Hosted by Mika Cooper as Faerie Godmother
and Tracey Wood as young Petaluma
MUSICAL ACTS:
What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?
http://www.whattimeisitmrfox.com
This eclectic cabaret and new art soul band has been a staple is Boston’s cabaret underground for almost a decade. Fronted by singer-songwriter, Brian King who dresses like a French clown and sings like Bessie Smith, Mr. Fox also features Nathan Cohen on violin, Mike Leggio on upright-bass, Nate Greenslit on drums, Matt Dallow on accordion, and 5 back-up singers collectively known as The Furies. Recently, What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?’s song “Cold Rain” was recorded by soul legend Irma Thomas on her Grammy-nominated CD “Simply Grand.”
Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys
Call them steamcrunk or death folk, this Boston-based band has toured Europe opening for punk cabaret star, Amanda Palmer. Walter Sickert’s bellowing voice falls somewhere between the ghost of Jim Morrison and Dr. John. Backed by a Mad Tea Party of paper accordions, melodicas, percussion, and cymbal crashing monkeys led by his wench-in-waiting and pied piper, Edrie Edrie, the Army of Broken Toys seems to grow larger from town to town.
Petaluma Vale
Petaluma sings songs and plays the harp. Her songs provoke both the drama of the Elizabethan era with hint of blue note jazz. She is currently finishing her first full length CD. She also performs with Boston/NYC based art-rock band, Jaggery.
Box Five
Box Five is the brainchild of Mary Bichner, a 27-year-old composer and performer hailing from Philadelphia, PA. Combining Mozart-inspired chord progressions and bratty Brit-rock hooks into a musical succotash she likes to call classipop, the eccentric yet loveable redhead hopes to breathe new life into the calcified world of "radio-friendly" contemporary music through her memorable melodies and solid songwriting. Also, she's kind of weird.
Goli
Featuring Vessela Stoyanova on electric marimba, and Valerie Thompson on cello and voice, Goli makes chamber music for the modern era. Together the women create duo of misfit classical musicians with an appetite for world music that has cut its teeth in rock bands, world folk ensembles, symphony orchestras and the occasional free improv outlet. Madly in love with tango, Bartok, and goat cheese, and wrestling with the universal subjects of death and getting laid, Goli’s seems to be more naked than naked when they wear all their clothes.
Gem Club
http://www.myspace.com/gemclub
Soft-focus pop duo Gem Club are Christopher Barnes and Kristen Drymala. Together, they create cavernous-sounding piano-based ballads that, despite their earthly trappings, feel truly ethereal, as if they're being piped in from another planet bereft of gravity.
Ginger Ibex
http://www.myspace.com/gingeribex
Sharon Crumrine's (pianist/composer) earliest influences were Beethoven, whose music alternately rocks the world or moves listeners to tears with its dark lyrical beauty; the Romantic, Classical and Impressionist composers; and the sounds of Middle Eastern modes, Tango and contemporary Rock. Betty Widerski's (6-string mezzo viola) radically eclectic background (Classical gone Irish Punk/Rock/Improv) and endless creative & technical ability on a wild variety of stringed instruments, plus dynamic percussionist Michael Steigman added to the mix, give Ginger Ibex a powerful yet lyrical sound.
AERIALISTS:
Eileen Little
Producing Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Matchbook Productions, Eileen Little has performed at The Denver Center, Baltimore Theatre Project, and The Kennedy Center where she used her trapeze skills in Bill Pullman’s “Expedition 6.” She has studied with Julie Ludwick of Fly By Night Dance and is now learning various aerial arts throughout New York City. She is currently teaching single-point trapeze at Ruby Streak Studios.
Ellie Steingraeber
NYC based aerialist and circus artist who has performed at Showboat Casino,Turning Stone Casino, The Breakers Hotel, Pacha, The Circle, The Box, Highline Ballroom, Galapogos Art Space and Shanghai Mermaid, among many others. She is very excited to, once again, share the stage with Brian King and What Time Is it Mr. Fox?
Lisa Natoli is somewhere between a dancer and an aerialist and often just calls herself a waitress. Lisa has performed her choreography at CBGB’s Gallery, Embody Language Studios, Galapagos, Jalopy, Monkeytown, STREB, Sunny’s Bar, and The Zipper. As a dancer she has worked with Kelly Hayes/Katy Orthwein, Amy Kail, Jill Sigman, and Jody Sperling.
Kristin Geneve Young is an aerial performer, choreographer, teacher, and dancer based in Brooklyn. In NYC, she has choreographed and performed aerial works for the Brooklyn Lyceum, Monkeytown, Galapagos Arts Space, “Above the Belt” at the Zipper Factory and the Tank, Webster Hall, and NYC Aerial Dance Festivals. She has collaborated with Lisa’s Bright Ideas, ImaginAerial, Helium Aerial Dance, Movement in C, Steve Koplowitz, and Noemie Lafrance, among others. www.kristinclimbs.com
Chriselle Tidrick
www.AboveAndBeyondDance.com
Chriselle Tidrick is the Founder/Artistic Director of Above and Beyond Dance, a company which explores the nearly limitless potential in the fusion of dance and circus arts work. Her choreography and solo aerial performance of "Humpty Dumpty Girl" uses fabric hammock, an apparatus capable of simultaneously communicating the fabled wall and providing a means for her to fall into disintegration.
FILM-MAKERS/ANIMATORS:
Ruth Lingford
Originally from London, Ruth Lingford has been making short animated films since studying fine art and art history at Middlesex (1987–1990) and animation at the MA level at the Royal College of Art (1990–1992). Her films have been broadcast by Channel 4, in the UK, and have won many awards all over the world. She is currently a professor of animation at Harvard University. Ruth also moonlights as a back-up singer for What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?
