If you’re searching for one of the hundreds of glass balls hidden by artist Eben Horton along the beaches and walking trails of Block Island this summer, the glassblower has some simple advice: “Look up.”

It’s not only practical advice for treasure-hunters (though many, but not all of the orbs are secreted on the ground), but also reflective of the optimistic spirit of the Glass Float Project, Horton’s signature public-art installation, launched when the economic downturn of 2009 left the Wakefield, Rhode Island, glass artist with unexpected time on his hands. “I was thinking about ways to keep more busy, and that’s when the glass ball project came up,” he says.

Raised in Newport, Horton grew up the son of a curator at the Newport Art Museum and in a family of avid sailors. “It was always a special treat to sail out to Block Island, and as a kid I always wandered around and explored the island,” he says. Immersed in the art world from an early age—Andy Warhol once gave him a panel from a wall-sized installation of silk-screened fish in Newport, which Horton jokes that he’s saving for his retirement—he first dabbled in glass blowing at age nine, making a Christmas ornament. “It wasn’t a life-changing event, but I found it interesting,” Horton says.

By age 15, he was working at Thames Glass, a Newport glassblowing studio, cutting a deal that exchanged his sailing skills on the owner’s boat for a much-needed summer job. One day at work, Horton came across a bag full of paperweights that were about to be discarded due to some small imperfections: that struck the young artist as a waste, so he decided to take them and hide the 20 or so glass balls on Sakonnet Point in Little Compton and on Newport’s Third Beach—little knowing that he was creating a blueprint for what would become a wildly popular annual event.

In college, Horton attended the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School for American Crafts before his first glassblowing studio in Providence, then relocating to a more publicly accessible location in Wakefield—the former home of Northup’s Texaco, rechristened as The Glass Station. After a successful start to the business, the economy soured, giving Horton the opportunity to transform adversity into altruistic art.

“There are incredibly beautiful places in Rhode Island, and Block Island is one of them,” says Horton. Moved to raised awareness and support for the landscape he roamed as a child, Horton launched the Glass Float Project, annually secreting 550 hollow, hand-blown clear glass balls around the island, each sealed with an image of Block Island, the project’s website, and a date and number. Float #1 is a prized find—it’s adorned with gold leaf—as are a limited number of colored balls, one produced for each calendar year (there are 17 for 2017, or example).

Eben Horton

The project quickly gained national attention and strong local support, including from the Block Island Tourism Council, which maintains a registry where visitors can note when they find an orb and record its year and number. Searchers are encouraged to take only one float per season and re-hide any extras they may find. “Hiding one is just as fun as finding one,” says Horton.

Horton ventures out to Block Island up to 10 times a year, carrying a couple of dozen in his backpack and wandering along the shores and Greenway trails and looking for good hiding places. “It’s my form of exercise,” he says.

The project is no lark: each season involves hundreds of hours of labor and expensive materials, with money coming primarily from a GoFundMe campaign and a grant from the Block Island Tourism Council. “If I didn’t have to do fundraising, I’d do this till I was 85,” Horton says. The artist is reluctant to give away too many hints on where the balls are hidden, but supporters who make a donation of $50 or more get access to a secret Facebook page that includes some clues.

Horton also sells some souvenir floats from his Wakefield studio, but says his satisfaction with the project doesn’t revolve around making money. “I figured out how to have a really fun vacation on Block Island all of the time, and I know that I’ve made thousands of people really happy,” he says. “When you find something, there’s far more joy than if someone gives it to you or you buy it.”

Eben Horton–glassblower/founder The Glass Float Project
Wakefield, Rhode Island
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The post Finding a Great Piece of Glass appeared first on Take Magazine.

A nondescript warehouse on a side alley in Cranston, Rhode Island, serves as studio for Frank Poor, an alumnus of the Rhode Island School of Design, whose Southern roots serve as inspiration for his sculptural art. The artist, with numerous honors and exhibits to his name, currently has his work on exhibit at Boston’s Barbara Krakow Gallery.

The multimedia artist creates striking architectural forms with photographs of abandoned buildings from the South and wooden frames that serve as scaffolding. While Poor started out using found photographs as inspiration, these days he travels to the South, including to his home state of Georgia, to take pictures that will serve as the base for his art. He loves working with abandoned buildings because they allow him to project his own story onto them. It helps that many of them awaken memories from his childhood in the small town of Woodstock, Georgia. “I don’t specifically have a history with these buildings,” he says, “but they rhyme with the buildings I do have a history with.”

