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Also this issue: Festival Pier |
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August 29-September 4, 2002
cover story
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Roger Guenveur Smith has acted, memorably, in movies (Do the Right Thing) and television (Oz). Theater audiences know him for a series of provocative pieces he has done with sound artist Marc Anthony Thompson. They use biography (subjects range from Columbus to Frederick Douglass to Huey P. Newton) as a vantage point from which to riff on modern culture. It seems an ideal fusion for Smith, who entered graduate school at Yale with the intention of becoming an academic historian, before migrating to their drama school. At this year’s Fringe Festival, Smith’s latest work, Iceland, is a spotlight show. In a telephone interview earlier this week, the soft-spoken, reflective Smith talked about his background.
"I was the child who read the encyclopedia for fun. I had certain obsessions. One was the U.S. presidents -- I memorized them and challenged my friends to do the same. There were other significant books for me that my family owned, like JA Rodgers' World's Great Men of Color. My mother had a volume of Frederick Douglass' narrative ... it must have been one of the first books I read. When I came to it later as an undergraduate, I realized I already knew it."
His performance instinct? "Actually, in college I used the Douglass narrative as the basis for a performance piece; I continue to do variations of it to this day. As I child, I had the great fortune to be exposed to works of history -- and the imagination to think of them as a performer. I believe all my independent work for the stage is informed by the two passions."
Asked if he sees any throughline in the disparate characters and subjects of his performances, Smith says, "I'm starting to see my work as an autobiography in progress -- a definition of who I am, and my relationship to American history and politics. It's a niche I continue to carve out for myself. Along the way, I've been able to explore other people.
"Sometimes I don't realize how much I've been invested in a character personally until it's over. There was a man I knew as a child, who sold weekly newspapers. My father would buy papers from him. He wasn't able to say thank you, but you could tell he was grateful. He affected my subconscious, and when it came time for me to play a street peddler [Smiley, the stuttering hero of Do the Right Thing] it helped me paint that character. The influences come from unpredictable sources. I'm not sure I want even to try to identify the specifics. Maybe sometime I'll come to footnote it, but for now I'll live in the moment."
On the suggestion that Iceland seems less overtly political and biographical, Smith responds, "Œovertly' is the key word. There's a political strategy to everything I do, but here I'm taking a leap into the personal. That's new for me. I play multiple characters around the love story of two artists, a dancer and a painter, who have an abortive breakup. Their imagined correspondence makes up the piece."
Smith has been commissioned by the Fringe to create a new work centered on Philadelphia for the 2003 festival. Smith says he has many warm associations with the city. "Since I first visited as a child, the city has reverberated in my imagination as one of the great historic centers. I wanted to go to the Liberty Bell, and I was shocked that my cousin -- who lived here -- had never been."
"I also happen to think that ŒLa-La (Means I Love You)' by The Delfonics may be the greatest song of all time. What could be more perfectly written or executed?" Smith then puts the two themes together with characteristic imagination. "Ironically, ŒLa La' came out at a time when America was at war with Vietnam --and with itself. How amazing that such a great expression of intimacy could be rendered at a time of brutality. That's the story of America."
And then there's another of Smith's cousins: Vincent. "He came from Philly, and he knew every dance there ever was. Later, he moved to Los Angeles. Vincent infected the entire city with The Funky Chicken.
"Only a Philadelphian could have done that!"
Iceland, Roger Guenveur Smith, Thu., Sept. 12-Sat., Sept. 14, 8 p.m., $15, Arden Theatre Co., 40 N. Second St.
 pomé made: Jorelle Pomé duets with her "fifth appendage." |
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It all began one hot summer day. Walking around a dance studio, Jorelle Pomé’s long hair was sticking to her moist skin. Pomé swiped her arm to push the hair away from her body, but instead it draped over her even more. “I felt like my hair had a personality, like it had come alive,” she recalls.
That brief moment sparked the creative concept behind 5 ft. Human, 2 ft. Hair, which the Brooklyn-based Pomé presents at the Fringe as part of the Fresh Moves 1 showcase.
The work begins with Pomé gently swirling her lengthy locks. "I see it as this kind of primordial stirring of the soup. It's like I'm warming up my hair," she explains. After the warm-up Pomé proceeds to toss, tug, pull, hide behind and otherwise duet with what she refers to as her "fifth appendage."
Pomé's face is obscured by the strands atop her head for the bulk of the time, and that creates a unique challenge for the dancer. Because her eyes are either cast downward, or looking straight into her hair so that she can't focus, she gets dizzy. Sometimes she closes her eyes to dispel the sense of vertigo, but she admits that certain parts can be tough going.
Throughout the work Pomé romps around, flutters her hands and contorts her limbs into unusual shapes. She undulates her back or arms so it looks like energy currents are coursing through her body.
