The field of competitors at the upcoming Van Cliburn International Piano Competition has been reduced by one. The sponsoring Van Cliburn Foundation announced Monday afternoon that Chinese pianist Yue Chu has pulled out because of a hand injury. Rather than bringing in an alternate, the foundation has decided to go with the remaining 29 competitors.

After preliminary events including the drawing for position and selection of piano by each entrant, the competition will get underway with the first preliminary performance at 1 p.m. Friday in Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth. Each competitor will play a 50-minute program. Twelve will advance to the semifinals May 28-31 and six will play in the finals June 3-7. For further details, click here.

Fourteen countries will be represented: Australia (1), Bulgaria (1), Canada (1), China (6), Czech Republic (1), Germany (1),  Greece (1), Israel (2), Italy (2), Japan (3), Korea (4), Russia (2), Ukraine (1), and the United States (5). Two competitors have dual citizenship.

Guest blogger Bart Weiss is director of VideoFest. He sends this report from his trip to Poland to attend the international public television conference INPUT.

WARSAW — Arrived in Warsaw on a beautiful day to a scene I wasn’t expecting: blue skies and cool architecture. Last night I went to see Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired at the Planete Doc Review film fest here, which is a very cool and very popular festival. I have a video interview with the fest’s director, which I will post when I figure out how to do that (and when I can edit it). He pulled off a very cool trick over the weekend  – in addition to showing the work in the main theater, he streamed films to 22 cinemas throughout Poland at the same time. Very video fest like. So like I said, I saw Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, about the famous trip of Poland’s favorite film director (well one of the favs). Seeing it here was a bit different from home. For example, when someone in the doc says, “Well, in his culture it may be OK to sleep with a 13-year-old, but not in this one,” the crowd let out an enormous laugh.

The INPUT conference (what I really am here for ) started today, and I saw many great programs from Canada, South Africa, the U.K., America , Norway  and Columbia. My favorite of the day is Landeplage - Can’t Get You Out of My Head, a series that explores why a pop song has staying power.  The episode we saw looks at the No. 1 song in the history of Norway, “Take on Me” by A-Ha. Take my word for it: the show is funny and, well, rocks. There was also a South African animated news parody show called Znews that only got as far as a pilot because it had too much social commentary for the politicians to handle. The pilot got on line and got hot, but still no takes to fund the series.

Then there was a BBC reality show about mental illness. A team put together a group that included five people with real mental disorders. A team of doctors is then challenged to figure out which ones are the mental patients. The really sad part – the docs only picked out two of the five.

Bye from Warsaw,

Bart

Saturday night at Richardson’s Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival featured a lineup of vintage acts (Kansas, Edgar Winter Band, Night Ranger), not quite as vintagy acts (Toadies) and a cover band of a now vintage act (Sublime tribute band Bad Fish). Once the dreary morning and afternoon weather passed, the crowds were out in full force, with a slight edge given to the stage hosting the classic-rock outfits.

Given a choice between a) hearing “Dust in the Wind” and “Sister Christian” or b) the Toadies and the closest thing we have anymore to Sublime, I picked B and was happy I did. Though they’ve likely played every Sublime song a jillion times, the guys in Bad Fish dug down and found the excitement they must have felt the first time they played the songs of their musical heroes. The show-ending sing-along version of “What I Got” was a highlight.

In the headling slot, Fort Worth’s Toadies seemed a kinder, gentler version of their raging 90s selves. Frontman Todd Lewis played both affable host (“So what has been you’re favorite part of the festival so far? The corndogs?”) and head security guard, politely asking those in front to not crush each other. His caterwauling vocals on songs like “Tyler” and “Backslider” were maybe turned down to 8 from 10, but who could blame him? It’d be tough for anyone to make it through a whole set vocally while  going all out on the Toadies canon. The band happily obliged the crowd’s obvious hunger for all things Rubberneck, dishing out an even mix of songs from that 1994 classic with tracks from its 2008 album, No Deliverance.

The headliners weren’t without competition, though. As the band tore through one of its songs, one by one nearly every head in the crowd turned 90 degrees to the north, focusing on a room in the adjacent Renaissance Hotel. How to put this delicately … let’s just say there was a competing show going on in a third-floor room with the curtains wide open. The crowd cheered on the mystery couple for a few minutes before a knock on the door came, the curtains were drawn and the show resumed.

Click here for some crowd video of “Possum Kingdom.”

KURT WEILL COMES TO TOWN: If you are familiar with German composer Kurt Weill, it’s most likely from his The Threepenny Opera, which he wrote before immigrating to America in 1935. Weill continued to work once he got here, but those musicals are not seen as often as the ones he wrote in Germany. Theatre Three is aiming to change that tonight when it stages Lost in the Stars, the adaptation of Alan Payton’s novel Cry of the Beloved Country, which Weill worked on with Maxwell Anderson. The story centers on a black pastor in South Africa looking for his missing son.  Lost in the Stars musical director Terry Dobson discusses the challenges of staging Weill’s ambitious work in the above video. The show runs at Theatre Three through June 14.

