Joni Wellington dances in the 10th annual Spring Dance Festival at Mendocino College in Ukiah, Calif., from May 6 through May 8, 2011. Courtesy photo.

UKIAH, Calif. – On the heels of sold out performances of the musical Cats, Mendocino College Dance Department and Dance Club present the 10th annual Spring Dance Festival, a true celebration of the diversity of dance.

Contemporary, jazz, hip hop, ballet, Mexican Folkloric, Capoeira, Brazilian, Salsa Rueda, Middle Eastern and more – just a handful of dance forms that will delight those who attend this event on Friday, May 6, and Saturday, May 7, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, May 8, at 2 p.m. in the Mendocino College Center Theatre on the Ukiah Campus, 1000 Hensley Creek Drive.

“The Mendocino College Spring Dance Festival has grown and become a celebrated tradition in our community,” said Leslie Saxon West, professor of dance at Mendocino College. “This dance event celebrates a form of art that goes beyond boundaries, uniting people from every walk of life all over the world.”

The dances that will be presented at the festival represent the variety of dance classes that are offered at Mendocino College.

One of these is Capoeira, a form of movement that combines music, martial arts and dance with roots in Africa and Brazil.

Capoeira students will be performing with the Brazilian dance and drum class, under the direction of instructors Mestre Amunka Davila and Erika Smallen.

The piece, entitled 'Amor, Tambor, Vida e Morte” celebrates the 19th century Carnaval in Brazil with its festive dances, romances, dramas and, at times, tragedies.

Cuban-style Salsa Rueda has become very popular at the college recently, with Erika Smallen at the helm as instructor and choreographer of a dance called Somos Cubanos.

The song and music are a joyous expression of Cuban cultural identity.

Smallen elaborates on her dance, “I wanted the piece to have some of the historical themes represented in the song. For this purpose, I included some folkloric movement from rumba and Orisha dance into the Casino (Cuban style salsa) Rueda.”

Mexican Folkloric dance Instructor Juvenal Vasquez and his students will again be performing several dances in this year’s festival.

Included are “El Saludo” and “El Zapateado,” which are usually performed by the youth who imitate older people with humorous movements.

According to Vasquez, “The dancers are not making fun of the older people, they are honoring them.”

Many other forms of dance will also be presented. Bernadette Alverio-Gray, popular jazz, contemporary/modern and hip hop instructor, has choreographed several dances with her classes.

“Wasted,” a contemporary social commentary represents an atmospheric realization of the waste and pollution we as a society cast upon nature and the environment.

Two hip hop dances, “One Stop Smog Shop” and “The Tune Up,' are fun and energetic and take place in a car garage. Alverio-Gray has danced in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre summer and certificate programs and the acclaimed Bates Dance Festival.

Middle Eastern dance instructor Janice Re has choreographed two pieces for this event.

One, entitled “Battle,” has a quiet section in the middle of the music which evokes a sense of sleepiness and dreaminess. Some of the dancers engage in a moment of rest on the floor while others emerge as their dreamy visions cause them to spin about with white veils.

The other dance, entitled “Unknown Hand,” is very mechanical which inspires sharp body movements portraying the body as a machine.

Eddie Vedolla Jr. presents “groovin’” Nightclub 2-Step, Cha Cha and Hustle to versions of the song, “Billie Jean.”

Audience members will also be treated to a modern ballet choreographed by Kirsten Turner, entitled “The Wind and the Sun,” to the music of Phillip Glass, “Tis of Thee,” a solo dance choreographed by Mercy Sidbury and performed by Miriam McNamara,

All tickets for the dance festival are $6 and may be purchased in advance at the Mendocino College Bookstore and the Mendocino Book Co. in Ukiah.

Tickets may also be ordered in advance by calling 707-468-3079. Tickets may also be purchased at the door if available.

A listing of college activities is online at www.mendocino.edu .

