jls foto

Russian American Kids Circus at SOPAC

I fell in love with the circus the other day.  SOPAC brought in yet another amazing group but this time it was the Russian American Kids Circus, composed of performers of a variety of ages including a gifted six year old boy.  The playfulness, humor and talents of the group delighted the audience as well as their photographer (lucky me) for the afternoon.  Kids watching were invited on stage part way through the show to learn some tricks of the trade.  While I am sure that was the highlight of their evening, my favorite moment was watching the adorable and skilled black dog perform his tricks. 

This show is one not to be missed.  If you ever see this circus come to your town I highly recommend going.  You’ll feel like a kid and won’t be able to help but walk out away from the show happy.

      

Suzanne Vega at SOPAC

This past Saturday evening I photographed Suzanne Vega performing at what has become one of my favorite venues, the South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC).  Vega’s presence and her sound on stage transformed SOPAC to a new intimate space that felt perfect for her soothing, cool, melodic sound. 

One of my favorite ways to experience new music for the first time is live.  I was in the unique spot to be able to photograph and listen live to Vega perform songs from a beautiful new album inspired by the city of New York.  Along with these new pieces, I found her classic Tom’s Dinner to be even better live hearing Vega explain that this song too was a song inspired by the city of dreams.  I feel I am living my dream and loving every minute of photographing the amazing artists that bless the SOPAC stage.

 

Juilliard @ SOPAC: Attacca Quartet

This weekend I had the pleasure of photographing the first of a series of Juilliard performances held at the South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) in South Orange, New Jersey.  SOPAC is an amazing young performing arts center that brings artists from all types of genres and areas of the world to perform in their intimate theatre.  The Attacca Quartet began the Juilliard @ SOPAC series. They played works by Haydn, Ravel and Schubert.  Amy Schroeder (violin), Keiko Tokunaga (violin), Gillian Gallagher (viola) and Andrew Yee (cello) enchanted the audience for a special Sunday afternoon show.  If you are interested in learning more about this performance you can check SOPAC out at www.sopacnow.org.  And, please do visit the jlsfoto blog next week as I am in the midst of photographing SOPAC's Season 3 and am excited to share more images with you soon.