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

Pillow Project's 'Striped'

Honesty walked hand-in-hand with an ebullient sense of discovery at The Pillow Project's latest venture, "Striped." Steeped in the straight-forward, underproduced language of The White Stripes' garage rock style, it was perfectly located in what may be considered an oversized garage for military vehicles -- the Hunt Armory in Shadyside.

Visitors Saturday were greeted by a trio of cars -- appropriately red, white and black, the Stripes' signature colors -- and color-coordinated artwork leading to the main event. Bleachers overlooked a massively constructed set, four rooms in all, with a stretch of doors that would periodically provide a slamming accent to the music.

It was honesty of lyrics and intention that catapulted the Stripes to fame, and artistic director Pearlann Porter made that her focus for this ultra-rockin' dance concert. That meant channeling the raw emotions and bare attitude of the Stripes, which translated into low, earth-driven movement, chunky rhythms and funky phrases.

Synchronization was a mite fuzzy at times, but these young dancers have energetically tapped into Porter's source movement, and it whirled like an eddy to draw in the audience.

Highlights included two duets -- one involving a kitchen table and the other a live Pollock-esque painting, in which the brush abstracted the movement -- and a tennis match in which the audience followed the action in two identical bedrooms but with different perspectives.

Dionna Pridgeon, a powerful urban dance specialist, made a welcome return, and Tim Winski provided the dramatic glue as the guy who was in search of his authentic self and found that, in the end, nothing is black and white. But maybe a passionate red.

"Striped" continues at the Hunt Armory at 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Tickets: $10-$12; 412-661-8110 or www.pillowproject.org.

-- Jane Vranish,
Post-Gazette dance critic

Bela Fleck & the Flecktones

Do-re-mi ... burp!

Call it musical humor: a predictable progression that is intentionally altered for comic effect. Musical humor can also take the form of stagecraft -- while bassist Victor Wooten sets off on a long solo improv, banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck, horn player Jeff Coffin and percussionist Future Man cross their arms, check their watches and roll their eyes, as if the bassist were a self-indulgent diva. Or perhaps, in the middle of a song, Fleck and Wooten playfully turn each other's tuning keys without screwing up the song. It's unexpected, colorful and, well, funny.

Musical humor is also incredibly hard to pull off live. Most artists don't even try. When The Flecktones played the Byham Theater in 2003, they had the crowd in stitches with antics that Fleck says weren't choreographed, more or less. He calls it part of a natural evolution that occurs when musicians of a certain caliber, and friends of a certain personality, spend a certain amount of time together on road tours, such as the one that brings Bela Fleck & the Flecktones back to the Byham Theater tonight.

"Certain things happen naturally, and if a wonderful moment happens, you're not losing integrity to let it happen again in the same place in the song," Fleck says. "We don't have a set list. Every night is different, so we can play around a little."

Touring bands with popular hits can easily get locked into playing the same songs night after night, year after year. The Flecktones have a built-in remedy for that: no hits. Having started as an experiment in playing the banjo as a jazz lead instrument, they've consistently defied conventions and expectations.

Not satisfied with being among a few pickers to have influenced the banjo's modern jazz make-over, Fleck has since recorded an album of works from the classical canon performed on banjo, and a duet with classical bassist Edgar Meyer.

On Sept. 9 in Nashville, Fleck, Meyer and Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain performed a groundbreaking, genre-busting, commissioned concerto.

The most recent Flecktones album, "Hidden Land," was released in February.

"A lot of what we do is improvisational," he says. "The question is, exactly what is improvisation? For me, it means different things in different situations.

"On the road, we don't rehearse, but we play around a lot with the songs during sound check. [In concert], I try to play something different in every song every night. The audience is the most critical element there. They really dictate what's happening."

Even when what's happening sounds like, "Do-re-mi ... burb!"

The concert is at 8 tonight at the Byham Theater, Downtown. Tickets: $34.25, 412-323-1919.

-- John Hayes,
Post-Gazette staff writer