Most people would use picket signs to protest the World Trade Organization. A couple of guys who call themselves the Yes Men, had a different plan. They set up a faux WTO Web site, and when people started believing it was the real thing, the Yes Men went along with it.
Seeing Phish perform live may be a thing of the past, but its musical influence lives on with the band Phaderus. The band performed at the Cell Theatre on Friday, and the crowd was completely absorbed in the music. Its performance was much like a theatrical experience with a seated audience and colorful stage lights that flowed to the rhythm of the music.
The Beach Waterpark has been transformed into a pool of ghosts and psychos with chainsaws. This year the haunted house is an asylum where crazy, dead actors haunt the visitors. In fact, the people who play the characters are actors at local middle and high schools.
A stage set with a lifeboat and a half-empty glass atop a lighthouse can be interpreted in a number of ways. "What a Choice," a reoccurring object-theater play by the Loren Kahn Puppet Theater and Object Theatre, allows the audience to decide what various props and absurd contraptions symbolize.
While some express political views through debate, others do it through poetry. On Saturday more than 250 people of all ages and ethnicities came together for one purpose - to slam the president. Slam Bush is a national rhyming contest in which poets and MCs step up to the mic to spew their views about the president and his policies.
For those who like their laughs unscripted, there is a new place in town. The Gorilla Tango Comedy Theatre is a performance space on Central Avenue that uses no sets, costumes, props and - most importantly - no scripts. Each night is different because the three improvisation teams make up all of the sketches and plays on the spot with suggestions from the audience.
A hip-hop, freestyle battle usually involves one MC tearing down another. This Saturday it will be a little different at Spring Breakz 2004, said Cyrus Gould, planner of the event. During the freestyle battle, Gould will hold up cards with political words on them and the MCs will have to rhyme about that topic.
SWFC's silver screen hasn't ever seen a weekend of all student-made films before now. Thursday through Saturday, the ASUNM Southwest Film Center will host its First Annual Student Film Festival. Roxy Traino, a Media Arts major, entered her experimental film, "Echoes Through the Eyes of Narcissus" into the competition.
In 1981, a group of activists in New York City decided it was time to give the public an alternative to mainstream corporate media - Paper Tiger Television was born. Thursday, Carlos Pareja, a video maker with the organization, will show PTTV videos and host a discussion at UNM.
Writer/director Dan Kay said finding work after college can be a struggle, especially when you're an artist living in New York City. This predicament is what inspired his film, "Way Off Broadway." The film, which opens April 16 at Madstone Theaters with an appearance by Kay, follows five realistic characters who fight against the competition of the film and theater industry and battle with the trials of relationships.
Solutions by The State News
