Gitana Productions, Inc. and the Regional Arts Commission (RAC) are presenting a two-day conference, Cross-Cultural Engagement: Building a Diverse and Dynamic Community,  to help non-profit arts, social services, education and community organizations develop strategies and tools to effectively engage new and underserved communities, develop lasting cross-cultural relationships and improve their own internal diversity.

"RAC considers diversity and cross-cultural engagement very important to the cultural vitality of our region," Jill McGuire, executive director of RAC said.

Howard J. Ross, one of the nation's leading experts on diversity, leadership and organizational change will deliver the key note address.  Ross is also the author of Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose, and Performance.

Sessions at the conference include Interpersonal Skills in Cross-Cultural Engagement, How Immigration is Changing the Face of St. Louis and America,  Local Models of Cross Cultural Engagement and a poverty simulation amongst many others.  The poverty simulation will help "participants understand the day-to-day reality of poverty in the lives of low-income families, single parents, people with disabilities, senior citizens on Social Security and others."

The conference will also feature a workshop from the Urban Bush Women Leadership Institute of New York.  The performance ensemble, which uses cultural expression as a catalyst for social change, is presenting its experiential workshop "Entering, Building, and Exiting Community."  The workshop uses theater games, writing and movement exercises as experiential learning tools in order for participants learn how to become aware of the values, leadership and history of a community and much more.

Executive Director of Gitana Productions, Cecilia Nadal said, "Organizations will get the tools they need to go beyond simply meeting diversity goals and learn how to develop true relationships with diverse groups, for long-term results."

The conference will take place October 11 and 12 at Webster University: Community Music School.  The cost for the two-day conference is $45 and scholarships are available.  To register and for more information visit: http://stlcross-culturalengagement.org/.

Witness an international exhibit right here in St. Louis that will leave you both enriched and speechless.  The Lantern Festival at Missouri Botanical Garden hosts over 20 colorful, enormous lantern sets.  The detailed, outdoor lanterns are created from silk, steel, porcelain and other materials that come to life once the sun sets. 

Chinese culture is celebrated throughout the exhibition by recreating an ancient tradition that is often only found in Asia, dating back over 2,000 years.  The different lantern sets each have their own exclusive story that represents a part of ancient Chinese tradition.   

The Magic by Night opens at 6 p.m. which leaves you plenty of time to visit the Food Court which offers Chinese fare ranging from delicious crab Rangoon to fried rice and much more.  If you are lucky enough to find a cool evening to go in which it is not sweltering hot, take the time to find a table to sit at and thoroughly enjoy your food.  If shopping is your hobby, you will be right at home at the Lantern Festival Bazaar.  The Bazaar offers Asian merchandise and souvenirs that cater to every age and interest.

There are nightly stage shows at the outdoor Cohen Amphitheater and indoor Shoenberg Theater including Sand Drawing, the ancient Chinese tradition of sand animation and the ChenLong Troupe, which includes a juggler, acrobatic performers, and the ancient Chinese art of Bian Lian (face-changing).  The ChenLong Troupe performance will leave you astonished.  Watching a juggler lie on her back as she uses her feet to quickly juggle a large pot is not something you see everyday.  The acrobats' physical strength and flexibility is visibly apparent when you watch them lift each other and bend in unthinkable ways with such ease. 

Take time to stop and feel like a kid again while making  a wish at the Wishing Tree and Wishing Well, both significant items in a traditional lantern festival.  Numerous traditional artisans are also on site creating one of a kind, unique works of art including seal engraving, straw pictures, charcoal portrait drawings and many more.

At 8 p.m. the magic happens, the lanterns are illuminated and radiate throughout the garden.  As you walk through the garden and admire each illuminated lantern set, you can read the story behind it in the provided guide or off of the on-site description.    My personal favorite due to the complexity of the lights and the overwhelming size, Heavenly Temple, was structured after a Beijing Heavenly Temple from 1420.  Other exceptional lanterns such as the Four-Faced Buddha that blinks and shines and the Porcelain Dragon that blows out smoke as it moves its head from side to side are breathtaking. 

The Lantern Festival: Art by Day, Magic by Night is an exhibition that you truly do not want to miss!

The exhibition runs through August 19^th at the Missouri Botanical Garden.  For exhibit hours and ticket information visit: http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/things-to-do/events/special-exhibitions/lantern-festival.aspx.

