CHUCK HINMAN: There are more than 200 artists participating with performers on 9 different stages around downtown Providence. You can choose from more than 30 food vendors and 5 outdoor bars.
JAMES BAUMGARTNER: We talked with one of the festival’s organizers, Kathleen Pletcher about some of the highlights.
[music: Rebirth Brass Band]
KATHLEEN PLETCHER: It begins on Friday, June 10th, and the City Hall stage is going to be filled with music from New Orleans. And it goes all the way through Sunday at 6pm. So a jammed experience, and each day has a different character, that’s one thing that I love. // Friday night is the opening night party. And then Big Nazo really beginning a sense of celebration and revelry and two fabulous bands from New Orleans: Rebirth Brass Band and Kermit Ruffins.
[music: Kermit Ruffins]
[music: Vudu Sister]
CHUCK: There are so many artists that it’s going to be impossible to cover them all. My eye was caught by Vudu Sister, which I’m reading is based in Providence, which is exciting. And the description of their music is witchy grunge tinged death folk. You’ve got me with that. I’ve got to check these guys out.
KATHLEEN: I think that’s the beauty of the festivals, whether it is Vudu Sister or the Benji’s you know, that’s an another group to discover in Burnside Park. I really suggest that people you know, kind of wander through the website a few different times and pick a couple… like, I want to see one of the… I think it’s five Squonk spectacles. Okay, I know I’m going to do that or I want to see the Saturday night headline musical act at the City Hall stage, which I’d love to describe Eddie Palmieri and his salsa orchestra. But you know, I also want to make sure that I check out this group that is local, but I have never heard and, you know, they’re in Burnside Park.
JAMES: One of the things I always love about PVD fest is just wandering around downtown from stage to stage and just seeing something new everywhere you look, just wonderful performances. And there’s always a big spectacle as well. And Squonk is the spectacle for this year. Can you tell us about Squonk?
KATHLEEN: Yes, well we love this idea of spectacle. They’re bringing a piece called hand to hand. While they are many things, musically and visually, I think of them as puppetry only the hands are as big as houses. when they perform on Saturday and Sunday, they invite audience members to come on stage and power the fingers and and kind of be part of creating this together. So the the giant hands and the, the, the musical madness is is all part of that sense of celebration. This year’s festival also feels particularly family friendly, and Squonk squawk and the spectacle being participatory, as well as something you can just stand across Kennedy Plaza and see, you know, are part of the character that we’re creating for the comeback PVD fest.
[music: Era Footwork Crew]
JAMES: The Era Footwork Crew is performing on Saturday. We talked with Litebulb, one of the members of the crew.
CHUCK: So I know footwork is a Chicago phenomenon, for those of us in Rhode Island and Massachusetts can you maybe run down how it started, how it developed and what it is now?
LITEBULB: Chicago footwork came from Chicago house music, okay. Now, the dance itself, the dance itself derives from one specific move called The Ghost. This is a move created by Bo Jackson, they start on the west side of Chicago. In church, they did this move called The Holy Ghost. You know, they would catch the Holy Ghost, a spiritual thing, right. And in that, it would invoke dance. And so you have praise, dances and things like that were at church, and they will mimic the movement of a ghost, right. And Bo took this move to the clubs that he went to. And that kind of transformed and formulated the style.
JAMES: The names of the dance of the dance moves you mentioned are very evocative like “the ghost.” I love that idea it’s going from Sunday morning into Saturday night, coming from church. So what does that look like?
LITEBULB: if you were to think about a casper literally floating in a room, moving back and forth. If he had legs, if his legs were doing that same movement back and forth with his body. It might not look exactly like that. But the idea of a ghost. And actually the movement of ghosts is what we mean by the skate. Now the Erk & Jerk, which is probably the most common move you’ve seen in footwork where people.. it looks like they’re kicking the soccer ball to the side. That move came from a footwork track. The track was like “erk & jerk & erk & jerk & erk & jerk.” Anthony Brown, created a move that mimicked the words to the track and that’s what kind of like and that single move kind of changed the formality of what footwork is.
JAMES: You can see the Era Footwork crew float across the Mural stage on Washington street Saturday at 5PM and they’re having a workshop on Sunday afternoon so you can learn a few steps.
CHUCK: There’s so much going on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You can just show up downtown and you know you’ll find something exciting, or you can plan ahead by checking out the schedule at PVD fest dot com.
CHUCK: And if PVD Fest isn’t for you, there’s an impressive bit of theater happening at Trinity right now as well.
JAMES: Yeah, that’s “Fairview” on now at Trinity Rep through June 19th. We’ll talk about it more next week, but let’s just say that it has some unexpected events in it, and it might make you uncomfortable but it was a wild ride.
[music: Alsarah and the Nubatones]
PVD Fest and Trinity Repertory company are underwriters of The Public’s Radio. We make our coverage decisions independent of business support.
