Sonic Dances is an outdoor, site-specific piece, starting at one of two locations (depending on performance date) at City Hall, and then moving across JFK to the courtyard (official name: Thomas Paine Plaza) outside the Municipal Services Building. It’s an enjoyable, abstract, piece that effectively responds and plays off of–although more effectively in some passages than in others–the presence of public art and sculpture in these sites.

(More details after the jump.)

This is one of the few site-based/non-ticketed performances I’ve ever attended, so I’ll admit that before arriving, I had a this unreasoning fear that I might not find the right place. I needn’t have worried. The two fellows with Live Arts/Fringe “Staff” T-shirts handing out programs in the courtyard at the heart of City Hall sort of cut into this fantasy I’d constructed about the performance appearing as a spontaneous “happening.” Still, I was grateful to know that I was where I was supposed to be.

The first section of the performance featured the dancers moving around the circumference of the rose compass mosaic in the center of the courtyard. (On certain dates, these pieces are performed in Dillworth Plaza, and I do not know how that change of venue affects things.) One dancer spent most of her time in the center of the compass, with the remaining 8 dancers in 4 pretty stable pairings (3 boy-girl, 1 girl-girl) that danced some of the time in couples and some of the time in pairs mirroring one another’s movements as they rotated the circumference in different directions and at different depth levels between the edge and the heart of the compass.

Although I don’t expect non-verbal artwork to be readily translateable into a two-sentence “here’s what it all meant” kind of statement, this first section was the one that most clearly carried something extra into my imagination, something about directionality, finding each other and finding one’s way. That notion was amusingly inverted at the various moments that commuters and passersby—this was 5:30 on a Friday afternoon, after all–stumbled across the performance and either a) had to find a polite way around the happening or b) obliviously wandered right through the middle of things.

The transition from City Hall to Paine Plaza was the least successful moment in my experience of Sonic Dances, quite simply because I didn’t see any of it. It was clear from the slowness of people ahead of me, and from the tantalizing flashes of dancers jumping I could see over everyone’s heads, that the dancers continued to perform as they went down the passageway from the courtyard to the sidewalk by JFK Boulevard. However, unless you were among the lucky half-dozen at the front of the procession, there was no way to witness this choreography—-which left at least three dozen other onlookers completely out of the game. Perhaps interspersing the dancers among the procession of onlookers might have been a better choice.

The Paine Plaza portion of the performance was full of its own (blessedly visible) transitions. The first set of dances took place near and surrounding Jacques Lipschitz’s sculpture Government of the People. In a particularly affecting passage, the dancers climbed on top of and supported one another in a perpetually moving echo of the scuplture at whose base they were positioned. Then the dancers scattered, playing among the onlookers (hee!) and the various oversized game pieces that are in the Martinez/Petropoulos/White installation Your Move. There’s enough happening during this section that I couldn’t even begin to take it all in, so I just chose a few dancers to watch until the company finished, standing together around the rim of a giant Bingo tile, doing a circular movement canon that I am dying to know whether it was improvised or not.

All told, it was a very satisfactory way to enter into my 2007 Fringe season, especially with the playfulness of making (moving) public art in a space full of other (static) public art. Highly recommended.

* N.B.: I am neither a dancer nor sufficiently knowledgable about dance to pretend to offer a strict review of the piece. I scarcely have enough vocabulary to describe dance movement in any comprehensible way. So please take this for what it is: one woman’s individual response to a work of art.

And, as I look at my stack of already-purchased tickets, and my cluster of post-its with hypothetical scheduling matrices that would get me to some additional shows, I think it’s safe to say that I’m about to go a little bit Fringe-crazy.

I’ll try to put up snapshot reactions/reviews throughout the next two weeks, but till I go to that first show, here (well, after the jump) is linkage to some of the online press about Fringe*:

Cherry Hill Courier Post: Move to the Fringe
City Paper: Full Fringe Coverage
Delaware Online: Global, local talent coming to Philly
The Evening Bulletin: Curator Preps for Philly Fringe/Live Arts Festival
Philadelphia Inquirer: Fringe Festival: Over the top, still and These shows are funny, shocking, and likely to have legs
Philadelphia Weekly: God is dead funny and Oh! What a lovely WaWa
PhillyBurbs.com: On the edge and over the top
South Philly Review: The Alternative Route
Inky blog: Headlong Dance, Explanatorium
Inky blog: Pig Iron Theater, Isabella

* N.B.: I do not claim this to be a comprehensive list, but I’ll be happy to add more links if you send ‘em along.

So I’ve been called to do my civic duty: in about one month I must report to the Criminal Justice Center for jury selection. Last time I did so, I was empanelled on a jury and was told that my service would exempt me from further notifications for three years.

