The Arthropologist

Best memories: Eight powerful performances that made this arts season special

My inbox is bombarded with new season info. Looks great, people, I'll be there, but not right now, I'm still processing this past season.

As May winds down and we head into the semi-arts desert of the summer months, I consider, so what did I see that I can still remember? A whole lot of art has passed my optic nerve between September and now. I missed a lot too, because of that troublesome one body problem.

I've seen many terrific performances. But here's my question, as I head to the pool with a stack of novels, what's still speaking to me? What would I like to see again? What am I still hoping to understand? That's the definition of a keeper, and here's my list.

Chinglish, a perfect fit for Black Lab and Asia Society

Much about Black Lab Theatre's production (with Asia Society Texas Center) of David Henry Hwang's Chinglish stayed with me: The hilarious switching between English and Mandarin, the clever minimalism of the set, and most potently Vivian Chiu's performance, which cut to the core of global misunderstanding. Chinglish looked made to fit into the Asia Society's Brown Foundation Performing Arts Theater. What a coup for a small outfit to pull off such a polished performance. I tend to get excited when all the elements align this way.Chinglish runs through May 26 at Asia Society.

Bird Dances at Houston Ballet

When the curtain came down on Edwaard Liang'sMurmuration at Houston Ballet, I leapt to my feet, only to find the rest of the audience standing with me. It was that good. There's nothing unusual about turning to the natural world for inspiration in the dance world, or for that matter, the art world in general. It was the way Liang took an idea, the unexplained patterns of bird formation patterns, and ran with it, inventing his own language in the process. The duet between Mireille Hassenboehler and Simon Ball, with its dynamic ebbs and flows, brought out rare qualities that I had never noticed in these dancers. Murmuration is simply a marvel of a ballet.

Hand Dances at Musiqa

There's a reason that Musiqa won a Chamber Music America Award/ American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers for Adventurous Programming. The group has a way of putting programs together that keeps us thinking. Thierry De Mey's Table Music, performed as part of their January program, "Percussion Illusions," is just such an example. Using only their hands as instruments, UH Moores School Percussion Ensemble members Russell Maley, Briana Garcia and Eddie Solomon were mesmerizing. It proved to me once and for all that there is so much theater in music.

Karina Gonzalez Moves Up at Houston Ballet

I almost missed Karina Gonzalez dancing the role of Nikiya in La Bayadère. I had accidently double booked myself. In a last minute switch, I managed to make the performance, and I'm glad I did. I learned something in her performance that night. Dancing at this level can be larger than the role. I don't think anyone was surprised when her promotion to principal was announced.

The Most Graceful Elephant in Town at the Alley

Jay Sullivan's eloquent portrayal of John Merrick, in the Alley Theatre production of Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man,continues to haunt me. The scene when Mrs. Kendal goes to shake John Merrick's hand will be etched in my memory. He reaches out with his "good" hand, while she reaches for the other "deformed" one. Time stops as Merrick finally agrees to her gentle request. She acknowledges the whole of him. A simple gesture dilates the moment, and we learn everything we need to know about these two characters.

Organ Music Redefined at Society for the Performing Arts

Cameron Carpenter delighted on just about every level during his Society for the Performing Arts show at Christ Church Cathedral; he's a fantastic musician, a consummate performer, a witty speaker, and can totally rock a pair of sparkly shoes. I found his performance dazzling from start to finish. His brief introductions helped put both his musical choices and the instrument in context. His seems like the kind of musician that will be at the top of the future of classical music.

Flesh and Steel at Frame Dance Productions

Frame Dance Productions' newest film, Quiver, sets an eerie industrial tone. Choreographed and directed by Frame Dance founder Lydia Hance, Quiver juxtaposes fluid movement against a steel urban environment. Four dancers in blue felt skirts move in and out of the Pennzoil Place, while buses pass by without notice. We feel the presence of warm bodies in the space, as Hance delicately navigates the architectural elements of a site and the choreographic structure of her movement. Hance's film is just such a potent reminder of how dance forever changes a space. Quiver will be screened again as part of an evening of new and recent work called "Ecouter" on June 28-29 at Studio 101.

Matt Lents Stands Out at Stark Naked

Matt Lents proved an actor to watch in Classical Theatre's production of Candida in 2012. He sealed the deal in playing the role of Jared, an autistic child with a love of all things words, in Annie Baker'sBody Awareness, Stark Naked's first offering of the season. Lents held his own performing with three of Houston's finest actors, Kim Tobin, Drake Simpson and Pamela Vogel. He's a very talented young actor, and I suspect and hope that we will be seeing more of him on Houston stages.

Houston Ballet artists Karina Gonzalez and Chris Coomer will put you under a spell in Edwaard Laing's Murmuration

Karina Gonzalez and Joseph Walsh in Houston Ballet's production of La Bayadere

Photo by © Amitava Sarkar

Karina Gonzalez and Joseph Walsh in Houston Ballet's production of La Bayadere

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Movie Review

New Pixar film Elio is fun but falls short of Disney's top tier

Photo courtesy of Pixar

Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio.

Pixar has done a ton of different things in the 28 feature films they’ve released over the past 30 years, but the one they’d never done is deal with aliens (and, no, the alien toys in Toy Story don’t count). Now they’re going where many storytellers have gone before, but in their own unique way, in the new film Elio.

Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is a space fanatic who has recently lost both of his parents in an unnamed event. His Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) is now his guardian, and because she happens to be a member of the U.S. Space Force, Elio finds himself tantalizingly close to communications from space. With a desire to be abducted by aliens for both curiosity and sentimental reasons, Elio sends a message into space, hoping for some kind of response.

He gets that and more when a ship full of multiple types of beings takes him into space, believing him to be a leader instead of a child. An encounter with a hostile force led by Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) gives Elio both a new friend, Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), and responsibility for maintaining peace during an unexpected galactic crisis.

Pixar has not typically followed the route of many Disney movies of giving their child protagonist the trauma of dead parents, and doing so here is the first of a few minor missteps. Having Olga be his mom instead of his aunt would have altered their dynamic, but only slightly. While Elio is shown to miss his parents, his major focus is on making contact with aliens. Since the film only briefly deals with his grief, it would have been better served by excising it altogether.

For the most part, the film is goofy, with Elio’s enthusiasm for aliens matched by the oddness of the creatures he meets in space. The filmmakers - there are three credited directors and three credited writers - seem to have taken inspiration from sea creatures and Pixar’s own history, as the main bad guy emulates Mike and Sully’s boss from Monsters, Inc. Almost every character in the film is heightened to a degree that makes for funny situations, but not as much sentimentality as other Pixar offerings.

Surprisingly, especially since the film ends with a voiceover from notable astronomer Carl Sagan, the filmmakers play fast and loose with real-life science. Elio’s journeys to and from the alien spaceship are treated as close-to-instantaneous trips, even involving portals directly to Earth. The idea of the story doesn’t allow them to delve into things like relativistic time dilation, but there still could have been other scientific references to keep the story aboveboard.

There are very few stars to be found among the film’s voice cast other than Saldaña and Garrett, who are each fine if unmemorable. Kibreab and Edgerly are given many more scenes than anyone else, and they each do a great job of bringing out both the joy and naivete of their characters. Some lesser-known actors like Jameela Jamil, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Brendan Hunt show up in minor roles, but they don’t stand out in any way.

The story and characters in Elio are sweet and fun, but the film as a whole falls well short of the top tier Pixar movies. The filmmakers could have gone many different directions with a story about a boy who wants to be abducted by aliens, and the way they chose ended up being innocuous and less than compelling.

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Elio opens in theaters on June 20.

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