Choreographers find inspiration in a number of places, people, times and emotions. For renowned choreographer Stephan Koplowitz inspiration comes from the architecture of a specific region, city or state. Koplowitz and his initiative TaskForce choose a region based on its architecture, history, culture and ecology and create a collaborative dance performance piece. In his latest work, Natural Acts in Artificial Water Koplowitz found inspiration in the metropolis of Houston, and what transpired was a visually impressive piece of modern dance.

Natural Acts in Artificial Water is a part of an international project that, among other things, travels to various locations and creates site-specific performances utilizing the structural design of the area. The performance, which occurred this past weekend, was a part of InsightOut, a weekend long arts festival presented by Aurora Picture Show, DiverseWorks and The University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts.

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Photo credit: Sil Azevedo

A few months ago, I attended a dance performance by Frame Dance Productions at the Photobooth in Montrose. The evening featured a work in progress, of sorts, that engaged the audience to be active participants. It was an installation piece where the spectators were fully entwined as active participants. It was fascinating and a different way to explore the medium of dance. The company has done several of these performances over the course of a few months in an attempt to utilize aspects of each of the works in a full production. This weekend, Frame Dance is showcasing the fruit of these efforts with a new production entitled CONTEXT.

Frame Dance Production just celebrated its two-year anniversary. The brainchild of dancer/choreographer Lydia Hance, Frame was established to be a company that doesn't adhere to established "dance company rules." Hance wanted a dance-based outlet that would allow an open form of collaboration with non-dancers, such as painters, playwrights, poets and photographers, among other artists. Of the many non-traditional aspects to Frame, Hance looks for ways to engage the audience through technology and socialization. "I am very interested in redefining the 'dance performance' experience," Hance says. This process of redefinition includes the venues in which Frame produces their work; they prefer galleries to the standard theater space.

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Charlaine Harris

Novelist Charlaine Harris is about to pull the plug on Sookie Stackhouse and her friends in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Ater the just-released Deadlocked, there's only one more title in the series of books that spawned the popular HBO television series True Blood.

Harris is in town on Friday to discuss and sign Deadlocked at Murder by the Book, one of her top two favorite bookstores in the country (more on that below).

In Deadlocked, Sookie faces two new devious opponents, a rogue werewolf and a vampire queen who wants to take Sookie's boyfriend Eric as her consort. (Eric is a big, beautiful Viking, so we understand the attraction.) The queen's plan doesn't sit well with Sookie, who thinks Eric should just refuse the request. But if the queen or other vampire officials decide to take revenge on Eric for his perceived insult and disobedience, that would put him in real danger. Yes, he's already dead, but even vampires can get deader.

Eric, on the other hand, thinks his curvy mind-reading girlfriend Sookie should just throw a little fairy magic on the situation and save him. But Sookie can use the fairy magic only once, and when one of her friends is hurt and about to die, she has to decide whether to save her lover or her friend. (If you know Sookie, it's no real surprise which one she chooses.)

Back to the role Murder by the Book, and especially former staffer Dean James, played in launching the Sookie Stackhouse books. Harris was already a published author when she hit upon the idea of a supernatural series built around a telepathic waitress living in a small town in northern Louisiana. (Anne Rice had already taken New Orleans, so Harris took the northern part of the state, she says. It's not as physically beautiful or culturally varied, but it made the perfect home for Sookie.) It was a change for Harris; apparently it was too big a change for her agent, who was reluctant to shop the title around.

Harris was certain she was onto something special with Sookie, and she decided to get another opinion. She sent the manuscript to her friend and fellow author Dean James. "No one knows more about mysteries than Dean, and I really valued his opinion," says Harris. "When he told me he fell off the bed laughing reading the manuscript, I knew I was right about Sookie." Harris's agent reconsidered and the series went on to be a huge success.

Catch up with Sookie and Charlaine Harris at 6:30 p.m. on Friday at Murder by the Book, 2342 Bissonnet. For information, visit the store's Web site or call 713-524-8597.

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Photo by Attila Glazer

Seven choreographed by Pál Frenák

Dance Salad director and producer Nancy Henderek travels the world searching for choreographers and dancers to bring to the performing arts festival she founded 20 years ago in Brussels and then brought to Houston. Rather than looking for undiscovered stars or courting famous companies, Henderek says she looks for people and pieces that move her. "It has to intrigue me, it has to interest me. The choreography, music, message, how it will be accepted here, all of that comes into play, of course, but mostly I look for work that excites me." Henderek says each piece has to stand on its own and also fit into the festival as a whole.

We admit it's rather like asking a mother if she has a favorite child, but we asked Henderek about festival highlights this year, and, it's no surprise, there are several. Compagnie Pál Frenák, based in Budapest and Paris, is high on the must-see list. "Absolutely no one knows Pál Frenák's work. This will be the first time they've ever been to the United States," Henderek tells Art Attack.

