With Spoleto wrapped, I’m left with a blur of memories, impressions and observations on the festival. Here are just a few of them.

An audience member filming Harvard Sailing Team’s opening night with her cellphone, distracting the people sitting behind her (including me) as she emailed the hilarious sketches to her friends…

Oversized patrons at the Chapel Theatre, trying to squeeze into the small seats. Some of the grossest guests had to ride side saddle.

Rodney Lee Rogers sitting patiently behind a small curtain for 45 minutes, the audience gathering around him before The Tragedian.

Two old dears I met at the first performance of A Devil Inside who’d been to so many shows that they couldn’t remember what they’d seen the night before, and started arguing about it. The festival had been running for two days.

The miserable actors in This War is Live who were fed up with the show and its technical hiccups… one complained about his simplistic character, while another called the whole experience “torturous.” He should have counted himself fortunate – he wasn’t sitting in the audience…

Sitting next to two of the playwrights of Under the Lights: 10×10 – and trying to make mental review notes without making them feel uncomfortable…

Jay Clifford courageously performing at the American Theatre despite suffering from some debilitating lurgy. After the first night, he conked out in his truck… on the second night, his manager Vance McNabb picked up his bug. They put on a great show, they’re both feeling better now and they’re no longer contagious (I hope).

Watching rehearsals with Chen Shi-Zheng, director of Monkey: Journey to the West… and being invited to look at the aftermath of The Great War after Hotel Modern’s show was over. I witnessed chaos on a model train scale.

One of my favorite elements of the festival, though, was bumping into the various local and national theatre performers, artists and filmmakers who collaborate to help make the festival function. Without their hard work and the overwhelming enthusiasm of the audience, there’d be no festival… thanks to them all.

There’s two more videos from Geoff to come, here’s one of them - some quick clips from the Piccolo closing ceremony on Saturday.

As I leafed through the the Spoleto brochure some months back, I knew I had to see The Carolina Chocolate Drops when they came to town.

Last night, I saw them at the Cistern and they did not disappoint. 

The talented trio–Rhiannon Giddens, Justin Robinson, and Dom Flemons–bill themselves as an “African-American String Band,” and although they are often most closely associated with bluegrass, their songs ran the gamut from traditional Piedmont Stringband, to jazz and blues, and even a little hip-hop that doesn’t fall into neat, tidy categories. From Corn Bread and Butterbeans to Salty Dog to Hit Him Up Style, it’s all American music that’s to be enjoyed in a community setting.

My favorites were a gorgeous a capella song Giddens sang in Gaelic as well as the dancing.  They kept things informal and engaging, and I enjoyed the stories behind the music nearly as much as the songs themselves. 

All in all, it was a toe-tapping, knee-slapping, hand-clapping, get-up-and-dancing delight of a performance on on a pleasant evening. 

As promised, here are the latest videos from SpoJo Don D. Lewis. He’ll have more over at his site…

First up, Gradual Lean:

Gradual Lean at Holy City Homecomin’ from Don D. Lewis on Vimeo.

Next: Clay Ross’ Matuto…

Clay Ross’ Matuto at Holy City Homecomin’ from Don D. Lewis on Vimeo.

From Robert Behre:

What most would have shocked Spoleto’s first audiences in 1977? That there would be a regional African American country music trio (mostly guitar, banjo and fiddle but also kazoo, snare drum and jug) featured prominently and welcomed warmly during the 2008 festival?

Or that this trio’s first festival performance would occur exactly one night after the first African American managed to clinch the nomination for president of a major political party?

Would the last generation of Charlestonians have raised their collective eyebrows more about a group of black Spoleto performers talking about how their grandparents religiously watched “Hee-Haw” and how they eagerly anticipated their debut at the Grand Old Opry? Or that a black politician with less than four years experience on the national stage defeated a white candidate from the Democratic party’s establishment thanks in part to his overwhelming win in South Carolina?

Maybe the strangest thing is simply this: Sen. Barack Obama most recently appeared in Charleston in January at the College of Charleston’s Cistern, the very same place where the Carolina Chocolate Drops rocked a Spoleto crowd Wednesday night.

One additional coincidence: The temperature was in the 80s both times.

OK, that’s maybe the least shocking thing.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph put on an impressive show over two dates at the Emmett Robinson last week. His poetic speech and movement was combined with hip-hop music, conversational “travel diary” monologues, video interviews shot by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi and a large moving lighting rig choreographed by James Clotfelter.

Yet for a really intense experience, I went to Bamuthi’s two hour workshop at the Avery Research Center, part of a free “Spoleto at the Avery” program” that ran last week.

At the Emmett Robinson Theatre, Bamuthi shared the stage with all those bells and whistles. In the workshop, there were no such distractions. The performer’s work was a lot more powerful in the intimate classroom environment, and he got to show another side to his work – he mentors teen writers through a “Youth Speaks” literary arts organization.

The workshop was part writing class, part dance-off. Bamuthi began with a demonstration of what he does, switching from hip-hop speech to regular talk about his partner’s pregnancy and a planned natural birth. As he spoke he moved, creating visual images with his physical being, his expressions and his breathing.

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Chuck Boyd, better known as SpoJo Chucker, and jazz man Jack McCray are in the studio with Janet for a great podcast about music around town, monkey shenanigans and more.

Hear today’s podcast direct by following this link, or why not subscribe permanently here throughout the duration of the festival and get it fed to your MP3 player automatically. There’s also our guide to podcasting here.

