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    The Arthropologist

    Pay it forward: If random acts of kindness work, can random acts of art change alife?

    Nancy Wozny
    Sep 8, 2011 | 5:58 pm
    • WITS students from St. Michael Catholic School take an exclusive tour of theMenil exhibit space and write about what they see.
      Photo by David A. Brown
    • Houston Ballet artists Melissa Hough and Simon Ball in Jerome Robbins’s In theNight
      Photo by Amitava Sarkar
    • Simon Ball, Amy Fote and artists of the Houston Ballet in The Concert,choreographed by Jerome Robbins
      Photo by Amitava Sarkar
    • 2007 Song of Houston camp, The Upside Down Boy
    • Conductor Robert Moody
    • "Artists of the Houston Ballet," choreographed by Jorma Elo
      Photo by Amitava Sarkar

    What did you do this summer? I cleaned about 100 junk drawers in the process of selling my family home in Buffalo, NY., and found a gorgeous tabletop biography of Anna Pavlova. Just recently, I learned that my own ballet teacher, Kathleen Crofton, known as "Pavlova's baby," danced in her company during the 1920s. No way was I going to leave this treasure behind. My ballet roots run deep according to the contents of my junk drawers.

    It's no wonder that I'm called an arts evangelist; every other object I came across in my house seemed to have something to do with dance, music, theater, visual arts or literature. My life path left its mark in the remnants of my childhood home. From a reel-to-reel recording of Joan Sutherland singing Norma to a dusty collection of prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I literally grew up tripping over art.

    All of this got me wondering, how do we attach to art?

    From a reel-to-reel recording of Joan Sutherland singing Norma to a dusty collection of prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I literally grew up tripping over art. All of this got me wondering, how do we attach to art?

    Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo came to dance via ice hockey. Watching Houston Ballet perform his wild ride of a ballet ONE/end/ONE, I wondered what other movement practice inhabited his body. With Elo's daredevil lifts, swooping contours and breathtakingly reckless partnering, hockey seems about right. I'm heading to see Elo's piece again when Houston Ballet makes their big return to New York City at The Joyce on Oct. 11-14.

    This weekend you can watch Houston Ballet principal Simon Ball dancing Jerome Robbins' romantic classic,In the Night. Both Ball and Robbins came to dance by hanging around their sisters' ballet classes. Aren't you glad their mothers didn't have anything else for them to do back then?

    Robert Moody, a guest conductor for River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO), has a great story on becoming a musician. Moody is music director of the Winston-Salem Symphony in North Carolina. He did not grow up in a musical family at all, it was a prank that led him to the cello, when his 4rd grade girlfriend signed him up for a demonstration on string instruments as a joke.

    "As a 9-year old, I had no idea how to explain any of that to a teacher, so instead, I just got up and went to the class. I started on the cello, and that is why I'm a musician today," writes Moody in the ROCO program notes.

    I attended the superb concert last season, and extend my personal thank you to his childhood girlfriend.

    When Houston native Everette Harp performed at the Hobby Center as part of a Musiqa benefit, he mentioned growing up in a house with Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. Harp spoke honestly about what the impact of Davis' seminal jazz album had on him.

    Later in the evening, Ricky Polidore gave his now-famous speech on exposing kids to art. It's a plea to keep arts in children's lives as moving as Jane Weiner's hilarious rant/dance called Salt, where she argues that art is as essential as salt for our subsistence. I have no trouble believing that some of Weiner and Polidore's students will end up populating Houston's future audience seats and stages.

    Let's hear it for the schools

    Certainly schools play a huge role in the attachment process. Bravo to Todd Frazier and his cohorts over at Houston Arts Partners for making it easier for educators and arts organizations to connect. I'm looking forward to their conference next Tuesday at the MFAH, especially Musiqa chief Anthony Brandt's talk, "Why Young Minds Need Art."

    We can't leave it all for the schools, arts organizations or even parents. Life unfolds more happenstance than that.

    "I'm using brain science to put forth an argument that, I hope will be both clear and convincing," says Brandt. "I've never worked harder to prepare a talk."

    Houston artists are making a difference in the city's classrooms. It works best when, like Writers in the Schools (WITS), it's not a passive experience. For example, this summer, young writers visited Houston Ballet to investigate everything from tutus to toe shoes. Writing is a form of attachment. WITS partners with numerous arts organizations, including The Menil, Art League Houston, Blaffer Art Museum, among others.

    Yet, it's too much of a burden to think that the school system is our sole exposure to the arts. We can't leave it all for the schools, arts organizations or even parents. Life unfolds more happenstance than that.

