Tom Swirly's Psych-o-delic Circus is a new weekly variety show featuring actor / musicians Tom Swirly and Jeremy X. Halpern. Each week features the music of Tom Swirly, Jeremy X. Halpern,and special guest dancers,musicians,and performance artists. It is performed at Cave Canem (First Avenue between 1st and 2nd Streets_
The Circus begins in the dark. Tom Swirly takes the stage, tattered lab coat trailing, coaxing slow the music is foreboding and disorienting. The lights start to flash and glow, Jeremy Weirdos joins in and triggers samples from the Three Stooges. Then the powerful voice of Tom Swirly's Electro-Acoustical Wind Instrument hammers out a driving beat; he grabs a loop, sings over it with layers of angelic and demonic voices. This is the dancers' cue: they emerge from the corners, slowly feeling for the rhythm, getting more wired till they climb all over the stage. More acts; some noisy, some beautiful, some energetic. The dancers adapt, gain strength, form arabesques. The lights rise to a climax: a strobe! the audience goes wild.
Tom Swirly has been playing the electronic wind instrument for almost twenty years. He's played all over the world, including an hour-long show on Sydney's Bondi Radio, a performance at the 2004 Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, a recent show at the KEK Gallery in Budapest and of course countless performances all over the New York City area. He's written music for theatre, dance and video performances. As a long-time member of the avant-garde performance group Verge, he's participated in all of their major productions, including "Return to Oz" and "The Space Show".
He's also an accomplished actor and magician, having performed with various New York-area companies including Faux-Real Theatre Company, where he had the title role in their first production of "William Shakespeare's Haunted House" (which went on to almost ten years in repertory), and Gorilla Rep (where he performed numerous comic roles as part of their production of Henry IV parts I and II). In 2007, a play about his life was written by New York's Youngblood Playwright's group and had an extended run in Brooklyn's Brick Theatre; this led to a controversial and allegedly inaccurate New York Times article about Mr. Swirly, complete with color photo. His photographs have appeared all over the net and in Time Out New York; his extreme NY mailing list has been a staple of the New York underground scene for over 8 years; and he's a familiar figure at parties and events all over the city.
Jeremy X. Halpern (Jeremy Weirdos) is the Ringleader of the Psych-o-delic Circus. He founded the multimedia performance group Verge in 1987; they will be performing their 20th Anniversary concert this summer. As the sole proprietor of 1-800-Weirdos (http://www.weirdos.com) he creates music from the random callers to the 800 number, as well as maintaining an Internet radio station and Weirdos podcast, which is available free through the iTunes Music Store. As an actor he has performed on stage and in films and video including acclaimed Iranian director Amir Naderi's "Sound Barrier". As a director he has masterminded such bizarre epics as "Speak of the Devil (A Satanic Cabaret)" and "Battle of the Dead Celebs". As a composer, he has invented soundtracks for Verge as well as having scored many short films.
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