Live transcript is available for all Fidget Zoom events.
Upcoming Events
Max/MSP Meetup
Max Meetup — Philadelphia
April 15, 2024
7pm ET
Fidget Space
1714 N. Mascher Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
RSVP Required : https://www.eventbrite.com/e/max-meetup-philadelphia-tickets-875353555047
Max Meetup Philadelphia is a regular meeting to share ideas and strengthen the connections of the Philadelphia community of Max users, digital artists and musicians. Each meetup will feature workshops, conversations, and open work-shares focusing on art-making, Max, and digital technologies. All experience levels are welcome to attend. Attendees are encouraged to bring their computers if they wish to patch along with the workshops.
This Meetup will feature a performance and patch-along demo by Cerulean S. Payne-Passmore, who will share a gesture-controlled laptop feedback instrument and how to build your own in Max. Cerulean is a Philly-based composer and improviser studying at the University of Pennsylvania with Tyshawn Sorey.
This event is free and open to the public.
Max Meetup Philadelphia is organized by Sam Wells, a musician, video artist, and Max Certified Trainer based in Philadelphia.
Support provided by Fidget.
April Max Meetup
Philadelphia Max/MSP User Group with special guest Paula Matthusen
RSVP Required : https://www.eventbrite.com/e/max-meetup-philadelphia-tickets-869310560287
Max Meetup Philadelphia is a regular meeting to share ideas and strengthen the connections of the Philadelphia community of Max users, digital artists and musicians. Each meetup will feature workshops, conversations, and open work-shares focusing on art-making, Max, and digital technologies. All experience levels are welcome to attend. Attendees are encouraged to bring their computers if they wish to patch along with the workshops.
This Meetup will feature a demonstration and presentation by Paula Matthusen, a composer and performer who writes both electroacoustic and acoustic music and realizes sound installations using Max. Matthusen is currently Professor of Music at Wesleyan University.
This event is free and open to the public.
Max Meetup Philadelphia is organized by Sam Wells, a musician, video artist, and Max Certified Trainer based in Philadelphia.
Fidget at Manfred Fischbeck Memorial Salon
Fidget co-directors Megan Bridge (dance) and Peter Price (electronic music) will be joined by dancer Lesya Popil. The three will perform an improvisation at a very special iteration of Andrea Clearfield’s salon, dedicated to the memory of Manfred Fischbeck. Megan, Peter, and Lesya were both long time collaborators of Manfred’s and are grateful to participate in this memorial performance.
Kimmel Center Work-In-Progress Showing
Fidget is commissioning choreographer Rennie Harris to choreograph a new solo work for Fidget’s co-director, Megan Bridge. Megan and Rennie will be sharing the work in progress at a free, informal showing on Friday, March 15, 6pm, at the Kimmel Center’s Innovation Studio.
Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, our participating scholar on this project, will also be in attendance and will offer questions for reflection at the event.
Register here: https://www.ensembleartsphilly.org/events-and-tickets/2023-24/free/dance-studio-rehearsal-residency/
Support the project here: https://fidget.app.neoncrm.com/donation.jsp?campaign=72&
Max Meetup — Philadelphia
RSVP Required (www.eventbrite.com/e/max-meetup-philadelphia-tickets-828538730647)
Max Meetup Philadelphia is a regular meeting to share ideas and strengthen the connections of the Philadelphia community of Max users, digital artists and musicians. Each meetup will feature workshops, conversations, and open work-shares focusing on art-making, Max, and digital technologies. All experience levels are welcome to attend. Attendees are encouraged to bring their computers if they wish to patch along with the workshops.
This Meetup will feature a demonstration and presentation by Aeroidio (Adam Vidiksis and Sam Wells) on a recent web that integrates machine learning and RNBO generated audio. Working in collaboration with the Little Artists League in Tokyo, Japan, a global-minded art organization devoted to fostering children’s creativity through process-oriented art, Aeroidio has developed a web application that transforms camera and gestural data from a mobile device, turning it into an interactive musical instrument that nearly anyone can play.
Following, Aeroidio, Wells will lead a workshop highlighting the exciting, new features in the most recent release of Max, version 8.6.
This event is free and open to the public.
Max Meetup Philadelphia is organized by Sam Wells, a musician, video artist, and Max Certified Trainer based in Philadelphia.
Support provided by Fidget.
The Backyard
“Art is a game between all people of all periods.” —Marcel Duchamp
The Backyard was developed in a residency with Steve Paxton and Lisa Nelson at their studio on Mad Brook Farm in Vermont in summer 2017 and 2018. Performed by Megan Bridge and Beau Hancock, this 45 minute improvised dance proposes a hyper-conscious inhabiting of time, space, and relationship; a radical invitation for intimacy and embodiment. Placing Paxton/Nelson’s work PA RT (1978-2002) at the center of our research, The Backyard exists in a landscape of deep listening and rigorous attention. With music by Robert Ashley, this new work is also a palimpsest of PA RT—an effaced manuscript, written over, but still bearing traces of its original form.
