Little Miss Big Mouth

Voluption - A Little Miss Big Mouth Event, Sat. Jan 22, 2011

2011-01-16T15:41:00.007-05:00

Sara Valentine's Little Miss Big Mouth presents

Voluption

A Starry Assemblage of Dance, Music & Performance, featuring Hungry March Band

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Doors: 9:30pm. Show @ 10pm. Admission: $15, 21+ with I.D.

At Red Lotus Room, 893 Bergen Street, Brooklyn

A delectably conjured evening of beguiling and curious entertainment, complete with brass bands, street performers, live pin-ups, go-go girls, clowns, vocal acrobats, aerialists, burlesque artists and contortionists, brought to you by Sara Valentine, HMB baton twirler and host of the underground talk and variety fest, Little Miss Big Mouth.

Expect Fellini-inspired sound and imagery brought to life in the gorgeously evocative, 1930's-style Red Lotus Room.

Performers include Zero Boy, Sweet Soubrette, Miss Ekaterina, Zongo Junction, L.A.E.-The Ladies Auxiliary Ensemble, Cloris Flap, Butt Kapinsky, DJ/Sound God Kris Anton, Solid Go-Go, Project Hex and Renee Renata Bergen.

Special pre-show fabulousness by Epistrophy Swing Band and Simone E Le Page.

Live Pin Ups by Meg Keys.

Interactive photo tableau by Lauren Silberman.

Food by Hot F@*!kn' Tamales

893 Bergen Street is located between Classon and Franklin Avenues in Brooklyn.

Come as you are, but if you're feeling inspired, glamor is the key to the evening!

Glitter, glitz, fringe, fur, sequins, feathers, suits, ties, top hats, headpieces...the sky is the limit!

****

Hungry March Band - NYC's very own unique brass sound and spectacle.

Zero Boy - East Village performance icon who creates live comic books through amazing feats of vocal contortion.

Zongo Junction - Afrobeat Brooklyn style.

Sweet Soubrette - Dark, edgy love songs performed by a ukelele-strumming starlet.

Miss Ekaterina - Miss Coney Island 2007 and all-around incomparable circus and sideshow vixen dazzles with her burlesque, contortion, and aerial abilities.

Epistrophy Swing Band - 20's and 30's style Jazz.

Solid Go-Go - Glorifies dance routines from the classic TV show that had girl viewers stumbling in their mama's high heels and pubescent boys creating master plans to invent "rewind," and "slow-mo."

Butt Kapinski: A private eye, a mystery, a comedy, a speech impediment.

Cloris Flap - Are clowns and supernatural forces a bad mix? Find out as Cloris Flap attempts her astonishing magic act! Flap's alter ego, physical comedian Tanya Z. Solomon, is a veteran of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, Coney Island Sideshows by the Seashore, and New Orleans' Wonder Farm Cabaret."

L.A.E., The Ladies' Auxiliary Ensemble - What happens when you put a clown in a room with a seasoned free-form jazz musician, a genre-bending modern dancer, an experimental theatre actress, a punk rock drummer, a veteran film documentarian, and a kick-ass vocalist?

Project Hex - Blending an old-timey circus aesthetic with a new-timey sensibility -- delightfully humorous, inventive and irreverent, with a killer vocalist and an accordionist who plays two instruments at once.

Renee Renata Bergen - Delicious West Coast style bellydance.

Simone E Le Page - Simone has been walking on really high stilts since the age of six. She will rescue cats out of trees for a small fee.

Lauren Silberman - Brooklyn-based photographer who has performed and presented her work at Location One, Deitch Projects, and 3rd Ward.

Meg Keys - Inspiring Live Pin Ups and pinatas.

Hot F@*!kn' Tamales - Tamales from a fashionable, professional p-poppin' female drag queen!

DJ/Sound God Kris Anton - Spinning an eclectic mix of global brass, plus slamming disco, fun and soul to keep your rump roasting.

Staten Island: Alive in Wonderland

2008-01-16T16:04:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, February 9th at CSI's Center for Performing Arts, Kris and I are gonna present the latest installment in our Staten Island "Big Mouth" series: "Staten Island, Alive in Wonderland." I'm terribly excited about this show, a tad bit nervous, and ultimately just very curious to see what the evening will bring, for the line-up is quite eclectic. Staten Island Deputy Borough President Ed Burke is gonna be on the show...this is really great news. I saw him speak at SI Borough Hall late last year about the publication, "Staten Island Attractions: Big Apple Pleasures, Small Town Treasures." This man loves SI as much as I do, and for some of the very same reasons. I'm delighted, then, that he's agreed to be on the show.

