Cover Story
Fall Guide 2013
In our annual fall arts preview, City’s cultural critics sound off on their picks for the most exciting art exhibits, theater shows, dance performances, music concerts, and films coming in the 2013-14 season.
Uncle Sam creep show
The origins of Uncle Sam are not exactly clear, but some historians say that references to him go as far back as the 1700’s. Others say that Uncle Sam was a nickname given to Sam Wilson of Troy, New York for creating food care packages for soldiers. James Montgomery Flagg is credited with creating the…
Downtown fights: What do we do?
The problem is bigger than a few rowdy youth congregating at the Liberty Pole. Ask members of the Red Shirts— retired police officers who patrol downtown — and they’ll tell you how they have to escort some downtown office workers outside because gangs of young people taunt and harass them as they leave their buildings. …
WSJ corrects the record on renewables
The Wall Street Journal is getting attention for yesterday’s Energy section cover piece, “Six Myths About Renewable Energy.” The article takes six common claims for or against renewable energy and sets the record straight. For example, it tackles the claim that renewables don’t contribute much power to the United States’ grid and explains, point by…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Eastman Jazz Band
With a snap and a wave from director Rich Thompson’s hand, The Eastman Jazz Band (or lab, as it was introduced) launched into a smooth and swingin’ send-up to Dizzy Gillespie at Max of Eastman Place (excuse me, “Eastman School of Music Sproull Atrium”) Monday night to an enthusiastic crowd. The band was a force…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: The 24-Hour Plays
Any die-hard theater geek knows that a show doesn’t just happen overnight. It usually takes months or even years to write the script, weeks to audition actors, and months to build the set and rehearse the actors before it’s “curtain up.” That is, unless you’re part of The 24-Hour Plays, which debuted at Writers &…
NEWS: Albert Paley’s “Soliloquy” installed at MAG
Albert Paley’s monumental work, “Soliloquy,” the fourth and final of the recent major commissions for the Memorial Art Gallery’s Centennial Sculpture Garden, was installed Tuesday morning. The artist says that the 25-foot-tall, site-specific sculpture’s title makes reference to the MAG as a cultural institution, and the fact that when individuals respond to artwork — be…
Week Ahead: Voting Rights Act forum, RCSD committee to discuss suspensions
The Rochester-area League of Women Voters will a forum on the Voting Rights Act at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 24. The forum will specifically address Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires the U.S. Justice Department to pre-clear any voting law or regulation changes in three New York counties, certain election districts…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: The Lonely Ones
Of the many pleasures an event like the Fringe Festival provides, probably the greatest is the ability to occasionally discover hidden gems amongst the line-up. Those times when your decision to take a chance and check out a performance you might not otherwise have given a second look pays off big time. For me, it…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Mounafanyi
On Sunday I got to check out African performance group Mounafanyi at MuCCCC as part of the ongoing Fringe Festival. The day was overcast and depressing, a kind of grim precursor to the upcoming work week, but I was happy to find a burst of energy in the Mounafanyi performance. In fact, if I were…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: “Oscar and I,” “Starting Here, Starting Now”
Yesterday was Show Tune Sunday at the Fringe Festival, at least for me. In the afternoon I attended “Oscar and I: A Rodgers and Hammerstein Sing-Along with Mrs. Anna” at MuCCC. Mrs. Anna, in case you didn’t know, is one of the great R&H characters — the “I” in “The King and I,” in fact…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: “Waiting at the Crossroads Cafe,” “Anomaly”
I saw only two shows at the Fringe Fest on Sunday. While they were wildly different in content, they were alike in two ways. First, they showcased some of the truly astonishing artistic talent we have right here in Rochester. And second, they cemented for me that the quality of Fringe Festival shows in general…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: “Psychopomp & Pageantry,” PUSH Physical Theatre
Fringe Festival Day 3 and a full bill of dance and theater for me: Garth Fagan Dance, FuturePointe Dance and PUSH Physical Theatre. Three hard-hitting local biggies. Each so much its own entity that seeing them all in one evening was like reading three good novels back to back to back. How can you digest…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Garth Fagan Dance
By nature, the Fringe Festival varies widely in scope and talent. Let’s just say, when it came to seeing Garth Fagan Dance on Saturday, it was good to come in from the rain knowing I was about to see expertise. “The spirit has to come out to grab you when we dance,” Fagan told the…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: “Not Wallace Stevens,” “All Your Questions Answered”
