The 2012 season of the annual 40th Street Summer Series, the free outdoor concert series in West Philly, starts tomorrow, June 23. Slavic Soul Party (pictured below) will bring a mash-up of Balkan and Gypsy sounds to the green space behind the Walnut Street Free Library at 40th and Walnut Streets, beginning at 6 p.m.

The series of concerts is scheduled for the fourth Saturdays in June to September. Other performers in this series include internationally-renowned ensembles Sun Ra Arkestra, Adventuredrum, and the Warriors of the Wonderful Sound with Odean Pope and Dave Liebman. Look for more information on the upcoming performances on our Happenings page.

Complimentary (first come, first served) Rita’s Water Ice will be given out during the performances. Also, for the June and July Summer Series events, Tsirkus Fotografika (“Photographic Circus”) will bring their antique mobile portrait studio and offer free photos to the concert audience.

The series is presented by University of Pennsylvania, University City District (UCD), and The Rotunda. For more information, visit this page.

OK, stop. Before you read any further go check out the video below.

Done?

Cool right? That piece is by West Philly artist Nilé Livingston and is part of the “Baltimore Avenue Series,” which she will show on Monday, June 25th at The Gold Standard Café (4800 Baltimore Ave.) from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Livingston describes the exhibit as:

“Biographic interpretations of growing up in West Philadelphia have inspired me to explore endless character encounters. I sketch my ideas on paper and then collage them in Photoshop. Creating art is my relentless urge to explore sources of anxiety, document interactions, share memories, as well as provide evidence for narrative works that address social, environmental, and technological changes.”

You can read more about Nilé at her website.

The Porch, the outdoor space at 30th Street Station, is adding a few new things for the summer.

The University City District (UCD) recently received a $375,000 grant from ArtPlace to fund a permanent art piece at The Porch. Prema Katari Gupta, UCD’s Director of Planning and Economic Development said: “We will invite exceptional artists to engage creatively with our site, with our audience, and within our neighborhood context. Art will bring beauty, reflection, and delight to The Porch, as the site continues its evolution.”

One new fun activity to look out for at The Porch is a free nine hole mini golf course open every day in July from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. All you need to bring is a photo ID. A second new project is the opening of a beer garden with German and craft beers, bratwurst, sauerkraut, and Italian sausage sandwiches by Bridgewater’s Pub. The beer garden will include live music and is open July 12 (4-8pm), July 13 (noon-8pm), and July 14 (noon-5pm).

The Porch will exhibit two new visual art works. The first is a representational and experiential exhibit by Pew Fellow Nami Yamamoto. She is installing a Hakoniwa, Japanese for miniature garden as well as a form of psychotherapy called “sandplay therapy.” The therapy method involves subjects who order and design items within a sandbox. Nami’s art will recreate this form of therapy across the concrete of the porch.

Also, Justin Duerr’s Anaesthasia Emeralda Lucian piano, designed for UCD’s Heart and Soul piano project will be on display and ready for play at The Porch.

– Erica Kimmel

Popular summer after-work happy hour and entertainment destination, PM @ Penn Museum Summer Nights series returns this Wednesday, June 20, at 5 p.m. Summer Nights features weekly international music performances at the lush garden setting at Penn Museum (3260 South Street). It is also a good opportunity to visit the museum. Tickets are only $5 and include museum admission.

The series kicks off with a performance by Barakka, a Philadelphia-based group with Turkish roots. Barakka will present Middle Eastern folk and rock fusion sounds.

All Summer Nights performances take place in the Penn Museum’s Stoner Courtyard and occur rain or shine. Food and drinks are available for purchase at the venue. The series will run until August 29. For more information, go here.

Check out the full performance lineup (from www.penn.museum).

