I 'Requiem'spins tale of'failed American dream'
The following is a brief list of
events this weekend. For more
information, call the venue.
CONCERTS:
Duggan's Pub, 440S. 11th St
477-3513
Friday: FAC with Toot Sweet
$2 (Swing)
Friday: Mezcal Bros. $3 9 pm
1 am (Tex-mex)
Saturday: Blackberry Winter
$3 (Rock)
Kimball Recital Hall, 12th and
R streets
472-3376
Sunday: Winter Winds and
Percussion Festival Finale
Concert, 3 p.m.
Knickerbocker's, 9010 St
476-6865
Friday: Black Light Sunshine,
Eighth Wave and Split Second
$3 (Alt Rock)
Saturday: Four Comers and
Thirteen County $3 (Alt Rock)
All Shows at 9:30pm
Pla-Mor Ballroom, 6600 W. O
St
475-4030
Friday: The Rumbles $6
(Classic rock) 8:30-1230 pm
Saturday: NU Rodeo
Fundraiser with Full Choke:
$7 9-12:30 pm
Sunday: Full Choke & Cactus
Hill 8-12 pm
Dance lessons 7-8 pm
$5 All ages show
Royal Grove, 340 W.
Comhusker Highway
474-2332
Miller FAC with Labeled
(Rock): No cover
Saturday: Planet Boom (Rock)
No cover }
The Zoo Bar, 136 N. 14th SL
435-8754
Friday: Youngblood Brass
Band $5 (Brass jazz and R&B)
Saturday: Son Seals $15
(Electric blues)
Sunday: The Sissies $4
(Alternative Rock)
THEATER:
Mary Riepma Ross Film
Theater, 12™ and R streets
472-9100
Requiem For a Dream
Friday 7:00 & 9:15 p.m.
Saturday 1:00,3:15,7:00 &9:15
p.m. Sunday 2:30,4:45,7:00 &
9:15 p.m.
Students all shows $450
The Star City Dinner Theatre
and Comedy CabareL893QSL
477-8277
Hypnotist Andrew Becker
Shows Friday & Saturday 750
& 10:00 p.m.
Tickets $10, $2 off with student
ID
GALLERIES:
Doc’s Place, 140 N. 8th SL
476- 3232
All month: Aja Engel
Gallery 9, Suite-41224S. 9th SL
477- 2822
All month: Yvonne Meyer
"Hansitions”
"|^|^03KRNUl
I.Ubransss “Yastirday ini
Tomorrow's Shalli”
Bizarre assembly of beautiful
noise. ...1 ;... .
S. Oxsa “Oxas"
Faceless mathrock.
3. Dsltron 8030 “Dsltron 8030"
Futuristic hip-hop concept album.
4. Q and not U
"No Kill No Baap Beep"
Produced by lan McKaye himself.
B.DiaMo Project “Votoms 1”
Jazzy and dirty freakout lounge
music. .
I. Roaa of Sharon “Evan the Air
is Out of Thao"
Bostonian indie-rock outfit.
7. Jal “Automata"
Soft fragile songs with bleeps
andbloops. ... J,
8. The Nation of Ulysses
"Embassy Tapes"
Finally released 8 years after
completion.
9 Ctfwfesy “Volume t" ■
lllFreneb Kioto “Young Lawyer"
Catchier than your favorite
contagation.
BY SAMUEL MCKEWON
The final sequence of '
“Requiem for a Dream" - it’s
hard to say just how long it lasts,
maybe 15 minutes - largely has
no comparison. The images
swirl across the screen in a sort
of catalog of human despair, a
jacked up descent straight to
druggie hell. It is the very defini
tion of virtuoso close to a film, a
mule kick to the solar plexus.
You walk out dazed, stunned. A
cinematic kaboom.
Darren Aronofsky* second
film - the follow-up to the cre
atively stark n - is about drugs,
in a sense, but that subject mat
ter simply sneaks its way in.
Based on the Herbert Selby, Jr.
novel, it is really a sort of night
(★★itfI
marish tale about the failed
American dreams of four char
acters, a Brighton Beach widow
(Ellen Burstyn), her son (Jared
Leto), his lover (Jennifer
Connelly) and best friend
(Marlon Wayans).
Their dreams aren’t very big,
nor are they unlike our own.
They involve eradicating loneli
ness, getting a little money to
buy nice things, feeling safe and
comfortable. These dreams will
not work out. Not in anyway will
any of them work out.
