We’ve got your weekend: Festivals, exhibits, and music

“Woven” by Amy Bryan, which is exhibited at Second Story Gallery (work and photo by: Amy Bryan)

Wednesday, May 9/The Historic New Orleans Collection (533 Royal Street): The celebration of New Orlean tricentennial has begun and various art works are going up. In fact, “New Orleans: Between Heaven and Hell,” a new history-based work by UK artist Robin Reynolds, will debut on Wednesday, May 9,  as part of a preview for the institution’s upcoming exhibition “Art of the City: Postmodern to Post-Katrina.” Reynolds will introduce the three-foot by six-foot piece and its companion interactive tool with a public presentation on Wednesday at 6:00 PM. It will be visitors’ first opportunity to meet the artist and engage with the drawing. Admission is free. 

Thursday, May 10/Contemporary Arts Center (900 Camp Street): It is sonic time, and by that we mean a festival dedicated to all things aural. The CAC is hosting “Southern Sonic,” which is a festival that presents work that runs the gamut of the genre—from experimental hip hop to avant chamber music; from utopian installation environments to sonified architecture, and from remixes of vintage cinema to airborne music made by drones. There will also be discussions of the historical practices and basic ingredients that have made New Orleans and the south a hotbed of aural innovation. Many of the events are free and other events have a ticket price of $10. For a full list of events for the festival, check out the calendar here. It all begins Thursday at 7:30 PM. 

Thursday, May 10/House of Blues (225 Decatur Street): Top emerging teen talent from schools across New Orleans including NOCCA and Landry-Walker HS will take the stage this Thursday, May 10 for the annual Bringing Down the House showcase. The event is a free and open to the public (children are welcome). This year’s talented teens represent a variety of diverse musical genres including rock, hip hop, jazz, R&B, brass band and more. Attached and pasted below is a full press release with more details. Complimentary tickets can be secured here. 

Friday, May 11/The Fortress of Lushington (2215 Burgundy Street): A place with both the words “fortress” and “Lushington” in the title seem reason enough to leave the house right now and seek out whatever is happening there. Well, we have another reason for your to rush to that fortress. Goat in the Road productions is putting on the Forge Festival, a biennial micro festival of genre-bending performance work for New Orleans audiences, featuring original work by some of the most accomplished theater artists in the city.  Following the success of Foreign to Myself(2017, 2018) and The Stranger Disease (running through April 22^nd), Forge Festival is Goat in the Road’s last presentation of the 2017-2018 season, giving audiences the chance to experience highly professional, mind-bending theater in a festival format.  Shows vary in price, but a festival pass can be purchased for $25 and includes admission to all events. Get your tickets and full information here. 

Saturday May 12/Second Story Gallery (2372 St. Claude Ave): It is time to climb the stairs to the Second Story Gallery. New Orleans artists Amy Bryan and Natori Green will debut a two-person exhibition titled “Woven” at the Second Story Gallery in the New Orleans Healing Center. Amy Bryan and Natori Green are artists known for their dynamic deceptions of people of color. They will feature mixed media pieces depicting womanhood and identity. The gallery is open from 9:00 AM until 9:00 PM, and this exhibit is free and open to the public. 

Saturday, May 12/Staple Goods (1340 St. Roch): We love a good tangle of words, and Staple Goods’s newest exhibit, “Look Up at the Ground,” is just the kind of word mind bend we love. This exhibit presents the work of April Bachtel and Wesley Chavis and explores experiences within the artists’ bodies and challenges narratives associated with their inherited identities. Chavis explores everyday touch and sensuous physicality to evoke layered sensations of love and loss that flow from communing black humans – seeking home, rest, warmth, and God. Bachtel collaborates with materials and objects pairing what is broken with what she finds hopeful in order to shift the cultural narrative slowly forward. Their works come together to create small fissures that interrupt linear ways of thought and make room to reexamine dominant Western culture. The opening on Saturday will begin at 6:00 PM, with a performance by artist Wesley Chavis at 7:30 PM. For full information and details, check out Staple Goods’s website.