June 20 – Barakka
The series kicks off with this Philadelphia-based, multi-ethnic group specializing in Turkish folk-rock with a mix of eastern and western instrumentation including guitar, oud, drums, bass, darbuka, and keyboards. www.myspace.com/bariskaya

June 27 – Tres Compadres
This modern flamenco ensemble combines jazz and Latin influences with spirited dance rhythms for a vibrant live performance, with special appearances from flamenco dancer Inez del Mar, vocalist Farah Siraj, and jazz flutist Tim Shay. www.trescompadresband.com

July 11 – Zydeco-A-Go-Go
With Creole Zydeco and Cajun 2steps, this group combines funky New Orleans rhythm and blues and vintage Louisiana rock and roll into a spicy gumbo of irresistible dance music. www.wix.com/petegumbo/zaggwood

July 18 – Klingon Klez
Prepare for warp drive! This eclectic band plays good old-fashioned, heartwarming, rompin’, stompin’ fun-for-the-whole-family klezmer/funk fusion from other planets! www.klingonklezmer.com

July 25 – Magdaliz and Her Trio Crisol
This Latin ensemble is dedicated to the interpretation of folk and traditional music from all over Latin America and the Caribbean, using Puerto Rican boleros, Cuban sones, Mexican mariachi music, Colombian cumbias, Dominican merengues, and much more. www.triocrisol.com

August 1 – Incendio
A Latin world fusion group from Los Angeles, Incendio balances romantic Spanish guitar with rock-style energy and inspired on-stage improvisation. www.incendioband.com

August 8 – Minas
Presenting originals from their CD collection, as well as Brazilian classics, this duo displays multiple talents as vocalists, instrumentalists, and composers with an impressive grasp of awide range of Brazilian musical idioms. www.minasmusic.com

August 15 – La Pequeña Marimba Internacional
This family band focuses on Guatemalan folk music, but also include a smattering of international music like cumbria, merengue, bolero and more.

August 22 – Animus
This internationally acclaimed ensemble, led by Bill Koutsouros, offers an exciting fusion of ancient and modern music with traditional elements of Greek, Rock, Middle Eastern, Blues, Indian, Jazz, African, and more. www.animusmusic.com

August 29 – West Philadelphia Orchestra
An eclectic ensemble made up of Philly’s finest and wildest musicians, this group gets listeners moving with the poignant melodies and the frenetic, propulsive rhythms of Eastern Europe. www.westphiladelphiaorchestra.com

Bill Hangley, Jr. sends word that his wife, Cheshire Agusta, a prominent West Philly rock musician and the drummer for the veteran trio Stinking Lizaveta is recovering after surgery following a serious hit-and-run bike/car accident. Agusta was on the bike and her injuries required metal plates and cadaver bone chips.

Agusta was struck on Friday, June 1, at 60th and Chestnut Streets while riding to her gym for a morning workout. After waiting at a traffic light, Agusta had just started pedaling north on 60th Street when a car on her left took a right turn across her path – a maneuver known among cyclists as the “right hook.” Agusta and her bike ended up trapped beneath the car. As Agusta recalls, the driver stopped briefly, backed up, paused again briefly and then drove off with the bike still underneath his car, leaving Agusta sitting in shock on the pavement.

Thanks to helpful bystanders who got the car’s license plate number, police soon located the driver, an 18-year-old man who told police that Agusta was in his “blind spot” and that he did not know anything was wrong. In part because of his clean driving and criminal record, police declined to charge him. Both Agusta and the driver were insured.

The accident partially crushed the top of Agusta’s left shinbone, which had to be reconstructed with cadaver bone chips and titanium plates. She faces a total of six months of rehab. Possible long-term complications include chronic stiffness and early-onset arthritis in the joint. Doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) say Agusta now faces a painful rehab but should be ready to tour in September in support of Stinking Lizaveta’s latest record, “Seventh Direction,” to be released in the U.S. and in Europe.

“My summer plans have changed dramatically, but my fall plans are still the same,” said Agusta. “We’re really proud of this record. There’s eighteen years of work behind it.”

“The worst thing that could have happened is that I could have died,” Agusta said, “but the next worst thing would be if I couldn’t get out and play this music.”

The band has scheduled a five-week European tour starting in September to support “Seventh Direction,” recorded at Chicago’s Engine Music Studios. The record features original compositions from all three band members (Cheshire Agusta and brothers Alexi and Yanni Papadopoulos).

