Category Archives: 2012 Events in Houston

2011–2012 marks Dominic Walsh Dance Theater’s tenth anniversary season! To celebrate this milestone, they have an exciting line-up of prized works by Walsh, brilliant pieces from the iconic choreographers in our repertoire, star dancers from around the world, and some of Houston’s most beloved ballerinas.

Texan French Alliance for the Arts will host a conference about Camille Claudel & Dominic’s choreography inspired by Ms. Claudel’s life on April 24 at the French Alliance from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. The pairing this fascinating work will showcase with a Spring Mixed Rep program on May 3, 4, and 5, 2012 at 7:30 PM at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Zilkha Hall located at 800 Bagby Street .

Tickets for Dominic Walsh Dance Theater’s Spring Mixed Rep are available for $25, $40, and $52 through www.dwdt.org. However, we would like to extend a special $5 discount to TFAA. Visit www.dwdt.org for tickets and enter Promotion Code TFAA or call 713-315-2525 and mention the TFAA code.  A VIP Opening Night package, including priority seating and an exclusive post-show cocktail reception with the performers at Artista is available for $85.

Please feel free to watch a lovely rehearsal for Camille Claudel and let the mystery and charm of her life carry you away!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miR3ZWaKkLg

Opening: May 13th 5:30 to 9:00pm

On display from May 19 – June 10 and continuing upstairs until July 9th

Location: Darke Gallery
320 B Detering @ Feagan
Houston, TX 77007

www.darkegallery.com

This  popular musical is based  on the 1973 French play  and the 2010 Broadway revival has won several  Tony’s Awards.

TEXAN-FRENCH ALLIANCE FOR THE ARTS AND DOMINIC WALSH DANCE THEATER PRESENT

THE CONFERENCE: Camille Claudel

Dominic Walsh From Sculpture to Dance: A journey through imagination

Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at the French Alliance

427 Lovett Blvd, Houston, TX

Who was Camille Claudel, this exceptional French sculptor who inspired many generations? Through her history, presented by Karine Favre-Massartic, we will invite the public to discover her sources of inspirations and what made her the most talented artist of her time and a committed woman. Dominic Walsh will share with the audience how the life and the work of Camille Claudel inspired his work as a choreographer within the frame of his world premiere performance of “The life of Camille Claudel”, presented at the Zilkha Hall of the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, on May 3, 4 and 5, 2012.

A debate will follow with the public that will be encouraged to exchange with the guests present: Daniel Cohen (Associate professor of History at Rice University), Charlotte Esnou (Deputy Cultural Attache at the French Consulate of Houston), Karine Favre-Massartic (Photographer), Karine Parker-Lemoyne (Executive Director at Texan-French Alliance for the Arts), Dominic Walsh (Artistic director and founder of Dominic Walsh Dance Theater).

Please join us on April 24 for this exciting conference at the crossroads of
life and arts.

Concert Title: Folk Colorings of the Impressionist Masters

Debussy: String Quartet in G Minor Ravel: Piano Trio in A Minor (inspired by the composer’s Basque
ancestry) Satie: Choses vues a droite et a gauche; sans lunettes (Things Seen Left to Right; Without Glasses)

Debussy: Clair de Lune. A set of French Folk melodies arranged for strings!

Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 at 4:00pm in the Duncan Recital Hall @ Shepherd School of Music in Rice University: 6100 Main Street.

$20 General/$15 Senior/$10 Students

“Piece of Sky & Industrial Wasteland – Two Poetic Views”

Paradoxe Poétique

Wade Wilson Art is pleased to announce Paradoxe Poétique, an exhibition of paintings and photography representing the work of two young French artists, Jean-Baptiste Lyonnet and Antoine Grospiron-Jaccoux. Guest curator Laure Parise hand-selected these two artists due to their language which echoes the aesthetic vision and love of abstraction of the gallery.

The exhibit opens with a reception from 6-8 pm on Thursday, April 19th, 2012 and will remain on view through May 9, 2012.

Wade Wilson Art is located at 4411 Montrose Blvd. Suite 200, Houston, Texas, 77006.

713-521-2977

The exhibition offers the Houston arts community a rare opportunity to sample the young French contemporary art scene through the poetic view of the earth via the sky, the desert, and the ocean along with a revival of industrial wastelands. This is the first exhibition in the United States for both artists who have been selected due to the artistic dialogue that exists in their work between their painting and photography. Their artwork explores the contrast between abandoned manufactured spaces versus unadulterated landscapes. Issues of human intervention in topography and their effect on our environment address in an illuminated manner. The two artists use techniques in painting and photography to create a poetic narrative for the viewer while revealing the subtle shifts of the nature of their subject.

Jean-Baptiste Lyonnet

Painter Jean-Baptiste Lyonnet questions the notion of ‘space’ in society and examines the abandoned architecture of former industrial and port districts in Lyon, France. For this exhibition, Lyonnet investigates structures that stand as relics of industrial progress. His images of concrete meet beautiful horizons yet revitalize the repudiated buildings. Jean-Baptiste questions the use of these structures in modern society while granting them a new life through his canvas. Using his craft, his hand and his vision, the color and movement of these former industrial sites abandoned over time, he brings the buildings back to life in his work.

Antoine Grospiron-Jaccoux

Antoine Grospiron-Jaccoux’s photography plays a visual game of abstraction of pure subjects: sky, earth, desert, and water. His work allows an image to bend over the essential, morph the figurative into the abstract, and reveals a newfound beauty of the landscape. His work captures the subtle passing of the present and notes the fragility of passing of time. Grospiron-Jaccoux’s black and white editions are of exceptional quality where the natural changes into a haunting obscurity that is mesmerizing.