Immediately upon entering the gallery Art by Children of Artists, you are greeted with unique, creative works of art produced by local, young minds.  One of the first displays of artwork, Cat Town, contains over twenty pictures of drawn cats mixed with a few, real life pictures.  A puzzle depicting a picture of a cat is also available to piece together.  The main focus of this display is a large, dry erase board that has a spotted bunny staring at a cat who has a carrot resting on its' tail.  Right away, you can tell it is artwork created by a child.  Not because of the complexity of the artwork, but because of the endless amount of creativity that is visible.  Not only are the cats in Cat Town each presented in different settings, but they are also different colors, wearing different clothes, and have names such as Mr. George and Mrs. Georgina.

The gallery contains work from over 16 local children whose parents are active in the art community here in St. Louis.  Growing up with parents who are active in the arts has shaped and influenced their lives everyday since birth.  The children artists presented in this gallery range in age, with the youngest being two years old. 

Each child artist brings something completely different and distinct to the gallery.  The artwork ranges from pictures of cats and dogs to insects, aliens, monsters, family, people and even Japanese cartoon characters.  There are paintings, drawings and 3-D artwork such as wooden boxing figures and squishy sock toy people. 

After viewing the gallery, I was intrigued at how the artwork was so raw and real.  Looking at the different pieces of artwork makes you realize exactly how open and unbiased young children are.    At such a young age, they have beliefs and ideas that have not been influenced by many outside factors yet.  Considering how these children's parents are present and active in the art community also makes you ponder how that has formed and shaped their artistic abilities.

Art by Children of Artists will leave you inspired and delighted!  You can visit Art by Children of Artists now until Saturday September 22, 2012 at the Sheldon Art Galleries.  This event is free and open to the public.

For more information: 

(314) 533-9900
http://www.thesheldon.org/galleries.asp

While watching "The Magic Grove", it is easy to perceive the passion and tradition behind Indian dancing.  As soon as the first scene begins, the dancers carry themselves across the stage with high energy and poise.  The narration compliments the dancers and their fluent movements by engagingly relating the story to the audience.

"The Magic Grove" is a dance-drama performance based on a Jain Fable.  Jainism is an ancient religion of Indian people that has existed for many centuries. Through folk stories, Jain monks uplift the spirit of common people.  This fable derives from the Jain scripture, Vardhamana-Desana.          

Bright and traditional clothing captures your attention along with detailed, flowered headpieces.  The different scenes consist of both storytelling hand movements and coordinated group dancing.  Ghungroos ring and make sound as the dancers complexly move their feet.  Ghungroos are a traditional musical instrument from India that consists of small brass bells that are attached to a bracelet and then strapped around the performers' ankles.  The music created by Ghungroos allows the audience to hear the rhythmic movement of the dancers' feet.    

Like other stories from the Jain tradition, "The Magic Grove" communicates the philosophy that admirable acts bring success and fortune while evil acts will bring gloom and sadness.  Even though in Jain philosophy each individual is in charge of their own destiny, throughout this dance-drama, supernatural elements are significant in each of the characters' destinies. 

Dances of India was the first classical Indian Dance Company to be founded in Missouri. In 1976, Asha Prem founded the company and has since been the Artistic Director.  Dances of India has annual formal concerts, performances and demonstrations for the community, outreach activities, and the company also sponsors and coordinates a collaborative dance showcase each year.   

Watch "The Magic Grove" at http://www.hectv.org/programs/specials/dances-of-india/1667/the-magic-grove/

For more information please visit http://www.dancesofindiastlouis.org/ or call Dances of India at (314) 997-0911.

Lonny and the Cast of Rock of Ages (Justin Colombo and Company). Photo by Kate Egan

Rock of Ages' narrator, who is inexplicably an hilarious impersonation of Jack Black, opens with: "Look at the person sitting next to you. No, not the person you came with, the other one." I dutifully smile and nod facetiously at the older stranger next to me, who does the same toward me. "By the end of this show," he continues, "you will be making out."

I chuckled and turned back to the guy hogging the other armrest just in time to see him freeze and visibly balk. He left after intermission. I tried not to take it personally--but there was no chance I was leaving, Jack Black--I mean Lonny--promised to melt our faces off. Besides I was still a little confused: if I am at a rock concert why am I sitting in a velvet seat next to someone who doesn't want to make out with me? And if I'm at a musical why is my face being melted off?

It was difficult at first to know how to respond to the huge performance on stage. Throughout the night they played a compilation of every mixtape you ever made. Laughter from the crowd began mere bars into each song as we all recognized which it would be, and how the plot was being built from the stories of those familiar power ballads.

Lest my confusion be confused with lack of enthusiasm, friends who know me will recognize this show had me at Mr. Big's "To Be With You."

As it goes on, the show plays with the concept of just what is a musical. At one point the narrator explains to one of the characters why things are going the way they are going by producing a copy of "Script-writing for Dummies." They don't just break the fourth wall, they trample it and then throw some of the bricks at you.

