Contemporary dance troupe Momix performs "Opus Catus" at 8 p.m. Feb. 16 at Clowes Hall.

Lil Wayne thanks his fans at the end of a song during The Street Dream Tour" at Conseco Fieldhouse on Friday evening April 13, 2007. (Matt Detrich / The Indianapolis Star)

Zekiria Ebrahimi, center left, and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, center right, in a scene from "The Kite Runner." (AP Photo/Paramount, Phil Bray)

Roman Art from the Louvre. (Matt Dial / Staff Photo)

Claire Wilcher portrays Lucille Frank and Scot Greenwell portrays Leo Frank in the Buck Creek Players' production of "Parade." GENERAL INFORMATION: These are photos submitted to the South Bureau or taken by South Bureau reporters during the month of June 2007.

Keri Russell in "Waitress."

Artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons next to her exhibit called "The Seven Powers" from "Everything Is Separated by Water." (Matt Kryger / The Star)

Ryan Adams performs at the Murat Theatre, Wednesday, October 24, 2007. (Kelly Wilkinson / The Star)

As we move toward a new year, the Arts & Entertainment staff at The Indianapolis Star wanted to take a look at some of the highlights in 2007 on the local A&E scene. From movies to concerts to theater, classical music, dance and visual arts, here are the events that hit a high note.

Movies

'The Kite Runner'

Can you believe they actually thought about shooting this Afghanistan story in English? This tale, based on the best-selling novel by Khaled Hosseini, quintessentially captures the soul of a nation ravaged by war and intolerance. And yet its lessons about loyalty are universal.

Director Marc Forster elicits wondrous performances from the child actors, and from Homayoun Ershadi as the stern yet affectionate father. The screenplay by David Benioff weaves together different nations, languages and time frames seamlessly into a tapestry that's coherent and stunning in its depth.

Rarely do films so fully grasp how important our humanity is, and what is lost when we fail to guard it. "The Kite Runner" does so with quiet power, and is the best film of 2007.

'Waitress'

An overlooked gem that's a rare successful combination of quirk and sap, "Waitress" stars Keri Russell in a shining performance as a small-town waitress stuck in a bad marriage to an angry lout. Writer/director/co-star Adrienne Shelly concocts a delicate masterpiece of tone, with tart humor leavened by weepy moments that never tip over the edge. And Andy Griffith is great as the town curmudgeon who may have a soft spot in his heart, but never expresses it to another living soul.

'Michael Clayton'

This clever, morally ambiguous drama is yet another notch in George Clooney's belt. Because it came out a few months ago, "Michael Clayton" isn't being talked about a lot right now in the Oscar race. But expect to see it pick up a slew of nominations, including Clooney for best actor, and best supporting actor for Tom Wilkinson's portrayal of a brilliant but soul-less attorney who only finds his moral center by (literally) going mad.

Screenwriting vet Tony Gilroy ably slips behind the director's chair for the first time, and hopefully not the last.

Concerts

Bob Dylan
July 15, The Lawn at White River State Park

Known at various times for presenting the most couldn't-care-less shows in rock, Bob Dylan devoted his full attention to entertaining a capacity crowd at the open-air Lawn.

For audience members in search of signature tunes, Dylan (right) performed loud and clear renditions of "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35," "It Ain't Me, Babe," "Lay, Lady, Lay," "I Shall be Released" and "Tangled Up in Blue."

And true to his latter-day "old wolf" persona, the 66-year-old delivered soft-shoe seduction with "Moonlight" and "Honest With Me" -- two selections from 2001 album "Love and Theft."

Ryan Adams
Oct. 24, Murat Theatre

Combining the sounds and ideologies of a granola-rock hippie with the corresponding traits of an indie-rock hipster, Ryan Adams played a polarizing three-hour concert at the Murat Theatre.

Audience members who didn't enjoy the show complained that Adams showed up a bit late (which the musician blamed on losing track of time at Circle Centre mall), that he fidgeted too much and that he rambled on with inside jokes and pop-culture commentary.

For those of us who loved the show, Adams' idiosyncrasies provided charming contrast to epic guitar excursions and the high, lonesome lilt of his vocals.

Lil' Wayne
April 13, Conseco Fieldhouse

When Lil' Wayne stormed Market Square Arena as a member of the Cash Money Millionaires in 1999, there was no guarantee the teenage rapper would maintain a high profile in music.