CLIBURN KICKOFFS: The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition begins on Friday, and each of the major North Texas dailies devoted major space over the weekend to getting everyone ready for the event. The Fort Wort Star-Telegram traveled to New York to get to know four of the competitors: Naomi Kudo, Spencer Myer, Vassilis Varvaresos and Andrea Lam. If you’re into all things Cliburn, definitely spend some time pouring through the online features on the paper’s sister site, DFW.com. Meanwhile, The Dallas Morning News gets into a debate about competition in the arts and the purpose that it serves.

AND THEY SAID IT WOULD NEVER BE BROKEN: This is normally the time of year when college students are taking final exams and possibly trying to get a job. But 242 students at the College of William and Mary had more important work to do, like breaking the world record for most people simultaneously doing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance in one location. The previous record was 147 people. What does that have to do with North Texas? Absolutely nothing as far as I can tell. But the urge to pass along a link to the video was too strong to ignore.

The New York Times reports that Blind Lemon, the musical created by local actor-director Akin Babatunde (left) and Texas music historian Alan Govenar, will open the York Theater Company‘s new season  Sept. 8. The 40-year-old New York company (“Where musicals come to life!”) is dedicated to developing and producing new musicals, performing them in the St. Peter’s Church basement on Lexington Avenue and 54th Street. Blind Lemon was staged at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre.

• Willard Spiegelman’s essay on swimming as it appeared in The American Scholar

• His essay on walking as it appears on In Character

• Wall Street Journal review by Wes Davis

• Review by New York cultural journalist/blogger Matthew Gurewitsch

• Dallas Morning News review by Chris Tucker

• James Wolcott’s tout in Vanity Fair

Where do we find true pleasure? Can everyday activities like swimming or reading bring us joy? Willard Spiegelman, Hughes Professor of English at Southern Methodist University and editor of the Southwest Review, joined us for the Art & Seek segment to discuss his new collection, Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness.

Although the book is getting shelved in the “self-help” sections — and more power to that label if it means Seven Pleasures will sell better than the usual essay collection — Spiegelman’s book is actually a set of reflections on quotidian activities: reading, walking, looking, dancing, listening, swimming and writing. His pieces are  classic essays in the humanist tradition that goes back to Montaigne. They’re part personal memoir, part guide, part explanation, part appreciation, part conveyor of insight, whether it be practical, moral, political or philosophical. The essays are all very much in Spiegelman’s own voice, elegantly phrased yet seemingly casual, bemused yet thoughtful. And, of course, literate and learned but not in an off-putting manner. Think of it as a likable donnishness. It’s that voice, that ruminative process of thinking that is one of the book’s enjoyments. It succeeds so well in leading a reader along.

In his introduction, Spiegelman explains that he comes from cheerful stock. His outlook on life, as most of ours have, has been shaped by his genes. As he says in our televised conversation posted above, he could do without these activities, these pleasures, and still be cheerful. This is one of the rare places in Seven Pleasures that I parted company with the likable don. I think for many of us our pleasures are salvations. They’re redemptive, rehabilitative. They can make our miserable lives tolerable. For a time, they take us out of ourselves, which is the original meaning of the Greek, ekstasis — to transport, displace, put into a trance. The brief forgetfulness caused by the seductions of art, by the concentration required to complete a task well — it can be a source of pleasure. As the harried director says in the stage comedy, Noises Off! (written by the philosopher and journalist, Michael Frayn): “I come to the theater to be taken out of myself. And preferably not put back in.”

As he goes on, Spiegelman occasionally does become transported. A little, anyway, he’s a thoroughly rational and grounded individual, but one of his pleasures, after all, is writing, writing what we’re reading, so inevitably his own pleasure comes through. The simple act of looking, he declares, can be life saving. “Swimming keeps me happy,” it lifts him into “a higher spiritual realm.” And as he points out in his essay on writing (although the point pops up elsewhere), when done well, when done with a relaxed awareness, these activities can be meditative. They become akin to a secular version of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola (a contemporary of Montaigne, interestingly enough).

OK, so even I think that last claim got a little carried away. Let’s just call these enjoyable essays ‘Zen-like, gem-like contemplations of the everyday.’  They can lead you to a degree of self-awareness.

Whether that makes you happy is up to you and your bad self.

This word from the Dallas Museum of Art on Saturday: Apparently, there’s some glitch with Ticketmaster, and people who are trying to see the finale of the King Tut exhibit this weekend may be misled into believing tickets are not available.

They are available. You’ll just need to go to the DMA to purchase them in person.

Today in the Art&Seek Saturday Spotlight, we head to Richardson for the Wildflower Arts and Music Festival.

FIND: For the complete list of the weekend’s headliners, visit the festival’s listing on the Art&Seek calendar.

REACT: On Friday, vintage acts Kool & the Gang and Rick Springfield hit the stage. Do they still have it, or is time better spend watching locals Jackopierce and The Killdares?

