“Sign this or you will be burned alive.” Her breathing halts, her eyes glisten with unblinking anguish, and her face throbs numbly as she slowly and deliberately twists her head first to one side, then to the other. An excruciatingly low, morbid drone of electrostatic and dragging metal makes the walls quiver. “Even if you part my soul from my body, I will confess nothing.”

The gruesome scene depicted above is The Prisoner, an intensely dark and emotive 12 minutes and 26 seconds of cinematic experience by Minneapolis artist Abinadi Meza, raises harrowing questions about the implications of captive interrogation, asking the audience to reflect upon a series of questions and answers within a suffocating space. The film is an emotionally stirring remix of Carl Dreyer’s famous silent film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc. Meza re-rendered the film as a poetically grim animation by meticulously tracing thousands of frames from the original film into something evocative of a living and breathing screen print. He has also composed a chilling, new soundtrack.

Meza was drawn to Dreyer’s piece for its rich history as well as its potential for contemporary relevance. The original 1928 depiction of the trial and death of Joan of Arc was subject to numerous denunciations and mutilations. Initially, the French despised the idea that a Dane had interpreted the history of their beloved warrior-maiden, and the English censored the piece for its negative depiction of the all-powerful council

of judges. Less than a year after the film’s release, the original negative was burned in a fire. Dreyer attempted to recreate the film using alternate takes, but this version was also believed lost to fire. In 1981, a significantly damaged but complete copy of Dreyer’s original edit was found in the closet of a mental institution in Oslo, Norway. Through digital restoration the “Oslo print” was miraculously re-introduced as La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc to a contemporary audience in exquisite, near-original form.

By presenting The Prisoner as an animation, Meza offers a dramatic filter through which the audience hypnotically absorbs the piece’s heart-wrenching content. This particular style of animation lends itself quite well to Meza’s interest in “breathing new life into something familiar.” Meza describes The Prisoner in the interview as an investigation of “unanswerable questions with fatal consequences.” Meza’s heroine is ensnared in a morose test of righteousness delivered by a menacingly smug council of despotic white-haired men.

Among his influences for this piece, Meza cites Dadaism as well as Butoh, an intensely expressive, visceral form of Japanese dance. The Prisoner is a fitting taste of Meza’s recent work in that he often uses texts as a starting point. His body of work also includes sound installations, performances, and other new media artworks.

The Prisoner is showing as part of Franklin Art Works current exhibition, which also features paintings by Adam Cvijanovic (exploring the imagined chaos for the end of gravity), as well as Andrew Kuo’s intricately laced screen prints. The exhibition runs through March 25. Stop into Franklin Art Works anytime Wednesday through Saturday between noon and 5 p.m.

“This is a story of four souls bound together in their love for one another,” proclaims Johnny Oliver, an actor in University Theatre’s production of Las Meninas. He intends to continue his emotional-expressive delivery of this key monologue, but something is not quite right.

“Do it again,” says director Tisch Jones bluntly, observing him from the front row of the arena theatre in Rarig Center, where Las Meninas opens Feb. 24. “And don’t say anything this time. Show me.” Oliver looks confused. She explains, “Pretend you cannot talk, but you still have to make this story work. Make me understand. And be proud to tell it—this is the story of your life.”

Devoid of sound, Oliver reenacts the line with enhanced gestures at least 10 times over before Jones is finally satisfied. “See what you’re doing?” she smiles. “That’s beautiful.”

A demanding production like Las Meninas could never require any other sort of director. Jones is enthusiastic and particular, a commanding force who has shaped a unique interpretation of the largely unknown, but no less truthful, tale of oppression and loneliness amidst the search for love and identity. Not to mention, Las Meninas is a comedy.

Penned by Lynn Nottage, Les Meninas details the relationship between Queen Marie-Therese (Xanthia Walker), King Louis XIV (Matt Spring) and the Queen’s servant Nabo (Johnny Oliver), an African dwarf. Their awkward union escalates into a forbidden affair, and the Queen eventually gives birth to a black daughter, whom the disgusted Louis XIV has sent to a convent.

Thirty years later, a series of flashbacks tell the story narrated by the cast-off girl (Kelly Hendriksen), who we learn is now a nun about to take her final vow of silence. As an absolute monarch, Louis XIV had the power to erase the Queen’s story, a mistake Nottage, and now Jones, intend to undo.

“I spent a lot of time researching for this play,” she says. “We’re trying to rewrite the history books … It certainly makes a difference in how we look at the history.” Jones also noted this task requires the interpreters to take ownership of it all — “The good, the bad, and the ugly,” as she puts it.

