The June 2008 edition of the Slightly OffCenter Local Artist Showcase, curated by Carolyn Cruso, features some of Orcas’ favorites: John Clancy’s Improvissimo, Heather Stansbury and Bryan Benepe, Buckthorn and Rutabaga, and Evan Fraser and Tbird Luv. The showcase will be on Sunday, June 29 on the Orcas Center OffCenter Stage. Tickets are $10 and available at the door of the Off Center Stage, and in advance at the Orcas Center box office.
Improvissimo is just plain fun to see. These young improvisers, ranging from 8th to 10th grade, fearlessly take suggestions from the audience and turn them into spontaneous scenes that begin and end in surprise. They never know where they’re going, but they have a tremendous time getting there.
Heather Stansbury and Bryan Benepe met as Patsy and Billy Bob on the Orcas Center stage during the production of “Always…Patsy Cline.” They’ve been making music ever since, co-writing songs and delivering heartwarming concerts to their Orcas friends and neighbors.
Buckthorn and Rutabaga grew up fighting in corn cribs of Harrisonburg, Virginia and from there set out to seek their fortune on the golden shores of California. They made it no further than Gunstock Mountain, Tennessee where they stumbled upon a young boy grubbing for groundnuts like a hog in the mud. They cleaned him up, named him Pickle, and hung a washboard round his neck. From that day forward they’ve been making their way over hill and holler playing their worn out style of tub thumpin’ and board scratchin’ music.
Orcas-born Evan Fraser is a multi-instrumentalist and recording artist currently based in the Bay Area. Evan graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in World Music. Evan has been a member of many bands over the years including Hindugrass, Tabla Rasa, Rub-a-Dub, Dubzilla, the Funnies and Hamsa Lila. With the Funnies, Evan did several tours across North America in a bus that filled up at restaurants on pure recycled vegetable oil. Some of Evan’s many instruments are: jaw harp, kalimba, berimbau, pandeiro, marimbula, melodica, overtone flute, frame drums, calabash, dumbek, zabumba, mouth bow, bottle singing, harmonica, bones, spoons, keyboards and various global percussion.
Evan plays with Tbird Luv, aka Tonya Ridgely, a musical “shaman” who uses a whole range of movement, flute playing, vocalizations and combinations of the above. Throughout high school, Tonya performed in various bands and youth orchestras eventually leading her to collaborate with multi-disciplinary artist, Michael Pestel, at the Pittsburgh National Aviary, (www.michaelpestel.com) and began incorporating sounds of birds and experimental tonality into her improvisations and compositions.
Building on a solid classical European foundation at Carnegie Mellon University and a World Music and Dance foundation at Cal Arts, she has learned to simultaneously integrate and master a broad vocabulary of extended techniques for flute and voice. She has worked with great artists such as choreographer Nia Love, and master musicians, Ry Cooder, Ustad Hossein Alizadeth and Nyoman Wenten. Currently a core ensemble member of Kiah Keya (www.kiahkeya.com), Tonya recently traveled to Mali, Africa, where she and a caravan of filmmakers and artists lived, studied, and documented the Tureq nomadic people of the Sahara desert.
Orcas artists wishing to participate in a future Slightly OffCenter showcase are encouraged to contact Carolyn Cruso at carolyncruso@rockisland.com.
