Category: 2018 News

PVDFest kicked off on Thursday with the largest ever Bike The Night ride with Mayor Jorge O. Elorza and Sustain PVD. Over 100 cyclists looped from Burnside Park around the city. But don’t worry if you missed out – there’s still plenty of fun on wheels to be had at PVDFest with bikes, bumper cars, and even brightly colored truck art. (Bike The Night events will continue throughout the summer, by the way.)

The Bump n’ Bass Raceway will be set up along Dorrance Street from 12pm-4pm with DJ Atorr & Lunchbagg soundtracking a neon 90s themed bumper car adventure. The fun starts up again from 6-10pm with Elemental on the decks. (Note: You must be 6 or older and 42 inches or taller to ride the raceway.)

Pittsburgh’s Squonk Opera: Cycle Sonic (pictured) is a not-to-be-missed celebration of “all things bicycle,” a double-decker human-powered stage propelled by original chamber rock music. As double-decker bike-stages circle the audience, backdrops of undulating flags and 20-foot legs pump with the rhythm of sustainable power. With no carbon footprint, “Cycle Sonic” combines the thrill of a live concert with the world of everyday transit. This event is presented by PVDFest Founding Partner FirstWorks.

BikeFest RI returns to PVDFest on Saturday from 12-4pm at 143 Washington Street behind The Dean Hotel. There will be BMX Stunt Riders, an expo area of bicycles and related gear, info and resources about biking in Rhode Island, and lots of live entertainment. DJ Cadillac Jack and Wattz will keep the action going. BikeFest RI is organized by The Met School, Recycle-A-Bike, Rhode Island Bicycle Coalition, and FULLCYCLE @the MET.

Don’t forget to check out Pakistan Truck Art all weekend in Biltmore Park! Showcasing a traditional art form in parts of Asia, the truck was painted by “the King of Pakistan Truck Art” Haider Ali and Ali Salman, Founder of the Phool Patti Truck Art Team. This event is presented by PVDFest Founding Partner FirstWorks.

Because Kennedy Plaza will transform into a Food Village on Saturday and Sunday, RIPTA busses will be rerouted. Check here for service alerts, and click here for a map of downtown road closures.

Squonk Opera photo: John Altdorfer

Providence is a proudly international city, and PVDFest is a world-class event with performers from six continents uniting in the Creative Capital in the name of art, culture and music. The 2018 edition of the festival features a great range of Latinx entertainment (and a history-making bachata dance). Saturday and Sunday’s programs coincide with the RI Day of Portugal. Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister António Costa, and Azorean president Vasco Cordeiro are expected to visit Providence for a historic visit.

Here are just a few cultural highlights of PVDFest:

FRIDAY

Providence hopes to make history as Carlos Gonzales (Mambo Pa Ti) and Martin Rivera-Baldera (Fusion Culture RI and Studio One RI) lead a Guinness World Record attempt (8:00pm) for the “most people dancing a choreographed Bachata.” The current record is 760 dancers, so we’ll need over 380 couples. All ages, abilities and skill levels are invited to join at the Main Stage Powered by Waste Management (40 Snow Street).

La Super Fiesta (5:00pm – 11:00pm) precedes and follows the World Record Attempt on the same stage. The evening-long dance party, presented by GM Communications, will feature reggaeton, salsa, merengue, pop, and Latin Pop by local DJs and performers. Programming draws inspiration from countries such as Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and more.

SATURDAY

LADAMA, performing at 5:30pm at 25 Dorrance Street, is a Pan-American musical hurricane featuring four amazing female folk musicians from Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and the United States.

Live favorite Troker takes the Main Stage Powered by Waste Management (40 Snow Street) at 6:00pm. A raucous six-piece band from Mexico, Troker features mariachi horns with DJ scratching and funk rhythms and is sure to be a PVDFest highlight.

Latin Grammy winner Buika, “queen of Spanish Flamenco,” rounds out this trio of performances presented by festival Founding Partner FirstWorks with a 9:00pm show on the Main Stage Powered by Waste Management (40 Snow Street).

In addition to Saturday’s FirstWorks headliners, ACT will present Puerto Rican activist and singer/songwriter Taina Asili y Su Banda Rebelde, an Afro-Latin rock-reggae fusion outfit, at 8:00pm on the stage at 25 Dorrance Street.

RI Day of Portugal will present Starlight, a Portuguese band from Canada, who will close out the RI Day of Portugal first night celebration at 10:00pm at the ALEX AND ANI City Center stage located at  2 Kennedy Plaza.

