Meandering through the streets of Kensington and Fishtown, I finally come upon the choreographer Ellie Goudie-Averill's live-work space. On the second floor of renovated industrial building on Hazzard Street, Ellie and Rain Ross are rehearsing a duet—likely to be called "Lessons for Your Love"—that is one of five dance pieces in their Philly Fringe show Absence/Presence.

"It's about small changes that happen every day that add up to a big deal," Ellie says.

In the sun-dappled loft, they open the duet silently, with about 20 seconds of movement before music begins. Rain and Ellie collide awkwardly, literally negotiating space with each other. Their movements are just out of sync, as if they're struggling to align themselves. Coming together to clasp hands is a motif, and a tenderness evolves over the course of the piece.

They finish a little early—the soundtrack still plays, so they re-run the duet to find spots to slow down, and talk about phrases that have gotten faster since they began. After the second run-through, they finish about right on time, movement unified as they exit.

Kinks worked out, we adjourn for a pint at Atlantis, the Lost Bar, a couple blocks away on Frankford Avenue, to talk about representing relationships physically and how to give audiences access points to dance. And videos! After the jump.

[More]

OMG no way! Yes way! At uwishunu, you have until September 10 to enter to win a pair of tickets to our new fundraising event, FEASTIVAL! Have you seen the list of all the restaurants that will please your pie hole? It's a good one! I exclaim! Go enter!

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Let's jump right in:

>>>City Paper cover story is more like a cover package: A.D. Amorosi interviews Charlotte Ford about CHICKEN, Mark Cofta on all the Billy Shakes, a piece on all the undead (so many undead), Shaun Brady on Bang on a Can and Release, and more.

>>>Philadelphia magazine's website has a slideshow of 11 of your favorite Festival performers.

>>>Daily News: Jonathan Takiff interviews Joe Blake, former DN reporter turned playwright and writing teacher, about his Philly Fringe show A Separate Sun.

>>>Edge Philadelphia: What's gay at the Festivals? They've got us covered.

>>>Edge redux: Article on the very talented Meg Foley, whose choreography will be featured next week as a part of 8: eight choreographers/eight new works.

>>>TheaterMania: J. Cooper Robb covers the opening of the theater season in Philly, with plugs for the Live Arts production Cankerblossom and the Philly Fringe show The New & Improved Stages of Grief.
>>>First Person Arts shares their picks too, focusing on memoir and documentary, of course. Click on over, and find out how to get an FPA discount to Cedric Andreiux.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Photo by Jay Dunn.

At Philly Fringe, traditional forms get reinvented. In the 2009 Philly Fringe, Sydney de Lapeyrouse, who has one of the best names in the Fringe Festival, appeared as Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) in Melissa Dunphy's The Gonzales Cantata. This year, Sydney sings in The Marriage of Figaro: The Las Vegas Version, and she writes in with this limerick about the opera.

All Figaro and Susanna want is to marry.
Of the Count's smooth moves they are wary.
Cherubino dresses in drag
And Countess drinks out of a bag.
We swear opera isn't that scary.

I swear too! The Marriage of Figaro: The Las Vegas Version runs September 11 and 12 at Moonstone Arts Center, 110A South 13th Street, 2nd Floor, Philadelphia. 7:30 pm, $20.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Image by Erin Lauer.

When Dito Van Reigersberg first entered the cube, as the set for the 2010 Live Arts Festival show TAKES has come to be called, he had just stepped off a plane to an early rehearsal in Los Angeles.

"I come into this space, watching my image fly around, and I almost ralphed," Dito says.

"We called it the blender," says Nichole Canuso, who, along with Lars Jan, conceived and will direct TAKES.

"And I had to be the sacrificial daiquiri," says Dito, who will perform alongside Nichole in the dance duet.

Lucky for me, when I stepped into the cube—a four-walled space where the echoes of a room are set up, and where the walls are 10-foot by 20-foot scrims—I had just strolled down the street from the office to the Festival Hub. Nichole and Lars Jan, creators and directors of TAKES, invited me into the space, where, thankfully, I did not ralph. I did, however, experience the strange sensation of moving in reaction to slightly delayed video of my movement.

"I'm interested in having the audience step inside of the work," says Nichole. "In a gallery [setting], you pay attention to how you move through the space."

During the Festival, audience members have the opportunity to experience the box for themselves. (Reservations here—it's free.) In its installation mode, Lars says that visitors will wear an iPod with a track that tells them what to do, creating a dance with two people at a time.

"It's a mix of formal instruction of where to be and a playful interaction between you and the other person."

But the box isn't just for playtime, it's for showtime too. After the jump: filmic, theatrical, and dance performance overlap—and get edited.

