HAA Partnership

Bayou City Art Festival shakes things up: A new approach to music makes for abetter party

Mariachi Imperial
Mariachi Imperial de America/Facebook
Nick Gaitan & Umbrella Man
Nick Gaitan & Umbrella Man/Facebook
Miss Leslie & Her Juke-Jointers
Photo by Craponne2012/Picasa
Texas Johnny Brown
Texas Johnny Brown/Facebook
Step Rideau & the Zydeco Outlaws perform Sunday.
Step Rideau & the Zydeco Outlaws/Facebook

For more than four decades, the Bayou City Art Festival has curated a visual arts bash that amasses talent from across the country in an effort to bring creative personalities to the city. Through its many permutations, name changes and growth, the colorful fair has earned its rightful place as an event of repute for Houston.

But more than just a visual showcase, the strolling, art curious crowd also enjoys a myriad of live performances, music and interactive activities.

Some of those offerings are in partnership with local advocacy and government funding agency, the Houston Arts Alliance (HAA), which has been planning to shake things up a bit for the downtown festival Saturday and Sunday.

"While in the past HAA has showcased its grantees at the festival, the Folklife & Traditional Arts Program's Local Roots, Global Culture stage is a great opportunity to bring a very diverse lineup of musicians and musical traditions that find a home in Houston before a general public that might not otherwise have access to them," Pat Jasper, Folklife & Traditional Arts Program director, tells CultureMap.

"Local Roots, Global Culture celebrates artists who have spent their lives keeping musical traditions alive or have carried them here from far and wide."

Whether it's a symptom of the urban sprawl combined with Houston's thriving cultural and ethnic diversity, much of what bestows the city's prowess it often hidden from public view.

Not all the threads that weave the fabric of the local lore come to the foreground, and part of Jasper's personal mission is to uncover, study and share the contemporary traditions of groups that have made Houston their home — either recently or many moons ago — and have retained their artistic customs.

"Local Roots, Global Culture celebrates artists who have spent their lives keeping musical traditions alive or have carried them here from far and wide and added them to our city's amazing cultural mix," Jasper says.

She sought out "the individuals who know the songs, the stories, the traditional skills that make this community special" by attending church services, quinceañersa and icehouses. She also knocked on doors, talking to people in distant sectors of the city, in hopes of meeting the respected artists and performers of a particular community.

The result?

Bayou City Art Festival Downtown goers will find a bricolage of polka, gospel, blues, mariachi, Nigerian music, conjunto, honky tonk, zydeco and Huastecan tunes from Central Mexico. All together these groups offer a snapshot of the area's living cultural history and ongoing demographic transformation, Jasper says.

Among the 12 featured groups in the Local Roots, Global Culture Performance Stage are Texavia, lead by accordionist Mary Halata, a Czech troupe that is comfortable churning out traditional and Texas polka; Mariachi Imperial, whose rancheras, boleros and baladas stem from three decades and three generations of musicians deeply rooted in Mexican family party scene; Southern Indian singer Rajarajeshwary Bhat, who performs in the Carnatic classical style (Indian subcontinent); and Step Rideau & the Zydeco Outlaws, which is in demand in Creole Catholic church dance fetes.

The full schedule appears below.

Saturday
Noon - Texavia, Czech polka
1 p.m. - Disciples of Christ, gospel
2 p.m. - Trio Control, Son Huasteco
3 p.m. - Texas Johnny Brown, Houston blues
4 p.m. - Mariachi Imperial
5 pm. - Melloh & the King's Rhythm's, Nigerian highlife

Sunday
Noon - Rajarajeshwary Bhat, South Indian Carnatic music
1 p.m. - Lady Beatrice Ward, gospel
2 p.m. - Conjunto X
3 p.m. - Miss Leslie & Her Juke-Jointers, Texas honky tonk
4 p.m. - Nick Gaitan & Umbrella Man, Gulf Coast music
5 p.m. - Step Rideau & the Zydeco Outlaws, zydeco

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Tickets to the Bayou City Art Festival Downtown are $12 and can be purchased online or at the gate, cash only. The festival is open Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

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Movie Review

Daniel Craig shines in Queer, an unapologetic tale of love and loss

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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