Frank Poor, work in his studio, Poornima Apte photo

Architecture, Poor says, has always served as a powerful visual metaphor. “I guess these abandoned buildings are like cicadas that leave their husks on trees. It is this sort of shell, this evidence of a life that just happened inside.”

Poor moved to Rhode Island in the ’90s for school and after graduating from RISD, decided to set up roots in the Ocean State. The distance from his hometown helped his art. Growing up in a small town of 500-700 people, he had never read the great Southern writers such as Eudora Welty or Flannery O’Connor, but he did so after settling in Rhode Island. “These are real people. I know these characters and the environments they lived in,” Poor says after reading their work. “I came back to that part of my heritage once I got away.” That same sentiment colors his art. “As I’ve grown as an artist, it’s been important for me to play with that distance–to do the listening there and the telling here.”

Frank Poor at his studio in Cranston, Rhode Island, Poornima Apte photo

His work has been shown in the South as well and the reactions there, as expected, are usually different from the ones he receives here in New England. Typically someone in the South will tell him the houses remind them of their uncle’s or aunt’s houses or that they trigger specific memories, whereas in New England the art is much more of an architectural abstraction, he says. He certainly appreciates both points of view.

Rhode Island has not yet served as muse, but Poor has been teaching at area schools, including as adjunct at his alma mater, RISD. Poor says that the South will continue to fuel his art for a while. “It has culturally been, in some ways, a marginalized part of a larger nation. It remains that way, and for a lot of artists it’s easier to see that if you can hold it out there at a distance.”

Frank Poor–Artist
Cranston, Rhode Island
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Photos credit Poornima Apte and Krakow Gallery

The post Southern Comfort appeared first on Take Magazine.

It’s been almost a year since photographer and Elska Magazine publisher Liam Campbell and his partner left their home in England for Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Campbell had lived in Chicago and Dallas prior to living in England, but never felt at home in the U.S., a feeling that didn’t improve after he and his partner were married in England.

A few Obama-era policy changes and one visit to Providence shifted Campbell’s trajectory. “When we visited Providence for the first time, I just thought, ‘wow,’” says Campbell. “I didn’t know this kind of culture existed in the USA [outside of New York and LA]. New England is really something different and somewhere we felt like we could be at home.” Campbell’s admiration for Providence only grew as he aimed his camera on it as the first U.S. city to be profiled in Elska Magazine.

Through Campbell’s photo lens, the “bookazine” Elska, whose name comes from an Icelandic verb meaning “love,” stylishly examines men and the city those men call home. While you might feel a bit lusty while perusing an issue in print or online, Elska is more than simply expertly shot and arranged photos of wildly handsome men-of-all-kinds. “Even though some of the images can be considered sexy,” says Campbell, “it’s really through the expression of their personalities via the naturalistic images and their stories that makes them compelling and attractive, and makes us love them.”

In addition to photo spreads of 14 local Providence boys, the latest issue includes revealing and intriguing text by the boys themselves: “Dee W’s tale of finally maybe feeling at home in Providence; Samuel K-M’s story of a Providence bridge’s cursing of past relationships; Norbert G’s recount of a recent threesome; Matthew L’s narrative on a typical night at a local gay bar; and Adam C’s ‘things he said/things I said/things I should have said’ report that will leave you shouting ‘fuck yeah!’”

Beyond the profiles and personal approach to text curation, Elska expands past normative ideas about gender, depicting all kinds of people who identify as male in a way that doesn’t feel self-serving or overtly political. “The only stipulation is that [the subject] is a man, and he lives in the city we’re featuring,” says Campbell. “We’ve had trans men, we’ve had queer men, we’ve had men who probably don’t know what they are. As long as you’re comfortable being in this magazine knowing that 90 percent of the readers are queer, then you’re welcome to be in it.”

The next issue of Elska Magazine will feature boys and stories from Brussels, although Campbell believes his photographic eye might return to New England soon. “I try to make each one different from the one before. It’d be nice to do a smaller book or a collection of books of towns of New England,” he says. “Since I’ve lived here, I’ve really grown to love the whole region. I want to get involved and explore more and do my part.”

Liam Campbell–publisher
Elska Magazine
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All photos by Liam Campbell

The post Meet Rhode Island’s Newest City Boy appeared first on Take Magazine.

Looking deeper is mandatory with the artwork of Toby Sisson. Her painting, prints, and drawings span abstraction’s capacity for metaphor. Black, white, and gray collide in patches, loops, and other elusive forms. Crafted variably on wood and paper with ink, oil, graphite, beeswax, and charcoal, these raw, pure images exude ineffable depth. Her signature could be a dagger, teardrop, or wound—“I look at it as a stand-in for all kinds of things,” Sisson says. The mark recurs in her work like “automatic writing.”

