Sept 10: Here's the first week's recap, as I'm slowly getting caught up. Please note that while I haven't been updating this page daily, I have managed to be getting the unedited galleries posted more regularly, so if you're really in a hurry to see the latest pictures, you can always browse those (scroll all the way down)

So yesterday (Sept 9) was a bit of a slower day shooting day me- loads of computer work in the morning, and barely took any pictures at the cabaret (I sort of hit my mid-festival burnout point, where I realize that I'm doing the job of two or three photographers every pm, plus an editor, archivist and web person in the morning, and that multiple all nighters per week is not healthy...) - at any rate, I caught the second installment of the "Uhaul Trilogy" which takes place in a rental box truck (actually not a Uhaul) - definitely an interesting performance space- but beware, it gets *hot* in there, so come well hydrated- someone passed out at the end of the show and we had to carry her out of the performance. Then I managed to sneak abord the sold-out "Guided Tour", which took us for a trolley tour through the life of a philadelphia tour guide. Afterwards I poked my nose in for the last segment of Headlong's "Cell" (also sold out- if you haven't gotten your tickets to this week's shows yet, hurry up!) I finished off the evening with "Autopilot", where Lars and his crew recreate the story of The Little Prince through the story of a downed fighter pilot lost in the desert. Great use of an overhead projector in this one-

For a few images from Sept 9, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Sept 8 - Caught Nieuwe Nederlandse Dans, which was really nice to see but infuriating to photograph (it's really quiet and tricky light, and I coudn't move around and click as much as I would have wanted to to do it justice- wish I'd made it to the dress rehearsal) - Then over to the Mum Puppet Theater for a double bill featuring Dead Genius Productions and Workshop for Potential Movement - "It or Her" told the disturbing story of a man locked in his basement obsessed with his collection of figurines. "Speak! Mascot" features a Aram Aghazarian in a giant blue fluffy dragon mascot costume. Crazy. Lastly I caught the Bald Mermaids show which had some great dance (again, tricky to photograph due to space and light constraints), a really fun ending, and a great performance by the gallery's resident feline.

For a few images from Sept 8, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Sept 7 - Started off in west philly for a dress rehearsal of Miro Dance Theatre's "Lie To Me" - I had a lot of fun with these guys when we were doing the postcards for the show, so had been looking fwd to it. Again, a hard lighting setup to shoot. Some really nice mixtures of dance with projections in it (multimedia by Tobin Rothlein, who's actually on stage for this one) - Then I headed over to the Pennsylvania Hospital where Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyford (of All Wear Bowlers fame) were rehearsing for their new piece "Amnesia Curiosa". It takes place in the historic operating amphitheater at the hospital, which is an impressive enough venue in and of itself. The show was still working out a few kinks, and I didn't get to see it with full lighting, as the sun was still coming through the dome overhead, but there were some really nice moments. I finished the evening off with "Convent"- which my housemate didn't quite like, but I thought it was the best thing ever. Beautifully done, and a bit dark and twisted which fits right in line with my sense of humor.

For a few images from Sept 7, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Sept 6 - Ballet X has some really impressive dance over at the Wilma- The first piece was a bit harder for me to shoot, as I would have wanted to be actually running around onstage with them - Then for more dance I headed over to the Painted Bride where Nichole Canuso was rehearsing "Fail Better", a piece inspired by her child playing with blocks. It was a great mix of childish wonder and science fiction bizareness. There's a really fun little animation that you should also check out on Google Video from when we took the pictures for her postcard. I then popped over to Pennsylvania Hospital to check out the set of "Amnesia Curiosa" before heading to Nexus for Fresh Meat's "Dilated" - I didn't know what to expect from this one, and even after the fact I don't quite know what it was except for absurd, bizarre and funny as hell.

For a few images from Sept 6, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Sept 5: Kate Watson-Wallace's "House" takes place in a house. And it's great dance, but rather than calling it dance one should really call it just rebelion against gravity. Later when I was uploading one of the pictures into the slideshow at the cabaret, I thought at a glance that I had rotated it wrong- but no, the picture was right, and it was indeed the dancer and the furniture that were ninety degrees off of where one would expect them. And the last scene of this one is exquisitely surreal. It's all sold out, but there are rumors of them adding shows, so keep an eye out... I then caught a snippet of another site-specific performance in a different house across town, where TwoFish were preparing for "Christiane Muller zieht um" - unfortunately I just caught a snippet and missed the actual performance. My evening ended with two fringe theater pieces, "Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco" and "Alive or With Any Dignity" - I could tell you how much fun they were, but again, their runs are already over. The best way to hear about these shows with enough time to actually catch them is for you to talk to people in person at the box office or cabaret, or to volunteer.

