With its classic tiled roof and soaring, arched windows, The Rotunda (4014 Walnut St.) sticks out amid the polished metal and stone that has become the west side of the intersection of 40th and Walnut Streets.

Built in 1911, the one-time Christian Science church turned neighborhood arts and culture venue is 100 years old this year. It’s celebrating with three days of performances by the wonderful Anne-Marie Mulgrew & Dancers Co., which has designed a production specifically for The Rotunda’s sanctuary space.

Most events at The Rotunda are held in a black-box theater in the rear part of the building that once served as a Sunday school when the building was a church. Occasionally, a performance warrants opening the much bigger sanctuary space, which sits under the buildings distinctive round roof.

This weekend’s unique performance, entitled Le Dada Va Gaga Dans 2011, is part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, which continues through May 1.

This description of the performance comes from the dance company’s website:

The program consists of a dozen short theatrical vignettes, dances and art installations inspired by the architecture of the space and the festival theme, Paris in 1911 moving towards 2011. Highlights include video projections on walls juxtaposed with live performance, a 2011 installation inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s notorious Etant Donnes, dancers clinging to doorways and walls, a pew dance, characters such as the lighted-hat lady who drops Kleenexs from the choir loft, a re-imagined version of Mulgrew’s 1992’s Earthborne featuring a woman on a ladder watching a stick dance, carousel like-dances using the fallen chandelier as a
sculpture, unexpected scenarios and audience interaction.

Performances on Friday and Saturday begin at 7:11 p.m. Sunday’s performance begins at 3:11 p.m. If you arrive 11 minutes before the show, you can watch a “pre-show” performance outside The Rotunda. There will also be refreshments and discussion in the black-box theater following the show.

Tickets are $15 General Admission, $10 Students/Seniors/DancePass holders. Tickets can be purchased on the PIFA website www.pifa.org, in person at the Kimmel Center Box Office, or by phone at 215-546-PIFA or 215-790-5800.

Below is an interview with The Rotunda’s director, Gina Renzi, about the building and this weekend’s performance.

The First World Theatre Ensemble will stage a performance of “Sojourner” on Saturday at The Rotunda (4014 Walnut St.) to help raise money for the Community Education Center (3500 Lancaster Ave.) and the The Paul Robeson House (4951 Walnut St.), two important West Philly-based cultural institutions.

The play features Zuhairah McGill as the abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth. Born into slavery in Swartekill, New York as Isabella Baumfree, Truth escaped with an infant daughter in 1826 and became one of the first African American women to win a court case against a white man when she sued to have her son returned from a slaveowner in Alabama.

The performance begins at 7 p.m. General admission tickets are $25. Tickets for students and seniors are $15. Tickets can be purchased online at: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/168495 or at the door one hour before the perfomance.

We forgot to mention a couple of posts ago that there will be two more fundraisers for the Windermere fire victims this week.

The first will be Wednesday, March 2 at Drexel’s Mandell Theater (33rd and Chestnut) at 7:30 p.m. The event features performances by the Blue Diamond Dragon Step Team, the Chinese Graduate Dance Club, the Treble Makers, Drexel Jhalak, the Drexel Comedy Football Team and more. Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell is also scheduled to be in the house. All proceeds go to the Walnut Hill Community Association fire victims fund.

A second fundraiser is set for Friday, March 4 from 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at The Rotunda (4014 Walnut St.). The “Arts for the Cause” show features a bunch of talented performers, including jazz vocalist Rajdulari, Monica McIntyre and the Rosemary Fiki Band.

Here is a video of Monica McIntyre and friends performing “Ghetto Magic” at The Rotunda last January.

Here are a few things plucked from a full slate of weekend activities on the left bank. If we missed something that you are dying to tell us about, write editor – at – westphillylocal.com.

Friday, January 21

• Taxing Carbon: The Simple Solution to the Climate Crisis • Tabernacle United Church • 3700 Chestnut St. • 7 p.m.

Charles Komanoff, a widely known for his work as an energy-policy analyst, transport economist and environmental activist in New York City will talk.

Saturday, January 22

• Clark Park Farmer’s Market • Don’t forget that it’s open in the winter too • 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

African Cultures Day • Penn Museum • 3260 South Street • 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. • Free with museum donation ($10 for adults, $7 for seniors and $6 for kids)

The program highlights include a performance by Penn’s African Rhythms Student Dance Troupe, music by the Women’s Sekere Ensemble, traditional African storytelling by Momma Sandi, neo-African drum and dance from LaSalle, a folkore workshop with Queen Nur, games, crafts, food, etc.

• Sonic Liberation Front meets Bobby Zankel and the Warriors of the Wonderful Sound • The Rotunda • 4014 Walnut St. • 8 p.m. • FREE

Sonic Liberation Front is an afro-futuristic creative music ensemble. Its members are a who’s who of Philly’s finest genre-bending improvisers, composers and folkloric musicians (and sometimes dancers).  Bobby Zankel leads an innovative jazz outfit. The Boston Phoenix wrote that Zankel “deserves any Talent Deserving Wider Recognition Award that the Jazz Press might offer.”

Performers run through their last rehearsal before the Y.T.A.P. program’s first performance tonight at The Rotunda at 7 p.m.

When a dozen or so 4th through 6th graders from Henry C. Lea School (4700 Locust St.) take the stage tonight at The Rotunda for their performance of “Let’s Learn Each Other!” they will complete what Beth Nixon hopes will be the first of many semesters of collaborative youth involvement in the West Philly arts scene.

The students have worked with poets, musicians and puppeteers, including Nixon, to tell their story through performance. That collaboration has been difficult this semester, the pilot run of Y.T.A.P., but Nixon hopes the program can adjust and grow to become a unique after-school program that will allow kids to design and stage their own performances.

The program is still looking for funding and in-kind donations – from art supplies to snacks. It’s also looking for kids interested in spending a couple of days a week after school at The Rotunda working with an amazing group of artists.

Tonight’s show at The Rotunda begins at 7 p.m. and is free.

A sampling of things going on today. Check the happenings page for more. Send information on your event to: editor [at] westphillylocal.com

• Philly Youth Poetry and Open Mic Night • 8 p.m. • The Rotunda • 4014 Walnut St. • Tickets: $7 for youth, $10 for adults.

This festival of the word includes DEF POETS, Special guests, hip hop and more. The mic is open. You never know…someone from the Philly crew on HBO’s Brave New Voices might be in the house.

Here’s the leader of the 2009 Philly team, Josh Bennett, performing an amazing piece about his sister at the White House poetry slam last year:

• A Christmas Carol • 7:30 p.m. • St. Mary’s Church • 3916 Locust St. • Suggested donation: $10 for adults, $5 for children

Jared Reed from the Curio Theatre will star in the Dickens classic. The performance is a benefit for St. Mary’s Church, Hamilton Village. This would be a great show for older children.