It’s no accident that Sisson’s visual art seems as if it were written rather than wrought. She anchored both her 2015 solo exhibition, . . . and other poems, and her artist statement with insights from lauded writer and social critic James Baldwin: “The artistic image is not intended to represent the thing itself, but, rather, the reality of the force the thing contains.”

Toby Sisson, grow inward like a root I, 2017, encaustic monotype on paper mounted on wood, 12 x 9 in.. Photo courtesy of the artist

In their achromatic poetic grace, Sisson’s images reflect a spectrum of psychological and social forces. Her use of black and white speaks by turns to her biracial heritage, to America’s ongoing racial inequity, and to more elemental ideas of melding and pulling apart, opposition, and coalescence. She’s particularly invested in agency, and the interplay between a given material’s natural inclinations and her own will. “You can exert a lot of control…you can master these materials,” Sisson says, “but at the same time there’s a lot of opportunities for them to exert their own personalities.”

Right now Sisson is on sabbatical from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is immersed in her Providence, Rhode Island, studio with a series of collages. She says the chaos in the world is permeating her current project, and she considers her work “an opportunity to explore these existential questions that we’re perhaps all asking.” But she sees this uncertain moment as a catalyst for something greater.

Toby Sisson, Totems # 1-4 (installation view), 2015, encaustic and graphite on wood, 30 x 30 in. each. Photo courtesy of the artist

She recently saw Raoul Peck’s documentary I Am Not Your Negro at Providence’s Cable Car Cinema, and reflected on its sampled interview footage in which Baldwin asserts, “I can’t be a pessimist because I’m alive.”

“I’m still taking cues from Baldwin,” Sisson says. “I’m just using different tools. He used language. But I think that painting is a language as well. . . So I’m optimistic. I don’t see this as a challenge in the negative sense. I see these questions as a challenge in the very best sense of the word.”

Toby Sisson – Artist
Providence, Rhode Island
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Top photo The Darkest Hour, Chant, Cadence (installation view), 2014, Encaustic and graphite on wood, Dimensions: 24” x 12” each | Photo courtesy the artist

The post Exploring the Gray Area appeared first on Take Magazine.

Chances are good that if you grew up anywhere other than a city, you’ve been to a drive-in movie theater at least once. Maybe you were a kid and a night at the drive-in movie theater was a way for your parents to get out of the house and not hire a babysitter. Or maybe it was as a teen when the local drive-in movie theater was the perfect place to gather with friends (maybe even a few who got in for free hidden in the trunk) and party while taking in the latest flick. Whatever the scenario, for many of us, the drive-in movie theater was a rite of passage.

We can thank New Jersey auto-parts salesman Richard Hollingshead and the size of his mother for coming up with the idea. Apparently his mother found traditional movie theater seats a tad confining. So he placed a 1928 projector on the hood of a car in his driveway, and tied sheets to the trees in his backyard. Voila! An American tradition was born.

After further experimentation, Hollingshead received a patent for the idea in May of 1933, and created Park-In Theaters, Inc. in Camden, N.J. He charged 25 cents per car and per person to see Wives Beware, a British comedy. The drive-in movie became an icon of American culture, after his creation, especially in the 1950s and 60s following World War II. Parents, children, and teenagers would travel to them frequently on the weekends, and it was considered one of America’s favorite pastimes. At one point in time, the U.S. boasted 5,000 drive-ins open across the country. Today, about 400 drive-ins remain in the U.S., with some of the best ones located right here in New England.

Drive-in Movie Theaters in Massachusetts

LEICESTER TRIPLE DRIVE-IN

The Leicester Triple Drive-In has three screens for movie viewing. At $28 a carload, one can drive over to Leicester to see a drive in movie with family or friend, and order food from their snack bar. Customers love the friendly and welcoming staff there, which makes for a great movie experience.

Address: Route 9, 1675 Main Street Leicester, Massachusetts 01524
Phone Number: (508) 892-4400
Hours: box office opens at 6:00 pm; open Friday-Sunday from mid-April/early May through the last Sunday of August.
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MENDON TWIN DRIVE-IN

The Boston travel guide,10best.com, lists the Mendon Twin Drive-In as a must-see attraction. You can see two movies for $27 a car, and enjoy concessions from their snack bar, ice cream window, or Pop’s Beer Garden, added in 2014. The very adult 5000-square foot patio offers six draft beers, wines by the glass, fire pits, and a view of Screen One. Mendon Twin Drive-In opened June 14, 1954 and is celebrating its 63rd year.