While there is no specific narrative, Pomé says her character clearly has a love-hate relationship with her hair. At one point she appears to become angry over an inability to get out from under her mop top. In another section she stuffs a wad of hair into her mouth and then tries to talk. People have come up with personal interpretations of these actions; one woman told the artist she thought that Pomé putting her hair in her mouth represented the "oppression of women." Pomé declines to offer much literal interpretation for 5 ft. Human, 2 ft. Hair. She says it's mainly a reflection of her desire to seem "like a creature inhabiting another world.... I like to lift people outside of their expectation of the human body. That's my specialty."
In the course of her career Pomé, 27, has spent a good deal of time in the studio improvising, looking to develop novel gestures. If a particular move happens to catch her fancy, she'll embark on a concerted exploration of its extended possibilities, much like she did when brushing aside her hair on that hot summer day.
Versed in the basics of ballet and modern dance, Pomé is also trained in several culturally based styles of movement, including Capoeira, East Indian and Senegalese dance forms. Studies at Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec), where she received a B.F.A. in choreography, had a profound impact on her vision as a choreographer. Some of the students there had no formal dance training, yet were doing good work all the same. From that she says she "learned to see the other side of the coin and how to be more animalistic with my work, which is very gravity driven, very sensual, very female. But I like this idea of also having it be raw and not so lofty."
In the case of 5 ft. Human, 2 ft. Hair, the raw part extends to things Pomé does prior to the presentation. "There's a lot of preparation for this piece," she says. "My hair has to be two days dirty, otherwise it will not have the volume. And my hair usually parts down the middle, so I have to spend a half-hour messing with it so it won't part. In the beginning I want it to be a homogenous mass."
5 ft. Human, 2 ft. Hair, Fresh Moves 1, Sat., Aug. 31, 9:30 p.m.; and Sun., Sept. 1, 3:30 p.m., Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St.
60-Minute Mental Vacations, New Paradise Laboratories, Tue., Sept. 10-Sat., Sept. 14, 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., Smoke, 233 N. Bread St. What’s it like to attend an interactive theater workshop with the creators of This Mansion is a Hole and The Fab Four Reach the Pearly Gates? Probably wacky, definitely intriguing and thought provoking. But if you want to find out for sure, book your spot at the box office soon -- space is limited for these vacations.
Debra Auspitz
Autistic Fairies: Cabaret for a New Millennium, Ginger Moloko, Mon., Sept. 9-Wed., Sept. 11, Fri., Sept. 13-Sat., Sept. 14, 9:30 p.m., $10, Sound and Word Warehouse, 108 Arch St. A Manhattan-theater-collective, blond-wigged “post-drag” songstress morbidly intoning neo-cabaret songs about spiritual rottenness and fetishistic behavior, Ginger Moloko (along with her vid-accompaniest Meghan Berberet and piano, vocals and computer-generated media) is nothing short of Warhol’s Plastic Exploding Inevitable -- that which brought the Velvet Underground and Nico to the fucked-up-Pop-Art forefront. Now this should be fun.
A.D. Amorosi
Britneys Inferno, Headlong Dance Theater, Thu., Sept. 5-Fri., Sept. 6 and Mon., Sept. 9, 8 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 7, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 8, 2 p.m.; Tue., Sept. 10, 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., $15, Arden Theatre, 40 N. Second St. Combining the music -- no, the very idea -- of Britney Spears to Dante’s wretched Inferno seems like a match made in Hell. Rather than dance mere jigs to the “Oops” of her oeuvre, Philly’s premiere movement-theater-philosophers, Headlong Dance, study the intricacies of desire, temptation and innocence, MTV style and the interaction between doe-eyed audiences and dumb-headed celebrities.
A.D.A.
Contagion, Hotel Obligado, Wed., Sept. 4, Fri., Sept. 6 and Sun., Sept. 8, 9:30 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 7, 2 p.m., $10, Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St. High-strung Philadelphians Dawn Falato and Aaron Cromie have put together a team of mask-and-wig wonks to retell Poe’s “The Masque of Red Death.” Only to their standards, Poe ain’t nothing without a little DNA evidence, some old fashioned bloodletting and lots of heart-racing trapeze aerialization. Think of Contagion as Ken Russell’s version of CSI starring the Flying Wallendas.
A.D.A.
Cryolumia, Sir Eel Productions, Thu., Sept. 12-Fri., Sept. 13, 8:30 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 14, 3 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., $10, Christ Church, 20 N. American St. This tale of human survival and the glory of love is captured well by the Fringe Guide blurb: “two Olympic ice carvers” (the Fear No Ice performance ice company), “live video” (Philly VJ Kaboom’s live wild stylings), “2 well-oiled chainsaws” (metal sculptor Daniellemarie Catte), “erotic movement” (Cypher Zero) and “passion” (violinist Gloria Justen, Buchla-synth gent Charles Cohen, etc.). The role of “1 pound of fresh beats” has yet to be cast.
