Art meets asphalt?

The Weekend Pilots perform during the 2012 Phoenix Fringe Festival

Art meets asphalt next weekend as Asphalt Arts performs “Food for Thought” — a work featuring spoken word, drama, dance and audience participation — at Warehouse 1005. It’s part of the 2012 Phoenix Fringe Festival that kicks off Fri, March 2 — and includes more than 20 original works performed at five different venues.

“Food for Thought” was created in collaboration with homeless youth served by the Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development. Asphalt Arts also collaborates with ArtsWork: The Kax Herberger Center for Children and the Arts, a program of the ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, to bring “the expressive power of the theatre and digital story-telling” to Tumbleweed youth.

Actors Alchemy also performs three short plays during this year’s festival. Their “Short Play Festival” consists of “The Yard Sale,” “Holly,” and “Make This Go Away.” Sounds like a tour of my garage, though I’m certain it’s something more. “Short Play Festival” is being performed March 2-4 at Space 55.

Come Thurs, March 8, you can enjoy a performance of “The Weekend Pilots’ Musical Comedy Show,” the only other Fringe offering at Space 55 that looks tame enough to mention here (though looks can be deceiving). These three snappy dressers (pictured in pink above) promise a “fusion of comedy, rock, rap, electronica, dancing, and costumed characters.” Let’s hope they leave a certain politician’s new hairdo out of the mix.

The 2012 Phoenix Fringe Festival (March 2-11) features theater, dance, music and poetry

This year’s Phoenix Fringe Festival has a pair of offerings particularly well-suited to dance and music lovers. Dulce Dance Company performs March 2 & 4 at Warehouse 1005. The venue welcomes “Cool Like That: A Tribute to Miles Davis” March 2, 3 & 10. It’s “a poetic narrative by and about Miles with chronological sequencing that reflects upon the social and political climate of his time.” Think poetry/spoken word, live music, vocals and dance.

Five works are being performed at Modified Arts and three at the FilmBar in Phoenix. The four works being presented at The Studio at Phoenix Center for the Arts include “The Other Side of History,” written and performed by The Soul Justice Project and “SWAN dubstep” performed by SWAN (Devan Martinez).

The Soul Justice Project describes their work as a piece of hip hop theatre that fuses poetry, dance and music to “address key political issues facing the AZ community.” Martinez is “on a mission to educate the world about common misconceptions” surrounding pop music (think Top 40 tunes).

Learn more about the 2012 Phoenix Fringe Festival, and their projects supporting Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development, at www.phxfringe.org.

— Lynn

Note: Many Phoenix Fringe Festival works include mature content and language suitable for adults rather than youth. Review the Raising Arizona Kids Magazine calendar in print or online to find family-friendly fare.

Coming up: Five festivals for families, The fine art of Freud?, Celebrating World Theatre Day

Update: The Soul Justice Project performance has been cancelled. Click here to find this and other updates on the Phoenix Fringe Festival Facebook page.

Madcap musings

Madcap Theaters located in Centerpoint on Mill in Tempe

“Geeks’ Night Out” comes to Tempe this week as the Arizona SCITECH Festival meets “Third Thursdays” in Tempe’s Mill Avenue District — and the fine folks at Madcap Theaters host an Allied Paranormal Investigations team who’ll be “showing the equipment they use in researching potential hauntings.”

MADCAP's mission is providing affordable community-based performance space

Other “Geeks’ Night Out” happenings, taking place at various Tempe locations, feature everything from robotics to astronomy — plus a pop culture trivia competition. Think “Star Wars” vs. “Star Trek.” Folks can dress up like their favorite inventor or don the geek version of business attire for a tech job fair.

Harry Potter meets musical theater at Madcap Theaters in Tempe this month

A little something called “It’s a Musical Showcase” comes to Madcap Theaters for just two shows next weekend. It was conceived and created by a pair of ASU theatre majors, and it features fare you’ll have a hard time finding elsewhere — including a work from “A Very Potter Musical.”

“It’s a Musical Showcase” includes 14 songs, but only the first of two acts is dubbed “family friendly” so parents concerned about such things can opt for having the kids leave at intermission. Featured shows include “Chicago,” “Rent,” “Once Upon a Mattress,” “Wicked,” “Spring Awakening,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Avenue Q,” “Moulin Rouge” and more.

This view of Madcap's snack bar demonstrates that perception is everything

A digital arts festival called “PLAY” comes to Madcap Theaters next month thanks to UrbanSTEW. The festival “celebrates the union of art and technology” — and this year’s theme is “disability perception.” It’ll feature music, dance, activities and exhibits exploring human limits and abilities. Special guests include Crossing 32nd Street, Dulce Dance Company and ASU’s laptop orchestra.

There's plenty of artwork to enjoy in and around Madcap Theaters in Tempe

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., a professor of animal science at Colorado State University best known to most for her advocacy on behalf of those living with autism, comes to Madcap Theaters in March for an Autism Society of Greater Phoenix event that also features Dianne Craft, M.A., CNHP, of Child Diagnostics in Denver.