Address: 35 Milford Street, Mendon, Massachusetts 01756
Phone Number: (508) 473-4958
Hours: Fri: Open 6:00 pm, Sat: Open 6:00 pm; rain or shine; open seven nights a week Memorial Day to Labor Day; open weekends only other times of the year.
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WELLFLEET DRIVE-IN THEATRE

Wellfleet Drive-In is the only drive-in theater located on Cape Cod. With a playground and mini-golf course, it’s very kid-friendly. Fodor’s Travels lists it as one of America’s best drive-in movie theaters by Fodor’s Travels.

Address: 51 State Highway, Route 6, Wellfleet, Massachusetts 02667
Phone Number: (508) 349-7176
Hours: Open mid-May through September; box office opens at 6:30 pm; shows rain or shine.
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Drive-in Movie Theaters in Maine

BANGOR DRIVE-IN

The Bangor Drive-In is back in business, reopening in July 2015 after an initial run that lasted 35 years. Equipped with twin screens, the drive-in is open in the summer, and is pet-friendly. Yes, Fido is welcome. Bangor Drive-In is also available for event rentals if your’e tired of Chucky Cheese birthday parties.

Address: 1674 Hammond Street Hermon, Maine, 04401
Phone Number: (207) 922-3878
Hours: spring 2017 opening date TBD; open rain or shine
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SACO DRIVE-IN

The Saco Drive-In season begins in May. Food menu options include hot dogs, nachos, and mozarella sticks.

Address: 969 Portland Rd, Saco, Maine 04072
Phone Number: 207-286-3200
Hours: gates open at 7 pm; May-September
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SKOWHEGAN DRIVE-IN THEATRE

The Skowhegan Drive-In Theatre has replaced its old 35-mm film projection equipment with new digital equipment to bring it up to speed to show the latest films. They’ve also renovated the concessions both, so there’s plenty of tasty options for everyone.

Address: 201 Waterville Rd, Skowhegan, Maine 04976
Phone Number: (207) 474-9277
Hours: rain or shine; generally open from Memorial Day to Labor Day
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Drive-in Movie Theaters in New Hampshire

MILFORD DRIVE-IN THEATER

The Milford Drive-In Theater has a new digital projection and Dolby digital sound system, and is also pet-friendly. Open since 1958, the drive-in also has its own web app so it’s easier to check out the latest information regarding movie times and weather reports.

Address: 531 Elm Street Milford, New Hampshire 03055
Phone Number: 603-673-4090
Hours: box office Friday & Saturday: 6:15 pm; box office Sunday-Thursday: 7:15 pm; closes in relation to the weather (updates posted on website); open mid-April
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NORTHFIELD DRIVE-IN

The Northfield Drive-In is a bit of an anomaly since half the drive-in is in New Hampshire while the other is in Massachusetts. This theater opened in 1948, and weekly movie selections include at least two shows.

Address: 981 Northfield St., Hinsdale, New Hampshire
Phone Number: (603) 239-4054
Hours: showing movies Friday-Sunday; open during the summer
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WEIRS DRIVE-IN THEATER

Weirs Drive-in Theater was one of the first drive-ins to open in New Hampshire, and is still owned by the same family that began operating it 40 years ago. Equipped with a snack bar and four different screens, Weirs Drive-in typically offers something for everyone on its screens.

Address: 76 Endicott St N Weirs Beach, New Hampshire
Phone Number: (603) 366-4723
Hours: spring 2017; open 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm
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Drive-in Movie Theaters in Connecticut

PLEASANT VALLEY DRIVE-IN

Pleasant Valley Drive-In is located in the middle of nowhere in the tiny town of Barkhamsted. But don’t equate location for the quality of the facility. Pleasant Valley Drive-in offers a variety of concessions, including burgers, pizza, clam boats and fried mozzarella. The theater also welcome pets. Open since 1947, the theater can host up to 250 cars. Fridays is  “Carload Night”, where you can fill your car with as many people as you’d like—all for only $20 per car.

Address: 47 River Rd (Rt. 181) Barkhamsted, Connecticut 06063
Phone Number: 860-379-6102
Hours: weekends in early spring through fall (including early October if the weather is warm); gates open and tickets are sold at 6:30 pm
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MANSFIELD DRIVE-IN THEATRE AND MARKETPLACE

The Mansfield Drive-In Theatre and Marketplace is a drive-in and flea market rolled into one. The drive-in plays a double feature every night, and is open from April to September. The flea market, open on Sundays, is home to a variety of vendors. So come early to shop before the movies.