The most attainable seems
that of Sara Goldfarb (Burstyn),
who loves her son Harry (Leto),
despite his need to pawn her tel
evision every few months to
score drugs. She dutifully
retrieves her TV and faithfully
watches a personal power-type
show with a host (Christopher
McDonald) who loves to say “Be
ecstatic! Be ecstatic!”
A phone call informs her
that she's been selected for a
special TV program. It sends her
into a dieting frenzy to fit into an
old red dress she wore to Harry’s
graduation. She tries the grape
fruit diet. Then when that does
n’t work, a series of pills.
Harry’s a jack-of-trades kind
of junkie, getting high on what
ever erases his miserable situa
tion. His girlfriend Marion
(Connelly) has money but has
turned her back on it. There’s
pain and hurt Harry can’t get at.
And yet, they talk of making it,
Marion starting a garment shop,
Harry making his way as a low
level drug dealer with his part
ner, Tyrone C. Love (Wayans).
Aronofsky is an inventive
director, and his camera tricks
(split screen use, a vibrating
camera, a camera connected to
the actor) inject a sense of fresh
ness into a film genre often over
worked.
His particular way of show
ing drug use is to use quick cuts
of the drugs themselves, pupils
dilating and the use of the drug,
all done with magnified sound
effects that tap into the visceral
sense of act. Like sex is often
glamorized with a couple of tor
sos rolling together, drugs are,
too. “Requiem for a Dream”
eliminates any grand notion of it
by devolving addiction into a
series of muffled pops and
clicks. It works.
The story is loosely strung
together - Harry and Tyrone
make a little money, Sara loses a
little weight, Marion sketches
some pretty designs - without
ever seeming to be the point.
Plot isn't the central issue here.
Extraneous characters float in
and out like they do in the life of
a drug addict whose only imme
diate family includes those
whom share the addiction.
As summer moves into win
ter, and the highs and cash flows
become smaller, rot begins to
set in. Burstyn, in an astonishing
Please see REQUIEM on 7
Graffiti subject of lawyer's photos
Blues great
Son Seals
to perform
at Zoo Bar
■ He earned his spurs on the
small Chicago club circuit and
brings his electric to Lincoln
BY SEAN MCCARTHY
Blues great Son Seals
cemented his reputation as an
explosive live performer by
playing small clubs in Chicago.
His skills have taken him from
bars to headlining international
blues festivals. On Satuday
night, Seals brings his electric
blend of blues and soul to the
Zoo Bar, 136 N14 St.
Seals is one of the mainstays
in the Chicago-style blues
genre. He has played with such
greats as Junior Wells and
Buddy Guy. A perfectionist
when it comes to recording,
Seals has recorded five albums
in his 20-year plus career.
Seals is currently supporting
his latest album, "Lettin’ Go,”
which was released last year on
Telarc Records. He has lived the
life of a true blues legend: in
1997, during an altercation with
his wife, he was shot in the face.
Three years later, he lost part of
his left leg due to diabetes.
Along with performing with
blues greats, Seals has also
toured with some of the biggest
names in rock. Last year, Seals
toured with Phish. The band
even covered “Funky Bitch,” a
Son Seals staple song, on their
six-CD live box set.
Tickets are $15 at the Zoo
Bar. It is likely the show will sell
out before Saturday’s perform
ance, so get your tickets now.
The show starts at 9:30 p.m.
BY MAUREEN GALLAGHER,
Irving Greines leads a double life. Most of his
time is spent as an appellate lawyer for the firm
GMSR in California, but photography is his real
passion.
“Being a photographer, a lawyer, and a family
man, it is sometimes difficult to balance it all, but I
always carve out a body of time to work on my
photography,” Greines said.
An exhibit of Greines’ photography entitled
“Urban Wilderness: Chaos Tfcmsformed” is on dis
play at the Sheldon Art Gallery until March 18.
The exhibit consists of 23 photographs taken
in San Francisco and New York in the past 10 years.
The subjects of most of the photos are windows or
walls.
The expressed purpose of Greines’ photogra
phy is to find beauty in unlikely places.
"All of these photos were taken in ‘not very
nice’ areas that are gritty and run-down. I walk
around and look for islands of beauty, to find
things others wouldn’t notice,” Greines said.
All of the “islands of beauty” that Greines finds
remain untouched.