For a few images from Sept 5, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Sept 4: This is where everything got screwed up. See, I went out to breakfast in the morning with a friend who's getting ready to leave the country for a year. Got back from a great brunch, and was gearing up to go out shooting but then realized that in my sleep deprived craziness, I'd hadn't properly fixed a download error before wiping my memory cards, and as a result I'd completely about 2500 of the pictures that I'd taken at a wedding in DC the day before. I knew that there was a reason why I was hesitant to try to squeeze that one into the festival craziness, but man, this was the biggest screwup of my life. Luckily I noticed the problem before going out and re-filling the erased cards, which would have made them totally irretrievable. So I started a massive data salvage operation- I had twelve blank cards, and didn't know which seven of them had the pictures that I was trying to save. And it takes about four hours to recover a card. And the software can only do one card at a time. And I couldn't go back out shooting until I had cards that I knew were safe to re-use. HUGE THANKS to my amazing neighbors who dropped everything at a moment's notice and brought their laptops to my house to help out. (Claire Iltis, Elysa Voshell, Peter Haarz, Joe Barber and Andrea Alessi, you guys are lifesavers!) - Once I'd gotten a few cards cleared, I headed cross town to catch a dress rehearsal of Lee Etzold's "Ps & Qs", a super fun piece about dinner party etiquette. Then I went off to jail, where I caught "The Ballad of Joe Hill" at Eastern State Penitentiary - The space is gorgeous, and they do a great job of using a tricky deep and narrow performance space. Then over to the Cabaret for the Rockys dance awards celelbration. Good times, but I was still being a bit stressed about the whole "I just deleted half of my friends wedding pictures" thing. Went home where my room was still packed with seven computers running data recovery software. The salvage operation took until 7am, and it was my second all-nighter of the week, but whew, they were all safe. Crazy stressful. So that's what's set me behind and why you haven't seen regular updates here.

For a few images from Sept 4, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Sept 3: So this was a pretty crazy day- I left the saturday night cabaret around 3am, got home by 3:30, downloaded my data, bathed, gathered my gear, and hopped on a 5am train to DC. Spent 12hrs there, took 4500 pretty wedding pictures, came back by 9pm, started the first set of files downloading and headed back in time for the sunday night cabaret. Some corrupted stuff on my main computer caused a download error, which I thought I fixed when I got home... but I kind of screwed it all up. See above. But it's all good now. Only a few cabaret shots to show from the festival for today though.

For a few images from Sept 3, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Sept 2: Swung by the Painted Bride to hang out with the kids from the Village of Arts & Humanities, but missed their actual performance because I had to bop out to Fairmount Park for two hours to shoot another wedding. Yes, I'm a bit crazy and agreed to shoot another one for a former colleague who called me on friday and still hadn't found someone to photograph for her. And this is when I was heading to dc the next day for a bigger one. I really have to retire from shooting big events, because between the weddings, festivals, activisty conferences and what not, there are now so many faces flooding my brain that it's making me go crazy. The plan for the fall is to take it a bit easier and sit and process all this a bit. In the evening I caught Rha Goddess' "Low", which I quite enjoyed. It's one of those ones that didn't really catch my eye in the guide, but stunned me in person. The photo in the guide had a big multimedia projection thing in the background, and for whatever reason sort of turned me off it- but the actual production was done on a bare white set with a bit of beautiful light. It was interesting to stick around for the talkback session and hear a bit about the evolution of the piece. After the show, I headed over to the late night cabaret where Dito Van Riegersberg was doing his fantastic show as Martha Graham Cracker. The Martha Graham Cracker cabaret is also a monthly event at L'Etage, so it's something you can check out later down the road if you missed it.

For a few images from Sept 2, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Sept 1: A beautiful and wet start to the festival. Junction Dance Theater opened braved the rain and performed for the first friday crowds. in the streets of old city. I caught part of another run of "Currently Franklin" before heading to the Painted Bride for Karen Getz' "Suburban Love Songs" - it was great! Hadn't really known what to expect when she asked me to come photograph- it was such fun.

Later I caught Sabooge's "Every Day Above Ground" - there were a few bits of it that I didn't quite "get", but I'm not well versed with the lore of Billy The Kid - regardless, it was beautifully done, and actually makes me want to go and find out more about that character. The evening ended at the Late Night Cabaret, which was opened up by a stunning set by Cynthia Hopkins and Gloria Deluxe.

For a few images, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Aug 31: Back to Christ Church for "Currently Franklin" - the show presents the life of Ben Franklin in a really inovative way, with a set and props made entirely of paper. It only runs this weekend, so get your tickets now! I then tagged along with a participant in Headlong's "Cell" and then did a test run of it myself. Even though photographing it had ruined some of the surprise, I greatly enjoyed the experience. As of last night, there were only two tickets left- so hurry up and call the box office! After a brief detour via the opening VIP party, I ran back up to the Crane Arts Center in Fishtown for a runthrough of Still Unknown.

For a few images, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Aug 30: I swung by Sebastienne Mundheim's "Currently Franklin" to check out her puppets- will catch the run through tomorrow. Then headed towards Broad Street to check out Group Motion's show, which is taking place in a gorgeous church. Ended the evening in fishtown where the Subcircle crew were rushing to complete their elaborate set for "Still Unknown"

For a few images, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Aug 29: After a visit to the main festival offices, I tagged along for a bit of Headlong Dance Theater's "Cell" - a private dance adventure for one audience member, led via cell phone. Then caught a preview of Brat Productions' "Eye 95 re-tarred"

For a few images, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Aug 27: The Box Office staff is already hard at work selling out shows- and they say that they're huge fans of baked goods from Termini Brothers, in case you want to bring them a present when you go get your tickets (hint, hint)

For a few images, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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Aug 25: The tech crew are hard at work setting up the Cabaret space and other venues. I swung by an early run through of Brat Productions' "Eye 95 re-tarred"

For a few images, click here. (hit N for next, P for previous)
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How clever! you scrolled down to find the unedited galleries!

Remember, if you dig these pictures, a little contribution to the photo fund would be *really appreciated*

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video recaps of prior festivals: 2003 2004 2005