Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
The Phildelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe starts today. The Live Arts Festival presents high profile, innovative performing arts groups both from the Philadelphia area and the rest of the world. The Fringe is a raw celebration of self-produced artistic oddness in any form and at any venue. A good start for Swatties is the Green Chair Dance Group, comprised of Swat students and alums, performing at the Fringe today at 6:30 p.m. and at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on Sunday. Their piece is entitled “…the hardest part is overcoming the coefficient of static friction,” and they wrote the Gazette, “this dance has us turning the room upside down and sideways, challenging gravity, boundaries, inertia, and weight.” The venue is the Community Education Center at 3500 Lancaster Ave., near the 30^th Street Station SEPTA stop.
A show that might introduce you to part of Philly you’ve never seen before, “Northern Liberty” takes its audience on a journey through the titular neighborhood. We mean it, you actually walk around there. An artist’s plan to propose to his girlfriend backfires, and he leads the audience on a quest to get her back. Also in the “unusual” category is Plan B, a dance performance that takes “the secret tapes of Richard Nixon, the Kaspar Hauser saga, the Old Testament and Taiwanese and Kabuki theatre…to create a complex tale of pathos and wit.” We’re not sure what that means either, but you can always go and find out. Check out http://www.livearts-fringe.org for full details.
