South St. sponsors arts festival

Free food samples, concerts, crafts booths and poetry readings can all be found on South Street this weekend at the third annual South Street Seven Arts Festival. The festival will be held tomorrow and Sunday from from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m, and is a celebration of the seven arts -- music, dance, sculpture, architecture, drama, literature and painting. "The festival will host a lot of craftspeople," said South Street Head House Association Executive Director Peter Whitehouse. "There will be three or four stages with bands, poetry readings and children's activities." South Street has always celebrated creativity, and so it seems an appropriate location for this festival, said Nancy Nowicki, director of communications for South Street special events. "South Street began as a street for performers and visual artists," she said. "Art has been the heart and soul of South Street. It is a natural marriage for South Street to be the organizer." The Festival was founded three years ago by Bill Curry -- the co-owner of South Street's Cafe Nola -- and other street merchants, to celebrate the various art forms that are present on South Street. The musical component of the weekend will be performed on various stages in the South Street area. The jazz stage at 2nd and South Streets will host The Arpeggio Jazz Ensemble on Saturday along with Papa John Defrancesco and Bootsie Barnes on Sunday. Other local bands will perform at the Passyunk stage, including The Lit Brothers, Resin and Crushproof Box on Saturday. Sunday's program includes Soul Survivor, Lauren Hart and The Patsy Foster Country Band. The bands Planate Folle and Separate Reality will perform in front of Cafe Nola located between 2nd and 3rd Streets. Also, there will be a special performance by The Rockin' Rabbis on 6th and South Streets Sunday. Along with street theater and poetry readings booths, Group Motion, a Philadelphia-based interactive dance group, will combine poetry, theater and dance into a live street performance. Free tours of Clean Village, the oldest section of Philadelphia, will be sponsored by The Foundation for Architecture. The tours will leave from 929 South Water Street at 2 pm. Cafe Nola and other local restaurants will offer samples of their most popular foods along South Street. The street will also be crowded with over 100 craft booths sponsored by merchants from across the country. South Street will be closed to traffic between Front and 4th Streets on Saturday and between Front and 6th Streets on Sunday for the festival.