Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Show 10: Charlottesville VA


Turnout: 8
Monetary Votes of Support: 30
Personal Injury Report: Unscathed again!

Show Description: So, we pull into the venue's parking lot in C-ville and no one is there except a nice man selling bread and a guy hanging out by the side of the building. Not a good sign.

Luckily things got much better! Ali, one of the contacts for the venue, came and met us, Jacob, the other contact soon followed. Plans were that we perform at there, at the Bridge PAI, a more galleryish venue at 8, but since it seemed no one was going to show for this gallery-on-a-Tuesday-night action, we switched the show to 10:30 at a studio in the McGuffy Arts Center.

Before going, we got the scoop on city life in Philly and Baltimore from Ali at this great tea house called the Tea Bazaar, a warm and ornate place that sometimes has fire spinning and bands play out back. The Tea Bazaar is located right in the middle of an outdoor mall that is basically its opposite, lots of minimalist thin fingered wine bars and slim lined boutiques, also, this strange phenomenon of these black painted wood cutout people in strange and sometimes perverse poses.

Like one where the cutout of a man is holding another cutout of a bust that looks to be the head and shoulders of George Washington (although it could be someone else) up to his face in a glorifying manner. Not that strange, right. Just another man looking up at and in awe of history. But the way that the cutouts are positioned makes it look like the man is holding, presumably, the bust of George Washington up above his head not to glorify it or stand in it's shadow-- but to suck its blood.
Vampire action.
That's right.
In the middle of this white light outdoor shopping and restauranting buy me, buy me mall street.
I was pleased.
There was also another cutout Ben noticed that was about to flash us, it's hands on its wooden shirt ready to yank it up and expose it's grainy chest.

It seems this population of wooden people exist unnoticed in Charlottesville's midst only to mock both its historical figures and it's present consumers. Hm, hm, hm...

Besides that, we also found a 1, 375 dollar, 300 pound piece of petrified wood next to a dumpster that someone apparently couldn't sell. 1,475 dollars if you wanted it shipped. The sale prices were taped to its top.

Ok, I haven't talked about the show yet. Here we go.
The studio we performed in was Cindy Leal's, set up at the last minute.
It was great. Usually a host to dance performances, it was big and open with large windows and a smooth slick floor that Kate slid on accidentally during the show.

Eight people showed up, which is more than expected for the two hours notice. The performance went smoothly and at least half the audience told us they really liked it, which is encouraging considering they were more of a college art crowd as opposed to our more often anarchist/political audiences.

Cindy let us crash in her basement for the night after telling us some hilarious and awesome horror stories about a recent trip to Puerto Rico; stories of the kind where there is a knife and a pot clutched tightly in each hand, waiting, just waiting.

Lastly, I should also mention this pile of trash:

It plays music.
The trash is rigged up with various instruments that bang, rustle, ding and knock on the stuff per programmed 45 minute composition. It was all natural sounding and pretty engrossing.
The artists are David Ellis and Roberto Lang. The project is Bing.

Did you see this show? Comment on it, review it, or ask us questions. We'd like to hear it because we believe in artistic transparency.

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