Time for weekend calendar picks from KC Studio editor Alice Thorson. The Kansas City Dance Festival continues through July 21st, with master dance classes and open rehearsal at Quixotic studios through this week and the main event at Gem Theater Saturday and Sunday. The 2018 KC Fringe Fest begins TONIGHT, with performances at various venues throughout the city through July 29th. We’ve highlighted a few shows this weekend at Arts Asylum, Unicorn Theatre and more. Saturday night, enjoy the gypsy folk rock stylings of Zoltan & the Fortune Tellers at Concourse Park, part of Northeast Arts KC‘s Summerdusk FREE concert series. Summerfest continues, with performances at White Recital Hall on Saturday and St Mary’s Episcopal on Sunday. And Saturday, listen to Internal Jazz Ambassador Lisa Henry at The Blue Room. For more events this weekend, visit Kansas City’s most comprehensive arts calendar at kcstudio.org/events.
Kansas City Dance Festival 2018
July 14, 2018 – July 21, 2018 | Free – $100
July 16th – 19th: MASTER DANCE CLASSES
Venue TBA
Class Fee: $30
July 18: DANCE FORUM/Open Rehearsal (Free to the Public)
Quixotic Studio – 1616 Broadway
5:30 – 7:00 PM
Reception to Follow
July 20th – 21st: “Artist Residency”- MAIN EVENT ($35-$45 &*VIP $100)
Gem Theater
1601 E 18th Street Kansas City, MO 64108
18th & Vine
7:3o PM
2018 KC Fringe Festival
July 19, 2018 – July 29, 2018
The 14th annual Fringe Festival KC– where adventurous audiences meet adventurous artists. This 11-day explosion of unjuried, uncensored performing and visual arts features performers and creators from all over- local, national and international. Fringe Festival KC is the biggest celebration of arts and culture in the Kansas City metropolitan region. Will you join us on the Fringe?
A selection of 2018 Fringe Festival shows this weekend….
#WTF Happened? On the Phenomenon of Trump
July 20, 2018 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
July 21, 2018 @ 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Musical Theater Heritage
How did a brash billionaire developer and reality TV star bluster his way to the White House? Is Trumpism a true political movement or just another way to increase the value of his brand? Actor / writer Erik Abbott plays five Trump voters, a Coal Miner, a Congresswoman, a Christian, a guy you may know, a guy you don’t—some based on published articles about real people. Their voices—funny, sympathetic, scary?—create a vivid theatrical journey through the cultural complexities of the Trump era.
Overture the Musical
July 20 & 22, 2018 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
July 21, 2018 @ 9:30 pm – 10:30 pm
Arts Asylum
This is a story about saving something beautiful. Overture celebrates the extraordinary grass-roots effort to help the Kansas City Philharmonic survive during its 1953-1954 season. In 1953, the Kansas City Philharmonic debuted its first opera festival and Jewel Ball, and was striving to become a world-renowned orchestra. At the same time, it was fighting for financial survival. Hundreds of tenacious, music-loving Kansas Citians came to its rescue through numerous curious and creative ways.
INTRUSION
July 20, 2018 @ 9:00 pm
July 21, 2018 @ 10:30 pm
July 22, 2018 @ 6:00 pm
Squeezebox Theatre
“Powerful” solo play by Qurrat Ann Kadwani with 8 characters written and performed by 2018 Best Performer Winner “Tour-de-Force” Qurrat Ann Kadwani from NYC. Set 20 years in the future when rape is supposedly eradicated, helping to raise awareness about sexual violence and combat systemic oppression. Politics, media, the legal system, psychology, education, male and female sexual assault, LGBTQ inclusivity come together to unravel the intricacy of rape culture.
Slurry
July 21, 2018 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
July 22, 2018 @ 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Unicorn Theatre
In the middle of the night, an intoxicated Wade Cruze climbs through the window of the bedroom where his ex-girlfriend Sherry is asleep. She’s not happy to see Wade until he reveals that his life is in danger because of his job at the chocolate manufacturing plant where both of them_ and Sherry’s current beau_ work. This one-act drama, set in a small Missouri town where people work until they die, was written by Mike Rice and directed by Scott Cordes.
Mark Toland: Mind Reader
July 21, 2018 @ 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm
July 22, 2018 @ 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Westport Coffeehouse
“A TRULY MAGICAL EXPERIENCE” – Theatre Is Easy
Six-time festival award winner presents a mysterious, MIND BLOWING show. The audience is the cast, your thoughts are his props, and your mind is his stage.
“This show will BLOW YOUR MIND” – Orlando News Now
“Audience Choice” – FRIGID NYC
“Pick of Fringe” – Orlando Fringe
“Top Selling Show” – Chicago Fringe
“Toland brilliantly combines comedy, magic and even a splash of philosophy into this MUST-SEE PERFORMANCE.” – Theme Park University
Get Thee Behind Me, Santa: An Inexcusably Filthy Children’s Time-Travel Farce for Adults Only
July 21, 2018 @ 7:30 pm
July 22, 2018 @ 3:00 pm
The Writers Place
a solo storytelling show by phillip andrew bennett low
“Dear readers, heave your minds up, because you are about to experience the naked bulk of phillip’s words.”
