Celebrating world culture and exorcising demons with Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry

The disparity of the labels most commonly assigned to Dead Can Dance’s style—gothic, neoclassical, world fusion—bears witness to the breadth of this Australian-born ensemble’s artistic scope. Seemingly contradictory elements intertwine with the utmost grace in DCD’s work: The group’s very name juxtaposes the grim with the festive, while its music is both elegant and primal, foreign and familiar, ethereal and earthy, witchy and angelic, ghostly and vibrant … and, as singer/multi-instrumentalist Brendan Perry states, an exorcism as well as a celebration.

Sixth annual National Dance Week Santa Cruz challenges preconceived notions of what dance can be

What do the post office, cafés, intersections and an abandoned Wienerschnitzel have in common? They will all—believe it or not—be transformed into performance sites in honor of National Dance Week Santa Cruz 2013 (NDWSC).

The sixth annual county-wide event will take place April 18-26, and feature numerous performances in addition to more than 100 free dance classes—from ballet to samba to hip-hop to African—open to the public. Created to recognize and grow the local dance community, NDWSC brings creative movement directly to the people, with performances in the street, in local dance studios, in community centers and in delightfully unexpected venues (in 2010, three dancers from The Aerial Collective twirled while dangling from the roof of Lulu Carpenter’s in downtown.)

Local author Cecile Andrews emphasizes importance of community engagement in newest book

Cecile Andrews, author of the new book “Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community and the Common Good,” probably wouldn’t get along too well with Larry David’s character from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, known for hiding his face and avoiding communication with anyone he runs into on the street. Andrews is a longstanding part-time Santa Cruz (part-time Seattle) resident who says something that’s struck her about this town over the years is people's willingness to participate in a practice she’s dubbed the “Stop and Chat”—which is exactly what it sounds like.

Editor’s note:  Just in time for National Poetry Month, local poet and collage artist Patrice Vecchione has released a new collection of poems, entitled “The Knot Untied.” Vecchione is the author of “Writing and the Spiritual Life: Finding Your Voice by Looking Within” and “Territory of Wind.” She's also the editor of many anthologies, including “Truth and Lies,” “The Body Eclectic” and “Revenge and Forgiveness.” She teaches both collage and creative writing workshops at community centers, universities, libraries and at Esalen Institute in Big Sur. She will read from “The Knot Untied” at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 11 at the Watsonville Public Library.

Local couple opens new classical figurative arts school at The Tannery

When viewing the work of artists Lisa Silas and Jonathan Ernest Chorn, it’s rather difficult to imagine possessing the ability to produce such work, or even that such work is being produced in the present day. Yet these are precisely the preconceptions the couple is looking to dispel with their ambitious new endeavor: a classical figurative arts school at The Tannery Arts Center.

Charting the evolution of The Monkees’ Michael Nesmith

Michael Nesmith must have inherited pioneer genes from his mom, who famously invented Liquid Paper (Google it, kids). Arguably the most interesting member of The Monkees, Nesmith has played a crucial part in fusing music with television and video, first by playing guitar in the world’s first made-for-TV band, and then by coming up with the idea for MTV. For better or worse, his efforts have helped shape a music industry in which a powerful visual presentation is often as important to an artist’s success as the music itself.

Iconic San Francisco revue continues to improve with age

There are very few theatrical productions that make it to middle-age. Thankfully, “Beach Blanket Babylon,” which turns 39 this summer, is one of them. In fact, the revered San Francisco spectacle is the country’s longest-running revues.

That’s a terrific testament to the legacy that the late- Steve Silver left behind. Silver launched “BBB” back in the ’70s and the show immediately turned heads with its show-stopping musical parodies and clever plot—a whiny Snow White desperately searching for a Prince Charming. That may have been enough to lure audiences in initially, but Silver and his creative team went a step beyond, always updating the show by infusing it with a delicious gluttony of current events.

This is evident in the revue's latest incarnation—a nonstop powerhouse of sheer brilliance that majestically surfs the peculiar waves of pop culture, scoops up as many headline-grabbers as it can and feasts on their absurdities.

Israeli musician Amit Peled brings famous cello to Aptos

Amit Peled has many blessings in his life. He’s an accomplished cellist and conductor, and has performed in top venues throughout the world. At 28, he became the youngest professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he and his wife are raising three children. And twice in his life, once when he was a boy and again as a man, his life’s path was altered by a man he never met: the preeminent cellist of the 20^th century, the late Pablo Casals.

Performances highlight JTC’s revival of ‘Horse Dreamer’

Now in its eighth season, Jewel Theatre Company continues to produce quality professional theatre right in the heart of Downtown Santa Cruz. Spearheaded by Artistic Director Julie James, and making use of an ever-expanding gene pool of directors, performers and stage technicians, the company keeps local audiences intrigued with its lineup of often challenging, unexpected material. Case in point is the new JTC production of “Geography of a Horse Dreamer,” a lesser-know drama by the iconic Sam Shepard that considers the plight of the artist in a world of commerce, the vagaries of luck, and (as usual, for Shepard) the spectacle of men behaving badly.

Second annual Watsonville Film Festival shines light on Central Coast talent

With this year’s Oscar ceremony in the rearview mirror, the time is ripe for a cinematic palette cleanser, and the second annual Watsonville Film Festival, which takes place March 2-3, might be just what the doctor ordered for cinephiles and casual filmgoers alike. “It’s definitely a community film festival,” says Consuelo Alba, a local filmmaker whose company, Veremos Productions, is one of the festival’s founders. “Our mission is to educate and inspire the community—and specifically young people—to get involved, to create their own films, to document their own stories,” she continues. “There are many stories in this area that need to be told, so we want to engage students and the whole community in the experience of watching film and producing our own films.”