The sight gags are to die for. The wine coolers, the sitting-in-chairs-backwards, Arby's (which I never knew was an 80s phenomenon), the dance moves (they did not forget the Roger Rabbit), and finally, the death knell of Rock rung in by boy bandz. It's all there.

Remember when crossword clues got easier for you? Like, instead of clues like "Levantine coffee cup" (?!), there was "Wack, in hip-hop." Or remember when Trivial Pursuit Genus II (or better yet, III) came out and you finally understood how people were answering questions without having a doctorate?

Rock of Ages is like that for musicals. It's not that the structure of the plot or the expertise of the performance (or music) are less than the classic musicals of the past, it's that it's a musical where the frame of reference is finally totally ours. It's in moments like this that I realize that all of those who count themselves children of the 80s are finally adults--at least by the default of the march of time--and we're ready to really laugh about it.

Surprisingly, no one came dressed in their 80s finery. The show goes on tonight and tomorrow night (Sat and Sun, Feb 4 & 5) as part of The Fabulous Fox's Broadway Series. Do it.

Danielle Sommer

The electricity began from moment one of the Ensemble Español Spanish Dance performance Friday evening at The Touhill. With furrowed brows, chins raised and eyes cast downward in concentration, heeled shoes called out, "Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat." And with the confidant flip of a ruffled skirt, the women charged, elbows forward, "Rat-a-tat-a-tat-tat, Ha!" In response, coat-tails were flung backward to reveal the men's hands pridefully--nobly--ensconced on the hips of their high-waisted pants. Their collective heels hit the floor in a progressively faster and more complex display as the dancers' grace resolved into a puffed-chest freight-train of flamenco rhythm.

The chemistry between the dancers was palpable. Dark passion and flirty charm exchanged equally as dancers circled each other, their moves culminating in arms tossed succinctly and triumphantly in the air before resuming another impossibly beautiful combination. A rhythm that was double-timed was--seemingly beyond human capability--quadrupled. As if the energetic dancers were not (literally) breathtaking enough, less than twenty minutes into the two-and-a-half hour performance, two Spanish guitarists took the rear-stage in silhouette and the most wonderfully gravelly, mournful, haunting traditional singer you could hope for turned the fiery performance into an out and out conflagration.

St. Louis audiences have been known to treat the final curtain as a starter-pistol for a pedestrian drag-race to the parking lot. This was far from the case last night. The entire room leaped to it's feet to applaud, and whistled and howled until the stage lights fell again and the house lights illuminated. In the lobby afterwards, I passed an elderly man delivering coffee to his companion with a jaunty "rat-a-tat" of his own heels and a tickled expression on his face. There was a ripple of warm chuckles from those who passed. I think we all kind of wanted to do that.

I'd advise The Touhill get some safety-belts in preparation for tonight's performance. Members of the audience were on the edge of their seats for so long last night, I was afraid some were in danger of falling off. Saturday's evening performance is the company's last for this show. Run--do not walk--to the box office to snag a ticket. It's the best night of performance available in town and out.

(Danielle Sommer)

If you love Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright David Mamet (best known for plays Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed the Plow, Sexual Perversity in Chicago and films The Verdict and Wag the Dog), you probably rush to the theatre to absorb his "Mamet-speak," especially those fascinating, mysterious, phone call monologues in which you have no idea who is on the other line or what is being discussed. In Oleanna, now playing at HotCity Theatre, you won't have to wait; the play opens with one of those fabulous phone calls.

Oleanna tells the story of a college professor (John Pierson) assured of his impending tenure - and the nicer house that goes with the salary bump - and a concerned student (Rachel Fenton) who visits the professor's office to talk about her terrible grades. Or is it the story of a predatory older man in power and a victimized young girl? Or is the story of a pompous but harmless educator and a vengeful, potentially disturbed woman? Part of the fun - and the challenge - of Mamet is unraveling the mystery, threading the clues together to figure out the story.

What is clear is that Mamet is a master of words, whether they rush forward or stumble out in fragments. Words themselves are the crux of the issue in Oleanna. Do we really mean what we say? Do we ever fully understand each other's words? Another focus of Oleanna is education itself. Is higher education necessary? Is it helpful? Or is it, for some, just another object to acquire or a status symbol to attain? Oleanna gives us much to think about...and talk about.

Oleanna, directed by Annamaria Pileggi, runs through February 4^th at the Kranzberg Arts Center. Find ticket information at HotCity's website or Facebook page.

Words definitely have great power, and we often interpret each other's words quite differently from the way they were intended.  Share a memory of when words had unintended consequences for you by clicking on "Comments," below.