According to Just Poets member Roy Bent, the group titled its Fringe Festival program of original poetry “Not Wallace Stevens” because while Stevens is undeniably a great poet, he’s one who’s “good on the page, but not on the stage.” It’s a characteristic endemic to poetry as a whole, and their group hopes to change…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: RIT Film & Animation Honors Show, “Rochester Stories,” “The Daughter of Capulet,” “Interviewing the Audience,” “Old Maid and The Thief”
My Saturday at Fringe Fest was all about storytelling. I started off with the RIT School of Film and Animation Honors Show, screened at Little Theatre 1, which offered 26 of the best works produced at the school last year. While many of the short films were the work of students obviously flexing their burgeoning…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Marc Maron
About halfway through Marc Maron’s set at Kodak Hall Saturday night, Maron did an impression of himself stalking around in his early years. He said, mockingly, “I had to own the stage.” The irony was, all these years later, with a far more subtle (though not always) approach, he owned the whole theater. In fact,…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: “Alice in Wonderland,” Roisin Dubh, Silent Disco
I like to think that I am, at the very least, somewhat thematic. I’ve been playing the video game "Kingdom Hearts" the past few weeks (it features a slew of Disney characters and settings), watched the original Disney animated version of "Alice in Wonderland" earlier this week, and in that same line of thought, decided…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: “Almighty God Bierce,” “The Author’s Voice”
Ambrose Bierce’s (1842-1913?) death was enigmatic — a journalist who traveled to Mexico in 1913 to interview Pancho Villa, he simply vanished, hence the “?” — but his life was definitely a troubled one. Fighting in the Civil War, an unhappy marriage, and the death of his children helped add vitriol and disillusion to his…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: “A Man, A Magic, A Music,” “Bag of Tricks,” “Ping,” “Same Sex Shakespeare”
“A Man, A Magic, a Music” is a one-man show starring Movin’ Melvin Brown, playing at Geva Theatre Nextstage as part of Fringe Fest. The piece is essentially Brown’s life story as told through a retrospective of black pop culture from the 1950’s through the early 21stcentury. Brown was bitten by the showbiz bug at…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: RAPA’s A Night of Laughs
Friday night I attended RAPA theater’s comedy showcase A Night of Laughs, featured a sampling of several of the Fringe Festival’s comedy acts. Despite the name of the program, however, I was disappointed to find that the laughs were relatively few and far between. Maybe it’s just my comedic tastes. I prefer the more risqué,…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: “The Ninth Circle,” “Crocodile”
When I planned on seeing "The Ninth Circle" and "Crocodile" on Friday night at the Rochester Fringe Festival, I inadvertently set myself up for an evening of theatrical throwbacks to aching adolescence. In totally different ways, each piece presented a situation where youths wrapped up in their own difficult worlds can manifest tragic results. "The…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Kinect the Dots, “Ole!”
My Friday night at the Fringe started at Little Theatre 1 for the second performance of Kinect the Dots. This show is a collaboration between FuturePointe Dance and RIT Projection Artists in which the movements of the dancers are captured live with an Xbox Kinect (hence the title), projected on to the Little 1’s screen,…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Al Biles and GenJam, Geva Comedy Improv
Computers are everywhere these days. We use them at work, they hide in our pockets in the shape of phones, and we’ve even seen them beat some of our smartest human minds on “Jeopardy.” But in the musical world, technology can be thought of as the enemy. Outside of certain styles of music, computer processing…
That machine wants your job
Several years out of the Great Recession haven’t produced the economic boom of many past US recoveries, and we continue to hear about the millions of Americans who have joined the ranks of the permanently unemployed. As Republicans continue to feather the nests of the rich with the failed expectation that they will create jobs,…
REVIEW: The Onion at UR
Two staffers from satirical newspaper The Onion gave a presentation at the University of Rochester’s Strong Auditorium Thursday night, and not surprisingly, hilarity ensued. Head Writer Seth Reiss and Features Editor Cole Bolton discussed the “history” (I use that term loosely) of The Onion, some of the most famous headlines it has printed over the…
Food stamp fight
House Republicans have passed legislation that would cut food stamp funding by $40 billion over the next four years. If there’s any upside, it’s this: the Senate won’t agree to such severe cuts. The Republican legislation passed by a mere seven votes, since even some GOP legislators thought the cuts too draconian. The cuts would…
2013 Rochester Fringe Festival Reviews
Reviews and photos from the 2013 First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival, which ran September 19-28.
