The BSR Weekly Arts and Culture Roundup, September 26-October 2, 2024

Healing Verse Germantown: The Streets Are Talking
Thursday, September 26, 4pm
Maplewood Mall, 5600 Greene Street, Philadelphia

A new poetry and temporary public art project is rising up in Germantown. Healing Verse Germantown seeks to cultivate peace and resistance against gun violence in Germantown and throughout the city, and the project features free poetry workshops, public artworks featuring poems written by residents installed throughout Germantown, and cultural events centered around themes of healing. Familiar names Trapeta Mayson and Yolanda Wisher are taking the lead on this project.

FirstGlance Film Festival
September 27-28, 2024
Film Society Bourse, 400 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia

The 27th annual FirstGlance Film Festival comes back this weekend with screenings of independent films from first-time, emerging, and professional filmmakers from around the world. Check out all the trailers on YouTube before you go out!

Pilobolus: re:CREATION
September 27-28, 2024
Zellerbach Theatre at Penn Live Arts, 3680 Walnut Street, Philadelphia

Penn Live Arts opens its 2024-25 season with re:CREATION, a collection of dance pieces from dance company Pilobolus. The program promises “acrobatics [that] are liquefied into poetry,” with three of the pieces being Philadelphia premieres.

XOXO: An Exhibit About Love & Forgiveness
September 27, 2024-January 12, 2025
Please Touch Museum, 4231 Avenue of the Republic, Philadelphia

This new exhibit from Please Touch is designed to help children and adults alike understand, appreciate, and express their emotions through facial expressions, words, movement, art-making, and other interactive, hands-on activities. XOXO was initially planned for March 2020, but we know what happened then.

Ice Dinosaurs
September 28-May 4, 2025
Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia

This new exhibit from the Academy of Natural Sciences brings visitors to the Arctic Circle during the late Cretaceous period, where dinosaurs lived all year round. Animatronic dinosaurs, real fossils, skeletons, stories, and more are part of this immersive experience on the Parkway.

RAW: Philadelphia
Saturday, September 28, 3pm
Concourse Dance Bar, 1625 Market Street, Philadelphia

The international indie arts festival makes a stop in Philly this weekend, bringing local emerging artists in film, fashion, music, visual art, performing art, photography, and more all together in one place.

Fishtown Fall Feastivale
Saturday, September 28, 12-8pm
Frankford Avenue between Girard Avenue and Palmer Street, Philadelphia

Fishtown District is bringing Feastivale back with a full day of food and drink, DJs, carnival games, artists, vendors, and German folk music. The block party is free and family-friendly.

Philly AIDS Thrift 19th anniversary block party
Saturday, September 28, 12-6pm
700 blocks of South 5th Street and East Passyunk Avenue, between Bainbridge Street and Monroe Street, Philadelphia

Another block party will be taking over East Passyunk on Saturday. Philly AIDS Thrift’s annual block party and street festival features music, circus performers, games, food and drinks, and even double dutch and a pie-eating contest. The party serves to help raise money for local HIV/AIDS service organizations.

Looking ahead

Mural Arts Fest
Sunday, October 6, 1-6pm
LOVE Park, 16th Street and JFK Boulevard, Philadelphia

This free festival, originally scheduled for Saturday, September 28, but rescheduled because of this weekend's rainy forecast, is a celebration of 40 years of Mural Arts transforming the city’s urban landscape. This year’s festival, titled Roots & Reimagination, focuses on the organization's roots while inspiring a reimagined vision of public art’s future in Philly. The festival will feature performances by local musicians, a vendor marketplace, a live podcast taping, and an interactive art activation.