non-dance plans!
Feb. 17th, 2008 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billeylerOur old friend Lawrence will be back in Albuquerque for two weeks of R&R/local work from his employer-enforced temporary reassignment to the Portland Or Intel facility. His partner Scott has plans for Weds night, so Lawrence suggested we see Ladysmith Black Mombasa, coming to the Kiva Auditorium at the convention center (not Popejoy Hall, like he thought). Danny has his AGORA work on Weds night, so it'll just be the two of us.
The Kiva has a couple of interesting memories for me. It was there that an African-American Gospel singing convention was going on the very same weekend that Albuquerque hosted the IAGSDC convention in '92. There were some interesting and interested looked between the two large groups. Some of them watched the never-ending Honky Tonk Queen contest, but I only heard about that second-hand, since I was nervously setting up a room on the east side of the convention center for the first-ever Moonshine Hour at convention. No fights or complaints broke out from the two groups being side-by-side in that vast venue. They might have missed PING's* coming of gay age with his necking with other same-sex square dancers under the escalator...discretion seemed to be thrown to the wind, from what I heard.
The second memory is from 1995, when my former employer, ACLOA/Musical Theatre Southwest staged "Fiddler On the Roof" in the Kiva, since our regular venue, Popejoy Hall was closed for 9 months of remodeling. Kiva Auditorium is just that...a speakers auditorium, with 2000 seats circled around a large platform made for very specific types of events...NOT musical theatre, what with the sets and drops and orchestra, the dressing rooms and everything that makes a musical run. It did work though...those were the days when ACLOA was cash-flush and we hadn't bought the Hiland Theatre, which eventually caused its financial ruin and downfall as the largest producer of community-based musical theatre in the US.
But in any case, LBM has been to ABQ a few times, but I've never seen them live yet. Should be a treat!
* If "PING" doesn't ring any bells, just use your imagination: a theoretically heterosexual caller that everyone and their brother knew from the get-go was gay, and decides in Albuquerque to come out and go from there. This caller became QUITE the activitist in a very short time.
The Kiva has a couple of interesting memories for me. It was there that an African-American Gospel singing convention was going on the very same weekend that Albuquerque hosted the IAGSDC convention in '92. There were some interesting and interested looked between the two large groups. Some of them watched the never-ending Honky Tonk Queen contest, but I only heard about that second-hand, since I was nervously setting up a room on the east side of the convention center for the first-ever Moonshine Hour at convention. No fights or complaints broke out from the two groups being side-by-side in that vast venue. They might have missed PING's* coming of gay age with his necking with other same-sex square dancers under the escalator...discretion seemed to be thrown to the wind, from what I heard.
The second memory is from 1995, when my former employer, ACLOA/Musical Theatre Southwest staged "Fiddler On the Roof" in the Kiva, since our regular venue, Popejoy Hall was closed for 9 months of remodeling. Kiva Auditorium is just that...a speakers auditorium, with 2000 seats circled around a large platform made for very specific types of events...NOT musical theatre, what with the sets and drops and orchestra, the dressing rooms and everything that makes a musical run. It did work though...those were the days when ACLOA was cash-flush and we hadn't bought the Hiland Theatre, which eventually caused its financial ruin and downfall as the largest producer of community-based musical theatre in the US.
But in any case, LBM has been to ABQ a few times, but I've never seen them live yet. Should be a treat!
* If "PING" doesn't ring any bells, just use your imagination: a theoretically heterosexual caller that everyone and their brother knew from the get-go was gay, and decides in Albuquerque to come out and go from there. This caller became QUITE the activitist in a very short time.