Agusta is the second member of Stinking Lizaveta to be seriously injured in a West Philadelphia traffic accident. Alexi Papadopoulos, a co-owner of the popular Satellite Café on Baltimore Avenue, was struck by a car on his motor scooter two years ago, suffering multiple fractures and internal injuries. “The consensus among friends is that I’m next,” said his brother Yanni but the guitarist had no comment on any steps he might take to avoid his bandmates’ fate.

We are wishing a speedy recovery to Cheshire Agusta and hope that this was the last in the series of unfortunate happenings involving Stinking Lizaveta members.

Philly-focused weekly online mag Flying Kite’s “On the Ground” initiative establishes temporary media hubs in vacant or under-utilized storefront and seeks to help transform the selected neighborhood through news coverage, events and social media for 90 days. Their current neighborhood camp is in the People’s Emergency Center building at 4017 Lancaster Ave, and as part of the “On the Ground” initiative, Flying Kite is presenting an inaugural art exhibition, Transformation 19104. It includes some of West Philadelphia’s most important artists working across multiple mediums. The show opens this Friday, June 8 in conjunction with Second Friday on Lancaster Ave. The reception and exhibition will take place from 6-9 p.m.

“From fiber and textiles to found sculptures, the Transformation of the space will showcase the neighbors who have been working and creating community and new art movements in their homes and studios,” says curator Bonnie MacAllister, who also curated “Women of Lancaster Ave.” at 4017 Lancaster in the fall as part of the corridor-wide LOOK! exhibition. From Flying Kite: “Ellen Tiberino and Wendy Graves-Papadopoulos, two exhibitors in Women of Lancaster Ave., return for Transformation. Tiberino’s brother Gabe, part of the celebrated local family of Tiberino artists, is also part of the lineup. In addition, Jeff Dentz of Traction Company, the collaborative workspace and art center at 41st and Haverford, will exhibit.”All art in the show was created by artists who live or hold a studio in the 19104 zip code and all works are said to “represent transformation in their own way.”

Here are the artists’ bios (from Flying Kite):

Ndokaa Bundu
This native of 19149 was raised Lutheran, attended public schools and a private liberal arts college. He studied in Avignon (spring 1978), taught science in Gbarma, Liberia (1980-1981) and lived in the 11215 with a friend’s sister, winter & fall, 1983 before moving to 19104 in 1983, working in 19140 since 2001. Now an anarcho-marxist, Bundu is married with three cats, two Honda civics and one 3-speed bicycle.

Alexa de los Reyes
Alexa de los Reyes has studied color theory, portraiture, abstract and representational painting at Massachusetts College of Art, the Liga de Arte in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the School of Visual Arts. She has painted portraits and interior murals on commission for clients in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and San Juan. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in History & Literature, Alexa worked as a writer and editor for several years in different mediums, contexts, and countries. She began painting seriously while living in South America in the late 1990s and has since made the passion into a discipline. Alexa currently resides in West Philadelphia with her husband and two young boys.

Catherine Gontarek
Gontarek’s mixed media paintings on board evoke a sense of impermanence through images that depict objects and places that seem to float in and out of hand painted patterns. Working on smaller panels that are then mounted together to form a larger whole, seems to add to the ephemeral feel of her paintings. In one piece an image of an empty chair is coupled with a casual rendering of her son. Gontarek’s work leads one to assume that the artist looks to her immediate surroundings for inspiration, resulting in paintings that seem to somehow blend intimacy with design. Catherine Gontarek lives in West Philadelphia with her family.

Wendy Graves-Papadopoulos
Graves-Papadopoulos has lived in West Powelton for 15 years. She volunteered at the University Arts League for 5 years. She is the co-founder of the Satellite cafe at 50th & Baltimore. Her current work involves hand-dyed natural fabrics which are assembled into blankets. She believes that there is something inherently valuable in art that you can use, i.e. ornamental utilitarianism. She also works in ceramics and silversmithing.

Et Green
Green is a graphic designer and illustrator from Philadelphia.

