Scene Report: Day 10 (Saturday)

One lesson I learned last year was that if I didn't post reports like this on the blog within about 24 hours, it was practically a lost cause, because I'd forget what I originally felt about a show, and there would also be about 5 more to deal with on top of the previous 5. I knew that this year, but I came home so wiped out most nights toward the end of the second week that I didn't have the energy to write, no matter how excited I was about a given event. Next day I was torn between catching up on the blog or heading out for more shows. Or dealing with festival business of one kind or another, or maybe just trying to sleep as late as possible.

All of which helps to explain why I missed some shows I really wanted to see, like this one I'd heard so much about and this one by a young playwright/director I had wanted to support. So instead, my day began with a search for

The Allentown Telecommunications System,
a street piece that was supposed to happen on Elmwood between Allen and North. I doubt I would have had much luck finding it if I hadn't experienced artist Julie Perini's project from last year in the same spot.

The original premise this time--a tin can phone stretched across Elmwood--sounded really cool, and I was sad to learn that it had fallen through when Perini's collaborator had to leave town. Here's what happened instead:




The compromise was fun but frankly disappointing, especially because it didn't seem like there was much effort to draw people to the project. It was so subtle that I'm guessing few people ever even noticed it. That's a shame, because the general theme--a clever critique of interpersonal communication in the cell phone era--is well worth exploring. Oh, well: maybe next year.

From there I headed to Cafe 59 for the
Spirit Wind performance.
The fairly tiny space filled up quickly, and more and more people kept pouring in. I was especially gratified to see so many kids at this one--not that it was tailored for children, but it was certainly one of the more accessible events of the festival. Part self-contained dance performance and part lecture-demo, it opened my eyes to the deeper themes and metaphors behind the movement vocabularies of tai chi, kung fu, and other martial arts techniques. (It put the "art" in "martial arts," you might say.)



I was expecting something a little more New Age-y, but K G Price's partly improvised keyboard and percussion score was a lot more aggressive than meditative in spots, much to my relief. I kept thinking the performance would have worked really well outdoors, say in Days Park, but one of the performers told me afterward that the group rehearses/performs there every Sunday anyway, and they needed level ground for some of what they wanted to do in this show.

Speaking of Days Park, that lovely spot became my next stop for the evening as I enjoyed the concert by Montreal songwriter/guitarist
Francis Halin
with his bass player (whose name I can no longer remember because I waited so long to post this).



Small turnout, and I wish there'd been at least three times more people. Granted, the brochure description was misleading: this was not a poetry reading, it was a collection of poems by French and Quebecoise writers from the 70s set to music, in addition to several of Halin's own verse. The lyrics were in French, a language few of us spoke, but that didn't matter one bit to me since Halin's guitar playing was so pleasant, his melodies so catchy, and his between-song patter so charming. (Well, I'm focussing on the poppier side of his work; there were also plenty of darker, nearly atonal aspects, too.) He generated a lot of positive word of mouth, and impressed everyone in attendance by giving away copies of a special Buffalo CD sampler from three of his recordings. It was clear he was sharing his music for the sheer love of doing so, and that made the concert all the more enjoyable. Keep an eye and an ear out for him, and hope he returns to town someday soon.

Grabbed a quick meal at Hardware Cafe, then enjoyed a second helping of Pan-o-Matic's combination broadcast/street performance
The Zero Hour.
I had loved this at the Albright-Knox, but felt overwhelmed and overloaded then, and wanted to experience it again.




The first time around, what I had enjoyed most (and wanted to be able to enjoy even more) was the freeform audio collage, but the Rust Belt version was much more interactive, more of a street spectacle. True, my particular group did not actually enter Sweet Tooth and order ice cream in the languages we'd just learned from each other (though other groups evidently did), but we did do the Time Warp to squaredance music, and pretty much everything else our guides instructed us to do. My favorite moment came when an older couple abandoned their initial plan to get sweet treats (in English, I assume) and joined us instead in the wearing of the ridiculous foil hats. Well, the wife joined in while the husband stood patiently by as she lined up at the Rust Belt window, waved her hands to the music, TimeWarped, and everything else. In its combination of a simple concept with multple layers of content, The Zero Hour is surely one of my favorite public art performances in a long, long time.

I had to leave the broadcast in order to prepare for Ronawanda's 10 p.m. appearance.

MC Vendetta
was wrapping up her latest show when I got to the Hardware Cafe just before 10:



The second annual Shakespeare in the Parking Lot (okay, Parking Space)
was next. Scott Kurchak and I emceed again this year, and the audience did the rest, rooting through props and costumes from the trunk of my car (one of two vehicles which doubled as lighting instruments, with some assistance from flashlight-wielding onlookers). We could only go on as long as there were performers willing to spout some Shakespeare, and that meant about 30 minutes this year, much to the disappointment on late arrivals. Some folks used the scripts we provided, others delivered soliloquies they knew by heart, and a couple of folks ventured into the realm of poetry slam, which seemed like a signal that it was time to wrap things up. Judging from audience response, you can pretty much count on this returning next year. Makes a nice tradition for the penultimate night of the festival. (I think we can use a few more participatory events, too, so if you have any ideas in that department, propose 'em in 2007.)

Here's Kim Young as Lady Macbeth:



and here's a nice shot of the crowd:



Special thanks to John Carocci for these two photos, and the many others from SITPL he has posted here. Much nicer than my cell phone pix, wouldn't you say?

Topped off the evening at La Tee Da for Happy Hour, where I reconnected with old friends and made new ones, then slumped home (skipping the band lineup at Merlin's, much as I wanted to check it out) to rest up before Day 11. Watch for a report on that one, soon.

Amount spent on admissions for the day (6 shows total): $14 (I donated an extra large amount to Francis H since I was the guy who talked him out of charging $9)