Sidewalk Stories: Film Screening & Collaborative Score Performance by The Modern Times Ensemble

Sidewalk Stories is a 1989 American independent film directed by and starring Charles Lane. The black-and-white, nearly silent, film tells the story of a young African American man raising a small child after she is separated from her mother and her father is murdered. The film is a post-modern homage to Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 feature The Kid. In October 2014, Sidewalk Stories was released on DVD, and has since, garnered more attention at film festivals around the world for being a ground breaking independent film that utilizes older film constructs and techniques in updated ways to address the long standing issue of homelessness in America. The Modern Times Ensemble, in the tradition of the Alloy Orchestra and others, have reimagined the sonic landscape for this film with an entirely new composed and improvised film score. The new collaborative work explores the loneliness of urban homelessness and loss through a combination of stark electro-acoustic ambient settings and character driven melodies and grooves that move effortlessly through styles from jazz, rock, classical and more. Large sections of the score are open for improvisation which gives an urgency to the music as the players interact with the film action and each other in real time.