• From 7 to 8 p.m., the Montrealers from Optative Theatre Laboratories presents "Car Stories," the Infringement show that started it all, near The Melting Point on Allen Street. If you haven't experienced this unorthodox style of theater -- in which the back set of the car is the theater and the front seat is the stage -- you can catch the show today, Friday or Saturday.

• For you night owls, head over to Roxy's at midnight to catch a performance of Buffalo burlesque group The Stripteasers performing their show "Thank God for Lesbians."

--Colin Dabkowski

The halfway point of the 2012 Buffalo Infringement Festival has, lamentably, passed. But there's still plenty of time to get into the action, which is why I'm offering up five picks from among today's many Infringement Fest activities to put on your schedule:

• I don't know Ian McPhail and I've never been to Westside Stories, but I like the sound of McPhail's presentation: "Civilized Poetry." And at Infringement, appreciating the ring of something is as good a reason to check it out as any other. It doesn't hurt that McPhail's presentation, which gets started at 6 p.m., clocks in at a cool 15 minutes.

• Infringer extraordinaire MC Vendetta (a.k.a. Janna Willoughby-Lohr) promised me yesterday afternoon that her and Cat Sinclair's show "Dazzlingly Inappropriate" would live up to its title. Since I've never known her to be wrong, I strongly recommend heading to Rust Belt Books at 6:30 p.m. and leaving whatever delicate sensibilities you may have accidentally brought along at the door.

• After Ms. Sinclair has finished, there's no need to pick those sensibilities back up -- or to leave your seat at Rust Belt, for that matter -- because yet another willfully inappropriate event is set to follow suit in the very same space at 7:30. It has a title I'm not entirely sure is safe to print in a family newspaper, so I will merely link to it. Because that seems more polite.

• And because we're on a roll with the inappropriate suggestions, why not stop by El Museo at 9 p.m. to check out "Yes, I Am Staring At Your [Inappropriate Word] : The Un-Poetic Stylings of Velvet Al. This could either be wildly offensive or delightfully tongue-in-cheek. Only one way to find out.

• If poetry's isn't your thing, fear not: Music abounds on this the sixth day of Infringement. There are big to-dos at Broadway Joe's at 6, Slyboots at 8 and an electronic music night at the The Bend at 9, with slightly smaller affairs at the 9th Ward starting at 7 and Duke's Bohemian Grove Bar at 10 p.m.

--Colin Dabkowski

Gerry Maher and Chris Corporandy in Torn Space Theater's production of "He Who Gets Slapped," part of the 2012 Buffalo Infringement Festiva. Photo by Lukia Costello.

You might think the Monday after the first weekend of the Infringement Festival, a swirling bacchanal of activity in venues large and small across the city, would be a little slow. But you'd be wrong. On the fifth day of Infringement, there's more than enough to keep the aspiring Infringer fully engaged. Here's are today's recommendations:

  • Film plays a big role in the festival today, with a screening kicking of at Filigree's at noon with screenings of "Red Green Totem," "Decency in Kind" and "Thin Red Line." Also at 7 p.m., Burning Books hosts its own "Clips and Trips Film Night," with an eclectic assortment of films ranging from "Alice In Wonderland Tea Party Scene" -- a kind of Rand Paul-meets-Lewis Carroll mashup -- to the documentary "Riding on the Edge: Bicycling in Buffalo."

• Torn Space Theater, one of Western New York's most accomplished experimental theater companies, presents "He Who Gets Slapped," Leonid Andreyev's play in which a writer takes a job as a circus performer in an attempt to get away from his sordid past. Tonight's performance is at 8 in The Foundry, a performance space in the former headquarters of Buffalo ReUse at 298 Northampton St.

• It wouldn't be Infringement without Euphraxia and Metamorphosis American Tribal Style Bellydance, the longtime Infringers who will bring their unique style of bellydancing to El Museo at 5:30 p.m.

• Rust Belt Books hosts the Living Poets Society, a kind of poetry/music open night including "Spoken Word , Sound poets, Visual and Concrete poetry, as well as numerous musical arrangements whether it be guitars, harmonicas or drum circles." That gets started at 7 p.m. and runs until about 9.

• If you didn't get your fill of pyromania from Pyromance, fear not: Hoopnosis' FireFaery Show lights up Days Park tonight at 9.

--Colin Dabkowski

The great Woody Allen was interviewed over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal, and the interview makes me think we could get him to make a movie here in Buffalo.

I am not sure if the WSJ lets non-subscribers in on its Web site, so I will cut and paste the parts that apply to us here in the Queen City.

How did you decide that you wanted to set your recent films in London, Paris, Rome or wherever?

Well, the Italians call and say, "We want to pay for it." It's strictly economics. It started with "Match Point." I wrote that film, and it was originally going to be about a family in New York, in Long Island and Palm Beach. But it was expensive to do in New York. And they called me from London and said, "Would you like to make a movie here? We'll pay for it." And so I said, "Yes." It was very easy to anglicize it. From then on, other countries call up and invite me to make movies, which is great because they don't invite me in the United States. What happens in Europe, in South America, in China and Russia—all these countries call me and say, "Would you make a movie here if we financed it?"

