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Not just another sidewalk.

Dorner's "Bodies in Urban Spaces' at Fringe Festival

Willi Dorner's Pied Pipers of Center City

The Vienna-based choreographer Willi Dorner unleashed 20 highly charged dancers onto the streets of Center City in a series of engaging tableaux, as if some nuclear accelerator had beamed their piled bodies into niches and doorways.

Articles 2 minute read

Keila Cordova's "Janet 2.0' at Fringe Festival

A parody with teeth

Keila Cordova's political send-up was smart, amusing and prescient too, given Sarah Palin's sudden ascent.
Jonathan M. Stein

Jonathan M. Stein

Articles 1 minute read
'A potential for excitement and surprise from the performers.'

Leah Stein's "Urban Echo' at Fringe Festival

Singers, dancers, generations: Breaking the city's boundaries

Urban Echo: Circle Told was perhaps the most transfixing event of Philadelphia's recent Fringe Festival: a brilliant melding of two different generations of artists who share defining commitments to improvisation, as well as a spiritual connection between their creative souls and their external environments.
Jonathan M. Stein

Jonathan M. Stein

Articles 8 minute read
BÓ¼chner: Post-Napoleonic angst.

EgoPo's "Woyzeck' (2nd review)

Suffering without end (or even religion)

Between them, director Brenna Geffers and Dan Hodge create a terrifying atmosphere that builds up slowly in intensity, forcing you to confront your despair and question your faith in humanity. I doubt that even Barack Obama would find any hope in this production.
Jim Rutter

Jim Rutter

Articles 4 minute read
'How can any mortal memorize that work?'

Simone Dinnerstein: A concert not to miss

Advance notice: Simone Dinnerstein in full flower

The young pianist Simone Dinnerstein makes a practice of playing complicated works and making them look easy.
Dan Coren

Dan Coren

Articles 2 minute read
Will these characters ever be able to leave this space?’ (Photo: Karl Seifert.)

Scrap's "Tide' at Fringe Festival

The roar of the city, the peace of the garden

Amid mirrors, trash and other lost objects of urban life strewn about Isaiah's Magic Garden, Myra Bazell's Tide reflects a world in which humans have disconnected from the natural environment. It's a treasure hunt for performers and audience alike.
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko

Jaamil Olawale Kosoko

Articles 3 minute read
'Housetop,' by Creola Pettway (1927): Stuffed under the mattress.

"Gee's Bend: Architecture of the Quilt' at Art Museum

The revolutionary quilting women of Gee's Bend, Alabama

In a small, isolated Alabama community, unschooled women for years have made quilts worthy of Klee and Mondrian— breathtaking testimony to the innate human desire to create something pleasing to the eye out of nothing.

Articles 3 minute read
Turner’s ‘The Pass at St. Gotthard’: The difference was genius.

Turner and Morandi at the Met in N.Y.

Two deeply contrasting shows of work by the 19th-Century English master J. M. W. Turner and the 20-Century Italian Giorgio Morandi pose in different ways the modern problem of the sublime, and with it our own understanding of— and existence in-— the natural world.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 7 minute read
1074 Hothouse

Pinter's "Hothouse' at Lantern Theater

Pinter vs. Orwell:

An early Harold Pinter play reveals a flawed but prophetic work that, unlike most revivals, has as much to say about our times as its own.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 5 minute read

Center City Opera's "ConNEXTions' (2nd review)

Operas that ought to be musicals

Center City Opera Theatre performed parts of three new operas at the recent Philadelphia Fringe Festival. It's an estimable service, but I wonder whether these works stand a chance for future performances.
Steve Cohen

Steve Cohen

Articles 4 minute read