DISCUSS: In addition to Edgar Winter Band, Tonic, Night Ranger, Kansas and Forth Worth’s Toadies, Badfish is on Saturday’s bill. Badfish is a Sublime cover band that has sort of taken up the mantle for the group after it disbanded following singer Bradley Nowell’s heroin overdose. At this point, there’s a good chance that Badfish has played more gigs than Sublime ever did. Can anyone remember seeing a cover band that they felt outdid the originals?

CREATE: On Saturday at 11:30 a.m., the finalists in the 2009 Singer/Songwriter Contest will perform. If you’ve got dreams of becoming a songwriter, be sure to check them out so you’ll know what the competition is like when you enter your original at next year’s festival.

Guest blogger Danielle Marie Georgiou is a Dance Lecturer at the University of Texas at Arlington where she serves as the Assistant Director of the UT Arlington’s Dance Ensemble. She is also a member of Muscle Memory Dance Theatre – a modern dance collective. Danielle is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Arts and Humanities at UT Dallas, and her first book, The Politics of State Public Arts Funding, is out now.

Listen to Twyla Tharp’s May 14 appearance on Think:

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Pointe shoes clacke on a cracked sidewalk while a little girl drags a red wagon full of comic books down the street. The Rockettes say that your fouettés are good, but could you smile? This was the childhood of Twyla Tharp (née Twila, her mother change the “i” to a “y” because it would look better on a marquee). An art history major in college, dance had always been a part of Tharp’s life, but it was not until she was studying in New York that she fell down the rabbit hole of Graham, Horton and Hawkins technique.

During an hourlong Q&A moderated by Charles Santos, Executive Director of TITAS, we were given an insider view of Tharp’s faith and beliefs, aesthetic philosophy and ideas of beauty.

Born in Indiana to Quaker parents, Tharp’s faith has influenced her philosophy about life and dance. A workhorse with a love for humanity, she holds fast to the ideas central to the Quaker faith and Masonic thinking – individual responsibility and a recognition of emblematic components that constitute human culture – and applies them to her work. As a choreographer, she recognizes the strengths and limitations of herself and her dancers and lets the movement develop organically and mutually. It’s all about exploration, and she enters into the rehearsal process with no absolutes.

These beliefs have shaped her choreographic method based on universal body movement. According to Tharp, it’s better to design movement that can be “inhabited by dissimilar bodies.”  More and more choreographers today are moving in this direction. For years, we were seeing company after company create these extremely impressive pieces of work that featured one or two dancers performing feats beyond the imagination. Yet, those movements could not be taught to anyone else, and if that dancer was injured the show could not go on. But choreography should just happen. It’s not a contrived mode of thinking, it’s what the body does naturally. And that’s what should be on stage: humans doing what humans do. It’s a philosophy that I believe in and do my best to instill in my dancers. If Twyla Tharp also believes in it, then maybe I’m on the right path.

But along with this idea of universal body movement comes Tharp’s aesthetic philosophy, which is focused on the question of beauty. What is beauty? How much beauty can we afford? Tharp, in her own words, is attempting to get “beauty out of the doghouse.”  One way she is doing that is by portraying the masculine side of beauty.

In the dance world, particularly the ballet realm, there is a lack of female choreographers. One reason is that the lion’s share of money and power in ballet lies with men. As a result, much of the concept of beauty has been defined by an ethereal quality illustrated by the female form and constructed by men. This is odd, because what does a man really know of what it is like to be a woman, and what we, as women, consider beautiful, or find beautiful about ourselves? By glorifying women as the be-all-and-end-all of beauty, men have, in turn, short-shifted themselves and the power that is inherent in masculinity. Tharp’s has set out to bring power back to ballet.

And she has been tremendously successful, more successful than any other choreographer. Her success and determination is an inspiration to all choreographers, male or female, and is particularly inspiring to me.  My aesthetic quality as a choreographer and artist is centered on the ideas of strength, power and the framing of women in stereotypical male environments. I try to show that women and men are just human, that gender doesn’t matter.  The concept of equality of women is not about being a feminist; it’s about humanity.  And as Tharp  said, that is what art is: it has “power and humanity” and we can’t be afraid to explore it. Fears are powerful, but we need to “flip the switch” and be “true, fast, and honest” with ourselves.  We need to push the envelope and see where our ideas take us.

Besides her presence in Dallas and her contribution to the dance world, this was the greatest gift Tharp gave the audience.  Be ready to “flip the switch.”  Don’t succumb to your fears or give in to distractions.  Be “true, fast, and honest” with yourself and recognize the power and beauty around you.  This is wonderful advice for any dancer, choreographer, or artist. And for everyone.

Whether you’re the type that stays up late into the night trying to think of ways to revolutionize the art world or you’re the type that sleeps like a baby due to the total conviction that  abstract expressionism requires the artistic skills of an average first-grader, have I got the time killing website for you!

Enter site:   http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

Drag cursor across blank canvas.

Click to change color.

Genius. This is interactivity at its best.

You.