Darfur, premiers Wednesday April 23rd at the Arden Theater

A-List

Darfur, Philly Girl About Town, Steve Lopez and Black Gay Pride Legends Awards Ball.

Darfur

Choreographed and directed by Rebecca Davis, Darfur is the first dance production to interpret the genocide in the Darfur region of Western Sudan. The dance narrative unfolds against a backdrop of contemporary music like the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” Damien Rice’s “Accidental Babies” and remixed snippets of radio such as George Clooney’s famous speech about Darfur. Meanwhile, a digital video installation created in Second Life and produced by Human + Nature complements the choreography. Davis hopes the performance motivates audience members to learn more about what the people of Darfur are going through and find out what they can do to help. Twenty-five percent of ticket sales will be donated to Global Grassroots, a nonprofit organization that aids people affected by genocide. (Tara Murtha)

Philly Girl About Town Presents Spring Fling

Philly Girl About Town is a blog that gives readers “music for moderns,” a taste of the best music from a Philly and indie POV. Started by Royce Epstein and Carly Marcoux, the site recommends bands to check out and upcoming shows in the area, and tells you what you missed at past concerts. What truly sets the site apart is the complete lack of a hipper-than-thou attitude, as the writers clearly love the music they write about and bring passion to every post. This Thursday they’ve invited four of their favorite Philly bands to play: dreamy psychedelic folksters National Eye, PGAT faves East Hundred, Cheers Elephant (which the Girls describe as a crossover blend of melodic pop with psychedelic guitar jams à la Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society) and punky Southern rockers Cary Ann Hearst and the Gun Street Girls. (Jack Schonewolf)

Steve Lopez

In the foreword to Land of Giants, Steve Lopez describes Philadelphia like this: “Nothing compares. Part of it is that you can get from the nightmare to the dream in 20 minutes and see everything along the way, and part of it is that Philadelphia is a city without pretense in a state without shame.” That type of dry wit and streetwise insight earned Lopez a spot (alongside Pete Dexter) high atop the mantel of all-time PNI columnists. Lopez’s 12-year run with the Inquirer ended in 1997. Since then he’s moved back to the left coast, where he currently writes a column for the L.A. Times. He’s also written three fiction novels, all of which were set in or around Philadelphia. On Saturday he discusses The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music, the real-life story of Nathaniel Ayers, a Juilliard alum and musical savant who wound up poor and homeless on L.A.’s Skid Row. The book is currently being made into a movie, starring Jamie Foxx as Ayers and Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez. (Bob Hill)

Philly Black Gay Pride Legends Awards Ball

When is straight white pride day? Every day is straight white pride day. We rule. Literally. And not necessarily in a good way. If you want to know why there’s a black gay pride week when there’s already a regular pride event, then you need to dip a nose into the convoluted hate mail generated every time the worlds “black” and “gay” appear in the same paragraph. Homo-hating reggae muso Buju Banton once told me to my face there are no gays in Jamaica. Last September Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd of laughing, jeering U.S. students that there are no same-sexers in Iran (I’ve never been prouder to be an American). Similarly, there are any number of otherwise liberal African-Americans who’ll tell you with a straight face that homosexuality is a white “problem.” That’s why there’s a week of black gay pride events in Philly, peaking with the Legend Awards. And if you’ve got a problem with that, you can suck my Afro-Saxon dick. (Steven Wells)