For eight days, the UC Davis Theatre and Dance department will be hosting the second annual The Edge Performance Festival at Wright Hall. The festival presents a series of works written, directed and acted by UC Davis undergraduate students. There are also a few graduate student performances included as well.

Last year’s inaugural event was a hit with students and faculty. This year, the festival will have Solo Explorations, Undergraduate One-Acts and midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show that attendees can participate in. Two new events have been added: a staged reading of Caridad Svich’s The Way of Water, which is about the effects of the BP oil spill, and Hour of 5’s Performance Work, which is a series of five-minute acts of scenes, monologues, dances and songs.

Will Klundt, a second-year MFA acting candidate with the UC Davis Theatre Department, is this year’s assistant artistic director for the Hour of 5’s. He will also be one of the several MFA actors performing in a solo show that he wrote and directed for Here I go: MFA Solo Explorations.

“The ‘edge’ in the title has quite a few meanings. Not only are we at the edge temporally, as we are producing almost entirely brand new performances, but often we are also experimenting with styles and theories of performance as we mix traditional theatre, performance art, music and dance,” Klundt said about the festival.

In the span of a single night, audience members will get the chance to see jazz singing or a short scene or even modern dance — basically whatever strikes their fancy. Not only that, but most of the work on display is also new – written and acted out by UCD students – and has never been performed until now.

Jennifer Adler, a senior dramatic art and music major, is a writer and performer for the festival. She wrote Welcome to Heaven, which is about a young man’s experiences after his death, and she will be singing an aria for the Hour of 5’s. Adler expressed appreciation of the festival as a stage for students to showcase their unique and creative works for the public.

“Welcome to Heaven is based on my own experiences with grief and it showcases grief from a unique perspective, being that of the person who died,” said Adler. “I think students should come to the festival to see a wide variety of original theater that they wouldn’t normally be able to see.”

Jeremy Oase is a second-year MFA actor who will also be joining Klundt in Solo Explorations with his own piece titled Where Eagles Dare: Mission to Mars, a surreal tale of a NASA mission specialist in charge of cockroaches named Shane Thompson who goes on a mission to Mars to save mankind.

“The Edge Festival is about students having the opportunity to present student work, which is awesome. It’s a festival, so plan on wearing garlands and dancing around the maypole — kidding!” Oase said. “Although, Rocky Horror is another story. It’s really just a lot of talented people doing their thing.”

Many of the students who are involved are excited about The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which, for those who aren’t quite up to date with their rock musical plays, is a parody of science fiction and horror movies that starred film nobility such as Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry. Audience members are encouraged to wear outrageous costumes and sing along with the songs.

Kymberly Sugano, a junior wildlife, fish and conservation biology major, is one of the emcees for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The event takes place on Saturday nights, including the night of Picnic Day.

“This is a great way to see a variety of different shows. It’s always a lot a fun and personally Rocky is the highlight. You get to dress up and really interact. And it’s Rocky; how can you not enjoy it?” Sugano said.

Short plays, dance performances, one-actor shows and even dancing in fishnets for The Rocky Picture Horror Show: The Edge Festival is already spilling with performances waiting to be discovered and attended by all.

Solo Explorations at 7:30 p.m. in the Arena Theatre 4/12 and 4/13
Main Stage Dance at 8 p.m. at Main Theatre 4/12 to 4/14 and 4/19, 4/20 and 4/22
The Way of Water at 9 p.m. in the Arena Theatre 4/12
Rocky Horror at midnight at Main Theatre 4/14 and 4/21
One Acts/Hour of 5’s at 9 p.m. in Lab A 4/13 and 4/20, 5 p.m. 4/15 and 3 p.m. 4/22
$10 per event. Visit theatredance.ucdavis.edu for more info

MICHELLE RUAN can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

MONDAVI
Bettye LaVette
Friday, April 13 at 8 p.m., $49/$24.5 (student)
Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center
According to The New York Times, “Ms. LaVette now rivals Aretha Franklin as her generation’s most vital soul singer.” LaVette’s 2010 album re-imagines songs by The Beatles, The Who, Elton John and Eric Clapton. Get ready for a night of a gritty, soulful voice that belongs to Bettye LaVette.

Indian Student Association’s Culture Show 2012: Sunehri Shaam, A Night of Indian Elegance
Saturday, April 14 at 5 p.m. (doors open at 4:30), $20/$15 (student)
Mondavi Center
This evening will celebrate Indian culture and express Indian identity to the campus. Presented by the Indian Student Association, A Night of Indian Elegance highlights traditions through dance and music. The UC Davis a capella group and premier intercollegiate dance teams will also perform to showcase the talents of students that identify with the South Asian community.

Phil Kline’s Zippo Songs: Poems from the Front with Theo Bleckmann
Saturday, April 14 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 15 at 2 p.m.
$37/$18.5 (student)
Vanderhoef Studio Theatre Cabaret, Mondavi Center
Part of the Studio Classics at the Mondavi Center, this event shows off the talents of Todd Reynolds (violin), David Cosslin (percussion), Phil Kline (guitar) and Theo Bleckmann (vocals). Inspired by the texts that American GIs engraved on their Zippo lighters in Vietnam, Zippo Songs (2003) is set to music. According to The New Yorker, it’s “one of the most brutally frank song cycles ever penned.”

