Painted Bride Art Center announces its 38h season jam-packed with jazz, world music, performing art, dance and visual arts. The diverse programming reflects the Bride’s ongoing commitment to provide a forum for voices of ethnic and sexual communities outside “the mainstream.” All performances are at the Painted Bride Art Center at 230 Vine Street in Old City, Philadelphia.

Highlights of the season include Gamelan Çudamani, a 25-member Balinese orchestra on the XL music series, Disposable Men performed by James Scruggs as part of Performance in the Present Tense, and two bands, Urban Guerilla Orchestra and Dapp Theory, normally not heard in concert venues.

Tickets are available at the Painted Bride Art Center box office Tuesday through Saturday from 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM or on the website at www.paintedbride.org. Bride members receive 50% off single tickets. Students and seniors with ID receive a 25% discount on performances.

MUSIC AT THE BRIDE

The Bride offers a broad selection of new music this fall, and the season kicks off with two new, adventurous music programs designed to showcase two dynamic bands normally not heard in concert performance spaces. The 19-member Urban Guerilla Orchestra, playing everything from jazz standards to 1980’s party classics, returns on September 28 after their sold-out performance last spring. Andy Milne’s Dapp Theory, combining jazz with spoken word and hip hop, appears on October 6. Mentored by Steve Coleman and with musical influences ranging from Thelonious Monk to Bela Bartok to Stevie Wonder, Milne’s innovative rhythmic approach, combined with his extensive harmonic lexicon place him at the forefront of young pianists poised to carry on the lineage of creative masters like Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner.

The Jazz on Vine series swings into gear with the rapid-fire percussive sounds of local Latin jazz artist Marlon Simon in Passing By on December 1, presented in partnership with Asociacion de Musicos Latino Americanos. In this program, Simon continues to expand the boundaries of the standard Latin jazz format, blending different AfroVenezuelan rhythms and shaping old material into a completely new experience. Simon will be joined by trumpeter Alex Norris, saxophonist Peter Brainin, pianist Edward Simon, bassist Michael Boone, violinists Ali Bello and Carlos Rubio, violist Adriana Linares, cellist Miguel Rojas, and Roberto Quintero on bata, congas, and culo de pulla.

World Music is represented this fall on November 18 by Rahul Sharma performing classical pieces on the 100-string santoor and accompanied by ever-popular tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, returning to the Bride for this 16th consecutive year.

The XL series, showcasing extra-large ensembles, opens its second season with Odalan Bali: An Offering of Music and Dance performed by Çudamani with two performances on November 3. This 25-member gamelan music and dance ensemble from Bali, Indonesia, paying homage to an odalan, the traditional temple ceremony, brings to life the Balinese universe of mythology and history through a vibrant and dazzling presentation of music, dance and drama.

PERFORMANCE AT THE BRIDE

James Scruggs is the focus of the Performance in the Present Tense series with two performances of his one-man show Disposable Men on October 19 and 20. In a multi-media environment, Disposable Men pairs old-fashioned storytelling with innovative new technology in a solo work that demonstrates the role of poplar media in classifying African American men as “disposable.”

Dance With The Bride continues with a year-long residency project partnering renowned Japanese choreographer Kota Yamazaki with Pew award-winner Charles Anderson and his dance theatre X. Yamazaki’s longstanding interest in developing a diverse movement vocabulary through the exploration of world cultures and traditions will combine with dance theatre X’s blend of traditional and contemporary Africanist dance styles to create fertile opportunity for cultural exchange and collaborative development. The resulting works will be presented in the Spring.

The Bride will also host a year-long series of dance workshops conducted by Philadelphia-based dancer/choreographers. These workshops will be taught by one instructor in four-week sessions every Tuesday evening beginning in October. The first series, beginning October 2 with Philadelphia-based and Cuban-transplant Marieanela Boán, explores Afro-Cuban and improvisational movement.

ART AT THE BRIDE

The Bride will be home to a new series of group exhibitions curated by Philadelphia artists/curators. The first show I the Independence Foundation Gallery for the Visual Arts, The Exquisite Corpse, curated by John Freeborn, runs September 7-October 13 and derives its inspiration from the original collaborative game that has different people drawing on different panels, un-aware of what the others have drawn. Nine painters were given a blank canvas and a timeframe in which to work. At the end of the time, each canvas was photographed and then the paintings were exchanged to another artist. “The Exquisite Corpse” is a glimpse into the process, collaboration, peer influence, and social networks so integral to an artist’s life. Next up, running November 2-January 12, is digital: space: object, curated by AwardProjX. Featuring artists Lee Arnold, Ted Artz, Perry Bard, Daniel Kariko and Carlos Rosas, this exhibition showcases a sampling of media art works that explore where transient digital images fit into our current social and physical spaces.

The Gallery Café, curated by InLiquid.com, fosters exposure for over 200 member artists working outside of the commercial gallery context in a variety of mediums. Both gallery exhibits this fall focus on a theme of “transition.” Miriam Singer’s rogue drawings, on display September 7-October 13, were create while she was in transit – traveling on the subway, waiting for take-out, doing her laundry and all the places in between. Urban landscapes by Erin Murray, running November 2-January 12, capture the city in transition with images of vacant lots, decaying architecture and buildings reclaimed by trees.

EDUCATION AT THE BRIDE

Painted Bride Art Center continues two of its innovative education initiatives – Rock the Pen! and a digital story-telling project, You Fight Like A Girl. Rock the Pen! celebrates its fifth year inspiring emerging middle and high school poets. This monthly interactive poetry workshop, facilitated by poet and 2002 Pew poetry recipient Trapeta Mayson, begins in October and runs through May, on the third Tuesday of each month. Students are challenged to use poetry as a point of departure to confront and address different and complex emotions/issues such as conflict resolution and identity issues. Rock the Pen! features regionally or nationally recognized guest poets sharing their work with the students, a Q&A session with the poets and students discussing the themes of the poetry presented and concludes with an open mike session with the students reading their poems.

You Fight Like A Girl is a digital storytelling project that addresses the rise in violence and retaliation among pre-teen girls. Based on a study that showed that retaliation for previous conflicts is more likely to fuel violent incidents among preteen girls than among boys of the same age, this project is designed to bring the community together to stem the culture of violence in the city’s schools; to hear from voices that need to be heard; and to empower the storyteller. Created in partnership with the Center for Digital Storytelling and West Philadelphia’s Shaw Middle School, You Fight Like A Girl will offer female students a forum for sharing their experiences and transforming them into stories, culminating in a public screening of the resulting work.

ARTIST ACCESS

The Bride’s Artist Access Series helps artists to self-produce their performances. This fall the series features the annual showcase of Philadanco’s second company Danco on Danco on October 12 and 13; Courtyard Dances presenting Replaced Rituals on November 16 and 17; and the Philadelphia Folklore Project’s Dance Happens Here featuring flamenco and tap dance on December 7 and 8.

Painted Bride Art Center collaborates with emerging and established artists to create, produce and present innovative work that affirms the intrinsic value of all cultures and celebrates the transformative power of the arts. Through performances and exhibitions, education and outreach, the Bride creates a forum for engagement centered on contemporary social issues.

For further ticket information: 215-925-9914 or www.paintedbride.org

For further press information: Fleischman Gerber & Associates at 215-735-7356