Here are this week’s calendar picks from KC Studio editor Alice Thorson. Two new art exhibitions open tonight at the Nerman, including a solo show of work by Don Kottman (featured last year in our online reviews). Two plays also premiere: Neil LaBute’s The Way We Get By at Unicorn and Ira Levin’s Deathtrap at Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre. Michael Stern conducts Mozart’s Requiem with the Kansas City Symphonyat the Kauffman, with performances scheduled tonight through Sunday. Tomorrow night The Friends of Chamber Music present the Danish String Quartet at the Karbank 1900 Building (featured in our August/September issue). Saturday, see Ben Bliss perform at the Folly, a Free Discovery Concert presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series. And stretching into Monday, the Physical Theatre Festival begins at Just Off Broadway Theatre and runs through October 30. For more ideas this weekend, visit Kansas City’s most comprehensive arts calendar at kcstudio.org/events.
EVERYTHING NOTHING SOMETHING – Don Kottmann
October 20, 2016 – March 29, 2017
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
What’s Not in the World That Should Be? Don Kottman’s answer to this question, posed in one of the dozens of sketchbooks the eminent American artist has filled over the years, is a torrent of beguiling small abstractions, represented in part in the Nerman Museum’s Kansas Focus Gallery.
Featuring roughly twenty recent drawings, this exhibit immerses viewers in a creative vortex of glorious layered colors and animated gestural strokes. They traverse the page in loops and spirals, undulating waves and pileups of slashing vertical and horizontal lines, many in an exploration of the idea of sediment, and the layering, stacking, settling and moving of particles the word implies.
The sediment concept is an ongoing preoccupation of Kottmann’s, as evidenced by the large paintings which earned him a Joan Mitchell Foundation award in 2015. The sketchbook drawings, while sharing formal and conceptual affinities with the paintings, stand on their own as independent works of art. There are hundreds of them, and taken together, they represent a sustained and personal and artistic meaning.
– Alice Thorson, Editor
Domestic Seen
October 20, 2016 – March 26, 2017
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
Domestic Seen focuses upon seven artists who employ interiors, objects and related “domestic” scenes to convey perceptions regarding varied experiences, immigration, celebrity, wealth etc. The seemingly mundane is imbued with critical content that resonates both locally and nationally. Featuring paintings, photographs, video, drawings and sculptural works, the exhibition highlights a diverse range of people, places and objects in which viewers may recognize aspects of their own lives or their community.
The Way We Get By
October 19 & 20 @ 7:30 pm
October 21 & 22 @ 8:00 pm
October 23 @ 3:00 pm
Unicorn Theatre
After a hot night together, Beth and Doug wake up to the awkward afterglow of a complicated new reality. As they search for their clothes, they must decide if their passion can withstand the public fallout. Is love worth the risk? This sexy and surprising new work from playwright Neil LaBute will keep you guessing.
Kansas City Symphony Classical Series – Stern Conducts Mozart’s Requiem
October 20 @ 7:00 pm
October 21 & 22 @ 8:00 pm
October 23 @ 2:00 pm
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Mozart’s final composition — the Requiem — is a work of surpassing eloquence, beauty and power. Bask in its grace as Michael Stern leads the Kansas City Symphony, Chorus and soloists through this transformative masterpiece. Organ Symphony No. 1 by 19th-century French composer Alexandre Guilmant is the ideal showcase for renowned American virtuoso Paul Jacobs and the majestic Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant Organ. G. Kenneth & Ann Baum Concert Comments will not be presented in Helzberg Hall prior to this performance. Tickets start at $30.
Deathtrap
October 20 – November 5
Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre
By Ira Levin
“It is a classic thriller, a genre with a style, a manner and an audience of its own. If you like thrillers, do see it. I promise you that it is vintage.” – NY Post.
Danish String Quartet
October 21 @ 8:00 pm | $35
Karbank 1900 Building
The members of the Danish String Quartet met each other as young boys at a summer camp where they played soccer and chamber music together. They be – came best friends and continued to play regularly. As teenagers, they met a young cellist from Norway, and added him to make a quartet. Years later, they have become one of the most compelling quartets playing on the world stage today. Their refreshing new takes on the classics will thrill you! Come hear the future!
At this concert, join us for a free tasting of TerraVox Wines courtesy of Vox Vineyards.
Ben Bliss, tenor in American recital debut [Free Discovery Concert]
October 22 @ 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm | Free
Folly Theater
Kansas City native Ben Bliss will join other distinguished artists who have made their American recital debuts on the Series. Bliss is a graduate of the Met Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and the recipient of the Mozart and Plácido Domingo awards at the 2015 Francisco Viñas International Competition in Barcelona.
Byrd Productions’ Physical Theatre Festival
October 24 – October 30
Just Off Broadway Theatre
Celebrate 21 years of Physical Theatre with Byrd Productions with 4 workshops and 3 performances of pure Physical Theatre expression, featuring some of the best local and international performers in the field.