SUNDAY

La Super Feria (12:00pm-5:00pm) at the RI Convention Center combines performance with educational workshops. International actor Julian Gil, local performers Selena Lee, Candela Pura, Robertico y su Alebreke and dancers from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America will take the stage. La Super Feria is presented by GM Communications.

RI Day of Portugal is a two-day celebration happening at ALEX + ANI City Center during PVDFest. This year’s events include a parade that starts at the State House on Sunday (3:00pm), a special Portuguese-themed Waterfire Basin Lighting (8:20pm), and appearances by the President and Prime Minister of Portugal.

Victor Rodrigues, a Portuguese pop artist from Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal, will close out the RI Day of Portugal festivities at 9:30pm at the ALEX AND ANI City Center stage located at  2 Kennedy Plaza.

From Burnside Park to Empire Street, PVDFest 2018 is a family-friendly festival, and the dazzling musicians, dancers, and artists performing are bound to wow the most discerning young audience members. Here are just a handful of highlights for families:

With performances on Friday and Saturday, “Tall Tales from the High Seas” is an incredible performance by Australia’s Sway Poles, filled with equal measures of spectacle, disaster, and beauty. This fantastic voyage follows the antics of three eccentric mariners as they explore the power of imagination. Expect astonishment as these world-renowned acrobats perform atop incredible sway-pole masts as their vessel “The Fabulist” pitches and rolls above the crowd!

On Saturday, a New Orleans-style second line will accompany the PVDFest parade down Washington Street. Organized by Jazz at Lincoln Center, the processional will feature students from Classical High School, TAPA, and JMW School of the Arts who are taking part in FirstWorks Arts Learning workshops.

What Cheer? Brigade explode the relationship between performer and audience while proving that loud, fun music doesn’t require electricity. Their sound is a tight mix of global brass traditions that is unmistakably rooted in Providence’s erstwhile tradition of louder-than-loud rock.

Youth hip-hop outfit Project 401 returns to the festival for a fourth year. The group will perform, join the parade, and host an open space to introduce audiences to the cultural practices of hip-hop. This year the group will also host a dance competition with the Kids Breaking League (KBL). This is a family-friendly event with tons of energy to go around In the name of peace, love, and unity.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to play instruments with PVDFest headliners Debo Band and Sidy Maiga of Afrimanding. On the Burnside Park stage, these musicians will show the audience how they combine Malian and Ethiopian music, demonstrate their instruments and invite the audience to participate and make music with them.

Speaking of drums, Burlington Taiko is a thunderous Japanese drum ensemble. They play with complete abandon, fully committing their bodies and spirits to the beautiful, precise choreography and powerful, surging rhythms expressed by the ancient style.

Squonk Opera’s “Cycle Sonic” is a celebration of “all things bicycle,” featuring human-powered stages! As double-decker bike-stages circle the audience, backdrops of undulating flags and 20-foot legs pump with the rhythm of sustainable power. With no carbon footprint, “Cycle Sonic” combines the thrill of a live concert with the world of everyday transit.

Local school buildings are recreated in Legos in a public art project from Andrew Grover, who focuses on the historically significant school buildings of Cranston and Warwick. There will also be kid-friendly workshops happening all day on Saturday. And keep an eye out for local favorite Amy the Mime!

PVDFest founding partner FirstWorks is giving over a thousand Providence students a head start on the fun with workshops at local schools, including a special assembly at Mt. Pleasant High School. Earlier in the week, students from the MET School will work with “the King of Pakistan Truck Art” Haider Ali and Ali Salman, Founder of the Phool Patti Truck Art Team. Students from Central High School will be performing on Saturday with Eastern Medicine Singers, presenting an intercultural program called “Drums & Music of the Americas.”

Whether you’re watching or participating, PVDFest offers some amazing opportunities to experience a world of dance. From ballet to bachata to an illuminated spectacle from Pilobolus, your feet will be moving at the festival. Here are just a few highlights:

FRIDAY
PVDFest wants YOU to help assist our Guinness World Record Attempt for the Most People Dancing a Choreographed Bachata. Instructors Carlos Gonzales (Mambo Pa Ti) and Martin Rivera-Baldera of FusionCultureRI & Studio One RI will be there to teach you the steps. Sign up here and visit our Facebook event for a quick tutorial.

SATURDAY
The biggest day of PVDFest kicks off at noon. Debo Band are a large band making their own spin on Ethiopian pop music. They’ll be joined by Rhode Island’s own rhythm king, Malian drummer Sidy Maiga. After a few songs you’ll find yourself dancing in the street. Stick around until evening, because Maiga will return later with his own band Afrimanding.