“I don’t crop photos, alter the subjects, or use a
flash,” said Greines. "If I want the poster to be tom,
that’s too bad. I won't touch the image.”
Dan Siedell, curator of the Sheldon Art Gallery,
said many subjects that Greines has pho
tographed would not look the same today.
“Greines' work shows layering and the effects
of time, and many are images that will pass away,
such as ads, posters and graffiti,” said Siedell.
“Urban Chaos” has been a decade in the mak
ing, and has evolved over time.
“This has been a ten year pursuit,” said
Greines. “It began in San Francisco's Chinatown,
but in the end most of the photos were taken in
Manhattan.”
Only three of the 23 photos in the exhibit were
taken in Chinatown, and the primary reason for
this is the lack of graffiti in that area.
“There simply isn't any graffiti in Chinatown,”
Greines said. “I prefer the way New Yorkers interact
with their environment.”
"I like to go around and look for the same graf
fiti. For example, there is one artist who paints over
the mouths of graffiti faces.”
TWo such photos are included in the exhibit, as
are two photos that include the same graffiti ,
Indian on two different surfaces.
Greines finds this graffiti by continually walk
ing the same streets in New York.
“I always walk from Houston St. to Canal St.,
between the two rivers, an area that encompasses
Soho, Little Italy and the lower East Side," he said.
Courtesy of Irving Greines
Photographer Irving Greines is a
lawyer by day, but travels the streets of
New York City and San Francisco to dis
cover beauty in the rot of urban
America. "Being a lawyer and being a
photographer are both full-time jobs,"
said Greines."The legal profession is
like a battle, a form of civilized war
fare. Photography is a good escape, a
good way to leave everything else."
Greines finds graffiti while walking
around the cities "I always walk from
Houston St to Canal St, between the
two rivers, an area that encompasses
Soho, Little Italy and the lower East
Side," he said.
Troupe to perform variation of traditional Irish dance
■Mark Howard will bring his
company's 'progressive' style
to the Lied Center.
BY BILLY SMOCK .
Before Michael Flatley and
“Riverdance” took the nation by
“Thunderstorm,” Mark Howard’s Trinity
Irish Dance Company was already revolu
tionizing Irish Step Dancing.
Between 1987 and 1990 Trinity
appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring
Johnny Carson,” performing a style of
Irish dancing that no one had ever seen
before.
Diverging from traditional Irish step
dancing, creating new choreography and
pushing the boundaries of competitive
Irish dance, founder and artistic director
Howard termed the new dance medium,
“progressive.”
Howard credits much of his compa
ny’s success to the national exposure
Johnny Carson provided them.
“That started everything for us,” said
Howard in a phone interview.
“Thousands of performers say Carson is
responsible for their success."
Though the Trinity Irish Dance com
pany recognizes the native Nebraskan for
much of its success, it has never per
formed in the state.
Trinity will perform its Nebraska
debut Friday evening at the Lied Center
for Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m..
The company, which tours with 19
dancers between the ages of 18 and 25,
hold numbers of world titles. However,
because of their progressive style they
have been disqualified from numerous
competitions.
“We’re the most disqualified as well as
the most decorated company,” said
Howard.
Following his instinct, Howard
said Trinity was geared less toward
competition, and was focused more
on looking forward to new ideas for I
its craft. J
Inspired by Kodo Japaneese ^
Drummers, Ballet Folklorico, and
modern dance choreographers,
Trinity is making greater inroads
for Irish dance as an art form.
“Our company is a pool of
artists with a common vision
to get Irish dance elevated and
moving in new directions,” said
Howard.
The company will perform
nine works with one 20-minute
intermission, and the entire
show will last approximately two
hours.
Howard said audience mem
bers should expect to be pleas
antly surprised with some of
the new things they’re doing.
Dancers like Darren Smith,
whom Howard says “has the technical
prowess of a well oiled machine” com
bined with routines like Sean Curran’s
“Curren Event” are what help make the
show such a main attraction, Howard
said.
As far as what the future holds, the 38
year-old Howard wants the dancers in his
company to choreograph their own rou
tines and keep the evolutionary process
going.
“What I’m hoping for is to create a
bridge for them as a company,” Howard
said. “An institution that goes on for many
years.”
Courtesy of Trinity Irish Dance
The Trinity Irish Dance Company wins as many
competitions as its disqualified from with its
progressive style of modem folk dance. The
company will be performing at the Lied Center
Friday night.