Jones, who graduated from the University in 1977 with a bachelor of arts in theatre, previously directed Las Meninas at Grinnell College in Iowa. She is wholly responsible for a play-within-a-play approach that solved some initial casting challenges and instead allowed the main characters to be “acted out” by the convent’s nuns.

“She has created a whole different perspective to things,” says stage manager Jenna Papke of the play’s interesting premise.
“The cast has helped,” she continues, glancing fondly at her actors. “I think you should always cast accordingly, and I was sent some very beautiful people. There’s such an excitement and a freshness to everyone.”

Being both a political science and history major, Oliver could empathize with Nabo’s tribulations. “He tells stories because he misses his African home. It’s almost as if he has no history,” he says. “He shares this sense of comfort with the Queen because they make each other feel human.”

“Nabo is pegged as a barbarian or a savage, but he’s the most refined of the play,” Oliver says. “He’s angry, but he’s smart and cunning. The story proves that you can’t control human emotion through labels.”

Walker enjoys the challenging versatility of a character like Marie-Therese. “In the first act, she’s meant to be hilarious, but in the second, she’s just pitiful. She’s looking for love, but will settle for someone who treats her like a person.”

Walker, a theatre as social justice major, feels the play is an act of just that. “Everything was completely removed from history because of things like racism and sexism, but we now have liberty to go a bit over the top in exposing it all.”

Jones obviously feels the same. Even as she guides Walker and Spring through a comedic scene that requires them to bicker and stomp around like children, there is an elegant emotion to her direction. “Let everything you do be ballet,” she instructs, asking Spring to add a corset to his costume, which already includes frilly shoes and a wig. With a play like Las Meninas, told with humor and the smallest bit of sadness, Jones simply wants to perfect history, however imperfect it may be.

Las Meninas opens Feb. 24 and closes March 5, 2006. For ticket information, call the University of Arts ticket office at (612) 624-2345.

The corpse of a fan dancer announces the end of the world in the first act of Clive Barker’s Frankenstein in Love. The bodiless head of a middle-aged man is stabbed for refusing to silence his screams, and a “Bogey Man” shows up in the aftermath of a bloody South American revolution to take control of the tiny nation in which this play is set. Curious commencement for what playwright Barker calls a “romance.”

“For me it’s a mix between a Wildean comedy, and Titus Andronicus,” says Nic Hager, director of the Xperimental Theatre’s production of Frankenstein in Love, and a third-year theatre student here at the “U.” Hager initially chose the play because it is his favorite theatrical text and he has “read it more times than I care to remember. I have worn my way through many copies of Clive Barker’s book Incarnations, in which the play was published.”

Some of Barker’s other works include his recent novel Galilee and the Hellraiser movies—yes, the ones about that guy with the needles in his head and the box that brings him to life. While the poetic sentiments (if there are any) of Hellraiser may be obscured by laughable special effects and cheesy dialogue, Hager says that Barker’s work has matured throughout his career.

“I really want to bring the maturity and refined sensibilities inherent in Clive Barker’s more recent work, such as his novel Galilee, to the script [of Frankenstein in Love],” says Hager. The script was actually written decades ago, when Barker was still running around London during his early twenties.

“Usually when this play is produced, it’s done around Halloween and it focuses on the gore and spectacle in the script. I’ve been working to strip down the spectacular aspects of the script, and focus on the heart of the piece. It is the quest for humanity which drives the characters,” explains Hager. “What does it mean to be human?” The play will certainly have less of an emphasis on the extraordinary in the X Theatre than previous productions, but the nature of the text demands that there still be an element of the bizarre. Hager hopes that the audience will be able to see past that and into the minds of the characters.

“The characters struggle to understand themselves, and to be understood by others,” he says. “I’m hoping to thrust the audience into the dark world that Clive Barker has written, and once they become comfortable with the characters, to understand and sympathize with their journeys.”

When a record label like Kill Rock Stars puts out a sampler, it’s bound to please fans of just about any style of music. It’s also bound to be a little weird. Otis’ Opuses, featuring a staggering 22 tracks, is a retrospective of the label’s 2005 releases with a few new songs as well. From folk to hardcore, noise to electronica, Otis’ Opuses is at once schizophrenic and cohesive, jumping successfully between these genres without batting an eye.

The sampler features mainstays of the label like The Decemberists, Jeff Hanson, Deerhoof, and Harvey Danger along with lesser-known bands. But I was pleased to discover The Gossip and the Old Haunts. By incorporating so many sounds into one album, Kill Rock Stars proved not only the diversity of their acts, but also that they can win fans from many genres by giving them a taste of something they wouldn’t expect. Listening to “Cream and Bastards Rise” by Harvey Danger and “Cute Things” by Nedelle and Thom back to back seemed like a stretch at first, but its this sort of strange sequencing that makes this album work.

