Brian McTavish

January 3, 2017

Quixotic Scores a Hit with Dazzling Digital Projections

When is a far-out dance company far more than a far-out dance company? When it’s Kansas City’s Quixotic. The outer reaches of artistic possibility were never more palpable for Quixotic’s co-founder and creative director Anthony Magliano than in February 2016, when he and his multi-talented group of mind-blowers projected a landmark mini-movie on two sides of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

November 1, 2016

Tales from the Pit

For Ramona Pansegrau, music director of the Kansas City Ballet, there’s nothing like being in the orchestra pit conducting a Christmastime performance of The Nutcracker and being touched by the audience’s reaction. “One time, a little girl came down and started petting my hair in the middle of Nutcracker, Pansegrau drolly recollects.

Articles

September 12, 2016

Nostalgia Trip

Say what you will about the interstate system, the most fabled thoroughfare in American history remains Route 66, which in 1938 became the world’s first mega-highway paved end to end. Wending from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., the 2,448-mile, two-lane highway carried countless travelers before being decommissioned by the federal government in 1985.

September 12, 2016

Road Show

Most Americans are too young to remember the discouraging roads that confronted long-distance travelers before President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal Highway Act, enabling the creation of the U.S. Interstate Highway System in 1956. Sixty years later, the virtually completed system’s 47,500 miles of interconnected divided highways continues to promote safety and expediency for motorists while maintaining a vital impact on the nation’s way of life.

August 4, 2016

Last Glance – Tom Kramer: A Life of Loving Jazz

Who gives better advice, bartenders or jazz musicians? Legendary Kansas City bartender Tom Kramer has a quick answer: “Oh, bartenders, for sure. Ask any jazz..

May 9, 2016

At KU, Art Meets Science in the Battle Against a Deadly Disease

The power of art can be boundless, but even the most ambitious artist might balk at the idea that artwork can literally save lives. Fortunately for people in Latin America, Kansas City artist Jarret Mellenbruch not only believes in the power of his art but also in the force of experimental collaboration.

December 31, 2015

Dual Personality

As a student in the early 1970s at the Kansas City Art Institute, Jerry Eisterhold found himself pondering wine in addition to graphic design. It was a brief phase, yet one that foretold the future. “I thought it would be a cool thing to be a wine aficionado,” Eisterhold remembers.

November 30, 2015

Potential Pitfalls Keep Devon Carney on His Toes

Alas, sometimes things go wrong at the ballet. Tutus can tear wide open. Lights can fail at a critical moment. Scenic backdrops can get hung up and not appear before an audience’s waiting eyes. And dancers, bless them, might even miss an entrance – which makes it difficult to stage a proper twinkle-toes spectacle in the first place.

October 30, 2015

The Man Behind the Man Who Had a Dream

Michael Benjamin Washington's Blueprints to Freedom celebrates the contribution of Bayard Rustin, architect of the March on Washington.

Author: Brian McTavish