Address: 228 Stafford Rd., Mansfield Center, Connecticut 06250
Phone Number: (860) 423-4441
Hours: April & May, Fridays-Sundays; June, Fridays-Sundays, and Wednesdays; mid June, July and most of August, open every night; September-Mid-October, Fridays & Saturdays; gates open at 7:15pm (October 6:45pm); open rain or shine
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SOUTHINGTON DRIVE-IN

The Southington Drive-In originally opened in 1955, finally closing in 2002. The drive-in reopened in 2010 after Southington voted to purchase the property and expand it to the Recreation Park nearby. The drive-in has been able to donate $33,000 to 14 local non-profit civic organizations in Southington since reopening.

Address: 995 Meriden-Waterbury Turnpike, Southington, Connecticut
Phone Number: (860) 628-22
Hours: ticket booths open at 6:00 pm; June through September
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Drive-in Movie Theaters in Vermont

SUNSET DRIVE-IN THEATER

The Sunset Drive-In Theater is aptly named. You can catch a beautiful sunset before catching a flick on one of four screens. The drive-in counts a snack bar, playground, and mini-putt area among its amenities. Hot rod and classic car owners get special treatment here: the first two rows are reserved for them.

Address: 155 Porters Point Rd Colchester, Vermont
Phone Number: (802) 862 – 1800
Hours: open from mid-April on
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FAIRLEE MOTEL AND DRIVE IN THEATER

If you’re passing through Vermont and need a place to stay, and want something fun to do, the Fairlee Motel and Drive-In Theater might be just the ticket. Dedicated to staying up to date with the newest digital trends, the drive-in is currently raising funds for a new projector to keep the drive-in open. The drive-in is open seasonally, but the motel is open year-round.

Address: 1809 US Route 5 N, Fairlee, Vermont 05045
Phone Number: (802) 333-9192
Season/Hours: late spring through summer; gate and snack bar open at 7 p.m., first movie shown at dusk; seasonal schedule: every weekend, starting April/May; every night from July 4th weekend through Labor Day weekend; open Friday & Saturday only through Columbus Day weekend
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Drive-in Movie Theaters in Rhode Island

RUSTIC TRI VUE DRIVE-IN

The Rustic Tri Vue Drive-In has three giant outdoor screens and a full concessions stand. With digital projection for all their screens now, you can see the latest movies while enjoying the view from your car. The space is also available for rental for birthday parties or summer bashes.

Address: 1195 Eddie Dowling Highway North Smithfield, Rhode Island 02776
Phone Number: 401- 484-5452
Hours: opening April; open seasonally April through October
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The post Pass the Popcorn! 16 New England Drive-in Movie Theaters appeared first on Take Magazine.

East Greenwich is a scenic coastal Rhode Island town with a lively restaurant scene and plenty of waterfront bars, but it’s not the most obvious destination for live music. At least it wasn’t until the newly rejuvenated Greenwich Odeum began regularly hosting live music acts. The venue aims to host an estimated 70 events this year even as it undergoes a major facelift.

The Odeum first opened its doors in 1926 as a vaudeville theater. Like many such venues, it transitioned from vaudeville into a movie house, which is remained for 60 years until it was finally crushed by the home video market. Now it’s back.

Newly-renovated Greenwich Odeum lobby

This year it’s been selected as one of two host venues for the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame induction concerts. Rock bands, including Throwing Muses and Neutral Nation, will perform later this month at The Met in Pawtucket, while jazz and R&B performers will play the Odeum.

This year’s honorees include drummer Artie Cabral, who has been performing since the 1950s. He was resident drummer at the famed Celebrity Club, the first racially integrated nightclub in New England. He still performs regularly. Fellow inductees Dan Moretti, Billy Osborne, and Frank Potenza will share the stage on April 23rd.

“We’re trying to expand out breadth with more than just rock concerts,” says Odeum board president Dan Speca. Comedy is increasingly popular—comedian Jim Breuer is appearing in May, and twice now the Odeum’s hosted the original cast of cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000.

As a seated venue, the Odeum tends to draw a local 35+ crowd, according to Speca. But when Partridge Family star David Cassidy performed his penultimate concert at the Odeum last month, fans came from as far away as Mississippi.

Speca joined the Odeum board in 2014 and became its president last year. He likens the venue’s renovation process to a startup: taking small steps and constantly analyzing financial risk.

The Odeum currently has one full-time employee, who handles everything from production management to box office duties, as well as a handful of part-time staff and active board participation. “I was in there last night changing light bulbs,” Speca laughs.

