Stephanie Hofmann
When it comes to arts and entertainment, Madison has an embarrassment of riches. We just wrapped up a world-class film festival and standout hip-hop festival (Line Breaks). We are hosting social justice legend Angela Davis on April 16 (sold out, sorry comrades). And many of us are heading into the warm season with full calendars. For this spring arts preview we did things differently: We asked a number of our contributors to narrow it down and tell us about one thing we shouldn’t miss. Here’s what we got.
Mirror Image
through May 19 at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
For thousands of years, portraiture has beautified, confounded and amazed viewers from all walks of life. From the mysteriously coy Mona Lisa, to the bereft self-portrait variations of Van Gogh, to the massive, engrossing photo-realism of Chuck Close, this easily accessible art form has the ability to appeal to so many outside the often insular sphere of art.
Viewers at MMoCA can wade even deeper into the world of portraiture, as Mirror Image traces the progression of the genre throughout the 20th century and into the present day.
Cindy Wright, Young Woman in London, 2007. Oil on canvas, 63 x 55 1/2 inches. Collection of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Museum purchase, through an anonymous donor.
Pulling exclusively from the museum’s permanent collection, including 30 works that have never before been on display, Mirror Image exhibits more than 100 pieces demonstrating the sheer variety and ambition of artists working in the 1900s. From the astutely realistic to the expressive, bizarre and borderline abstract, it was a period of stark experimentation and undeniable beauty.
— John McLaughlin
Twilight Bowl
April 11-28, UW Vilas Hall-Hemsley Theatre
I’m incredibly excited to see University Theater’s production of Twilight Bowl, by Pulitzer Prize finalist Rebecca Gilman. The play features six great roles for young women, and it was commissioned by the Big Ten Theatre Consortium, as part of an effort to create work that has good roles for college-age actors. Twilight Bowl has already been produced by the University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts and Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, where it received positive reviews. Local audiences will get a kick out of it because the coming-of-age story of high school friends embarking on their adult lives is set in a bowling alley in small-town Wisconsin. It also has serious overtones, exploring two phenomena that are taking hold in the Midwest — evangelical Christianity and the opioid crisis.
Gilman wove those elements together memorably in her last play, Luna Gale, and does so again here. Gilman also took this commission as an opportunity to write strong parts specifically for women, which is essential in modern theater. In an interview at the Goodman, just before the play opened, she said, “Women’s stories are incredibly vital. The more we hear the stories of women, the more women’s stories will be believed. And I really, really want people to come into the theater and spend time with characters that they may not have seen on stage before.” Me too.
— Gwendolyn Rice
Emerging Voices
Madison Ballet, April 12-14, Bartell Theatre
After sitting out Madison Ballet’s last show, The Nutcracker, I am looking forward to Emerging Voices, which only runs for one weekend. It sounds like the perfect offering for those who aren’t sure if ballet is for them. If committing to a full-length ballet sounds too daunting, stuffy or expensive, then the intimacy of a small theater combined with the variety of works on the program and an affordable ticket price (including same-day student rush tickets for $10) effectively removes those excuses.
Five short works from five choreographers are set to an eclectic array of music ranging from Philip Glass to The Killers. Interim artistic director Sara Schumann describes her favorite piece, Mariana Oliveira’s Stabat Mater, as “hauntingly beautiful,” and the overall concert promises to be sexy, original and edgy. The company, which has been making Madison’s arts scene more lively for 37 years, looks like it is headed to a more secure future since launching a capital campaign and searching for an executive director/CEO.
— Katie Reiser
Southern Rites, documentary
April 16, Union South; art exhibit, through May 12, the Chazen
The Wisconsin Alumni Association will host a special screening of UW alum Gillian Laub’s documentary Southern Rites (2015), which followed Laub’s art exhibit of photographs of the segregated proms in Montgomery County, Georgia, in 2009 (See story, page 22). The documentary revisits the area after the proms were merged, but the community is divided again after a white resident kills a young black man. The Q&A session will feature Laub and another UW alum, Lisa Heller, executive vice president of documentary and family programming at HBO. Lisa was a big influence on my early years of campus film when we were undergrads together, and it will be great to see her back in town. Free registration is requested for the screening and reception that follows: uwevents.com/394711
— James Kreul
Andrea Paulseth
Nickolas Butler
April 24, Central Library
While reporting an Isthmus cover story about the Wisconsin Book Festival in 2015, I met Wisconsin author Nickolas Butler on a warm September morning at the Lowell Center, where he’d sequestered himself to wrap up his second novel, The Hearts of Men. We walked over to State Street, grabbed a morning beverage and sat on a bench to talk about his days living in Madison, the success of his best-selling 2014 debut, Shotgun Lovesongs, and the craft of fiction writing. Even though I was just another journalist, he spoke with me as I imagine he would a friend, and in a tone of earnest contemplation. I remember thinking, This guy’s my new favorite author. That opinion hasn’t changed. Butler’s latest novel, Little Faith, chronicles a rural Wisconsin family whose belief systems are challenged when one of their own becomes entrenched in an extremist church. A heartland storyteller to the core, Butler once again imbues his male characters with a masculine sensitivity that’s gutsy, admirable and sorely missing in contemporary fiction.
