Philadelphia Live Arts Festival

Second Thursdays Series

Artists from the Live Arts Festival artist residency program or a guest artist from the region talk about their work process and share their musings, imaginings and ideas that are the inspiration for what will eventually evolve into a new work.

They’ll be casual, intimate gatherings, so anything goes. The artists may perform segments of new work, tell stories about their un-traditional research, or just discuss what they’re currently imagining for their upcoming piece. Your feedback and questions throughout are warmly welcomed and encouraged!

Why you should come:

• Free admission
• Free beer
• You’ll hang with the artists, meet new people, see cool stuff, and be part of amazing conversations (or just listen in if you’d rather!).

When you should come:

• The second Thursday of each month, October – June 7pm

Upcoming featured artists:

• January 14, 2010

• Whit MacLaughlin / New Paradise Laboratories (FATEBOOK, 2009)Dare to take a peek inside the brain of Whit MacLaughlin, the Artistic Director of New Paradise Laboratories and mastermind behind 2009’s FATEBOOK.  Whit will give insight into his latest projects: FREEDOM CLUB (in collaboration with The Riot Group); MORT (the third part ofNPL’s American Party trilogy preceded by BATCH and PROM); and his newest idea, F@#CK COMPUTERS. For more advance details on the new works, visit http://www.princeton.edu/arts/news/archive/freedom-club/.Miro Dance Theatre
• Amanda Miller and Tobin Rothlein of Miro Dance Theatre will be showing a slideshow of their recent trip to India where they performed their newest work, How am I Not Myself?In the work, two classically trained dancers, one in Ballet and the other Bharatnatyam, examine the questions that come with dance, identity, and moving beyond the classical form. At the age of four Amanda Miller and Viji Rao began their classical training on opposite sides of the world. Now, thirty years later, following professional classical careers, they are both engaged in their own unique forms of contemporary dance. In How am I Not Myself? they join with video artist Tobin Rothlein to look at their transition from classical to contemporary with an exciting dialogue of movement and multimedia and a celebration of the contemporary and the unclassifiable.
• Makoto Hirano & Ben Camp
• Ben Camp and Makoto Hirano will be showing a few scenes that may or may not make it into their upcoming work, PunchKapow. PunchKapow is an original devised piece in development by Ben, Alex Torra, Makoto, Charlotte Ford, Mikaal Sulaimon, and Brett Cassidy.  The piece is inspired by representations of violence and how much fun they can be – comic books, action movies, video games, and anime.  People love violence, and we want to dive into the joy of fighting as much as the darkness. This piece is the first for an organization called Team Sunshine Performance Corporation, and will priemere in November.JANUARY PRE-SERIES BONUS EVENT:For this month’s Second Thursdays Series, you’ll enter the Festival studio through AREA 919’s gallery space. Between 6pm and 7pm, visit AREA 919 for a glass of wine and their Antique Collection of 18th and 19th Century works in stone, marble, iron, and wood from Europe, India, China, and America.  For more information: www.area919.com.

• Where it all happens: The Festival Studio , 919 N 5th St Philadelphia, PA 19123, Free onsite parking + abundant neighborhood street parking

Group Motion in City Dances / Parkway at the Rodin Museum

Group Motion will next be performing on Saturday, December 12th (with a reception following the performance) and Sunday, December 13th; performances start at 8pm at the CEC Meetinghouse Theater at 3500 Lancaster Ave in West Philadelphia / University City.

For more information please visit www.groupmotion.org or ask me! (Rachel@philaculturati.com, subject line: “Group Motion”)

The Design Center at Philadelphia University opens Lace in Translation, a new exhibition of contemporary work inspired by historic lace, on Thursday, September 24.  The Center, located at 4200 Henry Avenue in Philadelphia, will host a free opening reception on September 24 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. and an evening with artist Cal Lane on September 25 at Philadelphia University’s Tuttleman Auditorium (reception at 6 p.m., talk at 7 p.m.).

