FMP benefit w/ Erik Ruin’s OCE, The Great Cackler & Shinjoo Cho

Face mask wearing required. Thank you for keeping our community safe.

We are holding fundraiser for ourselves this time. We are hoping to become a non profit organization next year!

Erik Ruin’s Ominous Cloud Ensemble:

Erik Ruin’s Ominous Cloud Ensemble is an ever-evolving, collectively-improvising large ensemble for projections and music, led by visual artist Erik Ruin, recently lauded by the New York Times for his “spell-binding cut-paper animations.” Erik manipulates intricate paper-cuts and painted films on overhead projectors to create abstract landscapes and fragmentary scenes that are nonetheless charged with meaning, merging with music that ranges from dark atmospherics to ecstatic peaks of dissonance. Members of the ensemble include a rotating cast of Philly’s finest musicians, who have collaborated with everyone from Anthony Braxton to the Sun Ra Arkestra to Bardo Pond.

For this performance, Ominous Cloud Ensemble are:

Erik Ruin: visuals/projections, Tara Middleton: vocals & violin, Tom Kraines: cello, Matt Engle: upright bass, Jesse Sparhawk- harp, pedal steel and Scott Verrastro: percussion.

The Great Cackler:

Justin Duerr (Northern Liberties, Hex Nine, et al) and Mandy Slipoj Katz (Invasive Species, Beware The Blunted Needle, Vulgar Remedies, etc) join together as The Great Cackler (fka Geb The Great Cackler), an acoustic duo drawing upon their shared experiences of over a decade, personally, creatively, and both as one. “Geb was thought to represent the earth, he is often seen reclining beneath the sky goddess Nut. Geb was called ‘the Great Cackler’, and as such, was represented as a goose. It was in this form that he was said to have laid the egg from which the sun was hatched. He was believed to have been the third divine king of earth. The royal throne of Egypt was known as the ‘throne of Geb’ in honor of his great reign.” – Richard Deurer

Shinjoo Cho:

Bandoneonist, pianist, and accordionist Shinjoo has collaborated with dance and film artists in multi-disciplinary projects as a performer and curator. She has performed on stages as varied as dive bars to notable concert halls in the US, Canada, Korea, and Latin America, including Rotunda, Marlboro Music Festival, Severance Hall, Centro Cultural Haroldo Conti, Teatro Colón and Centro Cultural Kirchner Symphonic Hall.

Shinjoo continues to interpret traditional and new music of Argentina and composes music for radio and film projects. She is a creator of Lo Que Vendrá: Piazzolla Marathon and currently teaches bandoneon and tango ensemble at Swarthmore College.

accessibility: ramp into lobby, then 7 stairs into theater