Philadelphia Live Arts Festival Features Five U.S. and World Premiere's

The 12th annual Philadelphia Live Arts Festival heads into its final week of innovative and highly interdisciplinary programming and performances. In its final stretch, the Festival, which opened on August 29 and runs through September 13, will see the World and U.S. Premieres of five productions from internationally renowned directors, choreographers and performers..

From September 10–13, the Festival will present the American Premiere of Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day by Belgium’s Troubleyn/Jan Fabre. This compelling and provocative new work will make its only U.S. appearance in Philadelphia at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre (home of Philadelphia Theatre Company, 480 South Broad Street). In its recent debut at Festival d'Avignon, Le Monde called the piece “a haunting work of blues, leading us down a path that is uncertain, but beautiful.” Fabre, widely recognized as one the most provocative choreographers in contemporary dance today, has been acclaimed for his versatility and experimental edge. Inspired by Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe,” Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day invokes themes of love, suicide, and the erotic body in a solo performance by Croatian dancer Ivana Jozic, performed on a visually stunning set which includes the use of ten canaries and one and a half tons of coal.

France’s Jérôme Bel, one of the most sought after choreographers in the world, will set his Bessie Award-winning, internationally renowned contemporary dance epic, The show must go on, with a full cast of twenty Philadelphia-based dancers. The Philadelphia premiere marks the first time a U.S. cast has ever performed the piece, which will be held at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater (260 South Broad Street) from September 11–13. The local dancers come from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines including classical ballet dancers from the Pennsylvania Ballet, hip-hop dancers from Rennie Harris Puremovement, and student performers from The University of the Arts, among others.

Philadelphia-based The Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental/Thaddeus Phillips will return with the third and final installment in Phillips’ Americas trilogy with THE MeLTING BRiDgE, from September 10–13 at Plays and Players Theatre (1714 Delancey Place). This time-traveling adventure set in Mexico City explores the rise and fall of the indigenous cultures of the Americas. A visually transformative design and an original live musical score will set the scene as Phillips’ protagonist travels the world in search of his missing archeologist father. THE MeLTING BRiDgE becomes a portal to the history and future of our continent, making stops in Alaska, Arizona, Mexico City, the Yucatán Peninsula and the Amazon basin in Brazil.

Norwegian collaborative Verdensteatret will present the U.S. Premiere of louder, a highly experimental audiovisual installation that incorporates video art, sculptural scenery, puppetry, and live music at The Festival Bar’s black box theater (626 North 5th Street) located in Northern Liberties from September 11–13. Last winter, Verdensteatret sailed Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, the same river that plays the veins and arteries around the heart of darkness in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Inspired by their journey, louder is a symphonic collage of music and visual art: massive video projections of the Vietnamese countryside play as Soviet-era megaphones hurl sound in all directions. Gaping puppet jaws chase flocks of small metal figures across the room. An enormous mechanical spider looms over the scene. Using sculptural scenography, mesmerizing generators of sound and technological relics of a bygone era, Verdensteatret creates a spectacular universe that unites concert, art and theater.

Set in a former Rite Aid (4237 Walnut Street) from September 9-13, Flesh and Blood and Fish and Fowl is a collection of darkly humored fairy-tales. Philadelphia-based artists Charlotte Ford (Flamingo/Winnebago) and Pig Iron Theatre Company’s Geoff Sobelle (all wear bowlers, Amnesia Curiosa) blend stop-action animation with antique illusion to invoke a primordial world of fecund crones and giant rats where humans are the hunted and taxidermied animals are the hunters. Flesh and Blood and Fish and Fowl digs beneath the floorboards to give Center Stage to the mice and worms and exposes the limited perspective that humans have of the world and their relationship to wilderness, wildlife and time.

Pig Iron Theatre Company’s Sweet By-And-By at the Arts Bank at the University of the Arts (601 South Broad Street) and Urban ECHO: Circle Told at The Rotunda (4014 Walnut Street) from Leah Stein Dance Company + Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia also continue into the last weekend of the Festival.  Sweet By-And-By runs September 10 – 13. Philadelphia City Paper wrote, “Rudholm is such a solid, understated performer, you forget he's doing this solo — banjo, concertina, harmonica and all. It's worth going just to learn about the fascinating (if tragic) Hill, who wrote catchy, clever, politically minded folk songs the likes of which we could use today.”  Two performances at 2pm and 4pm on September 13 remain for Urban ECHO: Circle Told, which The Philadelphia Inquirer called “a stirring sound and movement-scape.”

The Festival Bar located at 626 North 5th Street (Southwest corner of 5th and Fairmount Streets) continues to play host to thousands of festival-goers, artists and performers who gather for an after-hours chance to meet and mingle each night beginning at 10pm.  Festival Bar visitors have been enjoying beer and cocktails served up by Philly’s favorite barman Fergus Carey, Turkish dishes from Konak Restaurant and Bar, visual media installations designed and programmed by artist Lars Jan, music from a line-up of some of the city’s best DJs and arcade games like pinball and Wii Boxing. Admission is free and 21+.

 Philly Fringe shows in the final week include Alexander and His Band of Argonauts’ Killer Bass, Azuka Theatre’s Kid Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh, PDC Presents’ 4X4, React/Dance's South Philly Neighborhood Adventure Tours/part 1, Ricochet’s Stitch, Domenick Scudera’s Festus the 3-Legged Wonder Dog, Randy Shine (Shine Entertainment)’s How to write a magic show in one week or less, Temple Theaters’ In Conflict, JJ Tiziou Photography’s Photo Shoot: How Philly Moves, To the Wall Productions’ Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, and many others.

Together, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe present 195 productions over sixteen days in a variety of traditional and unusual performance sites throughout the city, drawing over 45,000 people. Tickets for all Festival events are available for purchase at www.livearts-fringe.org, or by calling the Box Office at (215) 413-1318, or visiting in person. The Festival Box Office is located in the National Showroom Lot, outside of the National building at 113-131 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia.

The Presenting Sponsor of the 2008 Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe is PNC Bank.

Need more Philadelphia Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Spring season, discounts & more...