Pittsburgh pop singer’s EP swings from love to anger

http://pittnews.com/newsstory/pittsburgh-pop-singers-ep-swings-from-love-to-anger/

Pittsburgh pop singer’s EP swings from love to anger

Courtesy MSO PR

Tino Coury

Page One

Tino Coury

Eleventh Records

Rocks like: The Black Eyed Peas, Far East Movement

B+

Pittsburgh has a reputation for encouraging musicians and providing strong musical backgrounds to locals. Tino Coury is no exception.

The 22-year-old’s six-track EP, titled Page One, provides some great dance beats and intriguing teasers for future work. With several singles already making their way up Billboard and Top 40 charts, his first release mixes pop with electronic music.Each track tries to take on a different emotional journey, from looking for casual fun, to love and eventually on to anger.

Coury’s first song, “Up Against The Wall,” is set to a fast beat that’s hard to ignore and easy to dance to. It’s the very definition of a party song: a rhythmic pace about dancing in a club and looking for lighthearted fun.

“Diary” sounds a little bit like Owl City. Coury mourns the fact that the woman he loves doesn’t feel the same way — although it’s a little bit off-putting to hear the lyrics, “I read your diary.”

“Circles” provides a decent interlude featuring a fantastic electronic orchestra moving the music along and an uplifting, albeit average, chorus with lyrics like “Sometimes you gotta live and you gotta let go / Cause I know your best is about to show / Life is just a circle, circle.”

The other songs are “I F***in’ Hate You,” “Memory” and “Leave Me My Pen,” which finish up this emotional musical journey with hurt feelings, sadness, strength and longing.

Still, there’s a bit of a teenage angst sort of tone that didn’t feel quite as present on the first half of the album.

With this EP playing out like a very emotional day in the life of a very young person, it will be interesting to see how Coury continues to grow musically with future releases and time to continue to test out his style and see what audiences want from him as a musician.

Films highlight complexities of immigration

http://pittnews.com/newsstory/films-highlight-complexities-of-immigration/

Films highlight complexities of immigration

CMU 2011 International Film Festival: Faces of Migration

Thursday through April 10

$4 per screening or the festival pass of $20 for 15 events

Tickets and passes are available online

www.cmu.edu/faces

A mass of people taking to the streets to protest a bill affecting immigrants inspired director Esau Melendez to create a film about the movement. He believes that when he started the process four years ago in 2006, people didn’t realize how big this issue would become.

“Half a million people marched in the streets to stop a bill that would criminalize the people,” he said, referring to proposed and strengthened border security,. “...This has to be the biggest movement in the history of immigrants, but I don’t think anyone saw what happened in May 2006. This movement is for people who are here contributing to society and who want to be recognized but are forced into the shadows.”

From those experiences, he came up with the idea for “Immigrant Nation! The Battle for a Dream.” The director will appear at both of the screenings of his documentary at the upcoming Carnegie Mellon University 2011 International Film Festival.

In its fifth year, the film festival will feature a number of films exploring issues related to migration, explaining what drives people to immigrate and the impact the movements have on both the countries people leave and the countries they move to.

Though its theme changes annually, the film festival always brings in award-winning films and documentaries with “artistic merit” from around the world, festival director Jolanta Lion said in an e-mail.

Every year, Lion said she looks for “independent, foreign and documentary feature-length films that have not yet premiered here in Pittsburgh and on occasion that have not premiered in the United States” that connect with the festival theme. Even students can submit through a short-film competition.

Lion has a strong history in film, teaching in Poland and then at Pitt up until 2006. Now the director of the film festival, Lion is able to “take part in the world of film” in a new way by distributing different works to the audience in a “thematic way.”

Melendez’s film has been shown in the United States at more than a dozen festivals and has won several awards. The film, which was the director’s first work in the genre, has a potential national release planned for September of this year.

He described the story as “action-driven” rather than debate- or opinion-driven, using the stories and voices of people involved in the movements to tell a larger story. For Melendez, the film isn’t just about the people he followed. Instead, it’s about a massive rights movement among the immigrants.

“It’s about the story of these people, who may be activists or regular citizens, who are fighting for the rights of the immigrants,” he said. “So the entire documentary references that struggle. And there’s no voice-over — it’s told entirely by people involved.”

Melendez spent the film-making process networking and meeting people he could follow to tell the story about immigrants and their rights in the United States. After following his subjects for a year and a half, he took time to carefully put the film together.

“It was difficult to get it done,” Melendez, who spent four years on the 96-minute film, said. “In the beginning, I began in the recession, and it was so hard to get money for this.”

On the other hand, while Melendez spent years on his project, Mike Ott spent only a month creating his 84-minute film, and less than half a year editing it.