2006 should be an interesting year for the Kill Rock Stars label as The Decemberists bid farewell and head to Capitol Records. Nevertheless, Otis’ Opuses showcases the label’s potential for the year to come.

As usual, Scott McCaughey (formerly of Young Fresh Fellows) finds himself in good company on the latest record from his pet project, the Minus 5. His friends on this outing include R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy among others. In addition to containing a stellar guest list, the CD comes filled with classic- sounding songs penned almost exclusively by McCaughey. Drawing on years of experience and an obvious love of ’60s pop, the music is familiar and accessible.

The subject matter also evokes a feeling of by-gone days, covering the topics of gun-toting and drinking. But don’t get me wrong, the music is more than pure nostalgia. Like other super group side projects such as Golden Smog, the Minus 5 offers a glimpse into where these musicians find their roots. On a handful of tracks, McCaughey and friends try unsuccessfully to add a sense of newness to the formula, mixing distorted guitars with Byrds-style hooks in a combination that sounds as forced as it does painful.

While it’s far from an essential addition to your record collection, the self-titled disc from the Minus 5 (available on Yep Roc records) assuredly has some great moments. One listen to “With a Gun” will make you want to go back and give the rest of the record a try.

Rhymesayers Entertainment begins the year with a burst of much needed energy for the Minneapolis hip-hop scene. Audition proves that P.O.S. isn’t just another rapper destined for mediocrity. Starting strong with the bouncy “Half Cooked Concepts,” P.O.S. immediately succeeds in establishing his persona as he rhymes, “P.O., you know the dirty one disturbing all the categories / the matador in black, killing bullshit allegories.” Similar energy is found on “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered)” (produced by Lazerbeak) and tracks like “A Teddy Bear and a Tazer” and “Living Slightly Larger.”

Guests appear in tasteful doses, and usually working to the album’s advantage. Slug and P.O.S. trade rhymes over two of the album’s most accessible cuts, “Bush League Psych-Out Stuff” and “Bleeding Hearts Club (MPLS Chapter).” “Safety in Speed (Heavy Metal)” features a lingering Craig Finn monologue and some of P.O.S.’s best material: “Welcome to Hollywood DC / where Reagan youth grew up cowboys off Ronnie’s Westerns.” This isn’t to say the album is flawless; Audition contains many moments overshadowed by the stark vocal similarities to Eminem.

Fusing punk, metal, and hip-hop hasn’t always yielded positive results, but it is obvious P.O.S. isn’t worried about labels. Instead, he seems to be kicking down any barriers in his path in order to genuinely express himself. Once again, Minneapolis offers an impressive hip-hop release that will undoubtedly retain its buzz for much of the year.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Summer brings us the blockbusters, fall and winter give us the Oscar contenders. Now with spring we can expect all the crap Hollywood chose not to pawn off on us during those other two seasons. And considering how much crap came out the other two seasons, this is shaping up to be a long spring for movie- goers. So instead of shelling out a ten spot for Big Momma’s House 2, I decided to stay in this past week and check out a documentary I missed a couple years ago called The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.

The Fog of War isn’t exactly a retelling of Robert McNamara’s life story. More accurately, it’s a fairly candid look at one of the 20th century’s most infamous and complicated figures. McNamara was Secretary of Defense under John Kennedy and subsequently Lyndon Johnson. While Vietnam is a major part of the film, it also looks at McNamara’s involvement in World War II as well as his time spent as president of Ford Motor Company. This is McNamara’s version of history as interpreted by filmmaker Errol Morris.

The majority of the film is a series of interviews done in the late ’90s with a then 85-year-old McNamara. Morris conducted these interviews using an ingenious camera setup nicknamed the Interrotron. In a sense, it makes it appear that McNamara isn’t so much being interviewed as he is talking directly to the audience. It’s amazingly effective. Interspersed is useful and often chilling archival footage. The editing is fantastic as are the music and art direction. The Fog of War can be appreciated as film art as much as it can be as an amazing documentary. This is a lean and compelling film that doesn’t especially have a message or agenda.

In fact, I found that rather refreshing. Errol Morris seems to be the opposite kind documentary filmmaker as Michael Moore or that guy who ate McDonald’s for a month. Whereas those two seem to have their messages before filming begins, Morris’s documentary is entirely centered on its subject. McNamara is not necessarily a well-loved man. But viewed through Morris’s lens, he’s given a more complicated and compelling portrayal than many would allow.