Three large rabbit sculptures surround a pond near Madcap Theaters

Grandin is a proponent of neurodiversity, the author of many works (including “Animals Make Us Human” and “Animals in Translation” with co-author Catherine Johnson) and the subject of a semi-biographical film (“Temple Grandin”) starring Claire Danes that was released by HBO Films in 2010.

Mellow Mushroom near Madcap Theaters is full of art ala skateboards

Those who favor venues with diverse “off the beaten path” offerings have a friend in Madcap Theaters. A geeky friend, perhaps. But a friend nonetheless. Learn more about upcoming events, included those noted above, by visiting Madcap Theaters at www.madcaptheaters.com.

— Lynn

Note: Click here for details about the Autism Society of Greater Phoenix 13th Annual Autism/Asperger’s Conference, and here to explore Mellow Mushroom offerings.

Coming up: A trio of Tempe galleries, Hands-on history

Hip hop with heart

Having a teenager is a humbling experience. Recently I learned of a combined hip hop/theater event being presented by ASU, and I eagerly shared my excitement with my 17-year-old daughter, a high school senior who’ll soon head to college to study theater.

After telling her about the hip hop/theater connection, I got “the look.” And then this quip: “That’s not new, mom.” She even had evidence to support her claim. A master class in Shakespeare and hip hop taken during last year’s thespian festival in Phoenix. The musical “In the Heights” performed at ASU Gammage.

She’s right, of course. And now I seem to find theater and hip hop, or something like it, around every corner. Even on that same day’s episode of “Charlie Rose” on PBS, which featured actor and comedian John Leguizamo talking about his latest one man show titled “Ghetto Klown.”

Were we not traveling to the East Coast for a final college trip this weekend, I might be able to redeem myself by taking Lizabeth to the latest “Performance in the Borderlands” — which merges hip hop, graffiti and theater arts. It features a new play by L.A. artist Rickerby Hinds: “Dreamscape.”

The “Performance in the Borderlands” initiative is “designed to bridge cultural boundaries by offering events featuring artists, critics and scholars who creatively explore the U.S./Mexico Border region.”

Hinds’ latest work “uses a hip-hop beat, dance, drama and poetry to explore the broken life and lost dreams of a young black woman who was shot to death by police while sleeping in her car in Riverside, California.” It’s based on a true story.

“Dreamscape” is suitable for ages 16 and up, according to Megan Todd (she and Mary Stephens put the event together for ASU). Recently I spoke to Todd, who notes that “Hinds is at the forefront of blending the language of hip hop with the theatrical form.”

Todd says Hinds’ work is important and relevant because it “deals with poignant social issues of our time” — including violence and racial injustice. She sees “Dreamscape” a profound way to contrast “youthful presence” with “some of the harsh things going on in the world.”

Having studied feminist theology as a doctoral student, I was eager to ask Todd’s take on the perception that hip hop music is misogynist — promoting hatred of women. Todd notes that there are many forms of hip hop, and that it’s the gangsta rap type of hip hop music that most often offends.

But Hinds’ hip hop, according to Todd, is “more soulful, roots hip hop” that takes the language of hip hop and “makes it grounds for the articulation of social issues.” For Todd, Hinds’ work is all about “finding places to connect and talk in a language that bridges our common humanity.”

ASU is offering several related events this weekend. “Dreamscape” will be performed Sat, April 23 at 7m — at “Phoenix Center for the Arts,” located at Third St. and Moreland Ave., in downtown Phoenix. Tickets are $8 in advance, and $10 at the door.

Phoenix-based artists Tomas Sosa of “Soul Phenomenal” will open the evening performance, and local DJ Alchemy will spin outside of the theater before the event. ASU notes that graffiti artists and dancers will also perform outside, and that a “talkback” with the cast will take place following the play.

You can head to ASU Friday, April 22, from 6-10pm for a free arts experience titled “Civil Disobedience” — taking place at the Galvin Plaza. The featured performance begins at 6:30pm and includes “Third Eye View” from the ASU School of Dance, an excerpt from Hinds’ “Dreamscape” and the Dulce Dance Company.

The event also includes an MC exhibition, a DJ exhibition, a graffiti clinic, a DJ clinic and live graffiti artwork — with a panel discussion to follow. It’s all designed, says Todd, to continue a conversation started when Hinds performed another piece for ASU last year — a conversation that unites diverse people through the common language of hip hop.

If you’ve never considered the power of hip hop music to unite and inspire, this is your chance to see the heart of hip hop in action. “It all comes down to love,” reflects Todd.

Trip your teens out by alerting them to the event, or by going yourself. When they ask for a ride to the mall or the movie theater, just tell them you’ve already made “civil disobedience” plans.

Then pay special attention to those teaching or performing the fine art of graffiti. It’ll come in handy one day when your teens head off to school and you’re ready to reclaim, and redecorate, the nest that they’ve left empty.

— Lynn

Note: The ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts‘ School of Theatre and Film presents a free Rickerby Hinds Colloquium Fri, April 22 from 3-4pm at ASU in Tempe (Location: Music 130).

Coming up: A is for Alaska, B is for Billy Elliot