Explosions in the Sky with Zammuto
Sunday, April 15 at 8 p.m., sold out
Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center
Another Planet Entertainment, working with Entertainment Council, present Explosions in the Sky with Zammuto as the opening performance. Formed in 1999, Explosions in the Sky is the product of three longtime friends from West Texas. Their most recent album, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, was released in April 2011. Zammuto, the opening performance, will provide an eclectic combination of natural and unnatural sounds.

ART/GALLERY

Owen Glass Trunk Show
Friday, April 13, 4 to 9 p.m., free
The Wardrobe, 206 E Street
Working together with Davis’ Downtown Art About, The Wardrobe presents a Spring Trunk Show featuring a Bay Area jewelry artist named Emeline Owen. Music will be provided by The Sound of Fashion featuring DJ Emily French. The Owen Glass Collection was founded in 1972 by Owen’s father and contains rare class from the Deco Era, circa 1920 to 1930. Some pieces were made in Czechoslovakia, Bavaria, Wattens, Kobe and Milano, while others are made of old and new glass.

MUSIC

Sacramento Choral Society and Orchestra: English Grandeur
Saturday, April 14 at 8 p.m., $55/$45/$35/half-off (student ID)
Community Center Theatre, 1301 L Street, Sacramento
In a tribute to the English Romantic Tradition, the Sacramento Choral Society and Orchestra presents Belshazzar’s Feast. With special guests such as the Sacramento Children’s Chorus, Lynn Stevens and Clayton Brainerd, the night will be filled with the “epic work of enormous passion, sensitivity and unparalleled drama.”

FILM

Davis Feminist Film Festival
Thursday, April 12 and Friday, April 13 at 6 p.m.
$5-15 sliding scale for presale, $10 (student) at door
Veterans Memorial Center Theatre, 203 E. 14th Street
The Consortium for Women and Research presents a grassroots festival of short films from around the world. This film festival features issues and perspectives that are often ignored by the mainstream media.

Artist: Chromatics
Album: Killing for Love
Label: Italians Do It Better
Rating: 4

If others are anything like me, they might have first heard the Chromatics during the opening scene of Drive (2011), arguably one of the most engaging opening sequences from any film ever. In that scene, they provide the “Tick of the Clock,” a thuddingly simple and rhythmic song loaded with a rare kind of intensity, emanating cool and a style forging toward the cinematic.

Their album, Kill for Love, is made less of that cinematic electronic type. It is, instead of the vocalized, quasi-pop orientation, mostly electronic, partially everything else. Their influences appear to range everywhere from the hypermodern to, broadly speaking, the ‘80s.

That is not to say, of course, that the album lacks a design. On the contrary: While it exudes a variety that might be confused as scattered, there is an aesthetic union overall which is a type of melancholic perturbation in regards to, what else, love.

At times, M83 is recalled in their sound, but whereas M83 sweeps toward grandeur in a seeming rebuke of defeatism, Kill for Love refuses that tendency and instead sinks toward the low, slow rhythms of a more shadowy moodiness (in keeping with the tone of the album’s title). Important to note: This isn’t a bad thing.

Overall the album is well-produced, and the vocals are more than adequate, but where it really shines is in the instrumental stretches. That is, particularly, where the music really rises to a cinematic plain, high density, heavy sounds, rich feelings and a strong degree of focus.

If you’re expecting a whole series of “Tick of the Clocks” here, you’ll likely be disappointed by this one. It is, though, well worth the time, and is a strong showing from a group that probably is, and deserves to be, on the rise.

Check out these songs: “These Streets Will Never Look the Same,” “Lady,” “There’s a Light Out on the Horizon”

For fans of: M83, The Knife, Massive Attack

— JAMES O’HARA

Pina Bausch, the German contemporary dance choreographer whose career spans both the forefront and avant garde of dance, is the subject of Wim Wender’s film.

Currently playing at Varsity Theatre on Second Street, Pina celebrates the life and contributions of an artist true to her craft. The film documents the style of dance most prolific with Bausch called “Tanztheater.” Combining the stark presence of an elaborate stage and the deft movements of the dancers makes for a stylistic progression that was novel in the ‘70s.

Being in the crutch of the movie theater cushion relieves some of the magic from the “stage” of Pina. The movie attempts to recreate the experience normally received at a theater: a stage, live performers and the physicality of it all. Here, the silver screen is your stage. One really can feel the flatness of it all. But as a movie celebrating the tenured life of Bausch, Pina succeeds, creating an overarching presence of Bausch, even if she cannot be there herself.

Pina combines renditions of her most famous dance works, mixed with dances performed in locals she most frequented in her life. Frühlingsopfer, Café Müller, Kontakthof, and Vollmond divide the movie into four acts. At times, the film does patchy work transitioning from set pieces. The narration has some faults in the difficulty of conveying who Bausch is.

Her dance company, Tanztheatre Wuppertal, makes up the dancers and the subjects of Wender’s film. Between the performances, the film overlays interviews that frame Bausch in different perspectives from her dancers. The entire movie, in a sense, is a celebratory work, honoring the late Bausch. Honor is duly given to Bausch, who in short deserves the film’s dedication. In all, Pina is an enjoyable film for those who know a bit about Bausch’s life. For having read this article, you should be all set.

PETER AN can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.