Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 46

4E SaturdayDecember 11 990 Star Tribune Persimmon Peel' song and story of 2 black females A review Holiday lighting directory due The Star Tribune will publish 1 a directory of some of the i larger displays of residential holiday decorations in the metropolitan area in the Dec 16 Variety section. To be con-; sidered for inclusion in the directory, send your name, address, a brief description of your display and a phone number where information can be verified during business hours. Send the information, postmarked by Dec. Persimmon Peel Who: Created and performed by Laurie Carlos, Robbie McCauley and Don Meissner. Art Center, Where: Walker Minneapolis.

Whn: Today, 8 p.m. 8, to Holiday Lights, Star Trib- une, 425 Portland Av. Min-'. Tickets: $10. Call 375-7622.

Review: In an often elusive yet compelling performance "duologue," the experience of two black girls growing up in the '50s illuminates notions of self-identification. page philosophy, the closing of an upscale Minneapolis women's store because of the timidity of consumers, and slowly he begins taking his clothes off. At the end of the piece, as the two women are singing about not wanting to "do it in the jungles of America," Meissner is naked, lying seductively on the floor, still smoking as the lights fade out. That image, like much of the show, is elusive and personal. The seductiveness of whiteness, the interpretation of experience by the white-dominated media, a baring of banality? Whatever the image might mean, it has an inherent power, a non-specific emotional urgency.

Carlos and McCauley are a beautifully contrasted team, McCauley tall, lean and dramatic, Carlos shorter, heavier, idiosyncratically compelling. McCauley is a powerful actress who radiates anger just beneath the surface, while Carlos is an expressive singer and witty, ironic comedian. Together they reconstruct the experiences that created them, and search with grace and grit for the poetry that will illuminate and clarify them. neapoiis, Minn. 33400.

WhatSGoing OnHere? Get (he big picture. International developments in the StarTlbune By Mike St toStaff Writer "Persimmon Peel," the latest collaboration between Laurie Carlos and Robbie McCauley, is a cryptic, often poetically allusive little work, barely an hour long, dealing very personalty with the complexities of black, female self-definition. Presented as part of Walker Art Center's "Suitcase Iconoclasts" series, "Persimmon Peel" is a "duologue" in which two riveting performers spin out fragments of stories, reminiscences, fleeting images from their lives, enigmatic observations, elusive metaphors and haunting songs to create a collage of black life. The two met while performing in Ntozake Shange's unlikely Broadway hit "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf," and their show owes something to Shange's tough, oblique urban poetic style. Most often the two present individual monologues, sometimes overlapping, sometimes in counterpoint, to conjur up reality as seen by two black girls growing up in the '50s in New York City.

On the occasions that they come together, acknowledging and embracing each other's presence, it's usually to establish a deeply loving sense of sisterhood. It's not a chronological narrative and they don't play characters but simply relate subtle information. They aim their show at black audiences, for whom certain images are powerful in ways they aren't for whites. They begin with images of puzzlement over a mother's "cover-ups," her use of cosmetics, wigs, anything to hide her real self. Carlos' obsession with her sister's hair revives memories of pre-Black Power shame over not having silky, straight hair and Malcolm X's brutal autobiographical chapter on straightening his hair.

There is talk about Sweden and France, European outlets for many gifted and oppressed blacks in the '50s and '60s, of the collision between pork, a soul-food staple, and the requirements of kosher kitchens. There's a lovely story about racial self-awareness when Carlos, in the third grade, gets a marriage proposal from a white boy "around the monkey bars." He's pink, she's brown and the resulting children, she's told, will be Chinese. A musical snatch from "Carmen Jones," a reduction of Bizet's opera "Carmen" into a white version of black life, shows how black artistry can be misappropriated. Both are keenly aware of "white people's territory" and apprehensive, even as small girls trying to find strawberry gum, when they have to venture there. AAA A ArT Wf A Jtfi A A A AtWa A AAA A A A A A A TTai A A A A A AtnOA ArHHl 555553555 3 Laurie Carlos, an expressive singer and witty, ironic comedian, collaborates with Robbie McCauley in "Persimmon Peel." rir 'Kiss During their performance, a white man, composer Don Meissner, walks to his space on the far left side of the stage, sits in a chair and chain-smokes cigarettes.

