A&L Kicks Off

The venerable Granada Theatre was the place to be when UCSB Arts & Lectures launched its latest season.

Author and historian Tara Westover, 33, whose memoir Educated debuted at number one on The New York Times bestseller list, and was a finalist for myriad awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, spoke to a packed house about her extraordinary journey being brought up by survivalist parents and ending up at Trinity College, Cambridge, the alma mater of Prince Charles, and becoming a visiting fellow at Harvard in 2010.

Before the eye-opening talk, a Partners Reception for 65 guests, including Hollye Jacobs, Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman, Dan and Meg Burnham, Anne Luther, Heather Sturgess, Marianne Patridge, and Celesta Billeci, was held in the McCune Founders Room.

Just 24 hours later Tony and Emmy Award-winning singer Kristin Chenoweth sang a delightful repertoire of Broadway and other hits, with Santa Barbara High School choir backing her in a fine rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” while Maile Kai Merrick, 13, a member of Janet Adderley‘s Youth Ensemble Theatre and granddaughter of Journal office manager Christine Merrick, joined her in a rousing duet of “For Good” from Wicked.

Chenoweth wrapped her show singing Dolly Parton‘s hit “I Will Always Love You,” turning the mike off so the audience just heard her natural vocals.

It was a performance of a very different kind two days later when Japanese all-male dance troupe Sankai Juku under Ushio Amagatsu, performed the U.S. premiere  of Meguri: Teeming Sea, Tranquil Land, set against a relief of sea lily fossils, the ethereal performance was a poetic meditation on the passage of time, symbolized by the circulation of water and the seasonal transformation of the earth.

The Paris-based Butoh dancers, caked in all white makeup, performed a mesmerizing 80-minute show, a kinetic tribute to both visceral and tactile elements of everyday life.