When you’re at Hyde Park Theatre this week seeing First Stage Productions’ revival of Shay Youngblood’s Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery (which you will be going to see, I know), be sure to stick around after and ask cast member Joni Lee Jones about her recent appearance in the Houston Fringe Theatre Festival. The good doctor was one of three African-American female performance artists featured in the program An Evening of Righteous Women Raging, Righteous Women Rising, one of five showcase events in the month-long festival by Theater LaB Houston and DiverseWorks Artspace. The Austinite shared the stage with Niobe’ Ngozi and Ris� Collins, each of whom presented her own work. Jones presented sista docta, a piece combining poetry, dance, improvisation, and drumming to illuminate the artist’s experience as an African-American woman professor in institutions dominated by European-American males. (Hmm, sound like any universities around here you know?)
Ginger Geyer is giving residents of our nation’s capital a whole new way of looking at the objects of daily life. The Austin sculptor, who recreates such ordinary items as frying pans, shoes, tissue boxes, and orange life-jackets in brightly-colored porcelain, opens an exhibition of her sculptures this week at the Dadian Gallery in the Center for Arts & Religion on the Wesley Theological Seminary campus, Washington, D.C. The show runs through July 3. For info, call 202/885-8674.
Worthy Causes
Tapestry Dance Company hosts the Seventh Annual Austin Tap Jam Saturday, May 24, at Lakeline Mall to benefit HOBO (Helping Our Brothers Out). The jam, hosted by company co-director Acia Gray, features performances by dancers from Tapestry, the Tapestry junior troupe Visions in Rhythm, and guest artists, with music provided by the Rich Harney Trio. You contribute to the jam by bringing new or used shoes to donate to HOBO. There will be two performances, at 1:30 & 3pm. Call 837-8909 for more info.
Off the Desk
DiverseArts Production Group is looking for artists, artisans, designers, and vendors to take part in the Ninth Annual Clarksville/West End Jazz & Arts Festival in Pease Park June 14 & 15. In addition to featuring local and national jazz, blues, and R&B acts, and spoken word and dance performances, the festival enables artists to exhibit photography, paintings, sculpture, pottery, clothing, or other wares for sale. The deadline for priority space assignments is this Friday, May 23, 5pm. For information, prices, or an application, call 477-9438. Austin Access Arts provides another of its Audio Described Performances, in which trained volunteers provide descriptions of plays to patrons wearing headsets tuned to a specific FM frequency, this Saturday, May 24, at 8pm. It’s for the Live Oak Theatre production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile at the State Theatre. Call 454-9912 for info.
This article appears in May 23 • 1997 and May 23 • 1997 (Cover).