The performance will start at 5:30 p.m. and continue to as late as 8:30 p.m. at Williams' Silk's Bar & Grill.

Silk's Bar & Grill is located at 14825 Lakeshore Drive, Clearlake.

Call 707-995-7455 to reserve a table, as seating is limited.

"Story of the World" is a secular oratorio composed by Carolyn Hawley for chorus and orchestra. It is written to a set of poems by California poet Kenneth Klauss.

Hawley purchased a copy of the poems from Klauss on the streets of Sausalito in the early 1970s. She was so taken by the beauty and the wisdom of Klauss' poetry, that years later she composed this hour long oratorio.

The poems are a prehistory of our world, before mankind. The musical score, as yet unperformed, took Hawley more than 20 years to write. The cost of having union musicians and a choir perform it is too excessive for most professional orchestras, so this may be the only time anyone now alive may hear a version of it.

On April 30, Hawley will share an electronic version of a piano reduction of the score, while reading aloud the poems. There will be a repeat broadcast of the program on Monday, May 2, at 11 p.m.

Hawley's other large composition for chorus and orchestra is called “Russian River Mass,” which was performed in Ukiah and Willits in 1988 during Hawley's tenure as conductor of the Ukiah Symphony and Mendocino Chorus.

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

Our wars come home, sooner or later. Judith Harris lives in Washington, D.C., and in this poem gives us a veteran of Iraq back among the ordinary activities of American life.

End of Market Day

At five, the market is closing.

Burdock roots, parsley, and rutabagas

are poured back into the trucks.

The antique dealer breaks down his tables.

Light dappled, in winter parkas

shoppers hunt for bargains:

a teapot, or costume jewelry,

a grab bag of rubbishy vegetables for stew.

Now twilight, the farmer’s wife

bundled in her tweed coat and pocket apron

counts out her cash from a metal box,

and nods to her grown-up son

back from a tour in Iraq,

as he waits in the station wagon

with the country music turned way up,

his prosthetic leg gunning the engine.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Judith Harris, whose most recent book of poetry is The Bad Secret, Louisiana State University Press, 2006. Poem reprinted from The Southern Review, Vol. 46, no. 1, 2009, by permission of Judith Harris and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

RIO (Rated PG)

Failing to be a true connoisseur of the very best animation, I found myself thinking that “Rio,” with its brilliant color and attention to detail on the whole spectrum of avian inhabitants of the Brazilian jungle, could have been a product of the Walt Disney studios.

Well, I mentioned this to some critic colleagues, only to get a blank stare or a dismissive shrug in return. It appears I won’t be joining the Animation Critics Society any time soon.

But I say “Rio” is more than just adequate; it’s a perfectly fine entertainment geared to young kids that is not off-putting to adults.

“Rio” is the story of a rare blue macaw that was kidnapped as a baby bird in Brazil and ended up quite by accident being raised by a little girl in Minnesota. “Rio” represents a homecoming, of sorts, for the bird known as Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg).

The sheltered, pampered Blu grew up with Linda (Leslie Mann), now a meek young woman who runs a bookstore in Moose Lake, Minnesota.

Blu neither knows how to fly nor has any need to do that. His blissful life is ordinary and predictable, but of course we know that won’t last forever.

One day, an earnest Brazilian ornithologist named Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) arrives in Minnesota in search of the exceptional exotic bird. It appears that Blu is the last of the blue macaw male species. Tulio proposes a trip to Rio de Janeiro so that Blu may mate with the last remaining female of his kind.

Naturally, Linda is not keen on traveling to a distant land, fearing the worst for her beloved bird. Perhaps she read the State Department warnings about the slums of Rio. Or she’s heard of the high crime rates. Not unexpectedly, things don’t go swimmingly for various reasons.

First of all, the timid Blu is completely overpowered by his initial encounter with Jewel (Anne Hathaway), a bossy, feisty free-spirit who is unhappy about being confined to a bird sanctuary. She’s even less interested in mating with the Minnesota bird who fails to make a great first impression.

