While the Downtown Austin Alliance’s “PlazaLife” was not technically part of Fusebox, the two events share the goal of changing how people interact with everyday spaces. Both events also used Bubbleware, the funky furniture at the Hub that’s on loan from the San Francisco design group Rebar. PlazaLife temporarily transformed the sidewalk space around the Frost Bank building at 4^th and Congress with events, seating, planter boxes and food vendors. The project emerged from discussions about how Congress Avenue can become a more vibrant place, and its goal was to test the changes before investing in them permanently.

In the opening panel discussion on Friday, Rebar’s Matthew Passmore explained the importance of “urban interventions” like silly furniture, tiny parks and red swings. The physical structures of cities – buildings and downtown blocks – can’t adapt fast enough to keep up with changes in how people work, relate or use technology. But smaller, flexible innovations like moveable furniture or yoga classes can constantly remake the spaces between those immovable buildings.

Bubbleware is basically exercise balls held together by a very tight mesh bag. You can sit or lie on the piece, but you can’t take yourself very seriously – the urge to bounce and wobble is strong.  “It’s a way to introduce a broader spectrum of acceptable behavior,” Passmore explained.  “It gives you permission to be less formal in a space like this.”

Ok. I was looking forward to exploring a broader spectrum of acceptable behavior on the Bubbleware. After the presentation, I flopped onto a piece of the furniture and started reading William H. Whyte’s The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Whyte began studying New York City plazas in the ’70s to understand the design elements that make people want to linger or leave. One of his favorite materials is moveable furniture, like the Bubbleware I was on and the café seating next to me, because it gives people choices about where they sit.

I was disappointed that, in the 90 minutes I was there, no one came and bounced on a nearby seat. Of course, as I learned from Whyte’s book, I was using the plaza outside of peak time – plazas tend to be most populated from noon to 2 p.m., the hours of downtown lunch breaks. A couple of food carts, part of the PlazaLife experiment, were setting up as I prepared to leave. Presumably they’d draw in more passersby, bearing out another of Whyte’s observations: food attracts people, who attract more people. If you want to make an underused space safer and more attractive, bring in a food trailer. Add trash cans, adequate seating, and something fun for kids to play on, and you’ve turned a deserted space into an inviting one.

Here’s hoping PlazaLife inspired other people to stop, sit, bounce and enjoy their downtown public space. For a relatively small investment, it turned a place to walk through into a place to walk to.

-Robyn Ross

600 Highwaymen’s “The Great Country”—The Non-Spoilery

Today I was lucky enough to catch a performance of 600 Highwaymen’s “This Great Country.” The website for 600 Highwaymen state they “construct renegade theater productions.” They based their production of “This Great County” on Arthur Miller’s famous “Death of a Salesman.”

Dozens of theater companies and hundreds of actors have likely produced and performed “Death of a Salesman” since 1949 when Lee Cobb first stepped onstage as Willy Loman. Actors love to perform the play and academics make students study it for good reason. We can relate to the characters and their plights, and we consciously and subconsciously recognize the themes explored in the story because they’re universal, human themes. If you’ve seen “Death of a Salesman” performed or read the play, and I’m sure most of us have, you know the basic story.

And so it goes with “This Great Country.” But as famously said by, well, according to Google, half a dozen different writers, it’s not the destination that’s important but rather the journey. Such is the case with “This Great Country.” DirectorsAbigail Browde and Michael Silverstone have made some interesting casting choices and narrative techniques in the “This Great Country,” and without giving too much away, the choices they made reveal more about the fragmented psyche of Willy Loman than I’ve previously seen in productions of “Death of a Salesman.” The directors use an imaginative, and surprisingly effective, technique to reveal this fragmentation, but there’s no way in hell I’m revealing that technique. But I will say this: When you identify and understand this technique, ask yourself what it reveals about Willy specifically, and us as a people in general.

The production takes place at the Lucky Lady Bingo hall directly off I-35, and the directors make excellent use of the expansive space provided to them by the building. The action takes place all over, so stay alert. I don’t think you’ll have trouble though. The minimalism of the mise en scene forces the audience to truly focus on the actors and their excellent performances.

I desperately want to tell you about the techniques the directors employ and provide you with my critical interpretation, but I’ll be a good boy and restrain myself. Telling would spoil the surprise. Just know this: At the end of the play, despite the fact that I knew how it would end, I had tears in my eyes, and I’m fairly certain I wasn’t the only one. As the actors lined up and bowed, their faces beamed with pride and their smiles stretched from ear to ear. I’m sure this pride and satisfaction came from the fact that they were staring out at an audience openly moved and emotionally affected by the mind-blowing performances.

