Art’s Birthday to include global entries
Kevin Maimann & the Pretty Things, Pizzarrhea!!!, Himiko, added to diverse lineup
EDMONTON – Composers and performers from two countries outside Canada will have works included in Art’s Birthday 2015 Edmonton, the Boreal Electroacoustic Music Society announced today. The event, part of an international celebration of art, takes place Saturday, Jan. 17 at the Ortona Armoury (9722-102 Street), starting at 8 p.m. Admission is $10.
The overseas contributions will feature local acts improvising over the works. Italian dancer and performance artist Alessandra Zerbinati, who goes by the stage name Lametàfisica, will have her piece “Yummy Gummy Corpse” receive a live treatment by Edmonton experimentalists Agaperaygunexperiment. Japan’s Okada Koichi, a.k.a. Tamayurakurage — a native of Hiroshima — will feature his anti-nuke work and video “We Must Prevent the Collapse of the World” include accompaniment on clarinet by Don Ross.
Edmonton Sun reporter and award-winning songwriter Kevin Maimann, no stranger to bizarre subject matter, will contribute a set that includes his backup band The Pretty Things. Also expect a noisy session with Pizzarrhea!!!, practitioners of schizophrenic camp. Himiko, whose recent CD Victims of Greed dominated national campus noise charts, will also perform solo and with worldbeat metallurgists Tribal Garage. Rounding out the lineup will be Shawn Pinchbeck, Skrunt Skrunt, John Osbourne, Apophecy, S’sE SESSIONS, Stephen Sereda & Trixie Moon, Lutra Lutra, and Shae Guerin and Fecal Point.
The Ortona event will mark the eighth time that an Art’s Birthday event has taken place in Edmonton. The first show in 2008, facilitated by the Film and Video Arts Society (FAVA), took place at the ARTery. The Edmonton Arts Council staged an underwater gala at Scona Pool to celebrate the event the following year. Since 2010, BEAMS has presented Art’s Birthday Edmonton at such locales as Naked Cyber Cafe, Bohemia and Brittany’s.
Art’s Birthday is an annual event first proposed in 1963 by French artist Robert Filliou, who suggested that the muse was first invented more than a million years ago when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. The artist chose Jan. 17, his birthday, as the date of the event, which is largely celebrated in Europe, although other continents have slowly joined the fray of the festivities.
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Contact:
Phil Jagger, curator
780-437-5014
satoreye@telus.net
