Sweet By-And-By Pig Iron Theater OBIE Award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company teams up with Swedish Teater Sláva to create this all-acoustic whistle-stop tour of America in a time of union martyrs, Seventh-Day Adventists, and lost souls. A forerunner of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Billy Bragg, Joe Hill was a Swedish immigrant, well known on California picket lines as a union organizer and radical songwriter. Sweet By-and-By features Hill’s wickedly funny songs on banjo and concertina, while following his journey from Sweden to California to a Utah jail, and on up to Mars, where all good union leaders go to […]
EARLY WORD: I Like Big Butts & I Cannot Lie
INQUIRER: [W]ith the opening on Friday of “R. Crumb’s Underground” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Philadelphia-born artist’s obsessions — collecting old-time blues and country 78s, riding piggy-back on powerfully built women, and forever depicting, as he has put it, “the seamy side of America’s subconscious” — will be on full display in the ICA gallery at the University of Pennsylvania through Dec. 7. The exhibition, which originated at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 2007, is the largest ever mounted in the United States on the 65-year-old Crumb, who created the 1960s counterculture […]
FRINGE REVIEWS: Store; Waiting For the Show
BY AARON STELLA FRINGE CORRESPONDENT Two men gussied up in tweed suits and hard-soled shoes manage the day long showcasing of The Store. As you enter The Store, you are handed a menu — much like what you would be given at a restaurant — complete with specials and other various delicacies. But instead of food, art is today’s special. Michikuza Matsune and David Subal, creators of The Store, will be your “servers”, and they are capable of accommodating a diversity of artistic tastes. When you want to “order” something, you settle up the bill first (ranging between $0.75-5.00) and […]
FRINGE PICKS: European Sons
9/2: The European Lesson Fake anthropologists, real Slovaks, serious drama: The European Lesson is dance, theater, and adultery at its finest. The Live Arts Festival presents a world premiere by internationally acclaimed Norwegian director/choreographer Jo Strømgren (The Convent, Live Arts 2006), created in residency with five acclaimed Philadelphia actors. The European Lesson features Strømgren’s comedic, pseudo-realistic, and highly physical style of theater in a mock anthropological lecture that examines the ocean of misunderstanding that separates Europe and the Americas. MORE Beyond the Pale/Soundwalk Philadelphia Let an audio track usurp your every day consciousness as it guides you through heaven […]
FRINGE PICKS: Sea Of Birds, Everyone
Sea Of Birds Structured like Homer’s Odyssey and reminiscent of The Little Prince, Sea of Birds takes place inside a luminous dome made of paper and bamboo, where history and imagination interweave to create a breathtaking experience for audiences of all ages. Drawing on stories from her mother’s childhood in Latvia during the Second World War, performance artist and writer Sebastienne Mundheim (Currently Franklin, 2006) brings audiences into a three-dimensional storybook of delicate paper sculpture, dance-based puppetry, and live musicians. Video preview by Woodshop films. Sun. 8/31 12:00 PM and 4:00 PM, Theater, 40 minutes, ICE BOX Projects Space,1400 North American […]
INSTA-REVIEW: FUC — Fringe Unofficial Cabaret
BY TIFFANY YOON FRINGE CORRESPONDENT The “unofficial” Cabaret, also officially nick-named FUC (Fringe Unofficial Cabaret), kicked off last night at Johnny Brendas with dirty child molestation jokes, raunchy dancing and a stuffed monkey. Needless to say, it was a fucking hit, and hat tip to Scott Johnston and friends that made the efforts to keep the Fringe festival’s post-show booze n’ fun tradition alive. The stage was backdropped with footage from the old Saturday morning classic “Land of the Lost” (see video below) in between acts and all throughout Animus’s set, the band headlining last night’s events. Other than some […]
INSTA-REVIEW: Disco Descending
BY AARON STELLA FRINGE CORRESPONDENT Who’d a thunk that Orpheus and Eurydice’s ancient tale of woe could be catapulted out of its musty tomes and into silk shirts, bell-bottoms, and sleek-white platform shoes. But it can, apparently. Under the artful direction of Karen Getz, director, choreographer and veteran thespian, comic-dance troupe 1812 narrates the tale through an actor-y ballet of boogie and hustle. Despite, however, Disco Descending’s fantastic soundtrack and a Saturday Night Fever vibe, the 1812 troupe are not professional dancers in any respects. They can move pretty much as well as you or I can, and in some […]
FRINGE INSTA-REVIEW: Sonic Dances
BY TIFFANY YOON Sonic Dance, wherein a troupe of dancers basically dance their way down Broad Street from City Hall to the Avenue of the Arts, articulating their bodies with rhythm and grace across any surface — sidewalk, street, mailbox, passerby — that would have them. Too bad the weather was kinda crappy and the music coulda been louder, but they certainly captured the public’s curiosity. By the end of the performance, there was a small mob, practically jogging to keep up, hoping to figure out just what this was all about. And that of course, was the point — integrating […]
TONITE: Get Your Fringe On
Sonic Dances Eight dancers adorned with iPods and speakers will turn some of Philadelphia’s favorite public spaces into an outdoor stage. Follow the dancers of Group Motion Dance Company as they make their way down Broad Street to celebrate Opening Night at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe. Choreographed by Manfred Fishbeck, in collaboration with Group Motion dancers, Sonic Dances will conclude in front of the Suzanne Roberts Theatre as audiences gather for the August 29 opening performance of Karen Getz’ Disco Descending. DETAILS Disco Descending Greek mythology meets disco fever: it’s 1978 — a group of suburban […]
THE EARLY WORD: Return To Forever
TOON TIME: City Suckers, starring BoyCatBird The iconic BoyCatBird characters, created by Michael Segal for Ghostly International, appear in their very first animated short. This short was originally made to accompany the free Ghostly Swim compilation from Ghostly International and Adult Swim. [Hat tip to TIFFANY YOON]
THEATER REVIEW: Romeo Void
BY AARON STELLA As enjoyable as modern reproductions of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” can be — especially those flush with glamorous nuances, such as Leonardo DiCaprio dueling in the streets of Verona with pistols instead of rapiers— these reproductions often evoke but a fleeting fondness. By comparison, Shakespeare’s R&J — which closed out an auspicious four-week run at the Adrienne Theater last night — is the stuff of true love, a remake unlike all the rest. Shakespeare’s R&J, prepared under the thespian expertise of Peter Reynolds, Director of the Mauckingbird Theater Company and of Temple University’s new musical theater program, […]
EARLY WORD: If You Had Wings
Pictured: Matthew Borgen will discuss The Wing Rack PHILADELPHIA – First Person Arts’ Salon series returns with another diverse and thought-provoking lineup at the Gershman Y on Wednesday, August 13th at 7:00 p.m. The multi-disciplinary First Person Salons, held on the second Wednesday of each month, showcase cutting edge original works by local artists through a variety of artistic mediums. The August Salon will feature local filmmaker Andrew David Watson, muralist Eric Okdeh, storyteller Juliet Wayne, and interdisciplinary artist Matthew Borgen. Admission is on a sliding scale of $5 – $10 at the door. Beer and light refreshments will be available […]
LOVIN’ SPOONFUL: Summer In The City
Amazing shadow puppet performance by Pilobolus Dance Theater on Conan.