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These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: The Butterfly Project
GENRE: Family theater
GROUP: Wolf Performing Arts Center
ATTENDED: Mon., April 8, 7:30 p.m., Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: The play by Celeste Raspanti, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, based on the book of the same name, uses the art and poetry from the children of Terezin [Concentration Camp] to tell their story of courage and survival. ... a young Jewish girl enters the concentration camp alone. Just when all seems lost, she meets a hopeful teacher who helps her and the rest of the children express themselves through art and poetry.
WE THINK: More a testament than a play, I Never Saw Another Butterfly reveals the terror and dismay felt by children sent to the Terezin concentration camp; of the more than 15,000 who passed through, only 100 survived World War II. Wolf has performed it for free 40 times all over the area over the 2012-2013 season at community venues and schools; on Holocaust Remembrance Day, they got to do it in the Kimmel Center.
An eloquent love story narrated by a survivor is framed by the stark historical facts, staged with brutal simplicity: directors Tim Popp and Bobbi Wolf fill the stage with children who are gradually marched off to death camps until only one is left. At the end, though, Lorna Dreyfuss' colorful tapestry of over 4000 handmade butterflies expresses hope with a triumphant burst of color.
Unfortunately, the Holocaust Remembrance Day performance I attended was marred by camera-wielding parents, who treated this poetic and solemn play about one of history's great tragedies like a TMZ celebrity ambush. Some didn't even have the sense to turn off their flashes, which are useless with stage lighting but are maddeningly distracting to the rest of the audience. We know it must be exciting, but seriously: Just turn off the gadgets and be there. Pay respect with your undivided attention.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Freude, schöner Götterfunken, tochter aus Elysium! Wir betreten feuertrunken — himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Here's the latest video by loud and grungey Philly band A Crucifying Feeling. They sound a little Nevermind-ish on this one. They've got a goofy Dave Grohl-esque streak in the video. I'm digging it. Play it loud.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
(Full disclosure: CP arts editor Emily Guendelsberger is a member of Mendelssohn Club and sang in this concert; the writer of this review was not aware of this.)
SHOW: The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
GENRE: Music
GROUP: The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia / Mendelssohn Club
ATTENDED: Sun., April 7, 2:30 p.m., Verizon Hall, Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Journey to a historic moment in time with a program that commemorates the demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1989, leading to Germany’s reunification.
WE THINK: “Strange bedfellows” is how conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn described his pairing of Scorpions’1991 hit “Wind of Change” with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. As symbolic and beloved as the song is, it’s a kitschy rock ballad, and orchestrating it along with tenor Adam Frandsen performing vocals and two projection screens displaying the Berlin photography of James Abbott only emphasized how overwrought the anthem is.
After that opener, Solzhenitsyn (whose father is indeed that Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, who was mistreated, imprisoned and eventually deported by the Soviet Union for his human-rights activism) spoke at length about his own memories of the fall of the eastern bloc. Then the concert truly began.
First was Smirnov’s ominous Epitaph for the Victims of Communism, which trickled away on plucked strings so subtly one hardly even knew it has just passed — a penetrating evocation of how thousands of people passed into silence, unacknowledged.
Finally, the 9th — and for all of us philistines whose collective memory had reduced it to nothing but the famous choral fourth movement, the first two movements came on like a force of nature, each shift in tempo and variation in theme containing a thrilling suddenness. And to hear hints of the famous “Ode to Joy” theme in the second movement was to be surprised by it all over again.
Still, the fourth movement was ecstatic, with the choir on their feet and bobbing, the four soloists soaring, the orchestra obviously animated in their playing and Solzhenitsyn with a forward lean in his body, hands conjuring both choir and orchestra. The last note had hardly sounded before the audience was on its feet in sonorous applause, where it stayed for several minutes.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: A… postmodern flamenco gynecologist? It’s cool, it made sense at the time.
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LOVE NOTE RECIPIENT: Philadelphia’s food scene
I AM: Surbhi Puri, a life sciences consultant currently in Boston. I went to UPenn for my undergrad and grad education. Philly will always be the wonderful city where I found myself.
MY LOVE NOTE:
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: 1096
GENRE: Dance
GROUP: Pasión y Arte/Fresh Blood
ATTENDED: Sat., April 6, 7:30 p.m., Fleischer Art Memorial
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Two all-female-companies interweave women's stories through the layering of text, song and dance while investigating the dialogue between the distinct languages of its two artistic collaborators, flamenco and post-modern.
WE THINK: Flamenco, a centuries-old Spanish dance style featuring controlled structures and complex rhythms is an odd pairing with postmodern technique, built on release and rule-breaking. Plus, the piece is inspired by women's history from 1096 onward, and subtitled "The Birth of the First Female Gynecologist." Ay caramba, how's that gonna work?
