Dayton Daily News from Dayton, Ohio • 43

I Wilberforce events to mark King holiday The National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, 1350 Brush Row Road in Wilberforce, will celebrate the SECTION INSIDE Arts Digest, 7 Crossword, 2 Movie times, 2 Things to Do, 7 TV Update, 2 READING Environmental mystery spiced with intrigue Inside, 8 TRAVEL The view from Sedona is incredible Inside, 10 TELEVISION 'Contagious' survives rash of similar plots Inside, 3 birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, with gospel choirs and announcement of the winners of essay and art contests. The second annual Entertainment contests were open to students in grades kindergarten through 12. Admission to Monday's events is free.

Activities begin at 2 p.m. For more information, call (937) 376-4944. Kathy Whyde Jesse, Dayton Daily News SUNDAY, JANUARY 19, 1997 THEATER One devil of a bluesman Legends surround the life, talent and demise of pioneer guitarist Robert Johnson pl By Ron Rollins DAYTON DAILY NEWS HHHB lib 'Pinafore' setting sail for Memorial Hall Gilbert Sullivan classic puts local chorus members through their paces. By Carol Simmons DAYTON DAILY NEWS As the legend goes, Robert Johnson ran across Satan on a country crossroads late one night and traded his soul for enormous blues talent. A bit of musical arbitrage, as it were.

The devil got his payoff when Johnson was a mere 27 years old but in the last few years of his life, the young singer and guitarist from Hazelhurst, turned his abilities into a reputation that grew far beyond the rural southern byways he roamed in the 1920s and '30s. Nowadays, rock and blues guitarists from Keith Richards to Robert Cray credit Johnson as one of their greatest influences. Eric Clapton called him "the most important blues musician who ever lived." Thanks, Lucifer. Detroit playwright Bill Harris turned the bluesman's last days which are, not surprisingly, a bit mysterious into Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil. The play, starring Rehearsal for the Dayton Opera's upcoming production of H.M.S Pinafore which runs Friday through next Sunday at Memorial Hall was about to begin.

"You're a normal person during the day, and then you come here, put on a long skirt and become somebody else," said Elizabeth Peterson, as she pinned up the excess waist of a skirt that might have been worn by the proverbial fat lady. Peterson, who is Dayton Opera's artist-in-residence this season, plays the secondary role of Cousin Hebe in the perennially popular operetta, which also was the first big hit for the collaborative team of W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. The focus of the evening rehearsal last week was on integrating the members of the Dayton Opera Chorus into the show's second act. H.M.S.

Pinafore is not a production in which the chorus stands off to the side and tries to sound pretty. It plays a vital role in the action. The same could be said about the role the chorus plays within the Dayton Opera company. In many ways, the chorus is the "company" part of the organization, especially since SEE 'PINAF0RE'5C 'Robert Johnson explains in the play what happened when he met the devil it's fictional, but it gives a credible explanation of what he thought happened to him that GUY DAVIS Related How to go information for Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil AC New-Yorker Guy, Davis in the title role, will be presented by the Human Race Theatre Company starting Thursday and running through Feb. 9.

The play premiered off-Broadway in 1993 and has had five productions cycles since, with Davis helming the cast each time. He's into acting, writing, directing and composing, but Davis considers himself first and foremost a bluesman and his resume makes the point: He's got two blues CDs on Red House Records; he wrote a one-act play called In Bed With the Blues: The Adventures of Fishy Waters; he'll TV OREENLEESDAYTON DAILY NEWS Guy Davis is now comfortable in the title role of 'Robert Johnson: Trick the How to go A musical note Gil- Who: Dayton Opera. What: H.M.S. Pinafore, by W.S. bert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.

and When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday i perform a solo blues show at Canal Street Tavern tonight, and does club dates in most of the towns he visits for Trick the Devil. More than that, the music has seeped into his personality. During an interview on the play's Loft Theatre set, a cabin bedroom and a ramshackle bar, Davis sat back in his chair after answering a question with a hearty laugh and pulled a harmonica from his pocket. Just like that, he was off wailing a slow blues tune, seeming right at home as the stage crew prepared for rehearsal.

Though it seems natural to Davis now, it wasn't always easy being Robert Johnson. "At first, I didn't think I could do it," he says. The show's first producer, Woodie King, "called me up and offered me the role, but I wasn't sure. Up until then, I'd SEE J0HNS0N4C Robert Johnson, despite his talent and reputation, was discovered late in his life by the recording world. He visited a studio for the first time in 1936, and issued only 11 78s in his lifetime.

All his existing recordings 29 compositions, plus alternate takes for most were reissued in 1990 on a double CD, Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings. On Columbia's Legacy imprint, it includes lyrics, recording information and extensive liner notes on Johnson's life and impact. It's the best way to immerse yourself in Johnson's work, and is well worth the money whether you consider yourself a big blues fan or not. After this, you could become one. Ron Rollins 3 p.m.

next Sunday. Whore: Memorial Hall, 125 E. First St. Tickets: with senior, student and group discounts available. More details: Call 228-SING (7464); box office hours are 10 a.m.

to 5:30 p.m. weekdays, with extended hours during show weeks. Opera previews: Free to all ticket-holders, previews are presented in the theater one hour before each performance. 'Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings' provides a formative look at the blues. DANCE How to go Moscow troupe in step with a new Russia Festival contingent setting its own standards for post-Perestroika performance.

Related Other tounng companies from the former Soviet Union are headed for the Miami Valley. 4C What: Moscow Festival Ballet. Where: Millett Hall. Miami University. Oxford.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday. Cost: $24 for adults. $18 for senior citizens and those 18 and younger, $12 for Miami students. More details: Call (513) just come ashore for its first U.S.

tour. In our area, the only chance to measure its success will come Tuesday night in a performance presented by Miami University Performing Arts Series. More than 20 of the 45 dancers may still be sniffling and sneezing when they get to Oxford. "Half of the company has caught colds since we got in," company director Sergei Radchenko said during a stopover in Michigan. "We never expected it to be as cold here as it is at home.

It's cold." At least Russian weather is ballet weather. Radchenko, a longtime soloist with the SEE BALLET4C By Terry Moms DAYTON DAILY NEWS The Russians are coming! Even now, those four words can make a ballet lover's heart go pitter-pat. The pitter and the pat are more subdued than in pre-Perestroika days, when the Soviet state lavished its wealth and cultural pride on its two classical dance armies the Kirov and the Bolshoi. But just as no century -old El Uj tradition is built in a day, no ballet tradition goes kaput in what is near ing a decade of budget-cutting and austerity finances. The Moscow Festival Ballet, the first independent Russian company established after Perestroika, is no Bolshoi or Kirov.

Nor is it trying to be. A streamlined troupe that aspires to set a sumvable course for Russian ballet, it has Elena Radchenko and Alexei Kremnev of the Moscow Festival Ballet..