Left: Will Wilson (b. 1969), “Cory Van Zytveld, Director of Events, Four Mile Historic Park, US Citizen,” 2013, printed 2018, archival pigment print from wet plate collodion scan, 22 x 17 in. Art Bridges. Right: Will Wilson (b. 1969), “Will Wilson, Citizen of the Navajo Nation, Trans-customary Diné Artist,” 2013, printed 2018, archival pigment print from wet plate collodion scan, 22 x 17 in. Art Bridges. Photos of the photos: Brad Flowers
Identity Reframed
Iowa State University Museums has opened its 50th year with a Navajo photographer’s eye-opening exhibition at the Brunnier Art Museum in Ames. “In Conversation: Will Wilson” showcases new portraits Wilson created in response to an early 20th-century series by the white photographer Edward Curtis, whose work still shows up in calendars, postcards and even history books despite its ugly stereotypes. “I want to supplant Curtis’ Settler gaze and the remarkable body of ethnographic material he compiled with a contemporary vision of Native North America,” Wilson has said of his Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange. He uses the same gear and techniques from a century earlier, but now, each sitter chooses their own clothing, pose and props, and they get to keep the original photo. Wilson plans to discuss his work on April 4 at the museum, where the show continues through May 4. museums.iastate.edu
Hot Take
The world has changed since Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon disguised themselves in drag to cozy up to Marilyn Monroe in the 1959 movie “Some Like It Hot.” In the new Broadway adaptation, which visits the Des Moines Civic Center March 18-23, the two male leads still jump in with an all-women band to flee the Chicago mob, but one of them discovers he actually likes wearing a dress. Plus, the characters Lemmon and Monroe played are now Black, which allows the new show to explore themes Hollywood wouldn’t have touched in the 1950s. But it’s still a comedy, after all, with Tony-winning costumes, choreography and orchestrations. As the New York Times noted, “a long and delightful tap sequence midsong lets you know [director Casey] Nicholaw is going to pummel you with pleasure before massaging you with message.” (If you like it even hotter, “Hadestown” returns April 11-13.) dmpa.org
Pictured above: Leandra Ellis-Gaston (Sugar) and Matt Loehr (Joe). Photo: Matthew Murphy
Feel Every Note
Anecdotes about piano prodigies tend to hit the same notes: The kid starts plunking out a tune when others their age are still drooling. But the story of Nobuyuki “Nobu” Tsujii is truly amazing, considering he’s been blind since birth. At the age of 2, he played “Do Re Mi” on a toy piano after hearing his mother hum it, and he just kept at it — practicing and performing at increasingly prominent concert halls in Japan, France, Russia and the United States. He won the gold medal at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the Olympics of the piano world, and debuted at Carnegie Hall two years later. He’ll take a turn in the Lauridsen Great Pianists Series on March 23 at Drake University’s Sheslow Auditorium. civicmusic.org
Photo: Giorgia Bertazzi
Word Up
A school of fish. A troop of baboons. And an eloquence of poets? Whatever you call them, they’ll celebrate National Poetry Month with the third annual Poetry Palooza on April 4 and 5 at Grand View University. Iowa Poet Laureate Vince Gotera (pictured) of Cedar Falls joins an unusually distinguished roster of wordsmiths that includes Kelsey Bigelow of Des Moines, Jane Wong of Seattle and Ross Gay of Bloomington, Indiana, whose best-selling 2019 essay collection, “The Book of Delights,” inspired countless readers through the pandemic. The festival offers a slate of readings, workshops and performances to celebrate the written, re-written, re-written, re-written, spoken, shouted and whispered word. And for the third year now, it opens with a ceremony to bestow the annual James A. Autry Award, named for one of our city’s finest writers. poetryamp.org
Photo: Sean O’Neal / UNI
Science Fiction or Fact
A program called “Neil deGrasse Tyson: An Astrophysicist Goes to the Movies” would be a tough sell without the star power — the massive gravitational pull — of its headliner. But deGrasse Tyson’s expertise and boundless wonky enthusiasm has won over legions of fans and made him a household name. The director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium, part of the American Museum of Natural History, visits the Des Moines Civic Center on April 23 to talk about movies. He’ll explain the science that Hollywood got right and wrong in hits like “Star Wars,” “Armageddon” and even “Frozen.” dmpa.org
Photo: StarTalk / C. Picadas
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