A whole mess of other great SI folk are gonna be there, too, both on stage and in the Richmond County Midway, the pre-show and intermission bazaar in the CFA Atrium. Check the www.wordygurl.net website for more details, which hopefully will be up fairly soon. We also have a myspace page, but I don't know that addy offhand. (I am not very adept at this cyber-community stuff.)

Today I spent a couple of hours with one of my guests - Stan Jay, the owner of Mandolin Brothers. Stan's actually going to be featured in the show's video segment, filmed on location in his store this morning.

Talk about a wonderland. For connoisseurs of fretted instruments, Mandolin Brothers is the s**t. Stan and his staff are the custodians of one of the largest collections in the world of vintage and new American guitars, mandolins, banjos and their kin availalbe for retail purchase. Kris and I spent two hours in there. It's known to many as the Dream Fulfillment Center, a "toystore for grown-ups." It lives up to both monikers. We were treated to a tour of nearly all of the store's 11 rooms, each one packed floor to ceiling with stringed instruments, some old, some new, all lovingly hung by hooks and resting against a piece of carpet placed against the wall to cushion the instruments' "rear ends" from scratching. Such detail. We also witnessed an impromtu performance by Stan and one of his long-time friends and customers, Morty, who's known to the world as the guy "who kissed Paul McCartney's bass" when it was at the store for repair. Wow. The whole place is has been compared to a museum, albeit one that encourages folks to "please touch." To me, it's not so much a museum as a parlor-like fortress of music. On Forest Avenue, I might add, one of Staten Island's main suburban traffic arteries. I've been passing the place for years, and didn't have an excuse nor reason to walk through the very unassuming entrance until six months ago. That time, I walked in, introduced myself to Mr. Jay, and was immediately ushered by one of his staff (at Stan's instruction) through all of Mandolin's many instrument galleries. Becoming more and more over-whelmed at every turn, I was unable, in many respects, to fully grasp and appreciate the collection until the very end, when a series of guitars made with Brazilian-wood blew my mind. I was so excited about visiting this morning, and very nervous, too. I was especially thrilled today for Kris, too, as it was his first-ever visit to the store. He's a third-generation musician, the grand-son and son of players of stringed instruments on one side, and the grandson of a musician of all instruments on the other. AH. And there was Stan when we walked through the door, ready to talk, more than willing to give us a tour, and happily for nervous Nellie me, totally down with the idea of teaching me a few chords, which he did. D, E, and F, if my short-term memory is correct. The whole experience has left me in a contemplative mood. The craftenmanship that was put into making some of these instruments - built for everyday use - is exquisite. And nothing makes me happier than to meet people who are passionate about what they do, and who do it, like Stan Jay, with such genuine character and pizazz, not to mention humor, wit, concern and generousity. Oh, and most importantly, a great sense of fun. In addition to knowing his stock so damn well, Stan's the real deal, the kind of guy you don't often meet in our hyper-commercial universe. Mandolin Brothers has served nearly four generations of musicians, and throughout the time, the constant, as Stan commented today, has been the store's ability to both provide people with the instruments that they love AND encourage folks to partake in the playing of music together with family and friends. Before TV, video games, and all the rest, there was music. What a great tradition to uphold.

To see the interview with Stan, you gotta come to the show on February 9th.

xoxoxo

Hooray for the Mouth with the Clever Husband!

2007-03-27T22:43:00.000-04:00

All LMBM designs by Mr. Kris Anton. The Little Miss Big Mouth "icon" was originally created by Stacy Wakefield.

Staten Island - The Switzerland of NYC?

2007-03-27T21:40:00.000-04:00

From Al Ramos, the man who brought you the Tribeca Lab so many years ago, where I once curated a show entitled "Good Clean Fun" back in the days of post-riot grrrl action. (1995, i think that one was.)
Well, this e-mail comes from him to me today, and it's quite lovely. Thanks, Al!
xoox
sara v.
-------

Dear Ms. Valentine

I am pleased to see you are extolling the charms and virtues of Staten Island.
Although I live on Manhattan Island and have spent most of my time trolling the so called "downtown scene," I frequently drive or take the ferry to Staten Island. I describe it to my friends as "the Switzerland" of New York City. They just stare blankly back at me. With its rolling hills and majestic vistas, New York City's finest music store, the Mandolin Bros. and golf courses a plenty, there are treasures for all ages!

Rave on Little Miss Big Mouth
Al Ramos
Statenislandophile

Peripherally Yours...With Love, Staten Island

2007-03-27T12:15:00.000-04:00

Little Miss Big Mouth is Back!

