Kimmel Center Presents World Music Dance Parties
Transform Perelman Theater into Nightclub Every Wednesday in July
June 28, 2004
Jaojoby
Every Wednesday night in July a band from another corner of the globe will take the stage in the 650-seat Perelman Theater, but traditional seating will be cleared away to transform the venue into a dance hall.
"The boxy Perelman proved an excellent venue," wrote The Philadelphia Inquirer after a 2003 world music dance party. "Seats were cleared from the room’s plaza level to create a large dance floor that was crowded and in constant motion throughout the 90-minute performance...providing folks on the floor with a sensory benefit you wouldn’t expect in a concert hall: The bass and other low frequencies purred steady and true underfoot, and if you closed your eyes, it felt as if you were in a nightclub."
Bands featured this year are Les Yeux Noirs (French for "The Black Eyes"), the part-gypsy, part-klezmer Paris-based group led by fiddlers Eric and Olivier Slabiak (July 7); the hot new salsa band Spanish Harlem Orchestra, winner of the 2003 Latin Billboard Award for New Artist Salsa Album of the Year (July 14); Barcelona’s Ojos de Brujo with their innovative mix of flamenco and hip-hop (July 21); and the island-influenced Jaojoby, the king of Madagascar’s native "salegy" dance music (July 28).
"If you’re a world music fan, this is the Kimmel’s can’t-miss summer series." (Philadelphia Weekly)
Tickets for World Music Wednesdays are on sale now and can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at www.kimmelcenter.org or at the Kimmel Center box office, open daily from 10am to 6pm and later on performance evenings. For group sales call 215-790-5883.
Kimmel Center Presents 2004 summer programming is generously supported by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
American Airlines is the Official Airline of Kimmel Center Presents. The American Express Company welcomes you to the Kimmel Center.
Kimmel Center Presents 2004 Summer Calendar
WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY DANCE PARTY
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
Les Yeux Noirs
7:30pm Perelman Theater
Tickets: $25
Les Yeux Noirs—French for "The Black Eyes"—takes its name from the title of a Russian gypsy tune. Described by some as the Jewish Gipsy Kings, this Paris-based group led by fiddlers Eric and Olivier Slabiak blends violin, cello, accordion, electric guitar and cimbalom to create a sound that is part gypsy, part klezmer.
WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY DANCE PARTY
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Spanish Harlem Orchestra
7:30pm Perelman Theater
Tickets: $25
The hottest new salsa band in the world, the Grammy-nominated Spanish Harlem Orchestra won the 2003 Latin Billboard Award for Salsa Album of the Year in the New Artist category for Un Gran Dia en el Barrio ("A Great Day in the Neighborhood"). Philadelphian Aaron Levinson produced the album. Billed as Harlem’s answer to Cuba’s Buena Vista Social Club, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra is led by pianist and arranger Oscar Hernandez, whose credits include everything from performing with legends Tito Puente, Ruben Blades and Celia Cruz to composing the theme song for the hit HBO series Sex and the City. Vocalist Willie Torres and trombonist Jimmy Bosch are among the notables who will perform with Spanish Harlem Orchestra for a night of salsa dura.
WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY DANCE PARTY
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Ojos de Brujo
7:30pm Perelman Theater
Tickets: $25
Start with flamenco and add hip-hop, funk, salsa and reggae and you begin to get the sound of Barcelona’s Ojos de Brujo ("Eyes of the Wizard"). The group’s performances include acoustic guitar, vocals, percussion, a dancer, turntable and live video. Ojos de Brujo are "a radical bunch of local musicians who seem to have taken flamenco by the scruff of its sequined jacket, shaken it free of its hidebound obsessions with pedigree and purity and kicked it out onto the modern dance floor." (BBC Radio 3)
WORLD MUSIC WEDNESDAY DANCE PARTY
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Jaojoby
7:30pm Perelman Theater
Tickets: $25
Madagascar’s island-influenced dance music in 6/8 time is called "salegy" (pronounced SAH-leg) and its undisputed king is Jaojoby (pronounced DJO-DJOOB). Eusèbe Jaojoby cultivated his sound in the seventies performing in villages and festivals all over his Indian Ocean home. His song "Samy Mandeha Samy Mitady" became a hit in 1987 and led to two recordings—Jaojoby: Salegy! and Velono—which introduced his music to the world. NPR praised Jaojoby’s "most infectious, dance-able music" for its "rich vocal harmonies, powerful yet never overbearing percussion, some very nifty electric bass (a feature of much Malagasy music) and the music’s overall warmth and generous spirit." Eusèbe is joined by his wife (vocals) and two daughters (dancers).
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