Articles

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Watson-Wallace: Shop ’til you drop.

Kate Watson-Wallace's "Store' at Live Arts Festival

A gospel for consumers

Kate Watson-Wallace's “anonymous bodies” troupe brought its audience to an abandoned Rite-Aid pharmacy, now transformed into a set for a shopping network's infomercial. The choreographed tight, manic rhythmic dancing contrasted tellingly with the surrounding consumer chaos.
Jonathan M. Stein

Jonathan M. Stein

Articles 2 minute read
Popil: Seductive.

"Urban Scuba' at Live Arts/Fringe Festival

Urban survival test, in a swimming pool

In an abandoned Center City swimming pool, Brian Sanders's visual assortment of dance theater magic brought the kind of performance energy to the Gershman Y that's been missing there since its salad days in the '60s.
Jonathan M. Stein

Jonathan M. Stein

Articles 2 minute read
When Simone Dinnerstein reinvents Bach, who needs an orchestra?

Concerts to watch in 2009-10

Music without orchestras: My picks for the coming season

Dan Coren, liberated from his obligations to orchestral music for the first time in years, previews a sumptuous season of chamber music, jazz, and contemporary music.
Dan Coren

Dan Coren

Articles 6 minute read
Daisey: Shouting at the sun on a hot day.

Mike Daisey's "How Theater Failed America'

Is there an economist in the house?

In a 100-minute rant, Mike Daisey purports to expose the economic forces destroying American theater. He succeeds in demonstrating only that actors know nothing about economics.
Jim Rutter

Jim Rutter

Articles 3 minute read
'Tangerines': Hidden meanings in the props.

Carlo Russo still lifes at F.A.N. Gallery

The elegance of simplicity

Carlo Russo's still life paintings exude a cool elegance that's well worth experiencing. He gets more mileage out of simple objects than any painter I've seen.

Andrew Mangravite

Articles 1 minute read
Haley (left) with Elvis Presley: Farewell, Davy Crockett.

The dawn of rock 'n' roll (a memoir)

The great adolescent upheaval: A rock 'n' roll memoir (c.1955)

When my adolescent buddies and I embraced rock ‘n' roll in the mid-‘50s, our parents assumed it would fade with other teenage fads. But we knew instinctively that we were on the winning side of a revolution.
Bob Levin

Bob Levin

Articles 6 minute read
'A Circle in Scotland' (1986): Here today, gone tomorrow.

Richard Long: Walking as an art form

The wayfarer and the way: Richard Long and walking as an art form

The British artist Richard Long has made his country's pastime, walking, into an art form for nearly half a century, and the Tate Britain's retrospective of his work— graphic and photographic, textual and sculptural— is the record of a singular life's journey.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 6 minute read
Martenson's 'Morning Light': A knack for emptiness.

Sweeney and Martenson at Gross McCleaf

All art is local

Two new shows at Gross McCleaf Gallery demonstrate the ways in which a particular locality— in this case, Maine and Philadelphia— can inspire artists.

Andrew Mangravite

Articles 1 minute read
Dunphy: Bush's errand boy as a martyr?

Melissa Dunphy's "Gonzales Cantata'

Sympathy for Alberto Gonzales

Melissa Dunphy's Gonzales Cantata uses actual transcripts of a 2007 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to transform the tedious machinations of politics into a brilliant work of art. The only thing missing, alas, is a point. Alberto Gonzales facing Arlen Specter isn't exactly Christ confronting Pontius Pilate.
Jim Rutter

Jim Rutter

Articles 5 minute read
Bartram at work: Plants as tools of empire.

Sharon White's "Vanished Gardens'

A journey in a hiccupping time machine

In Vanished Gardens, Sharon White takes readers on an impressionistic tour de force through Philadelphia's green spaces, past and present. She's a stylish writer, but fitting all the pieces of her broad mosaic together is no easy task.
Judy Weightman

Judy Weightman

Articles 4 minute read