Saturday in the Park...A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It was a beautiful day in Tompkins Square Park and the 7^th Annual Howl Festival was in full swing. Live performances by Open Music Ensemble, Vangeline Theater, Arthur’s Landing, Poets Emanuel Xavier, Eileen Myles and Bill Kushner, Tyler Burba’s Visit, Timbila and Chris Rael commanded the main stage with grace and beauty befitting the day of remembrance that September 11^th will always be in the hearts of New Yorkers…and everyone. An abundance of children’s activities kept thousands of little ones entertained, while 9/11 tribute installations by artist Ujin Lee, Art Around the Park, a meditation walk and a beautiful Vendor Village and Health and Wellness Outreach section rounded out a full day of something for everyone and something everywhere!

Photographer Stan Schnier (www.stanschnier.com)  spent the day in Tompkins Square Park and has agreed to share some of his beautiful photos with us for this blog.  These photos are from Vangeline Theater’s performance of Mosaic, a spine-tingling  butoh dance performance in tribute to 9/11.

                                     Vangeline Theater-All Photos by Stan Schnier

Check out this cool video of Ujin Lee's 9/11 Performance Today at the Howl! Festival in Tompkins Square Park

http://gammablog.com/2010/09/11/ujin-lee-howl-festival-2010/

Howl! Spotlight -ARTHUR'S LANDING-A Tribute to the Musical Genius of Arthur Russell

ARTHUR'S LANDING is a group of musicians, all of whom worked at various times in various contexts with the late Arthur Russell, a cellist and composer from Iowa who lived on the Lower East Side for most of the later part of his too-short life. Russell brought together the worlds of dance, pop, and folk with that of downtown’s new music, and fused Western and Eastern musical traditions, driven by his engagement with Buddhist thought and practice. He collaborated often with Allen Ginsberg and Phillip Glass was also an early mentor. Dance music aficionados will be also be familiar with Russell's underground dance hit: IS IT ALL OVER MY FACE?. Arthur’s Landing (songs by Arthur Russell) features Mustafa Ahmed (percussion) , Joyce Bowden (voice) Ernie Brooks (voice, bass), Steven Hall (voice, guitar), ), Bill Ruyle(drums, hammered dulcimer), John Scherman (lead guitar), Peter Zummo and special guest Nomi Ruiz from Hercules and Love Affair & Jessica 6. The (UK) Guardian described Ruiz as 'boasting the spookily effortless air of a future pop icon.'

More Information: http://soundcloud.com/arthurs-landing and www.howlfestival.com

Arthur's Landing will be performing Saturday, Sep 11  6:30 PM - 7 PM

   

FREE

Tompkins Square Park, South Stage, Avenue A at 7th Street

Spotlight on Chris Rael and Deep Singh

(l to r) Deep Singh and Chris Rael, photo by Bernd Auers

...Appearing at the Howl! Festival in Tompkins Square Park, Saturday, September 11th, 5:05PM

Chris Rael and Deep Singh are the engine of Church of Betty, one of Downtown's longest running and most influential bands. They brought sitar and tabla back to rock n roll earlier and more organically than anyone else, drawing raves from music critics. Magnet called them "purveyors of urban psychedelia, with a voice sweeter than Prince." The Village Voice said Rael "has consistently blended rock and Indian music better than any Western guitar guy, ever." NY Times: "Sliding, scalloped phrases shape Hindustani music to the concision of pop hooks... irresistible." The pair's duo work "squeezes the expansive soul of raga into the tight curves of rock, to create a complex and surprisingly harmonious hybrid." (ThinkIndia.com) Their duo CD Tunnel Ragas was called "at once pure, devotional, improvisational and profanely urban, a fascinating listen." (All Music Guide)

Rael went on to write film music (Outstanding Soundtrack Award, Outfest 2005) and the stage musical Araby, based on James Joyce's Dubliners ("the type of musical bliss that is currently missing from Broadway" - Back Stage). Singh went on to perform hundreds of shows on Broadway as a star of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical Bombay Dreams.

The pair witnessed the Twin Towers fall from the roof of Rael’s Stanton Street building, and return to Tompkins Square this September 11 to share a memorial moment with the community in which they’ve lived and played for so long. Chris will play guitar and sing, while Deep will play the dhol: a loud, rocking two-headed Indian drum used in bhangra music. They will perform Rael's ode to the post-9/11 downtown skyline Hole in the Sky, The Balloon Song, their insane, frenetic Bollywood cover with English lyrics, and Church of Betty classic I Smoke You Jack, a high-energy meditation on downtown's father of experimental film and performance, Jack Smith.

Further Info: www.howlfestival.com

Spotlight on Timbila! Performing Live at the Howl! Festival in Tompkins Square Park

The Howl! Festival is thrilled to announce that Timbila will perform live in Tompkins Square Park on Saturday, September 11th, 2010.  They will appear on the South Stage, Avenue A at 7th Street, from 4:25 -4:55PM.

TIMBILA blazes ecstatic African rock with an East Village edge. The trance of African spirit possession merges with the trance of free-spirited head-bangers. The surreal buzzing beauty of timbila (Chopi xylophone, Mozambique) and hypnotic dream melodies of mbira (Shona thumb piano, Zimbabwe) soar with stinging guitar riffs and sassy celestial vocals in grooves that are deeply funky, fierce and danceable. No other band sounds like TIMBILA:

NORA BALABAN - mbira, timbila, vocals 

BANNING EYRE - guitars 

DIRCK WESTERVELT - bass 

LOUISA BRADSHAW - vocals 

ED KLINGER - drums, vocals 

Further info:  http://www.myspace.com/timbila or www.howlfestival.com