FEB 17 -- MAR 2

Two Weeks
From the Center of the Fringe Universe to the Source of the Gulf Stream
Jimbo has gone snorkeling. Dear readers, you're on your own.
Use the links to the right to find fine fringe on your own.
If you see something good, post a suggestion or a review in the comments.
Or just tell me how you think I could improve this website! I'd love to hear from you.
Regards... Until March 3!

FEB 10 -- FEB 16

Today ART
Website
www.mica.edu/lawson_oyekan
Check this website, look over the events, and go to whatever you can that includes in person participation by Lawson Oyekan.
Jimbo saw part of Oyekan's show at Decker Gallery and went to the panel discussion, "The Spirit of Nature and the Human Condition," on Tuesday night. Oyekan is a genius. His work and he are presented by George Ciscle and the MICA curatorial seminar in ways that will give every art appreciator new insights about art, the artistic process, an artist, humanity, and nature.
The collaborations of George Ciscle and his curatorial seminars with artists are "only in Baltimore" examples of cutting-edge curating at the very highest level. Judge for yourself.

Friday, February 11 at 8 PM MOVIES
Clamation Film Festival
Film gives a whole other life to clay, for sheer fun and special effects. Free
www.mica.edu
Falvey Hall
Brown Center
1301 West Mount Royal Avenue

Friday, February 11 at 8 and 10 PM MUSIC
Felicia Carter
Sings love songs and sorrows; accompanied by pianist Lou Rainone, bassist James King, and drummer Dominic Smith. This is a real valentine. $12--make reservations, this should sell out.
www.andiemusiklive.com
An die Musik
409 North Charles Street
888-221-6170

Saturday, February 12 from 3--10 PM ART
Reception for Picture Windows
Did it all begin with the mural project Beautiful Walls for Baltimore? In any case, there are many more artists in Baltimore than there are galleries and spaces to show them. Plus there is a wonderful tradition of public art in this city. So it always pays to be alert--I still love John Ellsberry's three reptilian creatures at 28th Street and Sisson every time I see them. Then there are the works placed in businesses by Art Exposure, Inc. (www.artexposure.com).
This reception celebrates the one hundred artists who have transformed some of the boarded up windows around the North Station Arts District into art. Celebrate with them. Free
http://www.stationnorth.org/
www.area405.com
Area 405
405 East Oliver Street
410-528-2101

Saturday, February 12 at 7:30 and 10 PM BURLESQUE
Valentine's Day Cabaret
Trixie Little, the Evil Hate Monkey, more, and others with special appearance by Dirty Martini. For premier fringe and a bawdier approach to 'romance'. $15, less for members. This will sell out, make a reservation.
www.trixielittle.com
www.creativealliance.org
Creative Alliance at the Patterson
3134 Eastern Avenue
410-276-410-276-1651

Sunday, February 13 at 1 PM PHOTOGRAPHY
50 Years of Photography
Morton Tadder is a Baltimore institution (and a nice man!). Exhibition and talk by the photographer for a historic perspective of... Free with museum admission ($8)
www.mdhs.org
Maryland Historical Society
201 West Monument street
410-685-3750 ext. 321

Sunday, February 13 at 2:30 PM MUSIC
"What a Beautiful City: Jerusalem, City of Hope"
Tom Hall and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society with narration by Rheda Becker celebrate the 30th anniversary of Beth AM synagogue. Baltimore doesn't excel only in gospel--there is a noble tradition of Jewish music here as well. Free with reservations (get them ASAP)
Beth AM
2501 Eutaw Place
410-523-2446

Wednesday, February 16 from 6-8 PM ART
Opening reception for Ampofo-Anti and Marina Kuchinski
Ampofo-Anti, artist in-resident at McDonogh, was one of Lawson Oyekan's teachers. An opportunity to see teacher and successful student exhibiting at the same time. Sometimes Owings Mills is worth the trip, and this is one of those times. The exhibit is through April 1. Another part of Tour de Clay.
www.tourdeclay.com
http://www.mcdonogh.org/index_flash.cfm
McDonogh School
8600 McDonogh Road
410-363-0600

*blink* REVIEW

*blink*
movement/addiction
together with
the imaging research centre at umbc

Once again Baltimore artists and professionals demonstrate absolute excellence in their fields and provide meaningful entertainment for their neighbors.

