Buzz Bin

by Inlander Staff


Shall We Imagine Dancing? -- When it comes to performing "Tim's Favorite Pat McManus Stories" (June 16-19 at CenterStage), Tim Behrens says that his favorite moments arrive when the audience is using its imagination. When "Pat" and Crazy Eddie Muldoon are having a rapid-fire conversation, for example, Behrens simply takes a step to the left for one character and a step to the right for the other. "It's like a ping-pong match, with all the heads shifting from side to side," says Behrens. He loves the moment when he pauses in mid-conversation -- and all the heads still shift, as if expecting a reply to come from an empty space onstage.


That's spectators using their imaginations -- which is also what Behrens and a talented faculty hope to teach in an upcoming theater-and-ballroom-dance summer camp for kids. In three full-time two-week sessions (July 5-Aug. 26), students entering grades 4-9 will learn from talented local dancers, actors and even costume designers. Visit www.madhotballroom.com for a taste of what inspired CenterStage to create the camp. Call 747-8243.





A Mooseful of Dollars -- Heather Bowlby, president of the Excel Foundation in Coeur d'Alene, said the group made a net profit of $425,000 from last year's No Moose Left Behind public art project and fundraiser.


In a story last week about a similar fundraiser in Spokane, involving 40 painted bears spending the summer on downtown streets, The Inlander used incorrect information that the CdA project had grossed $375,000 - a figure well short of the mark.


In addition to auctioning the 26 life-size moose for an average of $15,000 each, the Excel Foundation auctioned about 40 smaller moose, decorated by school children. "They were good sellers. They brought in quite a lot of money for us," Bowlby says.


Mike Forness, director of the Spokane Ronald McDonald House, said his group hopes to net $100,000 or more from the Bear Necessities public art project in Spokane.





Aguilera, Sucker-Punched, Twice -- Poor Christina Aguilera is getting a double dose of bad press in Monday's news. First -- and worst -- is the disclosure, in Time magazine's big exclusive detailing interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, that her music was used to torture terror suspects, played loudly to prevent prisoners from sleeping. And then there's a sad little item in the New York Daily News, tattling that the singer partied so hard at a New York club the other night, she had to be carried out. "She couldn't walk on her own," reports one witness. "She had one arm around her fianc & eacute;, Jordan Bratman, and the other around a blond assistant." The singer's rep's response? A plaintive "That's not very nice."