This week, on Thursday (Sept. 5) and Saturday (Sept. 7), The Food Trust’s Farmers’ Market Program will bring some free events, performances, and art installations to a few West Philly farmers’ markets. The events are part of the “Art at Market” series and will be held at the Clark Park market (Thursday and Saturday) and the Overbrook market (Saturday).

Here are more details:

Thursday, Sept. 5, 3 – 7 p.m.

Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen. Photo via artasiapacific.com.

Clark Park (43rd & Baltimore)
Stop by the Philadelphia Art Alliance’s table to hear about “The Way of Chopsticks,” an exhibition by contemporary Beijing based artists Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen that will open on September 12, 2013. You can hear more about the exhibition, learn about the Chinese tradition of shadow puppetry, and make a colorful shadow puppet of your own using chopsticks.

West Philly’s Spiral Q Puppet Theater invites everyone to their Scrap Table. Kids and adults of all ages will make masks and headgear out of common household materials. You’re welcome to bring your creation to the Peoplehood Parade on Sunday, Oct. 6 (from the Paul Robeson House to Clark Park). Spiral Q will also bring their scrap table to Clark Park on Saturday, Sept. 7.

Saturday, Sept. 7

Clark Park
Hot Chili Pepper Dryer
Part I: 10 a.m. — 2 p.m.
Join Philly-based artist and farmer Meei-Ling Ng as she builds a free-standing, 8-foot tripod structure out of bamboo. Market attendees will be given fresh red, orange, and yellow chili peppers to attach to the structure. The result: a large, patterned, chili pepper teepee that celebrates the inherent beauty, utility, and cultural roots of these spicy dried pods. For Part II, occurring on October 3, participants will return to the market and claim their dried chili peppers to enjoy at home. Meei-Ling will provide demonstrations and additional information about cooking with chili peppers and drying vegetables at home.

Overbrook Farmers’ Market
(In the Overbrook Presbyterian Church Parking Lot; Corner of Lancaster Ave and City Ave)
Believe the HYPE. Healthy You. Positive Energy.
A special HYPE performance by rapper Sterlen Barr and Dance Crew Special EFX will take place from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. HYPE is The Food Trust’s citywide youth leadership program that empowers middle and high school students to be the leaders for healthy change in their schools and communities. This special “Art at Market” event will get everyone up and dancing to set the tone for a healthy and HYPE new school year – with everything from old school classics to new funky favorites. The event will also feature stilt walking, juggling and hula hooping with local circus act Bujee Magoo.

For more information on The Food Trust’s farmers’ markets and the Art at Market series, visit foodtrustmarkets.org

Here’s something to do in the hood tomorrow (Saturday, Aug 31), without having to spend a dime. You can bring your blankets, chairs and food & drinks to both events listed below.

• Philadelphia Pagan Pride Day, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Clark Park “B” (43rd & Chester) – Philadelphia Pagan Pride Day will bring together Heathens and Pagans of all traditions. This family-friendly event will feature vendors and entertainment for a day of fun to foster pride in Pagan identity through education, activism, charity, and community. A donation of a non-perishable food item will be appreciated (it will go to a local food bank). Here’s the event’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/groups/philadelphiapagapride/

• 40th Street Summer Series presents Spaceship Aloha, 6-9 p.m., 40th and Walnut (behind the Walnut West Library) – Spaceship Aloha is the vibrant new sonic move from Man Man drummer/producer Christopher Sean Powell. Spaceship Aloha’s performances, which are intended for non-stop dancing, present “a kaleidoscope of lush melodies and joyous electronic rhythms inspired by Hawaii’s musical landscape.” For more information, visit the 40th Street Summer Series Facebook page.

UPDATED 8/30/13, 5 P.M.: The much anticipated Philly Fringe Arts Festival kicks off next Friday (Sept 5), and this year’s foray into contemporary performing and visual arts is expected not to disappoint. And, as always, area folks won’t have to walk far to experience the eccentric arts as many of Fringe’s events take place within the boundaries of West Philly and University City. Below is a list of shows in no particular order being held in the neighborhood (for a full listing, visit the Live Arts/Fringe Festival website). We’ll update the list with more events as we get more information.

Alternative Theater Festival by iNtuitons Experiment Theatre Company on Sept. 7, 7 p.m. at the Platt Student Performing Arts House. Alternative Theater Festival is a collection of five short plays directed and written by University of Pennsylvania students touching on themes of unrequited love, mental illness, loneliness, infertility, and self-discovery.