Laure Parise:

Trend specialist and art advocate, Laure Parise is an innovator in the contemporary art scene in Houston. Among her noted contributions to the art community, Parise co-chaired the Texas French Art Alliance Art Award and Auction in 2011. She presented three artists at the event including Daniel Farioli who won the 2^nd place TFAA award. For this exhibition, Parise served as the curator. She chose Antoine and Jean-Baptiste in order to introduce Houston to their talents and pair their visions confrontation of natural landscapes through the two mediums of painting and photography along with pairing their visions of confrontations of the natural.

In celebration of Earth Day, The MAC Galleries is pleased to present artist Daniel-Kayne exhibiting his creation: Mine…Mine…The exhibit is a response to the notion of claiming ownership over natural resources. Kayne explores the struggle to attain fresh water in under-developed countries. Without a sustainable fresh water plan, the citizens of these countries suffer the consequences as their population expands. To delineate this imbalance, Kayne employs percentages as a visual tool. Fresh water is represented by the amount of water in the human body and the remaining percentage by human ash. Kayne’s motivations are multi-faceted. He seeks to inspire consciousness in our society to benefit not only the environment but humanity as a whole.

An opening reception will be held Saturday, April 14, 2012 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at The MAC Galleries, located at 3120 McKinney Avenue, in the Uptown District of Dallas. The exhibition will be on view through May 19, 2012

APRIL 5, 6 & 7, 2012

Choreographer’s Forum on Wednesday, April 4 at 6:30 PM at the MAFH

Please visit  http://www.dancesalad.org

All Films Showing at the Museum of Fine Arts

1001 Bissonnet Street

http://mfah.org/films/series/14/

Romantics Anonymous (Les émotifs anonyms)

Directed by Jean-Pierre Améris

Friday, March 23, 7:00 p.m.

Romantics Anonymous tells the story of Angélique (Isabelle Carré, Private Fears in Public Places), a gifted chocolate-maker whose uncontrollable shyness prevents her from acknowledging her talents. Struggling chocolatier Jean-René (Benoît Poelvoorde, Coco Before Chanel), who also suffers from a similar case of awkward bashfulness that threatens to drown his company, hires Angelique as his new sales associate. Realizing she’s attracted to her boss, Angelique decides to anonymously develop a new line of chocolates to save the company. With the future of the business hanging in the balance, Angélique and Jean-René must overcome their limitations and confess their sweet affections for one another in this delectable comedy.

The Day I Saw Your Heart (Et soudain tout le monde me manque) Film Movement 35mm

Directed by Jennifer Devoldère,

Friday, March 23, 8:45 p.m.

This lighthearted comedy offers poignant reflections on family life. Eli Dhrey’s (Michel Blanc, The Girl on the Train) news that his third wife is pregnant unsettles his grown daughters. Dom, trying to adopt, is indignant. Justine (Mélanie Laurent, The Roundup; The Concert; Inglourious Basterds), her unmoored twenty-something half sister, responds by making stunning X-ray art from images acquired during her day job.

Untouchable (Intouchables)

Directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano

Saturday, March 24, 7:00 p.m.

Based on wealthy businessman Philippe Pozzo di Borgo’s memoir recounting his paragliding accident that left him a quadriplegic, art house cinema star François Cluzet (Tell No One) plays the handicapped millionaire who develops an unlikely friendship with  his hot-headed, uninhibited Algerian caregiver (Omar Sy, dubbed “the French Eddie Murphy,” in a breakout role). Shattering box office records in France, Untouchable has been saluted for revolutionizing how French society views itself – and has been optioned for an American remake by Harvey Weinstein. The film is a rare, positive story of the banlieue (areas of low-income apartments and social housing on the outskirts of town) and has been hailed as a masterpiece – the buoyant humor has even been compared to the films of Frank Capra.

“In France we’re used to popular homegrown French comedy, specific French gags and easy laughs. This is very Anglo-Saxon slapstick, a humor which is both absurd and subtle, something which is working more and more in France today.” – Premiere (France)

Low Cost

Directed by Maurice Barthélémy

Saturday, March 24, 9:15 p.m.

Jean-Paul Rouve is Dagobert, a pathologically anxious industrial spy who just boarded a very cheap flight in Djerba, Tunisia. After eight long hours without air conditioning, the passengers are told that the plane is not going to take off. In a moment of bravado, intended to impress sexy airline stewardess Nuance(Judith Godrèche), Dagobert starts a mutiny. Among the passengers is Jean-Claude (Gérard Darmon, from Betty Blue and Diva), a former airline pilot going through a deep depression. Although he is clearly unable to do the job, Jean-Claude cannot resist the call to action and the passengers vote to take control of the plane. A hilarious and irreverent comedy reminiscent of Airplane!

The Names of Love (Le nom des gens)

Directed by Michel Leclerc

Sunday, March 25, 5:00 p.m.

Baya Benmahmoud, a young, extroverted liberal, lives by the old hippie slogan: “Make love, not war” to convert right-wing men to her left-wing political causes by sleeping with them. She seduces many and so far has received exceptional results – until she meets Arthur Martin, a Jewish middle-aged, middle-of-the road scientist. Bound by common tragic family histories (the Algerian War and Holocaust under Vichy), the duo improbably falls in love. Amid the bubbly amour, humorous lasciviousness and moments of sheer madness, filmmaker Michel Leclerc injects satirical riffs on such hot-button sociopolitical issues as Arab-Jewish relations, anti-Semitism, immigration, and racial and cultural identity.

The famed Storyteller, Muriel Bloch, will  offer us a ‘Vagabondage au Pays des Mots’  for all ages. Be prepared to be amazed! This stunning perforamnce will be presented in French.

Wednesday the 21st

Space 125 Gallery

3201 Allen Parkway

5:00 – 7:00 pm

Admisssion is free