and for all our west coast readers, may we suggest:

NEW ORIGINAL WORKS FESTIVAL 2008

The fifth annual NOW Festival features nine projects by artists working throughout the Los Angeles region in dance, theater, music and hybrid performance works. For three weeks beginning in July, these artists take the REDCAT stage to bend traditions, investigate new visions of work and celebrate risk and invention.

http://redcat.org/season/0708/dan/now.php

Program 1: July 17–19

Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project

Cloud Eye Control

Theatre Movement Bazaar

Program 2: July 24–26

Ledges and Bones Dance Project

Poor Dog Group

Lionel Popkin

Program 3: July 31–August 2

Rosanna Gamson / World Wide

Anne LeBaron/Douglas Kearney

Kristina Wong

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I just got some tickets to go see some shows at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. It is going to be a good time! You can keep up to date on the goings-on in Philly via their blog.

A bunch of the shows have already been in NYC (rotozaza’s etiquette, two shows from jerome bel) but some haven’t. I’m particularly excited about:

• Jo Stromgren Kompani’s The European Lesson
• Verdensteatret’s louder
• Rodrigo Garcia Accidens (matar para comer)

(this one was actually at MESTC/CUNY)

Woo hoo!

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Oh man oh man…. Ice Factory this year looks like its gonna rock hard!!! from the press release:

SOHO THINK TANK’S OBIE AWARD WINNING ICE FACTORY ‘08 CELEBRATES 15 YEARS OF BLAZING THE TRAIL FOR NEW YORK’S SUMMER FESTIVAL SCENE WITH 7 NY PREMIERES

(June 23, 2008) New York, NY – Artistic Director Robert Lyons proudly

presents the 15th annual ICE FACTORY summer festival of new work. ICE

FACTORY ’08 opens July 9th, presenting seven New York premieres in seven

weeks, and wraps up August 23rd.

All performances are at the Ohio

Theatre – 66 Wooster Street (b/t Spring & Broome) in Soho. Performances

are Wednesdays–Saturdays at 7pm.

Tickets are $15 for adults

and $10 for students/seniors via SmartTix at 212-868-4444 or

http://www.SmartTix.com. Trains: R, W to Prince St. or 6, C, E to Spring

St.

For more information visit http://www.SohoThinkTank.org.

Performance Schedule and artist info after the jump. All I can say is Riot Group, Matt Maher, Maria Goyanes & Karinne Keithley, Neil Young, Oliver Butler and more….

Continue Reading

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It started yesterday.  I’m behind. But there’s great stuff going on all over the city as part of the PEN World Voices Festival.

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Its like, everyone is going to Austin but me! Goldangit!!! I wish I wasn’t totally broke.

(Oh and the IRS totally punched me in the face this year. I’m so glad I’m paying my fair share of taxes to support a completely unjust war, bail out Bear Sterns and prop up the waning days of the most deceitful, mean-spirited, mendacious, corrupt and malevolent administration that has ever befouled our fair nation)

Um. Sorry…. I got carried away there. But if I had some money (and some time) I’d be truckin’ on down to Texas to check out Fusebox 08, Austin’s awesome performance festival. Lots of cool NYC folks are headed down there like Witness Relocation, The Debate Society, Neal Medlyn, Reggie Watts and, um, lots more. Oh and Rotozaza. Dude. I wanna drink beer and eat BBQ and rock out in Austin!!! Oh well. Maybe next year.

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The Prelude Festival - which I co-curate with Geoffrey Scott from NYTW and Frank Hentschker, director of programs at MESTC/CUNY – has a group on Facebook. Check it out! Join the group and keep us posted on what you’re up to, we’ll do the same. We’ve started meeting to discuss Prelude ’08 in September!

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Mark your calendars now for the 2nd Annual Frigid Festival, brought to you by Horse Trade (the folks who run The Kraine, the Red Room and Under St. Mark’s) and EXIT Theatre (founders of the SF Fringe Festival). It runs from February 27-March 9, 2008.

What makes Frigid different from other festivals is that the artists take home 100% of their box office and the festival producers do not receive royalties from future performances. It is also non-juried which is a good thing in principle, but from an audience perspective: caveat emptor!