He occasionally reads passages from newspapers about rising black mortality rates, locker-room sports- har "v-e-' 1 a I COMPLETE COCKTAIL SERVICE id EXHIBIT: Some traditions are changing, fading Hmong Odyssey: Tradition in Transition Where: The Science Museum of Minnesota, 30 E. 10th St. Paul. When: A new permanent exhibit; museum hours are 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Tuesday through Saturday, 1 1 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $4 for adults; $3 for children 12 and under and seniors 65 and over. Call: 221-9488.

TEQUILABERRY'S 7 CALIFORNIA RESTAURANT Coon Rapids Blvd. at Hwy. 10 (Near Northtown) Another tradition, involving a "curse potion," is also fading. Thao said the potion is a substance used to settle disputes. For more serious matters, such as murder, a mixture of water and chicken blood is drunk by either the complaining or defending party to prove they aren't lying.

(If both sides are willing to drink the potion, the case is dismissed on grounds that both sides are willing to accept divine judgment.) Lesser disputes are settled with curse potions made by dipping a knife or a bullet into the water. "Some people are steadfast in their beliefs about the curse potions, but the younger generation and women have found a judicial system to give them more protection'rthan the older methods, which depend on a panel of elders who are all men. "American society treats everyone equally and the Hmong find some comfort and justice in this system," Thao said. In addition to the exhibits, on weekends Hmong guest demonstrators will show traditional crafts, including batik, basketry, jewelry-making and the use of hunting implements. Stoddard said, "Usually, by the time a museum gets around to pre mm? (SaRBMB pegs because families would have to take it apart and move every five years or so as the soil became exhausted.

Every family member would know how to reassemble the house at the new site, Thao said. The single center-split door, which swings back in a way reminiscent of a saloon in a western movie, can be barred from the inside at night to keep foraging animals out. There are no windows because people spend most of their time outside, and the numerous gaps and cracks let in plenty of air anyway, Thao said. Within, typically, is an altar and a separate sleeping room, under a loft for storage, high enough to keep the children away from such items as crossbows, flintlock rifles and baskets. The floor would be of bare earth, swept daily.

The bigger the family, the bigger the house. Thao said the usual sleeping arrangement is for the parents and the youngest child to have one bedroom, with additional bedrooms for "the rest of the kids." As many as 40 people might live under one roof, Thao said. In and around the house, museum volunteers, some Hmong, will interpret various daily-life activities, from rice-pounding to spiritual beliefs. T. Christopher Thao, a lawyer with the Minneapolis firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi, came here in 1976.

Thao said Hmong culture is changing: The age at which people marry, traditionally about 1 5 to 1 7 for females and 1 6 to 20 for males, is gradually rising; that a ritual in which the bride-to-be is "kidnapped" Is rarely practiced now; and families are having fewer children. In agrarian societies, he said, more children mean more help with the chores, "but now the Hmong are finding that having more children will keep them in poverty. I have seen families with only two children." Continued from page 1E camps, city buildings clustered around an airfield. Americans appear: blond hair and big noses. To Western eyes, the accuracy of the detail in showing transport airplanes a Boeing 747 is seen taking refugees away in the lower left corner suggests that the whole cloth is filled with vital information.

A preliminary drawing for a new story cloth hangs near the completed one, showing the life of the Hmong in America: busy freeways, a big Kmart sign. Nkajlo V. Vangh is president of Lao Family Community, an organization with about 10,000 Hmong members in the Twin Cities out of a population of about 18,000. (There are about 100,000 Hmong nationwide; the largest urban contingent outside California lives in the Twin Cities.) He will be one of the speakers at the opening ceremony today. The first Hmong came here in 1976, Vangh said.

"They were leaving Laos because most of the Hmong fought on the side of the United States during the (Vietnam) war. They tried to save U.S. pilots who were shot down, and they were fighting the North Vietnamese along the Ho Chi Minh Trail." The intertwining of American and Hmong cultures appears in odd places in the exhibit. Next to a traditional necklace of beaten silver, worn on the Hmong New Year's (which was celebrated during the week of Thanksgiving) is one of bright aluminum, worked the same way and probably salvaged from a downed American aircraft. Vangh said, "Everybody knew that when the communists took over, we would not be safe.

