Wow… are we having a beautiful spring in Dallas, or what?  I know it’s going to be hard to pry you off the terrace at BarBelmont, but just in case, there’s an awful lot happening out in the neighborhood in April….

Art With A View is an ongoing series of rotating art and creative events at the Belmont.
Throughout April we will be featuring Flora & Fauna, work from the We're All Pink series by Jennifer Morgan, a Dallas-based artist whose work is brightly hued with characters that dance in a light-hearted aura. Her paintings are narrative with a whimsical appeal, although some address serious issues.   You can preview the series at www.jennifermorgan.net/wereallpink.
Come hang out in the BarBelmont Lounge, have a cocktail, enjoy the art and admire the city's finest skyline view.
Flora & Fauna will remain on exhibit at the Belmont thru May 2, 2007.

Spring Fling Getaway Package––check into the Belmont Thursday or Friday and get your 3rd night FREE through May 31. Break away from all the hustle and bustle and come relax. Take time to stop and smell the roses, dip in our heated pool, enjoy libations at the happening BarBelmont or do all three because this getaway package is a two night stay with a complimentary 3rd night, includes continental breakfast, valet parking and high speed Internet.

“Breathe In, Breathe Out”
New Works by MK Akbar and Sara Cardona
Decorazon Gallery
www.decorazongallery.com
417 N Bishop Ave
Oak Cliff, Dallas, TX  214.946.1003
April 24 through May 14, 2007

In their new exhibit, titled Breathe In, Breathe Out, artists Ali Akbar and Sara Cardona explore the idea of imaginary landscapes and fictional characters, while working in different medias.

Exploring both large and small scale paintings, Ali Akbar, utilizes texture, shadow and an excavation technique to create multi-layered surfaces that are reminiscent of landscapes, moonscapes, aquatic worlds, and the open Texas sky. His works focus on the relationship of shadow and light. Ali Akbar is a native of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In both collage and painting, Sara Cardona develops portraits of characters from fiction, theater, and history. Utilizing embroidery, craft material associated with theater, and a poetic sensibility, a multitude of personas are created, each with a possible narrative. Sara Cardona is a graduate of the Univ. of Texas in Austin and has an MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA.

Eryka Badu
www.hob.com/venues/clubvenues/dallas
Tue, May 8, 2007, 7 PM
House of Blues
White Swan Building
2200 N. Lamar Street
Dallas, TX 75202

Hometown favorite, Eryka Badu, is the headline opener for the debut of the new House of Blues Dallas.

Die Mommie Die!
www.uptownplayers.org
April 13 through May 6, 2007

The Trinity River Arts Center
2600 Stemmons Freeway, Suite 180
Dallas, TX   75207
214.219.2718

Regional premiere by Charles Busch….In this comic melodrama, Angela Andrews is trapped in a hateful marriage. Desperate to find happiness with her younger lover, Angela murders her husband with the aid of a poisoned suppository. In a plot that reflects Greek tragedy as well as Hollywood kitsch, Angela's children are convinced that they must avenge their father's death by killing their mother. A surprising twist ending has all of the Sussman family's dirty laundry aired out for once and for all.

Rod Stewart
American Airlines Center, Dallas, TX
Wed, April 18, 2007, 8:00 PM

With the release of “STILL THE SAME…GREAT ROCK CLASSICS OF OUR TIME,” Rod Stewart returns to his roots. His trademark voice has successfully commanded nearly every genre of music including fold, rock, soul, R&B, blues and more, even managing to breathe a unique modernity into the classics.

Hot Chip
Thur, April 26, 2007 9:00 PM
Granada Theatre – http://tickets.granadatheater.com/
3524 Greenville Ave.
214.824.9933

“We started making music because we were bored with a lot of other music. We loved the idea of 'pop' music but not the people who make 'pop' music now. We loved Phil Spector and the Beach Boys, Kraftwerk and Robert Wyatt, Timbaland and Madlib, Brian Eno and Devo, Anti-Pop Consortium and Aphex Twin, Will Oldham and Royal Trux. We decided to make our band different from most electronic music by playing everything live- no backing tracks, no computers. We decided to make our music different from most indie music- 4 keyboards and a drum machine, not all guitars. We decided to write folk songs and record them on old synthesizers. We decided to sing honest words about food and love, and try to make people laugh the way you laugh at Richard Pryor in the same song too. We made one album in Joe's bedroom for Moshi Moshi records, then we made another album for EMI still in Joe's bedroom. We used a computer to make them but almost everything on them was played by us with a keyboard on our lap whilst sitting on the bed. We loved dancing to 'foggy Mountain Breakdown' by Flatt and Scruggs, and 'Cut the midrange, drop the bass' by Cylob. We thought pop music should be more imaginative than it is at the moment, that it should affect you and inspire you.