A.D.A.
Cul-de-Sac, da da kamera, Fri., Aug. 30-Sun., Sept. 1, 8 p.m., $15, Arden Theatre. Philly’s Fringe has been very good to Daniel MacIvor and Sherrie Johnson, the decade-old Canadian perf-art duo da da kamera, what with having presented Monster and In On It during previous Fests. For round three, MacIvor has come up with a meta-theatricale that’s equal parts Diva and Drugstore Cowboy in his telling of the final moments between a man and a strange group of junkie hustlers and opera mavens.
A.D.A.
Generating Purposes, Rebecca Sloan, (double bill with NYC: The Girl Projects), Thu., Sept. 5-Fri., Sept. 6, 9:30 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 7, 4 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 8, 6 p.m., $10, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St. Sloan is known for her weightless but rigorously rhythmic athleticism with SCRAP Performance and Winged Woman Dance as well as for her role as Artistic Director of The Bald Mermaids. This time Sloan illuminates her lithe dance moves by incorporating light boxes into her performance. Perhaps it will be like a stop-motion version of Remain In Light.
A.D.A.
Glorious Day for an Unknown Woman, Michael Sakamoto, Tue., Sept. 3, Thu., Sept. 5 and Sat., Sept. 7, 7 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 8, 4:30 p.m., $10, Mum Puppettheatre. In this, the third part of his Cinema Trilogy, Californian choreographer/writer/ artist Sakamoto creates silent motion picture theatricality flush with big meaning told through subtle movement. Sakamoto plays a Benshi, a Japanese silent film narrator who implicates the values of old world charm and machismo in a series of narratives and dances.
A.D.A.
Great Quentini: No Hurt Earthling, Help Earthling, The Great Quentini, Mon., Sept. 9-Tue., Sept. 10 and Fri., Sept. 13, 9:30 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 14, 4 p.m., $10, Christ Church. Look out: a Yeti (abominable snowman) once abducted by aliens, is now roaming the earth wondering what the heck happened to his planet while he was away. The answers come by way of The Great Quentini (Quentin Davis), a quirky performance artist/musician who creates cosmic mayhem plus lots of laughs.
Deni Kasrel
HomoFaux Pas, Helen Back, Mon., Sept. 9-Sat., Sept. 14, 9 p.m., $10, Fringe Cabaret at the Hub, Second and Race sts. Better known as Jimi Mooney of Big Mess Theater, the persona of Helen Back harkens to the good ol’ fashioned days of early punk. Together with a band starring Chris Unrath (Gentlemen 4, Gimme), Back and company essay -- in song and story -- the sound and vision (feather boas, china-girl wigs) of Alladin Sane/Pin-Ups era Bowie, T Rex, Patti Smith, Donna Fargo and Siouxsie, plus original songs.
A.D.A.
Interplay, Group Motion/Improv 2, Mon., Sept. 9 and Wed., Sept. 11, 7 p.m.; Tue., Sept. 10 and Sat., Sept. 14, 9:30 p.m., $10, Painted Bride Art Center. Group Motion is adding something new to its multimedia dance theater mix. For Interplay, the juicy moves, great live music (Improv 2) and imaginative theatrical devices will be there, but with an addition -- the audience. You may find yourself drawn into this interplay, literally.
Janet Anderson
A Life Well Squandered The Needles Jones Story & An Homage to Nico, Sun., Sept. 8 and Thu., Sept. 12-Fri., Sept. 13, 8 p.m., $10, The Five Spot, 5 S. Bank St. Needles Jones, the raunchy, bitter host of Hard Liquor Theater, delivers a dual performance portraying a pair of larger-than-life broads: herself and Nico, legendary Velvet Underground occasional lead singer and Andy Warhol compadre. As usual Jones rants and sings songs woefully out of tune, but that only makes you love her more.
D.K.
Lunchlady Doris, Sat., Sept. 7 and Sat., Sept. 14, 5 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 8, 2 p.m.; Thu., Sept 12-Fri., Sept. 13, 8 p.m., $10, Nexus Gallery, 137 N. Second St. The best of the Philly improv troupes, this gang specializes in what’s called “long form,” a way of weaving together improvised skits to create a whole larger than the sum of its parts. Often funny, often dark, often impressive.
Toby Zinman
Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Antique Mecanique, Thu., Sept. 5, 8:30 p.m.; Fri., Sept. 6, 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 7-Sun., Sept. 8, 3:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., 212 Race St., first floor. Those obsessed with tinkering will appreciate the host of odd characters who in the course of this show create complex machines to perform the simplest tasks. Pig Iron’s Quinn Bauriedel and Geoff Sobelle are responsible for this bout of absurdity.