With capital grants from philanthropic foundations and the state arts council, the interior was revitalized last year—“a total gut job,” according to Speca—for the first time in half a century.

This summer, newly installed sprinklers will allow the Odeum to increase capacity and serve alcohol. They’ll close for a few weeks and reopen in time for the Rhode Island International Film Festival in August. With its 25-foot long screen, the Odeum has been restored to its cinematic heyday.

“Summer is a good time to close,” Speca says. “Acts aren’t touring as much, and people are at the beach.” Next summer they’re hoping to install a lift, which will lead event attendees to a new 98-seat balcony.

What’s next for the Odeum? Upcoming headliners include Todd Rundgren (that show is sold out) and “musician’s musician” Graham Parker, plus ’60s girl group stars Mary Wilson (of the Supremes) and Darlene Love (of the Crystals). Let the good times roll.

Dan Speca, president of the board
Greenwich Odeum
East Greenwich, Rhode Island
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The post Let’s Get This Party Going! appeared first on Take Magazine.

This August, Strange Attractor has a new pageant planned that includes gathering 100 singers on Easton’s Beach in Newport for a choral performance. Their audience? The sea itself. The occasion? A rather remarkable solar eclipse. The pageant begins as the moon begins its creep between the Earth and the sun, and the performance continues for the duration of the eclipse, about two hours.

Those of us in New England will only see a partial eclipse on August 21, but it’s the first total eclipse since 1918 that will stretch across the entire United States. The sun’s rays will be totally blocked from central Oregon to South Carolina. If it’s not too cloudy, the whole sky will be sunset-colored, even in the Northeast.

Pageant rehearsals have just begun, and most details are still being ironed out, but Strange Attractor organizers Rebecca Noon and Jed Hancock-Brainerd have some guidelines for what the event will be. “The only criteria for performers is that people have feelings about the ocean,” Hancock-Brainerd says, “since the audience is the ocean.” Adds Noon, “We only want things that the ocean wants. No confetti, no plastic, and no stepping on the dune grass.”

Hancock-Brainerd originally conceived the sea pageant, explaining that 100 participants seemed like a good number for the event. “It’s more reasonable than a thousand,” he says.

Noon and Hancock-Brainerd are half of Strange Attractor, a company that’s split between Rhode Island, Philadelphia and Juneau. The four Americans met in graduate school in London, and each member uses the Strange Attractor moniker for projects that involve one or more of the other members.

“Usually Jed dreams up an idea that’s totally crazy,” explains Noon, who handles directing and producing duties, “and I say, ‘No, I’m not going to do that.’ And then some time goes by and we start to develop it.” This is the fourth show in seven years that the two have conceived in this way.

The pair are currently wrapping up a year-long residency at the Providence Athenaeum, where they researched the complicated historical relationship between Rhode Islanders and the ocean. They’ve also been learning more about the ocean itself and about remarkable eclipses.

Strange Attractor’s most recent piece, Sans Everything, was performed in Providence and Boston before showing this February at Philadelphia’s FringeArts. Conceived by Aram Aghazarian–Strange Attractor’s Philly member–and directed by Noon, the show imagines a post-human future where artificial intelligence units are compelled by outside forces to perform Shakespeare as they travel through space.

Roblin Davis, Aram Aghazarian, Rebecca Noon and Jed Hancock-Brainerd, A Terrific Fire, photo by Shea’la Finch

That’s actually one of the group’s more traditional offerings. Their Rhode Island events have included a gothic Christmas pageant staged in the middle of July at the home that Hancock-Brainerd and Noon share. Another performance required audience members to wear sweatpants and sing on the street. Entitled Before We Begin, that show included a lengthy introduction after which the duo put paper bags over their heads, allowing uncomfortable audience members to leave without being seen.

The sea pageant is a one-time event, but a reprisal may be possible: it’s only seven years before the next total solar eclipse.

Rebecca Noon and Jed Hancock-Brainerd–founders, Strange Attractor
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Top Image: Before We Begin: Jed Hancock-Brainerd and Rebecca Noon, photo by Stray Creatives

The post Strange Attractions appeared first on Take Magazine.

It’s been three years since composer James Falzone created the Providence Research Ensemble, but he still has trouble categorizing the group. They’re not classical, he says, because they don’t really play classical music. Experimental doesn’t quite sound right, either, although some of their performances certainly sound that way.

