Our personal challenge to each and every one of you: Experience the arts this year. Here's our quick and easy guide.

by Adrienne Martini

Hopefully, by now, you have regained your sanity.

The previous couple of weeks of holiday debauch generally steals measured, reasoned thought from the population as a whole as quickly as the jolly Nick delivers his midnight gifties. It's just a whirlwind of food, drink, and presents, family and friends, and one trip too many to the mall. Holiday madness is a hoot and a half but, like all things festive, must come to an end in the bleary sunrise of Jan. 1.

Somehow, through a haze of champagne and party favors, we resolve to do much better in the upcoming year, straighten up our lives and fly right, and recognize that life needs to have a measure of resolution about it to be meaningful. With lists of healthy and downright sane things to accomplish, we all leap into the new year scrub-faced, penitent, and serious. We will quit smoking. We will lose weight. We will read the Wall Street Journal every darn day.

Feh, says I. How extraordinarily dull. What a lousy way to celebrate the fact that we've been given one more year to live life to its fullest, which, granted, you can't really do with a two-pack-a-day habit or an extra 120 pounds around your middle. But why not take care of your inner being while you redefine your outer shell? Why not spend some time this year letting your soul (by which I mean joie de vivre, not a religious construct) whoop it up with some transformative art and theatre?

Arrrgh, you think. Not only do I need to spend all of 1999 eating carrot sticks and Nicoderm, not only must I plow through page after page of in-depth analysis of Singaporean economics, I have to haul my cookies to some drafty theatre to hear an extra-large soprano keen on and on about dying from dysentery or watch a guy in tights leap about in search of a skinny chick pretending to be a swan? Lady, you think, this time you have gone too far.

If I were actually suggesting that you make it a resolution to become an opera connoisseur or a ballet aficionado overnight, well then yes, I would be going too far. While each of these classical forms can stir the soul of any willing audience member, each still has the frightening aura of impenetrability, of being simply too highbrow for the average Jane or Joe to "get it." Not strictly true, but an overwhelming public perception nonetheless.

Instead, what I challenge all of you to do is simply get your heinie off of the sofa and go to one—just one—art-like event in the next three months. That's it. That's all. One day during the next 90, you just have to get out of the door, go to a play or a concert or an art show, and experience the whole shebang. At the outside, it's five hours out of your life. Easy as falling off the wagon.

I can hear the grumbling from here. Let me just offer three reasons to give the arts a try: 1) The Vols football season is finally over and something needs to fill the void. 2) Knoxville has a diverse arts scene that, I'll wager, has something for everyone. Supporters keep harping on this fact, that theatre and dance and visual art thrive here. Reasons for this vary, but one more fact keeps lurking behind these vigorous testimonials: all of these things will disappear if more people don't support them. Believe it. 3) These forms are how we express what it means to be human, which, put more simply, means that any human will find something to identify with, even if it's a laugh or a thought or an emotion. And once you get that instant of recognition, of discovery and communication, you want to go back for more. You start to learn how to talk about it. You want to help others have the same experience. You are hooked.

Of course, you may have a lousy experience and never want to have anything to do with any of this ever again. Regrettable, but it could happen. These are the chances we all take. It could suck. It could be offensive. It could challenge you in ways that you don't want to be challenged. Not everyone will like everything—personally, I could live a very long, full life without ever seeing Ibsen or poorly-done farce again. But how will you know what you like and dislike without ever giving it a try?

You can increase your odds of having a worthwhile experience by selecting events that are closer to your tastes and expectations. Since I am the one issuing this challenge to you, respected reader, I shall make your choice as easy as I possibly can by providing the following list of shows taking place between now and the end of March, along with box office phone numbers, and my assurance that tickets will not cost an ungodly amount. Pick but one.

Music

The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra will showcase its talents on Jan. 14 & 15 (523-1178). This will be big music at its finest, led by physically-animated conductor Kirk Trevor. While it's fun just to watch Trevor coax beautiful music out of the assembled players, the line-up includes pieces like Mozart's Symphony 29 and Strauss' A Hero's Life that are pretty easy to listen to while still remaining complex enough to be interesting. Don't feel like you should know an arpeggio from a hole in the ground. Just toss on something slightly dressy and slightly casual and listen.

David Burgess will play the UT Music Hall (656-4444) on Jan. 21. He was trained in classical guitar by the great Andres Sergovia—a name that you don't have to recognize in order to take flight with Burgess' heady mix of Spanish and Latin American music, all played with flashing fingers on his acoustic guitar. And if your fancy runs more to the Emerald Isle than Andalusia, Sue Richards and her Celtic harp will be on the Pellissippi State Technical Community College campus on March 13 (539-7227). I suggest that you not Riverdance to her performance, no matter how much the music moves you.

Dance

The University of Tennessee Cultural Attraction committee is bring a troika of dance troupes to town that will give you a slice of almost every form of dance that exists. Lula Washington Dance comes Feb. 17 to the Clarence Brown Theatre and will perform strong, angry, and healing works about the African-American experience. North Carolina Dance, which will be at the CBT on March 9, has a repertoire built on both modern and classical ballet. And Second Hand Dance is as modern as modern dance gets; three men perform as waltzing dogs, tangoing flashlights, and contorting acrobats. Their humor and skill will be at the UT Music Hall on March 29 (656-4444, for all three).

Opera

Yes, yes, I said I wouldn't even dream of suggesting dull, old opera. Trust me—the Pirates of Penzance (Feb. 5-7, 524-0795) is neither dull nor old nor, when you get right down to it, opera. This is the vehicle that Linda Rondstadt took a diva turn in and that made Rex Smith a "star." POP is operetta, which is to opera what champagne is to molasses. Plus, it's in English and subtitled in English for those who have a bit of trouble when words clip by at an almost rock 'n' roll pace. Yes, Gilbert and Sullivan can be a bit stodgy in sections, but you can always take that time to puzzle out the Tennessee Theatre's always intriguing Moorish-meets-the-Gilded Age architecture.

Art

Don't get me wrong—there a quite a few great little art niches in town, like the Bennett, Townsend, and Hanson galleries, the UT display spaces, and the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, but nothing beats the experience of going to a big, bright museum on a Saturday afternoon. The art simply pops off of the white walls and into your subconscious. And there's just so darn much of it at the Knoxville Museum of Art (525-6101), from Rodin sculptures to the Ursinus College collection. Around every corner is a new treasure. Through Feb. 28, you can see India: A Celebration of Independence, a collection of B&W photographs that is only making five stops in the U.S., one of which just happens to be in Knoxville. These photos provide not only a cross-section of life in India during the past 50 years—fascinating in its own right—but also is a primer to some of the big names in photography, like Henri Cartier Bresson, Margaret Bourke-White, and Mary Ellen Mark (who currently shoots for Rolling Stone). The images range from exotic to common-place, but there will be at least one that will capture you. Seriously.

Theater

Two choices: a classic done in a traditional theater or a soon-to-be classic done in a non-traditional setting. Clarence Brown Theatre will stage The Bard's A Midsummer Night's Dream in their Carousel Theatre Feb. 26-March 13 (974-5161). Midsummer is, perhaps, the most comedic of Shakespeare's comedies and probably the most accessible to a modern audience—think There's Something About Mary without the hair gel and set to free verse. The Actor's Co-op will take on Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class, a show that proves that A) Shepard has done a heck of a lot more than be Mr. Jessica Lange, and B) the man knew his way around bleak topics, carefully wrought phrases, and angst. The Co-op's stock-in-trade—its incredible stable of acting talent—should be more than a match for both the script and the Jackson Avenue Antiques' attic, where it will be staged Feb. 5-20 (523-0900).