PIFA: attend tech-relevant performances during monthlong arts festival

The Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts wants to transport you to another time.

Now readying for its second version in three years, the month-long arts celebration will center around the notion of time travel, complete with a time machine in the Kimmel Center and dozens of plays, concerts and dance performances with different takes on that theme. Here are some especially tech-relevant picks. (Time machines count as technology, right?)

• The Arc of Curiosity – Network for New Music [Apr. 5] A musical program that shows how electronic sounds can work with traditional instruments.
• FutureFest – Luna Theatre Company [Apr. 18 – 27] A play festival focused on visions of the future, including a world where “robots redefine the ‘nuclear family’ and the ‘fallout’ it entails.”
• Shut Your Worm Hole – Tribe of Fools [Apr. 4 – 23] A “comic romp into the ethics and paradoxes of time travel.”
• Time Machine – Philadelphia Young Playwrights [Apr. 24 – 26] A “multigenerational” performance focused on time travel.
• SENDMSG – Dan Deacon [Apr. 12] A musical performance inspired by the first email ever sent, back in 1971. The event involves a companion mobile app that’ll allow for audience participation.
• Icarus at the Edge of Time – Philadelphia Science Festival featuring the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra [Apr. 24] A narrated performance and film that takes the Greek myth of Icarus and sets it in outer space. Instead of the sun, Icarus challenges a black hole. The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra will play the musical score live.

Find the full events calendar here, which covers all of April, including overlapping with Philly Tech Week.