Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Ron Powers gave an emotional speech about his family’s struggles with mental illness at the Hope and Healing Center & Institute’s Chrysalis Award luncheon. … Career and Recovery Resources’ Barrier Breaker Award lunch, honoring Ed and Gwen Emmett and Philamena and Arthur Baird, raised more than $250K. … A lively Sunday brunch at the Four Seasons doubled as a fundraiser for the Great Age Movement, which promotes learning and socialization among seniors. Jazz performances and ballroom dancing dazzled the crowd of 200. … Designer David Peck and his wife chaired the Judy’s Mission Possible lunch at the Houstonian, raising funds for early-detection and ovarian cancer research at MD Anderson. … The Latin Women’s Initiative’s annual fashion show lunch was as festive as ever, featuring designs by Andrés Otálora — and tequila shots. … At River Oaks Country Club, the Mayor’s Literacy Breakfast honored the Houston Dynamo and Dash teams.
With Expertise in Blondes, Extensions and More, the Janelle Alexis Team Is a Go-To Salon
YOU CAN'T LIMIT Janelle to one title – Hairdresser. Her career and business has been established and built on a strong foundation. Using her two business degrees + one more in-process, this enables Janelle and the team to deliver not only a customer-focused experience, but a foundationally solid business. There is much more than meets the eye, and in sharing a little bit about Janelle, she was not only an international hair extension educator for over 14 years, but brings extensive expertise to blondes. She rounds this out with her previously launched namesake cosmetic line, which is a perfect complement to her belief that “Beauty is our Business”.
At Janelle Alexis, we not only aspire to make each and every guest to feel and look their very best, we want everyone to feel like part of our amazing crazy family. We laugh, we cry, we dance, but most of all we value each other and every single guest that walks through the door. When visiting us, you are always greeted by our little ESA’s Gizmo and Luna, but we are more than just fun! We bring expertise and specialization with hair extensions, color, balayage, mens cuts, keratin treatments, make-up application and updo’s.
Houston Native Comes Home to Appear in Cirque’s Brand-New Country Show, Hitting H-Town Next Week
Houston’s own Wayne Wilson stars in and helped create Cirque du Soleil’s new ’Songblazers’ show.
WHEN CIRQUE DU Soleil’s newest show, the country-music-inspired Songblazers, hits Houston Aug. 1 — only the second city, after Nashville, to get it — a few folks in the audience will recognize a familiar face on the stage.
Wayne Wilson, who’s been performing in Cirque presentations for more than 20 years — and sometimes also helping create the shows behind the scenes — will be front and center, performing for a hometown crowd for the very first time. “I don’t think I have the words to express how excited I am,” says the longtime performing artist, who grew up in Houston’s North Shore area, graduated from HSPVA with high honors and was soon tapped for his first Cirque role as a college student in Minneapolis.
He says his friends and family have traveled the world to see him work — going even as far away as China. “But the first time to be a home? It feels full circle,” he says. “Something just feels really right about where I am with my career.”
Per his usual role, the now Las Vegas-based Wilson, 41, plays a clown in the new show. He’s been fascinated with physical comedy since he was a kid watching I Love Lucy and The Little Rascals reruns. Of course, at Cirque, it’s a special kind of clowning. “I don’t even wear a nose. It’s a state of being. It’s a state of reflecting the audience back to them, so they recognize and empathize with the clown onstage.
“I love doing theater, and I love doing plays,” he adds. “But with these shows, you really get to put a piece of yourself within the work unlike any other medium.”
Wilson also works in the wings, helping to develop shows like Songblazers as associate show director and comedic concept designer. “I just love the creation of these shows,” he says. “Cirque du Soleil is a beacon for creativity. If you can dream it, they have the tools and resources to help you build it.
“In one show, I wanted to have a pogo stick — 15 feet in the air,” he recalls, still a bit amazed. “And before I knew it, they built a harness and I’m on a winch jumping up and down.”