The company, led by Hungarian choreographer Frenák, is performing Seven, which explores the experience of being an expatriate, of redefining identity. During part of the performance, the stage is bathed in a dramatic, dark blue light and dancers move around and through huge tire tube-like forms. Frenák mixes classical and modern techniques, incorporating mime, sign language and even aerial dance to create something completely fresh. (For a sneak peek at Seven, click here.)

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Photo by Chris Nash

Motionhouse, a U.K. Dance company performing Splash in Scattered, will be in Houston in February 2013.

One of those scavenger hunt competitions ought to set as a challenge the goal of attendance at all of the Houston Society for the Performing Arts' offerings in one year.

As its lineup for the 2012-13 season, released today, shows, SPA is wide-ranging in its approach, profound one moment and at the heighth of pop culture the next, beginning with the Aspen Sante Fe Ballet this September and tossing in comedian Lily Tomlin, violinist Itzhak Perlman, United Kingdom dance company Motionhouse, food adventurer and authority Anthony Bourdain and sitar icon Ravi Shankar before concluding with the ever-popular Blue Man Group in early June 2013.

Here's the lineup:

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Courtesy of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

New Artistic Director Robert Battle

How do you go about taking the helm of one of the most acclaimed dance companies in the United States, keep the good but still put your own mark on the proceedings?

Houstonians will have a chance to see when Robert Battle, only the third artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in its more than 50 years of existence, brings his troupe and vision to Jones Hall courtesy of the Society for the Performing Arts for three performances on March 2-4 as part of his inaugural tour of the country.

Yes, the much-loved Revelations will be included in every performance, but there's also the chance to see Battle's first commissioned work, Home (2011), choreographed by Rennie Harris, a hip-hop choreographer, that was inspired by stories of people living with the HIV virus and dedicated to Ailey, who died of that disease in 1989, Battle said.

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Li Cunxin Instructed the Next Prima Ballerina.

If you are like us, you have a penchant for tutus and a love of all things ballet. Every year you do your best to squeeze in as much ballet as you can, but even just the annual Nutcracker presentation on television is enough to get you twirling. Maybe you even secretly wished that your mother had enrolled you in ballet classes as a child. Alas, now that you are old it is too late to learn and, where would you find the time anyway? It is not too late!

Houston dance aficionados and dance lovers alike may remember the name Li Cunxin. Cunxin danced with the Houston Ballet for 16 years in addition to various other prominent companies around the globe. Now Cunxin is taking his immense talents off the stage and sharing them on the screen, the screen of your iPhone or iPad, that is.

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Cuadro La Tempestad performs "Corazón Gitano." Marisol Monasterio, Guillermo Serpas, Nadia Palacios Lauterbach, Gabriella "La Tempestad" and Eya Tkachenko.

​Marisol Monasterio identifies herself as simply a flamenca. Though she's of Venezuelan/Brazilian descent, she has lived in Houston for the past 20 years, and has been learning and dancing flamenco for the last seven. Her journey as a dancer began when a friend introduced her to Maria and Gabriela Aliberti at the Del Espadin Flamenco Studio, and since then, she has fallen in love with this form of art. 

In addition to being a dancer, she has recently taken up singing. Her mother sang when she was young, but Monasterio had never sung in her life and has had no studies in singing or vocal training. After starting a flamenco group called Cuadro La Tempestad three years ago, she discovered her voice had the low, mesmerizing quality suitable for flamenco.

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In its roughly ten years of experience, the Kashmere High School Stage Band traveled and competed across the nation and the globe. Under the tutelage of director Conrad O. "Prof" Johnson, the band won 42 of the 46 local, regional and national competitions in which it participated.

Last year, Mark Landsman filmed the story of 30 former KSB members who reunited to perform in Prof's honor in 2008. The end result is Thunder Soul. The documentary is more than just the inspirational story of one teacher's influence on his students, it's also a commentary on the importance of art in the schools.The Kashmere Stage Band's success in the 1970s was mirrored in Kashmere High's other extracurricular activities and academics. This wasn't a coincidence.

Tomorrow night, Unity of Houston will host "An Evening of Jazz, Rhythm & Soul Honoring Conrad 'Prof' Johnson." Art Attack also got in touch with Craig Baldwin, the KSB alum who put the reunion together, to ask him a few questions.

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Photo courtesy Houston Ballet

Ever wanted to write about the arts? Now's your chance to soar!

Think you know your way around the arts scene? Can you write about it in a smart, concise and above all entertaining way? The Houston Press Night + Day section and Art Attack are both looking for freelance arts writers.

Applicants should have an interest in and know something about the arts scene in Houston. Clear, accurate and clever writing is highly valued as is the ability to meet deadlines. Photography skills are a plus.

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