We know: The beginning of the work week sucks. But if you take a quick look at the calendar, you'll see we're off to a pretty good week of art events, sporting events, dance parties, and more. Here are our must-see events from now to the weekend.
Monday, April 29: Casebeer: "The Sentence Camera" @ Tilt Gallery For the past five years, Casebeer has been taking notes. The Phoenix artist (who goes by her last name only) went to school for creative writing and says she started painting and collaging when she had a bad case of writer's block. But for the past few years, the words have started to come back.
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She calls her process "The Sentence Camera," which has been a five-year project/habit of writing down bits of overheard dialogue on her arm in Sharpie marker. (And, yes, though she's run the idea by Sharpie, the company doesn't recommend writing on your arm for five years.)
Last summer, the artist crossed paths with the owners of Tilt Gallery, 7046 East Main Street in Scottsdale, and dreamed up a solo exhibition that could showcase her documentary art project. The result is a massive installation of words Casebeer has taken from her Sentence Camera and scrawled on paper that covers the gallery's walls, along with text-based paintings and photographs she took along the way. -- Claire Lawton
Tuesday, April 30: ASU Undie Run @ ASU
What could be more freeing than celebrating the last day of class by stripping down to the bare essentials and doing so for a good cause? The sixth annual ASU Undie Run keeps the streak alive Tuesday, April 30.
Curmudgeons might write off the ASU Undie Run as college-kid silliness, but each year more participants show up and more charities receive aid. Benefitting from clothing, canned food, and monetary donations this year are Andre House, Arizona Helping Hands, Central Arizona Shelter Service, Move for Hunger, Standup for Kids, and the Teen Resource Center. DJs Will See and Sterling will keep the tunes pumping for thousands of skivvy-clad dashers.
The ASU Undie Run starts at 6:30 p.m. on the corner of Sixth Street and Packard Drive. Participants must bring two cans of food and clothing to donate, along with an ASU Sun Card as proof of being a current student. -- Jose Gonzalez
Thursday, May 2: Mayme Kratz: "sometimes the darkness" @ Lisa Sette Gallery A quick look at the artwork of Mayme Kratz does little to tell the story of her process. The Phoenix artist made a name for herself by building complex environments and diorama-like sculptures with a collection of natural specimens captured in resin. Kratz has an incredible eye for detail and says her collections, which include a variety of bones, shells, beetles, seeds, twigs, leaves, snakes, and wings, are really about recording memory.
Her latest series, titled "sometimes the darkness" is on view through Saturday, June 1, at Lisa Sette Gallery, where visitors can view what Sette calls "a window onto secret biological systems, glowing beneath the moody translucence of a resinous surface." -- Claire Lawton
Thursday, May 2: Ballet Arizona: All Balanchine @ Symphony Hall The concept of devoting your life to the beautiful movement of male and female bodies, working on their own and intertwined as one, isn't just a sleazy pick up line coming from the mouth of the skeezeball at the bar. It was the lifework of famed Russian choreographer George Balanchine. And unlike that skeezeball, he wasn't trying to get in your pants. Rather, he wanted to make a nest in your artistic mind, focusing on the way music and movement work together to create an unmatched audio and visual experience.
The ballet master choreographed hundreds of dance numbers in his life, but this week you can see four of the very best when Ballet Arizona performs them as part of All Balanchine at Symphony Hall, 75 North Second Street. On the program are the intricate and ornate "Momentum pro Gesualdo," "Serenade," and "The Four Temperaments," perhaps the most famous of all Balanchine's works. Price: $26 - $156 -- Christina Caldwell
Friday, May 3: Woman and Girl @ Space 55 Patti Hannon, a fine actress who's ruled for years in the Late Night Catechism series, does not always play a bossy old Polish-American nun. Currently, Hannon stars in Woman and Girl, "a show about what life in Phoenix can be like, once you get past . . . the main thoroughfares," playwright Charlie Steak says. "I wanted to write about the desert; we're so close to it but so far away. The two people come together because of a loss. That doesn't mean that the play is a downer. It's gentle, but it does have some laughs."
Brinley Nassise co-stars in the family-friendly production, opening at 8 p.m. Friday, May 3, and continuing through Sunday, May 19, at Space 55. Price: $15 for adults, $5 for children. -- Julie PetersonCheck out more things to do today (and everyday) in our Calendar section ...