Things only get worse when the two putative lovebirds are shanghaied by some scummy bird smugglers looking to make a fast buck on the black market. However, Blu and Jewel, chained together, are forced to seek common ground, if only to put their wits together to escape.

A whole bunch of secondary animal characters come into play. On the one hand, there’s the delightfully villainous, grungy cockatoo Nigel (Jemaine Clement), who works for the bad guys and holds a grudge against all birds better looking than he.

Helping out the mismatched macaws to break free from the smugglers is a jolly toucan (George Lopez), who seems more interested in playing matchmaker.

To evade the criminals, Blu and Jewel also get help from a slobbering dog (Tracy Morgan) and a cardinal and canary comic duo (Jamie Foxx and will.i.am).

With the setting of Rio de Janeiro, it’s only fitting that Carnival is taking place, offering even more local color as well as colorful scenery to the inevitable chase sequences.

“Rio” may not prove to be the most memorable animation film, but it is a nice representation of all that is right for a family entertainment, even one directed more to young kids than to the entire age spectrum.

TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL

The second annual TCM Classic Film Festival is coming to Los Angeles for a four-day movie lovers’ binge that takes place from April 28 to May 1.

The primary action will be located in the heart of Hollywood, with screenings at the venerable Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Egyptian Theatre.

The historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel will be the home to Club TCM with exclusive special fan gatherings, receptions, panel discussions and much more for festival pass holders.

Of course, you don’t need to be a pass holder for many of the screenings. On Friday, April 29, there will be a special screening of “Spartacus” including a discussion with Kirk Douglas, still going strong at the age of 94.

On Saturday, April 30, Peter O’Toole gets a special footprints ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese.

As a James Bond fan, I am looking forward to the Sunday, May 1, screening of “Goldfinger,” which will be memorable for the discussion with the film’s director, Guy Hamilton.

One of the intriguing panel discussions will be “The Best Trailers Ever Made: The Art of Selling Movies.”

The TCM Classic Film Festival is fast becoming a “must” for cinema lovers.

Get more information by checking out the festival’s Web site at www.tcm.com/festival. More importantly, check into the magical world of Hollywood at the end of this month.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Coyote Film Festival Presents ‘DIRT! The Movie,” on Saturday, April 23.

There will be a 1:30 p.m. matinee and 7:30 p.m. screening at Cartwright (Calpine) Geothermal Visitors Center, 15500 Central Park Road, Middletown.

The cost is $10 at the door for adults, $5 for children age 16 and under.

If you bring in food of at least $5 in value to support the local food banks, you get in free.

Why dirt? Dirt feeds us and gives us shelter. Dirt holds and cleans our water. Dirt heals us and makes us beautiful. Dirt regulates the earth's climate. Dirt is the ultimate natural resource for all life on earth.

Inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book “Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth,” “DIRT! The Movie” takes a humorous and substantial look into the history and current state of the living organic matter that we come from and will later return to.

“DIRT! the Movie” – narrated by Jaime Lee Curtis – brings to life the environmental, economic, social and political impact that the soil has. It shares the stories of experts from all over the world who study and are able to harness the beauty and power of a respectful and mutually beneficial relationship with soil.

“DIRT! the Movie” is simply a movie about dirt. The real change lies in our notion of what dirt is. The movie teaches us: "When humans arrived 2 million years ago, everything changed for dirt. And from that moment on, the fate of dirt and humans has been intimately linked." But more than the film and the lessons that it teaches, DIRT the Movie is a call to action.

The movie is directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow. It takes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility – from its miraculous beginning to its crippling

“Thought-provoking … welcome humor and visual pizzazz.” – Andrew Barker, Variety

“... an uplifting story about people from all walks of life who are striving to renew our relationship with the ground beneath our feet.” – Shannon L. Bowen, The Hollywood Reporter

The film is great plus there will be special surprises.

Let’s get dirty!