This is what documentary filmmaking should be about. If history, politics or beautiful filmmaking are of interest to you, this is a must see film. Besides, we’re all going to run out of good movies to see in the next few months. Admit it—you can only watch Final Destination 3 so many times.

Politics have the power to invade the sanctity of a citizen’s privacy when controversial issues warrant public attention. Photography can capture this along with the emotion lost in the political conflict. This is the case with Terry Gydesen’s exhibit Justice For All, on display at the Christensen Center Art Gallery at Augsburg College until Feb 18.

Gydesen’s exhibit portrays two decades worth of conflict between gay rights activists and their opponents, contrasted with reactions from apathetic policy-makers.

While some photos portray compassion and happiness, others are wrought with frustration and pain. Toward the middle of the exhibit is a striking image of a man holding a sign amongst a crowd. His sign, “No queers or baby killing feminazis,” displays the harsh intolerance that comes from xenophobia.

“Death penalty for homosexuals 2004,” depicts the magnitude of this prejudice with an image from a rally at the Capital of about 3,000 people against gay marriage. “It was the most afraid I’ve ever felt at any event I’ve photographed over the years,” Gydesen recalls. “I thought about Germany at the time of Hitler’s rise to power and thought it must have felt the same way then for people threatened by rhetoric.”

The final composition mixes the realty of the picture’s setting with the details viewable in the print. Placed on the streets of New York during a rally against Bush, the image shows an ad on a bus shelter with a man approaching on the sidewalk. The ad consists of a body-builder in front of a blue backdrop and the words “Vote 2004.” But since the man approaching is overweight instead of perfectly toned one could interpret it as a message about image, more specifically what American’s perceive as the perfect image. “Vote 2004” is actually part of the text “Vote for Mr. Gay NY 2004,” bringing to the table a completely different context.

Gydesen describes this piece as “one of the most successful, in that it’s loaded with many different elements and can be interpreted in different ways.”

“My favorite images are ones that are like a puzzle,” she adds, “an image that instantly grabs you but has additional subtle details to give lasting intrigue.”

The exhibit creates an emotional montage of conflict surrounding the fight over equal rights for the GLBT community. It includes images from the 1987 March on Washington and the 2004 legislative session, at which gay marriage was a hot issue. Some of the images stray from an otherwise chronological order to create emotionally poignant pairings that reflect the contrast in drastically different worlds of thought.

While Gydesen shoots with a subjective camera, her exhibit is an expression of not only her views but also those of a vast group of activists and affected groups. “I do get caught up in it, and that’s why I’m not a photojournalist—I’m not neutral.” In the end, Gydesen’s exhibit raises the question: “Can a nation really ever have justice for all?”

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design presents “Graphic Noise: Rock Posters at 1000 dBs” for anyone who has ever glanced with caution over their shoulder as they ripped down a gig poster or riddled an innocent telephone pole with staples and flyers to herald an upcoming show. Casual fans of the screen-printing magic will enjoy the exhibit as well. Scaling the walls of MCAD’s Main Gallery through Feb.19, the expansive collection of contemporary rock posters brings together varying artists and graphic design techniques from all over the world to rock your optical senses. True to the exhibit’s name, the gallery walls are draped in excess, with varying degrees of color, shape, and psychedelia screaming from all directions.

Like the music it aims to promote, the posters on display are not modestly illustrated. To take in an entire wall of the pop-meets-impressionism that many of these works embody, can verge on visual overload. Each successive wall offers an abundance of inspired pieces, some boldly original (such as the Animal Collective poster featuring a mutant whale, his blow-hole replaced by organ-pipes, spouting multi-colored handprints into the sky) and others reminiscent of vintage screen print styles (the Har Mar Superstar at Dixies poster by local graphic design team Squad 19 evokes the poster art of 1960s San Francisco). Close to 500 posters represent more than 100 artists from 8 different countries, and feature musicians ranging from the locally obscure to the globally legendary. “Graphic Noise” is diversified, eclectic, and still running strong after an auspicious debut at Atlanta’s prestigious Museum of Design.

With popularity of the once-underground art form growing in magnitude beyond the function of hipster urban wallpaper, rock posters have found shelter from the weather-beaten street posts of First Avenue inside the swanky offices of the corporate cool and the less swanky living rooms of Joe and Jane College. With many artists selling their works online at reasonable costs, “Graphic Noise” offers a taste of the art world that you can afford to take home with you.

