Vancouver artist Eric Metcalfe will lecture in Architecture and Design Now Date: Monday, January 8, 2007 - 11:00am - 2:00pm Location: C 610 "Eric Metcalfe's Long-standing practice in performance, video, installation, ceramics and sculpture has consistently drawn from popular culture, including film and television, jazz improvisation and the graphic novel. In his talk titled "Film Noir Architecture", Metcalfe looks in detail at film noir, a genre of great importance to film and cultural theorists over the past three decades. His talk will centre around the the installation "Laura" currently on at the Stride Gallery in Calgary. Centred around a 'missing woman', the Vera Casprey novel Laura of 1942 and the 1944 Otto Preminger film adaptation exemplify the classic motifs of crime fiction and film noir. In this installation, Metcalfe takes on the role of 'auteur', a continuation of his 'oeuvre' that includes the 1980 video Steel and Flesh. He collaborates with writer Nancy Shaw, and editor Michael Turner in the voice-over script for the sound track, in which Shaw performs; renowned jazz pianist Paul Plimley and sound artist Peter Courtemanche collaborate on the score. Ceramicist Gillian McMillan and sculptor Rick Ross work with Metcalfe in the design of the set pieces for a remarkable installation that transforms the gallery space into a sound stage that the viewer can enter. Paring down to a few significant elements the lush opulence of the film noir set, and including vintage lighting, draperies and 'painting', Metcalfe investigates the strong influence of this popular genre on both contemporary art practice and his own artistic development. " Hip Mythic Theatre and Dance Magic: Now Showing's Diverse Offerings Date: Monday, January 8, 2007 - 1:00pm Location: "Contemporary Theatre from Ireland opens season on Jan. 17 and 18 Two very different performances make up the 2007 Now Showing Live Arts Series. "This year we are bringing back the every popular Ballet Jazz de Montreal and cohosting Pan Pan Theatre from Ireland with One Yellow Rabbit's High Performance Rodeo in Calgary. The series strives to surprise, connect and entertain. "These two productions will certainly fill the bill" said Lisa Doolittle, Now Showing Curator. Jan. 17 & 18 -- Pan Pan Theatre Presents Oedipus Loves You The season opens on Wednesday and Thursday, January 17 and 18 at 8:00 pm in the David Spinks Theatre with Pan Pan Theatre from Ireland presenting Oedipus Loves You. This energetic and idiosyncratic performance dissects the original Greek myth where Oedipus unwittingly kills his father and then marries his mother, and asks us what the Oedipus story can tell us today. "Pan Pan's theatrical language - that includes punk-tinged live music (by Gordon is a Mime), dance, theatre, and video - connects ancient dramas, the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, and the force of popular media culture to unleash the power of the myth for contemporary audiences," said Doolittle. Reviewing the premier of the work, the Irish Times said "Engaging with both an original source (Sophocles' Oedipus trilogy) and its legacy (Freudian psychology) Pan Pan's production is densely intertextual, wickedly funny, and wonderfully theatrical in the most post-modern of ways". The widely traveled company, has made an international reputation by adapting classic theatre works, and recently returned from Beijing where they produced a Chinese version of iconic Irish playwright J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World. March 4 -- Ballets Jazz de Montreal! The internationally acclaimed Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal [bjm_danse] takes to the University Theatre stage on Sunday March 4 at 8:00 pm. "bjm_danse's style is eclectic, dynamic and extremely physical," said Doolittle. "This company's performances express the creative energy of young choreographers, and the technique and interpretive zing of its excellent dancers. We are thrilled to present a new work by Alberta's own Azure Barton on the program." Mikhail Baryshnikov has called Barton "a fresh, arresting and fascinating choreographer"; she is choreographer-in —residence at the new Baryshnikov Arts Centre in New York. Her astonishing and humorous dance brings out what she calls the "intimate animality' of the bjm_danse artists. The second work on this program is MAPA by Brazilian choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras artistic director of the acclaimed dance company Grupo Corpo. Pederneiras unites traditional Brazilian movements with classical ballet, infused with his own artistic style. Always guided by the music, Rodrigo connects the classics with the xaxado, the samba, capoeira and ballroom dances in a completely Brazilian way, with intensity, without straying into exoticism, stereotypes, or pretentiousness. Audiences