D.A.
Más MOXIE, MOXIE Dance Collective, Wed., Sept. 11-Fri., Sept. 13, 9:30 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 14, 4:30 p.m., $10, Painted Bride Art Center. MOXIE is more than a cute name; it’s five of Philly’s most inventive and sassy dancer-choreographers: Nichole Canuso, Heather Murphy, Lea Yeager, Peter D’Orsaneo and Christy Lee. The Foxy Five perform five new works, one from each Moxie-person, a program likely to leave you calling for Más MOXIE.
J.A.
The Metamorphosis, Black Moon Theatre Co., Tue., Sept. 10 and Thu., Sept. 12, 6:30 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 14, 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., $10, Fringe Cabaret at the Hub. Anytime anyone does Kafka’s buggy classic, I can’t help but think of Mel Brooks’ The Producers: watching Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder rifling through bad plays until they get to the story of Gregor Samsa’s transformation. In the hands of Brooklyn-based director/choreographer Rene Migliaccio and film director Vinz Feller, the panoramic tale of man-made-cockroach is made cinematic as screen, stage and insect merge into one buzzing, clicking, eerie multimedia mess.
A.D.A.
Mismatched Pair, Cheryl Capezzuti, Fri., Aug. 30, 8:15 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 31, 2:15 p.m., 4:15 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 1, 3:15 p.m., free, Fringe Cabaret at the Hub. Cheryl Capezzuti finds inspiration in an unlikely source: dryer lint. The Pittsburgh-area-puppeteer/sculptress has received national attention for her tiny figurative Lint Guys. In Mismatched Pair, she teams up with writer Kellee Van Aken to present the Fringe with a surprisingly touching tale of a woman who falls in love with the mammoth Lint Guy growing steadily larger in her laundromat’s wastebasket.
John Vettese
Pretending to Be Rock, Sherman Fleming and Haig Paul featuring Christianne Kapps, Sat., Sept. 14, 2:30 p.m., free, Painted Bride Café. In the ’70s they had events called “happenings” where performers did wild and crazy things in the name of high art. Well, Sherman Fleming is a happening guy -- he’s going to have hot wax poured over his body, while fellow fearless artist Christianne Kapps suspends herself in a waterfall. Kinda like live-action Fear Factor.
D.K.
Relations and Realizations, Zen One (Ron Wood), Thu., Sept. 5, midnight, free, Fringe Cabaret at the Hub. Ron Wood, an electrifying hip-hop dancer with Rennie Harris Puremovement, gets into his own thing here with a program of vignettes about relationships as viewed through the male perspective. Video, text and rhythmic music accent the action of the cast of a dozen dancers presenting a gymnastic show of muscular movement.
D.K.
This is Modern, Air Dance, Fri., Sept. 6-Sun., Sept. 8, 9 p.m., $15, Fringe Cabaret at the Hub. Two guys dispel the mystique of contemporary dance by explaining the meaning of modern movement. Sounds like a snore, but it’s actually really funny. The British duo in charge here presents preposterous explanations for dance gestures while also offering outlandish demonstrations. No dance knowledge is required to appreciate this one, just a good sense of humor.
D.K.
Trapezius: Overhead!, Trapezius Aerial Dance, Fri., Sept. 6 and Fri., Sept. 13, 8 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 7, 3 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 8, 7 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 14, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., $10, Trapezius Studio, 222 Market St., fourth floor. Choreographer Louise Gillette welcomes you into her home/studio for an uplifting showcase of dancers flying through the air with the greatest of ease. The aerial activity happens on swings, ropes and bungee cords while the mood swings both comedic and serious. Your spirit will soar at this one.
D.K.
The Vocabulary of Veils, Kathy Rose, Fri., Aug. 30-Sun., Sept. 1, 7 p.m., $10, Painted Bride Art Center. Surreal spectacle that plays tricks on the eyes via video and veils, plus Rose performing minimalist movement based on Japanese Noh theater. Projected puppet figures become eerie apparitions as optical illusions blur the line between what is real and what is image. Far-out, man.
D.K.
Big, steaming noodle soups make this a nice quick dinner stop before a Fringe show.
We recommend the grilled cheese and fries.
A brand new addition to the neighborhood -- 10 bucks gets you a sandwich and a beer.
They make a great burger, but they also have an interesting selection of salads and sandwiches. Right near the Fringe box office!
The Cuban culinary craze at its craziest -- too Epcot for some, but still a Second Street hot spot.
The cheapest of the Trendy Spots, you can split a couple of appetizers or an entree and be good to go.
Fab new neighborhood Italian BYOB. Fresh fish and great pasta dishes.
A quiet spot to escape the Fringe scene and have some truly excellent sushi.
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