Greely Myatt
Forget spring. The time of renewal, as far as the arts community goes, is fall, and this fall promises to be one of the most colorful ever. We’ve got an artist who’s been around for two decades and remains unpredictable; a dance company that strives to be accessible to everyone; a theatre troupe that goes beyond the state line; and a symphony that’s looking for a new leader.
No Comment
Greely Myatt’s 20-year career is celebrated with multiple
shows.
Is Greely Myatt serious? For 20 years now the whimsical sculptor and
professor at the University of Memphis has educated, entertained, and
occasionally confused art patrons with slender Greek columns cast in
soap, quilts of wood and steel, inedible ice cream cones, and rusty
anthropomorphic bed springs. He once compared the history of modern
sculpture to an unremarkable pedestal blowing soap bubbles.
“Of course it’s serious about my joking,” a haggard-looking Myatt
says, resting on a bench in the Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes
College. He is surrounded by speechifying cookie tins, burned-out light
bulbs, and well-worn rugs made from broom handles and mirrors.
To celebrate his two decades on the art scene, Myatt, who has been
installing his work in galleries nonstop since July, has nine shows
running in Memphis between August and October. Or maybe it’s 10. It
could even be 11 if funding comes through to re-install Cloudy
Thoughts, an award-winning billboard-sized artwork created with the
UrbanArt Commission. If money to rent the cranes comes through, clouds
overlaid with Myatt’s famously empty thought balloons will once again
dominate the skyline over Madison Avenue in Midtown.
“It all depends on how you count things,” Myatt says, trying to
figure out how many shows he’s actually opening. It’s 12 if you add his
show in Knoxville. Thirteen, including Chicago. And there are still a
few more pieces in Myatt’s studio “in case anybody else wants to show
the stuff.”
An admiring critic of the artist’s work, which is often punctuated
with empty thought and voice balloons, observed that nobody says “I’ve
nothing to say” better than Greely Myatt. It’s an observation Myatt, an
avowed art-world prankster, rewards with many approving giggles.
“That’s what the speaking balloons and the light bulbs were all
about,” he says. “If you want your art to say something, if you say it
says something, it does. The light bulbs are about not having an
idea.”
Myatt’s mega-show began as a more manageable project. Artist and
gallery owner and manager Hamlett Dobbins wanted to do a pair of shows
at Rhodes and the University of Memphis. From there, things
spiraled.
Myatt’s and exactly
“It’s all manageable,” Myatt says, allowing that he’d been up until
3:30 a.m. working. “A lot of people have come up to me and said, ‘It’s
too bad you’ve got so much going on that you can’t enjoy it.’ But I am
enjoying it. I’ve always liked the building and the installing more
than the receptions. This is the most fun I’ve had in years.” —
Chris Davis
Greely Myatt: Twenty Years opens on September 11th at
Clough-Hanson Gallery and on September 12th at the Art Museum at the
University of Memphis. His work can also be seen at David Lusk Gallery,
the National Ornamental Metal Museum, the Memphis College of Art, the
Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, P&H
Center for the Arts, and — quite possibly —
Material.
New Ballet Ensemble
Everybody Dance
New Ballet Ensemble reaches out to Orange Mound.
Katie Smythe founded the nonprofit New Ballet Ensemble in 2001 to
ensure that every child has a chance to dance regardless of their
families’ financial situation.
The troupe’s performances, such as Nut ReMix and
SpringLoaded, mix classical and hip-hop and draw huge
crowds.
A year ago, Smythe, with support from the Community Foundation of
Greater Memphis, began a partnership with the Orange Mound neighborhood
and Dunbar Elementary School.
“I was asked by the principal at Dunbar to bring dancing to the
school,” she says. “She is a great principal and wanted to get the arts
going there.”
With the principal on board and funding from the Community
Foundation and other organizations and individuals, only one roadblock
lay ahead: the cooperation of parents, who were unfamiliar with the
ensemble.
Smythe went door to door to get the signatures required for each
child to participate.
At a cost of $800 per student, Smythe held her first three-day
clinic for the 6- and 7-year-olds at Dunbar.
The clinics involved skipping, jumping, and turning and did not
require a background in ballet. By the end of the three days, the
students memorized arm and leg positions. From there, Smythe chose five
students to continue into a 12-week, twice-a-week beginning-ballet
program.
“Within two years, hopefully, they will be onstage for the Nut
ReMix,” she says.
Smythe plans to work with other communities in years to come. She
chose Orange Mound because of the high level of poverty and proximity
to the New Ballet studios in Midtown.
With some students paying full tuition and others on scholarship,
Smythe is bridging the socioeconomic divide in Memphis through
ballet.
“You don’t go to New Ballet Ensemble with racial problems,” she
said. “Kids encounter something different at New Ballet Ensemble. Even
the parents are getting to know people they would never know.” —
Erica Walters
The New Ballet Ensemble performs Freefall October
16th-17th at the New Ballet studios at 2157 York.
Jerre Dye
Tough Enough
Voices of the South prepares for the Big Apple.
