The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 33

CIlC 5lin 3AT DECEMBER 21, 1965 oa DmagLnis yypsl "She's an artist, and he recognizes her art 1 someplace ana tines out sne a cnppie ana IAN THOMAS PUTS ON A HAPPY FACE AND THINKS DEEPL iracKs ner aown ana an ooo-noo-noo in we end. ft was really fabulous. It's kind of like one of those idealistic movies of the "30s, that's what that song is to me. He Isn't afraid to tackle serious themes: take The Tuck Position on Add Water. "There is so much strife, so many pressures, now it seems every disease is related to tension and stress, and that song is about how the only way you can get through is by assuming the tuck position like you do before an airplane crash.

"It's just a bizarre little collage of images. In the second verse there a line There a light-emitting doide on a burned-out lamp behind The imagery to that is kind of Blade Runner, where you have what used to be a relatively attractive civilisation but the money wasn't there to do it properly, so instead of replacing the bulb if in that light they just use gaffer tape to get a few diodes to emit the light By JOHN MACKIE SPEND a few minutes around Ian Thomas and your cheeks get sore from the constant grin his non-stop wisecracks bring. The 35-year-old singersongwriter is a lot like his comedian brother Dave, unrelentingly witty and intelligent, poking fun at himself, the work), the universe, life, death and whatever comes up in conversation. In town for a promo visit for his new record, Add Water, Thomas related that he was born the son of a Baptist minister-turned-professor in Hamilton. He grew up on English comedy records (Beyond the Fringe, Peter Sellers) and TV when my brother and I get together, we'll watch TV for three hours and not say a word, leave and feel we've had a great but felt the urge to be a crooner and turned to an acoustic guitar in his teens.

His first band of note came right out of high school with Tranquility Base, a folky troupe who got their name from a record company executive's reading of the morning paper was right around the time of the moon Tranquility Base broke up after two years and one album and he launched a solo career that resulted in a few Canadian hits through the 70s (Comes the Sun, Long Long Way, Delights, Right Before Your Eyes). But around 1979, he cut out cross-Canada touring. "I came to the realisation that you could play the bar circuit until you were dead and you wouldn't really do much to increase your profile, 'cause a tot of people that go to bars are obviously alkies. You realize over a period of time that you're playing to the regulars who would go there whether it was you playing or Hank Wacko and the Barnstormers. "I realized my profile was in trouble in Jarvis, Ontario and I came off stage and this guy comes up to me and says: "What is this When are you going to play Four Strong The guy thought I was Ian Tyson, for crying out loud." The loss of live money was more than compensated by other artists doing cover versions of his songs.

He has "mixed emotions" about hearing his songs done by someone else, though hits by America, Manfred Mann and Santana have given him substantial cash rewards moan all the way to the Santana's cover of Hold On ticked him off because it was basically a "regurgitation of my record: they did exactly what I did, and yet they were able to get a U.S. release and I couldn't. "When Manfred Mann did the Runner, however, I think he maintained the passion of the song and yet did something really well on his own merit as an artist. I respected that he gave my song his own treatment, as opposed to giving my song my treatment and then putting his name on it" As for Thomas' own songs, he says Right Before Your Eyes was written from the viewpoint of "an old black and white movie." "That song is like there was a classic film, where Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr are sup- "Socially we're a bit like that, we're a bit of a band-aid society. You look at all of our problems, like the ecological problems, and we are really are just putting little band-aids on: There, that'll just keep, that ought to keep the people quiet for a couple more years.

"Band-aid itself is a band-aid to the problem of the Third World. We have, within our grasp, DONNA REED: early stage Dallas star Donna has cancer LOS ANGELES- ACTRESS Donna Reed, longtime star of television's The Donna Reed Show, has been admitted to hospital and suffering from cancer, officials said late Friday. "She is in the hospital and has been since Dec. 10," Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre spokesman Peggy Shaff said. the ability to end starvation.

"Wipe it off the end of the earth right now, by reducing the defence budgets of the affluent World by 1 0 per cent. One less missile out of 1 0, and you could totally eradicate starvation from THOMAS: We're a band-aid society posed to meet on top of the Empire State Building one year to the day if they still really loved each other, and she gets hit by a car on the way there, and he figures: 'Geez, I love her and she doesn't love And leaves. the face of the earth. At this point in time you have to say, if our governments supposedly rep resent us, we stink, you know? Reed, 64, apparenty is suf-1. ax group (pBotis fering from pancreatic cancer, said her spokesman, Harry Flynn.