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Cirque du Fringe
I kicked off my Fringe Festival experience in spectacular style with the opening night performance of headlining act Cirque du Fringe, in the Magic Crystal Spiegeltent. First, let it be said, the Spiegeltent is a beautiful venue and completely worthy of the hype it has received. The circus-y vibe of the site is undeniable, with…
Ratings games
Yesterday, the bond rating firm Standard & Poor’s upgraded the county’s ratings for several bonds. But last month, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the county’s rating.
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Matt Griffo
The First Niagara Rochester International Fringe Festival’s second year is here, and it seemed like a fitting way to start it off was with one of my favorite acts from last year, Chicago-based musical comedian Matt Griffo. It’s even more fitting given that Fringe is actually a homecoming of sorts for Griffo, who originally hails…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Mariah Maloney Dance, “The Goldilocks Score…”
If you braved the downtown streets once darkness fell and made it to the TheatreROCS stage at Xerox Auditorium Thursday night, you were rewarded with the brightly lit performance of Mariah Maloney Dance. (Sidebar: Why did I not spot a single police person, on foot or in car, anywhere in the vicinity to grant Fringe-goers…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: Rochester Playwrights
Not all theater has to be Eugene O’Neill (not that you see much O’Neill around here, anyway). It is instructive to see how much can be said in a couple of pages of pointed dialogue. The Geriactors, “Rochester’s Traveling Senior Theatre Troupe”, is an ensemble of six vastly experienced local actors you’ve seen everywhere over…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: The Sundry Tales of Festus Freely
Festus Freely will write a song about just about anything, whether it’s smuggling a rooster across the Canadian border or making an inappropriate remark about naked women during a church group meeting. Such bizarre life experiences serve as the lyrical backdrop for Freely’s folk explorations during his one man show, The Sundry Tales of Festus…
Fringe Fest 2013 Reviews: The Big Vaudeville Hook Comedy Hour
My first night at the 2013 Rochester Fringe Festival started in the Spiegeltent (in a word: fabulous) for the premiere of Cirque du Fringe. I won’t go into detail since Adam Lubitow did a great job reviewing it for us (insider knowledge: I’m the one who didn’t care for the emo clowns). All I will…
FRINGE 2013: What to see on Friday, September 27
The 2nd Annual First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival takes place Thursday, September 19-Saturday, September 28, with performances in 28 venues around Downtown Rochester. With more than 350 shows taking place over the course of 10 days — ranging from art exhibits to dance performances to theater shows to stand-up comedy to family events — it…
Theories and questions for a post-Richards race
He’s still on the November ballot, on the Working Families and Independence lines, but Mayor Tom Richards ended his campaign for re-election on Tuesday, citing serious health issues of a family member. Presumably if he had won last week’s Democratic primary, Richards would have continued to the general election, facing the Green Party’s Alex White.…
Feedback 9/18
We welcome your comments. Send them to themail@rochester-citynews.com, or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. For our print edition, we select comments from all three sources; those of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published, and we do edit selections for publication in…
COMEDY | The Onion
“Area college students to attend seminar held by greatest newspaper ever.” No, that’s not a real headline, but it may just be how the people over at The Onion would put it if they got the chance. America’s Finest News Source is coming to the University of Rochester, and you don’t want to pass up…
“Austenland”
Be it in novels, on television, or in the movies, love stories in popular culture have always had the (perhaps unintended) effect of creating unrealistic expectations of what romance should be. It’s this tendency that makes the genre so ripe for a good satirical takedown every now and again. Deflating these idealized notions of love…
SPECIAL EVENT | It’s a Jungle Out There!