— Michael Popke
Rusalka
Madison Opera, April 26 and 28, Overture Center
Amid so many wonderful classical music events pending, the production by the Madison Opera stands out. The company will offer the best-known of Antonin Dvorak’s 15 operas, Rusalka, which will be sung in the original Czech. (That language is now becoming regular in opera companies today, through this is a first for the Madison organization.) The libretto, based on a combination of H.C. Anderson’s The Little Mermaid and Slavonic folklore, tells of the love that a water nymph has for a mortal, a love that eventually destroys them both. The Rusalka score includes the famous and gorgeous “Song to the Moon,” among many wonderful solo and choral gems. Madison-trained soprano Emily Birsan will sing the title role.
— John W. Barker
Eric Schwierske
UW-Madison Concert Band
April 28, Humanities Building (courtyard or Mills Hall)
Mike Leckrone conducts his final concert at UW-Madison, and it has nothing to do with sports or marching, and it’s free!
Badgers fans can perhaps be pardoned for overlooking Leckrone’s more serious musical side, but during spring semesters he regularly conducts the UW Concert Band. It’s one of several groups at the UW School of Music that performs wind ensemble literature; think classical, but for winds and percussion only.
The Mead Witter School of Music will honor Leckrone’s 50 years of service with a reception afterward. Weather permitting, the concert and reception will be held in the outdoor courtyard; otherwise, it will take place in Mills Hall. The event is free and open to the public, as are dozens of other School of Music performances each year.
— Jay Rath
Robert Stebler
Hair Affair
April 25, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
At the last Hair Affair, bejeweled queens and horrors in horns strutted down MMoCA’s magnificent staircase. Faces were doused in paint, and hair of every color was morphed and mounted high, taking the form of Viking braids and the mythical Himalayan temple Shangri-La. This year, instead of “Myths and Monsters,” the theme is “Zodiac.”
Showcasing out-of-this-universe hair creations by 20 Wisconsin-based salon stylist teams, 21 models will be transformed to cosmic prophecies, with vibrant star-crossed hairstyles. But this biennial event isn’t just a fashion show; it is also a fundraiser, with proceeds benefiting MMoCA’s free exhibitions and education programs. After the models descend the translucent staircase, they stick around so guests are able to get a close look at the hair and makeup masterpieces. Some types of seating are sold out already, so secure your tickets now.
— Victoria Davis
John Prine
May 25, Overture Center
There’s never a bad time to see John Prine perform. However, his upcoming Overture Center concert will be an important opportunity to experience just how closely the 72-year-old former Chicago mail carrier-turned-troubadour touches America’s heart and soul with his music and lyrics. A product of Chicago’s folk music scene, Prine’s songwriting has earned praise from Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Kris Kristofferson, who once remarked that Prine’s songs were so good that “we’ll have to break his thumbs.” The multiple Grammy Award winner can turn a phrase better than just about anyone else, and does so frequently enough that it’s earned him a spot in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and other similar honors.
The Tree of Forgiveness, released last year, was his 24th album and the first in 13 years for Prine, a cancer survivor. Let’s hope for all our sakes that it’s not his last.
— Michael Muckian
Beth Skogen
Fools’ Flotilla
June 9, Tenney Park and Yahara River Parkway
This is one of my favorite events of the year, and it’s not just because I’ve played in a floating pontoon band, the River Rats (although that is super fun). The flotilla is a floating parade of costumed folks and festooned watercraft that has grown exponentially over the past few years. It’s a beautiful and fun display of Madison’s famed creativity and passion. Past years have seen a floating re-creation of the painting of dogs playing poker, sharks, and myriad monsters, mermaids and mermen. The spectacle is open to everyone, and loosely organized by the River Alliance of Wisconsin, protecting our precious natural resources. It launches at 10:30 a.m. at the Tenney Locks, and travels the Mighty Yahara. Landlubbers can experience it along the river or from the many bridges that cross it. And it winds up at Yahara Place Park, home of the Waterfront Festival, another important Madison ritual. Better yet: Grab a boat — or anything that floats — and join in.
— Catherine Capellaro
MarchFourth
at Waterfront Festival, June 9, Yahara Place Park
People who complain about too many east-side summer music festivals are like people who gripe that there’s too much cheese in Wisconsin. Really? You can tell I’m not one of them. I’ve volunteered for years at various Willy-land events, but I confess my favorite is the Waterfront Festival. Created 30 years ago by Bob Queen (who now oversees The Sessions events in McPike Park), this year’s Waterfront takes place June 8 and 9. My role in recent years at Waterfront is music curator. And so here’s my pick for the spring: Portland, Oregon’s MarchFourth will return to Yahara Place Park to close the festival on Sunday, June 9. I first saw MarchFourth in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 2008. A steampunk marching band that combines ska, hip-hop, rock, klezmer and swing? With dancers and stilt-walkers? I couldn’t control my saliva. This show will thrill hipsters, punksters, oldsters and youngsters alike on the sun-splashed shore of Lake Monona.
— Andy Moore
Vampire Weekend
June 11, The Sylvee
Madisonians often have to wait a long time for spring to finally get its act together, but that’s nothing compared to how long Vampire Weekend fans have been waiting for Ezra Koenig and company to follow up 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City: six freaking years! The four singles I’ve heard from the new disc definitely have a breezy, spring vibe to them — particularly “Harmony House,” which feels like somebody just tossed open every window in the house. Frankly, the only thing that could make this sold-out show better is if it were taking place outdoors at Breese Stevens Field.
— Aaron R. Conklin
