The Falun Gong Show Returns to the SF Opera House

The San Francisco Opera House was surrounded by buses belonging to the Falun Gong sect all last week as a touring company performed their strange "Shen Yun Spectacular" which involves political and religious propaganda enhanced by music, dancing, projections, and lots of sequins and scarves and lasers.



According to Colin Dabkowski writing in The Buffalo News, the formula hasn't changed much since Sidney Chen and I stumbled across the show back in 2007. Dabkowski writes in a 2010 review, "I hesitate to delve too deply into the artistic merits of such an unconscionable misuse of the ancient art of Chinese dance, but in the interest of fairness I will offer this: Imagine what it might be like to watch a synchronized swimming team perform in front of a gigantic Windows 95 screen-saver. That should give you a pretty good idea of where "Shen Yun" ranks on the artistic merit scale."



The oddest detail this year were the hundreds of middle-aged Chinese Americans handing out flyers advertising the show for months beforehand all over the neighborhood, and the Falun Gong security guards standing beside the buses giving passersby paranoid looks while you walked down the sidewalk. Their behavior did not inspire trust.

Colin Kaepernick Resounding

After watching the first half of the 49ers-Panthers playoff game at home, I insisted on joining fellow San Franciscans in public for the second half of the game. Even though it was really too early to be hanging out in a saloon, we went to Brass Tacks, the young hetero bar that used to be the divine drag joint Marlena's on Hayes Street. The crowd watching the game was eclectic and amused, with the gentleman above providing the most fan excitement, literally dancing on the sidewalk.



After the final 49er interception when it became obvious that the home team was going to win, we went next door to Flipper's for an al fresco breakfast and saw the woman above worshiping Colin Kaepernick during the final moments of the game. Now we get to do it again next weekend.

Aristo Piano Duo at the SF Conservatory

San Francisco is ridiculously expensive but there are exceptions, including marvelous free concerts almost every day of the week at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music at Oak and Van Ness (click here for their calendar). Saturday evening we checked out the Aristo Piano Duo of Chia-Lin Yang (in purple) and Vivian Ying Chen (in red) because their program looked so promising.



They began with the 1888 Suite #1 for Two Pianos by Anton Arensky, a minor late 19th century Russian composer who was a disciple of Tchaikowsky and the detested professor of Scriabin. The performance was just about flawless, which was our first clue that the pianists were no longer students. In fact, Yang teaches at the SF Conservatory. They followed with the highlight of the evening, the 1941 Variations on a Theme by Paganini for Two Pianos by Polish wild man Witold Lutoslawski. The famous Paganini tune is put through a grinder for five minutes by Lutoslawski and it's invigorating fun. The Aristos gave it a thrilling performance, equal to Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire in this video clip.



They were not as convincing in Debussy's 1889 Petite Suite for Four Hands, where all the notes were perfect but the famous, piquant melodies didn't come through with much emotional effect. Things picked up again with Rachmaninoff's 1901 Suite #2 for Two Pianos which was expressive while also quite a bit smoother than the rendition by SF Symphony pianist Robin Sutherland and Friends last year.

The full house in the small recital hall seemed to be mostly family and friends, and though they could have been a much worse audience, there was still an overabundance of phone camera action during the performance, not to mention bored children and the loudest cough drop unwrapper I've ever heard during the quiet opening of the Romance movement in the Rachmaninoff.

Freeloading at the Asian

Last Sunday I tagged along with Kian, Luca and James as they looked at Korean royal placenta jars on Free First Sunday at the Asian Art Museum.



We bumped into docent Pamela Fischer above leading a large group around the Korean Joseon Dynasty exhibit, and after giving me a piercing look, she said, "Stick around. I want to talk to you." Apprehensive that she was upset about her photo being featured on the internet without permission (click here), I was relieved to find she was instead "immensely flattered" by her Divine Docent recognition. She will be giving another tour of the Korean exhibit at 2PM this Sunday, and it should be a smaller, more intimate group, since it is not a Free Sunday. You can even watch the 49ers game on TV at 10AM before soaking in some cultural wisdom.