FABRIC 2020 festival lineup features installations, fado and more

FALL RIVER — FABRIC 2020 will take place Oct. 16 and 17 in Fall River. This year’s festival will feature an innovative format for attendees to experience the impact of local culture while promoting social solidarity. FABRIC 2020 seeks to inspire a narrative that celebrates and reflects the urban and social fabric of Fall River, its industrial heritage in textile mills, and its deeply rooted cultural bond with Portugal. Organized by Casa dos Açores de Nova Inglaterra under the leadership of Michael Benevides in Fall River, and with the curatorship of international art impresarios Jesse James, Sofia Carolina Botelho and António Pedro Lopes, all elements of the festival will aim to enlighten and inspire while respecting the need for physical distancing.

The current limitations on international travel and on public gatherings had altered the festival’s planning and programming of talents from abroad, but not hampered its ingenuity and creativity, according to festival organizers. The curatorial trio of James, Botelho and Lopes have remained in Portugal and been working diligently with the local production team to present a dynamic, hybrid edition of the festival. The two-day FABRIC 2020 will combine physical, multidisciplinary artistic interventions in downtown Fall River with unique virtual experiences that will be engaging and culturally rewarding.

Fados, Fairies & Violas

As with the pilot edition last year, FABRIC 2020 will bring international musical performances to Fall River. In a time of limited travel, five free concert screenings, each lasting 30 minutes, will be pre-recorded specifically for Fall River audiences. Each show will be projected onto iconic city buildings including the Potter's Printing Inc. (former Herald News Building) and Fall River City Hall. The artists will be working in and around forms of fado and traditional Portuguese songs and instruments that reinterpret principles of identity, history, and belonging. The performers will be:

● Ricardo Rocha, one of fado’s most intriguing guitarists;

● Great-grandson of the fado singer Celeste Rodrigues, Gaspar Varela;

● Rafael Carvalho, viola da terra’s master, the instrument of the 2 hearts and 12 chords which are synonymous with “açorianidade”;

● The poetry of Miguel Torga with the power of performance and harmonies of rising duo Lavoisier;

● Ground-breaking queer fado beasts Fado Bicha, whose sense of subversion of the traditional forms and lyrics and fado have given them international attention.

Each performance will invite audiences to use their imagination to immerse themselves in new ways of appreciating the arts during a pandemic. Performances will take place on Oct. 16 and 17 from 8:30 - 11 p.m.

Performative Walks Series

“Come Walk With Me” with online workshops will debut this year, inviting participants to rediscover Fall River, including Historic Downtown and the Quequechan River Rail Trail. Designed and mentored by choreographer and contextual artist Gustavo Ciríaco remotely via a zoom workshop from Lisbon, Portugal, each walk will invite five participants to collaboratively map out the urban adventure beforehand. The themes of “Come Walk With Me” will be:

● Greetings from Fall River: A walk through old postcards of downtown Fall River

● See Through My Voices, Smell Through My Eyes: A sensorial audio deambulation through nature along the Quequechan River Rail Trail

● As Water Falls: Re-imagining, re-staging, re-enacting the waterfalls of Fall River - a poetic contest for the population of its city

A local guide will meet with the participants at the designated date and time slot and discover the sites according to their unique collaboration. Six “Come Walk With Me” sessions will take place on Oct. 17 at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 2 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Group Show

Fall River residents and artists Harry Gould Harvey IV and Brittni Ann Harvey will curate a fun group show with several local, emerging artists at the ground floor of Merrow Manufacturing. Established in 1838 and known for its own heritage of producing sewing machines and textiles, the Fall River based Merrow Manufacturing will collaborate with FABRIC to reimagine possibilities in the 4,000-square foot architectural space and will present works to speak to the current moment. It will speculate around the role that an improvised art space can have in creating entry points, involving different communities, and is a subversion of how to perceive the "institution". The artists taking part include Michael Assiff, Brittni Ann Harvey, Gregory Kalliche, Zachary John Martin, Susan Mohl Powers, Jeffrey Alan Scudder, Flannery Silva, Faith Wilding, and Allyson Vieira. Visitors will travel through it in a circular flow with a separate entrance and exit and limited capacity. The group show will take place on Oct. 16 from 5 - 8 p.m. and on Oct. 17 from 2 - 7 p.m.