Opening for “Graphic Noise,” so to speak, is “Post No Bills: Gig Posters of the Twin Cities,” MCAD’s injection of some local flavor into the exhibition. On display in the Corridor Gallery, local design teams and artists including Burlesque Design, Big Time Attic, and Squad 19 are showcased with artist information to highlight some of the brightest talent that the Twin Cities has to offer. As many of the featured local artists have successfully expanded their trade nationally, it is no surprise that many of the homegrown pieces hold up strongly next to the works of their more renowned peers.

If you are one prefer Modest Mouse to Monet, and are interested in indulging your rock and roll lifestyle, The Minneapolis College of Art and Design is located at 2501 Stevens Ave, and the gallery is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays noon to 5 p.m. The exhibition runs through February 19th, and like all good things in life, “Graphic Noise” and “Post No Bills” are free.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Peter Hayes has a sloppy sort of drawl. We spoke on a phone for almost 20 minutes on a grey Wednesday afternoon about what lies ahead and behind of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (BRMC). The band’s story, much like my interview with Hayes, has been through several ups and downs and incarnations since its inception in 1995. BRMC was discovered via a demo that somehow ended up in the hands of an LA radio station. “It wasn’t even written up. Just a paragraph that said, ‘Oh this is a good CD.’ And then someone from a record company read that,” said Hayes. After one record company found out about BRMC, an onslaught of record companies found out, and so began a bidding war. BRMC eventually signed with Virgin, a deal that didn’t work out in the long run, but allowed the band to release two albums and gain a little notoriety. Howl, their third and most recent album, has broken the mold of what fans expect out of BRMC, which to a certain extent is freeing them the criticism doled out to their music in the past.

BRMC’s first album gained them a reputation as a Jesus and Mary Chain rip-off band, or “Black Rebel Mary Chain” as Rolling Stone Magazine put it. When asked about the making of their self-titled debut in 2000, Peter said, “In the beginning we just figured we’d do it our own way. We always kind of pictured it as we were jumping down the belly of a beast and we were gonna cut our way out.” The cutting-out process has seemed to come to a close with the release of, Howl.

“Accepting money for your art and … what comes with that as far as the expectations from a record company—our expectations are that we can’t let that affect our music,” said Hayes of the way that BRMC responds to pressure from the label and the media. He portrayed a sort of “fuck you” attitude toward comparisons and expectations, asserting in several ways BRMC was not trying to do any one thing in particular. The sounds of Howl are markedly different from those previously embraced by BRMC fans, a change which has left some wanting more and others disenchanted. Hayes said that the new songs were not a change at all, but just a different part of what they had been doing all along. “A lot of songs were written on acoustic guitar and a bunch of them … were written for the first album, but we never put that on there because they didn’t work as electric songs. So we held on to them.” Holding on to the songs turned out to be a wise move, as the sounds of Howl seemed to have made many of those who had dismissed the band reconsider. The album is roosty and reminiscent of the Depression-era folk music that influences modern folk singers. This is a bit unexpected, given the previous heavy synth and electric guitar sound of “Black Rebel Mary Chain.” “It’s just an addition to what we do.” Hayes commented. As for the future of BRMC, “it all kind of is under the realm of song writing, rock and roll. There won’t be any disco on the next album.”

Hayes also discussed the listener friendly sound that he feels characterizes the new release. “I like that we got it out of our systems and were able to get it out to the public. It was something that we wanted from the first two albums … it sounds more inviting to the listener.” He also talked about a sense of nostalgia that the band members themselves feel for rock and roll days gone by. The original, inventive sounds that bands like the Beatles and the Beach Boys produced, and the way those bands reinvented themselves is something that Hayes said BRMC are working towards.

To wrap interviews up, I always like to ask the musician or artist if there is anything else they’d like to include in the article or any other things they want to say about their album or tour. Hayes and I had covered most of the band’s history and goals, and his suspiciously sloppy speech had sharpened over the past quarter hour. Just as I was feeling content to wrap things up, Hays responded to my question by slipping back in to a tired, possibly intoxicated slur.

The Wake: Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?

Peter Hayes: Well, let’s see. I don’t know. Do you want to talk about the paranoias of life?

The Wake: Do I want to talk about what?

Hayes: The paranoias of life.

The Wake: Do you want to talk about it? … I can be here to listen.

Hayes: You can be my, what do you call that? My sympathizer.

The Wake: (Uncomfortable laugh)

Hayes: That’s just I don’t know. There’s nothing else to say. This is an opportunity to say something about culture. You’ve got to watch out for the culture of capitalism destroying the culture of art. Watch out for that.