Scene & Heard

+ Art of Our Time gets moving
“New Stages: Narrative in Motion,” a four-part series of contemporary performances, begins this week. It all started circa 1946 with the Ringling Museum’s first executive director, A. Everett Chick Austin Jr., who believed “the function of a museum is more than merely showing pictures … it is the place to integrate the arts and bring them alive.”

Curated by Dwight Currie, associate director of programming, it features works by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Bill Bowers, Circle of Eleven and the Kate Weare Co. now through March. Tickets are $15 to $25 per performance. For more information about specific performances, visit ringling.org.

+ Awarding brownie points
If you have the best boss in Sarasota, or even if you have an OK boss whom you need to impress — then this contest is for you.

The Players Theatre is holding a contest to find the best boss in Sarasota. To enter, share a story up to 250 words about why your boss is the best. Entries should be received before 4 p.m. Feb. 5. Email them to [email protected]. The prize for the winning entry is free tickets for the employee, his boss and up to 12 employees to the upcoming musical “9 to 5,” a production about three working women who try to take over the company because they are fed up with their lewd boss. The show opens Feb. 14.

+ Journalist is on the receiving end of questions
Journalist and biographer Walter Isaacson and I are on the same page. At the Q&A media round table Tuesday, Jan. 15, before the Town Hall Lecture Series, he told me he believes history is told through the individuals who make it; and as a journalist who profiles individuals and groups — I couldn’t agree more.

“It’s not new to history; it’s the way the Bible does it!” he says.

Isaacson interviewed Steve Jobs more than 40 times while the inventor of the Mac computer was alive. Isaacson said he liked him — even if he was a little rough around the edges, he says.

Isaacson says it was important for him to be honest, otherwise, people wouldn’t be interested in Jobs’ story 50 years down the line.

“I don’t like saying bad things about a person’s personality, but I tried to show how the bad sides to someone’s personality helped contribute to the passion and the genius of what he achieved,” he says.
So whom would Isaacson like to write his own biography? He doesn’t think he’s that interesting!

Hot Tickets
‘Word Becomes Flesh’: The first of four performances of Ringling Museum’s “New Stages: Narrative in Motion,” ”Word Becomes Flesh” will feature Marc Bamuthi Joseph who will combine spoken-word poetry, contemporary movement and live music in a theatrical form based on hip-hop aesthetics. It takes place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24 through Saturday, Jan. 26, at The Ringling Museum’s Historic Asolo Theater, 5401 Bay Shore Road. Tickets are $15 to $25. Call 360-7399 for information.

Cirque Des Voix: Cirque Des Voix will feature the first collaboration of Circus Sarasota, Key Chorale with Young Voices of Sarasota and the Sarasota Orchestra and will feature Dolly Jacobs, along with other Circus Sarasota acts. It takes place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25 and 2 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 26, at the Big Top, located at 12th Street and Tuttle Avenue. Tickets are $15 to $45. Call 355-9805 for more information.