[More]

J. Cooper Robb is on Live Arts and Philly Fringe Festival beat for Philadelphia Weekly, picking 10 don't-miss shows, including, among others, CHICKEN, TAKES, and Festival editor emeritus Josh McIlvain's show Boat Hole. On Josh, Robb writes:

"When Josh McIlvain isn't editing the official Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe guide (a Herculean task), he's a frequently produced playwright; and 15 of his funniest short plays (each runs between one and 10 minutes) are rounded up in Boat Hole (Sept. 15-18). The briefly met characters involve a pair of ordinary guys who see a career opportunity in terrorism and orcas who bicker over performing tricks for tourists."

Yay, go Josh! We miss you, buddy!

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Image by Lisa Modica

"It's exciting and terrifying to have my own space," says playwright and director John Rosenberg as he shows me around the spacious first floor of the Papermill Theater, where his company, hellafresh theater, is in residence. "It used to be such theater dork talk, you know 'wouldn't it be awesome to have your own space.'" His collection of six short plays, Cheap Guy HOF, Class of 2010, will be the first performance to take place in the newly converted theater when it premieres at the 2010 Philly Fringe Festival.

The play, which coronates six cheap Americans into an imagined hall of fame, was largely inspired by a story that John read in the newspaper a few years ago about a judge masturbating in court under his robes. "I was like 'WTF?!' and that gave birth to the idea of chronicling cheap guys."

Cheap Guy HOF's debut will also be John's theater debut in Philly. He's a recent transplant from San Francisco, where he worked with a company called Sleepwalkers. He broke off with them to form hellafresh, a name he says "gives people an idea of what your shit is." Then his "lady friend" wanted to moved back to her native Philly.

"I said 'Hooray!'" and in January they relocated to Philly, where they now live in Center City. So far John's found the theater scene in the City of Brotherly Love to be thriving.

And he's working hard to expand where theater happens in the city. With the Papermill Theater, John says, "We are throwing our lives into this project up in Kensington." This past week, construction finished up, lights went in, and Cheap Guy HOF is ready to go.

"San Francisco has a huge music scene, but as big as music is there, theater is here," he says. "What blew my mind was all the bus stop posters for theater performances, because other cities don't have that."

Two months before the Fringe he was doing readings of Cheap Guy HOF on top of converting the space that was once a paper mill and then an illegal nightclub into a theater. "I really love workshopping a play until it goes on." He doesn't work "by the book," he says, because he doesn't like to talk that much. Plus as a playwright he says the actors continually surprise him.

"One of the plays I thought would be a dirty, nasty play," he says. "But when I read with an actor who a combo of like Jimmy Stewart and Jack Lemon, the play changed for me to be about this all-American, go-getter guy who just lost his shit." In this way, when John says "cheap guy," he's not necessarily referring to a man who won't foot the bill.

"It was a derisive term from when I was growing up in L.A. Me and my sister use to use it to describe like an old guy who kept gold buried in the background or someone who discharges firearms," he explains. "Like guys who are 'allergic to condoms.'"

Cheap Guy HOF, Class of 2010 opens on Saturday, September 4 and runs every Saturday and Sunday throughout the Philly Fringe. Papermill Community for the Arts, 2825 Ormes Street, Kensington. Times vary, $10. For details and tickets, click here

--Ellen Freeman

Photos courtesy of John Rosenberg.

Big lovely feature on, well, us in the Inquirer today, focusing on not just the Festivals but also on the Live Arts Brewery project. Howie Shapiro writes:

"With major grants, an expanded new space in Northern Liberties, and a determined leader, the festival is tackling research and development - a concept generally associated with new drugs and new cars, but not new works of art.

"It has developed a program called LAB - the Live Arts Brewery - that pays a handful of theater artists, dancers, and musicians (at this point all local) to create work. It gives them the space to do it, the equipment to do it right, small audiences to react as it evolves, and the oversight of a major-festival producer to guide it to polished completion."

Yay! We likey. Please go read the story now. Then come back here for more stories from the fringe.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

TAKES, the much-anticipated new dance from Nichole Canuso Dance Company, opens on Friday. The dance takes place in a four-walled space where the echoes of a room are set up. The the walls are 10-foot by 20-foot scrims projecting a live feed, variably delayed, of the characters danced by Dito Van Reigersberg and Nichole Canuso.

Corey Bechelli and Gina Fontana try to walk the harmonious walk with their art. As the charm/strange experience, Corey and Gina are putting up Let Go of the Ego, an interdisciplinary show of music and projected drawings. They write in with this haiku:

Universe explored—
vibrating, one harmony.
Blissful existence.

We hope so! Let Go of the Ego opens on Friday, September 4 at 8:00 pm, and runs for four other performances over the course of Philly Fringe. First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut Street, Rittenhouse Square. Various dates, $10. For details and tickets, click here.

--Nicholas Gilewicz

Image by Corey Bechelli.