Fans of contemporary dance will want to check out 10 Tiny Dances, an exciting dance event curated by Ali Kenner Brodsky that challenges choreographers to create and perform a piece a on a 4×4 stage, 18 inches off the ground. The confined space requires artists to manipulate their movement and allows audiences to get close to the dancers.

In Burnside Park, Eastern Medicine Singers will perform “Drums and Music of the Americas,” an event featuring traditional and contemporary music of Native People and heartland traditional folk and rhythm roots music, as well as individual artists and cross-cultural collaborators. Audiences are invited to engage with percussion instruments for this magnificent joining of drums, song, and dance.

On Saturday night Pilobolus presents The Umbrella Project, giving volunteer performers three chances to experience the magic of interaction. Illuminated color-changing LED umbrellas will light up the night as festival attendees make their way through the crowd.

SUNDAY

The festival continues Sunday! Providence Ballet Theatre will present dynamic original works filled with fun, light-hearted movements. Dancers and choreographers will mix the challenging with the accessible while exploring physicality, musicality and poetry in motion.

On Saturday and Sunday, a number of local companies will also be performing on stages spread throughout the festival. Keep an eye out for groups like the Kelly Irish Dancers, Bollywood Fusion & Fitness, Beledi Dance Company, and Blue Moon Tribal Bellydance.

lead photo: Erin X. Smithers

PVDFest is excited to announce that Bert Crenca and Valerie Tutson are this year’s PVDFest Grand Marshals! Crenca and Tutson are two Providence residents who have put decades of effort into nurturing and promoting the local arts scene. The Grand Marshals will be formally “sashed” at the VIP party on Friday, June 8 and can be seen leading the parade down Washington Street on Saturday, June 9.

Umberto “Bert” Crenca is an artist and founder of AS220, Rhode Island’s unjuried, uncensored, all-ages home for the arts. Crenca recently received honorary doctorate degrees from both Brown University and Roger Williams University for his commitment to community development, creating opportunity for artists, and the revitalization of downtown Providence. As a visual artist, performance artist, and musician, Bert’s works and performances have been exhibited globally in galleries and on stages including the Galleria Del Corso in Latina, Italy; La Galeria Matadero in San Juan, Puerto Rico; the RISD Museum in Providence; the Newport Art Museum in Rhode Island; and the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.

During PVDFest, you can see several pieces from Crenca’s TYPES series in the windows of RIHousing (at the corner of Washington and Eddy Streets). Other pieces in TYPES are showing at 233 Westminster Street, and larger examples are currently on the historic facade of the former Providence National Bank on Weybosset St, as part of Bert’s year-long public residency with the Avenue Concept.

Valerie Tutson is a storyteller, educator, and cultural programmer who has traveled the country performing stories and songs for audiences of all ages. She is a founding member and executive director of the Rhode Island Black Storytellers, and serves as director of FUNDA FEST: An Annual Celebration of Black Storytelling, held in Providence each winter. Tutson has a Master’s Degree in Theatre from Brown University, and for twelve years hosted the award winning TV show Cultural Tapestry. In 2017 Valerie received the Public Humanities Scholar Award from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities for her work to promote storytelling.

The PVDFest parade is always a highlight of the festival, and this year will include Squonk Opera “Cycle Sonic” as well as and local favorites What Cheer? Brigade and Extraordinary Rendition Band. The parade also includes Jazz at Lincoln Center with a second line parade featuring FirstWorks Arts Learning students.

Long known as a haven for foodies, Providence has one of the hottest dining scenes in the region. Actually, let’s say one of the hottest dining scenes in the whole country. Our culinary footprint is always expanding with new restaurants, food trucks, and beverage companies offering locally produced food and drink inspired by cuisines from around the world.

If you like food, Providence is the place to be. That’s why food also plays a big part of PVDFest!

On Friday June 8, north presents Fountain Street Hooligans at The Dean Hotel. It’s a collaborative family style outdoor dinner with chefs serving up delicious and inventive, locally sourced creations at a special outdoor table. This is one for seafood lovers! (Rumor has it that there will be whole grilled fish.) A lot of the cooking will be done outside as the meal progresses.

On Saturday June 9 and Sunday June 10, Kennedy Plaza will transform into the PVDFest Food Village, with over 40 local establishments gathering to serve festival attendees. Seating will be located throughout the plaza, and several participating restaurants will give behind the scenes sneak peaks, including dish preparations, stories behind signature meals and live cooking demonstrations. Over 20 food trucks will line the perimeter of the plaza, with more than 20 restaurants and food purveyors selling some of their finest dishes.