“This Great Country” plays again on May 4^th and May 6^th. Buy your tickets now. The previous show times sold out. Incidentally, if anyone is interested in my critical interpretations, I’ll gladly post them in the comments section so the readers can choose to read them or not.

-Mark Gifford.

1.)  My favorite aspect of this year’s festival is, in my humble opinion, the best HUB Fusebox has ever had. At the HUB you can find fun art, incredible bands, a cool beer garden (wish it was there all year long), and the tattooed woman making perfect sandwiches. She is shockingly sweet and fun to talk with. She fed my dog and tolerated me when I was tipsy. Go to the HUB and tip her well.

2.)  “Super Creeps” has been one of the highlights of the HUB’s serious musical line-up. The David Bowie cover band peeled the paint off my truck, and my truck was parked three blocks away.

3.)  In speaking to people about “Elvis Machine” they either loved or hated it. I found the script to be paper thin, but I like the energy of The Duplicates and look forward to seeing what they have to offer in the future as they grow.

4.)   The one piece that has taken me by surprise is Emily Lacy’s on the opening night of the festival. At first I thought it was a “nice“ piece (an hour’s worth of sound) but the work has stuck with me, haunted me, and I have repeatedly come back to it in my mind. Emily Lacy is a ghost to me.

5.)  There will never be any piece of art as lovely as Brad Carlin’s daughter…

6.)  Except, maybe, Ron Berry’s laugh.

7.)  Oh, and I plan to take Anna Jackson to the rodeo next year. I sat next to here for a show and as we waited for the lights to drop we discussed sheep herding contests.

8.)  Back to the HUB, if you are drinking with Dallas Tate, Rachel Dendy, and/or David Higgins, you have a 76% chance of being happier.

9.)  Without question my favorite event has been “When a Priest Marries a Witch, an Artist Talk by Suzanne Bocanegra starring Paul Lazar”, not because I think Paul is the finest of men, but because the structure of the storytelling was so tight it could hold water.

10.)       The next person who asks if I’m related to Hank Cathey sees the business end of my size twelve’s. I’m joking. I wear a size ten.

11.)       Once more to the HUB, if you are drinking with Jeff Mills and an Australian named Kim Allchurch, you have a 32% chance of regretting it in the morning.

12.)       As the Editor-In-Chief of New and Social Media I regret to inform you that Zeb West was not delivered coffee cake on Sunday morning by a member of Rubber Rep, as what was previously hoped.

This coming week we have a murderers row of more good shows and events. I’m looking forward to seeing Dream Cabinet on Monday, finally seeing Phil’s Shatner show, I’ve heard Zambrano is the bomb (and there are still tickets left), Culturebot will be here, and I’m dying to see Wunderbaum, and Gob Squad this weekend. Oh, and those sandwiches at the HUB, those perfectly made sandwiches.

-Timothy Braun

CODA
I plan to avenge the slighting of Michael Joplin’s credit for Dream Cabinet in my next blog.

Tonight we had the pleasure of experiencing Fusebox’s An Evening with William Shatner Asterisk. Developed by Phil Soltanoff, Rob Ramirez, and Joe Diebes, the performance provided a thought-provoking performance that explores the relationship between art and science. The philosophy espoused and hinted at in the performance will seem familiar to fans of Rene Descartes, Jean Baudrillard or the Wachowski siblings, but the structure of the performance was the most interesting thing about the whole evening.

The creators of An Evening with William Shatner Asterisk have taken clips from Star Trek of Captain James T. Kirk saying singular words and spliced those words together to form sentences and ultimately a choppy Max Headroomesquedialogue wherein Kirk attempts to teach the audience about the difference between art and science. As Kirk “spoke” to the audience, captions of his words appeared on two secondary screens to make it easier to follow his philosophic arguments.

I found the actual argument of the performance both fascinating and maddening. Fascinating because I enjoy arguments that force me to question the nature of reality. Maddening because it seemed to be a mishmash of the most popular philosophical,ontological, epistemological, and any other ical you can imagine. I think I can provide a critical analysis of the performance, but I’m not entirely sure. It seemed to me that Kirk’s ultimate message to the audience was that humans tend to artificially force disciplines like art and science into binary relationships. We’re either not advanced enough or we refuse to see that the binary dichotomy between art and science is artificial, and if we could understand this lesson we could reach an ultimate, transcendent truth.

