BACKSTORY
- by Jon Devin
New Moon Theatre members rehearse The Empire Builders.
The name Boris Vian doesn’t ring many bells in the new millennium, but in 1950’s France, Vian had his day. Something of a Renaissance man, he wrote novels, plays, essays, translations and even jazz music making him one of the more prolific writers in wartime Paris. Sadly, many of his works sold poorly, discouraging publishers. He is best known for two novels, Heartsnatcher andFroth on the Daydream. He later invented an American persona and wrote under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan.
One of Vian’s last works to be published in 1959 was the three act play, The Empire Builders.
“I describe it as a deeply disturbing essay on the culture of fear,” says Gene Elliott, who directs the play for New Moon Theatre Co. “It exposes how easily a society becomes the prisoner of its own paranoia.”
Read the rest of this entry »
- by Peggy Rowland
Peria Gober in her boutique.
Immediately after graduate school, Peria Gober, at age 24, returned to the Midtown Memphis of her childhood to make a long-held dream of opening her namesake business a reality. Located at 1680 Union Avenue, Peria, an upscale shoe and accessory boutique, is situated just a few blocks from where Gober grew up.
While pronouncing the store’s name may be a little confusing to first-time customers, there’s no mistaking Peria’s allure once inside the doors. In Gober’s words, “It’s a very girly, inviting place to come and accessorize.” What ice cream shops are to children, Peria probably is to women who love shoes and accessories. The boutique owner says that the compliment she hears most frequently from customers is, “You have beautiful things.”
Read the rest of this entry »
- by Jon Devin
Kiersten Williams stands in front of her studio wall. On the right the painting Hopscotch.
Artists are familiar with risk-taking, an essential skill in developing something with visual and aesthetic appeal. Whether it’s expressing an unpopular theme, or experimenting with technique, artists create their own artistic voices when they try something they’ve never done before. One Memphis artist-on-the-rise, Kiersten N. Williams, can tell you that life, like her art, took a turn from mundane to magical when she finally decided to throw away the rulebook.
At the age of 26, Williams, a native Memphian, already has impressive credentials as well as a knack for surprising people with the maturity of her work. Currently, her paintings sell in Little Rock and other Mid-South venues. She recently headed to the U.S. Virgin Islands to teach a month-long class in collage at the Caribbean Museum with her boyfriend, fellow-artist Anthony Lee. She accepted an invitation from international artist Eric Noel to participate in a show in Amsterdam, and she’s eagerly awaiting details of her first solo show in Memphis in April.
Williams is about to take the hearty step forward from local to global forums, so how did she get to this point?
“(Risk-taking) is scary,” says Williams, at home in her basement studio at Marshall Arts, downtown. “It’s a whole new territory. Your whole life you’re taught to go to school, go to college, and get a job. Just to do something like being an artist, with no rules, manners or restrictions is tough. And no one in my family has ever done it before, so it was up to me to get it done.”
Read the rest of this entry »
- by Mary K. Levie
Blues dancers at the Memphis Blues Society Jam. Photo courtesy of Blake Billings.
What began as a hobby a year and a half ago has evolved into a passion and business for Sarah Beth Larson, co-founder of NewVo Blues, a Memphis blues dancing group. Blues dancing is a root form of dance that grew out of the jazz and blues of the African-American community, evolving and fusing with various other styles of dance over the years.
“Most people who blues dance also swing dance,” Larson says. “You can fuse blues with a lot of different dances because it has a lot of influences from many different cultures.”
Larson first began in the local swing dancing scene, learning various styles such as Charleston, Lindy-Hop, East Coast, West Coast and Balboa. What initially attracted her as a newcomer to the dancing scene was an opportunity to shed her perfectionist tendencies.
“If I can’t do something well, I don’t want to do it at all; I can’t enjoy it,” Larson says. “Dance for some reason is the first thing I found where I didn’t hold myself to that standard, and I could go, and I could not be doing right all the time, and it was still ok.”
Read the rest of this entry »
- by Jon Devin
Gene Elliott of Calming Influence Massage and Bodywork Salon. Photo by Jon Devin.
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, or Kwanzaa, most people spell the Holidays, S-T-R-E-S-S. Shopping mall crowds, traffic, and the looming visit of in-laws all grate on the nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. But a new business in the heart of Midtown offers a moment of calm, right before the holidays and throughout the year. Gene Elliott, owner of Calming Influence Massage and Bodywork Salon, says it’s time to relax.
“This has been on my mind forever, but I kept waiting,” says Elliott, the former manager of the Massage Professionals.
Like most people, Elliott had the dream of owning his own business long ago, but was never certain that the time was just right to strike out on his own. Now, sitting inside his 2,000 square foot studio at 74 N. Cooper St. near Overton Square, he says that starting on your own is more like having a child - there is no right time to do it, you just have to make up your mind and do it.
Read the rest of this entry »