Songblazers may have the audience jumping around, too. Especially country fans. “It’s a love letter to country music,” says Wilson.
The 24th Cirque du Soleil presentation in Houston will go up at Sugar Land’s Smart Financial Centre for 16 performances, from Aug. 1 to Aug. 11. It boasts a live soundtrack with new music as well as dozens of classic songs from the genre going back generations. “As the crowd grooves to beloved country tunes, they will be entranced by the breathtaking skills of Cirque du Soleil artists, honoring the rich tradition of country music while embracing its evolving spirit,” gushes a Cirque rep. Universal Music Group Nashville presents the show, along with Cirque.
“I’m proud of the work we’ve done,” says Wilson, “and I'm proud of the family I’ve built throughout the years. And I really can’t wait to bring all of them to my mother’s house.”
Indeed, he says his mom, now in Humble, will host a large barbecue for family, neighbors and her son’s Cirque pals. “I think I’m going to rent a van and bring whoever wants to come down to ol’ Sheila’s!”
Houston’s own Wayne Wilson
Besides lots of new and classic music, ’Songblazers’ will feature 'breathtaking acrobatics, awe-inspiring aerial acts and displays of extraordinary strength,’ says a show rep.
Cirque du Soleil’s new country-themed show will be presented at Smart Financial Center in Sugar Land.
’Songblazers’ will open Aug. 1 and run through Aug. 11.
Cirque’s ’Songblazers’ is described as ‘a love letter to country music.’
THI’s New Artificial Heart Saves Patient’s Life, Furthers Med Center’s Heart-Surgery Lore
A next-gen artificial heart from BiVACOR has successfully been implanted in a patient at Texas Heart Institute. The patient survived more than a week, until a donor heart was found for a transplant.
THE PIONEERING CARDIOVASCULAR inventors and surgeons at The Texas Heart Institute (THI) in the Texas Medical Center have made another huge leap forward in the treatment of heart disease, officially announcing yesterday what they’re calling a “monumental advancement."
On July 9, THI successfully implanted a new kind of artificial heart — created in partnership with the institute’s famed surgeon, O.H. “Bud” Frazier — that can prolong the life of patients waiting for transplants. The Institute says the patient in this case was “bridged to transplant” with the implantation of the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart, surviving eight days with the device, until a suitable donor heart could be found and successfully transplanted.
The mechanical heart “is a titanium-constructed biventricular rotary blood pump with a single moving part that utilizes a magnetically levitated rotor that pumps the blood and replaces both ventricles of a failing heart,” according to a rep for the Institute. The procedure was conducted as part of an FDA feasibility study. Four other patients are to be enrolled in the study.
“The Texas Heart Institute is enthused about the groundbreaking first implantation of BiVACOR’s [device],” says Joseph Rogers, physician, president and CEO of the Institute and principal in the research. “With heart failure remaining a leading cause of mortality globally, the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart offers a beacon of hope for countless patients awaiting a heart transplant.” Rogers shared credit for the groundbreaking development with teams at Baylor College of Medicine and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center.
Houston CityBook has covered advances in cardiovascular medicine with special interest in recent times, publishing an essay last fall on Frazier’s storied history in the field, and that of other Houston docs like his mentors Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley. The city has been on the forefront of such developments for many decades.
“A lot of the advances in cardiac surgery occurred here, in this Medical Center,” said Frazier in the essay. He’s been in working on artificial hearts since med school in the 1960s, and also has performed some 1,300 heart transplants — more than any other surgeon on earth. “Not at Harvard or Princeton or Yale. They didn’t do it. I think it was done here because you could do things, and if it failed, you could try again. I don’t think it could have been done anywhere but Texas — and in Texas I don’t think it could have been done anywhere but Houston.”
O.H. “Bud” Frazier, a pioneering surgeon and inventor at Texas Heart Institute, has worked on perfecting the artificial heart since the 1960s. (photo by Jhane Hoang)