I found the argument put forth by Kirk engaging, but it did require an inordinate amount of focus to follow, and the fact that a fictional character that was played by a popular cultural icon like Shatner made the argument about the nature of science and art even more interesting. I found myself wondering what itall meant. Are we looking to our cultural icons for the answers to the nature of reality? Are we meant to realize that the whole conversation about the nature of reality is ineffable, and thus, having Kirk “explain” it to us is just as good as having Descartes or Stephen Hawking? Or was it just a fun way to manipulate the already hilarious speech patterns of William Shatner?

Near the middle of the performance, I found myself looking at the audience. I broke it up into three groups: 1) People like me desperately trying to follow and unravel Kirk’s argument; 2) People not interested in the argument who were laughing at Kirk’s choppy speech; 3) People staring around the room in boredom. Sadly, I felt like the room was filled with the second group.

After we left the theater, we spent several hours debating the meaning of the show over post-theater drinks. And really, isn’t that the point of good art?

-Mark Gifford

I was feeling pretty rough for most of Friday, so after work I ran to the bank and then straight to El Chilito for some hair of the dog and a couple of lifesaving puffy tacos. Once the infusion was complete I headed over to Salvage Vanguard for the Shatner premier. As luck would have it I ended up sliding in to the tail end of another Digestible Feat. As usual, Kaci Beeler’s paintings were fantastic. Sadly, I dropped my first dessert on the floor, sweet betrayal indeed. What I could taste on my fingers was amazing, so I pressed on. In the end I had three out of the four and walked away smiling and more sure than ever than the Feats are in good hands with the capable Hank Cathey. Kudos to Jodi Elliot for the noms and to David Fruchter for the well written cards all around the room.

Let me just say up front, I know full well I do not have enough words to do the William Shatner show justice. I’m supposed to be sticking to the 500 word range and I’ve got three more shows to talk about. You should see it for yourself if you can. The artists for this show took all of the words Shatner said during his time on Star Trek and used them as the palette to create a talk back on art science and their future. It was funny, poignant, and an adept use of technology, creativity and restraint. It was also the kind of show that defines Fusebox; thought-provoking, unexpected and a perfect conversation starter. The script was fantastic, the editing choices sublime, and the addition of a super-talented dancer was inspired. This show will stick with me for some time and I won’t be surprised if we’re still talking about it for months to come.

Ron Berry talked about the pairing of the two shows at SVT in his curtain speech and how he thought they worked well together and I have to agree. When a priest marries a witch was another wonderful take on the art talk/talk-back. Paul Lazaar brilliantly enacts artist Suzanne Bocanegra’s biographical tale of growing up in Houston among the refineries, NASA, and the Catholic Church. It centers around her memories of the first art she encountered and specifically around a priest and the controversy created when her church commissions a local artist to redesign its interior. This was a masterfully understated tale full of charm, warmth, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Stunned by the bounty that already was my Friday night, I headed over to the Hub to catch Today and to see old friends and new. Today was a cool southern rock influenced band combined with a troupe of modern dancers. Much like the CoatHangers, Today proved to be a multi-talented group with several singers and several multi-instrumentalists. The dancing was excellent, the musicians were energetic, approachable, and fun and I got a free t-shirt. Woot! I thought to myself as I listened to them play, “This is what the Hub is all about this year: unexpected fun, tons of talent, great conversation, and the dissolving of boundaries.” I was already smiling, but  suddenly, I had caught my second wind. Just in time too, ‘cause the Super Creeps were on their way.

The Super Creeps are a David Bowie cover band sure, but that is just a stepping off point. They took the stage replete with face paint, high-waisted bell bottoms, feathered hair, Blues Brothers suits and giant collars. From the word go they were invested in the rock and fully committed to tearing the building down with the weight of their incredible talent. They were pitch perfect and dripped with sexiness. If you can be taken back in time by a swivel, then their hips were a time machine. They had swagger and from the first notes of Golden Years to the end of the show over an hour later it was a dance party. At last the beast had been awakened, Fusebox had hit its stride, and I felt better than I had all day. I’m not sure why, but this is what it brought to mind: Sometimes, you don’t have to know how to dance, you just have to be willing. . . I’ll see you out there for more and more and more. Only eight days more . . . go see something!

-Aaron Sanders