Houstonist has always been fascinated by cyborgs. From The Bionic Man to Data, we've often wondered about the possibilities of combining human intelligence with technology. So we're intrigued by this description of this weekend's upcoming DiverseWorks performance The Invention of Minus One: Jonah Bokaer's The Invention of Minus One infuses technology into an exhibition that propels dance and motion-capture techniques into new realms of innovation. Bokaer began using state-of-the-art digital software to develop new movement......

::SNEAK PREVIEW: Dance Salad:: Get a sneak peak tonight of the fourth annual Dance Salad Festival as the MFA hosts a Choreographers’ at 6:30 p.m. in the MFAH’s Brown Auditorium, Caroline Wiess Law Building. This free event highlights the creative process of making dance and is a wonderful opportunity to understand some of the work being presented at Dance Salad Festival from the choreographers’ perspective. A reception to meet the panelists follows the program,......

::Hope Stone Dance Company premieres SEE Me:: How do we see? Do we need sight to know the world? How are we blind to ourselves? Tonight at the Wortham Center, under the direction of award-winning choreographer Jane Weiner, Hope Stone Dance Company wil premeire SEE Me, . While general admission is $25, Hope Stone, Inc. will open the 800 balcony seats free to at risk youth from local schools and after-school programs. Implicit in......

::Suchu Dance premieres Babka at Barnevelder Movement Complex:: Tonight opens Suchu Dance's newest performance, Babka, at the neato Barnevelder Movement Complex. If you've not been to a Suchu Dance performance, or visited this unique performing arts venue, you are in for a treat tonight. In a unique way to kick-off this performance, Suchu Dance is offering a dinner/show preview tonight. For $29.99 you can catch a sneak peek of the new performance and have a......

Dammit, Houston *is* a literary town! Here's a slew of readings happening this week, from the hilarious David Sedaris to the wry Nick Hornby and the unbalanced Lisa Belkin. Her word choice, not ours. We love books. Wednesday, October 24th at 7:30PM William Henry Lewis and Justin Cronin at DiverseWorks 1117 East Freeway, *FREE* Two heavy-hitting writers with a bucket of awards apiece. Lewis is the author of In the Arms of Our Elders......

Into art? How about dance? You like music? Theater? Have a thing for opera? Or maybe you just (pretend to) like “culture” in general to seem smart and hip and urban? Want to impress a date while not knowing a damn thing about the previously mentioned subjects? Boy, does Houstonist have a shindig for you. Tonight brings us Culture Collision II, hosted by a fleet of Museum and Theatre District young professionals' groups, including the......

Bayou City Arts Festival - Downtown Need tickets to this weekend's Bayou City Arts Festival? We gotcha covered. We scored a few pairs, so drop us an email at monica (@) houstonist dot com and we'll hook you up. (And not like the time we tried to hook you up with our boyfriend's 3rd cousin. Sorry about that.) This all can be yours, for the low, low price of free (aka send an email to......

Houston's Theater District is having an Open House this Sunday, August 26th from noon to 5PM, while also hosting Taste of Downtown, meaning there's lots to sample for free, free, free! Besides about 40 million performances, there will also be backstage tours, sneak previews of the 2007-2008 Theater District seasons, Q&A's with performers, activities for the kids such as costume trunks and an instrument petting zoo, free refreshments, season ticket information booths and lots......

We were kind of interested last week when we noticed the story of Frederic "Ric" Brame, the 72-year-old dance instructor who is facing a charge of sexual assault of a child. Brame, who taught dance in Montgomery County, allegedly began assaulting a former student when she was 12 or 13 years old — but that wasn't all: Investigators say that, for years, Brame has pretended to be noted movie and Broadway dancer Tommy Rall. And......

Get Spammed: Monty Python Opens Spamalot @ Hobby Center Tonight The Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 2005, Monty Python's SPAMALOT, will make its Houston debut for a limited four-week engagement at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts May 22 - June 17, 2007. Lovingly "ripped-off" from the internationally famous comedy team's most popular motion picture, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python's SPAMALOT is the winner of three 2005 Tony Awards including......

Hey y'all! Paula Deen will be right here in Houston this Friday night! Promoting her new memoir, "It Ain't All About the Cookin'" she will be speaking at Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall in an event titled "A Conversation with Paula Deen". Houston Intown Chamber of Commerce is bringing Paula to town to tell us all about her American Dream, from Georgia girl to successful restaurant-owner and star of her own FoodTV show, she has accomplished......

Many of Houston's top theaters and arts venues have announced their 2007-2008 season schedules, and if you get your tix now, you not only get better seats and better prices (5-20% discounts), you get something to look forward to after the summer's imminent heat wave. Each venue offers different deals and packages; follow the links to get the full scoop. The Society for the Performing Arts Highlights: Lily Tomlin, David Sedaris, the Shaolin Warriors,......

