The HOWL! Festival and More Rapture Events!
"Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop
apocalypse! Holy the jazz bands marijuana
hipsters peace & junk & dreams!"
"Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent
kindness of the soul!"
--Allen Ginsberg, "Footnote to Howl," Berkley, 1955
The HOWL! Festival, which began in 2002and was named after Allen Ginsberg's groundbreaking 1955 poem, Howl, celebrates the East Village and Lower East Side's role as a preeminent locus of culture, with signature events like the group reading of the Ginsberg poem itself, and ART AROUND THE PARK. Centered in Tompkins Square Park, the festival attracts more than 100,000 visitors to the clubs, galleries, parks, streets, and theaters of Manhattan's Lower East Side.
The majority of our Rapture Events throughout the year are only just getting started when the sun has gone down and many people have turned in for the evening. The mostly daylight Festival gives many of us the opportunity to present our work to an audience that would not normally be able to see us. And that it's all free-of-charge. A couple of the reasons we are extremely happy to participate in HOWL! again this year.
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Saturday September 6th, 2PM
Storytelling For Kids!
The HOWL! Festival
Tompkins Square Park
North Stage Area
Free Admission
Children of ALL ages, come gather 'round, while Old Mother Goose herself, Hattie Hathaway, hosts some of New York Nightlife"s most original and unusual talent in a performance geared strictly toward those who are young at heart! Fairy tales, puppets. poetry and more! This show promises to be VERY kid-friendly, visual and captivating, as these readers, who actually DO love children, depart from their usual, more grown-up repertoire, and serve up a show for the whole family!
Readers include:
Mother Flawless Sabrina, Joe Birdsong, Tabboo!, Billy Beyond, Lavinia Co-op & Hattie Hathaway.
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Saturday September 6th, 6PM
The Cockettes' 'Pearls Over Shanghai'
Featuring Hattie Hathaway
The HOWL! Festival
Tompkins Square Park
South Stage
Free Admission
Legend has it that when the Cockettes-- the seminal early 1970's pan-sexual San Francisco drag performance troupe-- came to New York to debut their over-the-top campfest "Pearls Over Shanghai" for Manhattan's underground elite nearly 35 years ago, they BOMBED in a big way.
This evening, the surviving members, sans most, if not all, of the illicit substances they were known to enjoy for stagework back then, return to the New York to try it again.
Hattie Hathaway will make a guest appearance as Petrushka, the mysterious White Russian femme-fatale... a role originally played to the hilt by the late disco legend, Sylvester. Expect lavish costumes, show-stopping numbers, glitz and glitter in this gender-twisting send-up of Golden Age Hollywood Musicals. Think: Busby Berkeley meets Grand Hotel produced by Mike Todd.
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Sunday September 7th, 5-7PM
HOWL! Festival & The Jackie Factory Present
'Howlucination '08: Low Life City'
Tompkins Square Park
South Stage
Free Admission
"¨Celebrating 150 years of Brilliant Bowery Performance
On September 7, JACKIE FACTORY producers CHI CHI VALENTI and JOHNNY DYNELL will present their second annual HOWLUCINATION to crown this year's HOWL! FESTIVAL. HOWLUCINATION is a new spectacle created by the JACKIE FACTORY each year as an evening event for HOWL!. The new LOW LIFE CITY follows on the heels of their first HOWLUCINATION at HOWL! - last year's scandalous LOW LIFE.
LOW LIFE CITY is a two hour theatrical showcasing the East Village - and especially, The Bowery, in a lavishly costumed production starring dozens of downtown's finest. A time-travelling, bawdy and witty cavalcade of talent, this show is not recommended for children!
