Many a childhood is riddled with images of wicked queens, poison apples, evil spells, and strange tales of young heroes and heroines left to fend for themselves with little more than their wits and a trail of breadcrumbs.  Every culture and tradition has its folk tales.  Often these become our earliest encounters with themes of death, sexuality, seduction, and the unpredictable world of the human unconscious.  On June 17, 2010, a cast of artists from an eclectic variety of disciplines will come together to follow these breadcrumbs and bite into the apple.  Inspired by this seemingly bottomless cauldron of archetypal themes, as well as the works of Angela Carter, Edward Gorey, Carl Jung, and Neil Gaiman, “Tale” will be a non-stop variety show of bands, performance artists, animated shorts, aerialists, poets, and dancers.  From a twist on Little Red Riding Hood as the loss of a gay man’s virginity to the damsel who destroys her tower to rescue herself, “Tale” will follow the young red-haired orphan, Petaluma, as she encounters various retellings, reinventions, and inversions of classic fairy and folk tales. 

“Tale” will include music from Boston’s “new art soul” band, What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?, steam crunk  darlings, Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys (Boston),  some of NYC’s finest aerialists, animation by award-winning film-maker, Ruth Lingford (London), text from Anne Fiero and Joseph Salvatore, a new work from dancer/choreographer, Kelly Donovan (whose most recent piece was named among the best dance works of 2009 by the New York Times), and much much more.