Thursday, July 27
Cindy Wilson
MUSIC
Yes, it's that Cindy Wilson. But with the great renown of being a cornerstone of the B-52's comes great baggage. To get to the essence of what she's currently doing as a solo artist, a lot of unpacking is necessary. First, before every wedding DJ ever cumulatively beat us all down with "Love Shack," the B-52's were a legit alternative phenomenon and a genuine product of the American underground. Second, and most importantly for those still wary, Wilson's new solo material is almost opposite to her smash band. Going back to the creative roots in her native Athens soil, she's rounded up a credentialed list of collaborators from that city's famous indie scene to roll with her, people from acts like Easter Island, PacificUV and Powerkompany. Shimmering with clean electronics and pastel psychedelia, the result is stylishly restrained pop music that's closer to Stereolab than the B-52's. (Wilson posted on her Facebook page that this set will be dedicated to the memory of Billy Manes.) – Bao Le-Huu
with the Pauses, the Sh-Booms | 9 p.m. | Will's Pub, 1042 N. Mills Ave. | willspub.org | $12-$15
Thursday, July 27
Colonialtown Babylon
FILM
Nearly five years in the making, Colonialtown Babylon is the pinnacle of Kate Shults' distinctive visual style: dark digital video with shallow color depth, rich reds and blues, and pixels that fray into noise, emphasizing narrative through texture. Shults, a moving image artist and film educator with UCF's School of Visual Arts and Design, adapts Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel The Big Sleep (popularized on screen by Bogart and Bacall), swapping the plot incomprehensibility of that hardboiled mystery for deliberate ambiguity. Drugs, sex, voyeurism and blackmail shape an undercurrent of extinction as every clue tells a different story, but each with the same ending: murder. Settings among nocturnal neighborhood haunts – Uncle Lou's, Wally's, the Cameo Theater fire escape, alongside spaces known more intimately by Shults' cast of local residents – harbor an alternative dimension in Orlando's Colonialtown neighborhood, where an exploded femme fatale trope keeps pace with an approaching hurricane toward not only subjecthood but witchy, death-dealing revenge. Alas, Colonialtown, your judgment has come. – Moriah Russo
6:30 p.m. | The Venue, 511 Virginia Drive | 407-412-6895 | thevenueorlando.com | free
Friday, July 28
Movies at the Mennello:Finding Vivian Maier
FILM
You can look at Finding Vivian Maier as a primer on copyright law, or as a poetic meditation on life and art. What you can't call it, though, is unbiased, as it was co-directed by John Maloof, the man who found tens of thousands of Maier's photographs when he bought the contents of a storage locker unseen. And you can't call it unloving, as Maloof fell under the sway of Maier's strange and unsparing, haunted works. Then he learned that though he owns them, he can't legally sell them. The battle over ownership of Maier's work still rages; a lawsuit was filed by Maier's estate against three galleries just a month ago. Those of a logical bent of mind will find much to be fascinated by in the tortuous twists of the law here; those who can't give a fig for legal gymnastics can bask in the ghostly works of a an unseen woman who saw everyone so very clearly – and recorded them in secret for undetected decades. – Jessica Bryce Young
6 p.m. | Mennello Museum of American Art, 900 E. Princeton St. | 407-246-4278 | mennellomuseum.org | $5
Friday-Monday, July 28-31
Saint Joan
THEATER
Noted local director Jeremy Seghers, known for staging Equus in the farm-like atmosphere of the Acre and turning Macbeth Studio into a 1980s New York apartment for This Is Our Youth, turns to a more traditional theater space – Rollins College's black box, the Fred Stone Theatre – for a production of George Bernard Shaw's take on the story of Joan of Arc. Saint Joan – written just three years after the Catholic Church finally got around to canonizing Joan in 1920 – examines the life of the Maid of Orleans through six scenes and an epilogue chronicling the divine visions that led her to take up arms against the English and eventually leading to her execution by being burned at the stake. The production is certainly timely in its focus on a woman railing against the establishment, only to come to a tragic end through proto-politicians acting in what they think are their best interests. Tale as old as time. – Thaddeus McCollum
8 p.m. | through Aug. 5 | Fred Stone Theatre, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Ave., Winter Park | 407-646-2145 | rollins.edu | $23
Friday, July 28
Voice Hoist
MUSIC
Following in the footsteps of Charlemagne Palestine, the Cocteau Twins and Joan La Barbara, Voice Hoist (formerly of Sarasota), creates some of the most moving, ethereal music that we've had the pleasure of experiencing in a long time. Voice Hoist creates whole choirs, storms in heaven, from just one voice. But beneath the healing waves of ambience, there's a definite intention at odds with the ideological drift of most ambient music.
