Chara Percussion Ensemble Explores ‘Uncharted’ Sounds
The Chara Percussion Ensemble is aptly named. A Greek word meaning “finding joy despite circumstance,” chara is visible on the musicians’ faces whenever they play. It’s also what they hope to offer listeners, according to ensemble member Kristi Pfeiffer.
“[Chara is] how we can remind each other and remind others of the joy we can find even when life is hard,” says Pfeiffer. “It’s finding joy and hope and explanation in our everyday lives amid the challenges.”
This year, for the first time, the Orleans-based group is playing a “Cape tour” that will take it to Wellfleet Preservation Hall (335 Main St.) on Wednesday, July 24 at 7 p.m. It will be the ensemble’s second concert that week, bookended by performances in Brewster. “We’re excited to be getting out and sharing this program in other locations and with as many people as we can reach,” says Pfeiffer.
Titled “Passage to an Uncharted World,” the program will feature a variety of sounds and styles, with composers ranging from French impressionist Maurice Ravel to contemporary American Christopher Deane.
“Every concert is different,” Pfeiffer says. “But this one happens to have a lot more modern music mixed in. Some pieces are written for percussion, like Michael Burritt’s Fandango 13. Then we have Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances from the 1800s. It’s a wide gamut of different composers.”
Pfeiffer adds that the ensemble is experimenting with new instruments to create fresh sounds. They’ve been practicing the new arrangements for over eight months and are excited to finally perform them for an audience.
“I love that this is the most sounds and different instruments in a production that we’ve done,” she says. “We often use keyboards, marimba, vibraphone, and xylophone, but now we’re incorporating hand drums and shekeres and bongos — just so many different colors and sounds and textures.”
Tickets for the event, which start at $30 with a reduced price for seniors and free admission for youth and students, are available at charapercussion.org and wellfleetpreservationhall.org. —Chloe Taft
Dulcé Sloan’s Jokes Don’t Write Themselves
Dulcé Sloan — stand-up comedian, author of the memoir Hello Friends!: Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day Jobs, and senior correspondent for The Daily Show on Comedy Central — says a good comic “sees everything.” She’s always been observant, watching and listening to the people around her. But she’s never been one to look for humor in a situation: “Things are either funny or they’re not,” she says.
Sloan will perform at Payomet Performing Arts Center (29 Old Dewline Road, North Truro) on Saturday, July 20, at 7 p.m. There’s no difference, she says, in how she approaches a performance on The Daily Show and a live gig like this one. “People live everywhere,” she says. And people are all she needs.
Onstage and on The Daily Show, Sloan’s performing style reflects her comedy philosophy. She’s straight-faced and to the point; she tells a joke or acts out a bit and then waits, never for long. The audience’s laughter follows quickly and inevitably. It doesn’t come easy. Sloan says that writing jokes is hard work. And writing is just the homework: with every performance, she’s working to adjust to her audience, whittling her jokes down to their most efficient, ticklish selves. She knows she’s funny. Every time the audience laughs, she says, “it’s confirmation.”
Tickets are $32 at tickets.payomet.org. —Dorothea Samaha
Ella Mae Dixon’s Breathless Return
Wellfleet’s own Ella Mae Dixon, the “old-fashioned” 20-year-old jazz vocalist who swings onstage in vintage dresses and regularly enchants audiences in New York City, where she now lives, is returning to the Payomet Performing Arts Center (29 Old Dewline Road, North Truro) on Wednesday, July 24 at 7 p.m.
Dixon says that the show will be “the most eclectic” she’s ever done, and she’s “jazzed about it.” These days, she’s allowing herself to go for songs that speak to her, “whether that’s a beautiful lyric or a beautiful melody or a really swinging tune.” She isn’t too concerned with whether the songs are “jazz enough” — the Payomet program includes music by Stephen Sondheim and torch songs. Of course, she says, there will be some “legit jazz compositions.” She likes to challenge herself. “There will be some high energy, burning tempos and crazy vocals,” she says. “You can expect a little bit of breathlessness.”
Things have changed since Dixon’s performance at Payomet last summer. She’s spent the year “tinkering with” an as-of-yet untitled album, which she recorded in February with her band, and says that she feels more grounded and confident.