Oak Cliff Artisans, An Artist Cooperative
Spring Studio Tour 2007
www.oakcliffartisans.com
April 21-22, 2007

Oak Cliff Artisans is a cooperative group of artists from the Dallas area. The purpose of the group is to pool resources for showing and marketing their work.

OCA holds two shows/sales a year. The spring show is a studio tour of members' studios throughout Oak Cliff. There will be 21 artists participating in the spring 2007 show with 10 tour stops.

You can download a map of the tour at … www.oakcliffartisans.com/brochure2v2.jpg

Dallas Blooms
www.dallasarboretum.org/Events/Dallas_Blooms.htm
March 10 through April 15, 2007

Dallas Arboretum
8525 Garland Road
Dallas, TX   75218
214.515.6500

Celebrate spring at the Dallas Arboretum's 23rd annual Dallas Blooms festival, featuring over 400,000 spring-blooming bulbs, 3,000 azaleas and thousands of other annuals and perennials spread throughout the 66-acre gardens.

The Taming of the Shrew
www.dallastheatrecenter.org
April 18 through May 13, 2007

Dallas Theatre Center
3636 Turtle Creek Boulevard (at Blackburn)
Dallas, TX   75219-5598
214.522.8499 tickets

The Odd Couple
www.theatre3dallas.com
April 12 through May13, 2007

Theatre Three
2800 Routh Street, Ste. 168
Dallas, TX 75201-
Phone: 214.871.3300 tickets

Two mid-life New Yorkers (as mismatched in roommate life as they had been in their marriages) inspired Neil Simon to create America's favorite theatre couple. His play inspired a great television show. It's easy to forget, because of the beloved TV series about the underdogs, is just how excruciatingly funny and on-target the original play is and how fresh its situation and one-liners are for any generation of actors to get to perform. And for audiences to rediscover!

The Big Bang
www.theatre3dallas.com
March 30 through April 15, 2007

Theatre Three
2800 Routh Street, Ste. 168
Dallas, TX 75201-
Phone: 214.871.3300 tickets

A Dallas premiere of a behind-the-scenes musical with book and lyrics by Boyd Graham and music by Jed Feuer…  It costs a lot of money to produce a musical on the history of the planet from the primal Big Bang to the 21st Century. What spectacle!  Bigger than Cats!  So two ambitious young composers take over a wealthy doctor's New York apartment to give the ultimate backer's audition. Accompanied only by piano, the two authors play all the parts: all of history's icons from Adam and Eve to The Brady Bunch provoking total astonishment in their potential investors. The wild fun of this off-Broadway hit finally comes to a Dallas stage in a tour-de-force of comic acting and musical merriment.

Diana Ross
Nokia Theatre – www.nokialivedfw.com/event_detail.asp?id=551
Thur, April 19, 2007, 8 pm

1001 Performance Place
Grand Prairie, TX  75050
214.373.8000 tickets

The great ones endure, and Gladys Knight has long been one of the greatest. Very few singers over the last fifty years have matched her unassailable artistry.

Body Worlds–
The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies
Now through May 28, 2007

Dallas Museum of Nature and Science, Fair Park
www.scienceplace.org

Throughout the ages, medical scholars and students have strived to understand how our bodies function through exploration of real human specimens. BODY WORLDS, the most highly attended touring exhibition in the world, takes this tradition one step further by presenting a new look at the human body.

The exhibition features approximately 200 authentic human specimens, including whole bodies, plastinated individual organs and transparent body slices that have been preserved through the process of Plastination, a technique that replaces bodily fluids and fat with reactive plastics. BODY WORLDS offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see and understand our own physiology and health and to gain new appreciation and respect for what it means to be human.

Matisse: Painter as Sculptor
The Dallas Museum of Art
www.dallasmuseumofart.org
Nasher Sculpture Center
www.nashersculpturecenter.org
January 21 through April 29, 2007

The Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center have partnered to present the first major exhibition in more than two decades to explore Henri Matisse's sculptural works. Matisse: Painter as Sculptor will examine the artist's sculpture as a vital part of a multifaceted conversation among the different media in his work and will reach further than any before to highlight Matisse's achievements as a sculptor. Featuring more than 150 sculptures, paintings, and drawings, as well as photographs of the artist at work; the exhibition will present new insight into Matisse’s creative process and will contextualize his achievement through comparative works of other modern masters.