Going to Town

Thursday, September 22, 2005 | Upcoming visual arts, film and music:

VISUAL ARTS

Mass dance transit. For those (including this writer) who’ve never experienced San Diego Dance Theater’s annual Trolley Dances event, visions of spry, lanky dancers in flowing costumes doing modern moves and acrobatic leaps down the narrow trolley car aisles may come to mind. Or perhaps a raucous, free-wheeling dance party where trolley passengers abandon their seats and dance, dance, dance! (C’mon, wouldn’t the trolley be more fun if people danced?)

But alas, there will be no dancing inside the trolleys as they travel back and forth. According to the press release, these site-specific, public dances will be performed outside the trains at different trolley stops along the newly extended Green Line. Choreographers from Tijuana and San Diego, under the direction of artistic director and renowned choreographer Jean Isaacs, will present six new works beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Grantville station’s 40-foot elevated platform. It’s a win-win for fans of public transportation and/or modern dance.

Trolley Dances 2005 happens Saturday, Sept. 24 (every hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and Sunday, Sept. 25 (every 45 minutes from 10 a.m. to 1:45 p.m.), as well as Oct. 1 and 2 at the Grantville Trolley Station in Mission Valley. For ticket information and purpose, call (858) 484-7791 or visit www.sandiegodancetheater.org. (CC)

More art:

– Retro artist Josh Agle (known simply by his moniker Shag) displays his brightly colored, graphic illustrations of life in a mod, mod world from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. tonight at the rooftop bar of the W San Diego, 421 W. B St. in downtown, www.whotels.com/sandiego or www.shag.com.

– Lots of artistic happenings will occur on both sides of the border this weekend, including an “aerial bridge” made from model airplanes flying above the Tijuana River (Sept. 24) and a singing choir of military wives in Murphy Canyon (Sept. 25), as part of inSite_05’s second intensive weekend of special events. For a detailed schedule of events, visit www.insite05.org.

– Graduate students in the visual arts program at the University of California, San Diego open their “Fresh, New Art” exhibition Friday, Sept. 23 at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s downtown space. Info: www.mcasd.org.

FILM

– Keep your neighborhood green and support local urban parks by attending the premiere of Tony Okun’s documentary, “The Park,” at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 26 at the San Diego Natural History Museum. All proceeds (tickets are $10) will benefit the San Diego Friends of Parks and Recreation Foundation and the museum.

– The Gaslamp goes Hollywood now through Sunday during the fourth annual San Diego Film Festival. More than 75 full-length feature, documentary and short films from the U.S. and around the globe will be screened at the Pacific Gaslamp Theatre downtown. For updated schedule information, visit www.sdff.org.

– “Que suene la calle (Let the streets of Tijuana Be Heard)”, a stark, intense documentary about adolescent women in drug-rehabilitation programs in Tijuana, has its San Diego premiere tonight at 5 p.m. at the Museum of Photographic Arts, 6149 El Prado in Balboa Park. Info: www.insite05.org.

MUSIC

A different stripe. The blues, as they say, is a feeling – and it’s feeling that, unlike so many of their three-chord contemporaries, the Black Keys ooze as if it didn’t have to be earned … but it does. While Jack and Meg White were out buying Porsches and wearing out boring old T.Rex albums, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney were mowing lawns in Akron, Ohio and learning the blues from first-generation gritties like the late Junior Kimbrough. Their studious sweat paid off: the Black Keys are one of the few young bands who can say with a straight face that each of the three albums they’ve released so far has been better than the one before it – quite a feat, considering their debut “The Big Come Up” made a few best-of lists the year it was released.

Their latest, blues/rock statement “Rubber Factory” takes the primal simplicity of their earlier work and supercharges it. The Black Keys have always specialized in a frighteningly authentic stew of tastefully electrified, trance-inducing Mississippi blues, and this record sees the fuzz knobs turn up as the fare turns heavier rock. But where other bands knee-jerk to the harsh punk thing when the going gets hard, these bluesmen do it their own way – with feeling. The Black Keys play tonight, Sept. 22, at ‘Canes Bar and Grill, 3105 Oceanfront Walk in Mission Beach, $15. 21+ (IP)

More music:

– Remember how San Diego used to have an out-of-doors, urban weekend party with tons of local bands from all over the spectrum? Well it still does. With over 80 musical acts over two days, the Adams Ave. Street Fair in Normal Heights is not to be missed. Sept. 24 and 25 between Bancroft and 35th. All ages.

– Lo-fi trip-hop twins Cocorosie perform with New York’s only Antony and the Johnsons, Friday Sept. 23 at – where else? – the San Diego Woman’s Club, 2557 Third Ave. $18 advance/$20 day of show. (619) 232-4355.

– All the bad press in the world apparently isn’t bad enough to kick Ashlee Simpson off the circuit. Sunday, Sept. 25 at The House of Blues San Diego, 1055 Fifth Ave. in downtown, $30.50. (619) 299-BLUE.

– Ever heard of Hasidic-Reggae? Local radio station 94.9 has been playing a few tracks from one Matisyahu, whose blend of hip-hop, reggae and mystical Jewish prayer song is most definitely like nothing you’ve ever heard. Too bad it’s sold out. Saturday, Sept. 24 at The Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave. in Solana Beach. 21+

– VOICE STAFF