We're going to take a very liberal/progressive attitude to the definition of "weekend," because there are some very promising Arts & Culture events happening on Thursday and Monday. So here goes:
• How to Get From Here to There, Mini Microcinema, 7:45 p.m. Thursday (June 7):
The Fringe Festival primarily is a festival of stage productions, and a very good one at that. But it also a Film Fringe component, held at the Mini, devoted to what's "kinda weird" on celluloid.This year, Fringe Festival producer Chris Wesselman is particularly enthused about How To Get From Here to There by Kevin James Thornton. It's the story of a gay man in blue-collar America who, upon returning to his childhood home after the death of his mother, discovers he has the ability to time travel. So he starts blasting through the mistakes of his life. The special effects are done through the eyes of a child; the story is a metaphor for how the choices we make affect our destiny. The Mini is at 1329 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, but you can buy tickets in advance at cincyfringe.com.
• Annual Outdoor Duck Tape Exhibition, University of Cincinnati, 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Friday-Sunday:
Students at University of Cincinnati's DAAP show off the large-scale duct/duck tape sculptures made under the supervision of Joe Girandola, their professor and duck-tape virtuoso, before they will take their work to the 15th Annual Avon Heritage Duck Tape Festival near Cleveland. There will be 10 monumental representational pieces, including "The Big Dump Truck," "Hammer in the Toolbox," "Big Duck Tape Measure and "Surveying Tool." The location for the exhibition will be the Campus Green space at the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Clifton Avenue. There will be a reception 3-6 p.m. Saturday with barbecue and music; rain date would be same hours Sunday. You can read a CityBeat profile of Girandola's work here.
• First Reformed, opening Friday at the Esquire Theatre:
Paul Schrader has a long and outstanding history as a serious auteurist American screenwriter (Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ) and director (American Gigolo, Affliction). But it's been a long time since one of his movies has caused as much excitement — and struck the kind of audience response — as his new First Reformed, which opens Friday at the Esquire. It features Ethan Hawke as the priest of a small, declining Calvinist congregation who is facing growing despair as his church approaches a big anniversary. The IndieWire website recently published an article called "5 Ways Paul Schrader's Hit Exemplifies the Best in Indie Film," praising it for being smart, debatable, entertaining and resistant to pandering.
The Esquire is at 320 Ludlow Ave. in Clifton: More info: esquiretheatre.com
• Book Arts exhibits at Cincinnati Main Library:
Two exhibits celebrating handmade books as works of art will be on display as of Monday at Downtown's Main Library, 800 Vine St. The first one is already up and can be seen during regular library hours this weekend; it is called Bookworks and is sponsored by the Cincinnati Book Arts Society. The second, the Keith Kuhn Memorial Exhibit, opens Monday and is dedicated to the former library services director who played a leading role in helping the library build its collection of book artworks. The Bookworks exhibit will be up through Sept. 2; the Kuhn Memorial Exhibit through July 23. More information here.
• Unicorns in the Snow at The Lodge, 8 p.m. Monday:
Unicorns in the Snow is Julia Vering, a Kansas City performance artist, musician, animator and licensed social worker whose work sounds extraordinary. She'll be in Cincinnati (Dayton, Ky., technically) Monday night to present her latest project, Motherhood, which is inspired by Shelley Duvall's Fairie Tale Theatre and Vering's thoughts on the mundanity of domestic life and the nature of parent-child relationships. On her website (unicornsinthesnow.com), Vering describes Motherhood as a "psychedelic multimedia performance piece about perception, which utilizes processed accordion, field recordings of her children, stop motion animation of mink stoles and cameos from her own mother."
The Lodge is at 231 6th Ave., Dayton Ky. Doors open at 7 p.m.; Cincinnati act Skeletonic opens. More info: thelodgeky.com.
Suggestions for future events for this column? Contact [email protected].