"What happened was Donna Expo simrppBse went in for surgery for bleeding ulcers, Flynn said. While they were correcting the ulcerous condition, they discovered, I gather, a very early malignancy in the pancreas. "That is not a good place, but musicians, singers and dancers from France supplemented by Vancouver musicians and the Vancouver Bach Choir. Speaking through Pierre-Guy Merlin of Association France Pacifique, organizer of Urban Sax's first North American tour, Artman says that the use of glass In the plaza and the water at this point it is early enough and her condition is good -I enough that they have not ini-. -1 isli WlSlilil J123fcsL1 till illllillli ifiiiillllillltMM tiated any serious treatment," he said.

Reed, who had been in hospfv tal several months ago for her ulcers, was feeling strong enough to go home for the holidays, he By PETER WILSON GILBERT Artman has the plans of the Expo 86 site spread on the table in front of him. He looks up and smiles softly. He has, he says, some surprises planned for us on July 7. Artman, 41, composer and conceptual artist is the man behind France's unique Urban Sax performance group. He has been in the business of providing musical and visual surprises across Europe, from Greece to Sweden, for 1 0 years.

The group has given more than 35 performances in 1995. Since Tuesday, Artman has been in Vancouver trying to see the city through the fog and looking over the Expo Plaza of Nations where he win stage a performance featuring 29 saxophone players dressed in translu-scent suits with fluorescent water pumped through them. That's right, transluscent suits with fluorescent water pumped through them. As if that weren't enough, each sax player's costume will contain an FM receiver that allows his movements to "She's feeling well and eating well and she's going home for Christmas," Flynn said. The hospital gave no indica- tlon how serious Reed's illness areas of the Expo site have given him some new Ideas for the performance.

These he says he will not divulge. However, on other occasions the saxophonists, individually and in groups, have been known to arrive by boat, descend from rooftops, on forklift trucks and from cherry pickers while lights play on them and smoke bombs explode. Artman says the idea for Urban Sax began 14 years ago when he decided that as a musician and artist he wanted to get away from the linear presentation of music and performance. He wanted to involve the audience and present the music in spatial terms. As the performances altered and evolved, Artman has made changes in the costumes which, along the assistance of a technical team, he designs himself.

For each performance space was, and Shaff said she could not give details of the actress' treatment. Brian Kent photo "She's a strong person," NOT TELLING: Gilbert Artman (right) of Urban Sax, with Interpreter Pierre-Guy Merlin Flynn said. "She's never had a whole lot of sickness in her life." ances In Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. The performance, under the aus Reed, a mother of four, is married to retired U.S. army col-' Artman says he alters existing musical scores and creates new ones.

When Artman returns to France he will be working out the details, in consultation with Expo and local performers, of the Urban Sax appearance here. Expo 86 will be the North American debut for Urban Sax. After Vancouver, Artman's group will be performing at the dedication cf the Statue of Liberty in New York. There will also be performances in Boston and Washington. Plans are in the works for appear pices of the French government's Association Francais de Taction artis-tique, is free to those who attend Expo onel Grover Asmus, who was Gen.

Omar Bradley's last chief be directed by Altman and microphones that amplify and alter the musical sounds coming from his Instrument. The performance will feature 52 of staff. 86 on July 7. In May, the Academy Award- winning actress filed a lion breach of contract lawsuit against Lorimar Productions, YCuns (alceainrii wM Bs a tio tfaronott the producers of Dallas and CBS Television in her effort to retain the role of Miss Ellie, the thinking. It expands the mind by offer I I matriarch of the Ewing clan.

ing it unexpected connections and liiSliilili juxtapositions. Honisch, because he never compels his images into clar IllHilll The civil lawsuit maintained ity, repeatedly leads us to blank walls. that Reed signed a contract with Lorimar and CBS in June, 1984, to play the role of Miss Ellie for. ene year, replacing actress Bar- FIVE years ago, Martin Honisch stopped drawing realistic landscapes and turned to painting images from his dreams and meditations. Applying an eastern European sensibility (Honisch was bom in Moravia, central Czechoslovakia in 1942 and emigrated to Canada in 1957) he produced highly accomplished canvases featuring groups of people In generically medieval clothing, angels, lambs squirting blood, the interiors of stone castles, crucified Christs, praying saints and snakes.

It's no sur Honisch paints his fertile dream life with surpassing craftsmanship. His bara Bel Geddes. 1 Bel Geddes, who originated show is worth seeing for the demonstration of technique alone. Unfortunately you could get as much illumination listening to an interesting dreamer tell dreams at the breakfast table. the role, had told the producers.

she would not return for a se venth season. She suffered a heart attack in 1983 and under-' went quadruple bypass sur4, gery. Gluck (1985) 10 small people stand in a boat that resembles an Oregon dory. One of them has a cello, several others, their backs turned, are waving at a shore we cannot see. The feeling is an almost exact match for the sweet melancholy of Victorian nonsense poet Edward Lear's The Jumblies, (who went to sea in a seive, and like Honisch's people, with both oars on one side of the boat, "sailed round and In other paintings, the images are less wistful and more powerful.