And three years (almost to the precise DAY!) after I reported in summer 2004, my shiny new jury notice has arrived. And, as I filled out the official “jury eligibility questionnaire” that is a required part of the process, I noticed something that amused me a tiny bit.

(More after the jump)

First, here’s a scan of the questionnaire:

Do you see the first question where you are asked to certify your proficiency with reading and writing the English language? And the way that same question has been translated into Spanish? Does anyone else detect a possible logical fallacy in that?

Now, I think providing translations of key government publications is a wonderful courtesy to citizens and residents for whom English is a second (or third or fourth or fifth) language. But it this particular circumstance it just makes me giggle a teensy bit.

After all: if you have the required language proficiency to be eligible as a juror, wouldn’t that also mean you have the language proficiency to read and answer the question without a courtesy translation?

Or is logic perhaps more than I should expect from the modern jury selection process?

You now have an extra week to file your taxes. As do all residents of Northeastern states hit by the storm.

Even if your basement didn’t flood—even if you don’t have a basement that CAN flood—all you need do is write “April 16th storm” on your returns, and you will be unpenalized as long as you file by April 26th.

Of course, then you’ll miss all the televised fun of experiencing the tax-night line at 30th Street PO, but I guess (this being one day past the original deadline and all) we’ve already missed that…..

We had more flavors than I can clearly remember to list: Chipotle Cheddar, Buffalo Bleu Cheese, Cookies n Cream, Peanut Butter and White Chocolate, “Twice as Nice” (white and milk chocolate combined), and some caramel/toffee flavors I can’t name from memory. Everything I tried was very good, and our popcorn purchasing crew reported that the service staff at the store were willing to provide tasting samples to help them pick the 8 flavors to be purchased for the party.**

I don’t usually head down to Liberty Place, but my taste of Dale & Thomas’ was good enough that I plan to put that location back on my regular route through the neighborhood.

* It’s a pretty good tradition. The birthday haver gets to choose his or her treat (within a reasonable cost range), whether that be cake, ice, cream, pre-Super Bowl wings, or the pyramid of McDonald’s cheeseburgers we built two weeks ago….

** Buy 3 bags, get 1 free.

We’ve got tickets to see some of the preliminary rounds at the Philadelphia Ballroom Dance Festival, down at the Airport Marriott. The festival is organized by Sandy Fortuna, owner of Universal Dance Studios, and mother to DWTS pro Brian, about whom I’ve been blogging recently. Sandy offered me an opportunity to finally see a real live ballroom dance festival, after all these years of watching them on PBS, and Matt and I leapt at the opportunity.*

I’m really excited. I don’t realy know what it’s going to be like in person. I’ll probably be dressed entirely wrong, and I likely won’t have a good enogh eye to really know how the judges will be scoring. But I’m really looking forward to it.

According to the website, Saturday night is already sold out—I believe that’s when the finals will take place and the champions will be crowned. But if you’re anything like me, the folks who are in the earlier rounds are still so far beyond my own capabilities that I’m sure to find their dancing entirely satisfying and impressive. So, if you’re anything like me, you’d probably enjoy tomorrow night—for which tickets are still available.

Just one option for a last-minute Friday plan….

* Well, at least I “sqee’ed” and jumped for joy. It’s entirely possible that Matt is humoring me a little bit. Ain’t he the best?!?

Every time I’ve been I’ve scolded myself for not bringing a camera to capture the atrocity for the Metblog. Today was almost exactly the same, except my R2D2 faux pas of the recent past has finally pushed me into learning how to use my cellphone camera!!!

So I submit this for your enjoyment. But not for the streetart contest, because that would be silly.


(If you’re looking for good art, please keep watching the contest described here by Tamara.)

And I’m feeling quite “eh” about it.

This feeling isn’t actually about any single couple. Something about tonight’s whole show (or, at the very least, the majority of it I’ve watched) was just—— off. So many of the music choices were bad, so many of the couples seemed worn out and low energy.

I can assuredly say that I enjoyed Brian and Shandi’s jive more than last week’s mambo. I still think Brian’s outshining Shandi in a way that doesn’t help the routine look as good to us regular TV viewers. I am extremely grateful that either the editors have been friendlier, or (more likely!) Shandi and Brian just got circumspect enough to not give the editors ammunition in the behind-the-scenes footage.

Based on what I’ve seen so far? Clyde should go home. But damned if I can tell who will. After such an underwhelming set of performances, I don’t think anyone’s safe.

I am happy to report: yes.

Friday, on my walk home from work, I ended up taking a less-customary set of jigs and jogs, which landed me on the corner of 21st and Market. And on that corner was one of the droids I was looking for.

I would have taken a cellphone picture as tangible proof, but I have thus far been too lazy to learn how to use my cellphone’s camera. (Oops.)