San Diego weekend arts events: Rule 42, Hip-Hop Nutcracker, Sepideh Shamloufard, red fish blue fish, and Omar Lopex

Speaker 1: (00:00)

This weekend preview takes us from a puppetry elephant heist to hip hop, Sugarplum fairies, and some interesting places in between. Joining me with all the details is KPBS arts editor and producer Julia Dixon Evans, and welcome Julia.

Speaker 2: (00:16)

Hi Maureen. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: (00:18)

The Murray Hitchcock puppet theater in bell boa park will bring back an audience. Favorite Henri steals and elephant. What do you know about Henri?

Speaker 2: (00:28)

Right? This is a performance from max Daley, who is a renowned visual artists who won the 2018 San Diego art prize. This was alongside Bob Matheeney and he's also a puppeteer and operates this eccentric art project slash real sardine shop in Seaport village, which is called Oslo sardine bar and max daily. He spent the pandemic hosting regular tea times with Henri, his puppet on Instagram live and grew this really loyal following it's really wholesome. And the play is hand puppets and shadow puppets only with a single puppeteer. I talk to daily this week and the plot is as simple as it is kind of absurd.

Speaker 3: (01:11)

He's like an overtired French guy, and, uh, you only would really know that by his Stripe shirt and he loves tea. So he's drinking tea, and I think he's kind of bored with not having much to do. And he finds out that the circus is coming to town and they're looking for acts. So he tries to come up with a performance and he comes up with an idea for an elephant to climb up a high dive and do a dive into one of his teacups, but he doesn't have an elephant. So he goes to the San Diego zoo to get one

Speaker 2: (01:40)

There's, lots of Commedia dell'arte influence there's vaudeville and punching Judy antics. And the show runs just this weekend and next, and on next Friday, the 12th, they'll also be a special evening performance where Henri will join in the morning glory family band for a performance. And they will also go live on Instagram for a special tea time

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Performances of Henri, steels and elephant are Friday through Sunday at 11 one and 3:00 PM this weekend and next at the Murray Hitchcock puppet theater in Belvaux apart, the hip hop Nutcracker, it comes to town this weekend. What do you know about this?

Speaker 2: (02:22)

This is a touring production for just one night and probably the first holiday related thing you can do. It's choreographed by Jennifer Weber with a cast of a dozen dancers, a DJ and alive violinist, but with a few exceptions, it uses the original checkoffs in score. So there's hip hop, dance break, dancing all happening to this familiar classical music it's set in present day, New York city, but again, the same familiar characters to you. They're just wearing sneakers there's there's mice, there's Maria Clara, the Nutcracker prince, that land of sweets. And when I first witnessed this, it almost felt like it was, it was more surprising and startling to me than if it had a hip hop score. It really does show off the technical structures and the expressiveness of hip hop as a dance form. And it's this Saturday at seven o'clock at the civic theater, and they are requiring proof of vaccination or negative COVID test within 72 hours.

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And once again, the hip-hop Nutcracker will be performed Saturday night at the civic theater. There's an exhibition at the Benita museum and cultural center. That includes the poetry of code,

Speaker 2: (03:35)

Right? It's called rule 42 stretched language. And this is an exhibition based around the idea of visual poetry and mathematical poetry and how we can use that to understand the world it's curated by via Roberto, who used to be the gallery director of the art gallery at Southwestern college. There's a conceptual piece in the show. That's written on a TSR 80 machine in basic code language. There's also every shirt, poetry and video works in sculptural installations. And tomorrow's opening reception, which is from four 30 to seven 30. That will include some poetry and spoken word performances from Alex [inaudible] and Rosa Sandoval. And the Bonita museum is always free. And it's open every Wednesday through Saturday from 10 to 4 42

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Stretched language exhibition opens at the Benita museum tomorrow and runs through December 3rd. Now a virtual option, red fish, blue fish performs a live stream on Saturday. Can you remind us about this group?

Speaker 2: (04:44)

Right? This is the famous experimental percussion ensemble out of UC San Diego's music department. As all helmed by Steven Schick, there'll be live streaming two works there's ad 2019 piece by [inaudible] called to give you form and breadth, which is inspired by joy. Harjo his poetry. And then the 2009 work timber by Michael Gordon, which is utterly mesmerizing. The ensemble plays in a circle with six two by fours, cut to specific sizes to get distinct pitches. And that's it. The only instrument both of these works are for found or custom made instruments like those two by fours or flower pots, resonant metals and glass bottles too. There will be a small audience at this, but it's only accessible to current UC San Diego students, faculty, or staff, so that they can show the current campus COVID protocol. And the rest of us can watch from home

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Fish blue fish, we'll perform a live stream Saturday at 5:00 PM. And finally, on Monday you can check out a debut feature film, Anna, who they pulled out of the river. It's screening at the new theater at the

Speaker 2: (05:57)

Right it's from standard fantastic pictures and filmmaker, Omar Lopez about a woman, Anna, who is abandoned as an infant along the banks of the Tijuana river and raised in a sort of collective parenting feat by the entire city of Tijuana. And the mother returns 20 years later to find her daughter grown and powerful. There's lots of dream sequences and artistic structures that the filmmaker plays with. Like it's in black and white on 16 millimeter analog film, and the score consists of different arrangements at a single song. It's the standard. The world is waiting for the sunrise it's arranged and performed by locals Clinton, Ross Davis and Mara K

Speaker 1: (06:48)

The film screens Monday at 1 34 30 and 7:30 PM at the Mingei for details on these and more arts events or to sign up for Julia's weekly curated arts newsletter go to kpbs.org/arts. I've been speaking with KPBS arts producer and editor, Julia Dixon Evans. And thank you, Julia.

Speaker 2: (07:09)

Thank you, Maureen. Have a good weekend.