"*blink*" consisted of "two multi-media performance events," body.txt and skip/stop, that combined the talents of poet, choreographers, dancers, videographers, composers, musicians, and image researchers to tell human stories in sublime ways. These multi-media worked together intimately in the service both of the pieces' content and of their form.

The event body.txt is based on the poem "body.txt" which Noel Marie Jones, a national slam poetry champion, wrote in the collaboration. It begins:

blink

the body has a language all its own...

Could there be a better starting place for dance, music and poetry? Whether or not the poem was written in the presence of the collaborators, the performance event made it seem as though it had the full participation of the choreographers, dancers, musicians, and image makers--all telling the story together. The poem provided the bones and structure of body.txt, even for the viewer who had not read it prior to the performance. The event was a whole, in itself.

body.txt's themes were universal human ones of birth, growth, sense-ation, desire, pursuit, communication, aloneness, hope, death, and comfort. The event used minimal set, costumes, and props (black background; two relatively small projection screens; neutral/cream colored tops, shorts, and knee wraps; and neutral/cream latex sheets), which provided multiple, sometimes moving and overlapping, surfaces for the projection of works, images, live video, time-lapse video, and pre-recorded video. Sounds also were made with combinations of live and pre-recorded notes, beats, and noises. These elements worked without excess (even with restraint!) to further the communication of "body.txt" themes and narrative.

movement/addiction, the dance company, provided superb performances in acknowledgement to body.txt's tribute to language of the body. An excerpt from the poem...

at nearby tables
dancer spins and eclipses dancer
necks arc up in unison
one hand squeezes another

dancer spins and eclipses dancer
something of universal importance is
happening
one hand squeezes another
in unmistakable agreement...

It was an added plus to see this performed by a company of dancers so well-matched physically.

Renee Brozic and Sarah D. Seely, the co-artistic directors, choreographers, (and dancers) of movement/addiction, credit the collaboration of company dancers in the creation of body.txt. Timothy Nohe provided sound direction; Brendan Howell did the video; and Evan Wiegand and Jeff Jordan operated live feed cameras. Along with Noel Jones, the other dancers, musicians, and technical image makers, they made an engaging, thought-provoking and sophisticated statement of how the full collaboration of technology and humans can bring new insight to eternal themes.

The second piece of the evening, skip/stop, was a more traditional, but still excellent, collaboration between movement/addiction and Timothy Nohe's sound artists. skip/stop was a lighter-look at more everyday human verities: the feelings of being left behind and the difficulties of connecting. It provided a fine, but not insubstantial, dessert to the evening's main course.

It will be tragic if these pieces are not performed at larger venues with full stage resources to bigger audiences. These collaborators deserve national and international exposure. Congratulations to the Creative Alliance for presenting these world premieres.

And fringe'sters, count yourselves lucky to live in this city.

Saturday, February 5, Performance (sold out) reviewed
Creative Alliance at the Patterson
3134 Eastern Avenue
www.movementaddiction.org
http://www.irc.umbc.edu/
www.creativealliance.org

Tour de Clay

February 19 to April 3, 2005
878 Artists, 160 Exhibitions, 122 Venues
www.tourdeclay.com

Fringesters, for the next few months, Baltimore, the center of the fringe universe, and the center of the mainstream conjoin! For the year's best, most spectacular, bar none, international clay event.

When a definitive history of American clayworks is written, Baltimore will play an important role. Perhaps it's that Maryland red clay.

In any case, don't miss out on exhibits, talks, and demonstrations that will be remembered for years. With even just a little bit of luck, these will be well-publicized by the mainstream media. But do not count on this. Local media often undervalue the significance of local events--where is the build up?

