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~ arts journal~ Lewis J Whittington

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Monthly Archives: March 2019

BooksBooksBooks

31 Sunday Mar 2019

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Antigay ministries, booksbooksbooks, GLBTQ International issues, Investigative reporting


Spiritual murder in the Cathedral or Holy Hypocrisy Batman!

In the Closet of the Vatican

 by Frederic Martel

US publication, Bloomsbury (Feb. 21)

In the Closet of the Vatican

~note fr Lew: this is an excerpt from my lengthier essay on this title~

Frederic Martel has written several books on GLTBQI issues, but his latest ‘Sodoma’- English edition titled ‘In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy’ has garnered immediate international headlines.

Frederic Martel

The book has been published in 15 countries simultaneously and has been translated into eight languages. And interest in the book was further ramped up because it was released the same week pope Francis convened 200 Church leaders from around the world to discuss clerical sexual abuse. GLBTQ activists and abuse victim groups were rightly skeptical of Francis’ ability to effect ‘zero tolerance’ policies since the conference ended with no significant church policy changes.  The issues continue to be heirarchal turf wars about keeping the system of coverups and the Catholic downlow closet in place.

Martel makes it clear up front that his book is not about the vast epidemic of pedophile priest abuse, although he detailed how systemic cover-ups are often in play, ‘Closet’ busts open the web of deceit the Church propagates regarding the ranks of gay priests-estimated to be at 80%- counting both celibate and practicing.  His main thesis focuses on what he views as the rank and file clergy continue the official propaganda of hate speech and hostility to GLBTQ rights and visibility, as they ramp up official condemnations with the intent to demonize homosexuals.

Meanwhile, grabbing that same week with the Cardinals, was the revelation that Australian Cardinal Pell, one of the most powerful men in the Vatican, had been convicted in December of child sexual abuse.

Vatican officials had to know Martel’s reputation as a gay journalist, yet he gained exclusive press access inside the Vatican, where frequently was on the inside for research and interviews. Is this book part of an internal insurrection against grotesque hypocrisy that would point to a new era of recognition of same-sex unions and non-condemning acceptance of homosexuals? The official signs are not good.

Martel is exhaustive in his sourcing, in total, having interviewed 1,500 seminarians, priests, bishops, monsignori, prelates, nuncios, and other church officials to reveal the inside politics.  He exposes the elaborate ‘system’ of gay priests who keep the closet door sealed shut, so they can live double lives on the officially sanctioned downlow. .

In his forward, Martel also explains that it is not his intent or mission to out clergy, or even judge them, but to expose the ‘system’ that fosters lies, foment homophobia and fuels the culture of intimidation, harassment, lies, sedition and antigay vs pro-gay factions that have reached an all-out internal war for generations. 

At the same time as they put forth the Catholic Church official view that homosexuality is an ‘intrinsic disorder’ and vehemently oppose same-sex marriage, LGBTQ equality and most egregiously publically equate homosexuality with pedophilia. 

There have been criticisms that the book has no index, or research appendix, but Martel’s source citations and  bibliography can be accessed online codex. But no one is officially refuting the veracity of his findings.

Martel’s sometimes gossipy style and wry, sometimes campy asides have brought criticisms as well. He is not above mocking so many hypocrisies about priests living the double life and publicly are rabid homophobes judging gay people who are out and just living their lives honestly. Meanwhile in private that same cleric can be a seminarian cruising, ugly couture wearing, T-spilling, not so private but otherwise officially reigning raging queens in bad, & expensive dresses.

The network within the Vatican and diocese around the world that props up a system that tolerates and even encourages sex between priests in “the luminous world of interior cruising, with its worldliness, its subtleties, its games,”….more dazzling and radiant, the version of caps and cassocks.”  Martel reports in one of hundreds of eye-witness accounts in the book.

The other great aspect of this book is that Martel also investigates the often destroyed careers of gay priests who refused to go along with the rules of the Vatican closet. Martel’s first chapter (‘Domus Sanctae Marthae) tracks the spiritual journey of former gay priest Francesco Lepore, a Latin scholar and devout gay priest and the courageous stance he took with Pope Francis when on the fast track in the Vatican, essentially working side by side with Francis. But when Lepore was subjected to the mafia tactics within the hierarchies and toxic politics within the Vatican, he wanted out and refused to be what was expected of him and entrenched in the institutional hypocritical status quo within the Vatican- a self-loathing gay priest who was encouraged to be on the downlow, while being officially homophobic.

Lepore rejected the Church’s conditions that would have advanced his career goals at the expense of his spiritual integrity. In telling his story he goes to the heart of Martel’s book and rejected the institutional toxic environment. He triggered an investigation by searching for gay websites on the Vatican computer which he knew would cause his superiors to interrogate him. When that happened he wrote a letter to Francis, pronouncing his truth and informing him that he was leaving the priesthood.

As hazy and contradictory as Francis has been on the Church’s current view of homosexuality in public, Martel reports that at his 2014 Synod to Church leaders he spoke of the grotesqueness of clergy protecting pedophile priests as part of their own elaborate cover to remain in the closet.  Martel defends Francis will to dismantle ‘the system’ though it is hard not to wonder why Francis is so schizophrenic about it in public. As recently as this month a rabidly homophobic cardinal blamed pedophile sexual abuse crimes within the church because of GLBTQ culture, openness and pro-gay civil-rights.

But, as the author reveals, Francis’ famous “Who am I to judge,” was far from a papal edict to stop judging the GLBTQ flock. Martel dissembles the comment for its ultimately benign context and effect.  As much as Martel respects Francis, he dissects his ‘Machiavellian’ moves and contradictory statements about gays.  Privately liberal, but still sticking to the church’s draconian condemnations. Meanwhile, he also can take advantage of it as a political football, like any other politician. He is surrounded by gay clergy for instance, but when France put forth an out gay ambassador to the Vatican, the pope lobbied Hollande to nominate a heterosexual. France stuck by their gay ambassador and the post wasn’t filled.

The Vatican closet wars rage on and Martel has plenty of shade to throw even as he turns a spotlight on the political hubris, intrigue, corruption, folly and intramural sex that exists in the Vatican and the Catholic Church diaspora since for centuries. Nevermore politically charged than it is now, with front page sex scandals and financial crimes peeling away faith in the institution worldwide. Still, there is a lot of blind faith and the church policies can cause a lot of confusion, harm and homophobia particularly as there is a real-time international threat, both politically and culturally, against the human rights and very lives of GLBTQ people.

~Stay tuned~

In the Closet of the Vatican

PhillyJazz

31 Sunday Mar 2019

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composers, jazzfestivals, JazzPhilly, musicians, vanguards

 Monterey Jazz Festival tour | 60th Anniversary vanguard ensemble

Kimmel Center, Philadelphia March 23, 2019

The Monterey Jazz Festival Tour is currently crisscrossing the country for one night only performances after they their exquisite debut at Jazz at Lincoln Center in March.  A millennial vanguard ensemble with vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant, trumpeter Bria Skonberg, baritone saxist Melissa Aldana, pianist Christian Sands, drummer Jamison Ross and bassist Yasushi Nakamura. with is made up of musicians and composers and they are making these concerts something truly memorable. In Verizon Hall in Philadelphia jazz multigenerational jazz fans and many local musicians were in attendance March 23 for their sizzling 100-minute set.

The group unceremoniously walked on the Verizon Hall stage and from the first notes of Cecile’s composition  ‘Fog’ this ensemble made this a musical night to remember.  Salvant’s writing her own chapter on stellar jazz phrasing and her energy with the other musicians the subtle power of her voice simply rapturous. ‘Fog’ is Salvant’s starts as a baleful torch song that breaks out into a rollicking jam. The singer joked she was inspired to write it by the rudeness of a man who stood up for a date because he said he had to walk his dog.

Also among the many substantive highlights-The free-form fusion orchestral by tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana titled ‘Elsewhere’ that initially sounds like a solo tenor sax scales study then careens for 15 or so minutes into a raucous instrumental with each player weighing in lyrically, progressively, some dissonant voicings, but all together a cohesive showcase for MJF’s ensemble virtuosity.

David Sands transcription of one of the most famous arias in all of opera  E lucevan le Stelle sung by the painter Mario in the 3rd act of Puccini’s Tosca.  Sands builds up to the great Puccini passage with an improvisational prologue, then with Ross with whispery rhythmic and Nakamura, caressing bass bowing, it is a tour de force of jazz and classical piano fusion, then Sands solos on the soaring heart of the aria, that proved a make or break tenors around the world.

Sands’ piano, Nakamura’s bass and drummer Ross, a rhythmic internal drive proves to be towering jazz rhythmic architecture.

Not to be outdone Aldana and Skonberg’s sax-trumpet harmonics took center soundstage throughout the concert. And as Skonberg noted before she paid tribute to Valiadia Snow an African-American singer and trumpeter in the 30s and 40s. Skonberg saying how great it is to have female jazz musicians equal time on the MJF Anniversary Tour. Then Skonberg sang and blew the during a vampy swing of “I Got My High Hat Trumpet and Rhythm” in delectable homage with call and response  (HI HI-Ho HO)vocalese from the audience and Skonberg.is

Salvant returned to the stage with a tribute to legendary jazz vocalist Betty Carter’s song ‘I Can’t Help it’ with an opening vocalese duet with Nakamura.  Later she sang ‘Moonsong’ Salvant displayed her unfussy rich upper range and her entrancing  sonorous lower register. 

Ross also has a great voice/ singing his song ‘Sack Full of Dreams’ (The wonderful world of love) with evocations of acapella Africanist song intro then singing his same lyric about a world in love with love in a smooth jazz style, then weaving in lyrics from the ballads What a Wonderful World and Reach Out and Touch.  

 Yasushi Nakamura weighed in with another raucous orchestral which Sands introduced as ‘Yasugaloo’ ala the 60s Bugaloo R&B dance funk. Nakamura with a rhythmic bass line that Skonberg intercepts and blazes through a Nola style mute horn, then Sands picking up spidery piano runs. 

Sands’ finale ‘Fight for Freedom’ a blazing jazz orchestral, a musical j’accuse to the current socio/cultural landsca~ pe and the vital musical spirit of the progressive jazz vanguards. In style and substance, this MJF ensemble tour celebrates 60-plus years of America’s premiere West Coast jazz festival diaspora.

~for MJF tour cities & dates go to http://www.montereyjazzfestival.org/ontour

~The Kimmel Center celebrates Jazz month in April~ go to http://www.kimmelcenter.org for the line up of scheduled concerts and artists events

BalletMetros

24 Sunday Mar 2019

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classical ballet, dancemetros, dancers, PennsylvaniaBallet, reviews

The Wilis command the ballet stage again

Pennsylvania Ballet

Giselle

Angel Corella, choreography (after Coralli & Perrot)

March 7-17

Academy of Music, Philadelphia

www.paballet.org

Pennsylvania Ballet artistic director Angel Corella has been polishing up story ballets over the past five years with revivals including Swan Lake, Le Corsaire, Don Quixote, Cinderella, et al. All ballets that Corella himself had starred in at American Ballet Theatre and guest starring in on stages around the world.  At Pennsylvania Ballet, he has had varying degrees of success re-staging and streamlining these classics for contemporary audiences. Corella also wants to showcase several emerging stars from the company’s full roster, And a pro-active approach of rotating dancers in different roles during the performance runs that highlights the company’s uniform technical artistry in the classical canon.

With Giselle, Corella leaves the 1841 original choreography by French classicists Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, for all intents, under glass, and at the same time, doesn’t allow it to become a museum piece. Aside from the fact that it looks gorgeous in the Academy of Music, Giselle may even have renewed appeal with millennial dance fans by virtue of its gothic atmospherics with the tragic Giselle initiated into the netherworld of the Wilis.

 The story unfolds as Prince Albrecht secretly tries to court the beautiful young Giselle by posing as a country lad. But Hilarion, Giselle’s local suitor catches on and confronts the Prince as the spring festival dancing commences and the royal hunting party decamps in the village square.  The drama plays out as the peasant dances commence and the highlighted extended pas de deux danced by Thays Golz and Jack Sprance. By design without a lot of ballet fireworks, but Golz and Sprance have precision and chemistry that completely charms.    

In the March 9 performance, Principals Lillian Di Piazza and Sterling Baca as Albrecht and Giselle, have immediate star power, but they are above all fine actor dancers that bring dimension to these mythical roles. 

Hilarion and Albrecht continue fighting and when swords are drawn it is too much for the frail Giselle and she goes mad and collapses of a broken heart. Until that fateful scene, the first act of Giselle can be heavy going with all of its archaic dance pageantry and pantomime choreography. Some of which for contemporary ballet dancers can be a more technically challenging than 36 fouettes.

Buffering that static feel, Corella creates more animated background characters who in countless productions just stand around as scenery watching the principals fly.  Corella makes sure the men’s corps depicting the villagers, for instance, looking particularly sharp and not just filler for the ensemble festival dances by the peasant women.  Actually, in this performance, the PAB corps de ballet women struggled with unison and looked a little atypically rote, which they make up for the big time in Act II. 

The ballet thunder of Giselle and the appearance of the full women’s corps de ballet as the mysterious Wilis, floating over the stage en pointe, in a voluptuous tulle and veils over their faces, that fly off simultaneously before they dance in cross streaming arabesque over the stage.  Whatever struggles the corps de ballet women had in ACT 1, they were electrifying every minute in Act II as the haunted Wilis.

Myrtle, queen of the Wilis, Alexandra Heier solo flawlessly executed in its steely precision as she summons the Wilis to initiate Giselle into the afterlife and commands them to cast Hilarion out when he visits Giselle’s grave.  Corps dancer Austin Eyler captured Hilarion’s machismo, without making him an over the top bully. He struggled with some transitional pantomime choreography but made the most of the pure dance elements. 

Albrecht appears in is royal velvet cape to bring flowers to Giselle grave and mourn.  Myrtle summons Giselle to him, he feels her presence, but cannot see her as she dances near him. DiPiazza enters from her grave ramp and starts her manic reverse arabesque spin and from there, she is completely luminous as the phantom Giselle. Baca conveying pathos expressing Albrecht’s grief during the ballet pyro-techniques of the role.

With its academic score by Adolphe Adam, admirably conducted with balance and flair by Peter Stafford Wilson. Among the outstanding soloists, harpist Mindy Cutcher and violinist Luigi Mazzocchi and not to forget PABallet orchestra’s blazing horn section.

Meanwhile what lusty applause erupted in the Academy when the curtain rose on the corps de ballet for their transcendent ensemble artistry as the Wilis.

  

~DanceMetros~

09 Saturday Mar 2019

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AfricanAmericanDance, ArthurMitchell, BALLET, Choreographers, dancers, DTH

Dance Theatre of Harlem returns to Philly

The Dance Theatre of Harlem

Artistic director Virginia Johnson

Annenberg Center, Philadelphia

March 1-2, 2019

50th Anniversary Tour

www.annenbergcenter.org

Dance Theatre of Harlem returned to the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia the first weekend in March as part of their 50th Anniversary tour and a year of commemoration in memory of legendary founder Arthur Mitchell, who died last year.

Coincidently DTH’s performances in Philly fell on the same days that the other New York premier black company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, was performing at the Academy of Music across town. Both companies played to sell out houses with many Philly dance fans getting to both on successive days.

The concert opened with Garland’s ‘Nyman String Quartet, no. 2’  set to British composer Michael Nyman’s lush chamber work. The wending string lines have with some baroque DNA laced through and choreographer Garland is expert in characterizing the music itself.  His choreography a fusion of ballet vocabulary-  impeccable line, dynamic pointe work, air slicing jetes, tight ensemble unison, pirouettes, and arabesque variations, but Garland works in witty and unexpected has transitional phrasing with club dance moves and post-modern idioms. 