Jonatha Brooke

WXPN presents My Mother Has Four Noses on Sept. 11, 8 p.m. at World Café Live. Singer-songwriter Jonatha Brooke performs her one-woman musical about her mother’s final years battling Alzheimer’s.

Bricolage by Megan Lynn/Asterial Dance, Caite Cuan Dance on Sept. 7, 8 p.m. at Community Education Center. New York-based dance companies Catie Cuan Dance and Megan Lynn/Asterial Dance premiere four original Philadelphia dances inspired by everything from Yeats’s Byzantium to the human experience.

Celebrating Dance by Dancefusion & 360º Dance Company on Sept. 6, 6 p.m. & 9 p.m.; Sept. 7, 3 p.m. & 6 p.m. at Mandell Theater at Drexel University. Dancefusion and New York’s 360º Dance Company co-present two performances that combine historic modern and contemporary dance work. Dancefusion celebrates 25 years this year.  Continue Reading

Here’s a reminder that there will be a Back to School celebration and book bag giveaway on Sunday, Sept 1, at Malcolm X. Park (51st and Pine). The event will be held from 2 to 6 p.m. Community volunteers will help to distribute donated book bags filled with schools supplies and clothing to over 300 local children. The event is organized by The Nehemiah Davis Foundation (NDF). During the event, NDF will also provide entertainment, free food and haircuts for all of the families who attend.

On Saturday (Aug 31), Bible Way Baptist Church located at 1323 N. 52nd St is having a Back to School Giveaway. Families with kids who need school supplies are welcome to this event. The giveaway starts at noon and goes until supplies last. For questions, call (215) 477 0778 or email: info@biblewaybaptist.org.

As part of the “Kids Rock for Kids” rock concert series, on Tuesday, Aug. 27 and Wednesday, Aug. 28 more than 100 student musicians, age 8-17, will perform at World Cafe Live (3025 Walnut Street) to raise money for West Philly’s HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy. Twenty-five teenage rock bands and seven Glee groups will perform. The shows are a collaboration between World Cafe Live and Music Training Center, where the performers study. Both shows start at 6:30 p.m. and end at 9.

HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy, which is located in the Spruce Hill neighborhood at 44th & Baltimore, serves children through age 21 and uses special education, therapy programs and state-of-the-art assistive technology to maximize each child’s abilities and help prepare them for a full, active life in their community.

World Cafe Live’s “Kids Rock for Kids” rock concert series, which raises awareness and money for a different children’s medical charity in the Philadelphia area, debuted in 2006. To date, more than 20 concerts have raised over $10,000 for 24 different charities.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for kids. Please note that ticket sales do not include a donation; HMS volunteers will ask for donations during the concert that will benefit HMS’s Scholarship Fund. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

Historic March on Washington August 28, 1963.

Fifty years ago this week, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his pivotal “I Have a Dream” speech in front of a crowd of over 250,000 civil rights supporters during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963. It was one of the largest human rights political rallies in the country and was instrumental in advancing civil and political rights for decades to come.

This Wednesday, in honor of the 50^th anniversary of the march, neighborhood organizer Algernong Allen will hold an audio playing of Dr. King’s famous speech in Cedar Park on 49^th Street and Baltimore Avenue at 6:30 p.m. The event, titled “March on West Philly,” is free and open to the public.

While no formal discussion is planned for after the event, Allen encourages community residents to stay and discuss both the speech and strategies for advancing civil rights.

“I wanted to celebrate the beauty of the original March on Washington, and felt that others would like to be able to do the same in some way,” Allen wrote in an e-mail to West Philly Local. “I want people to walk away more connected, more neighborly to those neighbors who look different, and reminded that there is still work to do.”

Some progress has been made in the five decades since that historic march, but civil rights are still under threat from Voter ID laws introduced and passed through state governments, the disproportionate number of people of color incarcerated, disparity in wages between genders and races and law enforcement profiling. So Allen hopes that the event can also mobilize West Philly residents to work together “to cultivate and extend the borders of a good quality of life”—to continue the fight for Dr. King’s dream.

“To those on the front lines of the civil rights movement, we owe a debt. A debt which we repay by our continued diligence in creating a world for our children in which our society, marches toward the highest aspects of our humanity,” Allen said. “Dr. King’s speech symbolizes and articulates that.  This is how we can say thank you, and rebroadcast the message of the movement that inspired the man.”

–Annamarya Scaccia