COVER STORY .

The Lord of the Ruins

Thaddeus Squire


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Published: Sep 23, 2009

Neal Santos

Philadelphia has always trumpeted its history as a defining factor in its identity — a very specific history. But there are numberless stories beyond the exploits of Ben Franklin and friends, and history-rich spaces forgotten by the city's tourist-friendly narrative. Peregrine Arts' ambitious Hidden City festival spent this summer peeking beneath that shroud in neglected historical sites across the city, many of them closed from public view for decades.

Participating artists were to serve as interpretive tour guides — not just to relate a dry, anecdotal time line, but to find a means of expressing how past intersects with present, to let light shine through windows again without disturbing generations of dust and mystery. The pieces ranged from dancers navigating the risers of the decaying Metropolitan Opera House to a repurposing of blades and blueprints in Tacony's Disston Saw Works to Steve Roden's whispering constructions in Girard College's Founders Hall.

"While many folks understood it to be an arts festival," says artistic executive director Thaddeus Squire, "it's really not an arts festival, but rather a history/heritage festival that engages art as a vehicle for animating and interpreting places and stories. The art benefited from the exposure and audiences brokered by interest in exploring places."

The festival's success established a brand which Peregrine (peregrinearts.org) plans to revive in the future in order to dig further. Whatever form it takes going forward, Hidden City will remain valuable for giving local and international artists a source of new inspiration, and the cobwebbed corners of Philly's architectural orphans new life.

Honorable Mention: Performing Arts

James Sugg
Pig Iron's everywhere man had a big year, not only in the music world but in the theater, where he took home an OBIE for Best Actor.

Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby
The display of inventive mobile bike art insanity at the annual Trenton Avenue Arts Festival gets better each year.

Sarah Sanford
'Appetite', the Pig Iron vet's directorial debut, was one of the most inventive new shows to grace a Philly stage.

Jumatatu Poe
This year the agile, in-demand dancer with the big smile started his own company, idiosynCrazy, to tell contemporary psychological urban fables.