Lace in Translation, which runs through April 3, 2010, explores the intersection of luxurious hand-craftsmanship with modern, mass production. The Design Center’s historic Quaker Lace Company collection is the inspiration for three internationally-renowned artists and designers reconsidering conventional notions of lace. European designers Tord Boontje and Demakersvan, and Canadian artist Cal Lanehave created installations specifically for TDC’s unique and intimate space — a 1950s era, Hollywood-style ranch house, one of the first in Philadelphia, and situated on the edge of Fairmount Park.

From the intricacy of a handwoven raffia curtain, to the industrial art forms of laser-cut fabrics, a welded filigree oil tank, and a lace chain-link fence, Lace in Translation plays with the concept of lace, utilizing unexpected materials and new technologies to transform the Center’s grounds and galleries.  A special exhibition website is available at www.laceinstranslation.com which invites visitors to preview the exhibition and to submit their own designs and handwork.

A short film running at the exhibition explores the history of the Quaker Lace Company and its role in transforming lace from luxury product to mass market consumable, as well as the creative processes of Boontje, Demakersvan, and Lane. The film features historic footage of Quaker Lace being manufactured, the designers’ contemporary production techniques, and interviews with the designers and curators. Directed by Glenn Holsten, the film will also be available online.

European designer Tord Boontje has created a multi-sensory, three-gallery installation featuring furniture, lighting, and laser-cut fabrics in themes of black, gold, and white.  As part of this site-specific installation, a team of Philadelphia University students, faculty, and staff worked with Boontje’s designs, hand-weaving raffia into pieces for a large lace curtain to hang in the gallery windows.  Boontje says the vocabulary of lace in his work emerged through “cutting away rather than building up. It was through direct translations of nature, looking up to the sky through the layers of sunlit foliage – these kinds of things remind me of lace. Like the natural world, where foliage is spatial and formed in three dimensions, I started to look at a layered image and three-dimensional lace-like structures to invoke this intricacy that is so fascinating to me.”

Boontje’s work is featured in many permanent museum collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, MoMA, and the Groninger Museum. He has developed designs and products for Target, Alexander McQueen, Swarovski, Moroso, Swatch, and Perrier Jouët, among many others.

Dutch design studio Demakersvan has designed a “lace” chain-link fence installation for The Design Center’s front yard. “Industrial production is for us a big source of inspiration,” says Joep Verhoeven of Demakersvan.  “In our projects we often combine the sensitive and the small with the powerful, large and industrial. The Lace Fence project translates that line of thinking. Fencing is a sign of how we have modified and cultivated our environment.  We wanted to explore what would happen if a patch of embroidered wire met with and continued as an industrial fence.”

Both MoMA and the Victoria & Albert Museum have Demakersvan’s work in their permanent collections. The studio has created pieces for HugoBoss, Swarovski, Fornarina Italy, DROOG Design, MONTIS Furniture, MVRDV Architects, Kakitsubata Tokyo, and others.

The Design Center’s enclosed backyard garden area, with its covered, grand piano-shaped swimming pool serves as the plinth for Canadian artist Cal Lane’s environmental installation, which includes a 600-pound welded filigree oil tank. Lane formerly worked as a welder and today uses her welding torch to cut doilies and baroque patterns into objects such as wheelbarrows, I-beams, dumpsters and shovels. “I was cleaning the metal shop up one day,” Lane says, “and as a joke, I put real lace doilies on top of the equipment after I cleaned them – on the band saw, anvil, drill press.  Visually I liked the contrast of materials, the white clean delicate lace draped over this dirty cold steel machine… This brought me to creating industrial doilies… [which] were to me a symbol of contrast and balance, by placing together visual oppositions: male and female, tough and delicate.”

