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DKos Asheville Open Thread: Summer Arts and Entertainment edition [1]
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Date: 2022-07-23
Citizen-Times, Ryley Ober, 7/22/2022
ASHEVILLE - LEAF Global Art’s annual summer festival has lit up the heart of downtown Asheville as upward of 30,000 people have come together for local music, dance, games, art and food since its beginning in 2015.
This year, the nonprofit event is moving to a new outdoor venue called “The Outpost,” at 521 Amboy Road in the River Arts District. According to Alexa Kincaid, LEAF’s associate director, the change is due to “conflicting dates with LEAF, Downtown After Five, changes in funding, services provided and policies from the city of Asheville.”
The new event spot is operated by Grey Eagle Events, Asheville’s longest-running music venue, and features 2.5 acres on the French Broad River with space for two stages. LEAF Down by the River, as this year’s event is called, will be the first festival hosted at this new venue and will run from 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Aug. 20.
The event will be more intimate than years past, as the riverside venue can hold only 600 to 1,000 people, according to Otto Vazquez, artistic curator for LEAF. Since the festival began, total attendance has ranged from 15,000 to 30,000 people, according to Kincaid.
Citizen-Times, Tiana Kennell, 7/20/2022
A new downtown event is set to debut with exclusive deals and one-of-a-kind experiences for all.
Grove Arcade will host its inaugural Summer Festival from 12-7 p.m. July 30. The event will include indoor and outdoor games for all ages, live demonstrations and music performances, food and drink specials, plus surprises.
The new annual series is to provide an opportunity for local artists, crafters and retailers to showcase their artworks and products, she said. It also invites guests to try a new food or beverage business or revisit a favorite destination. More so, it’s to revive a sense of community in downtown Asheville.
“Kind of like our Winter Wonderland does in the winter season with the tree lighting and Santa Claus and carolers and Nutcracker dancers, we just want to create a place for people to celebrate a season,” Amber Ammons, senior property manager, said. “We want to have people out enjoying life again, creating more economic stimulus to downtown Asheville.”
Constructed in 1929, the Grove Arcade is now inhabited by contemporary retail businesses on the ground level with residences on the upper levels.
The Urban News, Staff Reports, 7/20/2022
Auditions for Our Town: July 25-26, 2022
Asheville Community Theatre will hold auditions for Our Town on Monday, July 25 and Tuesday, July 26 from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm on the Mainstage. The director seeks a large cast of all ages. Tattoos, piercings, and extra-ness are welcome! Actors of all ages, gender identities, races, ethnicities, and disabilities will be considered for any desired role indicated on their audition sheet. The director encourages those auditioning to prepare a one-minute memorized monologue of their choosing, but it’s not required. If you don’t have a monologue, you will be asked to read from sides at the audition. No previous experience is required to audition. Directed by Robert Arleigh White.
Auditions for Chapter Two: August 9, 2022
The Autumn Players will hold auditions for Chapter Two on Tuesday, August 9, 2022 from 10:30 am – 2:30 pm on the Mainstage at ACT. Chapter Two by Neil Simon will be performed as reader’s theatre. The director seeks 2 men and 2 women. No previous experience is required to audition. All audition material is provided at the auditions. Directed by Elliot Weiner.
Auditions for Elf The Musical: August 15-16, 2022
Asheville Community Theatre will hold auditions for Elf The Musical on Monday, August 15 and Tuesday, August 16 from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm on the Mainstage. The director seeks a large cast of all ages. Please see the website for audition details. No previous experience is required to audition. Directed by Jeff Catanese.
Find more details at ashevilletheatre.org/get-involved/audition
Explore Asheville
Here are ideas for what to do this weekend:
Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands
PicklePalooza 2022
Sound Healing Concert
Hi-Wire Brewing's 9th Anniversary Party
Shindig on the Green
Swannanoa Gathering
Live Music, Comedy, Dance and Theatre (17 events)
My 40, Derek Bryant, WLOS photojournalist, 7/22/2022
Citizen Vinyl opened in October of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We decided to open the doors for business just to move forward and start even though it was a very challenging time," founder and CEO Gar Ragland said.
Located in the historic, former Citizen-Times building in downtown Asheville, Citizen Vinyl has three record presses on site. "We're a relatively small operation," Ragland said.
The vinyl records are made from PVC vinyl and are formed between two stampers.
