Making rugs in Afghanistan is almost like a form of journalism. Many rug weavers recreate the devastation their country has seen for decades in textiles that include scenes of war and destruction. An exhibit that includes a large selection of these rugs opens today at the Penn Museum (3260 South St.).
Battleground: War Rugs of Afghanistan runs through July 31. Today’s opening includes a ribbon cutting at 1 p.m., a special lecture by Brian Spooner, the curator of the museum’s Near East Section and a “make your own rug” craft activity from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. The museum will also screen the film Painted Trucks, a 1972 documentary that shows the Afghan tradition of painting trucks. The film, made by two Fulbright scholars, shows the country in a more peaceful time and has become a favorite of the Afghani community. The filmmakers will be present for a discussion after the screening.
Below is a short video narrated by Brian Rose, an archaeology professor at Penn, that shows the rugs in detail.
With its classic tiled roof and soaring, arched windows, The Rotunda (4014 Walnut St.) sticks out amid the polished metal and stone that has become the west side of the intersection of 40th and Walnut Streets.
Built in 1911, the one-time Christian Science church turned neighborhood arts and culture venue is 100 years old this year. It’s celebrating with three days of performances by the wonderful Anne-Marie Mulgrew & Dancers Co., which has designed a production specifically for The Rotunda’s sanctuary space.
Most events at The Rotunda are held in a black-box theater in the rear part of the building that once served as a Sunday school when the building was a church. Occasionally, a performance warrants opening the much bigger sanctuary space, which sits under the buildings distinctive round roof.
This description of the performance comes from the dance company’s website:
The program consists of a dozen short theatrical vignettes, dances and art installations inspired by the architecture of the space and the festival theme, Paris in 1911 moving towards 2011. Highlights include video projections on walls juxtaposed with live performance, a 2011 installation inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s notorious Etant Donnes, dancers clinging to doorways and walls, a pew dance, characters such as the lighted-hat lady who drops Kleenexs from the choir loft, a re-imagined version of Mulgrew’s 1992’s Earthborne featuring a woman on a ladder watching a stick dance, carousel like-dances using the fallen chandelier as a
sculpture, unexpected scenarios and audience interaction.
Le Dada explores every nook and cranny of the glorious but decaying cathedral-like space. Le Dada aims to bring new awareness to the building’s architecture and history. The performance commences outside in the courtyard area at the front of the building. The audience is invited to follow the performers around the perimeters of the inside space guided by a MC/Narrator leading to more conventional seating in the round in the 100-year old pews.
Performances on Friday and Saturday begin at 7:11 p.m. Sunday’s performance begins at 3:11 p.m. If you arrive 11 minutes before the show, you can watch a “pre-show” performance outside The Rotunda. There will also be refreshments and discussion in the black-box theater following the show.
Tickets are $15 General Admission, $10 Students/Seniors/DancePass holders. Tickets can be purchased on the PIFA website www.pifa.org, in person at the Kimmel Center Box Office, or by phone at 215-546-PIFA or 215-790-5800.
Below is an interview with The Rotunda’s director, Gina Renzi, about the building and this weekend’s performance.
Custom Keds. These kicks were painted by Juan Dimida, another Philly artist.
Rodney Camarce, an artist in the city’s Mural Arts Program, will lay down some urban flair on eight pairs of sneakers today at 34th and Walnut from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Camarce’s custom paint jobs are part of the Keds company’s “How Do You Do?” road trip to colleges across the country.
The stop at Penn will also feature live music and, we suspect, many things sneaker related.
The Community Education Center, a non-profit and community based arts center in West Philly, needs your help. All you need to do is click a button. If enough of us do that the center will receive a $50,000 grant.
The voting is part of Kraft Foods/Maxwell House Drops of Good Community Houses grant competition. The CEC is one of 10 locations across the country vying for a $50,000 grant. Five will get the grants and the CEC is currently fifth in the voting by a fairly slim margin. Go to this page to vote. They will ask you for your e-mail address to make sure that you are a real person (don’t worry, no marketing) and then you’re done.
Rebuilding Together Philadelphia is helping with the grant. The community online magazine Flying Kite has a nice feature today on CEC Executive Director Terri Shockley.
Here is the CEC’s video pitch for the competition:
Gladiators do battle at the Penn Museum as part of a 2008 summer camp. They’re back this weekend. (Photo courtesy of Penn Museum).
Gladiators will battle it out in Penn Museum‘s Warden Garden on Saturday as part of “Gladiator Day,” which will also include a talk by Harvard Latin professor Dr. Kathleen Coleman (and consultant on the Russell Crowe film “Gladiator”) on “The Virtues of Violence: Gladiators, Beasts, and Public Executions in Ancient Rome.”
The event will run from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Gladiators from the Ludus Magnus Gladiatores (The Great School of the Gladiator) will fight every hour beginning at 1 p.m. In between bouts they will give workshops on weapons used back in the day. Wannabe gladiators can make their own helmets at the family craft table.
Dr. Coleman’s talk begins at 2:30 p.m.
The gladiator extravaganza is in conjunction with the museum exhibition Worlds Intertwined: Etruscans, Greeks and Roman. Admission to the museum is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, $6 for students and children and free for children under 6 and PennCard holders.
The play features Zuhairah McGill as the abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth. Born into slavery in Swartekill, New York as Isabella Baumfree, Truth escaped with an infant daughter in 1826 and became one of the first African American women to win a court case against a white man when she sued to have her son returned from a slaveowner in Alabama.
The performance begins at 7 p.m. General admission tickets are $25. Tickets for students and seniors are $15. Tickets can be purchased online at: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/168495or at the door one hour before the perfomance.
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