– Joseph Scrimshaw, author of Comedy of Doom
It’s December 21st, 2012, and something’s gone terribly wrong with the timeline. Now it’s up to Saint Nicholas, a soft-boiled detective, and an unknown carpenter’s son named Jesus of Nazareth to set things right in this giddily blasphemous collection of literary parodies by internationally touring storyteller phillip andrew bennett low!
WARNING: may contain mature language, as well as immature and insensitive humor regarding genitalia, flatulence, regurgitation, sex, drugs, rock and roll, lies, videotape, duct tape, tapeworms, subversion of ethnic stereotypes, fulfilment of ethnic stereotypes, hate culture, rape culture, ape culture, horticulture, and/or a deep reverence for deep irreverence. Not for the faint of heart or stomach.
Inner Reformation: An Autobiography Danced
July 21, 2018 @ 8:00 pm
July 22, 2018 @ 5:00 pm
Todd Bolender Center for Dance & Creativity
“What do you love most?” Almost two years in the making, this one-woman dance in twelve parts is an autobiographical exploration of that question, powerfully portraying themes of relationships and physical and mental health. From beginning to end, the aesthetic and narrative are both profoundly personal and broadly relatable as expressions of human joy, pain, freedom and hope are shared at the deepest level. Danced by Tessa Priem, see innerreformation.org for more details.
Summer Dusk Free Concert Series
July 20, 2018 @ 7:00 pm | Free
Concourse Park
Join us for FREE Live Music every 3rd Friday This summer at the Colonnade building in Concourse Park. (JFK Memorial) St John and Gladstone Blvd. KCMO
In case of RAIN- we will perform at 2657 Independence Blvd. Look in Facebook to verify a change of venue.
July 20. ZOLTAN & the FORTUNE TELLERS Gypsy folk rock
Bring your own lawn chairs, blankets and coolers. Family Friendly. This is an OUTDOOR event for the family
SUMMERFEST 2018
July 21, 2018 @ 7:30 pm
White Recital Hall
July 22, 2018 @ 3:00 pm
St. Mary’s Episcopal
Join Summerfest as they explore “the art and soul of chamber music” in July, 2018.
Our third week finds Summerfest looking at the connections between art and chamber music. Libby Larsen’s Black Birds, Red Hills uses six paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe for inspiration. Albert Roussel’s Serenade for Flute, String Trio, and Harp paints with a lightness of timbre. Alyssa Morris’s Brush Strokes creates impressions of four painters – Monet, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Pollock – by recreating their painting gestures in music. Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Trio in D minor ends the week by mirroring the late works of great painters in its economy of colors and depth of expression.
Lisa Henry
July 21, 2018 @ 8:30 pm | $10
American Jazz Museum – The Blue Room
Classy. Earthy. Down Home. Fun. Lisa Henry is the essence of swingin’ cool, with A Voice That Does It All.
In the company of Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, this International Jazz Ambassador makes musical magic when she greets the microphone. With her sincere, warm vocal delivery, classic vocal interpretations and unique improvisations, Lisa takes the listener to musical Nirvana.
Raised on music, Lisa began her early singing career in the Baptist Church at the age of 6. By age 12, she had been exposed to the music of Billie Holiday and Miles Davis. Having heard the improvisational magic of Billie and Miles, Lisa turned to jazz, and has been a narrator of the art form ever since.
Her professional jazz career began in the nightclubs of Kansas City at age 17. She was mentored by the great Hammond B-3 player, Everette Devan, and cut her big band “teeth”, performing with the Vince Bilardo Big Band and Steve Miller Orchestra.
Lisa Henry is an artist of vast accomplishments, both in and outside the realm of performance. These accomplishments include the recently televised PBS Special: In Performance at the White House, First runner-up in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition, International Jazz Ambassador to Africa, CD recordings, BET documentaries, and recognition as an international clinician and adjudicator.
As a jazz educator, Lisa takes the legacy and brilliance of jazz into classrooms and college campuses across the world. Through interactive assembly programs and vocal clinics, residencies, music business workshops, and performance adjudications, her teachings reach students from pre-school to university level.
Lisa Henry thrills audiences at home and abroad. International tours include Mumbai and Calcutta, India with Kenny Garrett; South America “Expo Cumbre” tour with Herbie Hancock; Southern and Eastern Africa tour with T.S. Monk, and a month-long performance and educational tour in Madagascar.
Throughout her stellar career, Lisa has, and continues to share the spotlight with many world renowned artists: Herbie Hancock, Anita Baker, Kenny Garrett, Clark Terry, Nnenna Freelon, Ted Curson, Rosemary Clooney, Kenny Barron, Roy Hargrove, Kevin Mahogany, Frank Mantooth, Norman Simmons, Ruben Alvarez, Tom “Bones” Malone, Lenny Pickett, Grady Tate, Terri Lyne Carrington, Jack McDuff, T.S. Monk, Claude “Fiddler” Willliams, Carmel Jones, Doc Cheethem, Wayne Shorter and Lou Rawls, to name a few.
An engaging performer, Lisa’s charm and charisma, combined with her vocal abilities, make her a performing artist of the highest caliber.
