by the El Reportero’s staff
Ballet Nutcracker
The San Francisco Ballet, the first professional ballet company in America, and the first in the country to perform Nutcracker, launched this month its Nutcracker Guide to the City of San Francisco.
The interactive magazine that can be accessed online going to www.sfballet.org/cityguide, is inspired by SF Ballet’s classical Nutcracker production.
The guide shows early twentieth-century San Francisco through pictures, and ensures a rich journey for anyone who wishes to watch it while visiting some of the cities most important sight seeing locations: Alamo Square, the Conservatory of Flowers, Chinatown, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the War Memorial Opera House.
The magazine features interesting blog entries with both historic and architectural information, a contribution made by local experts. As visitors of the city, or enthusiast locals, go through the guide they will be able to watch video interviews with the Ballet dancers, as well as vintage photography from the early 1900s.
“The guide celebrates the long-standing ties between the city and Nutcracker, an annual holiday tradition,” said SF Ballet Executive Director Glenn McCoy.
Casa Caliente! at Galería La Raza
Video, electronica and spoken word performances will take place every other month in La Galería as part of ¡Casa Caliente!, a series of salon shows featuring local and international artists.
Performances will introduce work-shopping ideas, not finished products to the audience. The idea is to encourage attendees to work with the artists and test the presentations potential.
The first installment of ¡Casa Caliente! is Duel Discourse, a two-hour psychomagic presentation on Friday Dec. 2 at La Galería and the adjacent Studio 24. Artists, including electronic composer Guillermo Galindo, and performance artist Ginger Murray will present conceptual tarot readings. In parallel, choreographer Sara Shelton Mann and performance activist Larry Bogard will introduce Spoken choreography, a text-based work.
Masters of Venice at the de Young Museum
The worldwide exclusive presentation of some of the most important paintings from Venice artists of the sixteenth century, Masters of Venice: Renaissance Painters of Passion and Power, is in San Francisco’s de Young Museum through February.
The collection, a loan from the Gemäldegalerie of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, features 50 paintings from Venetian artists such as Titian, Giorgione, Veronese, Tintoretto, Mantegna, among others. The works represent the richness of Venetian accomplishment in Renaissance-era painting.
Among the highlights of the exhibition are Portrait of a media que dura la obra.
Teatro Nahual ha trabajado por más de ocho años en el Área de la Bahía, educando y entrenando para crear discusión sobre los hechos históricos y actuales a través de las obras de teatro hispano. Young Woman (1506) and Youth with an Arrow (ca. 1508–1510), from Giorgio da Castelfranco, known as Giorgione. Also Annointing of David (ca. 1555), and the heroine Lucretia (1528–1588) from Paolo Caliari. “Many of these paintings have been unseen on these shores until now,” explained John E. Buchanan, Jr., director of museums for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Visitors can appreciate this presentation now through Feb. 12. There are discounts for seniors, youth, and students. Free lectures on the subject will be given Nov. 27 at 1 p.m. and Dec. 3 at 10:30 a.m.