    An arts version of Pay It Forward

    Perhaps we should go the way of BookCrossing, a practice of leaving a book in public places. How could we use that concept to bring art more into the world? We could leave a Houston Met class schedule, a pack of colored pencils, the Glassell School course catalog, a magazine folded to a enticing story, Matthew Dirst's Grammy nominated CD, or a pair of Miller Outdoor Theatre tickets.

    The Trey McIntyre Project has a blast dancing in the streets, cafes and shops of whatever city they happened to be visiting. Or imagine the delight of pedestrians watching a shoot from Jordan Matter's Dancers Among us. He literally sneaks dance into the urban landscape. I'm just dying to trip over some of those mini figures in The Little People Project: abandoning little people on the street since 2006. What wonder!

    If random acts of kindness work, why not random acts of art? Although can we hold on the flash mobs? Once they are on commercials, they are done for me.

    As I was scurrying about my Buffalo house for one last look, I found a grand illuminated volume of William Blake's poems and prints. Just before I stuffed it in my suitcase, I thought to myself, no, don't take it, leave it for the next set of dwellers.

    Years from now, I picture a young poet talking about finding this book his grandmother's house. It could happen.

    Now go leave some art out there for people to trip over.

    Jorma Elo may have come to dance through ice hockey but things definitely turned out differently. Watch Houston Ballet's Karina Gonzalez and Connor Walsh in Elo's ONE/end/ONE and see for yourself.

    Get behind the scenes at Jordan Matter's Dancers Among Us.

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    Movie Review

    28 Years Later revives zombie franchise for new generation

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 20, 2025 | 5:00 pm
    Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later
    Photo by Miya Mizuno
    Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later.

    The 2000s brought two of the best zombie movies ever made in 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Both films, despite being made by different filmmakers, featured intense action with fast-moving zombies, harrowing sequences, and real emotional connections with their main characters. Now the original director and writer — Danny Boyle and Alex Garland — have returned with the first of a possible three sequels, 28 Years Later.

    The rage virus from the first two films that turns humans into insatiable monsters has successfully been contained to the United Kingdom, and one group of survivors has managed to band together on a small island off the coast of England. We’re introduced to the group through Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his wife, Isla (Jodie Comer), and his son, Spike (Alfie Williams).

    Isla is sick with an unknown illness, while Jamie is set to take the 12-year-old Spike on his first trip to the mainland to hunt zombies. That trip not only gives Spike an education as to the different types of feral zombies that now populate England, but also a clue that other people have survived there. When he discovers that one of them may be a doctor, he makes plans to take his mother there in hopes of finding a cure for whatever ails her.

    While the first two films were notable for their brisk pace that kept the potency of the stories high, Boyle and Garland almost go in the opposite direction for much of this film. The first 90 minutes are relatively slow, with only a couple of sequences that raise the blood pressure. The final half hour or so go a long way toward filling that void, so it’s clear that the filmmakers were biding their time for the story to come in the sequel. A bit more balance in this film would have served them well, though.

    What they do show involves some weird, wild stuff that is objectively upsetting, even for fans of the genre. The zombies have evolved in strange ways, giving them a variety of body shapes and abilities to suit the environment in which they live. These storytelling choices may thrill some and have others scratching their heads. Another human character living on his own (played by Ralph Fiennes), appears to have gone the way of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, with a revelation that is bone-chilling.

    Boyle, who’s directed everything from Trainspotting to Slumdog Millionaire, doesn’t have a signature style, and he makes some choices in this film that test your patience. He occasionally employs an odd technique in which the film stutters, for a lack of better term. It’s a bit jarring, especially since it doesn’t seem to improve the storytelling. He also inserts scenes from older films involving medieval warfare that emulate the bow-and-arrow weaponry used by characters in this film, but the exact connection he’s trying to make is unclear.

    The young Williams has a lot put on his shoulders in the film, and he proves to be up to the task of carrying the story. He isn’t precocious or annoying, instead reacting almost exactly like you’d expect a boy of his age to do when faced with extreme situations. Taylor-Johnson and Comer are good complements for him, drawing him out with their polar opposite characters. Fiennes makes a huge impression in the final act of the film, while Jack O’Connell makes a very brief appearance, teasing a bigger role to come.

    It’s difficult to fully judge 28 Years Later because it’s designed to only give you part of the story; part 2, The Bone Temple, is due in 2026, while a third film will follow if the first two do well. This film has its moments and winds up on the positive side of the ledger, but it’s also a frustrating experience that could have used a more stand-alone story.

    ---

    28 Years Later is now playing in theaters.

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