“I write systems-based music,” he says, before jovially launching into specifics about structure, mathematics, and how his compositions are adaptable depending on which players are in the room. “There’s actually something called Systems Music, but that’s really a British thing and we’re not that, either.” He settles on New Music, a term generally applied to the border-pushing fringes of contemporary classical composition.

As the name suggests, Providence Research Ensemble is largely a lab for Falzone to figure out his own work. “What’s wonderful about the group,” he says, “is that it’s friends of mine coming together in an informal, convivial way to perform music that might not otherwise be performed.” He loves the performance side of music, which isn’t the case for many composers.

“It’s so easy to sound overblown,” Falzone says, laughing. “There’s nothing I hate more than the image of the composer that comes from romantic music. I like some of the music, but that tortured genius image…”

In 2016, Falzone was awarded one of the RISD Museum’s inaugural fellowships, a paid honor that allowed him to research museum collections and also perform regularly in its grand European painting gallery. (One memorably odd performance featured cello, trombone, two basses, and Falzone on an electroacoustic instrument called the Cembaphon.)

Hardly tortured, Falzone has reason to be happy. He’s just been accepted into a graduate program. He hasn’t formally accepted yet, but it seems likely that a move might be coming soon. But while Falzone may leave Providence, he’ll remain involved in music around town. The grad program is close enough that he’ll still perform with both Providence Research Ensemble and Ordinary Affects, the Boston-based quartet in which he currently plays vibraphone and keyboards.

Soft-spoken and careful with his speech, Falzone becomes quite animated over any number of suspects, from pentatonic scales to the British art of change ringing, the collective ringing of church bells in a mathematical sequence.

Falzone has already composed eight pieces based around the tenets of change ringing, and his notebooks are full of braided grids of bell ringing patterns. (Here’s one for trivia night: about four hundred years ago, English bell ringers would tug on weighted ropes to practice their craft. The silent—or dumb—bell ringing allowed them to keep in shape for when it was time to climb the tower and ring the actual church bells. And that’s why dumbbells are called dumbbells.)

Infrequent Seams is an experimental music label—that’s their term—that will release the first album from Providence Research Ensemble this June. The album features eight players performing a number of Falzone’s compositions from the past three years. A short tour of the Northeast will follow this summer.

James Falzone – Founder, Providence Research Ensemble
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Top photo James Falzone, Providence Research Ensemble | Photo by Peter Gumaskas

The post Researching New Music in Rhode Island appeared first on Take Magazine.

Western-Massachusetts-native-turned-fake-judge John Hodgman always says, “Specificity is the soul of narrative.” In other words, the more precise a story is, or the more unique the subject matter, the better. Through specificity of content and approach, artists can present audiences with unique characters, stories, and experiences.

The same logic applies to film festivals and the cinema they celebrate. In addition to the dozens of big film fests across the region, film junkies and industry folks alike have privileged access to niche New England film festivals in every state. Movie lovers can see everything from queer romance to cinema written, produced, starring, and directed by folks with hearing impairment. Some of these festivals are right around the corner, while others are still accepting submissions. All reveal subjects that are unique and satisfyingly specific.

AIP Film Festival
April 2 – April 8
Cinestudio
Hartford, CT

Hartford’s beautifully designed 1930s-era movie theater continues its yearly film fest for Francophiles, April in Paris, which goes beyond the French New Wave and into the realm of contemporary cinema. Prospective moviegoers have nine opportunities to see French films produced from 1982 to 2016, all of which examine the exceedingly relevant, “effects of crossing borders, from the political to the personal.”

Wicked Queer Film Festival
March 30 – April 9
Various venues
Boston, MA

Laverne Cox in Free CeCe! | Director Jac Gares, 2016

The 33rd incarnation of Boston’s film festival revealing and unpacking the queer experience through documentary, comedy, and drama will feature internationally renowned voices of the queer community and emerging artists alike. Queer film enthusiasts of all kinds have dozens of chances to see films across the city in a new neighborhood each night.

Maine Deaf Film Festival
April 28 – 29
University of Southern Maine
Portland, ME

The 15th annual Maine Deaf Film Festival is the longest-running and perhaps the only film festival of its type in the nation. Programmed and planned in collaboration with students and boasting content exclusively created by deaf folks across the region, MDFF skillfully solves some of the problems of underrepresentation of people with hearing impairments both in front of and behind the camera.

SENE Film Festival
April 25 – 29
Various venues
Rhode Island

With dozens of films ranging from experimental shorts to feature-length animated dramas, SENE provides attendees nearly endless opportunities to pick their vast or small corner of the world to explore. The Wednesday night screenings of experimental films and documentary features is both a can’t-miss evening and an excellent example of the range and specificity of topics explored throughout the festival.

