[Editor’s Note: More than 700 pieces of student art and professional art will be displayed on Saturday and Sunday in the Hayden Tract at the annual ARTWORKS!, a fundraiser for Farragut Elementary School. The adults-only gallery show and art auction will be from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday in the Conjunctive Points building, 8522 National Blvd. On Sunday, the free art exhibition is open from 9 a.m. to noon.]
Culver City is having an “art attack.” Granted, it’s always been an artistic community, as evidenced by the cameras that have been rolling here for the past century. But lately there’s been a huge influx of artists, galleries, studios, filmmakers and theatre companies that are flourishing under the hospitable wings of our town. Many of these transplanted artisans have children who are students in Culver City public schools. Being creative industry types, these residents are determined that their progeny benefit from a quality arts education program in addition to the core subjects.
Recognizing that arts and entertainment are not only a major part of Culver City’s history but also its future, the School District passed, and is actively implementing, a District-wide arts education program. The challenge, however, is to adequately fund these efforts in light of all the federal and state education budget cuts over the past decade. But, in the spirit of the African proverb, “it takes a village to raise a child,” this is where the Culver City community excels and closes the gap.
The Black Rider brings together Tom Waits‚ distinctive, jazzy, cabaret-noir music with William S. Burroughs’ idiosyncratic words, all under the hallucinatory production of Robert Wilson’s direction. There is the loose semblance of story beneath the lush costumes, vivacious music, and the set design’s postmodern expressionism. Based on a German folk tale that has been put to the stage in different forms throughout the years, the tale underlying The Black Rider is that of an accounting clerk named Wilhelm who can only marry the girl he loves if he can prove to her father, a hunter, that he, too, can hunt. There’s a snag, of course. Wilhelm couldn’t even hit the broad side of a barn at point-blank range. So the clerk makes a deal with the devil, receiving magic bullets that will render his aim perfect. What he doesn’t realize is that he will pay a price for the favor, and it will inevitably be the stuff of tragedy.
A high school student named Brendan (Gordon-Levitt) receives a desperate phone call from the ex-girlfriend he still pines for.