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 Arts
by Tony Novelli
 had the privilege of interviewing local artist Susan Johnson, founder of the All Souls’ Procession, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary. We talked a great deal about the founding motivations for what became the annual procession. At one point Susan said something like this:
“When I experienced the death of my parents, and went through the process of their dying, it was a very painful experience. I mean, some of it was funny; some of it was joyous and wonderful. It was just incredible. You don’t want to miss out on that. It is one of the most fantastic things in life. I don’t mean fantastic in the traditional sense… it’s a part of life. It’s extraordinary. It’s like a performance piece in a sense of what you process… what you go through. It calls upon every emotion and feeling and sensation in your being. You are so present. It’s like you are extra-aware. Your life changes, it changes your vision. It let’s you see on a totally different level that we are SO missing the boat.”
 The boat Susan was referring to I think was how modern culture has lost its connection with the earth, and hence, our own humanity. Our disconnection with death has the unfortunate result of also disconnecting us from life. Without an acceptable social vehicle to grieve loss and celebrate life, this cycle is dangerously self-perpetuating… so much so that we become vulnerable to people and institutions that have no basic respect for life.
The first procession was part of a 3-day performance piece entitled “Revealing Hidden Secrets,” on All Hallow’s Eve in 1990. Susan was deeply involved in processing the grief of losing a father who was lost to himself and his family. A survivor of Pearl Harbor, Susan’s father was a product of the mental and psychological stress war leaves upon the individual. After his death, Susan discovered his journals and began a process of uncovering clues as to all she had missed due to his illness, abuse and alcoholism.
The performance piece was remarkably successful, with lines of people outside wanting to get in. Then the performance took to the streets of downtown and others joined in and walked together down Broadway and Congress streets. Afterward, Susan received hundreds of letters of gratitude and interest in what they had experienced.
In our talk Susan said that the reasons people so deeply resonated with what she named the All Souls’ Day Parade were varied, though all centered around a common need to grieve, and a common language so old and repressed within our society that we have little conscious ability to articulate such feelings. The performances were largely informed by Carl Jung’s research into rituals around the world, not just the traditional Spanish and more recent Mexican holidays. Japanese prayer boats were included, lanterns inspired by a ‘procession of the unconscious’ in Switzerland, and more contemporary symbology, like a gentleman who came dressed as a cigarette after kicking the habit!
Thus the momentum for this event was born of a deep understanding of human needs that still drives those of us that coordinate the procession today. Ever evolving, we struggle with how to achieve the amazing intimacy of those first few performances, while managing thousands of people instead of hundreds. The key for this is simple: we must each make the effort to make this event as sacred and special a gift as what Susan Johnson gave this community 15 years ago. May we make that so.
Expand Your Art Horizons
by Mary Ellen Wooten
 re you a regular Open Studios Tour attendee, or do you wonder what goes on behind the intermittently colorful and nondescript façades of Tucson’s Warehouse Historic District, the Lost Barrio, commercial and roadside industrial buildings, strip malls, or even in some of your neighbors’ homes and backyards? You have a chance to discover the creativity exploding behind the scenes on November 13 and 14th with the Fall 2004 Open Studios Tour. The tour is an opportunity to view, experience, learn and even to shop if you so desire.
Over 100 artists throughout Tucson are opening their studios to the public for this self-guided tour. Artists, accomplished and successful, and accomplished and emerging, make Tucson their home and creative space.
The Fall 2004 Open Studios Tour, coordinated by the Tucson Pima Arts Council, expands the tour’s geographic area beyond Downtown to include artists working throughout Tucson and Pima County. The Tucson Pima Arts Council, the Tucson Arts District Partnership, Inc., and artists themselves have taken on the role of providing an opportunity to visit studios for over 20 years.
Artists on the tour work from studios in or near their homes, and in commercial and industrial areas where art-making processes, mechanical, chemical or physical, occur most frequently behind closed doors. Many artists achieve success in the localities where they live but many find greater success when exhibiting and selling their work in a different market. Visiting local studios can be a unique opportunity to see work better known in other communities.
The range of techniques and media employed by participating artists includes drawing in graphite, pastel and oil stick, painting in watercolor, oil, acrylic, alkyd, gouache, plus reverse glass painting, print-making, weaving, textiles, ceramics, bronze, found objects, metalworking, woodworking, stone carving, jewelry-making, and glass-blowing, with several performance venues added. The participating artists work in many styles from abstract to representational, and traditional to contemporary to whimsical, creating work that fuses the artists’ observations with their skill and imagination.
The majority of open studios are Downtown, still steadily beating with the heart of an Arts District maintained by the artist community in and around Congress Street, 4th Avenue, the Warehouse District and surrounding neighborhoods. A decade of focus on Downtown with the Arts District Open Studio Tour has supported the high density of artists choosing to be part of the continuing artistic infrastructure of Downtown. Outlying studios offer equal quality and interest as the best accommodation for that artist’s workspace. Expanding the studio tour to include the depth, breadth and wealth of artistic expression throughout Tucson and Pima County is the goal for this and future tours.