New Hampshire Film Festival
October
Various venues
Portsmouth, NH

Still from All The President’s Heads | Director Adam Roffman, 2016

With the time for submissions still open, we can’t say for sure what niches the New Hampshire Film Festival will investigate. However, if last year’s programming is any indication, cinephiles will delve into some strange and specific topics. For example, All the President’s Heads, a film about a history devotee who saves two dozen, massive presidential busts from destruction after being displaced by the building of an Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

Independent Television Festival
October 11 – 17
Various Venues
Manchester, VT

Okay. . .this isn’t technically a “film festival.” However, was True Detective (the charcoal dark, riveting serialized HBO murder mystery disguised as a police procedural) a television show or more of a seven-and-a-half-hour movie split into manageable 54-minute chunks? As the line between prestige television and film blurs more each day, so will our categorizations for the sake of this list. Anyway, ITVFest still counts because it’s a moving image festival celebrating a niche part of a hulking industry, a section of the industry that often gets ignored in cinema as well; the independents.

Global Roots Film Festival
April 7 – 9
Contois Auditorium
Burlington, VT

Still from Ladies & Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen |
Directors Donald Brittain & Don Owen, 1965 | Presented by VT PBS and RETN

This niche film festival is brought to us by the Vermont International Film Foundation which also presents the yearly Vermont International Film Festival. The Global Roots Film Festival endeavors to bring Vermonters, “great films from the countries of many of the New American communities. . .to foster a greater understanding of our diverse cultures.” This year, Global Roots turns the lens towards contemporary films coming from Quebec.

Top image, still from Signature Move | Director Jennifer Reeder (2017)

The post 7 New England Niche Film Festivals You Can’t Miss appeared first on Take Magazine.

Erminio Pinque just spent an action-packed weekend at Big Apple Comic Con when we talked, but the Big Nazo founder sounds more energized than deflated as he explains what his creatures were up to in New York. The surreal performance group was hired as the wedding band for Comic Con co-founder Mike Carbonaro and model Nina Martinez (who opted to get hitched in a Wonder Woman costume). The creatures also worked as the party band for the convention’s cosplay area, where enthusiastic attendees partied down while dressed as their favorite comic book and video game characters. They somehow even made it to New Jersey to perform at a theater.

It’s been 30 years since Erminio Pinque founded the Providence-based troupe Big Nazo. “Creatures is a useful term,” Pinque says when asked to describe the characters, which range from dapper insects to schoolmarm-attired sea monsters to a bespectacled mad scientist with three eyes. “We use puppets and masks and parade techniques, but we’re not a parade group or a puppet ensemble. The word creature is weird enough to encompass it all.”

Big Nazo began informally with “sloppy street performances,” but officially debuted in Providence City Hall as part of the city’s 1987 New Year’s Eve celebration. Three decades later, the loosely knit collective can be seen at events and festivals throughout Rhode Island, as well as internationally.

It’s hard to miss the looming, loony creatures when you’re in downtown Providence. A staple at outdoor events in the city, the instantly recognizable creatures also lived in the windows of a corner storefront right next door to City Hall.

Constructed from lightweight plastic, foam, and fabric, the flexible creature costumes can be crushed down for easy travel. Once unpacked, they pop right back into shape. “When we go on the road, we wrap and roll them in hockey bags,” Pinque says, noting that the wear and tear actually improves their overall quality. “When they’re new, they’re shiny and rubbery. They look like toys. As they age, the texture actually starts to look more like skin.”

Big Nazo

Big Nazo’s schedule is predictably unpredictable. After Comic Con, their engagement list included appearances at the Providence Athenaeum for an H.P. Lovecraft event, then a St. Patrick’s Day parade the following day. April will find them in sci-fi mode for the Space Jam party at Fête Music Hall, followed by the trip to Brazil for an electronic music festival.

“Commissioned work is instrumental to our design process,” Pinque says, “because it allows us to solve problems that we would have never tackled. Right now, we’re making giant stilting creatures for an electronic music festival in Sao Paulo. We’ve never made stilts before!”

A few years ago, the original storefront the group inhabited was sold to a major Boston developer, so Big Nazo only moved around the corner. They recently moved again. The new space on Westminster Street is a little smaller, but has really high ceiling—a helpful luxury since some of the creatures are huge. Pinque keeps the doors open when working, and visitors are always encouraged to drop in.

Big Nazo – Erminio Pinque, founder
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Photos by Thomas Alan Photography

The post Big Nazo’s Creatures of the Day and Night appeared first on Take Magazine.