The Bach Cello Suites Project
The Bach Cello Suites Project
Mother and son duo, dancer Megan Bridge and 15-year-old cellist Tristan Price, will perform the first of Bach’s six cello suites. Megan’s experimental, improvisational approach moves within Bach’s tightly woven structure, and her dancing draws attention to Tristan’s fresh interpretation of this well-loved piece of music.
Performances in the Great Stair Hall at 1:30 and 3:30
Altered States: a performance conversation with Megan Bridge and Zornitsa Stoyanova
Megan Bridge and Zornitsa Stoyanova are both award winning and critically acclaimed performers and choreographers. They are both women, mothers, and people who are perhaps obsessed with the concept of “presence” in performance. Collectively, they have spent more than thirty years researching this topic.
In this performance conversation, they propose that “performance presence” is, in fact, an altered state of consciousness. They discuss, demonstrate, and explore their own techniques, compositional tools, and physical practices for creating altered states. Zornitsa and Megan’s performance suggests different ways of being in the world, challenging neuro-normative modes of perception and being. They center these “presencing” practices as survival tactics, or strategies to help navigate the dailyness/deadliness of everyday life.
Spring Modern Dance Technique Class series begins
Philly! Let’s Dance! We’re thrilled to announce a new 8 week early summer series. FRIDAYS @10AM - 11AM Modern Dance Technique Class. This class is co-taught by artistic collaborators Kate Seethaler and Meghan Frederick at Fidget Space on an alternating weekly schedule. Class is designed to get you moving with juicy floorwork, sweet tunes, snappy phrases, and experiments in improvisation and imagination. Come one, come all, tell your friends! All levels welcome.
Photo credit Jessica Brown
Special for this series we have new class cards! Want to know you’re taking class every Friday in May/June? Pre-pay all 8 classes for just $10 per class! Pre-pay 4 classes for $12 per class! Drop ins for $15 per class. Message or follow @carnivore_a.dance.performance for who’s teaching when and info for how to purchase class cards!
Expanding Perceptions – Movement Improvisation Workshop with Megan Bridge
Tools for composing with our attentions and working with, alongside and against music.
This class is an invitation into the moment, into mindfulness, and into acute physical awareness. Megan Bridge approaches improvisational dance as a practice of expanding perception. Using breath, stillness, and quiet in the warmup, we will begin to allow a multitude of signals into our experience with each passing moment. Picking up communication, we will move and dance in deep physical resonance with the space, with sound, and with each other. We will work with shifting all of our different attentions through physicality and working with the presence of music. We will progress to performing for each other in partners and small groups.
fidget at SZALON
Megan and Peter perform at a very special iteration of Andrea Clearfield’s salon, dedicated to the memory of Manfred Fischbeck. Megan and Peter were both long time collaborators of Manfred’s and are grateful to participate in this memorial performance.
You are invited to the next SZALON on Sunday, March 26th. This beautiful program will feature dance, music, visual art and poetry and will be dedicated to the beloved memory of Manfred Fischbeck (dancer, choreographer, musician, poet) who died on March 17, 2021. Featured artists include Aura Fischbeck-Wise, Laina Fischbeck, Myra Bazell, Megan Bridge and Peter Price, Renee Kurz and Katie Bank, Rita Blitt, Dan Lippel, Umer Piracha and Paul Arendt, Dallas Vietty, Sheila Browne, Marion Halliday, Madaline Danila and Hugh Sung. You may RSVP to attend in Philly at clearfieldsalonconcert@gmail.com (instructions will be sent) or join online. Here is the Zoom link.
Antics, Reversed.
Premiere of Megan Bridge’s newest work: Antics, Reversed. The performance takes place this Friday and Saturday, February 10 & 11, 7:30pm, at the Mandell Theater in University City, Philadelphia. The work is performed by the Drexel Dance Ensemble, and features original music performed live by Fidget's co-director Peter Price.
Max Meetup Philadelphia
Fidget Space
1714 N. Mascher Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
Max Meetup Philadelphia is a regular meeting to share ideas and strengthen the connections of the Philadelphia community of Max users, digital artists and musicians. Each meetup will feature workshops, conversations, and open work-shares focusing on art-making, Max, and digital technologies. All experience levels are welcome to attend. Attendees are encouraged to bring their computers if they wish to patch along with the workshops.
The December meetup will feature a workshop led by Sam Wells that focuses on working with RNBO in Max and exporting RNBO code to VST~ plugins, Web Audio, and Raspberry Pi. Additionally, there will be time for collaboration and work sharing by attendees.
This event is free and open to the public.
Max Meetup Philadelphia is organized by Sam Wells, a musician, video artist, and Max Certified Trainer based in Philadelphia.
Support provided by Fidget and Cycling ’74.