A multitude of choices for experiencing the tour exists. You can wander freely from studio to studio to find the unexpected, or focus your trip by pre-selecting a series of studios to visit. You can simply drop by studios near your home or on your regular weekend route.
Full color Open Studios Tour Programs, with an image of the artist’s work, and a brief listing with name, location, media, and artist statement, are available online at www.tucsonpimaartscouncil.org. Printed Open Studios Tour Programs are available beginning November 5th at Davis Dominguez Gallery, DeGrazia Gallery, Dinnerware Contemporary Art, Liz Hernandez Gallery, Madaras Gallery (two locations), the Marana Branch Library (Lon Adams Drive), MOCA, the Nanini Branch Library, Obsidian Gallery, PCC Community Learning Center (Green Valley), the Tucson Museum of Art Education Center, and Wild Oats Natural Marketplace (three locations).
Tucson is, and evolves ever more, into an arts destination. Artists are a consistent element in the character and economic definition of Downtown and of our rapidly expanding community. Katherine Kitt, pioneer of the Art Department at the University of Arizona, maintained a studio behind her elegant South 4th Avenue home. In 1936, Kitt wrote, “With the climate which makes outside sketching and painting delight, with scenery varying from the grand contours of our mountains to the sleepy lines of the dusty desert, it seems certain that Tucson will become the Art center of the Southwest.”
Tucson’s artists have much to offer you. Come out, enjoy and experience Tucson’s burgeoning art scene.
Bravo!
by Gene Armstrong
n astronomer interviewed recently on National Public Radio said that, thanks to strict light pollution ordinances, Tucson’s Downtown area at night is the only one in a major American city from which you can see the Milky Way. But theaters and stages for the performing arts also provide many a starry night Downtown.
For example, the Broadway in Tucson series will bring Tony Award-nominated actress Cathy Rigby to town for performances of the much-loved stage classic “Peter Pan” Nov. 23-28 in the Tucson Convention Center Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. It’ll all be there – Captain Hook, Never Never Land and that boy who never grows up
But Rigby won’t be playing Pan for long. This is her farewell tour on the show, as well as the 100th anniversary of the much-loved J.M. Barrie tale. Tickets cost from $22 to $52, with discounts available; call 321-1000 to purchase them.
Speaking of beloved musical theater – not to forget singing and dancing pirates – Arizona Theatre Company continues its 38th season with an entertaining musical for the holidays, as is the company’s tradition. ATC will present Gilbert & Sullivan’s light opera “The Pirates of Penzance” from Nov. 27 to Dec. 22 in its home at the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.
Directed by ATC artistic director David Ira Goldstein and choreographed by Patti Wilcox, the frothy fare should prove refreshing after the two weightier offerings – “The Immigrant” and “Anna in the Tropics” – that opened the season. Who can resist such compositions as “The Very Model of a Modern Major General” and “I Am the Pirate King”? Not me.
Matinees and evening performances will alternate throughout the run. Ticket prices range from $31 to $48. Reach the Temple box office at 622-2823.
UApresents, the University of Arizona’s esteemed performing arts presenter, has much to offer in November, not the least of which are its musical events, especially on the Latin side.
First though, experimental music buffs will likely flock to the concert by the Bang on a Can All-Stars at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9. This adventurous, 17-yearp-old group will play boundary-challenging music by composers Julia Wolf, Michael Gordon and Louis Andriessen, as well as a second half dedicated to the work of minimalist pioneer Phillip Glass.
The record label Putumayo World Music will present its first concert tour this fall, bringing three top-notch Latina divas to the UA for one show at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13.
The concert will feature Colombian Totó La Momposina, who combines African, Native American and Spanish musical traditions; Mariana Montalvo, a Chilean singer in the nuevo canción (new song) style; and Belo Velloso, Brazilian performer steeped in samba, bossa nova and contemporary Brazilian pop.
And Peruvian-Mexican singer Tania Libertad (her last name means freedom in Spanish) gets a whole concert to herself to perform Afro-Peruvian, Cuban and Brazilian music at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 28.
All of the UApresents concerts listed here will happen in the University of Arizona’s Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Boulevard, just a few steps east from North Park Avenue. Tickets to each are $18 to $36, with discounts for students and kids.
O-T-O Dance (formerly Orts Theatre of Dance) kicks off its 20th season of homegrown modern dance Nov. 19-21 in the gorgeous Stevie Eller Dance Theatre, just west of North Campbell Avenue on the University of Arizona campus.
Under the leadership of artistic director Anne Bunker, the concert is titled “Far Flung Dances,” and it will feature a combination new works and perennial favorites from the company’s repertoire. Showtimes for “Far Flung Dances” are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 19 and 20, and 2 p.m. on Nov. 21. Tickets cost $10 in advance, with discounts for senior citizens, students and groups. Call 623-3799 for more info and ticket outlets.
The UA Division on Dance, which calls the Stevie Eller home, is gracious enough to make it available for a variety of local dance productions. But the UA dancers also will perform there, presenting the concert “Three’s a Crowd” Nov. 6 and 7 and 12-14. Call 621-1162 for ticket prices and times.
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