Daniel Sousa
Dan was born in Cape Verde in 1974 and grew up just outside Lisbon, Portugal. Since 2001, Dan has been teaching at RISD and working on commercial projects for Global Mechanic and Cartoon Network. In 2003 he was awarded a Moving. Image Fund production grant by the LEF Foundation to produce his latest film, Fable (2005). This year he was the recipient of a production grant from the Creative Capital Foundation.
Tiffanie Hsu
In 2009, Tiffanie Hsu received a Hoopes Prize for her work, “Three Beauties” which will be shown at Tale.
David Lobser
David Lobser has been working for the advertising and effects industries on the East and West coasts of the United States for 10 years and is presently located in Brooklyn. When he's not on vacation or busy on paid design gigs, he is working in the lab, making alchemy out of nothingness. His personal work has been in film festivals around the world including PBS, MTV, the Sci-Fi Channel, Stash, Shots, Boards, and most recently "On Air". David's piece for FUSE TV was recently lauded in the NY Times advertising section on breakout work.
Lily Fang
Lily Fang was the 2010 recipient of the Harvard Council Prize In Visual Arts for animation. A gifted painter as well, she is the staff illustrator of Tuesday Magazine.
Juliet Schneider is a multimedia artist and animator, who often works collaboratively under the aegis of Iridium Productions. Walden will be released this summer with music by Brian King.
Norah Solorzano teaches animation at Harvard Univsersity & at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She created “Coup de Grace” especially for Tale. She also sings as one of The Furies in What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?
DANCE/MOVEMENT PERFORMANCE:
Kelley Donovan
Kelley Donovan has performed work by Ann Carlson and Liz Lerman. Her choreography was cited at one of the Top Six performance of 2009 by The New York Times. Her work has been produced by World Music/Crasharts, MIT, Harvard in Boston and Cunningham Studio, The Hatch, The International Women's Artist Salon, Joyce SoHo, Movement Research, The DUO Theater and the 92nd St. Y in New York City. Kelley studied choreography with Mark Morris and Bessie Schönberg.
Carla Stangenberg and Laura Fortune's previous works have been in the fields of painting, theater, dance, improvisation, clown and sculpture. Both share a life long relationship with the curiosity of what it is to be alive and how one's relationship with the body affects one's life experience. They have known each other for over 20 years and have just begun to collaborate together. Carla is a yoga teacher and owns Jaya Yoga in Brooklyn. Laura is a waitress, yoga teacher and daydreamer in Boston.
Matthew Z. Kessler Matt Kessler originally from Cincinnati Ohio, now lives in Brooklyn. Usually a behind the scenes guy in costume design, he is now taking a stab at performance.
Singer Mali is the frontwoman and singer/songstress of the arty and ethereal Boston-based band, Jaggery. Her multihued voice ~ trained in the expressive arts discipline Voice Movement Therapy ~ conjures up emotion and atmosphere that can only be weighed on a global scale. Her songs bridge the delicate and explosive ~ from haunting lullabies to furious, mixed-meter rants; tightly-woven compositions in odd time signatures to catharsis-inducing, barn-burning mini-epics (oft-times within the same song).
The Amazing Amy (Harlib) is 55 years old and proud of showing what she can do despite her age. She has spent a life time studying all forms of movement and physical theater and became attracted to Chinese martial arts, acrobatics and Yoga in the early 1980s and parlayed that into a solo performance career that took her to Taiwan and back to her native NYC environs to perform in a wide variety of venues until 1994 when injuries forced her to retire with a disintegrated disc in her spine, torn rotator cuffs in both shoulders and arthritis that necessitated a total left hip replacement in 1998. All that time Amy never stopped her Yoga and so hated not performing, that she's using her extreme flexibility and zany imagination to relaunch her career starting in Mar. 2009! Already The Amazing Amy has appeared at the Downtown Clown Revue, The Bindlestiff Family Circus Open Variety Show at the Galapagos Arts Space, The Lava Dance Co. Night of Renegades Variety Show, the Hi Christina Arts Space, the Ruby Streak Trapeze Studio's Velveteen Rainbow Showcase, Cirque Off! at Triskelion Arts Space, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and The House of Yes, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
POETS/WRITERS:
Anne Fiero
Anne Fiero is a radio producer and a writer of poetry, fiction, essays and reviews. She has performed at Cornelia Street Cafe, Bowery Poetry Club, KGB Bar, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Soho Playhouse, American Theatre of Actors and more. Her writing has been published in Anderbo, The Quarterly Conversation, Nth Position, Poor Mojo's Almanac[k], White Fungus, Verse Marauder, Slow Trains Literary Journal, Snow Monkey, *ken again, KGB Magazine, Words-Myth, Blue Print Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, River Walk Journal, Rumble, the Bloom's Day edition of Riverbabble, and others. Her articles and reviews have appeared in periodicals internationally, including Fly Global Music Culture, Eleventh Transmission and The Hindustan Times.
Joseph Salvatore
Joseph Salvatore teaches writing and literature at The New School. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Brooklyn Rail, Dossier Journal, LIT, Omnivore, Open City, Pleiades Arts North, Post Road, New York Tyrant, Salt Hill, Sleeping Fish, Soundings East, Willow Springs, 110 Stories: New York Writes After September 11th (NYU Press, 2001),
Routledge’s Encyclopedia of Queer Culture (Routledge, 2003), and The New York Times Book Review. His collection of short stories, To Assume a Pleasing Shape, will be published in 2011, from BOA editions. He lives in Queens.