Register here
Canceled: Share
SHARE is a place to communicate and collaborate in a group sound and dance improvisation. Electronic musicians, dancers, media and sound artists and curious observers are all welcome. Bring your gear and plug into the mix, come jam with other improvisers, or just watch and listen.
More info here.
CANCELED: Process Project
UPDATE 12/2: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Process Project is canceled. We hope to reschedule this event in early 2023. Please check back for details!
Get inside our creative process! This December Fidget Co-Directors, Megan Bridge and Peter Price, will investigate their collaborative artistic process through sound and movement improvisation. Each performance will conclude with an intimate conversation, where feedback from the audience will inform the next evening's performance.
More info here.
"BREATH OF LIFE?” A Fidget Forum with Jamieson Webster and Patricia Gherovici
Can psychoanalytic discourse bring anything to the heated debates on breath? Working with the hypothesis of a respiratory drive, we will elaborate the question of breathing in psychoanalytic thought. We will begin tackling the crucial role of breath in psychic life in three films that we will discuss.
More info here.
Max Meetup Philly
Max Meetup Philadelphia is a regular meeting to share ideas and strengthen the connections of the Philadelphia community of Max users, digital artists and musicians. Each meetup will feature workshops, conversations, and open work-shares focusing on art-making, Max, and digital technologies. All experience levels are welcome to attend. Attendees are encouraged to bring their computers if they wish to patch along with the workshops.
More info here.
SHARE + Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2022
SHARE Philly meets Philadelphia Open Studio Tours! Join us for an open studio as well as an artist jam with Artist in Residence, Grant Bouvier. This event is open to audiences as well as participants: Come watch, listen, or join in!
More info here.
Sun Ra: “A Joyful Noise” Film Screening and Fidget Forum
Join us for a free screening of A Joyful Noise (dir. Robert Mugge, 1980), a film which documents performances by the legendary composer and bandleader Sun Ra and his Arkestra in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. The film also includes interviews and rehearsal footage. The screening will be introduced by composer and guitarist DM Hotep, who has performed with the Arkestra for over 20 years, and will be followed by a Fidget Forum style Q & A.
More info here.
Megan Bridge performs "Jerome Bel" at Fringe
Fidget Co-director Megan Bridge, who met Jerome Bel in 2006, now has the opportunity to play him in a solo that Bel calls an “Auto-bio-choreography” in this year’s Fringe Festival.
More info here.
Arts at the Great Marsh
We’re partnering with Great Marsh Institute again this September to bring you our second annual Arts at the Great Marsh.
Tickets and more info here.
“Always More Than One” : A Fidget Forum with Megan Bridge
Join us for an online reading group to discuss excerpts from Erin Manning’s Always More Than One, led by Fidget Co-Director, Megan Bridge.
Registration and more info here.
Space, Time, Nothing… A screening of Michael Nyman’s “War Work: 8 Songs with Film” with lecture and discussion by Peter Price
Michael Nyman is best known for his work as a soundtrack composer. Less known until recently was Nyman’s work as a photographer and filmmaker. Join us for a screening of his film War Work: 8 Songs with Film with lecture and discussion by Peter Price.
More info here.
From Performance to the Handwriting on the Wall: The Art and Life of Philadelphia Artist Annson Kenney (1944-1981), A Fidget Forum by Arthur J. Sabatini
*NOW BEING HELD ON ZOOM ONLY
This talk by Sabatini will recount and illustrate the extraordinary work, ideas and life of Annson Kenney. Click here for more information.
The Alt.terre: Work in Progress Showing & Open Studio
Join Fidget for The Alt.terre: a work in progress showing and open studio event from 4-7pm on Sunday April 24.
The space will be open from 4pm-6pm prior to the performance for light refreshments and an open studio. Choreographer Megan Bridge and the dancers will be on-site, warming up and answering questions. The showing will begin at 6pm, followed by a discussion with the artists.
Morphic Resonance at “Your Brain and Dance” Conference
This event is open to the public and free!
This April, Megan and Peter are traveling to the Your Brain and Dance Conference at Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia to present their work Morphic Resonance.
They Exist in Two Places at Once
This program includes dances for the camera by four Palestinian and Palestinian-American artists and companies who live and work in the U.S. and The Levant. During the pandemic many choreographers began making dance films as a way to share their work. Palestinian artists––who often don't have access to their collaborators or audiences due to frequently closed checkpoints and denied visas––have been experts at remote and digital collaborations for years.
SHARE Philly
SHARE Philly is a place to communicate and collaborate. Come bring your gear and plug in. Dancers, electronic media and sound artists are welcome. Come jam with us!
In Praise of Love: Fidget Forum
Join us for our first Fidget Forum of 2022! We’ll be discussing In Praise of Love by French philosopher Alain Badiou.
Marx v. Bezos: South Park’s First Labor Episodes
Join us for a lecture by Swiss literary scholar, Christian Hänggi, on the change South Park has undergone in its depiction of the working class.