Tour de Clay will be this year's destination for people with a serious interest in the aesthetics of anything that can be made of clay.

I will probably list only one Tour de Clay event a week, just to encourage you to look at the website, and review one or two of the Tour de Clay activities. But just know that art opportunities simply don't get any better than this, anywhere. So take advantage and enjoy!

FEB 3 -- FEB 9

Thursday, February 3 from 6 - 8 PM ART
Contemporary Swedish Ceramics
Opening at Meyerhoff Gallery and co-curator/artists' lecture in the Brown Center at 7. This will be a great start to Tour de Clay, a three-month celebration of works in clay. This show will run through March 20. Free
http://tourdeclay.com/
www.mica.edu
Maryland Institute College of Art
1301 West Mount Royal Avenue
410-225-2300

Thursday, February 3 at 8 PM THEATRE
A Real "Nigga" Show
Written and directed by Troy Burton, this show will run at various times and days through February 10. $16
www.theatreproject.org
Theatre Project
45 West Preston Street
410-752-8558

Friday, February 4 thru February 28 ART
Erotica '05
Opening reception from 6-9. A group show, including the always-interesting Ruth Channing (Disclosure: James Beau owns an 'artist's' book by Channing.) For some February love fun, Jimbo couldn't leave this one out.
http://amberlady.com/ahi/map.htm
Artists' Housing
1448 East Baltimore Street
410-327-1554

Friday & Saturday, February 4 & 5 at 8 PM DANCE
*Blink*
New works by Movement/Addiction in collaboration with UMBC's Imaging and Research Center--Skip/Stop and Body.txt. This should give good fringe, albeit perhaps shades of Alwin Nikolai, $15, less for CA members
www.creativealliance.org
Creative Alliance at the Patterson
3134 Eastern Avenue
410-276-1651

Friday, February 4 at 8PM MORE DANCE!
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
Another nice surprise, more fringe modern dance. $17
http://www.umbc.edu/newsevents/arts/calendar/
UMBC Theater
1000 Hilltop Circle
410-752-8950

Saturday, February 5 from 10 AM to 12:30 ART
Lawson Oyekan
Oyekan, a Nigerian-born, London-based artist shows how he works with self-hardening clay. This is a great opportunity fringesters! His work can be seen at the Decker Gallery as part of Tour de Clay. Free
www.mica.edu
Mount Royal Station
1400 Cathedral Street

Saturday, February 5 from 3-5 PHOTOGRAPHY
Images in Black and White: Three Generations of Photographers
Opening reception. African-American photographers I.H. Phillips I, II & III show images of Baltimore and the US over sixty years of work. The exhibit will run at Resurgam (an always interesting cooperative art gallery) through February 27. Free
www.ihenryphoto.com
Resurgam Gallery
910 South Charles Street
410-962-0513

Saturday, February 5 at 7:30 PM MUSIC
Imaginary Landscapes: A Concert of Music about Cities, Dreamscapes, and Romantic Lands
While I'm usually suspicious of such long, explicit titles, this concert of Damon Ferrante's songs based on Daniel Mark Epstein poems is at a venue I trust. $18
http://andiemusiklive.com/
An die Musik
409 North Charles Street
410-385-2638

Tuesday, February 8 at 7 PM PANEL
"The Spirit of Nature and the Human Condition"
A spin-off of Tour de Clay, this could very well be a planet in it's own right. Anything George Ciscle does is worth a special trip. Tonight he leads a panel discussion with Lawson Oyekan and Moyosore Okediji about the social causes and effects of oppression. Free
www.mica.edu
Brown Center
1301 West Mount Royal Avenue
410-225-2300

Wednesday, February 9 at 7 DOCUMENTARY
Taliban Country
Carmela Baranowska presents her documentary about the US in southern Afghanistan. Free
http://www.stonyrunfriends.org/
Stony Run Friends Meeting House
5116 North Charles Street
410-235-0186