Arts DEVOté

365.2422 days a year
It’s a new year for arts lovin’ in Chico Town, and Arts DEVOté is happy to report that it’s 1980 all over again! What’s that mean? Is A.D. saying it’s OK to wear your Energy Domes in public again? No, actually, not only is 2008 a leap year, but it’s the Leap Year Royale (copyright Arts DEVOté, 2008), which is to say that this February will have 29 days and will start and end on a Friday. Just like it did in 1980. It’s just … so great.

Mark your 2008 calendars:
• Jan. 23-Feb. 9: 1078 Gallery will be hosting a group show by students from Orland High School who, as gallery director Pat Macias explained, “have been studying abstract expressionists and have taken a social issue they are passionate about and reflected that in their paintings.” Rad!

• Jan. 17-Feb. 28: Eric Richter, Wunderkammer: Natural Curiosities at Humanities Center Gallery (reception Feb. 7). With regard to his dark paintings of nature and its creatures, Richter suggests visitors “imagine dark musty rooms filled with preserved creatures, art and other precious possessions.”

• Jan. 18: There Will Be Blood at the Pageant Theatre. The freakin’ brilliant Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love) is back, and he has Daniel Day Lewis steering this story set in turn-of-the-century California (adapted from Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!).

• Jan. 20: Former Chico State faculty pianist John Milbauer and Chilean pianist Paulina Zamora perform Russian-duo masterpieces in PAC 134 on Chico State campus.

• Jan. 21: HEALTH at Crux Artist Collective. L.A.’s best-in-noise meet Chico counterparts West By Swan.

• Jan. 28-March 2: National Janet Turner Print Competition group exhibition at Chico Museum, Laxson Auditorium Gallery and University Art Gallery.

• Feb. 1: Rykarda Parasol at Nick’s Night Club. P.J. Harvey, Nico, Nick Cave, Siouxie Sioux are the common touchstones thrown around for this daughter of a Swedish mother and Holocaust-survivor father and her S.F. band, The Tower Ravens.

• Feb. 14-16 & Feb. 21-23: Rogue Theatre presents Killer Joe at 1078 Gallery. Trailer-park living and a murder-for-money plot from The Beauty Queen of Leenane’s Tracy Letts.

• Feb. 26: The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose. University Film Series presents documentary on obscure folk duo.

• March 1-2: Chico Mind Map at Crux Artist Collective. The process will be at least as rewarding as the product as the Crux invites all of Chico to this “social experiment for interconnection,” as they attempt to map the mind of our little artistic city through collaborative artistic expression.

• March 8-9: The Bacchae at Harlen Adams Theatre. Knock-knock. Who’s there? Euripides. Euripides who? Euripides trousers, you mend-a these trousers (rim shot!). Surely we can all take a little time in our go-go modern lives to enjoy a play that’s been on this planet for 2,500-years!?!

• March 12-April 27: Duchamp: Contemporary Impressions at Chico Museum and Laxson Gallery.

• April 10-26: Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage at the Blue Room. Jane Martin’s farcical comedy is set at a Wyoming ranch where Big 8, a feisty cowgirl, rehabs broken rodeo cowboys. When the provocative She Devil and a one-eyed biker named Black Dog arrive at the ranch the corny western explodes into a very, very bloody (and hilarious!) mess.

• April 11: Axis Dance Company at Laxson Auditorium. The Oakland dance company brings disabled and non-disabled dancers together and creates contemporary works of moving art.

• April 20: North State Symphony, Final Frontier at Laxson. A.D. is notoriously shy when it comes to the symphony, but the sounds of outer space might just be the ambient experience to break the rut. Dubussy’s Nocturnes, and The Planets, Gustav Holst’s zodiac trip will be featured.

• April 24: Chico State Gospel Choir at Laxson.

• May 29-June 28: Jesus Christ Superstar at Chico Cabaret. A.D. is normally not a fan of the over-played musical standards, but he is curious about how this funky number will play out in Chico in 2008. What’s really exciting at the Cabaret is Avenue Q—potentially coming in July (if rights can be procured)—the grown-up Sesame Street where most of the characters are played by puppets! Please, oh-please, oh-please…