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Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts™ State College, Pennsylvania
July 8-11, 2010 ~ Children's Day is July 7, 2010
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CENTRAL PA FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS HOT PICKS FOR 2009
(Our schedule is subject to change.)
= HOT PICK!
B = Button required to attend
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Wednesday
National Marionette Theatre presents Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Sponsored by The Schreyer Foundation
B [Audio Description] 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.Schwab Auditorium
Each season the National Marionette Theatre tours extensively performing their award winning adult and family productions for festivals, theaters, colleges, universities and performing arts centers throughout the USA and Europe. So polished is their technique, so tasteful is their artistry that today the company is recognized as one of the finest in the world. The National Marionette Theatre will be presenting Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, a tale from the One Thousand and One Nights, an ancient collection of Middle Eastern folk tales and other stories.
David Syrotiak, (802) 380-4131 www.nmtshow.com
Thursday
Galumpha
B 8:00p.m.; Schwab • dance
"What will they do next?" That question is hard to escape while watching Galumpha perform. Part acrobatics, part comedy show, part modern dance and totally amazing, anyone who has seen a Galumpha show knows how difficult the experience is to put into words. From moment to moment you never know what to expect as the three-man group tells stories, delivers jokes and defies gravity. All you’re certain of is that you want more.
Galumpha takes its name from an anthropological term used to describe a trait exclusive to higher life forms.
"Galumphing is the immaculate rambunctiousness and seemingly inexhaustible play-energy apparent in puppies, kittens, children, baby baboons … Galumphing is the seemingly useless elaboration and ornamentation of activity. It is profligate, excessive, exaggerated, and uneconomical."
And completely enthralling.
As you watch, one wonders "How do they do that? And how can they possibly be thinking about delivering a punch line while their bodies are contorted like that?" Yet they do. Clearly expertly choreographed, it’s choreography with none of the urbane pretenses so often associated with the art. At the same time, they can make goofy Velcro skull caps somehow sophisticated.
Based in Binghamton, New York, the group’s show and Velcro caps have traveled the world and appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, MTV and Showtime, as well as at hundreds of festivals and events. Galumpha was formed in 2002 by Andy Horowitz and Greg O’Brien, who are on the faculty at Binghamton University as artists-in-residence. Horowitz and O’Brien met studying dance as undergraduates at Binghamton in 1982. Their collaborations began in 1986, morphed from the group The Sticks to The Second Hand Dance Company and finally into Galumpha.
The current Galumpha trio is rounded out by Marlon Torres, who began his dance career on Venezuelan TV as a child and has since performed throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. He is on the teaching faculty of North Carolina Arts in Action and is an honors graduate of Binghamton University’s Department of Theatre.
For an unforgettable experience that will delight any audience, don’t miss Galumpha’s performance on Thursday July 9.
Andy Horowitz (607) 348-4044 www.galumpha.com
Friday
Kelly Birtch
5:30 p.m.; Parklet • Spanish guitar/rock
Kelly Birtch is a guitarist and a composer with amazing diversity and range across many musical genres. Her distinctly powerful steel string sound transitions seamlessly between Spanish guitar music and rock. Her repertoire includes guitar music in the following genres: Spanish, Blues, Rock, Jazz, and Classical, all played in the self-accompaniment style (interchanging chords and melody).to the listening audience. Reviewer after reviewer has heaped praise on her, saying, in short: “This lady can really play the guitar. Always a good time.” Her debut album is called simply, Kelly Birtch. In 2009 she will release her second CD and also a DVD, Kelly Birtch Live, capturing many great performances both as a solo artist and with others. Kelly Birtch (646) 284-3418
Essence of Joy
B 7:00 p.m.; State College College Presbyterian Church • gospel
Since its first performance at the Festival a few years ago, Essence of Joy’s appearance has come to be a highlight of the Festival for both music lovers and casual listeners.