Splendidly, it turns out. The divergent dance styles merge seamlessly, though Flamenco gets the upper hand. It's a treat to see the post modern aesthetic adapt flamenco's emotional fervor and expressive arm movements. The evocation of journey comes by way of the dancers moving about Fleisher Art Memorial's historic cathedral-style sanctuary, performing various flamenco forms and hybrids thereof. A live flamenco singer goes along, intoning poetic songs. The lyrics are Spanish, but even if you don't speak that language (like me), the passion and pathos ring through loud and clear. The audience is close to the action, making the performer's intensity all the more visceral. Powerfully expressive, this one worked on all fronts. Olé!
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: King's College does great justice to Britten.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: Britten: A Boy Was Born
GENRE: Music
GROUP: The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
ATTENDED: Sat., April 6, 7 p.m., Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Benjamin Britten was undoubtedly one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century, with a diverse catalogue of works still garnering international recognition. … On November 22, 1913, the Feast of St. Cecilia, a boy was born whose music we continue to celebrate in the centenary year of his birth.
WE THINK: The Choir of King’s College overcame any potential expectations of churchiness from a choral program of mostly sacred music with clear voices and a resonant organ. The range of voices expressed a range of human struggles, faults and joys through the spiritual experience. Higher voices encouraged optimism, as lower voices warned of doom. The intricate network of sounds from the choir caused the organ solo on “Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria” to sound stark and plain.
The choir dispelled any idea of sweet, watery hymns met for pleasant and thoughtless listening. Even when singing the most life-affirming and love-focused lyrics, the deeper range of choristers had an authoritative and unnerving low spectrum that could make even the most confident atheist ponder the concept of an immortal soul. “Rejoice in the Lamb” in particular showcased the articulate force of the lower vocal ranges. Together with the organ, the choir created an unnerving but engaging sound.
—Elizabeth Gunto
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: The Arc of Curiosity
GENRE: Music
GROUP: Network for New Music
ATTENDED: 8 p.m. April 5, Rose Recital Hall
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Follow that path of the arc of a composer’s curiosity, and discover the many ways that electronic sound can join traditional instruments to become part of our own musical landscape.
WE THINK: The full event description brings up ENIAC (the first all-purpose computer) and how combining electronic music with traditional instruments can lead to a "third space" that extends the human imagination, so you might expect electronics to have a central role in the music. However, with these works technology mostly plays second fiddle to standard chamber music instruments. The combined sounds are of studious process-oriented design, more intellectual than emotional; the exception being James Primosh's Chamber Concerto, which features expressive clarinet solos and hints of jazz swing music.
And what of the "third space" to extend our imagination? Well, that's in the ear of the beholder. I noticed lots of folks listening with their eyes closed to more clearly focus on the sonics: A sign of minds letting the music take you away to private places, though I found these works to be too punctilious to be so moved myself.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Lady history in books.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: From Seneca Falls to Philadelphia: Fourth of July 1876 and the Women of the Centennial
GENRE: Lecture/exhibition
GROUP: Athenaeum of Philadelphia / Philadelphia Center for the Book
ATTENDED: Friday, April 5, 5 p.m., Athenaeum of Philadelphia
CLOSES: April 27
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: The Athenaeum’s extensive collections regarding the 1876 Centennial Exposition combine in this exhibition with the response of contemporary book artists to the themes of the Centennial, Susan B. Anthony and Women’s Suffrage, and the 1876 Fourth of July.
WE THINK: Even without this year’s PIFA theme for context, stepping into the Athenaeum of Philadelphia feels a bit like traveling backwards in time. A member-supported library designed and built in the mid 19th-century, it’s an obvious fit for an exhibition celebrating Philadelphia women of the centennial. “From Seneca Falls to Philadelphia” features work by ten contemporary book artists responding to themes of patriotism and women’s rights.
Several of the pieces are fictional accounts of Philadelphia women of the era—imaged facsimiles of what their personal journals or photo albums might have looked like. Others are more formally experimental, like Susan Bonthron’s Almost There, a scroll printed with the silhouettes of famous female suffragists and contained by four walls of translucent American flags. The exhibition’s standout piece is Carol Phillips To The Ladies Declaration. A two-dimensional work formed by two joined, light green pages, Phillips’ piece juxtaposes text from the Declaration of the Rights of Women of the United States with text and images from a corset pamphlet distributed by Alice C. Fletcher & Company. (We weren't allowed to take photos in the gallery, unfortunately.)
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Dizzy Gillespie on Philly jazz.
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