And she’s since come out as lesbian, a revelation she says has informed her work “in profound ways.” In her career so far, Dixon has primarily performed music from the 1930s and ’40s. She says she used the music to process her own queer identity. “Those songs were written during wartime,” she says. “I think there’s an inherent yearning in them that I’ve always responded to.”
In past shows, Dixon sang “Where the Boys Are,” made famous by Connie Francis. It’s a tune that’s steeped in teen-aged naiveté: a singer is impatient for an imagined love that she knows must exist somewhere.
“Am I singing ‘Where the Boys Are’? No, not anymore,” says Dixon. “At the time, when I was doing that song, I didn’t know that I was gay. But I did feel that yearning for connection. I thought it was a boy that I was looking for, but now I know that it wasn’t.”
“There’s this Cole Porter song that we do called ‘It’s All Right With Me.’ ” she continues. “The lyrics go, It’s the wrong time, and the wrong place/ Though your face is charming, it’s the wrong face/ It’s not his face, but such a charming face/ That it’s all right with me. I find my own little gay meaning within these tunes.”
Tickets for the show are $45-$50, plus fees, at payomet.org. —Dorothea Samaha
Girl Splash Returns to Provincetown
Lesbian bars and other gathering places for queer women are vanishing around the country, but Lynette Molnar is intent on holding space for them in Provincetown.
This weekend kicks off the annual Girl Splash, which brings a “summer week for women” to Provincetown from Wednesday, July 24 to Saturday, July 27.
“Girl Splash originally started because there was nothing on the annual event weeks for women,” says Molnar, who started the week of parties, performances, and other events 17 years ago. “A lot of people are coming from places where they are the only lesbian — I’m not just talking about Kansas or Alaska. I’m also talking about people from Long Island! These events exist so people can come here and see themselves and be with each other.”
Visits to “Lesbian Beach” at Herring Cove, a dune tour and beach bonfire, two pool parties, a whale watch, and a sunset schooner sail are just a few of the events on the weekend lineup, which includes Girl Splash signature events as well as local happenings.
Comedians Judy Gold and Poppy Champlin will perform separate sets at Provincetown’s Red Room and Post Office Cabaret, respectively, on Thursday, July 25 at 8:30 p.m. (Champlin will also perform a set at Red Room on Wednesday, July 24 at 7 p.m. and Friday, July 26 at 8:30 p.m.) Local favorites Zoë Lewis & the Bootleggers will also perform a “Petit Speakeasy” at Red Room on Friday, July 26 at 6:30 p.m.
For Molnar, Girl Splash is part of a wider mission — and a labor of love. “If I won the lottery, I would still want to do this because I think that the freedom, the safety, and the experience that people have coming here as a member of the LGBTQ community is something everybody should get to experience once in their life,” she says.
For a full lineup of events and to purchase individual tickets, visit provincetownforwomen.com. —Aden Choate
A Look at an Artist at Play
Filmmaker David Bee first encountered artist Bob Henry and his wife, the late Selina Trieff, at their studios on Commercial Street in Wellfleet on a family visit 25 years ago. They were a team, he says, who lived and worked together while creating. An award-winning motion picture video editor, director, and producer, Bee credits Henry and Trieff, who were friends of his parents, with inspiring him to direct his life toward a career in art.
Bee will show his 39-minute film about Henry, Vision Is Thought, at Wellfleet Preservation Hall (335 Main St.) on Friday, July 26, at 7 p.m. The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session and a book signing reception for Henry’s new publication, For Artists and Art Lovers: A Handbook.
As he is depicted in Bee’s film, the 91-year-old Henry retains his childlike sense of wonder. In one memorable scene, he takes out a long cooking knife he uses as a tool to apply paint and change the vision of the painting. “The linear structure comes out, which wouldn’t happen with a brush,” he says, using the pointed blade to create texture in the yellow and orange paint on top of the bare gesso.
Art functions as an homage to play for both Henry and Bee, and they discuss how their work stems from lifelong interests in transmuting creative joy into artistic practice. Henry describes how he spent 8 to 10 hours daily working in his studio when he was younger and often felt an impulse to control what happened in his paintings. While he now spends less time working every day, he still makes that time count — and has felt that controlling impulse subside over the years.
“It’s liberating to not have to take credit for what you do,” he says. “You just do it.”
Tickets for the event are $10, plus fees. See wellfleetpreservationhall.org for information. —Hazel Everett