Even today, Hmong are still being killed, even after 15 years. We still have people coming out because the Communist government is discriminatory in We are sorry for any inconvenience and THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATRONAGE! senting this kind of thing, the elders the way it treats us." Vangh said the Twin Cities has attracted a large Hmong population for several reasons. The Hmong stay together in family groups, so the presence of many families already here acting as sponsors for newcomers has naturally attracted more, he said. And Minnesota has a reputation for a kind of warmth. "People in Minnesota have a different feeling about refugees.

They are much more interested in them," he said, adding that he and his family had moved here from Georgia in 1976 for that reason. One of those who came over more recently is Sue Thao, a 22-year-old man who spent five years in a refugee camp before coming here in 1980. Thao, who is about to graduate from Augsburg College with a degree in biology, is one of three Hmong interns who helped set up the exhibits, including the biggest display, the house. This style of house is still common in Laos, he said. Because the genuine material, teak, would have been very hard to find, the construction is of oak and pine (actually, U.S.-grown and milled but resurfaced with an adz a tool something like the blade part of a miner's pick for appearance.) The structure is held together with Tequilaberry's GIFT CERTIFICATES Give the gift of FUN! Personalized Gift Certificates Hand out the Holiday Fun and Save! HOLIDAY FUN PACKETS up to 10 gifts $5 $10 certificates $50.00 Value are an gone, ana tne young aon remember or pay much attention, because the pressure to assimilate (the new culture) is so great." The younger Hmong are "like any culture that has come here.

They want to eat junk food and have an American upbringing. This will give the older Hmong a chance to give their children a sense of how they lived in their homeland." $45.95 The legendary Red Coach ANTHONY'S eee rides again WHARF n(9(D)(D))CIHI(D)nCESK Prerecorded Over-the-Phone Help From Dr. John Limbert, ma, bm, sen, mrcp(uk, mrcgp dch, drcog into the 90's with gusto! We've re-opened! And everybody's talking about our handsome new interior with "opened up" dining room, our stunning new 35-foot oval bar, and imaginative updated luncheon and dinner menu! "Lightened up" entrees ride side-by-side with old favorites of steak, fish, poultry and 'twice-baked' potato! Unbelievably reasonable prices; ample free parking including valet. I Dc loaa is 1 member of Sex Information, Edu cation and Counselling of Canada. Society for the Scientific Study of Seafood Restaurant Still Open! Serving fine seafood steaks at reasonable prices.

Overlooking the Mississippi River downtown Minneapolis. All entres include salad, roll 6f choice of potato or vegetable. Open for dinner at 5 p.m. daily. Let us help plan your holiday parties.

Reservations being taken now. For Reservatons Call 378-7058 201 S. E. Main St, St Anthony Main We accept most major credit cards How to recover from childhood sexual abuse. and more.

Each tape is a frank, brief, motivating session with Dr. John Limbert. Please, because of the explicit and mature subjects being discussed, this special program is only intended for use by those of you 18 years of age or older and is not meant to be a form of entertainment. Up To the Minute Dr. Limbert updates his phone program weekly with the latest medical advice and new topics.

Calls are billed to your phone at $2 per minute, with most topics lasting about five minutes each. And yon only listen to the topics yon want to heat This call could be the first step to a better life. Remember, over-the-phone access to this invaluable medical advice. Are sexual difficulties spoiling your love relationship? Now, inexpensive, easily accessible professional guidance is just a phone call away. With the push of a few buttons, pertinent, easy to follow information on topics you've always wanted to know more about is yours in the privacy of your own easy chair If you've been too embarrassed to talk to anyone, now you can get advice over-the-phone without saying a word.

It's simple and quick. Find out How lack of sexual desire can be overcome The most successful method to prevent pre-ejaculation When impotence can be cured at home How women can learn to experience orgasm If men over 50 really need be less sexually active Sei and Psychoaeiual Institute of England, where he hat previous postgraduate training. He devotes full time to the Center for Sexual Health and Institute of Psychosexual Medicine which he founded. He practiced twelve years in England, Manitoba and Ontario, in psychosexual medicine, sex counseling and sex therapy. Dr.

Limbert holds a Master of Arts in Natural Sciences from Cambridge, Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (North American MD equivalent) from Oxford, diploma in Child Health and Obstetrics and membership in the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom. Red COACH means absolutely no embarrassment to you, whatsoever. CSH INFORMATION LINES 4630 Excelsior St. Louis Park, MN Phone 927-5401.