Sara Valentine's live action, thriller talk show presents

Peripherally Yours...With Love, Staten Island

A two-part special series investigating the wild and wacky world of NYC's Forgotten Borough.

-- Why is Staten Island the center of Wiccan/Pagan practice in all of NYC?
-- Where do all the ghosts live on Staten Island, and who busts them?
-- How does Staten Island Chuck, resident groundhog, commute to work at the Staten Island Zoo?
-- What's up with those rock sculptures on the South Shore, where land, sky and water meet?
-- When was the Ship's Graveyard on the Kill Van Kull founded, and why?
-- Who lives on Staten Island, anyway?

Artists, activists, the international jet set, nudists, witches, freespirits, and immigrants from across the globe call Staten Island home.

Meet but a handful of the Island's wonderful characters next week at
Little Miss Big Mouth!

Friday April 6th and Saturday April 7th at 8pm at P.S. 122

150 1st Avenue @ 9th Street, in Manhattan.

Tickets are $20, $15 for students and seniors and $10 for members.

Little Miss Big Mouth has been selected to represent Staten Island at P.S. 122's first "Best of the Boroughs" festival, a new super-charged celebration that takes audiences on a tour of the city's brightest theatre, dance and performance.

*********************************************

COMPLETE SHOW LINE UPS FOR LITTLE MISS BIG MOUTH BELOW!

Sara Valentine & Kris Anton have lived on Staten Island for four glorious years.
Discover for yourself what makes Staten Island so unique @ "Peripherally Yours..."

Friday, April 6th

Reverend Adele from Mystikal Wonders - on why S.I. is the hub of all Wiccan activity in NYC
Trish & Christoph - with a guided tour of the North Shore and a song...Simon & Garfunkel meet Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
Jesse Tigner Hayden McCrary, Jr. (Kris & Sara's landlord!) - "Men Dancing" a pas de deux in the nude
Tiokasin Ghosthorse - Native American storyteller and flute player, host of WBAI's First Voices Radio
Century Dance Complex - Liberian artist Rose Kingston & her dancers present a traditional African dance
Elektro Motif - presents an interactive poetry and music, featuring Doug Principato, Will Wyn, and Andre Martinez

Saturday, April 7th

Staten Island Paranormal Society - talks about ghost busting on S.I. and hunts for P.S. 122's resident ghost
Minnie Van Driver - Staten Island's Ambassador of Love serenades and waxes philosophical on the island
Gabri Christa - Caribbean-born modern dancer, theatre and film artist gets interviewed while performing an automatic dance
A New Shade of Black - a performance by Staten Island's own post-hardcore band
The Sisters Wijesinghe - recent emigrants to S.I. and students at the College of Staten Island perform a traditional Sri Lankan dance
Sheila Rohan - an interview with the director of the Nanette Bearden Contemporary Dance Theatre
Day de DaDa - the Art Nurses and the Mighty Men of DaDa welcome you to S.I.
The Eternal Knitter of Staten Island - Knits during the show

Food provided by Panini Grill of Forest Avenue in Staten Island

Features for both nights:

Jenny Tango & Maureen Seaberg - Octogenarian feminist artist meets the undercover reporter of S.I. in their shared role as co-host

The Little Miss Big Mouth House Band - Fronted by Sari Rubinstein of Rubulad and featuring Mary Feaster of the Circus Amok Band, a resident Islander who will perform an "Ode to the Dancing Aliens" of Staten Island

Also in the house band: Viva and Kim of the all-girl world dance band Paprika

Video interview with local groundhog, Staten Island Chuck and his keeper, Doug Schwartz, who is building the City of Rocks on Staten Island's South Shore, which will also be profiled

A Night out With Sammy - Documented cab ride with the Island's alpha dog of drivers, Sammy, the Catholic Egyptian cab driver who speaks Ebonics fluently and recites poetry while driving his 9+ passengers up and down the hills of S.I.

Footage of Staten Island's splendor...from the summit of Todt Hill to the shores of the Atlantic, from the Ship's Graveyard to the Ferry Terminal, from the double-decker diner on Hylan Blvd. to the Italian-Catholic Shrine made of rocks and shells in Rosebank, from the house of Alice Austen to the Tibetan Museum....and every bagel shop in between.

Plus...MAYBE....(cuz everything changes from moment to moment) a Staten Island Geology Lesson, Fun Feminist Facts, Alternative Names for S.I. and an opening monologue and dance, featuring the Little Miss Big Mouth Dancers! YAY!

Set by Gallery Six owner Jeff Kolasinski, with the work of Staten Island artists Tom Ronse and Cynthia Von Buhler, plus more..

http://www.ps122.org/performances/best_of_boroughs.html