FringeArts – Jumpstart Rejects Live At Mascher

Josh — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:04:49 +0000

What’s better than black market performing arts? Ben Grinberg and Mascher Space Co-op have put together their own performing arts showcase of performers and creators who were not chosen for the official Jumpstart here at FringeArts (Monday May 13 and Tuesday May 14 at 7pm at the Painted Bride). What a fantastic idea! As FringeArts LAB director Craig Peterson, who heads the Jumpstart program, observed, “This is a great idea–having sat on the panel, I can tell you there was a lot of great work that was auditioned that didn’t make it into the showcase. Only in philly could “rejection” be reframed as a programming opportunity. Thanks for giving this work a home!”

Turning “reject” into a positive. Christina Gesualdi to perform at Jumpstart Rejects.

They have aptly named their showcase Jumpstart Rejects and the current line-up includes Christina Gesualdi, Dan Stern and the If Man is 5 ensemble, Katie Gould, Alice Yorke, Sarah Mittledorf and Kaleid Theatre, Darcy Lyons, and Ben Grinberg and Nick Gillette. The event is free, and happens this Sunday May 12 at 7pm (a day before the FringeArts Jumpstart—enabling you to compare and contrast). Jumpstart Rejects will be at Mascher (155 Cecil B. Moore Avenue). There is a chance that some slots will open up—interested performers (and Jumpstart rejects) can email Ben Grinberg at bgringerg [at] gmail [dot] com We caught up with Ben to get the skinny. FringeArts: What is your role in this? And Mascher’s? Ben: I’m co-producing this show with Mascher, specifically with a whole lot of help from Annie Wilson and Christina Gesauldi, who are both Mascher members. Mascher is generously providing space, marketing, and hopefully even hotdogs. I’m also going to be performing with Nick Gillette. FringeArts: How did the idea come about? Ben: I started having conversations about wanting to do something like “Jumpstart Rejects” with other members of the theater and dance community as soon as I applied for a Jumpstart audition. Jumpstart is incredibly competitive—not only do they audition 50 artists and chose 6, but there’s a waiting list at least 20 deep for those audition slots. Personally, I ended up losing out on the lottery and was 17th on the waiting list, though I was able to audition a different piece with my collaborator Nick Gillette. That means that there’s a lot of work worth seeing that can’t be presented as a part of Jumpstart. It would be such a shame for those short pieces to die without ever seeing an audience. So I got the idea to program a low-key night of art for art’s sake out of pieces that for whatever reason couldn’t make it into Jumpstart. When I spoke to Annie Wilson, she was thinking along the same lines—and deserves all the credit for the name “Jumpstart Rejects”—and it became an easy co-production with Mascher.

Samantha Schwab, Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez, and Nina Giacobbe of Kaleid Theater. Photo: Valerie Giacobbe

FringeArts: Can you tell us about some of the performers? Ben: Absolutely, Dan Stern and the If Man is 5 ensemble are presenting an excerpt from a longer work. It’s an all-male acrobatic exploration of masculinity and what it means to be an acrobat. They’re all very gifted performers so this promises to be exciting. Sarah Mittledorf has been working with her physical theater company, Kaleid Theater, since last Fall. Their work is at the intersection of dance and theater. In developing the piece, they are guided by these questions: “Things that bounce: rubber balls, plastic cups, lamplight, puppies, echos, opinions. What happens when people bounce? Or stories? Or bits of music? What else?” Thanks Ben, sounds like a great show and a lot of fun. For more info, check out the facebook event. Jumpstart Rejects Sunday May 12 at 7pm FREE! Mascher Space Co-op 155 Cecil B. Moore Ave (2B), 19122 (bet. North Hancock and North Mascher Streets) –Josh McIlvain

Review – KaleidoCabaret

Kat Richter — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:09:06 +0000

By Kat Richter for The Dance Journal Photos by Valerie Giacobbe Under the direction of Sarah Mitteldorf, the artists of Kaleid Theatre braved Friday night’s snow storm for an eclectic cabaret at The Performance Garage this past weekend. The show featured twelve acts ranging from Irish step dance to Bulgarian folk music, complete with card tricks and balloon animals courtesy of the evening’s Master of Ceremonies Ben Grinberg. Some worked better than others—Mitteldorf’s hornpipe, for example, felt rushed and unfinished despite her evident training—but all in all, it was a charming display of talent and new ideas. Wearing a pair of maroon boxer briefs, 17-year old Aaron Berman performed a dark solo on the lyra, a large hoop suspended from the ceiling. Like a spider spinning a web, he wound his long limbs around the hoop, balancing in all sorts of twisted positions as he swung through the air. In one particularly exciting moment, he ran towards the audience then dove backwards into the hoop just in time to keep from falling off the edge of the stage. His transitions were a bit awkward—like Olympic gymnasts who struggle with the “dance steps” between their aerials—but he showed enormous promise for such a young performer. Josie Learns to Love Again performed by Nina Giacobbe comprised a humorous mash up of red-nose clowning and creative aerial work. Charge, performed by Lauren Rile Smith and Lee Ane Pompillo of Tangle Movement Arts was a duet turned trio thanks to the addition of a single lyra. Utilizing both counterbalance and momentum, the two women swung across the stage, contorting their bodies to fit within the round hoop. Their performance energy and costumes were mismatched, making the work feel somehow not quite there yet, but the premise was intriguing in its chosen medium. Samantha Rose Schwab and Laurie Lenox both performed solos on the rope, an aerial device that is exactly what the name would suggest: a long piece of rope suspended from the ceiling. Schwab’s The levee, breaking was inspired by the tragedy of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She wore waders and trekked across the stage, as if crawling through debris, then began to climb the rope utilizing different configurations to support her weight as she pitched forward, slithering head first towards the floor. Lenox’s solo was more whimsical. Using her hands to wind the rope around her waist, she hung suspended for a moment than unraveled like a spool of thread dropped from the air. A duet performed by dancers Kimya Imani Jackson and Bianca Frisby, Pre/Post combined text and pedestrian movements into an elegant commentary on after effects of collision, the evening’s theme. I was sad that it ended so quickly. Susan Gates solo, Addiction, was equally well-thought out. She repeated the same phrase once, twice, then a third time with greater difficulty each round symbolizing the loss of a struggle with adduction. Her jumps became steps, then just a lilt, then finally a collapse to the floor. Bounce, the final work of the evening, featured Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez, Schwab and Giacobbe under Mitteldorf’s direction. The piece combined movement and text to tell stories of childhood parties, study abroad and the neglected ecosystems of New Orleans using the common thread of falling and bouncing to connect the disparate narratives. The stories were somewhat self-indulgent but the use of pantomime and partnering made them come alive in unexpected ways. Kat Richter is a freelance writer and teaching artist. She holds an MA in Dance Anthropology and is also the co-founder of The Lady Hoofers, Philadelphia’s only all-female tap company. Her work can be found at www.katrichter.com.

danceJournal » Ben Grinberg

FringeArts – Jumpstart Rejects Live At Mascher

Review – KaleidoCabaret