The Return of AS220's Foo Fest
August 15th 2009 1pm-1am
AS220 at 115 Empire St. and the block it resides on
Providence, RI 02903
We are pleased to announce the return of the most artsy summer art fair, AS220’s Foo Fest (also known as the Fool's Ball and the 20 Fest in previous years). This August 15th from 1pm to 1am, AS220 brings back the urban street party, turning most of Empire Street into an open-air exhibition and performance space. Numerous interactive art installations, games and twelve hours of all-original music from twenty-two diverse bands are among this year’s offerings. Drinks and refreshments from our in-house bar and local restaurants will be available all day at affordable prices. We think you will agree that moving the traditional summer festival away from commerce and towards creativity is a welcome and refreshing change.
While AS220 is and always has been all ages, this year we have made sure to include kid-focused programming at Foo Fest from 1pm to 6pm as well as a few kid-friendly events later in the evening. Families with babies, toddlers, and children are encouraged to attend. Highlights for the very young ones include Joe’s Backyard Band playing highly danceable "rootsy kid music for grown-ups and grown-up music for kids.” Hailing from the Edgewood neighborhood of Cranston RI, this group performs party songs and fresh original tunes without the grating qualities that make kids’ music so hard to tolerate for most adults. Keith Munslow's highly interactive show will delight everyone, but especially children, with its unique recipe of funky piano playing, soulful singing, hilarious stories, tongue-twisting poems, oddball characters and on-the-spot cartoon drawing. Kids and adults can also share inspiring and memorable experiences over a round of mini-golf from the designers of Wooly Productions, while learning about screen printing from live on-demand T-shirt printings, and simply by drawing and painting with some of the most creative people in the local community.
In addition to these visual arts events, there are also almost two dozen other local artists sharing their work at Foo Fest. Some of these include designer and painter Madame Alyn and her beautiful hats created from re-appropriated junk mail, Will Brierly’s homemade and 100% original video arcade games, and a giant Exquisite Corpse game with rolls of canvas, tons of markers, paint and ink, and several thousand participants. There will be inflatable LED floats by Raphael Lyons, video projections by Found Ground, and a giant medicine ball icosahedron by Will Reeves. Add to that Clay Rockefeller’s massage station, “Good Rubbins”, the Providence Anarchist Book Fair, and recycle-a-bike valet bike parking, plus MANY MORE events and you’ve got yourself a full and rather interesting day already.
The later afternoon is filled with music geared towards adults that we suspect discerning children will also enjoy. Samuel James performs all-ages friendly acoustic blues, Wrong Reasons bring us garage rock / country blues fusion sounds, and Alec K. Redfearn and the Seizures entrance us with genre-spanning, signature accordion stylings and unorthodox instrumentation that invokes old-time Americana, Appalachian, folk and Eastern European music. Uke of Spaces Corner's folky upbeat tunes will also surely spread cross-generational good vibes through the festival. Families with less exhausted children may even choose to stay the whole afternoon and catch Mary Bee's sweet jazz and R&B influenced vocals or the showcase from AS220 Broad Street Studio featuring a variety of uncensored performances from youth ages 15-21.
From 1pm to 1am, there will a whopping 22 musical acts performing on two stages, one outdoor and one indoor. Hard rock, punk, and heavy metal will be played with gusto in the early evening. You can look forward to performances by: Badman, Black Clouds, Lolita Black and Denim Venom. Fans of Providence's noise rock scene, or loud experimental music in general, will be especially excited for the late night auditory assault from Tinsel Teeth, Lightning Bolt and White Mice, all hitting the stage after 11pm. More bands, including, formerly secret,very special guest performers Deer Tick, as well as the entire day's schedule, is available at http://as220.org/foofest.
The main event of the evening is a performance by the Sun Ra Arkestra, a twenty- member jazz ensemble under the direction of Marshall Allen. Marshall Allen first began performing with Sun Ra in 1958 and has recorded two albums with the Arkestra as their bandleader. From the mid-1950s until 1995, Sun Ra led the Arkestra, a group that has had an ever-changing lineup along with an ever-changing name. Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and performer as well as an indisputable pioneer in electronic music and free improvisation. Sun Ra's original compositions were highly eclectic, ranging from keyboard solos to orchestrations of thirty or more musicians. His well-deserved status as a legend is only multiplied by his outstanding, memorable and sometimes controversial personality. We are honored to present the Sun Ra Arkestra as the 2009 Foo Fest headliners!
If you are interested in helping us out a great deal by volunteering for a few hours before, during, or after the festival, or if you would like more information about the events, visit our website or contact:
Cheryl Kaminsky
Communications Director
cheryl@as220.org
(401) 831-9327 x 116
We hope to see you there!
| Red- Empire Street Outside Stage Grey- AS220 Inside Stage (all sets are usually 30 minutes long) | |
1:00 pm | Keith Munslow  |
1:15 | Joe’s Backyard Band |
2:15 | Samuel James and the Wrong Reasons |
2:15 | Alec K. Redfearn & the Seizures |
3:15 | Math the Band |
3:30 | Uke of Spaces Corners |
4:15 | HotBox |
4:30 | Mary Bee |
5:15 | AS220 Broad Street Studio Showcase |
6:00 | Big Scythe and Chachi |
6:30 | Badman |
7:15 | DeerTick |
8:30 | Made in Mexico |
8:30 | Black Clouds |
9:30 | DENIMVENOM |
10:00 | SUN RA ARKESTRA |
10:30 | Lolita Black |
11:30 | Tinsel Teeth |
11:30 | Lightning Bolt |
12:30 | White Mice |
No comments:
Post a Comment