will feel the exhilarating force of the dancing body - comic and joyful, but also violent and ambiguous, a body that has learned to dance in the streets. Maintaining the Now Showing mandate to bring artists into direct contact with the community, each company presents free public talks, and theatre and dance workshops open to the public while in Lethbridge Now Showing Live Arts Series appreciates the continued support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Canadian Heritage as well as the U of L Faculty of Fine Arts. For the [bjm_danse] performance there is reserved seating so get your tickets early. Tickets for both performances are available at the U of L Box Office 329-2616. Tickets for Oedipus Loves You by Pan Pan Theatre are $20 regular and $15 student/senior while tickets for bjm_danse are $25 regular and $20 student/senior. Special ticket prices are available for groups of 10 or more. The complimentary shuttle bus transports audience members from the north parking lot to the theatre entrance. - 10 - " Photographer Dianne Bos will lecture in Art Now Date: Friday, January 12, 2007 - 5:00am Location: Recital Hall "Dianne Bos was born in Hamilton, Ontario, received her B.F.A. from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick and currently divides her time between the foothills of the Rockies and the Pyrenees. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally in numerous group and solo exhibitions since 1981. Recently Dianne's work has been included in a number of important international exhibitions in Aleppo, Syria and Siena, Italy as well as a solo exhibitions at the Kamloops Art Gallery, the University of Waterloo Art Gallery. Recently her work was included in the 2005 Alberta Biennial of Contempary Art. Bos's photographic work has appeared in international publications and her garden photography and writing has been published in both Canadian, American and Japanese magazines. Dianne Bos is represented by the Wynick/Tuck Gallery in Toronto, Summit Gallery, Banff and the Jennifer Kostuik Gallery in Vancouver. attached image: Stampede Midway, 2004, 30 x 30" CPrint. For more information visit: http://www.kostuikgallery.com/dynamic/artist.asp?ArtistID=2 " David Merritt will lecture in Art Now Date: Monday, January 15, 2007 - 5:00am - 7:00am Location: Recital hall "David Merritt works in the areas of drawing and installation. Exploiting both traditional and non-traditional means, this work operates in the diminishing spaces between natural orders and cultural systems. His work has been represented in venues across Canada as well as abroad, including recent projects at Jessica Bradley Art and Projects, Galerie René Blouin, and the Textile Museum of Canada and TENT, Rotterdam. Together with co-curator Kim Moodie, he also organized Just My Imagination , a major exhibition of contemporary Canadian drawing practices currently on an eight venue tour across the country. Just My Imagination has been documented by a 72 page catalogue, including essays by the co-curators and written contributions by seven other writers and curators from across the country. " Senior designer Diti Katona will lecture in Architecture and Design Now Date: Monday, January 15, 2007 - 11:00am - 1:00pm Location: C 610 "?Senior designer, Diti Katona, is a founding partner and creative director of Concrete Design Communications living in Toronto . Since the late eighties Concrete has established an international reputation winning nearly 500 awards from every major design competition throughout North America and Europe. Diti is a vocal advocate for the value of compelling design over what is safe, mediocre, dull and boring. An inspiring developmental phase in her career was an interlude living in Hungary, her parents' homeland, where she apprenticed with the renowned poster designer, Jozsef Arendas. Although Katona endearingly believes in the notion of and Euro modernist greatness in design, this bias has been usefully mitigated by her unabashed love of North American popular media culture, a major influence on her work as creative director, designer and consumer. Katona has sat on many international design juries and is frequently a lecturer, board member and faculty advisor. Katona earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts, York University, Toronto in 1983. Clients include Keilhaurer, Azure magazine, Holt Renfew, Flick, Masterfile, Yorkdale, Lida Baday, Umbra, Susanne Land and For the Dogs, Toronto. She has received numberous awards including; Clio Awards/Bronze, Graphic Design, for "TSE Annual Report 2001", New York; The Chicago Athenaeum/"Good Design" Graphic Design, for "The Lavin Agency" and "George Brown School of Design Canadian Digital Creativity 2003"; The Advertising & Design Club of Canada, Graphic Design for "The Lavin Agency (Gold) and "Bad Translations" (Gold)