Get TicketsDialogues: A Conversation and Performance is a series of events in which we invite someone to discuss their creative process and present an aspect or aspects of their work. For this fifth edition we present Baltimore based musician Georgia Beatty who will be presenting "The Book of Stars".
"The Book of Stars" combines original music with a magic lantern show to tell the story of the Light Queen, who is reborn every 3,000 years to recall the songs of Light and use them to heal Earth from oppressive powers. Exploring resonance as both a musical and ancestral concept, visuals, song and story guide the audience through a grounding ritual to discover the present body as a living archive; capable of healing a broken world.
Georgia Beatty is a musician and folk artist, focused on cycle, lineage and healing through cultural transmission. Their work has two taproots growing at equally feverish rates in the paradoxically woven worlds of songwriting and traditional music. They play fiddle, cello and sing. Georgia’s study as a fiddler is in Norwegian music.
Erik Ruin's All That Is Solid:
Erik Ruin presents a new version of his ever-evolving projection performance/installation All That Is Solid, an audio-visual environment that layers/juxtaposes quietly transcendentalist video observations of everyday life with hand-drawn animations and cut paper projections. A series of reckonings with the state of the state, the self, society, the environment, the interpenetration and complicity of them/us all. A celebration of that which evades capture. For this iteration, he will be joined by Tara Middleton (Sun Ra Arkestra) on voice and violin and Tom Kraines (Daedalus Quartet) on cello.
Erik Ruin is a Michigan-raised, Philadelphia-based printmaker, shadow puppeteer, paper-cut artist, etc., who has been lauded by the New York Times for his "spell-binding cut-paper animations." His work oscillates between the poles of apocalyptic anxieties and utopian yearnings, with an emphasis on empathy, transcendence and obsessive detail. He frequently works collaboratively with musicians, theater performers, other artists and activist campaigns. He is a founding member of the international Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, and co-author of the book Paths Toward Utopia: Graphic Explorations of Everyday Anarchism (w/ Cindy Milstein, PM Press, 2012). Current projects include the Ominous Cloud Ensemble, an ever-evolving, collectively-improvising large ensemble for projections and music.
His work has been recognized with grants from the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts, the Puffin Foundation, nominations for the Art Matters and United States Artists fellowships, and residencies at the Macdowell Colony, the Blue Mountain Center, AS220, and 40th st AIR.
Tara Middleton is a Grammy-nominated vocalist, lyricist, and violinist whose work spans jazz, gospel, experimental, and electronic music. As the lead singer of the Sun Ra Arkestra, she has toured internationally, performing in major venues and festivals around the world. Also active as a composer and writer, her work explores Afrofuturism, improvisation, and the intersection of voice and technology. Middleton teaches voice and creative music-making in a variety of settings, and continues to develop new interdisciplinary projects that blend sound, text, and movement.
A member of the Daedalus Quartet, cellist Thomas Kraines has forged a multifaceted career, equally comfortable with avant-garde improvisation, new music, and traditional repertoire. He is also an accomplished composer, and his works have been performed and recorded around the world. Kraines has given musical improvisation workshops and performances at universities and schools across the country, and has taught cello and chamber music at the Peabody Conservatory, the Longy School of Music, Yellow Barn, and Princeton University. He currently teaches at the Settlement Music School, and is director of chamber music at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also teaches cello.
accessibility: space is on the second floor up a flight of stairs.
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