Do you think maybe Americans are loath to finance your films because you retain so much control over everything?

Yes, that's a big problem for me. Where it starts is that I feel I've been making films for years. They know what they're buying when they buy into me. I usually have a good cast of actors and actresses. They know that over the years, all of my films cost about $17 million or $18 million. They know that none of them are suddenly going to balloon to $25 million. They can rely on a good cast. And they know I'm not going to do like a medieval religious movie or something like that. So they know what they are buying. But I don't let anybody read a script, so that's an immediate deal breaker for 95% of them.

All this makes me pretty hopeful!

Buffalo would not have a problem with his artistic control, would we?

We would let Woody Allen do whatever he wants, as long as he is here! And now I think we could get him here. I had not realized things were that simple. Darn, I once actually got to interview Woody Allen in New York. I did not think to ask him about this, or I could have gotten the wheels turning a long time ago.

Think of what it would mean. You always hear about Woody Allen's movies being "a love letter" to this or that city. His latest, "To Rome With Love," is described as, you guessed it, a love letter to Rome.

His movie here could be a love letter to Buffalo! Surely he would recognize and appreciate the unique nature of our town, not to mention its sheer beauty. Plus, he always has great casts with unusual people. (In the interview he talks about how he wanted to offer parts to such people as Tonya Harding and Princess Diana.)

C'mon, we can raise the money. It's not that much, compared with other things we spend money on. And even if we can't raise it, we can spend it. You know us.

All our various boards and committees should get on this at once.

Make it happen!

-- Mary Kunz Goldman

Earlier this evening, members of Buffalo's cultural community dominated an hour-long public hearing of Buffalo Common Council. The cultural funding advocates, responding to a city budget that includes no funding for the arts, echoed and in many cases built upon the eloquent arguments of last year's Erie County cultural funding crisis.

Together, they made a strong collective case for the restoration of a small and stable level of funding to benefit the myriad cultural organizations within its limits. Buffalo cut the majority of arts funding out of its budget during the economic downturn that followed the Sept. 11 attacks and has not restored it since --though, after much haggling, it did provide emergency funding to arts groups during last year's county funding crisis.

Some highlights from the evening's remarks follow. (Please excuse the shaky camera work and note that most speakers or their organizations are members of the Greater Buffalo Cultural Alliance.)

Tod Kniazuk, executive director of the Arts Services Initiative:

Fortunato Pezzimenti, producing director of the Irish Classical Theatre Company:

Meg Quinn, artistic director of Theatre of Youth

Laurie Dean Torrell, executive director of Just Buffalo Literary Center:

Randall Kramer, executive and artistic director of MusicalFare Theatre:

Edmund Cardoni, executive driector of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center:

Jamie Moses, publisher of Artvoice:

Molly Quckenbush, executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site:

James Lanker, president of the Give for Greatness board and University at Buffalo professor:

--Colin Dabkowski

Scene from  DreamWorks' "How To Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular" North American tour at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs on June 26, 2012 in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Lisa Lake/Getty Images)

Join Hiccup, Toothless and the other vikings and dragons as they fly in with the "How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular" from Sept. 19-23 in the First Niagara Center.

The live production, based on the book by Cressida Cowell, will bring 23 dragons, some with wingspans of up to 46 feet, circus artists, acrobats, and of course, vikings into Buffalo.

Tickets, ranging from $19.50 to $69.50, go on sale Monday on tickets.com or at the First Niagara Center box office.

A "special public appearance" by characters Baby Nadder and his Viking trainer is set for Wednesday at 11:10 a.m. at the Sabres Development Camp in First Niagara Center. The duo will also appear on the field of Coca-Cola Field during Wednesday's AAA All-Star Game, which starts at 7 p.m.

For more information, visit www.firstniagaracenter.com.

Maurice Sendak with one of his characters from "Where the WIld Things Are" in January, 2002. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

In 2009, two important cultural figures celebrated their 80th birthdays. One was Mickey Mouse. The other was Maurice Sendak.

To mark the occasion of Mickey's 80th, Edward Summer, the director of the Buffalo International Film Festival, organized a celebration in Shea's Performing Arts Center featuring rare cartoons, prints and a talk by the ever-engaging Mickey expert John Culhane. That tribute, to my mind, was one of the most underrated cultural events of the last several years. (My story about it is here.)

Continue reading "Maurice Sendak on Mickey Mouse" »

Was that fun or what, seeing the 1925 "The Phantom of the Opera" at Shea's Performing Arts Center on Sunday, accompanied by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra? Plus Dennis James, on the Mighty Wurlitzer. 

It was not like anything you could have dreamed up!

I am not normally a big silent movie nerd. But after interviewing Dennis James I had to go see this thing. I was just so fascinated by James' stories about traveling with the silent movie stars.

And I have to say, "The Phantom of the Opera" surprised me. The artistry of this movie was magnificent. It was not camp or funny or hokey. It was extremely well put together.

There are scenes that are beautiful to look at. One scene near the start has a bevy of about 30 ballerinas, all in white tutus, flying around the backstage of the opera house, wheeling like panicked birds. Sometimes you see the Phantom just as a brief shadow.

Continue reading "The Phantom of Shea's Buffalo" »