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Virtual First Friday, Hindustani, digital cabaret, and ‘Keyboard Fantasies’ this weekend and beyond
Kyle V. Hiller
The next week features plenty of pickings from a wide range of perspectives. Haverford College hosts a conversation on comedy for contemporary Muslims, Scribe Video Center screens a documentary on trans musician Beverly Glenn-Copeland, the Fire Museum hosts a night of Hindustani music, and Philadelphia Dance Projects brings an intimate discussion of brown bodies existing in a special form of dance. There’s plenty to explore!
While you're thinking about your escape this weekend, remember that Black lives matter, to stop Asian hate, and to stand up for trans rights.
Haverford College, in collaboration with Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Twelve Gates Arts, and the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is hosting The Contest of the Fruits, a discussion on the role of comedy for contemporary Muslims. They’ll be joined by Esra Karakaya, a journalist and talk show host from Berlin, and Moses the Comic, a Philly native who has toured the world with his standup. The event is free on Thursday, April 1, at 4:30pm.
Virtual First Friday with CraftNOW
On Thursday, April 1, at 5:30pm, CraftNOW will host a virtual First Friday preview. The preview will feature conversations with members from Camden Fireworks, Disability Pride PA, Fabric Workshop and Museum, and HOT BED Gallery.
The Annenberg Center hosts renowned hip-hop choreographer Rennie Harris for a virtual, live performance on Thursday, April 1, at 7pm. Harris, a Philadelphia native, has worked with plenty of big names over the years, including Afrika Bambaataa, Harry Belafonte, Will Smith, Madonna, and more. The program features a reworking of the 1995 duet A Day in the Life, telling the story of brothers who get caught up in a violent street altercation with the police, and another show that is a tormented solo about systemic police brutality against Black men set to music by Beyoncé.
The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story
Scribe Video Center presents Posy Dixon’s Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story on Thursday, April 1, at 7pm. Glenn-Copeland was a pioneer in synthesized musical explorations, but his cassette Keyboard Fantasies went unnoticed for 30 years. Composed after studying classical music and recording folk-jazz records, Glenn-Copeland experimented with electric sound in his Atari-powered home studio. Watch the screening of the transgender Philly native’s life, from his humble beginnings in the Northeast side of town to his first international tour at age 74.
Hindustani Music with Fire Museum
The Fire Museum has been celebrating 20 years, and this weekend, it’s hosting a virtual program of Hindustani (North Indian classical) music. The event is free on Thursday, April 1, at 8:30pm.
Temple University’s Film & Media Arts school is hosting a webinar, Black Is the Color: The Art of Film Blackness, on Friday, April 2, at 5pm. Open to the public, the webinar features Dr. Michael B. Gillespie, an internationally renowned scholar of film, music, and contemporary art, and is the author of Film Blackness: American Cinema and the Idea of Black Film.
The Arden Theatre Company opens Robi Hager: So Far, a digital cabaret from Broadway singer/songwriter and Philadelphia-based Robi Hager, on Monday, April 5, through April 18. The show promises to take viewers on a journey through Hager’s work. Tickets are $30 per household.
The Museum of the American Revolution is hosting a virtual conversation about Deborah Sampson, a woman who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Revolutionary War, on Wednesday, April 7, at 6:30pm. The free event features American Repertory Theater’s Sarah Schofield-Mansur, Afro-Latinx costume designer Emilio Sosa (Project Runway), and transgender author/advocate and Sampson descendent Alex Myers.
Philadelphia Dance Projects continues its Informance series with Companionship in Worlds that Divide: Earth Ice Collaborations with/in Brownbodies,” a discussion held by Deneane Richburg and Lela Aisha Jones. Richburg, a choreographer/skater based in Minneapolis, and Jones, a Philadelphia-based performance artist, will come together to discuss what it means to be “companions in a field that privileges whiteness and Euro-based ways of being” and how to build “a way of moving with each other and Black and brown folks on the ice.” Skate into the discussion on Wednesday, April 7, at 6pm. RSVP via email.
Image Description: a black-and-white photo of Beverly Glenn-Copeland, a Black trans man, is wearing a suit with his arms out, as if he's conducting, before a microphone. The background is dark.
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