Art Installations

Three large, site-specific art installations will be on view bringing attention to the 1.4-mile Quequechan River Rail Trail. Design studio and collective WSDIA (WeShouldDoItAll) from Brooklyn, New York, will be doing an architectural installation on the trail, reimagining what can be future places of gathering. Interdisciplinary artist Tracey Cockrell will present sound installations on the trail with students from UMASS-Dartmouth. In addition, New Bedford, MA based multimedia artist Tracy Silva Barbosa will create a waterfall projection to illuminate onto Fall River City Hall, viewable from afar as well as from I-195, to pay tribute to Fall River’s namesake where the Quequechan River flows through the city and drops steeply into the bay. The Tracey Barbosa projection will be available Oct. 16 from dusk to dawn, and the WSDIA and Tracey Cockrell installations will be on view beginning Oct. 17 at 10 a.m.

Past-Ups

Musician and saxophonist Chase Ceglie, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, will record a live set of original music from home which will become available through a QR code only. On Oct. 16, the unique code will become available online and found on stickers spread around Fall River and in diverse cities within MA. The 22-year-old Newport, RI, native received recognition for the 2017 cult album "Onion". In addition, Portuguese lettering and sign painting studio, Halfstudio, will be developing a graphic project inspired by an immigrant from the Azores, Jorge Ferreira, to the song "Viva Fall River". This series of "past-ups" will be seen around public spaces in Fall River from Oct. 16.

FABRIC 2020 programming is free and open to the public, though some activities will require pre-registration due to limited capacity. For information on the FABRIC 2020, visit www.fabricfallriver.com.

About Casa dos Açores de Nova Inglaterra

Casa dos Açores de Nova Inglaterra is the local lead organizing entity of FABRIC Arts Festival. C.A.N.I. was created in June, 1982, in Fall River, MA. It promotes educational, cultural and social opportunities as well as cultural and tourist exchange between the Azorean immigrant community in southwest New England and the Azores. It does so by promoting events, encounters and cultural manifestations that keep an active link between the local community and the islands, preserving traditions and creating new opportunities.

About Jesse James and Sofia Carolina Botelho

Jesse James and Sofia Carolina Botelho are the artistic directors of the Walk&Talk - Arts Festival, which has taken place in the island of São Miguel, in the Azores, for the past 9 years. At FABRIC Arts Festival, they’ll curate the visual art program. Walk&Talk is an annual arts festival that stimulates creation in the specific cultural and geographic context of the Azores. From visual arts to performing arts, to architecture, design, music or video, more than a festival, Walk&Talk is a platform that encourages artistic creation in permanent dialogue with the territory, culture and the Azorean community. It operates in a co-production network with other programming structures, promotes an environment favorable to the exchange and co-creation of universal contents, generated in the Azores to be shared with the world.

About António Pedro Lopes

António Pedro Lopes (Ponta Delgada, 1981) is an independent Portuguese artist and curator. He is co-artistic director of Tremor, a music and arts festival that has taken place on the island of São Miguel, Azores, described by Forbes: “From The Shocking To The Sublime, Boutique Azorean Music Festival 'Tremor' Wins With Experiences”. In 2019, he co-founded and curated FABRICin the city of Fall River, MA. As a cultural curator and agitator, he directed festivals and artistic events in Portugal and Europe, in the contexts of contemporary dance, performing arts and music, always driven by affection, the construction of a community, collaboration, the possibility of experimentation and the creation of space for the other. His projects were welcomed by institutions such as the Teatro Nacional São João (Porto), Culturgest (Lisbon), Teatro Pradillo (Madrid), Theater de La Cité Internationale (Paris), Arquipelago - Center for Contemporary Arts (Azores, Portugal), among many others.