The 2009 Ostrander Awards for excellence in Memphis theater were SRO
and energized like never before in the event’s 26-year history when
University of Memphis acting Professor Josie Helming — surrounded
on all sides by her former students — received the Eugart Eurian
Award for Lifetime Achievement.
It felt like the passing of a torch. U of M grad Steve Swift —
in the guise of the outspoken evangelical Sister Myotis Crenshaw
— hosted the event along with Todd Berry and Jenny Odle, who are
all U of M alums and all members of the company Voices of the South.
That same night, VOTS artistic director Jerre Dye picked up a Best
Actor award for his performance in Cyrano de Bergerac at Theatre
Memphis, and Voices of the South won a special award for Best
Performance of an Original Script for its annual and ever-changing
Christmas revue Present PRESENT. This small but scrappy
professional theater company, born of the U of M theater department and
based in Midtown, hadn’t just come of age, it had become a certifiable
community treasure.
VOTS is having the kind of year any performance troupe in the world
might envy. On September 19th, during the annual Cooper-Young Festival,
the company opens its new performance space TheatreSouth (located in
the basement of First Congregational Church), with a revival of
Sister Myotis’ Bible Camp. In March 2010, TheatreWorks will host
the premiere of a new (currently untitled) play commissioned by the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to commemorate the 50th anniversary of
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The following June, Sister
Myotis’ Bible Camp opens again, this time off-Broadway as a part of
the Abingdon Theatre Company’s season of new plays by established and
emerging American playwrights.
“We are 14 years old, you know,” Dye says. “Teenagers, I suppose,
with plenty of growing pains. [And] plenty of drive and energy. We’ve
just worked really hard. All of us. The company. Our administrative
staff. Our board of directors. And frankly, we dreamed even harder. All
of us together.
“We grew tired of being told that we had to move to, live in, and
work in the big cities to have real success,” Dye adds.
“We decided instead to embrace our name Voices of the South, make
our own success, and let the out-of-town ‘powers that be’ come to us,”
Dye says. “Why not theater? Why not new plays? Why not solo
performance? Why not smart educational plays? Why not make a little
creative noise and show the world what Memphis is made of?”
— Chris Davis
Left to right: Alastair Willis, Mei-Ann Chen, and Thomas Wilkins
Seeking Direction
The Memphis Symphony Orchestra begins its season
without a conductor.
It’s been over a year and a half since longtime Memphis Symphony
Orchestra (MSO) conductor David Loebel announced his plans to resign
from the post. But the city’s professional orchestra is still without a
leader.
This season, which began in early September, a rotating cast of
guest conductors, three of whom are named finalists for the vacant
music director position, will lead the orchestra.
“As each finalist directs a show, we’ll be looking for chemistry, as
well as their conducting style, their musical interpretation, and their
personality,” says Susanna Perry Gilmore, a search committee member,
violinist, and concertmaster for the MSO.
On October 17th, finalist Alastair Willis, former associate
conductor of the Seattle Symphony, will conduct Brahm’s Symphony No. 1
in C Minor at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts.
Candidate Thomas Wilkins, music director for the Omaha Symphony
Orchestra, will direct Beethoven’s Prometheus Overture at the
Buckman Performing & Fine Arts Center on November 6th.
Candidate Mei-Ann Chen, assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony
Orchestra, will conduct the MSO’s performance of J. Adams’ The
Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra at both the Cannon Center
and the Germantown Performing Arts Centre on November 21st and
22nd.
A conductor should be chosen by next spring. Until then, the
12-member search committee — which contains six MSO musicians
— will be watching the candidates’ every moves.
“The search committee will also be watching how they interact with
the Memphis community. Every candidate will have opportunities to have
conversations with staff, the [MSO’s] board, and our patrons,” Perry
Gilmore says. “Even when they’re mingling at parties, everything they
do will be examined.”
Symphony patrons will also have a say in who makes the final cut.
After each performance, the audience can participate in a Q&A
session with the candidates. They’ll also be asked to fill out a survey
on each candidate.
Although three finalists have been named, MSO spokesperson Anthony
Plummer points out that the competition is not closed to new
candidates.
“The search committee reserves the right to add additional
finalists,” Plummer says.
In the meantime, Loebel is sticking around to guest-conduct a few
performances and offer advice during the transition. — Bianca
Phillips
Memphis Symphony Orchestra Conductor Candidate Performances
• Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, October
17th
Candidate Alastair Willis conducts Brahm’s Symphony No. 1 in C
Minor and other works. Also featuring mezzo-soprano Marietta
Simpson.
• Buckman Performing & Fine Arts Center at St. Mary’s
School, November 6th
Candidate Thomas Wilkins leads this performance of Beethoven’s
Prometheus Overture, and other works.
• Cannon Center for Performing Arts, November 21st, and
Germantown Performing Arts Centre, November 22nd
Candidate Mei-Ann Chen conducts J. Adams’ The Chairman Dances:
Foxtrot for Orchestra. Also featuring guest cellist Julie
Albers.
Sister Myotis’ Bible Camp runs from September 19th-October 3rd at
TheatreSouth.
