GOING OUT

HOT TICKET

So you missed the Asian Charity Ball September 29 at the Sheraton Park Central? Then plan ahead to make the Fourth Annual Asian Culture Festival, Nov. 3 at Exall Park. Put on by the dozen or so Dallas Asian communities, with help from government end big business groups, the all-day event features Asian-style dancing, music, costumes, crafts, food, and more. Kids are sure to love it. Call Dianna Fujmori, 559-3839.

THE FLAMENCO KID

PROFILE Larger-than-life passions and the weight of tradition on free spirits are the sparks that fire flamenco music. As an SMU classical guitar student visiting Spain in 1978, the full force of flamenco struck Miguel Antonio like a lightning bolt. It’s thundered through his life ever since. From Spanish guitar masters, he learned the technical skills, the charging rhythms and soul-searching melodies, but the true classroom for flamenco is the gypsy life-a life Antonio led, touring the world with Jose Greco and other flamenco luminaries. Though playing in his home town has unique satisfactions, when the Maria Benitez Dance Company recently needed a musician for a stint on Broadway, Antonio hopped the next plane, his handcrafted guitar strapped in beside him. -John Trimble & Phyllis Williams

Dallas Artist Makes Big Splash in Panhandle

ART Though Dallas artist William Pochciol’s latest sculpture embodies the ecological warning of “winter eternal,” Pochciol, 47, says it “doesn’t have to come true.” But it certainly got the attention of 300 curious guests, who traversed the long blue highways of deep West Texas to the Citadel, the palatial home of Malouf Abraham Jr. in Canadian, Texas, for the summer unveiling of this gigantic running man called “Forerunner” (shown left).

Dallas environmentalist Ken Gjemre, owner of Half Price Books, said in his dedicatory address, “This young artist in the tradition of Rodin is telling us we are going to have to save this earth and the species that live upon it.”

Abraham had installed Pochciol’s sculpture on his grounds and wanted to celebrate with an aptly themed “the environment in turmoil” party. Friends and environmentalists from around the state gathered on Abraham’s Gatsbian lawn, while out in the courtyard, frozen in his opulent surroundings, Forerunner stood as a harbinger of ecological chaos.

-Tom Dodge

Boot News

FASHION Just let a New Yorker set foot on Texas soil, and the first thing they ask is “where can I buy some boots?” This means cowboy boots and the question usually makes me crazy, but this Tall more than one designer showed cowboy junkie tendencies, so the question, at least for the moment, transcends regional kitsch and moves into the realm of serious fashion consulting. So, when visitors from the East ask, this is what 1 tell them: for authentic working boots, try Just Justin, at 1505 Wycliff. This is a ware-housey kind of place where you can find cowboy boots and black suede Nocona shoe be made to order, and a collection of previously owned but extremely hip cowboy boots await a try-on. For really one-of-a-kind be made to order, and a collection of previously owned but extremely hip cowboy boots await a try-on. For really one-of-a-kind boots, I suggest Rancho Loco, 830 Exposition Ave., where you can find handmade beauties with an urban-punk-meets- the-Wild-West attitude. (One of the more conservative motifs is shown here.) -Rebecca O’Dell

An Herbal Retreat

DISCOVERY

Indian summer beckons. Heed the call and head for Kaufman, Texas, and the Blue Cottage Herb Farm, “where being fresh is proper.” Depending on your point of departure, this quaint country oasis is about a forty-five-minute jaunt from Dallas. With six acres of herb gardens, it’s an herb enthusiast’s dream where you can stroll the grounds or browse through the dried herbs, potpourris, vinegars, lotions and oils, herb books, and handmade herbal wreaths in the Herb House.

Owners Carl and Regina Sterling open the farm each Saturday for an extensive tour that includes a five-course meal. In fact, the tour actually begins with a latein-the-day meal, served in just the right down-home atmosphere. Following an appetizer of fresh vegetables with a sampling of five herb sauces, a salad adorned with arugula and sorrel, and a fresh asparagus and mushroom cream soup, it’s time for a breather and you’re off on a tour of the farm. Once you’ve walked off the first three courses (the entire tour takes about an hour-and-a-half), you’ll have a healthy appetite for the main course, which might include a fillet of orange roughy broiled in lemon dill sauce with fresh tarragon, mint glazed carrots, and fresh bread with herbal butter, followed by the Blue Cottage’s traditional dessert of Key lime pie.

