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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: Where Heaven's Dew Divides
GENRE: Dance
GROUP: Germaine Ingram Project
ATTENDED: April 18, 7:30 p.m., Innovation Studio at the Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Percussive dancer/choreographer and vocal improviser Germaine Ingram, modern dancer/choreographer Leah Stein and a company of dance and music artists channel key moments and personalities from the history and memory of Philadelphia’s religious life of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
WE THINK: Shows that draw inspiration from social injustice can come off like a lecture performed in a theatrical way. There is so much intent to make a point it's soapbox art. Fortunately, Where Heaven's Dew Divides opts for a more open-ended approach.
That's a neat feat considering the piece gleans inspiration from George Washington's house slaves, African-American religious leaders of the late 1700s, the role of women in the black church movement and Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic.
All those inspirations are evident in the work, yet the piece is abstract enough that it's not like you're getting hit over the head with all that backstory. Rather, Where Heaven's Dew Divides is a rhythmic ode to the capacity for human expression in dance, music and song. A percussive tap dance is like a conversation between three people. Yet, the whole thing is uplifting. The collective spirit of this first-rate cast flat-out moves you. That's the beauty of well-done art.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: A Zen Buddhist Drumline.
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: Hiraki: Tsunami Loss & Hope
GENRE: Music
GROUP: KyoDaiko Taiko Drummers of Philadelphia
ATTENDED: April 18, 7 p.m., Shofuso Japanese House & Garden
CLOSES: April 18
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: A specially commissioned work by Kaoru Watanabe that memorializes the victims of the 2011 catastrophe and the resilience of its survivors.
WE THINK: The weather was just foreboding enough to cast West Fairmount’s Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in a haze that gave the garden setting the look of an oil painting atmosphere, all swirling and muted tones that the KyoDaiko ensemble hollowed through. The couple dozen drummers are all of varying skill levels (between one and eight years, according to the program) but this aids the idea of a communal taiko performance. Watanabe, himself a classically trained fue (Japanese wooden flute) and taiko player, opened the performance with his solemn fue, slowly gliding his way to the bridge overtaking the garden’s center island. A sole dancer, wearing a white geisha robe and face paint, twisted among the drums like a specter before the KyoDaiko drummers emerged.
It’s astounding how impactful taiko drumming can be with its sparse arrangements and, keeping with its historic origin, emphasis on minimalism. The Hiraki piece played with multiple dynamic levels of loud vs. soft. The performers themselves echoed the ghostly dancer with rhythmic chants, appearing to honor those lost in the recent tsunami. At its most climactic, the drummers were trancelike and damn near funky, like a Zen Buddhist Drumline. I’d like to see Nick Cannon behind an odaiko next time.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: All hail Stevie Wonder.
The Big Bang Theory sucks ass. I mean, I assume it does. When I want something silly and dorky, I go for Community. (This is totes the darkest timeline amirite?)
Somehow all that was supposed to be me talking about City Paper's Science + Tech Issue, which came out today to coincide with Philadelphia Science Festival and Philly Tech Week. Here's what's in it:
TECH! Emily Guendelsberger talked to that Drexel prof who turned the Cira Centre into the mother of all Pongs. (See Also: video of the thing in action).
SCIENCE! Check out this COMIC about a very nervy lady! I'm crazy proud and excited about this projected. Written by Jess Bergman. Illustrated by Evan Lopez. Edited by Emily G. So cool. (Evan also did the cover.)
PICKS! And of course we've got lots of suggestions on what to do during all the fests. James Randi! Developing Philly! Robots locked in mortal combat!
REFERENCE! This blog title is swiped from the greatest comic of all time (by Michael Kupperman).
Atta boy, Mike
It’s fair to wonder what a solo show from Michael Nesmith – the most enigmatic of former Monkees – would be like. Is there loping country-rock? Is there conceptualizing befitting the music video and cult film (he helped produce Repo Man, you know) pioneer? Does he wear a wool hat?
In short: Yes, yes and definitely no.
With this weekend’s passing of Vince Montana, Jr., the backbone to all that was disco, Philly soul and local Latino and Nuyorican soul — Philly International Records, MSFB, the Salsoul Orchestra — has gone. He was the vibe and the vibraphone and deserved a place in every music hall of fame that would have him. Luckily, there’ll be a place for him amongst the next fleet of inductees into Philadelphia’s Walk of Fame. I spoke with Vince for CP here. A true treasure.
The rumors have been greatly exaggerated. Word went around that master chef Georges Perrier might be retiring from the whisk and the sauce pan but the comes news that he’ll take over Chip Roman’s Mica May 7-11 with a menu of his own designing. Guess Georges just wanted to be free of his bricks and mortar locations.
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From left: The TLA's founding members, Claire Brown Kohler, Eric Moore and Ray Murray
After 32 years in the movies business, Adapt or Die might as well be the TLA Entertainment Group's motto. What started as a repertory movie house on South Street in the '80s expanded into a thriving video rental chain that later went bust when Netflix and other video-on-demand businesses came along. But instead of keeling over, the TLA got a second life through its DVD distribution business and is still making some of the most obscure (and bizarre) cinema available to the masses. Despite the group's prominence, Eric Bresler, a former TLA employee who started his own film festival this year, felt it necessary to give the TLA its due. “The history of TLA isn’t recorded anywhere in detail, “just [in] broad strokes,” he said when we profiled Cinedelphia earlier this month.
And so on Monday night at the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art (an exhibition/film space run in part by Bresler), TLA's three founders – Ray Murray, Claire Brown Kohler and Eric Moore – gathered to give a quick and dirty history of the group, tossing around jokes and launching into wistful reminisces while speaking to the evolution of an industry now in turmoil.
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.
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