Reza Abdoh: Theater Visionary (2015) 104 minutes. Director: Adam Soch Co-Producer: Sandy Cleary Executive Producers: Alan Mandell, Diane White, Marta Holen, Anita Durt, John McDuffie Associate Producers: Daniel Mufson, Sid Montz, Sarah and Peter Mandell Courtesy Adam Soch Adam Soch is a producer and director, and long-time collaborator and video archivist of Reza Abdoh. His…
The Color of Pomegranates (1969) 78 minutes Writer/Director: Sergei Paradjanov Editors: Sergei Parajanov, M. Ponomarenko, S. Yutkevich Cinematographer: Suren Shakhbazyan Courtesy Parajanov-Vartanov Institute. Sergei Paradjanov (1924 – 1990) was a Soviet film director of Armenian descent who made a substantial contribution to Soviet cinematography through Ukrainian, Armenian and Georgian cinema. He pioneered his own cinematic…
The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice (1990) 96 minutes. Writer/Director: Reza Abdoh Camera/Film Editor: Adam Soch Video documentation of live performance presented at Los Angeles Theatre Center. Courtesy Reza Abdoh and Adam Soch Reza Abdoh (1963 – 1995) was an Iranian-born American director, and playwright, founder of the theatre ensemble Dar a Luz, known for large-scale,…
In 1971 composer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) was commissioned to create a piece for the opening day of the fifth edition of the Shiraz Festival. This edition commemorated the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire. The opening event took place at the ruins of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (~550…
Bowerbird is pleased to present Liminal States, an ongoing series of late night, live streamed concerts intended to be listened to as you fall asleep. Aiming to center and calm, the musicians will seek to lead listeners to that magic space between awake and asleep. Tune in and bliss out. Musician Bhob Rainey will perform…
Bowerbird is pleased to present Variant 6 performing "I Heart Artemis", a new, evening-length work by Wally Gunn and Maria Zajkowski performed at the Maas Building. In the time before time, Athena and Artemis meet, fall in love, and live a brief eternity of passion. But their paradise can’t last. On earth, men wage war,…
When Jack Smith transitioned from his relatively brief career as a director headlong into experimental theater in the late 1960s, he already had multiple scandals and groundbreaking films under his belt and had appeared in many more as a muse to Andy Warhol, Ken Jacobs, and Ron Rice. These films capture Smith in amber as…
Philadelphia favorites Alash return to The Rotunda for a FREE concert. Alash are masters of Tuvan throat singing (xöömei), a remarkable technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time. Masters of traditional Tuvan instruments as well as the art of throat singing, Alash are deeply committed to traditional Tuvan music and culture. At the…
Bowerbird is pleased to present Liminal States, a series of late night, live streamed concerts intended to be listened to as you fall asleep. Aiming to center and calm, the musicians will seek to lead listeners to that magic space between awake and asleep. Tune in and bliss out. Composer and performer Sarah Hennies will…
Although founded in early 1960s New York, the pioneering interdisciplinary art community Fluxus included participants from around the world, notably several from Japan. Born out of the influence of John Cage and the Dada movement, the loose group included composers, conceptual artists, filmmakers, video artists, sculptors, and performance artists and resulted in new forms of…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a sneak preview screening of Sound Mechanic by Skizz Cyzyk about Baltimore native Neil Feather. Neil invents new musical instruments and sound making devices, frequently incorporating bicycle parts, bowling balls and sex toys. His inventions are then used in live performances and installations. This observational documentary feature gives the audience…
Bowerbird is pleased to present Liminal States, a series of late night, live streamed concerts intended to be listened to as you fall asleep. Aiming to center and calm, the musicians will seek to lead listeners to that magic space between awake and asleep. Tune in and bliss out. The Bismuth Quartet will perform from…
Bowerbird is pleased to present the J. Pavone String Ensemble led by New York based composer and performer Jessica Pavone. The foundation of Jessica Pavone's recent ensemble compositions is research on the effects of sonic vibration on human physiology and emotional health. Sustained pitches and clusters of ensemble sounds generate specific physical and cognitive benefits…
Over the course of a half century long career, Chilean-born Raúl Ruiz established himself as cinema’s greatest surrealist this side of Luis Buñuel. And like Buñuel, Ruiz was a vagabond, making films wherever funds were available. After the establishment of Chile’s military junta under Augusto Pinochet in 1973, Ruiz fled to Paris, making films in…
Bowerbird is pleased to present musician JJJJJerome Ellis and Philadelphia-based duo Jupiter Blue at The Rotunda. ABOUT THE MUSICIANS JJJJJerome Ellis is a blk disabled animal, stutterer, and artist. He prays, reads, gardens, cycles, wanders, and plays. Through music, literature, performance, and video he researches relationships among blackness, disabled speech, divinity, nature, sound, and…
Bowerbird is pleased to present vocal sextet Variant 6 in a concert celebration of their first full-length album, New Suns. The album explores myriad universes of a cappella vocal music featuring works by Jeremy Gill, Gabriel Jackson, Joanne Metcalf, Benjamin C.S. Boyle, and Bruno Bettinelli. This album is a celebration of everything they love about the…
By the time Babette Mangolte began work on The Cold Eye (My Darling Be Careful), her first overtly fictional narrative film, she was already deeply enmeshed in the artistic vanguard of two continents. She had served as the cinematographer for the early groundbreaking films by Chantal Akerman and Yvonne Rainer, photographed and filmed the development of…
Bowerbird is pleased to present a collaboration between the Arcana New Music Ensemble and the annual Wildflowers Composer Festival to present works by the festival faculty. The festival is open to composers who identify as part of gender-marginalized communities, which includes cis-women, trans-women, trans-men, and those who are nonbinary or gender-nonconforming. The summer festival is…