Sponsors of the Food Village include Pollo Campero, Matunuck Oyster Bar, and Gotta Q.

The list will keep growing, but Food Village participants confirmed through May 10 include:

Baby’s Bonetown BBQ
Binge BBQ
Bucktown
By Chloe
Championship Melt
Dave’s Coffee
Del’s Lemonade
Durk’s BBQ
Fugo
Haven Brothers Mobile
Hometown Poke
Incred-A-Bowl
J & S Pineapple Xpress
Jerry’s Food Concessions
Kettle Korn Express
Matilda
Ming’s Asian Street Food
Munchies Food Truck
Newport Jerky Company
Open Season
Poppy’s Kettle Corn & Waffles
Portu-Galo Food Truck
Red’s
Rhode Rage
Rhody Roots
Sarcastic Sweets
Saugy, Inc.
Smoke & Squeal BBQ
The Granny Squibb Company
The Sandwich Hut
UMELT
Wicked Doughboys

For the second year in a row, PVDFest kicks off with a one-day ideas conference. The theme of PVDFest Ideas 2018 is Cyborg Cities: Humans, Technology, and Urban Spaces, a frame that brings together artists, scholars, designers and practitioners to consider what might be gained, and lost, as cities integrate new technologies to become smarter.

PVDFest Ideas is Powered by Cox Business and presented by the City of Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism and gold sponsor KITE Architects.

The keynote address, Human-Centered Smart Cities, features author and architecture critic Dr. Sarah Williams Goldhagen (Welcome To Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives) in conversation with Christine West, AIA, principal at KITE Architects.

PVDFest Ideas also includes two panel discussions featuring artists, scholars, architects, and urban planners. The themes of the two panels are Rising Tides and Responsive Technologies and Big Data and Artist Activism. Advocates for the “smart cities” movement suggest that standardized, rational, and finely tuned urban spaces will help people adapt to today’s greatest challenges, from rising sea levels to cybersecurity breaches.

Only 75 tickets are available. Tickets and speaker bios for PVDFest Ideas are now available here for $15 and include morning coffee and an afternoon snack. Conference participants can visit one of downtown Providence’s many world-class lunch options.

PVDFest Ideas runs from 8:30am-5pm on Thursday, June 7, 2018 at the Providence Public Library (150 Empire St.)

PVDFest Ideas is made possible through collaboration with program partners Providence Public Library and DESIGNxRI with support from Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.

Pilobolus, a “mind-blowing troupe of wildly creative and physically daring dancers”, returns to Providence for the 2018 edition of PVDFest. The group has performed at the Oscars, the VMAs, and the Olympics, and now they’re headed to Providence to lead dozens of participants in The Umbrella Project, an illuminated, interactive community art experience that will light up downtown Providence on Saturday, June 9.

Curated by PVDFest Founding Partner FirstWorks, The Umbrella Project is a colorful spectacle in which participants illuminate the night with LED umbrellas that were developed in collaboration with MIT. A large overhead screen projects an aerial view of the umbrellas as they change color, with participants moving throughout the outdoor space. This project is open to festival attendees, regardless of mobility level. Non-participants are also welcome to attend and behold the power of their community in motion!

“The Umbrella Project promises to be one of those memory-making moments for which PVDFest is now famed,” says FirstWorks Artistic Director Kathleen Pletcher. “People still talk about the Earth Harp that turned the Superman building into a musical instrument. Being part of a group that collaborates to create magic is the kind of experience that will live on in our collective imaginations. The sheer innovation and marriage of dance and cutting edge technology make the Umbrella Project a perfect capstone for this year’s Ideas Conference theme: Cyborg Cities.

Beginning just after sundown at 101 Washington Street, three consecutive evening performances (8:30pm, 9:30pm, 10:30pm) will allow festival attendees multiple opportunities to experience and participate in the brilliantly illuminated magic. There is no need for participants to sign up in advance. They can simply show up 20 minutes before each performance.

The Umbrella Project has appeared at festivals throughout the world including Baltimore (2016), Singapore (2016), and Brooklyn Bridge Park (2017).

Pilobolus has a long relationship with FirstWorks. They headlined the premiere FirstWorks performance at The Vets in 2004, and returned again in 2010. “Pilobolus always brings new discovery to FirstWorks,” Pletcher says, “and this performance in particular fits well with the festival and the theme of smart cities.” The movement company will return to Providence to kick off FirstWorks’ 15th season on October 26, at the Artistic Icons Series, with Maximus: Beyond the Limits of Dance.