He's still around thanks to an underdog's heart and a champion's will. Although his music is regrettably based on guns, drugs and misogyny, Wayne spits low-caliber rhymes with a sniper's precision.

At Conseco Fieldhouse, the New Orleans native barreled through his performance with an intensity matched only by thousands of spectators who rhymed along.

Theater

'Parade'

This year, Indianapolis theatergoers have been fortunate to have a broad choice of ambitious local productions of contemporary plays and musicals, not the least of which was Buck Creek Players' June staging of "Parade."

The all-volunteer community theater on the Southeastside has a reputation for undertaking challenging works, and this year offered the Indianapolis premiere of the darkly provocative musical, based on a real-life story. Under D. Scott Robinson's direction, the production was well-crafted and well-acted. Claire Wilcher's portrayal of the wife of wrongly accused murder suspect Leo Frank was outstanding.

Other compelling contemporary works this year have included Indiana Repertory Theatre's production of "Tuesdays With Morrie," inspired by the relationship between a sportswriter and his dying professor; the Phoenix Theatre production of "Stuff Happens," David Hare's think piece about the buildup to the Iraqi conflict; and the Alley Theater's production of "Blackout," set on Christmas Eve at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Dance

'Opus Cactus'

Like other art forms, dance can sometimes transport viewers to another time or place. This year, the contemporary movement company Momix did a spectacular job of taking a Clowes Hall audience on a wild ride to the desert, and on a snowy February night in Indianapolis.

A touring production of "Opus Cactus," which depicts company artistic director Moses Pendleton's vision of the American West, featured dancers who created colonies of birds, lizards, snakes and Gila monsters, against a fast-changing landscape. Even when humans appeared, they seemed to be from another world.

Classical music

*Dueling concertmasters *

One of the developments that may have had the greatest long-term impact on Indianapolis' classical music scene was the appointment of two concertmasters at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Following a long search to replace the retiring Hidetaro Suzuki, the ISO first appointed Zach De Pue as the orchestra's concertmaster, or first chair first violinist, and then Alexander Kerr as principal guest concertmaster.

When the 27-year-old De Pue was named, he was the youngest person appointed to the job in at least half a century. The ISO announced that the former Philadelphia Orchestra violinist would play the majority of the orchestra's Classical Series concerts, but would be out of town occasionally because he has an active chamber music career.

Kerr, a former concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, is on the faculty of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington. He will perform about six programs during the 2007-08 concert season.

Visual Arts

'Roman Art from the Louvre'

Expanded hours, school tours and VIP parties marked one of the most celebrated exhibits in the 124-year history of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

After years of planning, the IMA became the first U.S. venue for "Roman Art from the Louvre," an exhibit of works from Musee du Louvre in Paris. The exhibition, which closes Jan. 6 and heads to Seattle and Oklahoma City, represents the most loaned pieces from the Louvre for any single show.

Museum officials report that more than 65,000 people have visited the exhibit, breaking the IMA's previous special exhibition attendance figure set by "Gifts to the Tsars" September 2001-January 2002.

More than 400 tours were booked for 15,000 elementary through college-age students.

"The quality of the artworks lent by the Louvre was exceptional, and opened the eyes of tens of thousands of visitors to the psychological depth of 2,000-year-old portraits carved in marble, the near-documentary character of historical reliefs, and the superb craftsmanship of functional objects," said Maxwell L. Anderson, IMA director and CEO.

The exhibit, which opened to the public on Sept. 23, includes works created between the first century B.C. and the early fourth century A.D.

'Everything Is Separated By Water'

Another landmark exhibition was the one-woman show featuring works by Afro-Cuban artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons.

"Everything Is Separated By Water" consisted of 34 multimedia installations and large photographic works created since the late 1980s. The 11,000-square-foot exhibit, which opened Feb. 25 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, was the first major showcase of Campos-Pons' career.

One installation honored the artist's father, an herbalist who provided materials used in the practice of the Santeria religion. Another was based on childhood memories and family conversations in the small Cuban town where she grew up.

Campos-Pons, of Brookline, Mass., has said her works are mainly "about memory ..... not about the past, but about how do we understand the present so we can construct the future."