Shepherd School of Music present the Rice Chorale We heart many things about Rice University, but probably at the top of our list would be the Shepherd School of Music. As we told you back in February, The Rice School of Music is one of the city's best resources for FREE classical music. And you know we like FREE things. :-) Tonight the Rice Chorale performs with director Thomas Jaber. The program includes mass movements......

The Society of Performing Arts Houston presents: Daniel Bernard Roumain Composer, performer, violinist and band-leader Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), seamlessly blends funk, rock, hip-hop and classical into a new sonic vision that is “far out and creative in another world.” DBR and THE MISSION is comprised of nine young musicians from diverse musical backgrounds including an amplified string quartet, percussionist, keyboardist, DJ and a “laptopist.” Each member is well-versed in classical, jazz, rock and hip-hop......

You don’t have to be a tortured artist to thoroughly enjoy the fantastic poetry of Mary Oliver or Billy Collins, both of whom are coming to Houston next week. Mary Oliver’s 24 books of poems use imagery from wildlife and the natural world to talk about, well, everything. Her reverence for the seemingly incidental makes you remember why being in nature can be, dare we say, powerful and transcendent. Inprint is bringing her to town......

Two internationally acclaimed artists join the Houston Chamber Orchestra for a diverse program tonight at the Hobby Center. Pianist Charles Asche performs as soloist in Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58.” Asche has performed throughout the United States, in Russia and South America and is currently on the piano faculty at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was among the first American pianists to perform in the......

TUTS Apprentice Conservatory Training holds Auditions for Teens Got teens? Then you probably got drama, too. Put that pouty, self-absorbed, emotional crap to good use: the THEE-ata! Houston's Theater Under the Stars' Humphreys School of Musical Theatre announces its fourth annual ACT@TUTS (Apprentice Conservatory Training at Theatre Under The Stars). The program will hold open auditions for The Stephen Schwartz Project, a new musical revue featuring songs by the award-winning Broadway composer and lyricist......

The Bayou City Art Festival is happening this weekend (Friday-Sunday) at Memorial Park, and Houstonist has two free tickets to give away. The Bayou City Art Festival has been held by the Art Colony Association since 1996, but traces of it date back to 1971. It is consistently one of the top-rated festivals in the country and it was rated one of AmericanStyle Magazine's top 5 fairs and festivals in 2005. The festival is held......

John and George, right there in front of downtown Houston. The last time these two and their buddies Paul and Ringo were in town together was on August 19, 1965. Admission was five bucks and they performed twice, a matinee and an evening show! They played the Sam Houston Coliseum which was located in the same area as the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts and that's not too far from David Addicke's studio,......

Did you know that Houston has more than 500 cultural, visual, and performing arts organizations? Neither did we. We did however suspect that something strange was going on when we heard Houston had the second largest Theater District in the nation. Houstonist feels like our artsy professor step dad just bench pressed 2,000lbs. The Orange Show for Visionary Arts is just one little guy in the multitude of Houston’s arts organizations, but Houstonist thinks if......

Looking for something to do this weekend? Like traditional Irish music? Feeling kinda like dudding up and hitting The Houston Symphony for a nice evening out - hey, date night options! The Chieftains will be performing this Friday through Sunday. This internationally acclaimed group has been touring in North America (off and on, of course) for over 33 years and have been around for over 42. Here's a snippet from their official biography, to familiarize......

Dave Brubeck, still young at the age of 85, will be performing in Houston next month with the Houston Chamber Choir, one of our city's premiere ensembles. A brief description of the show from their website: Jazz legend Dave Brubeck, his quartet, and the Houston Chamber Choir join forces for a not-to-be-missed concert of his sacred choral works including movements from La fiesta de la Posada and To Hope! A Celebration. The evening wouldn’t be......

The couple who called the cops the night of the infamous Two Gallants show at Walter's on Washington spoke to the Chronicle this weekend: Ryland and Scott Peveto, who own a Victorian shotgun house behind the club, say that the bass from Walter's is shaking their house — and their peace of mind. The Pevetos said when they bought the house a couple of years ago, noise wasn't much of an issue; now, though, the......

Baytown's City Council has been looking over sketches from Hunter Interests, Inc., that show a plan of action for Texas Avenue's revitalization. Hunter Interests' president Don Hunter sees hope for restaurants and retail, although he admits it will never be the destination it was in the past. Performing arts attractions are also on the drawing board:“We could establish a college of the arts or a dance school nearby,” he said. “Performing arts would become an......

Get on the bus and get over to the Bayou City Art Festival this weekend in Memorial Park. This annual Houston event, put on by the Art Colony Association, is outdoor art gallery on an 8/10 of a mile loop featuring over 300 artists that create nineteen different forms of artistic media. The Art Colony Association is dedicated to putting on high quality art festivals to provide financial support to local organizations - to......

The rivalry between Houston and Dallas isn't news — but media outlets in both cities occasionally try to make news out of it. The latest example: a story from KTVT in Dallas, which skims over the differences between the cities and comes to no real conclusion. Bragging rights become most important when it comes to bringing in tourists. “Probably Houston has seen it's zenith if you will. In Dallas we have not peaked yet......