Derek Schartung, exhibiting at 444 Popup Gallery

With the Sideshow Fringe Festival, the Downtown Art Crawl, and Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston, there’s just too dang much to do this Saturday. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you plan your event-hopping well.

Update: I forgot about Akai Con! It’s the anime convention founded by Theatre Intangible participant Cody Bottoms, and it runs through Sunday.

The Sideshow Fringe Festival continues with several dance and theatre performances. Go and check the full schedule here. I’m most excited about the puppetry double-header “The Circus of Pierrot” and “The Morning After” at 7:30 p.m. at Actors Bridge Studio. Here’s how the schedule describes the shows:

“The Circus of Pierrot.” Pierrot, a broken-hearted ballerina, longs to find her place in life. When she meets a ringmaster searching for a new clown act, she gives up dancing in exchange for the spectacle and excitement of the circus. Incorporating five different styles of puppetry and elements of pantomime and dance, “The Circus of Pierrot” is sure to dazzle the senses and warm the heart.

“The Morning After,” an original short by Cassie Hamilton, featuring rod puppetry.

And here’s the first tough choice of the evening. At 6:30 at Fond Object, Chet Weise’s Poetry Sucks! returns. Find out more at NYCNash.

To make the choice even tougher, at 8 p.m. the Wedgewood/Houston gallery Seed Space presents a choreographed performance featuring Chicago artists Soheila Azadi and Hanna M. Owens. The Seed Space page says,

“The Pairing” questions skin and fabric as a shield that separate bodies and ideologies; Skin and fabric that hold desire. The Pairing tells a story that touches upon motherhood, desire, love, envy and conflict. The Pairing’s audio is inspired by Islamic call for prayer sung by a woman.

Seed Space is also featuring a video art exhibition called “F.I.V.E.”

“The Pairing” by Soheila Azadi and Hanna M. Owens.

Just across the railroad tracks from Seed Space, Fort Houston is presenting a new show by Co. H. (Btw, I wrote about Fort Houston’s expanded gallery space in this month’s Nashville Arts Magazine.)

Down the street from Fort Houston, 444 Popup Gallery is presenting a glitch art exhibition by circuit bender and Theatre Intangible participant Derek Schartung. The event page says,

“Glitch” is Derek Schartung’s debut presentation of a process he’s been tinkering with recently. We’re fans of his work and he’s also a neighbor! There will be prints available and the usual spirits.

Also at Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston: A group show and Party Cannon performance at The Packing Plant, a comic-book art exhibit at abrasiveMedia, the continuing Utopia-themed show at Ground Floor, and new shows at Infinity Cat, David Lusk, Zeitgeist, and Julia Martin Gallery. Find out more at the AM@WH page and Joe Nolan’s excellent crawl guide at the Nashville Scene.

Over at the Downtown Art Crawl, Coop Gallery features a new member show with work by Shannon Clark, Thomas Sturgill, and Theatre Intangible participants Virginia Griswold and Morgan Higby-Flowers. Blend is featuring work by Jason Hargrove, an artist from Paducah, Kentucky, 30 minutes from my hometown of Mayfield. Corvidae Collective is hosting an H.R. Giger tribute. Joe Nolan has the details on the rest at the aforementioned crawl guide.

I hope to see you at one of the crawls! Here’s a helpful map of the Arts & Music @ Wedgewood/Houston galleries provided by Anna Zeitlin: