Get ready to be moved when Houston Arts Alliance offers up Voices of the Spirit 5 this weekend, with both a Saturday and Sunday performance. The annual concert, which focuses on the faith music of four very different cultures, was originally conceived as a component of HAA's Sacred Songs, Sacred Sites.
"That program, which was originally done in Zilkha Hall, was so well received that we decided to bring it back with a new set of musicians every year," said Pat Jasper, HAA's director of folklife and traditional arts. "Two years ago, we shifted to the Asia Society. There's an intimacy to the theater that somehow matches the intimacy of the devotional music that we present. This year, I think, we have a pretty exciting lineup."
The show opens with the Cortez Family, siblings who began singing in their grandfather's church, Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Acres Homes, more than 20 years ago. "They're followed immediately afterward by a young cantor who has just joined Beth Israel; [Daniel Mutlu] has become the toast of the Jewish community," said Jasper. "He's going to be performing repertoire from the golden age of American Jewish music."
"He is followed by a wonderful couple that are pretty renowned," Jasper said of the husband-and-wife team David and Chandrakantha Courtney. "They're institutions in the Indian community. One thing that's exciting to me is that they're going to be accompanied by sitar, tabla and esraj, as well as play the tanpura."
Danza Chinelos del Estado de Guerrero and Banda Viento Morelense de los Hermanos Campos, who all hail from the same region of central Mexico, close the evening. "[The dancers] wear these amazing outfits that involve velvet floor-length robes with lots of embroidery and sequins and rickrack," Jasper said about the costumes that portray the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. "They dance out of devotion to her. It's just amazing; it's really beautiful."
Enjoy Voices of the Spirit at 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. Asia Society Texas Center, 1370 Southmore. For information, call 713-496-9901 or visit houstonartsalliance.com. Free.
With music by Benjamin Britten and choreographed by Houston Ballet's artistic director, Stanton Welch, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is one of those pieces both illuminating and just plain fun to experience. This Friday and Saturday, student dancers in the Houston Ballet Academy will have a chance to show how they negotiate it as part of their Spring Showcase, which this year will feature four Welch creations, said to be the most in any Spring Showcase.
Simon Ball, principal dancer with the Houston Ballet, was put in charge of setting the orchestra guide piece, which involves 29 dancers. "There are five lines of people dancing at the same time, doing completely different things, all to the same music," he says, adding that although he danced the Viola role in the professional performance in 2014, he checked out the videotape over and over again to make sure he was getting everyone where they should be, noting that Welch is known for his preciseness.
"It's a really neat piece because you have not only the dancing going on but the narration going through each section -- woodwinds, strings, brass and percussion, so as an audience member you get to not only see the movement depicted but have the orchestra broken down. Especially for young audiences, when it's dissected and deconstructed for you and then it comes back together at the end, you really appreciate what goes into the dance, the music and the sensory experience." As for the dancers ranging in age from 13 to 18, Ball says he worked with them to master the technical parts, to work together as a company, to make things look as smooth as possible, but not to try so hard to emulate the professional company that they looked beyond their years and appeared unrealistic.
"These are very talented students. Most of them are taking themselves very, very seriously," Ball says. "It's the same steps, the same musicality, but I want for them to be a little more joyous, a little more innocent and a little more true to their age. As an audience member, you have to understand they're doing what's appropriate."
Besides the opportunity to perform before audiences at the Wortham, the student dancers get a good education in "what makes a good dancer a usable dancer, what company life is," Ball says. "You work as a corps and also have your solo moments. That's what makes you so valuable to be reliable, know your material, learn quickly, be clear when you do perform that'll get you the job. After that, it's up to you."
Students of the Houston Ballet Academy take the stage at 7 p.m. Friday; 1:30 p.m. Saturday. Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas. For information, call 713‑227-2787 or visit houstonballet.org. $41 to $51.
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