Ann Arbor Film Fest, Keith Taylor headline Arts Collage
By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
The Lake Street Studios’ free annual Arts Collage, on Sunday, July 31, at 8 p.m. welcomes back the Ann Arbor Film Festival tour for the third year running. The Film Fest tour this year will emphasize innovative experimental documentaries and visual pieces, according to Arts Collage organizer Harry Fried, who promises a show that will be “both challenging and aesthetically captivating.”
Back in the lineup this year is renowned writer and poet Keith Taylor, who appeared at Glen Arbor’s first Arts Collage seven years ago. Fried says that he cornered Taylor at his local hangout — the Sweetwater Café in Ann Arbor — and wouldn’t let the wordsmith finish his latte until Taylor promised to return to Lake Street Studios. Taylor’s new book, If the World Becomes So Bright (Wayne State University Press, 2009) is available for purchase at Glen Arbor’s Cottage Book Shop.
Benzie County native Gretchen Eichberger will dance on the Studio stage. Last year Eichberger produced and directed the nation’s first contemporary version of Martha Graham’s “American Document”. Together with local writer Anne-Marie Oomen, she also co-created an original dance work about Gwen Frostic entitled Chaotic Harmony. The classical jazz-trained country chamber music duo Fretful Porcupine rounds out this year’s Arts Collage. They take country music and do “what only people who’ve spent way too much in New York City would do,” says Fried.
“I think this will be the most solid and tight Arts Collage that we’ve ever had,” the maestro predicts.
