Replacement already in place

Changing of the art guard: C.C. Conner retires from Houston Ballet, continuing aBayou City shakeup

C.C. Conner is retiring effective Feb. 2012.
Photo by © Michelle Watson/CatchLightGroup.com
Jim Nelson, general manager since 2000, will be promoted to the post ofexecutive director.
Conner successfully led a $46.6 million capital campaign that resulted inHouston newest Theater District addition: The Center for Dance.
Photo by © Nic Lehoux/Gensler

Cecil C. Conner, Jr. thinks it's time. After 17 years as the managing director of the Houston Ballet, Conner announced Thursday that he will be retiring in February.

He will pass the reins to the dance company's general manager James Nelson, who will step in as the top dog with a new executive director title.

The announcement wasn't unexpected. The 69-year-old Conner had been telling people that his "swan song" was overseeing the successful opening of the ballet's new $47-million downtown building — the Houston Ballet Center for Dance.

"I'm going to continue to work with the ballet in an informal way, helping with fundraising," Conner told CultureMap. "We've built the new building but we still need to raise money for it. So I'll be helping with that. I'll be working on planned gifts in particular.

"I plan to travel without having to look at my Blackberry every 30 seconds. I look forward to being able to take three-week vacations instead of nine days, without having to respond to email."

His tenure is marked with many achievements, including helping the company transition artistic directors in 2003 (Ben Stevenson served from 1976 -2003 with Stanton Welch succeeding him) and upping the nonprofit's endowment three-fold to about $57.6 million.

Conner came to Houston via The Joffrey Ballet in New York City. A lawyer by training turned arts administrator, his passion for supporting art endeavours extends beyond the Houston Ballet, with Conner serving on the board of the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County and as chairman of the Texas Institute for Arts in Education's board. He is currently on the board of the Houston Downtown Alliance.

Inspired by Patricia Schultz 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, Conner plans to continue to check off items from his must-do, must-see list.

On Dec. 2, Houston Ballet's "Jubilee of Dance" will honor Conner's accomplishments.

"Every time the curtain goes up, I feel thrilled that I had something to do with what's happening on stage," he said. "I know that the company will continue to grow, and hope that Houston, the country and the world recognize the Houston Ballet as a major international ballet company."

As a former dancer and the general manager since 2000, Nelson has a holistic view of the nonprofit's operations. He is in charge of 52 dancers, 61 musicians and 180 employees while managing a $19.2 million budget. Nelson has a BBA in finance from the University of Houston and participated in former Mayor Bill White’s Economic Development Mission to China.

Conner says that selecting Jim as his successor was a logical choice as Jim had taken over a good bit of C.C.'s day-to-day operational duties as he focused on getting the Dance Center built.

"Jim and Stanton have a great relationship," Conner added. "And it's really important in this kind of institution where you have a two-headed monster running the thing that you have two people that can work together well. You've got to have that relationship."

The 47-year-old has tough ballet shoes to fill. Though his promotion is endorsed by many — including Glenn McCoy, executive director of the San Francisco Ballet, and Houston Ballet Foundation board chairman Joseph Hafner — it is uncharacteristic for an international arts group of Houston Ballet's size and scope to make such a move without a formal, national search.

Conner's retirement is the latest in a wave of leadership changes at Houston's major art institutions.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is still mourning the loss of Peter Marzio and searching for his replacement. Houston Grand Opera had to quickly restructure its current leadership in response to Anthony Freud's move to Chicago's opera house, going to an insider (Patrick Summers) like the Ballet. And just last year, Mark Hanson took over as Houston Symphony's CEO.

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Movie review

Messy Frankenstein movie The Bride! stitches camp and confusion

Photo by Niko Tavernise

Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley in The Bride!.

The story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster is now over 200 years old, with Mary Shelley’s book having been adapted or referenced in close to 500 films. Less common is the character of The Bride of Frankenstein, which existed in the original text but has more often than not been excised in adaptations. Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal has tried to rectify that by giving the character a big showcase in her new film, The Bride!.

Gyllenhaal has reimagined the story as one in which a woman named Ida (Jessie Buckley) becomes possessed by the spirit of Shelley (also Buckley). At the same time, the already-existing Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) approaches Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), who specializes in reanimation, with the request to make him a wife. When Ida falls to her death in an “accident” involving her boyfriend (John Magaro), the ideal corpse becomes available.

After Ida’s resurrection, she and the monster become restless being studied by Dr. Euphronius and decide to break out to experience the world. The world, naturally, is not exactly welcoming to them, and soon the couple are on the run for causing mayhem, including a few murders. In hot pursuit are detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his assistant, Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), as well as other authorities.

It’s clear that Gyllenhaal wanted to merge the Frankenstein story with Bonnie & Clyde, especially since she sets the film in the mid-1930s. And that wouldn’t have been a bad idea if having the monster and The Bride going on a crime spree was truly the focus of the movie. But most of the time there’s less intentionality in their misdeeds and more confusion, leading to a muddled plot with no clear direction or end goal in mind.

One of the biggest problems is that Gyllenhaal starts the energy of the film at an 11, giving her and everyone else nowhere to go but down. She dabbles in multiple different tones, at times going the straight drama route and other times making what seems like full-on camp. At one point, she even has the monster and the Bride in a dance sequence set to “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which would be hilarious as an homage to Young Frankenstein if the film weren’t so disjointed.

Most baffling of all is what Gyllenhaal wants from The Bride character. She morphs multiple times over the course of the film, from close to unintelligible at the beginning to rough-and-tumble at the end. There are hints at the lack of control she has over her autonomy, including Shelley’s possession of her and the monster lying to her about her past, but any commentary that Gyllenhaal might be trying to make gets lost amid the oddity of the film as a whole.

Both Buckley and Bale are all-in for their performances, which definitely fall in the “love it or hate it” dichotomy. Each scene is pitched so high that there’s little nuance to either of them, and neither is on par with their previous Oscar-caliber roles. The high-powered supporting cast of Bening, Sarsgaard, Cruz, and Jake Gyllenhaal is watchable based on previous roles, but none of them elevate this particular movie.

Whatever intentions Maggie Gyllenhaal had in making The Bride! are only halfway legible in a film that can never find its tonal footing. There has rarely been subtlety in movies featuring Frankenstein’s monster and related characters, but this one makes all the others seem like stuffy dramas in comparison.

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The Bride! is now playing in theaters.

movies film maggie gyllenhaal annette bening christian bale jessie buckley peter sarsgaard penélope cruz movie review