As the fall season rapidly approaches, you have to get as much out of the remaining non-snow days as you can. Get in some last-ditch nature by attending the Rochester Garden Club’s “It’s a Jungle Out There” event, being held this week at Seneca Park Zoo. There will be dozens of zoo- and animal-inspired flower…
Chuck Mead and his Grassy Knoll Boys
“We’re gonna make sure shit gets broke at Abilene,” promises country singer/songwriter/all-around rambunctious hillbilly cat, Chuck Mead. And though he and his band, the Grassy Knoll Boys, will undoubtedly tear up the joint, Mead is a respectful artist who speaks with an excited reserve when talking about his latest platter, “Back at the Quonset Hut.”…
PLEX progress
City of Rochester officials say that they want residents of the Plymouth-Exchange neighborhood to know that they haven’t forgotten about a large brownfield redevelopment project along the Genesee River. In February, the city submitted an application to the state seeking additional funding for the Vacuum Oil Brownfield Opportunity Area. The funding would be used to…
SPECIAL EVENT | Cork & Fork
How do you make the region’s largest culinary showcase even better? By adding beer and a cooking competition. That’s exactly what the organizers of the 4th Annual Finger Lakes Cork & Fork decided to do this year. Head out to Seneca Falls and take part in this two-day culinary celebration that is sure to cause…
“Pump Boys and Dinettes”
Lightweight musical revues generally have short lives, but “Pump Boys and Dinettes” has proved surprisingly hardy. First produced in the early 1980’s as the off-est of Off Broadway shows, it eventually moved to the Big Street and ran for a year and a half. Thirty years later it is still going strong. Geva put on…
Scraps of knowledge
Most people probably see organic waste like food scraps as a burden to be disposed of as quickly as possible. But Cam Hebda, a sustainable systems graduate student at Rochester Institute of Technology, says he wants people to look at the materials in a different way. By throwing away organic waste and burying it in…
SPECIAL EVENT | Roc-Con
If you’re disappointed you couldn’t make it to Comic-Con International in San Diego this year, and that tickets are already sold out for next month’s New York Comic-Con in NYC, turn that frown upside down and head to Roc-Con 2013, Rochester’s very own convention. With sci-fi, comics, gaming, horror, and anime, you can let your…
Activist nun makes Rochester stop
The philosophy of the hard right is breathtaking in its strangulation of compassion, and in its self-righteous disregard of history. It is also, says Sister Simone Campbell, just plain bad for the country. Campbell is the executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby based in Washington, D.C. She is coming to Rochester later…
SPECIAL EVENTS | Play Ball/Roaring 20’s Ball
Looking for a big night out? This weekend there are at least two balls taking place in Rochester. They’re very different in scope, but both offer up a certain bit of nostalgia and activities that should make for a memorable evening. The Roaring 20’s Ball by local dance group Groove Juice Swing is the perfect…
ART: A separate piece
I don’t know how many artists in Rochester make their living solely from their artwork, but life being what it is, it’s certainly not the easiest endeavor. So working artists cram their passions where they fit, between day jobs and second jobs and perhaps parenting duties, and amid all of the little details that must…
School puzzles
Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas says that managing ambiguity has become one of his biggest challenges. For example, Vargas says that he supports teacher-led schools, where teachers and schools operate with as much autonomy as possible. But with greater autonomy with operations and programs comes greater accountability, he says. | “Teacher-led schools, in my definition,…
Spectrum of Sound: Aspects of Organ Music Since 1940
Professor David Higgs is a pretty smart guy. He’s a professor at the Eastman School of Music and he’s the chair of the Department of Organ, Sacred Music, and Keyboard Instruments. He’s an organist. He’s a jurist. And, he was smart enough to headline this year’s Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative Festival, based around modern organ…
ART: The end is the beginning
Even though autumn heralds the close of the year, and the death, decay, or otherwise slumberfest of nature, to me the crisp, fresh air always feels like a beginning. This probably comes in part from our everlasting association of autumn with going back to school. Now that school is back in session, many of the…
Urban Action 9/18
This week’s calls to action include the following events and activities. (All are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.) Immigration policy talk A group of faith, labor, and civil rights organizations will present the talk “Race, Community, and Immigration Bias” by the Rev. Luis Barrios at 7 p.m. on Saturday, September 28.…
“The Family”
The Mafia penetrates American life so deeply and fully that the organization provides the subject for both gangster films and comedies (mobedies?). Although the mob’s traditional business enterprises — robbery, drugs, prostitution, gambling, extortion, political corruption, etc., etc., usually accompanied by violence and bloodshed — hardly qualify as material for laughs, some writers and filmmakers…
THEATER: The trials of trying out
When depicted in the movies, theater auditions are usually fraught and drama-ridden. They can be that way in real life too, but most theater companies try to save the drama for the production, and to be as fair as possible. Different local community-theater groups do have different approaches to the all-important subject of auditioning, depending…
DINING REVIEW: Tap & Table