"This is what contains all of the sound information that is pressed into the record," Ragland explained. "So, whereas the final record that you listen to on your turntable at home has a small groove that your needle follows on the turntable, this is the negative of that."
The raw PVC vinyl starts in the shape of a hockey puck. It is placed into the press with the center label on top and below it for sides A and B. "It's just a fancy waffle iron," Ragland described, adding "it just squishes it down and presses it into the grooves of the stamper to create the record."
Mountain Express, Flora Kanz, 7/19/2022
When Dr. Clinton Border traveled with a local square dance team to a folk festival in Sidmouth, England, in 1973, inspiration hit. The Waynesville surgeon became determined to bring an international folk festival to the isolated mountains of Western North Carolina, an area rich in heritage but lacking in diversity.
Eleven years later, with help from international contacts and community leaders, Folkmoot USA was born. Since that time, the organization has hosted over 8,000 performers from 200 countries. And in 2003, it was designated by the N.C. General Assembly as the state’s official international folk festival.
“It’s always been about bringing together people from different cultures to this area where culture and tradition have always been a vital part of identity,” says Folkmoot Executive Director Evan Hatch.
Folkmoot’s Summerfest runs Thursday-Sunday, July 28-31, at the Folkmoot Friendship Center, the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds and downtown Waynesville. This year’s list of performers includes dance troupes and musicians representing the cultures of Ukraine, Venezuela, Africa, Cuba, Ireland and other countries, as well as local Southern Appalachian and Cherokee traditions.
Groups will perform all weekend long, kicking off with a fundraising banquet and gala at the Folkmoot Friendship Center on Thursday, July 28, at 5:30 p.m.
Mountain Express, Johanna Patrice Hagarty, 7/20/2022
For Jen Murphy, a founding member of the Street Creature Puppet Collective, her interest in gardening and foraging has often influenced her work. Such is the case for the collective’s latest production, The Earth Is Alive!, a family musical and puppet show celebrating the medicine and magic of Appalachian plants.
Written by Josh Fox and produced by Murphy, The Earth Is Alive! first premiered at the spring 2022 LEAF Festival. On Saturday, July 23, at 4 p.m, the collective offers audiences an encore performance at Jubilee! Community, a venue Murphy and her fellow Street Creature puppeteers have called home since May 2021.
“It’s a good fit, as [Jubilee! has] a strong environmental and social justice approach and an appreciation of the arts,” she says. “Our Puppet Clubhouse is located in their lower level, alongside their new JAMS microshelter for unhoused women.”
Mountain Express, Bill Kopp, 7/22/2022
Three beloved Asheville-based bands are celebrating anniversaries this summer. Both Andrew Scotchie & the River Rats and Empire Strikes Brass have reached the 10-year milestone, while female-fronted country ensemble Deep River celebrates 30 years of making music together.
Xpress caught up with members of each act to discuss their group’s origin story, some of their early struggles and the secrets to a long musical career.
Empire Strikes Brass
In May 2012, Pauly Juhl was approached by a friend who wanted a New Orleans-style second-line jazz band to play at a wedding rehearsal. A veteran of Dixieland jazz since his high school days, Juhl says that he “jumped at the opportunity.”
Andrew Scotchie and the River Rats
Spinal Tap-like mishaps. Just over a decade ago, Andrew Scotchie was one of many buskers on the streets of downtown Asheville, singing and playing acoustic guitar, accompanied by high school classmate Andrews Adams on harmonica. The experience, Scotchie says, was a departure from his previous musical focus.
“I had just come out of a punk rock trio,” he recalls. “I wanted to try something on the other end of the spectrum.”
Deep River
In 1991, Sharon Lewis was singing and playing drums for the all-woman band Amethyst Country. She says that the group broke up the following year because “the other three women were willing to play in smoky bars, and I wasn’t.”
But Lewis already had another band concept in mind. “I decided to create a band featuring three woman vocalists: a soprano, first alto and second alto — for maximum vocal range,” she explains. But that wasn’t all. The group she envisioned would also feature three male instrumentalists, and Lewis would continue to supply the back beat. “Perfect yin yang,” she says. “By early summer 1992, Deep River was born.”
SPORTS!
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Thanks for reading and contributing, I hope you enjoyed this review of things to do that will make your toes tap and your face happy. Oh, and there is a juggler most weekend evenings on Cherry Street in downtown Black Mountain.
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