Final First Friday of Summer 09

If there is any image that says to me "First Friday", especially in Summer = it's of this young man, whom C. and I dubbed "Mothman" - though at times he's also "Ribbon Man" and sometimes "No Props At All Man" - who is a totally free spirit who dances at almost all public music events.

First Friday tonight was especially fruitful.

At first there was the PanFried steel drum band from Yarmouth.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

They held forth in Congo Square - earlier scene of the Flamenco Affair - starting about 5 p.m. They played pretty well - I think they were associated with the Pan band attached to North Yarmouth Academy - a nice mix of ages, genders and abilities. I wish I could see - and hear - more group artistic performances. They hark back to the old Town Band movement - rather like the Chandler's Band that used to hold forth on Thursday mights in the Summer at the Eastern Prom Gazebo.

There used to be Gazebos used for such community-building purposes in town squares in every town in the U.S. - I wonder what happened to our sense of community art?

Anyway - they sounded great.

Next I wound up down at Post Office Park - my steps just led down there - I was looking for a hot dog or something similar.

What I found was Betsy Dunphy, an extraordinary local choreographer. She had erected large muslin cages in the park, lit them from the inside to eerie effect. She used this as the backdrop for 10 or so dancers, girls she trained in expressive movements.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

The piece was called "Fireflies" and was put on by the Elm Street Arts group. I've never heard of the Elm Street Arts group but I'll have to look them up as they did great work.

FInally, back down to the Monument, where my friends in the Goth community were presenting the last Dark Follies of the season.

Belly dancers, a devil-stick juggler (quite a good one) and fire dancers - it was quite the event and seemed to draw all sorts of people. Everyone likes belly dancers, I guess.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

By that time of the evening it's kind of hard to get the pics to come out right - not all of them do, but it's fun to try and I kind of like belly dancers too.

Diablo jugglers are also cool.