Still, since Culturebot can sometimes be an Old Leftist Crank and since he participated in the first Seattle Fringe Festival (in 1991!!), which we think was the first Fringe in the States, we stand with our fellow indie theater artists in forging opportunities for everyone to show their stuff, regardless of funding, etc. etc.

I don’t really know anything about any of the shows but I like robots, so I’m hoping that Giant Invisible Robot is good. I’m also curious about the nonsense company‘s show Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Conversation Storm, which seems to be some kind of avant-garde collaboration between theater artists and new music composers.

Brrrr!

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well the old culturebot inbox is starting to get filled up with all the different press releases for all the various shows in Under The Radar. And its understandable, since the line-up is really strong. Young Jean Lee, Jay Scheib, Reggie Watts, Mike Daisey, Superamas…. zowie. And of course, we’re very much looking forward to our pals rotozaza being in town for etiquette. and with all shows being $15 (for shows at The Public) it is a friggin’ bargain! Here’s the line-up:

EVENTS AT THE PUBLIC THEATER:

Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company CHURCH

Reggie Watts DISINFORMATION

Belarus Free Theater GENERATION JEANS

Mike Daisey HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA

The Suicide Kings IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING

Rha Goddess LOW: MEDITATIONS TRILOGY PART 1

Nature Theater of Oklahoma POETICS: A BALLET BRUT

Michel Melamed REGURGITOPHAGY

Dael Orlandersmith STOOP STORIES

Abbey Theatre TERMINUS

Jay Scheib THIS PLACE IS A DESERT

EVENTS AT PARTNER THEATERS:

1927 BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

Superamas BIG, 3RD EPISODE (happy/end)

The Foundry Theatre and Rotozaza ETIQUETTE

Stan’s Cafe OF ALL THE PEOPLE IN ALL THE WORLD: USA

Back to Back Theatre SMALL METAL OBJECTS

Classical Theatre of Harlem’s TROJAN WOMEN

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THE BLIP FESTIVAL 2007
THURSDAY NOV 29TH – SUNDAY DEC 2ND.
EYEBEAM – 540 WEST 21ST STREET (BTWN 10TH AND 11TH AVES)
www.blipfestival.org
The BLIP  FESTIVAL 2007 is a four-day music and multimedia event, focusing on the modern artistic exploration of primitive video game and home computer technology and featuring 40 musicians and visualists from around the world. The BLIP FESTIVAL showcases artists adopting and repurposing familiar but forgotten hardware – such as the Commodore 64, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Atari game console and home computer line, and the Nintendo Game Boy – exploring their untapped potential and unique aesthetic character. The festival’s nightly concerts and daytime screenings, workshops, and presentations are supplemented by B I T M A P : as good as new, an adjunct visual art exhibition, held at acclaimed Brooklyn gallery vertexList. The Blip Festival 2007 offers a fascinating cross-section of the chiptune musical aesthetic and related low-bit visual art, in an explosive event taking place at the epicenter of the creative world. The festival will host evening concerts on all 4
nights, as well as daytime workshops and screenings on Saturday and Sunday.
For full schedule and lineup, check out the website: http://www.blipfestival.org/schedule.html
To buy tickets for individual nights: http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showCode=TAN9
To buy festival passes: http://www.smarttix.com/package.aspx?showcode=BLI44

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…. for some upcoming-not-to-miss events.

Tickets on sale now for BAM’s incredible season opening with The Seagull by the Royal Shakespeare Company, towards the end Batsheva Dance Company will be returning with “three” ….. their tickets will probably sell out, so hop on it!

Tickets will be on sale Saturday for the now well-established Fall for Dance Festival ……. Some old standards, and old standards in new packaging (Morphoses/Christopher Wheldon), but also some imports that should be out of the box

It’s half-way over but not too late to enjoy dancenowNYC Festival ….. if I had to recommend, it would be for the incomparable David Parker and the Bang Group……

And lastly, everyone who has a soul should be at The Art Parade on Saturday, Sept. 9th …. The route will begin at 4pm on Houston and follow West Broadway, ending on Grand Street…… artists, performers, designers, wannabe-circus-stars, rabble-rousers and the like will all be in attendance and strutting their plummage.

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