Tap & Table, the 14-month-old restaurant in Corn Hill Landing, hums with activity on a Saturday night. It’s one of the most talked about, written about, and Yelp-ped about players on the local food scene in the past year. In 2012 it won City Newspaper’s readers’ poll for best new restaurant. It’s got a great…
THEATER: The next act
I’ve always heard Rochester described as a “theater town,” a distinction that seems like a rare one in the days of TV on demand, web series, and all the other performance media that keep a distance between you and the performers. Judging from a look at the Greater Rochester area’s 2013-2014 theater calendar, we’re still…
TRANCE | Uplift
Known for its upfront melodies, accelerated tempos, and lustrous sound palette, trance music has been a mainstay of big rooms and giant festivals since the rave’s heyday. Trance can be at once deeply emotional, euphoric, energetic, and epic, reflecting the communal journey taken by those on the dancefloor. Trance producers tell stories with the tracks…
DANCE: On their toes
You can’t discuss the dance year in Rochester without bringing up Garth Fagan Dance, now in its 43rd year. Most locals — at least those with an interest in the arts — know about this powerhouse troupe, but, then again, the name should trip automatically off the tongue of anyone citing Rochester as their home…
FOLK | The Younger Gang
This Rochester-based folk outfit brings together members of the Windsor Folk Family, RootsCollider, Blackened Blues, and Sparx and Yarms. The resulting amalgamation is a deeply affecting foray into what you could call neo-Americana. The band’s unique approach to Old-timey Appalachian tunes is positively informed by, and infused with, the members’ rock, blues, funk, and electronica…
MUSIC: The sounds of autumn
The summer concert season might be dominated by large-scale festivals, giant outdoor concerts, and get-together shows everyplace that can throw together a stage. But just because summer is ending doesn’t mean that the musical good times have to stop once the leaves hit the ground. There’s a little bit for every music fan coming through…
DJ/ELECTRONIC | Cherub
*UPDATE: This show has been cancelled. Refunds available at point of purchase, rescheduled date to be announced.* Jordan Kelley is a slick studio guru and crafty songwriter with a feathery falsetto. Jason Huber fills the remaining space with effect-driven guitar work that is expertly executed, whether in house or on the stage. Put the two…
MUSIC: Classical smorgasbord
This is the first classical season since I started writing for City that I believe includes a concert and a composer for everyone. For someone like me, with far-flung musical tastes, it means I will be at concert after concert, throughout the entire season. So, allow me to offer three top picks on the season,…
DJ/Electronic | Jameson Alexander
Who has the house? Rochester has the house! While Jameson Alexander may be local, he is pumping out house that sounds much more far reaching. Taking a break from being a resident DJ at One Nightclub, he is lending his talents down the street and a little further underground. Also appearing will be Conjur, who…
FILM: Cinema paradiso
It used to be that there was a sharp, clear-cut line dividing the popcorn-movie trifles of summer from the highbrow, cerebral films of the fall movie season. But over the past several years, it’s become virtually impossible to distinguish between the two. Sure, there are still plenty of brainy prestige pictures to be found at…
JAZZ FUSION | Greg Byers
Rochester native Greg Byers started playing cello as a toddler. After graduating from the University of Miami, Byers tested the waters of the Los Angeles music scene and eventually moved to Minneapolis, where he now resides. Byers is a singer-songwriter whose fall concert tour and new EP are financed by donations from a Kickstarter project.…
OUTDOORS: Whatever floats your boat
When fall rolls in, and the temperatures cool down, spending time outdoors becomes even more enjoyable. No more sunburns, no more sweating, and no more humidity. It’s not time to go inside just yet. Now is your chance to throw on a light jacket, and do things it was too hot to do just a…
FOLK | The Whale & The Warbler
Geneseo-based The Whale & The Warbler is a nu-folk act whose sound feels relevant to the times, thanks to the nu-folk explosion that has been taking place for the past five years or so — most notably in the UK. As a result, the band’s sound fits in well with bands such as Noah &…
FOOD: Cider house rules
It’s one of those magical signs that fall has arrived: our favorite autumnal flavors show up on restaurant menus. Pumpkin and apple everything are suddenly everywhere. Living in the second-largest apple-growing state in the United States (only Washington has us beat), it’s impossible to turn anywhere without seeing the tree-borne fall fruit. Soil just south…
WORLD MUSIC | Saakumu Dance Troupe
The Saakumu Dance Troupe hails from Ghana (Africa), performing spiritual, ceremonial, recreational, and contemporary African dance forms. It is led by Bernard Woma. According to the group’s Facebook page, Woma’s father handed him mallets as an infant and he began playing the “gyil” when he was only 2 years old. The gyil is a traditional…
CALENDAR: Special Events Guide
Summer may be over, but it’s not time to head indoors yet. Rochester has plenty of events to keep you busy through the fall. In fact, there are so many that we couldn’t possibly fit them all in one place. This listing of events — running roughly through the holidays — will get you started,…
FESTIVAL | First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival
The Rochester Fringe Festival returns this week, and for Year 2 it’s bigger and better. This year’s festival has been expanded from five days to 10 after the big success of last year’s inaugural fest. Like they say, double your pleasure, double your fun. This year’s festival will run Thursday, September 19, through Saturday, September…
