It looked dire for the 941 Theater for awhile. The NoLibs movie theater/concert venue/weird-ass event space was shut down by L&I in October, making things like rent, bills and daily operative costs nearly impossible to cover. But the boys at 941 are picking themselves and holding a series of fundraisers. They’ve already raised $1000 via private donations. If they raise another grand, they have found an investor who will match the donations dollar-for-dollar.
The string of events kicks off tonight with a Mad Division DJ night featuring Joker, Nomad Subdivision Crew and more at the Mausoleum (12th and Spring Garden), where there will be a $2 suggested donation going to the 941. In fact, K. Ross Hoffman gave you the skinny on it in this week’s issue.
Without venues like 941, filmmakers, musicians and other artists lose an important avenue to present their work. Go out and support your local art scene! Click For More »
In this week’s City Paper, I interviewed Miro Dance Theatre choreographer Amanda Miller about her upcoming work-in-progress, How Am I Not Myself? The piece, which she performed last night with classical Indian dancer Viji Rao, is a reflection on the two dancers’ realization that, despite their differences, they’re really quite alike:
When Miller met Rao, she probably felt like she was stuck in a modern-dance Parent Trap: Despite their differences in race, gender and hemisphere, the two had led eerily identical lives — same birth week, same dance background, same shift from classical to contemporary.
Even if you missed last night’s Open Studio Series at Girard College, you can still follow Miller and Rao on their travels to India — they’ll be video-blogging, and we’ll be stalking them and reporting back periodically on their experiences. Till then, check out my Q&A with Miller, and visit mirodancetheatre.org if you want to help them in their fundraising efforts. (Donate $250 or more and Miro will take a personalized photo for you each day they’re in India; donate $1,000 or more and you’ll get your own dance video. Pretty cool.)
City Paper: How did you come to the realization that despite being from such different backgrounds, you had a lot in common with Viji? Amanda Miller: Viji and I met when Miro was putting together Principles of Uncertainty for the 2007 Live Arts Festival. Miro was looking for dancers from all disciplines who were interested in experimental work and Viji fit that bill perfectly. Curing the process she and I started talking about our work and our dance traditions and then it became clear that we were having some of the same dilemma in terms of our work. Some would say it was too conventional or classical and others would say it was too modern or experimental. I think it was actually Tobin [Rothlein] who started asking us questions about our lives and how we each got to this point in our careers and that is when we found the stranger similarities — born a few days apart, started dancing at the same age, had our first big performance at the same age, both started working with more contemporary work in London, and so on. Click For More »
Every kid should get the chance to revel in the cheesy glory of a circus’ clowns, magic and acrobatic feats on large animals. Now, as a young adult, let me modify that thought: Everybody, appropriate-age or not, should see the UniverSoul Circus at the Mann Center, performing through Nov. 15. My friend and I were not accompanied by the safety net of a small child to justify our presence at this circus this Sunday. But I’m not gonna lie — we had a ball.
Timothy Bieniosek, or relaxing on Flickr, posted some great photos of this weekend’s Tweed Ride on City Paper’s Photostream. I am in love with just about everyone in these. Click here to see more.
Girls Rock Philly, the empowering rock ’n’ roll camp for young girls that makes me wish I were 12 again (until I recall what being 12 was actually like), is releasing its first album this Sat., Nov. 14 at Johnny Brenda’s (1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684) at noon. (If you can’t make it, you can still purchase Who Rocks? Girls Rock!: Philly 2009 Camper Band Compilation for $10 on CDBaby.) Look above for a peek of the Girls Rock Philly DVD, which the little ladies say will be out wihin the next month or two.
The final presentation of the eighth annual First Person Festival was a screening of Still Bill by filmmakers Damani Baker and Alex Vlack. The film, which was shown to a packed house on Sunday night at the Painted Bride, is about soul great Bill Withers, who unexpectedly fled the music scene after penning a slew of R&B classics, including “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.” I went expecting to see a movie that focused on the reasons why he left the business, but instead saw a bio-doc of a genuinely good-natured, deeply philosophical man who somehow managed to escape the sparkly, mainstream music world untainted. Molly Eichel gave a thorough review last week on Critical Mass, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in a long time. It made me giggle, it made me sob and it inspired me to want to be better at what I do. What more could you ask for from a film? I loved it.
