past events: peregrine arts expo 2007
The Order of Things
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FEBRUARY 24 + 25, 2007full description >><< hide description
The Order of Things invites visitors into an ethereal and seductive sound-scape that explores our relentless quest for order, from the private sphere to the vast domains of the natural world. This world premiere piece by British sound artist Scanner will feature of an electro-acoustic performance and installation, celebrating the 2007 tercentenary of the birth of Swedish biologist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778). Linnaeus was the father of modern taxonomy (i.e., the ideas of family, genus, species, etc.), which remains the foundation of modern biological science. The legacy of Linnaeus has permeated science in the West since the Enlightenment.
Scanner (a.k.a. Robin Rimbaud) is an electronic musician and multi-media artist whose work traverses the experimental terrain between sound, space, image and form, creating absorbing, multi-layered sound pieces that twist technology in unconventional ways.
The Wagner Free Institute of Science is home to a collection of 100,000 natural history specimens assembled by Philadelphia businessman and naturalist William Wagner (1796-1885). The collections are displayed in wood and glass cabinets dating from the 1880s and maintain their original Linnaean and Darwinian ordering, one of the largest systematically arranged collections on display in the country, providing a rare view of a Victorian science museum. Come explore the Wagner’s soaring three-story exhibit hall, as Scanner takes you on a sonic journey through this extraordinary collection.
Scanner (Robin Rimbaud), performance + sound installation
This program is part of the Temple-Peregrine Atelier Project, a collaboration between Peregrine Arts and the Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University, and is made possible through the generous support of the Argosy Foundation Fund for Contemporary Music, the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Humanities, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, administered by the University of the Arts, as well as the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation and the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.
All Power to the People!: The Black Panther Suite
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MARCH 17 + 18, 2007full description >><< hide description
All Power to the People!: The Black Panther Suite is a multidisciplinary music theater piece featuring a score by Asian-American jazz composer Fred Ho. Inspired by Asian-American and African-American issues, Ho draws powerful connections between the traditional cultures of both Asia and Africa, as well as the socio-political history and experience of Asians and Africans in America. Founded in the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party came to symbolize the apotheosis of the explosive late-1960s in American society and the fight for equal rights. The Black Panther Suite is Ho's meditation on the legacy of Malcolm X and the influence of the Chinese Revolution and Mao Zedong upon the Black Panther philosophy of social justice and equality.
The work is performed by Ho's revolutionary jazz sextet, the Afro Asian Music Ensemble, with original video by Paul Chan and video re-mix by Abraham Gomez-Delgado. The performance venue, Philadelphia's Freedom Theatre, is Pennsylvania's oldest African-American theatre, located in the historic Edwin Forrest mansion, a former meeting place of the Black Panther Party.
Fred Ho, music + concept
Paul Chan, video
Abraham Gomez-Delgado, video re-mix
Afro Asian Music Ensemble
This program is part of the Temple-Peregrine Atelier Project, a collaboration between Peregrine Arts and the Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University, and is made possible through the generous support of the Argosy Foundation Fund for Contemporary Music, the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Humanities, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, administered by the University of the Arts, as well as the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation and the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.
The Sinking of the Titanic
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MARCH 29, 2007full description >><< hide description
The Sinking of the Titanic is a multi-media, music-theater installation by British composer Gavin Bryars, re-visioned by New York's acclaimed Ridge Theater. This new realization focuses on themes of humanistic achievement and cultural memory, drawing from documents relating to the life and legacy of legendary Philadelphia book collector and philanthropist Harry Elkins Widener. In his twenties, Harry was already one of the great humanists and book collectors of his day. Early in 1912, he set out for Europe to retrieve his long-sought after and most coveted book, a rare second edition copy of Sir Francis Bacon's Essays (1598). Harry perished with his father, George D. Widener, during their triumphant return to America aboard the R.M.S. Titanic. Harry's mother, Eleanor Elkins Widener, survived and instructed their Philadelphia dealer, A.S.W. Rosenbach, armed with unlimited funds and buying latitude, to complete Harry's collection and deed it to Harvard University, where it now resides as one of the greatest book collections in the world. Ridge's production creates an immersive environment featuring a full-length silent film, still projections and live performance with an orchestra composed of students from Temple University's Boyer College of Music. Texts and visual design elements will be adapted from Bacon's Essays and documents from the Widener archives at the Rosenbach Museum & Library. The production will be set amidst the Edwardian splendor of Lincoln Hall in the Union League of Philadelphia, of which Harry was a member, and will include a gala evening featuring a reconstruction of the dinner that Eleanor Widener hosted in the ship's Ritz Restaurant for luminaries such as Captain E.J. Smith, John Jacob Astor, and the "Unsinkable" Molly Brown. Music by Gavin Bryars Staging Conceived by Ridge Theater Film by Bill Morrison Projections by Laurie Olinder Directed by Bob McGrath Performed By Toby Twining as Harry Elkins Widener Students of the Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University Conducted by Thaddeus Squire The Sinking of the Titanic is presented in partnership with the Abraham Lincoln Foundation, the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University.
Music by Gavin Bryars
Staging Conceived by Ridge Theater
Film by Bill Morrison
Projections by Laurie Olinder
Directed by Bob McGrath
Performed By Toby Twining as Harry Elkins Widener
Students of the Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University
Conducted by Thaddeus Squire
This program is part of the Temple-Peregrine Atelier Project, a collaboration between Peregrine Arts and the Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University, and is made possible through the generous support of the Argosy Foundation Fund for Contemporary Music, the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Humanities, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, administered by the University of the Arts, as well as the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation and the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.