A man who “stumbled” into filmmaking with no clue about what he wanted to do with his life after college, Ott created “Littlerock,” a fictional film about two Japanese tourists stranded in Littlerock, Calif. One of the characters falls in love and moves in with a local, making herself at home in the area. The entire film revolves around the characters finding ways to communicate without speaking the same language and dealing with prejudice against foreigners.

“The initial idea came from traveling abroad and being in situations where everyone spoke a different language than me,” Ott said in an e-mail. “It started making me think about how daunting it must be when people come to America and don’t know the language, and how hard it must be to try and assimilate.”

Ott, however, says the film is about much more than assimilation.

“I think it’s about a lot of things,” he said. “It’s about how language connects us as well as divides us, it’s about the American dream versus the American reality, it’s about examining America through a foreigner’s eyes.”

Ott also said that the film could be about “young people finding their way,” making it accessible to students attending the film festival.

‘Shrek’ treks to ‘Burgh singing new tunes

http://pittnews.com/newsstory/shrek-treks-to-burgh-singing-new-tunes/

‘Shrek’ treks to ‘Burgh singing new tunes

Courtesy DreamWorks Theatricals (Joan Marcus)

Left to right: Eric Petersen as Shrek, Alan Mingo, Jr. as Donkey, Haven Burton as Princess Fiona

“Shrek The Musical”

Tuesday - Sunday

Directed by Jason Moore

Benedum Center

$22-$68

412-456-6666 or pgharts.org

Alan Mingo Jr. spends several hours a day surrounded by ogres, a lord and a princess.

The actor plays Donkey in the upcoming show “Shrek the Musical.” And from the beginning of the role, that meant wearing hooves on his hands.

“From the first rehearsal they had me in hooves on my hands,” Mingo said.. “It changed things. I’m used to having use of my hands. Here in rehearsal they had me wearing these hooves. The actual costume is beautiful and comfortable, but having the hands covered was a struggle. But by now it’s natural, which is weird to say.”

Donkey accompanies Shrek, the now-famous ogre, as he attempts to rescue a princess from a tower in hopes of reclaiming his swampy home.

“Shrek The Musical,” currently touring after its Broadway run, reenacts the first movie in the “Shrek” series, though there are new plot twists and more original music added. Just like in the movie, there are moments for children mixed in with adult humor for older crowds.

The show’s creators, David Lindsay-Abaire for book and lyrics and Jeanine Tesori for music, expanded on the Duloc welcoming song and kept “I’m a Believer” at the end, but the rest of the score is original.

But one of the biggest challenges that actors like Mingo face is adapting a well-known movie character for the stage in a way that does justice to the original — without copying it.

The solution for Mingo is to be true to the character. He doesn’t try to impersonate Eddie Murphy, the voice of Donkey in the movie, but instead he “does what the character itself would do.”

“It’s not vastly different,” Mingo said. “You recognize the donkey when you see and hear him. But because the musical takes place through the first movie and we have other situations that didn’t happen in the movie, once the audience recognizes him they go along with the ride with me. The whole objective was you can’t go wrong if you stay true to the Donkey’s situation.”

Mingo’s no stranger to Broadway shows based on movies. He has acted in “The Lion King” and “The Little Mermaid,” but Donkey brought in a new experience for him because of the costume’s “practicality.”

“The costume pretty much looks like a donkey,” Mingo said. “I look like I’m in a suit giving the shape of a donkey. It’s like looking at a donkey staying on his hind legs.”

The Donkey costume is especially comfortable. There is fishnet underneath that allows for ventilation, making the costume more practical than costumes used in other shows.

Other costumes in the show aren’t necessarily as easy to wear as Donkey’s — the Shrek costume takes quite a bit of work. Jorie Mars Malan, the make-up assistant, specializes in the prosthetics that are part of the Shrek character make-up.

“Most shows only have one or two [make-up artists], and most shows only require hair and the actors do their own make-up,” Malan said. “This is just intense and they can’t do it on their own every day.”

The make-up for the Shrek costume alone takes 90 minutes to put together, Malan said. It includes a bald cap with a face opening, a latex foam piece that covers the actor’s head and includes ears, and three silicone pieces for his face that leave only his eyes and mouth exposed.

“Most of what goes on his face is glue. Then I paint everything to blend the pieces. It’s amazing because those pieces once on look very seamless. I feel like I’m talking to a cartoon character,” Malan said.

Malan is responsible for making the rest of the cast look cartoon-like as well.

Sean McKnight has a different job. He might play any male role on a given night. He works on the show as a swing, learning all of the male roles so he can “swing” into any part when necessary. He’s also a dance captain responsible for knowing and teaching choreography for the show.