This year's superb cast is now complete - MCs PAUL ALEXANDER (of "The Ones") and HATTIE HATHAWAY, Bowery Belle DEBBIE HARRY, icon JOEY ARIAS with master puppeteer BASIL TWIST, burlesque supernovas DIRTY MARTINI, MISS DELIRIUM TREMENS and JONNY PORKPIE and NASTY CANASTA of PINCHBOTTOM BURLESQUE, GOON SQUAD featuring MISS GUY, drag divinity SWEETIE, butoh ensemble VANGELINE THEATER, WORLD FAMOUS *BOB*, LOGO song star ADAM JOSEPH as The Irish Tenor, slapstick duo DUELLING BANKHEADS, sister act ACID BETTY and EPIPHANY, sensationalist AMBER RAY, Bay Area artiste FAUXNIQUE, BLACKLIPS eminence POISON EVE, members of THE PIXIE HARLOTS, and New Bowery treasures TRINA ROSE, HEATHER LITTEER aka JESSICA RABBIT DOMINATION and TIGGER!
For pictures from last years edition visit LOW LIFE @ HOWL 2007 on FLICKR
HOWLUCINATION '08: LOW LIFE CITY was inspired by the seminal LUC SANTE book "LOW LIFE: The Lures and Snares of Old New York." It continues a body of work born at JACKIE 60 a decade ago, with past editions in London, Minneapolis and of course, last year's HOWL! For the show's producers, East Village residents for over two decades, this annual show is a Valentine to the neighborhood's past, present and future stars.
Dress Up and join us in the park! Wear NYC demimonde evening glamour (1860-2010), Gangs of New York, Victorian/Edwardian rags, newsboy caps, B'hoy for Butch Women, corsets and vintage lingerie, Bowery Belle ringlets, Opium Den loungewear, Vampyre of Gotham, black parasols, Bowery Twink, velvet, 19th century Clownwear, Top Hats or Bowery Punk.
http://www.mothernyc.com/lowlife
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Wednesday September 10th, 8-10PM
Reading For Filth @ DTox
31 Second Avenue (Between 1st & 2nd Streets)
Starring: Moonshine Shorey, Seren Divine, Nathaniel Siegel, Glenn Marla, Paul Skiff & Eric Leven
Free Admission
Subway: F,V to Second Avenue
Rapture's long-running and often downright dirty Queer literary series returns to the East Village for one night only! This special HOWL! Festival edition of Reading For Filth, originally co-curated by the late, great Dean Johnson, unfurls its banner at the newest and flashiest Lesbian and Gay nightspot on the Second Avenue Strip, DTox (31 Second Avenue.) Tonight, favorites from the Bowery Poetry Club meet the Rapture Café mainstays:
With Moonshine Shorey, Seren Divine, Nathaniel Siegel, Glenn Marla, Paul Skiff & Eric Leven.
Hosted by Hattie Hathaway and Joe Birdsong, there will be 2-4-1 drinks.
Of course, our own DJ Baby K spins.
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And Later In the Week...
Friday September 12th, 9-11PM
Heavy/Filth at Mr Black!
27 West 24th Street (Between Sixth & B'way)
Starring Kari Krome, Erin Markey, Bevin Branlandingham, Laryssa Husiak, Thain Torres & Mr. Joe
Hosted by Glenn Marla & Hattie Hathaway
$5 Admission
F, N, R, V, W to 23 Street
For over a year, Rapture Café & Books, located in New York's East Village, was an oasis of colorful creative expression and memorably literate performance. Since Rapture has now closed, we've moved two of our most critically acclaimed events to an early slot at what is swiftly becoming New York City's most talked about underground nightclub, Mr Black.
On Friday September 12th, Reading For Filth, the extremely dirty queer literary series originally co-curated by the late Dean Johnson, and Heavy, Glenn Marla's monthly cavalcade of cutting-edge performance art will be joining forces for the monthly event Heavy/Filth on the already-legendary downstairs room of Mr Black at 27 West 24th Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, from 9 till 11PM.
The stellar lineup for this edition of Heavy/Filth includes the Runaways' rock deity Kari Krome, Bevin Branlandingham, the Flamboyant Femcee, the witchy Thain Torres, brillant and provocative stylings from Laryissa Husiak, Joe Birdsong, Rapture's own two-spirited author, and much, much more.
Glenn Marla & Hattie Hathaway host, and Peter Hale DJs.