Bonnie MacAllister
MacAllister (WCA member) is a multimedia performance artist who works in oil, watercolor, film, theatre, and mixed media. She has recently shown her visual artwork at the Delaware Art Museum, Galeria 6 (Mexico), the Center for Green Urbanism (DC), University of Pennsylvania, Montclair State University (NJ), and Florissant Valley Art Gallery in St. Louis, MO. She studied under Jacques Derrida, Helene Cixous, and Agnes Varda. She is a Fulbright-Hays recipient to Ethiopia and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She has lived in Sanders Park since 2004.

Jeff Dentz
Dentz graduated from the College of General Studies at University of Pennsylvania and received a Certificate in Printmaking from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He currently teaches at Fleisher Art Memorial and exhibits his work locally. His work is part of the Print and Picture Collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Printmaking Department Archives Collection at PaFA.

Maggie Machledt
Though born and raised in Indianapolis, Maggie has called West Philadelphia her home for nearly 4 years. Maggie is a papercutting artist who has expanded her craft to include creating botanically-shaped jewelry from flat bike tubes. She earned her Masters in Art Therapy from Drexel in 2011, and currently works with adults coping with chronic mental illnesses in North Philadelphia.

Sofya Mirvis
Unexpected interactions of material and image is the consistent motive behind my creative process. I am interested in all that lies beneath the surface of a landscape, person, or object, representing what can be felt but seldom seen or touched.Michael Persico
Persico is a professional photographer living and working in Philadelphia. He specializes in clean, thoughtful imagery that evokes feeling for, and from, his subjects. When not behind the lens, he’s happy spending time maintaining his ’66 Honda Motorcycle or making a break to beach for a few good waves on his classic longboard. When pressed to name his artistic inspirations, he cryptically says, “I am inspired by photographers of the past, and motivated by photographers of the present.” Michael has shot for New York Magazine, Anthem magazine, Plan B Magazine, Ace Fu Records, Anti Records, Philly Style and the Philadelphia Weekly.

Sara Suleman
Suleman was born in Karachi, Pakistan.  She works in various media ranging from photography to installation. Her works are tied to observations from daily life which are then abstracted and re-imagined. She has shown her work in exhibitions including Gender Games, International House Philadelphia 2012, Erasing Borders, Queens Museum of Art, and Aicon Gallery, New York, 2011, PECO Art in the Air program 2011, Newark Open Doors project 2011, and in various Film Festivals, such as the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, San Fancisco Women’s International Film Festival, and Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival. She is an active member of Women’s Caucus for the Art, Philadelphia Chapter and received a grant from PIFVA, Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association in 2012.

Ellen Tiberino
Tiberino can claim a connection to the Lancaster corridor since birth. She is the daughter of distinguished artists Ellen Powell Tiberino and Joe Tiberino. She studied visual arts at Fleisher Art Memorial and Moore College as a child and during high school at Creative and Performing arts she studied the performing arts of drama dance and singing. Over the past five years, as well as teaching she directed her main energies to sculptural relief glass work (mural and easel size). She worked at times with artists Joseph Brenman and Gail Gruniger Scuderi on different mosaic mural projects and the community peace pole project (a joint project between the Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum and the West Park Cultural and Opportunity Center where students clay masks were affixed to a pole in mosaic.) Ellen curates shows at The Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial, named for her mother and where she has executed two major murals “And Still I Rise” (2007) and “Tomorrows a New Day” (2008). She is currently working on several small mosaic pieces for upcoming shows.

Gabe Tiberino
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Tiberino is a mural artist who was truly born into art. Encouraged by his family as a child he was exposed to a variety of art forms. Tiberino graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. Throughout his schooling, he assisted many of Philadelphia’s mural artist. He has assisted over twenty murals and has been the lead in several of his own. His paintings have been in numerous one man and group shows throughout the region. Tiberino gives us visual images, in acrylic and oil paint journalizing street experiences, thoughts, emotions and projected dreams. His work retains the freshness of direct observation. Reflecting his interest in rendering art in a more public way, all his paintings are concerned with people, locals and dealing with art as part of the real world. Clarity is his virtue.

– Emma Eisenberg