Arts & Culture

Culture Lust Weekend: eighth blackbird, Fat Freddy's Drop, and Zirk Ubu

By Wendy Fry / Web Producer, Angela Carone / Cultural Enterprise Reporter

Published November 19, 2009 at 10:44 AM PST

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

The Eighth Blackbird, a Grammy-award winning chamber music band, will perform at The Loft Saturday.

I'm going to be cleaning, menu planning and baking this weekend, but if I was going out, I would do one of the following...

Let's start with tonight.

There's an opening at at The Eric Phleger Gallery in Encinitas. It's called "Unzipped" and it features work by artists from Leucadia, Encinitas and Cardiff-by-the-Sea, including Cheryl Sorg and Kim McConnell.

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Zirk Ubu, an absurdist circus performance group, will perform at SUSHI, A Center for the Urban Arts.

If the circus of the absurd or absurd circuses are your thing, then you want to be at SUSHI tonight. Zirk Ubu performs this Thursday through Sunday under the direction of contemporary choreographer and UCSD professor of dance, Liam Clancy. Think burlesque meets Fellini meets acrobats and aerial work.

This weekend offers four terrific music options so I'll leave it up to you to pick your musical poison.

Chamber music ensemble the eighth blackbird is performing at UCSD's The Loft. They won a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance and their producer, Judy Sherman, was awarded a Grammy for best classical producer. They take their lower-case name from the Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

Fat Freddy's Drop is a seven-piece roots, dub, reggae, jazz, and soul band from Wellington, New Zealand and they're performing Saturday night at World Beat Center. Check out the video.

Fat Freddy's Drop

And Derrik Chin from SignOn San Diego was on Weekend Preview today and turned me on to a band from Tijuana called La Ballena de Jonas. They'll be performing at the Tin Can Alehouse. All great Saturday night options - though very different.

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Orchestra Nova performs their "Haydn Seek "concert at three different locations this weekend. "Haydn Seek" celebrates the bicentennial of the death of “Papa” Haydn with “L’anima de fiosofo” from Orfeo ed Euridice Overture, Cello Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 45 (Farewell).

If you work in the high-tech industry, you should think about going this weekend because Orchestra Nova is offering a special 20% discount to San Diego’s high-tech employees as a way of honoring their contribution to the San Diego community.

While you're all having fun, I'll be baking pies and stressing about my turkey (I'm hosting 15 people so far!) Enjoy your weekend and please let me know if one of these events knocked your socks off!