Erik Ruin's Ominous Cloud + Chiffchaff Trio
Fri, Jan 30
|Studio 34
Ominous Cloud Ensemble returns to Studio 34 with a new immersive long-form four channel performance installation combining animation, shadow puppetry, and experimental video with live improvised accompaniment from David and Tara Middleton, cellist Tom Kraines, and Julius Masri
Time & Location
Jan 30, 2026, 7:30 PM
Studio 34 , 4522 Baltimore Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19143, USA
About the event
Tickets here Ominous Cloud Ensemble returns to Studio 34 with a new immersive long-form four channel performance installation combining animation, shadow puppetry, and experimental video with live improvised accompaniment from David and Tara Middleton of the Sun Ra Arkestra, cellist Tom Kraines of the Daedalus Quartet, and Julius Masri (aka Mephisto Halabi). They'll be joined by the Philadelphia debut of Pittsburgh improvisors Chiffchaff Trio for a very special evening!
Erik Ruin’s Ominous Cloud Ensemble is an ever-evolving, collectively-improvising large ensemble for projections and music, led by visual artist Erik Ruin, recently lauded by The New York Times for his “spell-binding cut-paper animations.” Erik Ruin manipulates intricate paper-cuts and painted films on overhead projectors to create abstract landscapes and fragmentary scenes that are nonetheless charged with meaning, merging with music that ranges from dark atmospherics to ecstatic peaks of dissonance.
Chiffchaff Trio—Caleb Gamble (double bass), Tre Abalos (woodwinds), and Ricki Weidenhof (cello)— is based…