Essence of Joy is a choral ensemble in the Penn State University School of Music. Organized in November, 1991 by Anthony Leach, the choir performs sacred and secular music from the African/African American choral traditions. Essence II was organized in August 1999 to provide an opportunity for singers from the State College area and beyond to perform sacred and secular music from the African/African American choral traditions. Essence of Joy Alumni Singers were formally organized in October, 2005. Membership in this ensemble is limited to singers who participated in the resident choir, Essence of Joy.
http://www.clubs.psu.edu/up/essenceofjoy/
Cartoon
Sponsored by Gemini Enterprises, Black Walnut Body Shop, House Wire, Inc. Brown & Associates
B 7:30 p.m.; Schwab • folk
READ ABOUT CARTOON'S HISTORY
Listen: Lady Jamaica
The group was founded in 1980 in State College and played throughout Pennsylvania in the ‘80s. Cartoon has recorded several albums, including In the Living Room, Native State and Hubba Hubba. A performance by Cartoon is as much a part of the festival as an ice cream cone from the Creamery or Chicken on a Stick.
Saturday
Universe of Dreams, presented by Ensemble Galilei. Narration by National Public Radio’s Neal Conan.
B 8:00 p.m. Schwab
Sponsor: National Endowment for the Arts
Sponsored by the Schreyer Foundation
This out of this world multi-media performance combines the talents of well known Celtic group Ensemble Galilei with those of Neal Conan, the host of National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation. Ensemble Galilei provides music, and Conan the narration as the newest images from the Hubble Space Telescope projected on stage. It is a transporting musical, visual, and even celestial experience!
Ensemble Galilei is an ensemble of players from both classical and Celtic traditional backgrounds, playing Irish and Scottish airs and dance tunes, Early and Medieval music, and original compositions. The Washington Post noted the group’s "Virtuoso technique, an instinctive feeling for the idiom, and the courage to improvise . . . they play with energy, splendid ensemble, good humor and imagination." The most recent of the band’s nine CDs, From the Edge of the World was released in 2007.
During the week, Neal Conan’s show, Talk of the Nation, is heard on about 300 NPR stations and NPR Worldwide. Before that, Conan served NPR News as a reporter, editor and producer and as Bureau Chief in New York and London. He covered many elections, several wars, the impeachment of President Clinton, and in 2004, moderated the first radio only presidential debate since 1948. In 2000, Mr. Conan took a leave of absence to broadcast baseball play by play for the Aberdeen Arsenal, a team in the independent Atlantic League and wrote a book about his experiences, Play by Play: Baseball, Radio and Life in the Last Chance League.
The Hubble Space Telescope, named for astronomer Edwin Hubble, was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle Discovery in April 1990. The Hubble, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, is one of the largest and most versatile space telescopes and is well-known to both the general public and the scientific community. The Hubble's position outside the Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely sharp images with almost no background light.
The music of the Ensemble Galilei, and photos from the Hubble Space Telescope are the perfect backdrop for the works of some of the finest poets in America, read by Conan.
Audiences have been swept away by this extraordinary combination of the spoken word and what has been described by critics as "....music that speaks to the heart in ways that transcend mere language." A Universe of Dreams includes text from Stanley Kunitz, Jim Harrison, William Shakespeare, and a re-telling of a Navajo Creation Myth, all performed with images from the Hubble that have transformed our understanding of the universe.
www.egmusic.com
Velveeta
Sponsored by the Penn State Alumni Association
10:00 p.m.; Shell
Velveeta the cheese food is a staple in the dairy case at fine supermarkets across the country. Developed in 1918 by Swiss immigrant Emil Frey of the Monroe Cheese Company in Monroe, New York, Velveeta is a quintessentially American consumer product. Velveeta, the musical phenomenon, has been a staple of the central Pennsylvania nightclub scene since a legendary performance in State College in the summer of 1995. With a repertoire made of “80’s cheese”, otherwise known as cover tunes that you just can’t get out of your head, Velveeta the musical phenomenon is a quintessentially Penn State musical experience. It will make you nostalgic for the early days of MTV.
www.80scheese.com
QUESTIONS?
Contact us by phone or e-mail
(814) 237-3682
(814) 237-0708 FAX
e-mail: office@arts-festival.com
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