There is a radical vulnerability and a fierce activist spirit at the heart of the music that Voice Hoist – Gelly Ahn – shares with the world. Influenced by the likes of Joe Meek, Björk and Burroughs' cut-up experiments, Ahn started Voice Hoist in 2014 – at the same time she came out as trans – as "an experimental practice in healing and engaging [her] relationship with [her] voice and assorted spiritual and material dysphoria." She found her desired sound methodology quickly, "sampling, looping and augmenting stream-of-consciousness vocal snippets, dream imagery, finding a sense of wholeness in fragmentation." Extensive live work and involvement in South Florida's DIY arts and music scene followed hand in glove: "Freaky folks holding space for resistance, healing and complexity through a radical arts context? Sign me up," she exclaims.
Ahn's music is inextricably linked to her involvement in community building and political activism. "DIY has always been very political to me," she emphasizes. While some dither about whether or not aesthetics and activism are mutually exclusive, Voice Hoist is breathing, sonic proof that they are not. Besides creating and performing, Ahn explains, "A lot of my engagement with music is the social and community side of it – building and supporting frameworks to uplift and give a platform for marginalized voices, or otherwise diverting resources to where they are most needed." And in so many ways, this community-building work is an extension of her artistic mission of "finding a sense of wholeness in fragmentation." Watching Voice Hoist perform is a poignant reminder that even in this increasingly cruel world, you aren't alone. – Matthew Moyer
with Algae Guck, Mother Juno, Lush Agave | 9 p.m. | Stardust Video & Coffee, 1842 E. Winter Park Road | stardustie.com | $5
Saturday, July 29
Prince Royce
MUSIC
Do you ever, as you're going about your day, just do a quick bachata three-step and whisper into the wind "Royyyyceee"? No? Well, then, acquaint yourself: Bachata superstar Geoffrey Rojas Royce, also known as Prince Royce, has been making corazones flutter with sweet Dominican ballads since he was a teenager with big dreams in the Bronx. His new bilingual album, FIVE, includes collabs with Shakira, Farruko, Zendaya and Gente de Zona. But of course, we're still obsessed with hip-popping classics like "Corazón sin Cara," "Stand by Me" and "Darte un Beso." If you, like us, are a little boy-crazy over Royyyyceee, come check him out this weekend at the Amway Center along with Luis Coronel. Their musical styles don't really match (Coronel sings regional Mexicano), but both men are heartthrobs so we're sure you'll work it out. – Monivette Cordeiro
with Luis Coronel | 7:30 p.m. | Amway Center, 400 W. Church St. | 407-440-7900 | amwaycenter.com | $32-$74
Monday, July 31
Music Mondays: Monterey Pop
FILM
This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the most important music festival in rock history: the 1967 Monterey International Pop Music Festival. Though the legendary Woodstock seems to get the lion's share of attention in revisionist pop culture, the three-day Monterey Pop festival was the springboard for many acts that are now considered part of the classic rock canon. Big Brother and the Holding Company, featuring powerhouse belter Janis Joplin, got signed to Columbia based on their performance at Monterey, and the Who stunned their largest American audience to that point with a guitar-smashing finale. Not to be outdone, Jimi Hendrix, virtually unknown outside of the U.K. at the time, created a sonic barrage with his guitar that blew the eardrums and minds of the nascent hippies assembled – and famously ended his set by lighting his guitar on fire during a performance of "Wild Thing," a song that used to belong to the Troggs. Luckily for those of us who couldn't make it, director D.A. Pennebaker was on hand to shoot the whole thing, resulting in the documentary Monterey Pop. Half a decade later, summer festivals are now a de rigueur part of the music landscape, but whether any of them will hold up as well as Monterey is a question that only time can tell. – Thaddeus McCollum
9:30 p.m. | Enzian Theater, 1300 S. Orlando Ave., Maitland | 407-629-0054 | enzian.org | $11
