Arts & Entertainment writers offer capsule comments on this, that and the other thing ...

JC Chasez

The ad for the JC Chasez show said it was the "Perfect Mom's Day Gift." This was especially true if your mom was Mrs. Robinson. Some of the dancing was pretty suggestive, but they said the same about Elvis.

Chasez and his six dancers gyrated, pumped, bumped and grinded enough to ensure their further firing from any upcoming sporting event. They also managed to add enough character to make every song on Chasez's solo album palatable.

A crowd of 1,725 (median age 17) witnessed JC, the dancers and a good five-piece band deliver a nearly 90-minute show at the Chevrolet Amphitheatre Sunday night. Performing in front of a set of white cubes that looked like big styrofoam Saltines meant to represent a padded cell, the band performed in scrubs and the female dancers entered in nurses' uniforms. (Those didn't last too long.)

Chasez delivered 14 songs, most from the unfortunately named "Schizophrenic" album. He opened with "All Day Long I Dream About Sex," a song the band played hard and that Chasez delivered with a deep vocal eerily reminiscent of Pete Burns, which suits the music, as it's eerily lifted from Dead or Alive.

On "If You Were My Girl" he bucked and pranced like Mick Jagger in his '80s aerobics phase. For "One Night Stand" everybody was dressed as pimps and hookers. While it's far from Jacques Brel, it worked nicely as a Brel primer for an audience that currently favors candied lipsticks. This was followed by some chatter about how beautiful both the day and Pittsburgh were. That was followed by screams. Everything he said was pretty much always followed by screams, lest some of us forget that this man is, after all, from 'N Sync.

Oh yeah, he can sing, too. There were some high notes and vocal runs in "Dear Goodbye" that made you think it would be possible for him to just stand there and still be effective.

After "Come to Me," the weakest song of the night, the mood was salvaged by a cover of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" including the opening "Dearly beloved ..." monologue. Three songs later was "Shake It," which sounded way too much like a Prince song. The set ended with "Some Girls (Dance With Women)," which has the double punch of Latin guitar flourishes and some inspired if not all-too-literal choreography.

After yet another hard performance on "100 Ways" as an encore, the go-home lights were on seconds after the band put down their instruments. This was an audience with a bedtime.

Opening act Samantha Ronson led her boy band through a half-hour set of light mall rock while sounding like a young charm school graduate version of Alanis Morissette. Her big song "Built This Way" is featured in "Mean Girls," which both she and her audience (and they were there) agree is a very good movie.

-- Review by John Artale for the Post-Gazette

Indian dance

It was an intimate "Dance of Joy" at Carnegie Mellon University's McConomy Auditorium on Sunday afternoon as Sreyashi Dey and Vanathi Gopalakrishnan alternated in an array of works designed to display the range and beauty of India's solo dance traditions.

Gopalakrishnan offered a pair of works in the Bharatanatyam style, one appropriately a hymn to the universal mother on Mother's Day, the other a pure dance in praise of Krishna. As interpreted by Gopalakrishnan, Bharatanatyam was given a more sculptural approach, with a separation of techniques that illustrated the use of the eyes and neck, and full-fledged authoritative poses, nonetheless executed with a certain sweetness and charm.

Working in the Odissi style, Dey displayed a definitive grace, but was still a study in contrasts. There was a light play of emotions across the face, a sweeping arc in the arms and a deliberate weight of the feet, all collected in a symphony of movement.

She produced a quartet of works, each a virtuoso piece in itself, starting with the pre-requisite salutation and then moving on to the effortless foot technique in the "Pallavi in Raga Saveri" and "Dashavatar."

A series of songs about Krishna and Radha illuminated Dey's enormous theatrical gifts, first in an explanation of the movements, then in the work itself. The movements seemed to emanate from the poetic inspiration in the story, accentuated as Dey gently sang along.

-- Review by Jane Vranish, Post-Gazette dance critic

Patty Griffin

At her January 2003 concert at the Byham, Patty Griffin played her original version of The Dixie Chicks' melancholy hit "Top of the World" and teased a few more tunes from an upcoming CD. She played them again in August at the Chevrolet Amphitheatre and in September at the Benedum, in a traveling song circle with Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Dar Williams.

With the release of her fourth studio album, "Impossible Dream," Griffin has finally pressed the songs into digitized plastic and secured her position as one of the most thought-provoking singer-songwriters working today. It's headphones-with-your-eyes-closed music, songs that invite listeners to think about them. In "Top of the World," a dead man laments his wasted life. The poppy "Useless Desires" contemplates unrequited emotional energy, while the panoramic, seven-minute "Mother of God" is as musically beautiful as it is emotionally draining.

Griffin plays the Byham Theater, Downtown, at 8 p.m. tomorrow. Tickets: $29.75-$45, 412-456-6666.

-- Preview by John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Children's Museum

The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh is one of three museums to receive a national award that honors innovative management and programming.

The MetLife Foundation and Association of Children's Museums gave the 2004 Promising Practice Award at a conference in New Orleans earlier this month. The Children's Museum partnered with the University of Pittsburgh Center to study how families use the museum and how its exhibits can support meaningful roles for parent participation in their children's learning.

Kevin Crowley, director of the partnership, also serves as director of research and evaluation for the museum. The association cited the innovative partnership as an important contribution to the children's museum field and one that can be replicated in large and small, urban and even rural museum settings.

The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh also received the award in 1999 for its Mister Rogers' Neighborhood exhibit, which debuted in April 1998 and traveled to museums nationwide. That exhibit will return to Pittsburgh in November and become a permanent part of the museum on the North Side.

-- Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Academy nomination

An Art Institute of Pittsburgh graduate has been selected as a finalist for the 31st annual student Academy Awards.

David Cumbo, a 2003 graduate with a bachelor's degree in media arts and animation, was nominated for his animated film "Fragile." He is one of 29 students from 17 schools nationwide who are nominated for the prizes, which are given in four categories: alternative, animation, documentary and narrative. Cumbo is one of 10 finalists in the animation category.

Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- the organization that bestows the Oscars each year -- will screen the films and decide the winners, who will be honored June 13 at the academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles.

-- Ron Weiskind, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette