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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.
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SHOW: Songs in the Key of Life
GENRE: Music
GROUP: Robert Glasper Experiment
ATTENDED: Sun., Apr. 14, 8 p.m., Kimmel Center
CLOSES: April 14
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Firmly planted in the worlds of jazz, hip-hop and R&B, Grammy-nominated Robert Glasper brings together an all-star cast dedicated to Stevie Wonder's timeless body of work.
WE THINK: Keyboardist Robert Glasper has increasingly blurred the lines between jazz and his influences from hip-hop and R&B, culminating in last year’s Grammy-winning Black Radio. He took the same approach to Stevie Wonder’s body of work, with his Experiment quartet providing the grooves for guest vocalists Lalah Hathaway, Eric Roberson and Mint Condition’s Stokley Williams.
Despite the name of the Harlem Stage-commissioned performance, and the PIFA time machine set to its 1976 release date, Glasper and company didn’t perform a single song from Songs in the Key of Life, choosing instead to draw favorites from throughout Wonder’s catalogue (a concept which would seem to require only the less advanced technology of a record collection). Each song was afforded a reverential enough treatment to please purists before being opened up for instrumental and vocal solos. Hathaway provided the evening’s highlight, scatting on “Overjoyed” and soaring through her entire range on the captivating set-closer “Jesus Children of America.” Williams broke into ecstatic vocalese during “You’ve Got It Bad Girl” and mimicked a trombone solo for “Taboo to Love.” Roberson engaged Glasper in wise-ass verbal sparring throughout the show and grabbed a phone from a woman in the front row for a mid-song selfie during “Creepin’.” All night, Glasper insinuated his own voice on piano and Rhodes, assertively accompanying the singers or taking extended solos that engaged with Wonder’s rich material, once again offering enticing evidence that jazz needn’t be as strictly defined as its purists would insist.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Two historic moments translated into music.
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: Two 20th Century Dates that Changed the Course of History Forever
GENRE: Music
GROUP: Orchestra 2001
ATTENDED: Sat., April 13, 8 p.m., Church of the Holy Trinity, 1904 Walnut Street
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Orchestra 2001’s program selects two contrasting dates in 20th-century history that ushered in the beginning of very different new eras in world history, highlighting both the worst and the best in mankind.
WE THINK: A performance of George Crumb's Night of the Four Moons explored the Apollo moon landing through sparse and unexpected instrumentation and vocals. The singer squeaked, wailed and moaned more than she sang. A long cello note fought with smacking Kabuki blocks for listeners’ ears. The percussion-heavy piece, which included an alto African thumb piano and a Chinese temple gong, sounded off kilter and disjointed.
Henryk Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is as precise and flowing as Night of the Four Moons is jarring and brash. The work tapered off from bass-centric doom to a quiet devastation as the soprano sang the words of an 18-year-old prisoner in a Gestapo jail and a mother lamenting the loss of her son from warfare. From the overwhelming bass to a delicate, precise piano, the conductor utilized every element of the orchestra to express the carnage of war.
–Elizabeth Gunto
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: A Napoleonic-era Sleep No More.
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: Vainglorious: The Epic Feats of Notable Persons in Europe After the Revolution
GENRE: Theater/Exhibition
GROUP: Applied Mechanics
ATTENDED: Sat., April 13, 7 p.m., Christ Church Neighborhood House
CLOSES: April 13
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Factions clash and empires rise and fall…Twenty-six of the shiniest rising stars in the Philadelphia scene join forces to create a dazzling new depiction of a potent historical moment: the great sweep of the Napoleonic Empire in the wake of the French Revolution.
WE THINK: What’s history? Well it ain’t neat. Thus the dramaturges of Applied Mechanics arm you with a flow chart of events, divide the 26-person cast into teams (team Napoleon, team Germaine de Staël, etc.), zone a small gym and its two balconies into parts of the world, and turn you loose to roam, interact, even get some wine and linzertorte if you’re in the right place at the right time. But the play punishes you for your curiosity or fidelity: The more you walk around and see, the less you see. The less you walk around and see, the less you see.
What’s history? Symbols. Thus the tormented spirit of the age, Beethoven, lives in isolated anguish, hardly touching any of the other important personages until one of his concerts turns into a vision of him resentfully conducting Napoleon and Josephine’s coronation. Thus team Talleyrand is composed of five actors playing the same character, a division of self that is not Freudian but political. The Talleyrands appear everywhere, first serving Napoleon, then stripping him of medals and bicorne and finally carving his Europe into pieces.
What’s history? Word and deed. Thus physicality takes on as much import as the English and French dialogue, and battles become dances with snap bangs being thrown, sex is a panting, ass-slapping ritual, and invasions are air-pony Monty Python gallops. With the coordination of director/ringmaster Rebecca Wright and designer Maria Shaplin, such critical moments come to the fore without usurping the sprawl of the play.
What’s drama? The art of the showdown. And for one moment near the end, all the sound and fury of this perpetual motion machine stops, concentrates itself as if it were trying to engineer nothing but this instant all along, and we get Mary Tuomanen’s absorbing Napoleon – just seconds ago within my arm’s length on Elba, desolate and repeating “Josephine, Josephine, Josephine” – restored from exile and confronted by his old troops who are being exhorted to “fire!” The entire hall goes quiet and he utters a line which might as well stand in for the myth of celebrity from that time till now, “You know me.”
What’s history? A Vainglorious tragic-comedy, a flawed inspired play.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Gastronomy lessons from the Founding Fathers.
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: A Taste of History
GENRE: Talk/lecture
GROUP: Chef Walter Staib
ATTENDED: Sat., April 13, 8 p.m., Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: On the 270th Anniversary of Jefferson’s birth, Chef Walter Staib brings to life his Emmy-award winning show A Taste of History with an evening celebrating the food and history of our founding fathers.
WE THINK: From the outset, the appearance of a harpist dressed in colonial gear should have been a portent of the dire things to come: City Tavern chef and PBS host Walter Staib's soooo slow-roasted, live, period-dressed chat with birthday boy “Thomas Jefferson,” his foodie pals “Betsy Ross,” “George and Martha Washington,” “Ben Franklin,” and “John and Abigail Adams.”
Actually, the idea was interesting, and the culinary information and recipes culled from Staib’s television program of the same name was solid. His work at City Tavern is solid. Yet, putting him on stage with wigged cornball reenactors — and a microphone headset that made him appear like Tony Robbins in chef whites — did no one any favors. On video, Staib is great. On stage, he seemed hesitant. The whole production got even more stilted every time they relied on video clips from A Taste of History. Not that I expected Staib to bring a whole sturgeon on stage and stuff it, but it would’ve smelled better that this show.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Actresses singing on bikes to demonstrate their delight in reproductive freedom.
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: Animal Animal Mammal Mine
GENRE: Dance/theater
GROUP: Penn Dixie Productions
ATTENDED: Sun., April 14, 8 p.m., Underground Arts
CLOSES: April 20
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: A devised theater piece that grows out of extensive interviews with women who have inherited the technology of the 60s. It weaves these characters together with dance, projections, and the breathtaking hybrid sculptures of Martha Posner.
WE THINK: Writer-director Anisa George concocts a fascinating adventure, based on conversations with women about reproduction that were expansive enough to explore concerns about climate change and the nature of life itself. As with other works of this style (think Pig Iron Theatre Company, New Paradise Laboratories, Applied Mechanics, and anything staged by Mark Lord), we're embraced by a dizzying variety of fascinating images, action, and sounds — most of them showing low-tech innovation, like Martha Posner's wearable sculptures — from an on-stage glacier and menacing animal activists to the giddy thrills of actresses singing while circling the audience on bicycles and discovering their capacity for flight.
Set designer Amy Rubin uses Underground Arts' basement space well, surrounding us and a deep, sea-blue playing area with eerie bare trees. Often funny while also surprisingly moving, Animal Animal Mammal Mine makes the question of bringing children into an ailing world real and personal, and balances that worry and cynicism with a hopeful message about life's resilience.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: An elephant on trial. No, like, literally, in a courtroom.
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 Trial of Murderous Mary
GENRE: Theater
GROUP: Aaron Cromie & Gwen Rooker
ATTENDED: Fri., April 12, 8 p.m., Kimmel Center
CLOSES: April 20
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: The Sparks Family Circus comes to [a small coal-mining boomtown in the Appalachians], led by Ringmaster Charlie Sparks and featuring his beloved five-ton elephant, Mighty Mary, “the largest living land animal on Earth." ... The sad, bloody fiasco that follows threatens to derail the circus permanently.
WE THINK: Cromie is circus owner and ringmaster Charlie Sparks, while Rooker, Dave Johnson, Sarah Gliko and Erin Carney play multiple roles and instruments in this powerful play with music. They charm us with earnestness as performers in a circus that traveled the country dazzling small-town crowds until their elephant handler retires, replaced by an inexperienced fumbler who causes Mary to panic in a parade.
Whipped into a frenzy by rumors and lies spread by opportunistic journalists, the town wants Mary to pay for killing her incompetent master. The mob's ignorance and ugliness are portrayed using the same well-crafted methods that amused us earlier: clever songs, vivid caricatures, and shadow puppets. One might wish for more about Mary — both her majestic size and her apparently gentle disposition — but her fate requires no embellishment: The raw facts of her trial (yes, they prosecuted an animal in court) and her cruel fate are emotionally forceful enough.
"Murderous Mary" tells a story that feels contemporary, though it occurred a century ago. Media exaggeration, mob panic, and cruelty to animals are far from extinct.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Before/after photos of Berlin.
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: Sounds & Rhythm of Resistance
GENRE: Dance/Music
GROUP: Taller Puertorriqueño
ATTENDED: Fri., April 12, 6 p.m., Barnes Foundation
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Taller Puertorriqueño travels back in time to celebrate Puerto Rico’s Emancipation Day; the day when slaves from African origin were set free on the island in 1873.
WE THINK: Taller Puertorriqueño long ago established itself as the hub of Philly-based Puerto Rican art and activism. For its joyous interpretation of Emancipation Day in Puerto Rico (March 22, 1873), the barrio gallery brought out its finest musicians and practitioners of Bomba dance for a densely percussive call-and-response performance.
The musical/vocal ensemble and its dancers welcomed audience participation, which was essential to the groove and the communal sensation of liberation. The sensuous, clave-heavy sound demanded interaction, especially when additional colorfully dressed dancers became part of the fray.
The only problem I had with the performance (as well as my own level of participation) wasn’t the fault of the Taller Puertorriqueño ensemble: It was the space. The Barnes’ largish community room that serves members and its friends on Friday nights was too big and airy to accommodate the sweaty intimacy of the band, its sound, the dancers and their glorious intent.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Seriously, a small town put an elephant in a courtroom and tried her for murder.
We always get a ton of stuff that doesn't make it into the official agenda for one reason or another. Or sometimes it does! Anyway, this is some of the stuff that CP staffers are attempting to get to this weekend their own selves. You have no excuse for boredom.
FRIDAY 4/12
- John Train's got a new non-concept album. See them play stuff from it during happy hour tonight @ Fergie's.
- If you haven't heard Divers yet, get your ass to The Fire tonight.
- The Making Time lineup tonight is pretty sweet: Delorean, Autre Ne Veut, Doldrums and Jacques Greene.
SATURDAY 4/13
- The Manayunk StrEAT Festival isn't a typo — it's a hilly place where you can eat food.
- The good people at Single Girl, Married Girl Records are celebrating a Winter Zine Relese @ Space 1026.
- Passyunk Square's Second Saturday will be it's largest yet with music and all that good stuff, but we're going for Pollyodd's free strawberrycello cream samples and heaps of complimentary food.
- Daisy Fried (judge of this year's poetry contest!) and Brian Teare (who judged it a couple years ago) and both reading as part of an afternoon double-bill juggernaut @ Penn Book Center.
- The School of Rock curriculum starts off with the Ramones for beginners (they do really only use those three chords) and culminates in Zappa. Therefore, when The Ramones are on the bill of a School of Rock show, as they are at Johnny Brenda's tonight, you can generally expect to find really tiny kids doing their best Joey impression; the effect is really just fantastic.
- Because there weren't enough festivals this month, Subaru is putting on a cherry blossom fest. There's a 5k race for the athletic types, tea ceremonies and martial arts demos for Japan enthusiasts and a Prettiest Pet in Pink contest for the crazy cat ladies.
- Snuff, gore, guts – when we think lazy Sunday we think back-to-back horror movie screenings (Cinedelphia Film Festival).
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: Berlin: Landscape of Memory
GENRE: Lecture/Exhibition
GROUP: James B. Abbott
ATTENDED: Thu., April 11, 5 p.m., Center for Emerging Visual Artists
CLOSES: April 26
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: A challenging, in-depth exploration of an important moment in time [the fall of the Wall] and the resulting changes in landscape and Berlin neighborhoods 24 years later.
WE THINK: Culled from a body of work spanning more than 20 years, James B. Abbott's photography exhibition shows Berlin during a period of major transformation, but in a subtle way. Tucked away in an elegant space overlooking Rittenhouse Square, the modest-sized landscapes, while devoid of expressive faces, manage to carry an emotional heft usually reserved for portraits.
As would be expected, sections of the exhibition depict how Berlin has changed in a before/after fashion: a beach club filled with canoodling couples sits in the former no mans land, a McDonalds has sprouted next to Checkpoint Charlie and the area behind the Reichstag, once neglected, now gleams with modernity. Yet the exhibition does not always afford such convenient comparisons. One wall commemorates those shot while trying to flee East Germany, making time and place irrelevant, while another mixes disparate images as if to show that Berlin has not changed that much: after all these years, the city still has a raw, unfinished quality to it as its monuments loom and its graffitied edifices remain undisturbed.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Buffoonery on the soccer field.
We are crazy excited to announce that we have a judge for this year's poetry contest! Daisy Fried was a staff writer at City Paper when I started working here during the Jurassic (Park: The Lost World) era, and went on to become a poet of renown in places where poetry is properly renowned. She teaches at the Warren Wilson MFA Program in North Carolina and writes for the New York Times, Threepenny Review and Poetry. Her latest book, Women's Poetry is funny and touching and a joy to read. Here's what the New York Times had to say:
Fried is a poet who will “tense up” when she hears “an affirming poem,” finding “Sourness a kind of joy I try for intricately.” Her present-tense poems vividly record the impressions of our moment: road rage, smartphones, magnet loops, Facebook, a “gun megachurch.”
Point is they loved it. Read the whole review here.
SO: Get to it poets! And fiction writers!
The deadline is Tuesday. Here are all the details.
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