Solow Fest Is Back with Its 2022 Theme: Reinvention

SolowFest has returned for a 12th year! June 17th-27th, 2022 will give the city 10 days of experimental and boundary-pushing performance.

SolowFest will have art all over the city, and the range of performances will be just as diverse. Some shows are self-guided tours, while others are live music shows, or in a "white box" instead of your classic black box theater. You can choose what suits you, but you'll always be surprised! All shows are encouraged to be Pay What You Can, with a suggested donation.

The Philadelphia Inquirer described attending a Solow shows as "truly independent, raw, sometimes improvisational events for which you pay what you can to savor a magically small, one-of-a-kind experience." SolowFest aims to re-earn that every year with a wide-array of artists and art. 2022 will see another festival of avant-garde, unique art filling every corner and some moving vehicles in Philadelphia. SolowFest's theme this year is "Reinvention." Solow's team wants to see how artists are handling a budding and new and ever changing, strange world. What is it making them create?

The administrative team of local and established artists and arts administrators Chris Davis, Bella Capelli, Hallie Malina, Alex Werthauer, and Kaitlyn Zion, lead the charge in supporting experimental artists from all over Philadelphia.

"Solow fills a need ... they not only create a forum for the extremely underfunded artists, they also manufacture a uniquely safe space which encourages both artists and audiences to take risks on boundary-breaking theater." -Philadelphia Inquirer

We are a do-it-yourself arts festival dedicated to new, experimental work. We strive to be low-maintenance and low-budget, or "so low to the ground", allowing artists to new create work on whatever scale lets it see light- to put art anywhere, on any terms. You can do a show for only 1 person at a time, or while walking across the city, or between 2 cities and over the internet. Shows can be public or private, and about anything they need to show you, the audience.

Solow hosts many different shows this year happening all over the city. For a full list that will be growing right up through the festival, please visit https://solowfest.squarespace.com.

Testing Site by Daniel Burgess

Created by Daniel Burgess and Performed by Mike Anthony

In a humdrum white box, A mysteriously sounding British man conducts their annual test on ... Phobias! Actually, it's been a couple years since - probably more than a couple years since - this test is way overdue. However with the help of their assistant, Jeffery, I think they'll be able to pull it off this time around! These phobias will be tested on, none other than, Daniel Burgess! The self conceited writer who decided to put himself in the show. Let's see him suffer, shall we?

June 27th at 7:30PM

TBD

PWYC (Minimum $3), box office email: dcburgess8012@outlook.com

60 Minutes

Snakes and Ladders

An incantation of Alan Moore's lucid prose by award-winning physical theater artist Nick Gillette.

"The written page becomes too frail a barrier. Things start to tear their way through from the other side"

Snakes & Ladders is a forest of dense, gorgeous prose. From the big bang, to DNA's accidental emergence, to the pre-raphaelite artists of Northampton's Red Lion Square, Alan Moore's text weaves an urgent script up the cabalistic tree of knowledge. Performed by award winning physical theater artist Nick Gillette.

WHEN- June 24th and June 25th at 8PM

WHERE- Pig Iron Studios - 1417 N. 2nd St. Philadelphia, PA 19122

HOW- No one turned away for lack of funds! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/338486069947

Runtime- Approx. 50 Minutes

Unthinkable Cramps by Tony Espino

"I was working in a very popular museum here in the city as a security guard for 18 years when we acquired a unique item from an anonymous source one night: tapes labeled "Unthinkable Cramps." Special instructions to not play the tapes under any circumstances were given. But being the ruthless maniac I am, built for disobedience, I snuck back in after hours and set up an old VCR. I fed the first tape in the machine and hit play. In a seeming act of self-defense the tape ejected itself and did karate. The other tapes joined in and soon it was a bloodbath between VHS tapes. Before I knew it high kicks and throat chops had turned those reckless monsters into run on sentences, encrypted and mysterious. I bribed the private investigator I kept hidden in the wall to decipher the chaos before me. And for the first time ever the contents of that broadcast from another dimension were mine to behold. And now you can experience the uncanny world of Unthinkable Cramps like I did on that wacky Wednesday. (Hump day, am I right?) Hurry before the secret agents for Big Museum find out and order an army of spirits to be resurrected to rescramble the frequencies inside The Warehouse of consciousness fueling Unthinkable Cramps."

All Day. Every Day.

https://tonyespino.wordpress.com/unthinkable-cramps-season-1/

Runtime: 60 min

Price- FREE!

Learn more at https://solowfest.squarespace.com.

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