Incredible! An arts miracle! That's the best wording I know to describe Ballet Quad Cities in its latest embodiment: A Night to Remember. Their celestial performance was devilishly difficult, a program complex enough to challenge even the most financially flush dance company. (Ballet Quad Cities is just scraping by financially.) And BQC hits an out-of-the-park home run - with the bases loaded and two out, in the bottom of the ninth! Sensational!

And I ought to know. The last ballet troupe I witnessed, before seeing BQC perform, was the world-famous Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia. During that Russian classical performance, I sat in awe of the reputation ... and nearly dozed off!

By the strongest contrast, BQC has you leaning forward - on the edge of your seat - throughout the entire program (and begging for more).

And I'm not really a ballet enthusiast. I am an arts and entertainment consumer. And I assure you: If you love art, or want to be thoroughly entertained, attend a BQC performance. There is no art form in the Quad Cities that I feel more richly deserves public patronage and financial support than Ballet Quad Cities!

Allow me to express why I've gone ballistic over Ballet Quad Cities. They are spectacular dancers, superbly conditioned athletes, consummate artists - all wrapped into one!

On top of that, they have world-class choreography, heart-pounding scenarios, bedazzling costuming - and a sense of humor. For example, in Die Hochzeit the performers spoof themselves!

This piece is set to the intricate, baroque counterpoint of J.S. Bach (Brandenburg Concerto No. 4). As the piece begins and progresses, you discover it's a totally hilarious, goof-off parody! At every trill and tickle of the music, muscles twitch, rumps roll, and hips sashay! Entertainers swear that comedy is the most difficult of all dramatic effects to create. Only a dance company at the top of its game would dare such a precariously difficult masquerade ... and pull it off (so to speak) with such aplomb!

I could go on ... and on ... raving. It would never be enough. This high-spirited gang has got to be experienced personally to be believed. (Could anything this good ... grace the Quad Cities?) They are razor-sharp, "way cool," "sweet" - and sassy!

BQC is a must-see in the QCA. Anyone not enraptured by at least one performance is personally and culturally deprived! The citizens of the QCA must be alerted to this priceless national treasure we have right here in our own backyard. BQC deserves our all-out public and financial support.

Next program: The Nutcracker at the Adler (starting November 27). Expect a barn-burner!

Dan Tully
Davenport

Oppose "Attacks on Our Republic"


I wish to urge the American people to absolutely oppose the FTAA , Free Trade Area of the Americas - I call it Forced Trade Against America - visit (http://www.stoptheftaa.org) for more data, and also oppose or rescind any so-called "free trade" agreements. They are shipping out millions of our jobs, and industry, and amount to regional government treaties that are erasing our borders and constitution and submerging us into a European Union-type oppressive government draining our resources into the dead-end governments of the rest of the Western Hemisphere and throwing our borders wide open to terrorists by eliminating all border controls and even replacing our money with something called the Amerodollar! Also oppose CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement), amnesty for illegal immigrants in agricultural jobs, and ratification of the U.N. Convention on The Law of The Sea, which gives the U.N. control of our navy on the high seas (visit http://www.getusout.org). And support our Second Amendment rights to self defense by opposing any unconstitutional "assault weapons" ban, or any other gun controls. People should contact Congress and oppose these attacks on our Republic!

Kevin Homotoff Jr.
Joshua Tree, California

Media Has Failed Working People


Members of the media, many of you are to blame for what happened on Tuesday. Bush's total failure in foreign and domestic policy is obvious to anyone who gathers the research, but you, the media, are also supposed to do some of this research before you print either party's bullet points.

You have wasted too much time blindly parroting the administration's lies, and recent efforts to tell the truth came too late. Half of the people have been kept in the dark about Iraq and the disastrous effect of the tax cuts. People have had to dig for truth on economic-data Web sites, and weblogs kept by amateur journalists. They don't have your resources, your experience, or your corporate overseers.

This was not a normal election. The people were really up against a deliberate and blatantly corrupt consolidation of power, devised in corporate boardrooms. Yet you have presented their lies as equal to accurate descriptions of truth.

Our democracy had one last chance to survive. With Bush and the GOP in power, this nation has ceased to be what our founders created, and you are culpable. You have failed each one of us, the working people of the United States.

Tom Bishop
Malden, Massachusetts

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