If you are alarmed at the state of culture when whether you are a 'Carrie' or a 'Samantha' starts well-informed debate at nearly any table, don't gather your canned-goods and head for the doomsday bunker just yet; deciding whether you are a 'Tom' or a 'Huck' can still spark just as much keen discussion. This month, the Repertory Theatre keeps Mark Twain's enduring cultural lynch-pin on top of the zeitgeist with a brand new adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer through Dec 23rd.

Last Friday night, I took my place with the Rep crowd under the entry canopy and funnelled through to the lobby's refreshment area to the dimmed theater within thinking about those favorite childhood buddies who made you late for dinner, coming home to parents' crossed arms and cross expressions with grass stains on your knees and strange things in your pockets. How well Tom's adventures capture that elemental childhood awareness of perpetually growing to be the biggest, oldest, and wisest you've ever been, and the heartbreaking sincerity and earnestness (and humor) that comes with that knowledge in so many children. I couldn't wait to see that come alive on stage.

Promptly at 8 p.m., the crew's silhouettes scurried busily from view, the stage lights rose and the crowd's voices fell, revealing a spartan but vibrant set: an aged picket fence, yellow stalks of wheat and blue sky. Tom and Huck were playing hooky from school. From here on, the young audience audibly delighted in the many (often dubious) treasures of youth Tom and his friends present, from brass doorknobs as love-tokens, to dead animals as currency, to the pursuit of love, freedom and honor--to the knowledge of darker things like betrayal and murder.

I couldn't resist turning in my seat more than once to try to locate the child who had squealed at Tom and his gang's bratty antics. Tom and Becky's first kiss got intergenerational smiles. Even the music (banjo and electric guitar?) has a singular cheekiness, and the music and sound effects together form a continuous soundtrack that creates a nearly film-like atmosphere.

But it is not all foibles and laughs. When Tom has a nightmare that the murderous "Injun Joe" stalks and kills his friends and family, some slouched pre-teen spines snapped to attention as a terrific slasher spray of blood spattered across Tom's bedroom window, through which Injun Joe's ominous silhouette is visible.

It makes for a charming night out for any person who once was or still is a kid. So, thanks for the reminder, Rep: I have a long-overdue date with the book, a flashlight, a tent made of blankets, and my inner child.

Please click here to find detailed ticketing and contact information for the theatre's current and upcoming shows or call 314-968-4925.

When my friend and I arrived to the Bissell Mansion a few weeks ago, the foyer was crowded with guests snacking on Crab Rangoon and toasted ravioli. Buttoned up for the special occasion, the two couples at our assigned table were already fast friends, laughing, joking and quick to make introductions: a Kansas City pair celebrating their 20^th anniversary and a slightly nervous couple out for one of their first dates.

The Bissell Mansion's shadowy posture overlooking the North City district sets the tone for a night of mystery theatre- especially when the theme is "It's a Wonderful Death." A parody of Frank Capra's classic "It's a Wonderful Life," the production follows a similar story line, but ties in new, outrageous characters, witty puns and an air of suspicion.  The Bissell Mansion is the oldest building in St. Louis and the ideal backdrop for this age-old tradition of storytelling.

Guests were welcomed into the mansion and assigned a script according to a pseudonym, some of them names from the original film (Clarence the Angel) and others clearly dreamed up by the staff at Bissell: Ima Pain, I.M. Devious and Dr. Willie Know. (But don't worry-everyone has the option to choose of a nonspeaking part!) George and Mary Bailey made their introductions from the center of the dining room, where throughout the evening guests were called into question concerning the death of Bailey. Three glasses of house wine later, the room was in hysterics over some of the crowd's classically awkward actors and other more confident players who were kindly ushered back to their seats.

During the intermissions between each act, waiters served a series of plates that amounted to a delicious four-course meal. I ordered the baked fish, which was presented with a nice helping of steamed vegetables. For dessert, our table seemed particularly taken by the chocolate mousse.

As the evening winded down, guests set down their cooling cups of coffee to explore the many quarters of the mansion. The building has retained some of its original signatures such as the detailing on the mantel, which dates back to the 1820's. Aside from a highly entertaining night of comedy (and mystery!), the mansion itself if worth the visit.

"It's a Wonderful Death" will be playing through the end of December. The Bissell Mansion will host "Dapper Flappers" January through April, 2012 and "Phantom of the Grand 'Ole Opry" from May through July, 2012.

For more information, please visit http://www.bissellmansiontheatre.com/History.htm or call the Bissell Mansion at 314-533-9830 or 1-800-690-9838.