Garland essays fluid choreographic dialogue of styles, both propulsive and inside Nyman’s music.  Garland uses Nyman’s adagio movement to choreography a meditatively and arresting solo by principal dancer Da’Von Doane.  The blending of many idioms, and with movement quotes- from Nijinsky’s angular Faun to a raised fist iconic gesture of black power. 

Next was a work by African American choreographer Diane McIntyre, that had its premiere in 2016, a work inspired by women she writes in the program, black, brown and beige- who have been warriors for change in the world. At this performance Lindsay Croop, Yinet Fernandez and Daphne Lee danced this inspiring trio.  McIntyre scores the ballet with African – American historic songs performed by the Spellman College Glee Club and original percussive music by Eli Fountain.

The women are first costumed in sheer black dance gowns, are subdued, fragmentary but expressive movement, as if in anguished mourning. Croop breaks away on her own path, she lets out the first vocalization, a primal scream as she steps powerfully on pointe and reaches skyward.  Each of the women has solos, now dressed in vibrantly colored singlets and moving with uninhibited grace and fearlessness.  McIntyre symbolically expressing the black women through history who triumphed over oppression and adversity.

Choreographer Darrell Grand Moultrie’s 2017 ballet ‘Harlem On My Mind’ was scheduled for this performance but was switched at the last minute.  One of Garland’s signature pieces ‘Return’ was performed instead. The ballet is set to music by the Godfather and the Queen of Soul- James Brown and Aretha Franklin, but a great concert finale nonetheless, with soul hits including  ‘Baby, Baby, Baby’ and ‘I Got the Feeling.’ Opening with the extended version of Brown’s ‘Popcorn’ which takes off with infectious funk exuberance right out of the gate. Garland combining modernist neoclassical ballet of black dance in America during the 60s & 70s. 

Aretha Franklin’s ‘Call Me’ opening scene with soloist Crystal Serrano who moves between three potential male partners, as she humorous playing the field as Aretha coyly sings ‘I love you’ to each one. Serrano navigates these partners to dance with Dylan Santos after some intricate group lifts. Serrano and Santos smolder in this beguiling dance.

Philly native choreographer Robert Garland, told the DHT audience before the premiere of his ballet, that both companies paid a surprise visit to Joan Myers Brown at her Philadanco studios in West Philadelphia, Meyers-Brown’s school and company, Philadanco was where many dance artists from both companies started their professional careers. Myers-Brown was in attendance at the performance, just back from her own company performing that day at Longwood Gardens in suburban Chester County.

The finale of the Brown’s ‘Superbad’ for the full ensemble, Christopher Charles McDaniel’s breakout solo grooves drew audible delight and applause, not only for his James Brown glides, but his thrilling grande pirouettes and entrechat quatre.

Garland uses the original extended track of‘ Superbad’ he lets break into a Soul Train dance line. The full ensemble cuts lose with signature inventive Soul line moves from the day, with some updates from this generation of dancers that had the audience panting for more.

Former principal dancer Virginia Johnson, now DTH Artistic Director re-established the full Dance Theater of Harlem after an eight-year performance halt but keeping the school and touring ensembles going. Arthur Mitchell was then director emeritus, as Johnson piloted DTH’s full rebirth in 2012. Since then her vision and leadership technically and artistically on full display on their 50th Anniversary Tour, where the company will be performing different programs of company signature ballets, from Balanchine classics to newly commissioned repertory.

Johnson’s vision for the company is ballet forward, visionary contemporary dance and bringing the company’s technical and artistic excellence to a new generation. All of Johnson’s goals were present on the Annenberg performances in this performance.

for complete information on DTH’s 50th Anniversary tour schedule check  www.dancetheatreofharlem.org

 

All poems by Lewis Whittington unless otherwise noted

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