As part of the nation’s oldest textile school, TDC’s historic textile collection features many artifacts from Philadelphia’s pinnacle as a national center for textile design and manufacturing. The Center’s lace collection includes some 150 machine-made lace samples and marketing materials from the Quaker Lace Company of Philadelphia.  TDC also houses an extraordinary collection of hundreds of original design sketches by Quaker Lace designer Frederick Charles Vessey (1862-1948).  Just as the Lace in Translation designers and artist turned to these historic designs for inspiration, Vessey himself mined such varied sources as Egyptian tomb paintings, Jacobean architectural motifs, and tin ceiling catalogs to inspire and inform his designs for the Quaker Lace product line.

Lace in Translation is the first exhibition produced by The Design Center in conjunction with its new interpretive initiative, The

Fabric of Philadelphia – a collaborative effort led by TDC in partnership with area museums, libraries, businesses and community members. The initiative captures and communicates the compelling story of the Philadelphia region’s textile heritage as a national center for textile design and manufacturing. The Design Center’s historic textile collection also recently served as the inspiration for the bright, bold graphics wrapping the City of Philadelphia’s new fleet of recycling trucks.

Lace in Translation has been funded by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative with additional support from the Marketing Innovation Program. Additional support has also come from The Coby Foundation, LTD and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Receive 30% off tickets to La Sylphide and Barber Violin Concerto.

June 5-6 at 8 p.m.
June 6 at 12 p.m.
June 7 & 13 at 2 p.m.
June 11-12 at 8 p.m.

La Sylphide

Returning to Philadelphia for the first time in 21 years, the oldest ballet in existence is set in the Scottish Highlands. August Bournonville’s ethereal tale of love still enthralls audiences today with the captiviating romance and demanding choreography that made this work ahead of its time. 

Barber Violin Concerto

Company Premiere
Peter Martins explores the contrast between classical ballet and modern dance in this innovative work to Samuel Barber’s deeply expressive, romantic score.

Please use discount code LS30 when ordering.  For tickets click here.

The Pennsylvania Ballet is offering a limited number of Orchestra seats to each performance (May 6 – 10 at the Merriam Theater) at the steal of a deal price of just $25 (regularly priced at $95.50). These tickets are online, by phone, or at the Merriam Theater box office by using the code TANGO25.

The PA Ballet also has a special package deal for Mother’s Day, which includes brunch and the ballet. Package prices begin at $82.30 and include a 3-course brunch (tax

and gratuity incl.) at the Palm at 12 p.m. on Mother’s Day, followed by a 2 p.m. performance of Tango with Style at the Merriam Theater. Reservations must be made by Friday, May 8 by contacting Arajua Backman 215.587.6921 or abackman@paballet.org.

Tango with Style offers three contemporary works, each with a compelling stylistic foundation that highlights the extraordinary artistic depth and innovative repertoire of this nationally-recognized ballet company.

Koresh Dance Co @ Suzanne Roberts Theatre at Broad and Lombard, April 30th to May 3rd. $5 off tickets of $20-$30. To receive this offer is to use the discount code KCD at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre box office www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org / 215-985-0420.

Koresh Dance Company is Philadelphia’s third largest dance company and will be performing at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre from April 30th to May 3rd. Programming for Koresh Dance Company’s 2009 Spring Season includes a new work by Roni Koresh, and Paul Selwyn Norton, a rising figure on the Dutch dance scene.   
Two works:

ev•o•lu•tion by Roni Koresh:  Language and art have remained essential to human nature throughout the ages. The need for human expression is as universal as the need for replenishing ourselves through procreation.  Expression is fundamental to the reasons for our existence and to understand that expression in its purest form is to understand ourselves. Roni explores this subject and more through his intricate choreography set to music by Franz Peter Shubert, Pete Nemlok, Fariborz Lachini, Greg Smith, John Vosbikian – and more. 

Pieces of 9 by Paul Selwyn Norton:  “Pieces of 9″ is representational on my recent focus on “music for dance”. I believe that it is important that composers have just as equal a standing on stage as the choreographer. Their music should not only serve the choreographer’s vision’ but should be also resonate with the same respect and vitality as the dance. These pieces are my thanks to the great work of John Cage, Jose Luis Greco and Elmer Schönberger.