i

Radio Free Charleston’s coverage of FestivALL 2012 continues this week with another bonus length episode

West Virginia Dance Company

featuring tons of music, dance, film, and other stuff.  The city became a work of art and we were there pointing our cameras right in its face.

We kick off with The Bob Thompson Unit, captured at The Shops at Bridge Road, performing on the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame bandwagon.  With the Bob Thompson Unit’s smooth jazz playing behind them, we cut to footage of the West Virginia Dance Company, recorded at the Charleston Town Center Mall.

The Boatmen

From there, we race over to Davis Park at the Appalachian Power Stage to bring you a lovely, new “murder ballad” by Oak Hill’s virtuoso Americana band, The Boatmen.

A quick trot up Capitol Street takes us to the BB&T Stage in front of Taylor Books for the Raqs Shakti collective, with this performance featuring Jenna Brooke Swanson dancing to music provided by Amanda Jane and Dwayne Swanson (The Snake and The Pot) and violinist extraordinaire Alasha Al-Qudwah.

Raqs Shakti

We return to Davis Park for music from the Rich Collins Three-O, over which we bring you footage of artist Ian Bode, working on his epic FestivALL painting.  You may even recognize a couple of monopod toting guerilla filmmakers in there somewhere.

Ian Bode, hard at work

At breakneck speed, we then jog up to the Verizon Wireless Children’s Stage across from the Kanawha County Public Library, where Todd, Sophie, and Will Burge treat us to the song, “The Bugs Are Coming.”

Todd, Sophie and Will. The Burges are coming

All that running had us tired, so let’s pause for a moment and take a look at a theatrical event that wasn’t really officially a part of FestivALL.  In fact, you still have three chances to see the Alban Arts and Conference Center production of David Alburn’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize  winning play, “Proof,” this weekend in St. Albans.

Duo Divertido

Having returned from the drama, we find Duo Divertido performing at the BB&T Stage, while we drop in footage of FestivALL’s Princess, Jude Binder and Dizzy Doc’s Balloon Sculpture.  Eduardo and Beth treat us to a lovely version of “The Girl From Ipanema.”

Katzendrummers with Kidzendrummers

Next up, we have music from Bob Shank and Sam Morgan, combined with dance from Carli Mareneck and Friends.  We follow that with the Katzendrummers and a troupe of kids at the Verizon Wireless Children’s Stage, combined with scenes of the Children’s Art Fair, the ShockaCon alien, and the Rocky Point Farm horse carriage.

Samuel Hanna, Chase Henderson and David Smith in "Meta"

Although I’m on record as not being a fan of artistic competitions, we are very glad to present the winner of this year’s 72 Hour Film Challenge, “Meta,” a film by David Smith and Apartment 2B Productions.  Since a) it’s a very, very good film and b) David and Apartment 2B are contributors to Radio Free Charleston, we are quite happy to bring you this clever and funny short.

Bare Bones

We zoom back to the BB&T Stage for the acapella stylings of Bare Bones and visuals from Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School.

Arodesiac and Penny Maple at Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School

We wrap up our look at FestivALL with another “unofficial” FestivALL activity: Our old, old friends The Leon Waters Blues Band, performed at The Empty Glass during the second Friday of FestivALL to an active and well-lubricated audience.  We’ve been friends with these guys since the Charleston Playhouse days and the radio incarnation of RFC and it’s hard to believe it took us almost six years to capture them for the video version of our show.

The Leon Waters Blues Band

That’s it for the behind the scenes details of Part 2 of our FestivALL coverage.  Radio Free Charleston will return in one week and fans of the show will want to be sure to check out this Friday’s installment of The PopCulteer for an announcement about next year’s FestivALL coverage.