Der Hund shows us a group of people, a horse-drawn cart, a dog, some barrels and a swarm of bees that floats like a banner across the canvas. Look as closely as you can and you will never see exactly how the parts interrelate, or exactly what the blond boy whose upstretched hand Is silhouetted against the sky, is doing. Curator Merike Talve writes that Honisch "accepts his enigmatic visions for what they are, offers them up to the world for scrutiny and delights in the fact that they will never be fully intelligible, not even to himself." But surrealist art isn't made to evade meaning, just to evade linear Reed's suit claims that all parties had an option to continue the contract for two more years and the defendants exer prise that the retrospective of his works at the Surrey Art Gallery (through Jan. 5) is a powerful and evocative show. What is surprising is the ultimate disappointment, the feeling that something important is cised the option in October, MAMAS GLUCK by Martin Honisch at the Surrey gallery 1984 by signing Reed for the 1985-86 and 1986-897 televi The SAG's Theatre Gallery is ing screamingly vivid paintings and pastel landscapes by Larry Osland (through Jan.

7). Osland uses a rapid, scribbling line of unblended color to jot down the essentials in his compositions often the fields and dikes along the Fraser River. It's a technique that works best on the smaller scale of the pastels. In the large paintings, the two-inch-wide tracks of Osland's flailings, euphemistically described as "vigorous brush-work" in the gallery's press release, is just sloppy. And to my eye at least, the colors are downright painful.

sion season. Art Eve Johnson Is an artist with a peculiar perspective. This gorge was painted by a man lying on his back, looking at blue sky and clouds as a narrow ribbon pressed between two banks of trees. 1980s are dark and mysterious, with images that only partly emerge out of the twilight The newer paintings are more dear, but no more amenable to logical interpretation. The actress said Lorimar told her on April 1 1 that she would be replaced by Bel Geddes.

When he turns to imagery of the in- Sometimes it works, at least if tenor world, Honisch is no less Wio- what's desired is the setting of a par-syncratlc. His paintings from the early ticuiar emotional tone. In Mamas "If stress can cause cancer. From the first work in the show Gorge (1 972) it's clear that Honisch she has said this has been the most stressful period of her life," Flvnn said. "She was trvina to recover, but she was not feelina FLAMENCO MOVIE SHOWS THE REAL DRAMA OF THE DANCE entirely herself since April 11, when they fired her." Associated Press r- Setting it Straight Oy CHARLES CAMPBELL RINGING dramatic works created for the iV to life on screen presents a ij q.

io set of problems. cir Mark formality often becomes a bur on film. Attempts to overcome that with imaginative use of the camera can be obtrusive and unnatural. When productions are taken out of the theatre and filmed as though they are real life, the magic of the stage disappears, the tone can be wrong and the effort becomes a gimmick. Under the delicate touch of director Carlos Suara, Blood Wedding suffers none of those problems.

He takes the Spanish flamenco-ballet classic out of the theatre and all its her fiance on their wedding day. The final scene, where the two men engage in a slow, stylized knife fight, the only sound their labored breathing, is stunning. The deft camera work by Teo Escamllla Is also excellent, almost always allowing the dance to stand on Its own. He avoids the fierce intercutting that flamenco Invites. Instead the camera moves subtly In time with the dancers, never allowing the frame to become static.

Proceeding the feature Is the National Film Board's Academy Award-winning short doc-. umentary, Flamenco at 5:15. Blood Wtddlng, nttd gttmtl. In SpanM with English Mubtniet, VatKOvm Et Cinema, In the wrong place at the wrong time adds an appropriate touch of humor and irony to the film. When it comes to the dance performance Itself, a traditional tragedy about a love triangle, the camera isn't out of place in a rehearsal hall.

It Is like an invited guest. And again, the formality of the dance is tempered by the people standing casually on the fringes, waiting for their parts to come up. Blood Wedding remains primarily a film for fans of dance, but the visceral production might win a few converts among the uninitiated. Gades, former director of the Spanish National Ballet, is superb as the magnetic lover who steals a woman away from constraints, but retains the context by filming what is ostensibly a dress rehearsal. The device also allows Suara, best known for a 1982 version of Carmen, to balance the formality of the dance itself with the casual interaction of the cast as they prepare for the day's work.

The guitarists fool around and the performers Joke as they arrange keepsakes stubby rubber dolls, Images of Christ, photos of children around their dressing tables. There Is also a curious, rambling voice-over by the company's choreographer and principal dancer (Antonio Gades) as he applies his makeup. While it appears on the surface to be superfluous, his laconic story about achieving success In dance by being In Alex MacGillivray's restaurant column on Friday Hubert Ricard was described as an ex-Mulvaneyite who had been lined up for a new restaurant position. In fact Ricard Is still employed at Mulvaney's Granville Island res taurant, and says he has no plans to move. 1 -I cop.