Ellen Anthony Gets Physical
On her way to see Meredith Monk’s last dance performance in New York City five years ago, Ellen Anthony slipped on the ice and injured her shoulder. She took up painting as a way to distract herself from the pain.
“Absorbed in color, shape, and line relationships, I lost awareness of being in a body,” she says. “It worked! Now it’s a practice that I can’t live without.”
Her current exhibition at Wellfleet Preservation Hall (335 Main St.) features paintings and fantastical low-fi, sculptural pieces — mostly figures and props that she used during her Quirky Circus performances before she turned to painting. The pieces are inventively if crudely constructed. Their magic exists in their potential for movement and narrative: the promise of animation.
Anthony’s paintings likewise vibrate with spirit. Considering the circumstances that introduced her to painting, it’s fitting that her work relates to concerns of the body. And although she never did make that Meredith Monk performance, the paintings radiate with an energy akin to dance: they’re nimble, adventurous, liberated, and improvisational.
The connection to dance is perhaps most explicit in Yellow me, a large figurative painting on raw unstretched canvas. The sturdy figure is captured in movement. Likewise, the marks on canvas — looping lines and palette-knife-applied passages of paint — are kinetic, physical gestures captured in place. There’s no pretense or excessive finish to belie Anthony’s physical pleasure in making these works. In a pair of perfectly unfinished smaller works in the downstairs gallery, Pink With Legs and Talking At, Anthony suggests bodies, but they are eclipsed by spontaneous painterly gestures that move over, around, and through the figures. And Anthony’s subject matter is not limited to figures: she also brings a physicality to her landscapes along with a color sensibility grounded in conditions of weather and place.
There will be an artist talk at the hall on March 23 at 6 p.m. The exhibition is on view until March 28. See wellfleetpreservationhall.org for information. —Abraham Storer
Theater for Everybody in Everybody
The belief that everybody has a place in the performing arts is central to the Cape Rep Theatre’s Bold Company, a theater program for Cape Cod residents 55 years and older with little or no previous acting experience.
Fittingly, the ensemble will present the play Everybody at the Cape Rep Theatre (3299 Main St., Brewster) on Friday and Saturday, March 10 and 11 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, March 12 at 2 p.m. Eighteen members of the Bold Company from across the Cape will participate in the production.
Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Everybody is a modern riff on the anonymous 15th-century morality play Everyman, in which one character — the Everyman — reflects on the nature of good and evil in the face of coming death and eventually before God. In the current adaptation, Jacobs-Jenkins offers a more playful examination of the human condition. But the basic message of the play remains the same: everybody must face mortality, just as “Everyman” did centuries before.
The play was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2017. Julie Allen Hamilton is the director of the Cape Rep Theatre’s Bold Company production.
Tickets are $10 ($5 for students under 18). Call the box office at 508-896-1888 for reservations or see caperep.org for information. —Dorothea Samaha
An Artist Plays With Perspective
Barnstable-based artist Richard Perry’s talents converge in his exhibition Looking Deeply: Richard Perry’s Exploration of Gender in Relief, currently on view at the Cape Cod Museum of Art (60 Hope Lane, Dennis).
A photographer, boat builder, college chemistry major, ophthalmology hobbyist, and former lawyer, Perry retired from his day job in the law in 2013 and has since devoted himself to furthering his experimental relief painting practice.
The museum notes that experiencing one of Perry’s sculptures is “moving in every way.” They mean that literally: as the viewer moves around the gallery and observes Perry’s intricate three-dimensional carvings exploring the gendered body, surprising and varied perspectives emerge. The artist calls his style “holographic art”; the influence of ancient Egyptian relief paintings, which Perry studied at the Metropolitan Museum of Art while living in New York City early in his career, is apparent.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Perry will teach a class on relief sculpture and painting beginning on March 9 and running through April 13. The exhibition is on view until April 30. See ccmoa.org for information. —Amelia Roth-Dishy
Jordan Renzi at Wellfleet Preservation Hall
Folk artist Jordan Renzi says her style started out as a take on music from the likes of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. But it’s evolved to become more modern. “Right now, it’s sort of folky,” she says. “With a little bit of soul in there, too.” (Wellfleet Preservation Hall’s publicity describes her sound as “dreamy, contemplative, and gauzy.”)
Renzi will perform a mix of original songs and covers at the hall (335 Main St., Wellfleet) on Thursday, March 16, 6 to 7:30 p.m. She will be joined by Luke Massouh on drums and Mark Usher on guitar.
Renzi played her first open mic in college and moved back to the Cape, where she grew up, after graduation. “That’s where I got serious about music,” she says. She has since released several singles, albums, and EPs through her Bandcamp profile.
Despite the familiar influences in her music, Renzi resists being pigeonholed. “What I love about this type of music is that it’s hard to define,” she says. “It doesn’t matter how you categorize it. It’s how it makes you feel.”
Tickets are $18 general admission ($19 at the door), and $10 for kids under 13 at wellfleetpreservationhall.org. —Eve Samaha
Summer Internships at PAAM
Applications are now being accepted for summer internships at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM).
Selected interns will divide their time between the education and exhibition departments of the museum and work where the two intersect, such as public programs for the permanent collection and special exhibitions; work will depend on department needs and the strengths and interests of individual interns. PAAM says that interns will work with museum staff, receive practical training in multiple departments, and gain experience in studio classroom, gallery, and office environments.
The two-month internship program runs from mid-June through mid-August, with an average commitment of 18 hours during the work week, or 144 hours total over the eight weeks of the program. Evening and weekend work may be required for special events. The part-time hours are intentionally designed so that interns can seek additional summer employment opportunities in Provincetown. The salary is $18 per hour.
Applications for the internships, which are open to college students and recent college graduates in addition to those with relevant work experience and research interests, are due April 1. See paam.org/internship for more information.