When it was over, Baker and Vlack came onstage for an impromptu Q&A session. They mostly talked about the process of making the film, which began with an e-mail to Withers nearly 10 years ago. When they finally got the go-ahead, Withers led them on a spontaneous filming spree across the country, including locations like his family cemetery in Slab Fork, W. Va., and a large tribute concert in New York. Though there was a slew of footage to weed through, Baker and Vlack pieced together a film that moved cohesively throughout. Their purpose, they said, was to live inside of Bill Withers so they could create a film that felt natural and true. One of the most interesting tidbits of information they shared was of a hard drive in Withers’ studio labeled “Unreleased Bill Withers Tracks.” Um, hello, could someone get around to releasing those please? Click For More »
Brian Rafferty on the wonders of an off-key obsession.
On Friday night I went to see Brian Rafferty’s “Karaoke Obsessed,” part of the eighth annual First Person Festival at the Painted Bride. Now, before you see the word “karaoke,” roll your eyes and decide to scroll to the next post, you may want to give it a second thought. As Rafferty explained in his hourlong discussion, karaoke may be more than the country’s cheesiest pastime, but a hobby that could alter your life for the better.
Rafferty’s presentation began with an explanation about his childhood as a starry-eyed tot who dreamed of becoming a famous singer. It wasn’t until he was in his early 20s in a dingy karaoke bar in the Village that he finally found his voice and therefore an obsession that would change the tune of his life forever. He immediately dropped some extra weight, developed a swagger on the streets and became an instant hit in K-Boxes (individual karaoke rooms) around Manhattan. Next he explained how his fascination with karaoke eventually led him on a worldwide excursion to document its history and influence around the world. (As much as I enjoyed his talk, I have to admit the history section grew a little stale.) It was interesting to learn the meaning of the word karaoke, which is “empty orchestra” in Japanese, but I was entertained most when he shared his personal experiences, which were enhanced by a couple of embarrassing videos and snapshots from his early days on the karaoke circuit. Click For More »
The Yes Men Fix the World opens with its protagonists frolicking in green, sun-dappled waters, dressed head to toe in business suits. Before the end of the documentary, they’ve manufactured candles ostensibly made from human remains, distributed a version of The New York Times with entirely good news and roamed lonely landscapes dressed in “Survivo-balls,” inflatable, “disaster-proof” suits they marketed to a frighteningly receptive audience of Halliburton product scouts.
In their more, erm, legitimate lives, the Yes Men, Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum, are professors of media arts and design, respectively. The Yes Men Fix the World, which was screened at Painted Bride on Nov. 5 as part of the First Person Festival, documents how they apply those disciplines and their Monty-Pythonesque spirit to a special brand of political activism they call “identity correction.” Briefly, this entails impersonating corporate figures to perform acts that are remarkably socially responsible, environmentally conscious or simply absurd, to get at larger truths about the corporation. Click For More »
Nimisha Ladva reads an essay about
her relationship with her mother-in-law.
We never left our seats at the Painted Bride, but we might as well have hopped a plane and spun around the world. In the space of two hours Thursday night at the Salon du Festival, the sixth event of the First Person Festival, the audience found itself carted off to Sinai, England, New Orleans and even Philly’s own Northern Liberties. Four presentations of memoir and documentary art drew us into four very different worlds.
Erica Hoffman kicked off the night with a presentation of her essay “Mom’s New Deal,” a saucy little piece describing her relationship with her penny-pinching mother. The latter apparently lived for two days on a can of green beans in her younger days, and later could be found “wielding her coupon-cutting scissors like a back-alley surgeon,” as Hoffman recalls.
Philadelphia photographer Laura Jean Zito opened our eyes to a world rarely seen through the lens of a camera — especially a camera in the hands of a woman. Though the Sinai Bedouin people rarely allow themselves to be photographed, somehow Zito managed to overcome this cultural barrier in her travels through Egypt’s peninsula. Her striking images of harems, robes billowing in the wind, rolling sands, and scarves covering all but a woman’s piercing eyes made the exotic seem tangible — if only for an instant. Zito’s descriptions of the culture had me hooked, from the fact that the Bedouin consider the mouth the most sensual part of a woman, to their “waste nothing” desert mentality, to the slow infiltration of the West into Bedouin life. How did Zito gain access to all this? “I believe I was at the same time a mascot, an anomaly, and a role model for the Bedouin,” she told us. Click For More »
Since 1968, the Henri David Ball has been the most fab Halloween party in town, hosted by the now 63-year-old Henri David and attended by Philly notables like Gov. Ed Rendell and … the Snuggie Twins (see above). Our associate Web editor Neal Santos attended the freak show, shot this video and some photos, and came back relatively unscathed.
If you’re curious about the man behind the ball, this Philly Mag piece really breaks it down — dude lost his virginity at 12, is BFFs with John Waters and makes jewelry for Stevie Nicks. Jealous?
Staff Blog
941 Theater fundraisers announced
