Michael Barnes

1 week ago | statesman.com | Michael Barnes

One of the world's largest festivals devoted to the art of tap dancing, the annual Soul 2 Sole Festival, scheduled for June by Tapestry Dance Company at the Long Center for the Performing Arts, has been canceled because the National Endowment for the Arts has withdrawn previously approved grants for Tapestry, along with more than a dozen other Austin arts groups.

1 week ago | yahoo.com | Michael Barnes

SAN ANTONIO — Has there ever been another Texas artist like the recently deceased Michael Tracy? The sculptor, painter and maker of rare objects — as well as sometime magus who oversaw fantastically staged rituals — lived his life as an expansive art project, especially since 1978, when he established sprawling studios and residences in tiny San Ygnasio, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border.

1 week ago | statesman.com | Michael Barnes

On Jan. 11, loyal reader Kathleen Bergeron dispatched this note: "When I was a youngster growing up in Austin — in the late '50s and early '60s — a local girl appeared several times on an afternoon TV show. Carolyn Hester was trying to become a folk singer. "She would later move to Greenwich Village and make a bit of a name for herself. A few years ago, I recalled Carolyn’s great voice, and located her in Los Angeles. I was later able to chat with her at a gathering of folk music people in Virginia.

1 week ago | yahoo.com | Michael Barnes

This is why we go to the theater: To be mystified. To be enthralled. To be galvanized. We want to be in the same space as other people. Taking the same breaths and cackling the same laughs. Feeling the same terrors and finding ways to endure them together. That's what it's like to see Katherine Catmull in Megan Gogerty's "Feast," presented by Shrewd Productions at Hyde Park Theatre through May 17. Every moment of this 75-minute solo play, performed without intermission, lands with the audience.

1 week ago | statesman.com | Michael Barnes

This is why we go to the theater: To be mystified. To be enthralled. To be galvanized. We want to be in the same space as other people. Taking the same breaths and cackling the same laughs. Feeling the same terrors and finding ways to endure them together. That's what it's like to see Katherine Catmull in Megan Gogerty's "Feast," presented by Shrewd Productions at Hyde Park Theatre through May 17.