We slam the best

In our April issue, we featured many of the poets who make up SlamCharlotte and the burgeoning scene they’ve created in NoDa (“These Voices Carry,” by Steve Goldberg). The story talked about how they were one of the best poetry slam teams in the country. Now they—we—are the best.

SlamCharlotte recently won first place at The National Poetry Slam 2007 held in Austin, Texas, beating out seventy-five other teams. Made up of Bluz, Bethsheba, Mike Simms, Carlos Robson, Da Minista, Paul D, and team manager Inkera, they performed twelve different, original poems during the competition.

You can catch these guys during monthly poetry slams at the McGlohon Theatre (345 N. College St.) every second or third Friday, including tonight at 8 p.m. Many of the poets also perform weekly at Wine Up (3306 N. Davidson St.).

Last Chance for Hedwig

…at least until Actor’s Theatre brings it back again (hey, Dan Shoemaker and co. know a moneymaker when they see one). But back to the point. Tonight and tomorrow night are your last chances to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Actor’s Theatre. This is the third time in the past three or so years that AT has mounted the show. I saw the first one, which starred Billy Ensley, and it was highly entertaining. I recommend it. Ensley directs this show, which stars Scott Ripley, who was won pretty much every best actor award offered in town, including ours. Buy tickets here.
—R.T.

Great block party in South End; make sure you catch the next one

Last evening I attended the South End Summer Series Block Party. Apparently Social Push has been sponsoring this event each third Saturday since May. I didn’t know anything about the first two, but I made it out to this July one and I enjoyed it, increasing my fondness of South End.

 

The magazine’s office is located in the Design Center of the Carolinas in South End so I have the privilege of working in the area daily. I say privilege because I think South End is great. There are many cool buildings and stores there, parking is easy, there’s a stop for the soon-to-be-running light rail, and it’s less than five minutes from uptown. The block party celebrated the culture that is cultivating in South End.

 

Sponsored by clothing stores and boutiques Niche, Black Sheep, American Apparel, and Glamour Puss, all of which line Camden Road, the party was held in the block of Camden between West Park Ave. and South Tryon Street, with the street closed off. The event was advertised to be held from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. I, along with my brother and one of my friends, arrived around 7:30.

 

There was a DJ playing old-school hip hop the entire time (KRS One, Rakim, A Tribe Called Quest, etc). Word is that there was supposed to be free food; maybe it was all gone before we got there. I did, however, seem numerous bottles of Vitamin Water (on the ground unfortunately), which were complimentary as well. We ate at Phat Burrito, which was busy with people the entire time. We ate on the patio. The weather was perfect.

 

This was truly a block party. Several guys were skateboarding and performing tricks, including a kid who couldn’t have been older than nine years old. The skater scene was definitely present. It’s popular with both Black Sheep and Niche, which had their doors open for the event (and is where I assume a lot of the skaters buy their T-shirts and kicks). The B-boys were on hand, too. You know—the break dancers. I can never see too much of people spinning on their hands and head. There was even an artist creating a hip hop-inspired painting.

 

There was a good turnout. A lot of people walked through for a few minutes, while many others lined the street and sidewalks for quite some time. The DJ Jazzy Jeff concert was scheduled for later that night at Amos’ South End. I’m sure a lot of the people later made their way over for that. We ended up staying at the block party for about two hours. Afterwards, we went to the fight party at Allure, which was only about five minutes away on South Mint Street (coming from West Boulevard). I saw Bernard Hopkins win a decision over Winky Wright. The fight wasn’t very impressive, though. I think I saw a better battle between the break dancers.

 

You can catch the next installment of the block party on August 18.

Cool film tomorrow night at The Light Factory

If you’re looking for something different to do tomorrow night (and tired of movies that have “3″ in the title), The Light Factory, the uptown museum of photography and film (housed in Spirit Square), is screening what looks like an interesting film tomorrow night. I’ll just paste the news release below.

Margaret (Catherine Kellner) is a freelance photographer on her first big job, surveying environmental disaster areas. Jay (Ebon Moss- Bachrach), her unemployed ex-boyfriend, joins her for the ride. The trip begins badly when the tape deck in Margaret’s car breaks, and spirals downward from there. The journey forces Margaret and Jay to confront their relationships to the environment, the world and each other.

Road has won several awards from prestigious film festivals, including the Jury Award for Outstanding Performances for Catherine Kellner and Ebon Moss- Bachrach at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Composer of the score for Road, Chris Brokaw won Best Original Score from the Brooklyn International Film Festival.

More information is available by contacting The Light Factory at 704-333-9755 or www.lightfactory.org.

Road starts at 7:30 p.m. in the Knight Gallery of Spirit Square. Admission is $7 at the door. —R.T.

Symphony head Early steps down

Big news from the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra this afternoon. Richard Early, who has run the symphony for eleven years, resigned at last night’s board meeting. During his tenure, the symphony has seen big gains in budget size ($4.9 million to $8 million) and endowment ($695,000 to $5.2 million). But it’s also no secret that the symphony has been suffering from deficits and has been challenged to find new audiences, although attendance did rise this past season. Here’s Early’s official statement:

Early said, “After 11 years, culminating with our eventful and highly successful 75th Anniversary Season, the time is right for me to pursue new challenges and for the Symphony to identify new executive leadership to help move to the next level of organizational and artistic accomplishment. The Symphony is poised for the future with excellent leadership, commitment, and experience in each department of the administrative staff; outstanding dedication and artistry from our musicians and conductors; and a strong board, whose leadership and generosity ensures that the organization will continue to progress in its service to Charlotte and the region.”

Early will stay on through September 1. But this means that the CSO is now searching for its top two leaders, because conductor Christof Perick earlier announced that he was leaving. Looks like it will be an interesting few months at the CSO. —R.T.