It’s at 7 in Marion Square. SpoletoToday will be there with some friends, although we will probably be fashionably late! Look for us! Here’s what we look like.

Perhaps the nearly overlooked and best deals for your money of the offerings of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival this season are the Piccolo Harbor Cruises. You are out on the ocean with a terrific view of leaping dolphins taking a spin around Fort Sumter and then admiring the lights on The Battery, which alone would cost you at least $25 a person for a two-hour cruise.

But that would be without the fantastic jazz offered by some of the areas best musicians. Not only that, you can dance on the top deck. And all for $15. I was on the first of the four Piccolo cruises Wednesday night which had people at the dock wanting to buy tickets. However, boat officials said the place was totally filled with 255 passengers. For full disclosure, I will say the Franklin Ashley Quintet was churning out the tunes that night, and I happen to be married to the piano player, whose name headlines the group. But I was not the only one who was amazed to hear clarinetist Jack Dressler produce a sound like Benny Goodman on “Moonglow.” And more than one person said, “Does that fellow play in New York?”

When Dressler and Bryan Reed swung like crazy with a jazz duet of “Honeysuckle Rose,’ the crowd went ballistic, as the wine flowed. As I mingled in the crowd, I estimated about 50 percent were from “off,” like playwright Carmilla Carr and her son Kali O’Dwyer who are from L.A., and about half were Lowcountry residents. “Los Angeles doesn’t have anything like this,” said Dwyer.

We also hear that John Tecklenburg & Friends’ mellow jazz on the cruise last night was well-attended in spite of the lousy weather. You can still catch Rolling on the River with Oscar Rivers on June 4 and singer Rob Keiter’s trio on June 5. And for all of this, tickets are just $15. Only in Charleston.

Spoleto gossip
Although the Boston Ballet has come and gone, as a dance critic I would like to point out that no matter how terrific, that dancers like writers, need to be edited. Certainly, technically, the Boston Ballet was to this dance critic of 30 years, on the level with the Bolshoi, the American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet. However, the first number “Brake the Eyes,” beautifully executed en pointe, consisted of the same combination of eight to 10 steps performed over and over again, despite the fact the audience kept applauding at various intervals, thinking it was over. This went on for nearly 30 minutes, but seemed like several hours. Choreographer Jorma Elo simply took the easy way out by having something that was superb go stale.

The excerpts in the next piece from”Swan Lake” were the best I’ve ever seen and 27 years ago I saw Russian prima ballerina Maya Pletsetskaya dance the “Dying Swan” divertissement. Unfortunately, we were left disappointed when Twyla Tharp in her modern piece “In the Upper Room” took the same path as Elo. She had her superb dancers perform the same combination over and over for about 25 minutes. At firstn we delighted in the “with it” costumes or black and white stripes with women in mini-skirts with matching briefs (often seen) and red socks. But after awhile, the frenetic trademark Glass music started to seem like bees buzzing in our brain and I began to feel imprisoned, as if I couldn’t bear the repetition and the unrelenting music anymore. Afterward, at the gala, which WAS gorgeous, a prominent local artist was walking around inquiring as to whether anyone had an asprin as the dance had given him a terrific headache.
I knew exactly how he felt. What a shame some of the most astute dance in the world had to be partly spoiled by choreographers.

It’s true: Life can come at you fast, as the TV ad says. Such as when going out to dinner results in an injury that forces the cancellation of a long-anticipated and carefully rehearsed musical appearance. University of South Carolina music professor Marina Lomazov, who lives in Columbia, was looking forward to her performance in the prestigious Piccolo Spoleto Spotlight Concert Series to be held Thursday night, May 29, at the New Tabernacle Fouth Baptist Church, 22 Elizabeth St. And, for sure, at $10 a head, the 11-concert series is one of the best deals in town.

However, according to the Spotlight coordinator Norbert Lewandowski, a cellist with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, several days ago Lomazov was going through the door of a restaurant in Columbia.  When the friend with her pushed the double doors open, an 8-foot-long, approximately 50-pound dividing rod connecting the two-parts of the double doors, crashed down upon her, breaking her collar bone.

Unfortunately, this meant Lomazov would be unable to perform in a concert titled “Marina Lomazov and Friends,” featuring six of the state’s musicians performing music by Shostakovich and Schnittke.
Piccolo officials had to scramble to get someone to take her place, but Andrew Armstrong, who now lives in New York but has frequently played for events here such as the College of Charleston’s International Piano Series, agreed to take her place and the program was renamed “Andrew Armstrong and Friends.”
The good news is that Lewandowski reports that doctors expect Lomazov to fully recover within four weeks.

And, of course, there’s always next year.

Last night drummer/performer Tommy Shepherd had his flock squirming in their seats as he roved around the Emmett Robinson auditorium, asking them questions with microphone in hand. he was warming up the audience - or cooling it off - before the his cohort Marc Bamuthi Joseph came on stage.

As far as audience participation went, the audience questions were the farthest Bamuthi’s production of the break/s went. As he danced, conversed and poeticized across the boards, he created an incredible impression of a down-to-earth guy with uncanny abilities in discourse and movement.

He says he’s a frequent visitor of Planet Hip-Hop. That would explain his otherwordly skills. But he’ll be workshopping with mere mortals today at 5-7 p.m., part of the Avery Center’s free series of classes and panels.

The Avery is a research center for African-American history and culture at 125 Bull Street, downtown Charleston. Tomorrow, the center will host a panel discussion on the Amistad court case. For more information on either of these events, call the Spoleto team on 843.579.3100.