Curators’ Choice—Week of May 18th
We sure do miss you! While we are apart, our Artistic Producers, Zach Blackwood and Katy Dammers, will prep a new list each week to keep your ears and eyes full until we can be together again…
In Case You Missed It
“Animals” | The Crossing & Ted Hearne | Fringe Festival 2018 The Grammy award-winning choir returned to the Philly Fringe Festival for 2018’s performance of Of Arms and the Man. The show explores ideas of life during war and the alliances and enemies that can be formed across national borders. This particular composition is inspired by President Trump‘s infamous quote comparing deported undocumented immigrants to animals (“These aren’t people, these are animals,” NYT.)
In Plain Air | International Contemporary Ensemble | Fringe Festival 2018 FringeArts neighbor, Christ Church, installed its C.B. Fisk pipe organ in 2018 and invited members of the acclaimed artist collective International Contemporary Ensemble to inaugurate the new instrument with a program of original compositions.
Museum Workout | Monica Bill Barnes & Company | Fringe Festival 2018 Monica Bill Barnes & Company reimagined the museum tour, creating a physical way for audiences to relate to our city’s renowned art collection. Participants joined the company at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, outside of public hours, traveling through the museum, performing choreographed exercises in the galleries.
The show must go on | Jerome Bel | Fringe Festival 2008 The experimental choreographer provokes his audiences with witty, cerebral presentations that often break down the traditional barrier between performer and audience. The show must go on, named after the Queen song, is an entertaining meditation on the human response to music – the emotional and the visceral – and dance itself. Featuring both amateur and trained dancers, bodies of all shapes, sizes, and capabilities move and groove, dancing to the beat of their own drummer.
We 💙 Our Alumni
The Shipment | Young Jean Lee Playwright and director Young Jean Lee and a cast of 5 African-American performers create an unsettling terrain of well-trodden stereotypes that dare audiences to laugh as they consider their own preconceptions about race and culture. Young Jean Lee was last seen on the FringeArts stage in her2012 production Untitled Feminist Play.
Through Cracks in the Walls | Almanac Dance Circus Theatre Frequent FringeArts collaborator, Almanac’s Dance Circus Theatre’s Company Members are staying connected despite the Coronavirus. Each Company Member and Associate Artist created a short movement phrase, to create an exquisite corpse dance film in the style of Mitchell Rose. As isolation, quarantine, and uncertainty continue, they are thinking about the ways we all can continue to inspire each other, without being able to be together physically.
Where To Binge
Kanopy is a video streaming service for quality, thoughtful entertainment. Find movies, documentaries, foreign films, classic cinema, independent films, and educational videos that inspire, enrich, and entertain. Enjoy their catalog for free when you sign up with your Philadelphia library card!
This diverse group of art makers, including Philly artists Amy Smith + jumamatu m. poe, came together to collectively author and compile a set of working guidelines for ethics & equity in presenting dance & performance. Real Talk! is meant to be an in-progress, living document, a house for testimonials, a handbook for transparent conversations, and a call for radical change. Check out their ongoing, open document and their first public conversation held last week.
We’ll see you for next week’s Curators’ Choice, but in the meantime, stay connected with us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!