The Blue Cottage Herb Farm’s tour and dinner (Saturdays only) is $21.40 per person and reservations are required, so be sure and call in advance, (214) 498-4234. To get there: take 175 E. past Kaufman to 2860 E., turn left, go three miles to the stop sign, and just follow the signs-the blue cottage gives it away.

-Lynn Suiter Adler

Taxco: a Mexican Jewel

GETAWAY A jewel in the crown of colonial Mexico, the postcard-perfect mountain village of Taxco some 100 miles south of Mexico City takes your breath away-literally. Its up-and-down-and-around-the-corner cobblestone streets lead past whitewashed adobe buildings capped by red tile roofs, balconies overflowing with gaudily colored flowers, and church spires acting as exclamation points on the 18th-century panorama.

The Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes founded Taxco in 1522 as a center for mining silver. But not until the arrival of Frenchman Don Jose de la Borda in 1716 did the heyday begin. In gratitude, Borda reportedly spent $8 million to build the Church of Santa Prisca, a baroque masterpiece containing an estimated four tons of gold leaf. On the zocalo surrounding it, dozens of shops offer the craftsmanship of local silversmiths. El Mineral Joyeros at 1 Plaza Borda is worth a visit to see its silver mine interior; on the balconies of the shops above it. photographers will discover what has to be the mother lode of cityscapes.

Declared a national colonial monument in 1928, Taxco remains architecturally intact. Visit its history, mining, and crafts museums, and then enjoy the splendid views from either of two hostelries, the 160-room Montetaxco or the 17-room Hacienda del Solar.

If you motored to Taxco from Mexico City, break the return] with an overnight stop or | luncheon break at Las Man-anitas at Ricardo Linares 107 in Cuernavaca. Peacocks stroll the grounds, and the rooms of this snobbish but spectacular establishment announce their luxury with balconies, fireplaces, and colonial furnishings. All in all, it’s Mexico’s loveliest inn.

-Derro Evans

A Porgy and Bess Redux

DANCE Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin’s classic American folk opera about the down-and-out on Charleston’s Catfish Row, has had a curious history among African-American performers. In the militant Seventies, it was often derided as a white man’s version of black life. More recently, however, black companies have embraced the work and made it their own. (The opera, after all, is based on a novel by the African-American author, DuBose Hey ward.)

The 1985 version by the Dallas Black Dance Theatre remains one of the company’s most successful and popular productions. Choreographed by Ric Brame, assisted by Faye McQueen, in an evocative and moving adaptation, it went a long way toward establishing DBDT’s credibility as a serious dance company.

DBDT has reworked Porgy for its fifteenth anniversary season at the Majestic Theatre. Restaged by choreographer Darryl Sneed, the new version features General McArthur Hambrick in the starring role of Porgy. Hambrick, a former Fort Worth Ballet dancer who has been on the road in Cats, dominated the 1985 production in the role of the dope-dealing Snorting Life.

Refurbished sets and an enthu siastic company should make this a memorable evening of theater. Performances are Nov. 2 and 3. Tickets are available from the Majestic box office. -Ken Barrow

The Swing King

Jazz As a teenager in the Twenties, he was already playing on the road. By the mid-Thirties he was an all-around showman, a dynamic singer-percussionist who recorded with Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. Well on his way to jazz immortality by the age of 25, Lionel Hampton remains a visual symbol of the transporting effect of improvisation.

Yeah, and he can play an instrument (several, in Tact) and lead a band, too. Actually, words can’t quite describe a man who needs no introduction. TITAS, the bringer of all manner of performance art to Dallas, is opening its music season with Hamp and an eighteen-piece band, including vocalist, on Oct. 5 and 6 at SMU’s McFarlin Auditorium. Stilt touring relentlessly in his late seventies, still the reigning perspirer of swing, the indefatigable vibraharpist seems to be taking immortality quite literally. You shouldn’t, though. This ticket stub will be one to keep. For information, call TITAS at 528-5576.

-Michael Peilecchia