Buffalo Rising Online

BOLD (Birth On Labor Day), the global arts-based movement to create childbirth choices that work for mothers brings together artists, community groups and childbirth leaders. BOLD Performance events bring the issue of childbirth choices for mothers center stage. Birth is a critically acclaimed documentary-style play that tells the birth stories of eight women, painting an alarming picture of how low-risk, educated mothers are giving birth today. The play has been hailed as, The Vagina Monologues for birth by women's health expert Dr. Christiane Northrup. Over 100 performances of the play Birth are happening in cities across America during September, the month of Labor Day, to raise awareness and money for childbirth choices that work for mothers. Proceeds from performances of Birth in Buffalo will go to Life Cycles Center in support of Emerald Waters Birth Center. Their mission is to provide personalized health and maternity care to all women based on the Midwifery Model of Care in a home-like setting, offering a supportive atmosphere where pregnancy and birth are honored and respected.

The 8th annual South Buffalo Irish Feis & Expo happens today. The all day entertainment event at the casino features nonstop music, dance and entertainment on two stages. A business and community Expo will take place from 2-6PM showcasing more than 75 local business groups and organizations. Childs Play activities and fun are highlighted by a rock climbing wall, and are all free.

Live entertainment begins at noon and concludes with a fabulous fireworks display. Our food vendors will provide a traditional Irish menu complimented by our traditional summer treats. So bring the family to celebrate South Buffalo's own Irish heritage and traditions.

For a list of vendors, entertainment and more detailed information please click here.

Kleinhans Music Hall, a National Historic Landmark, is an architectural and artistic treasure built from funds bequeathed by philanthropists Edward and Mary Kleinhans. Constructed during the height of the Great Depression, the group who oversaw the hall's creation received additional funds from the Works Progress Administration and obtained the services of world-class architects Eliel & Eero Saarinen to design and build a modern, yet timeless, masterpiece. It's a rare opportunity to explore the exterior and interior of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s home and the surrounding Frederick Law Olmsted-designed restored Symphony Circle. Tour starts at the statue (bust) of Chopin on Symphony Circle. Proceeds benefit the Kleinhans Music Hall restoration fund and Kleinhans Community Association; for additional info call 716.884.1914.

The Central Terminal Restoration Corporation is pleased to announce its Third Annual Train Show. This is an event for the entire family, and there will be something for everyone, from the serious train enthusiast to small children.

This year, will feature several large operating layouts including Flower City Tin Plate (0 gage), several small N gage layouts, and a G scale layout from the Model Railroad Club of Buffalo. Also returning from last year is an O gage layout from Ohio on the floor for the kids to enjoy.

Vendors from the entire Western New York community will participate, in addition to those from Rochester, Baldswinville, Pennsylvania, Toronto, Ohio, New York City, Maryland, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Featured items will include everything pertaining to trains: railroadiana, videos and DVDs, books, photographs, model train items, Thomas the Train toys, and much more.

Included will be a Train Doc with test track. In addition, there will be door prizes, a children’s play area and refreshments. For further information, please visit our website.

Over the last seven years, Alice O’Malley has collaborated with scores of downtown New York artists to create a photographic archive of and for those who inhabit the peripheries. Set against backdrops of what seem to be the last empty rooms on the Lower East Side, a neighborhood reeling from takeover, O'Malley's portraits derive from the informal rituals of languid afternoon visits and unhurried conversation. Marks of imperfection lend intimacy to the process.

The exhibition, Community of Elsewheres, was first presented in NYC last Spring and was instigated by Alice's longtime friend and subject, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons. These pictures are a surprising reminder of so many things including the proximity of friendship and fanship. Espousing one’s heroes, a cherished form of bonding that goes back to the 60s film underground of Jack Smith and Andy Warhol, nimbly traverses generations through the sometimes posthumous assemblage of a family tree.

The artists reception for Community of Elsewheres takes place this evening.

Buffalo Arts Studio presents two solo shows by painter David Schirm and by sculptor Justin Thompson, artists who both cross cultural boundaries to create a forward-looking contemporary aesthetic. Schirm subverts the landscape genre of painting, while Thompson borrows the tree, a common landscape element to imbue complex political, social and environmental commentaries into their work. Join them tonight at the artists' reception.

David Schirm, a professor of visual studies at the University at Buffalo, creates powerful and provocative images through his other-worldly, color saturated scenes In one painting, blood spouts from the ground as if a form of vegetation, turning the land around into a blood soaked pool and in another icebergs float through an endless sea of blood. His images are simultaneously beautiful and unnerving in their subversion of the traditional landscape.

Justin Thompson, an African American artist now living and working in Florence, Italy, addresses through his sculpture the past and present of African American cultural heritage, as well as makes connections to the African presence in Italy. He creates large-scale works from metal armatures to replicate trees and covers them with recycled handmade quilts. The quilts, as the artist explains, “are a metaphor for the patchwork of African American cultural make-up.” The end result created by Thompson’s wilting and languishing trees, is a haunting and monumental forest that arises from the past, creating a link to the present.

Tonight, local musician Don Metz will perform a score for 4 guitars to both classic and new experimental and avant-garde shorts by international and local artists. Metz's score utilizes guitars in a variety of ways from melodic to percussive. This screening will take place in Columbus Park (Corner of Porter and Niagara St), with a rain location of Squeaky Wheel.

Classic films include Anemic Cinema by Marcel Duchamp and L'Etoile de Mer by Man Ray. New experimental films by national filmmakers Nicole Rademacher, Angeles Cossio, Karen Brummond, Henry Gwiazda, Jon Monaghan, Sang Um Nam, John Larsen, Adam Paradis and Cara Marisa Deleon feature 3d and stop-motion animations, digital poetry, abstract video collages and hand-made film techniques.

Also featured at this event are local filmmakers Courtney Grim and Michael Lent. Courtney's film Wine-oh features film soaked for a year in red wine. Michael Lent's Number 2 and Oklahoma is OK are abstract video collages of video from a road trip across the United States.

Image: still from L'Etoile de Mer