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Celebrating Lloyd Price, the Print Center’s 96th International Competition, and Quiet Boy
The Weekly Roundup, March 9-16
Kyle V. Hiller
This week is rich with a variety of exhibitions, music, and performances. The Athenaeum kicks off a new festival for young readers, Black and Latin music are honored by People’s Light, Delaware Art Museum, and Dolce Suono Ensemble, and the Print Center and HOT•BED capture alternative perspectives of the world we live in. Finally, an Australian circus troupe visits Philly again for an updated look at a successful show from 2018.
Books
Story Explorers Book Fest at the Athenaeum
Saturday, March 12, 10am-3pm
Kislak Center at Penn Libraries, 219 South 6th Street, Philadelphia
The first-ever Story Explorers Book Fest arrives courtesy of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. The fest celebrates community and diversity in children’s literature with readings, workshops, rare book displays, and of course, books for sale! This one is definitely for the family with young bookworms. And be sure to check out the rest of the Athenaeum’s offerings, too.
Music
Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical
March 9-April 3
People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Road, Malvern
The first musical to celebrate Rock & Roll Hall of Fame legend Lloyd Price is coming to People’s Light. Price made a huge impact on the music industry in the mid-20th century but is often overlooked or left in relative obscurity. The musical looks to do him justice. I definitely wasn’t around in 1959, but “Personality” is still a bop.
Shades of Excellence Blackout Experience
Thursday, March 10, 5-9pm
The Queen, 500 North Market Street, Wilmington
Richard Raw and the Word Warrior Band pay a visit to the Delaware Art Museum for an evening of celebrating Black history through music, poetry, and fashion. If you can’t make it out, be sure to give Raw and the gang some love and check out some of their videos of performances and songs on YouTube. And while you’re in the neighborhood, take a look at the Museum’s Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibit collection which opens this weekend.
Música en tus Manos
Sunday, March 13, 3pm
Trinity Center for Urban Life, 2212 Spruce Street, Philadelphia
Dolce Suono Ensemble celebrates chamber and pop music from Latin America in honor of Philadelphia’s Latin American community. The roster features Latin American music and performers including Chick Corea, Gonzalo Garrido-Lecca, Gabriel Cabezas, and more.
Exhibitions
96th Annual International Competition Solo Exhibitions
Through March 12, 2022
The Print Center, 1614 Latimer Street, Philadelphia
The Print Center hosts three solo exhibitions from this year’s annual competition, and this weekend is your last chance to check it out. The artists include John Joyce, Vikesh Kapoor, and Donavon Smallwood.
Joyce is a photographer whose exhibition, Jab, Cross, Hook, draws from portraits in three series: “Gimnasio Nuevo Jordan,” “Philadelphia,” and “Mexican Portraits.” These photographs are presented in a variety of ways, unveiling the “intricacies of Joyce’s analog process.” I can relate to this: so much of the art we consume has a level of polish that is unforeseen. This is great in its own way, for sure, but sometimes the seams get lost. We’re not supposed to see the seams in the art we consume, but supposed is a bad word and I want to see the process of it all more than the final product. At least, that’s me.
For Kapoor, See You at Home is a “personal narrative that centers on family, memory, and the myth and melancholy surrounding the American Dream.” Basing the exhibition on his parents who emigrated from India to the US in the early 1970s, Kapoor captures moments of their everyday lives. Family is a strong theme, especially over the last few years with the pandemic, and Kapoor’s exhibit reflects upon the steady passage of time and the process of “becoming” and fashioning a new identity.
Smallwood’s exhibition is a culmination of Languor and Beebe, a pair of photography collections. The self-taught photographer from Harlem explores themes of home and what it means to feel comfortable there, with an emphasis on portraits and landscape images captured in Central Park (or more accurately, Seneca Village) and Beebe Chapel in North Carolina.
The closing reception for the exhibit is on Saturday, March 12, at 3pm. Recorded gallery tours will be available online.
Elizabeth Bergeland’s Quiet Boy
March 12-May 14, 2022
HOT•BED Philly, 723 Chestnut Street, 2nd Floor, Philadelphia
HOT•BED presents painter Elizabeth Bergeland’s new exhibit that illustrates male bodies via conversations with the men in her life and their experiences of masculinity, insecurity, and the roles society casts them in. The collection presents “a thoughtful and empathetic view of men as seen through the female gaze” that breaks down how the patriarchy harms women and the wellbeing of boys and men. The opening reception is Saturday, March 12, from 6-9pm. Make an appointment to visit the exhibit in-person or check out the virtual show.
Dance
Circa: Humans 2.0
March 11-12
Zellerbach Theatre at the Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut Street, Philadelphia
From Australia to Philadelphia comes contemporary circus troupe Circa with a “new love letter to humanity” with Humans 2.0. The first edition of Humans arrived on the Penn Live Arts stage back in 2018, and now the troupe is back for another serving of a joyous, searching production where 10 performers find redemptive power in strength.
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