“Shrek’s costume and make-up is genius. If you saw him up close you would think he’s an ogre,” McKnight said, recalling a time he sent a photo to a friend who didn’t recognize the person underneath the make-up.

But well-constructed costumes don’t mean the actors won’t have trouble with them.

“I have never been in a show with costumes this gigantic,” McKnight said. “‘Shrek’ backstage is a show in and of itself. The traffic backstage is massive. As a cast member, learning what I have to do on stage is one part of my job, and learning what to do backstage is another part and just as important. Backstage is so organized and timed to the last second.

The cast takes an hour to actually tests how long it takes to move on and off stage in each new theater to ensure nothing goes wrong on opening night. Once that’s in order, they can perform for audiences. And McKnight, like Mingo, stresses one point — “Shrek” isn’t just for kids.

“It’s impossible to leave the show unhappy. It’s full of energy,” he said.

Artist begins as mechanic before painting ‘idle’ cars

Artist begins as mechanic before painting ‘idle’ cars

http://pittnews.com/newsstory/artist-begins-as-mechanic-before-painting-idle-cars/

Courtesy Pittsburgh Cultural Trust

“Idle”

709 Penn Gallery

709 Penn Ave. at Seventh St.

Friday through April 3

412-471-6070

For most people, a car is associated with travel and little else. Colin Noonan, however, had a different mentality when creating the 12 paintings in his “Idle” exhibit: The automobile became a private space, wherein the driver and the vehicle both sit still, doing nothing.

“Idle” features pieces that merge two classic genres of art — oil paintings and portraits — to depict people stalled in their cars. The exhibit, which represents a change in the artist’s work, will open Friday and remain open through April 3.

For Noonan, focusing on portraits was a switch from landscape paintings.

“Making stills become such a caged way of working that people lumped me into a category that wasn’t satisfactory,” Noonan said about prior pieces and exhibits. “People wanted to put me into a classical sort of mode. My new work is an attempt not to divorce myself from the classical model but to update it and keep the fashion of the day.”

Returning to Pittsburgh in 2003 after studying art in New York, Noonan felt burned out after dealing with “a stressful time in my life.” With school over, he felt the urge to work and found a job as a mechanic at the German Motor Werks Garage.

“I was interested in the art of mechanics because it’s similar to art,” Noonan said. “It’s something you can learn.”

Noonan’s interest in art never completely disappeared, and the artist now uses a corner of the garage as his studio. He occasionally helps with maintenance, but for the most part, he “tries to be a ghost and work in the space next to the workers.”

To help with his “Idle” portraits, Noonan asked people to model for him, including Eva Mueller, a junior at Chatham University studying interior architecture. She’d previously studied photography and knew Noonan through networking with Pittsburgh’s artistic community.

“He had talked to me about what his art was about and he was trying to emulate the still life portraits of people,” Mueller said. “He wanted them to be reflective of a mystery. If you are looking at an oil painting and you see a portrait of somebody, it tells a story. I think that’s what he was trying to do. And I’ve had some experience with photography and that was how he started his process.”

Noonan used photos he took to help build the art he created, but Mueller still came into the shop four or five times during the process to help Noonan capture just what he wanted.

“It’s hard just to paint from a photo, so he did have me come in for other sessions just to get that image in his head that the photo wasn’t telling him,” Mueller said.

Noonan’s studio setup also intrigued Sonja Sweterlitsch, the manager of community art with The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. After discovering some of Noonan’s landscapes on display at a cafe, she researched the artist and began to talk with him about doing a show.

Sweterlitsch said she was intrigued by Noonan’s current comparisons between the human body and the car as a machine.

In the exhibit there’s “a car being stalled as well [as the people], in a way,” Sweterlitsch said. “It’s a meditative moment and still moment, which is interesting because these are oil paintings. They’re layer upon layer and take time to work on and require you to slow down and look at the contemporary subjects in this quiet meditative way. You’ll wonder what they’re thinking or notice more about the shadows across their faces. It’s really filled with stillness. It really does match a car being idle as well.”

Noonan’s art brings something new to the gallery, Sweterlitsch said.

“They’re images based in the garage as well as people on cars and people as individuals,” she said. “It’s very figurative which is different from what we’ve shown recently. And traditional oil paintings are different, too.”

Mueller said she was impressed with the results of Noonan’s latest endeavor.

“I think they look almost scary for how real they are,” she said. “I didn’t expect them to turn out like that. I was just surprised and pleased. He’s very good at what he does.”

Noonan called his art something that can’t be described and has to be seen, explaining that the artwork “goes way beyond simple sad or longing. So [the title] refers back to the idea that I’m not trying to depict young people happily chopping wood in some propaganda. This isn’t a picture of people who are glorious. But it’s also not the worst thing in the world to be where they are and to be idle.”