PERFORMA.TV presents exclusive video clips of performances, commissions, interviews, and events from Performa09, the third biennial of new visual art performance, taking place November 1-22 in New York City.
As part of the opening of the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow and Performa collaborative exhibition 33 Fragments of Russian Performance (curated by Yulia Askenova), Russian artist Andrey Kuzkin will premiere a new performance in the Performa Hub. Andrey Kuzkin (b. 1971 Moscow. Lives and works in Moscow) is a significant performance artist working within the Moscow art scene. He came to prominence with the performance “Full Circle” as part of the 1st Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. He won the 4th Annual Russian national award for contemporary visual arts "Innovation" (2009, nomination “New Generation”) and the “Soratnik” Prize in 2009.
Do you want rock-hard abs? Slimmer hips and firmer buttocks? Do you reject the idea of autonomous art? Join Tyler Ashley and his group of dancers - the SARAHS - in today's most comprehensive exercise and education program in Constructivism! Don’t miss this opportunity to explore Constructivist concerns about the arrangement and power of the body in space through a unique mash-up of aerobics class clichés and a 19th century Czech “slet.” With explosive movement, live music, and audience interaction, Ashley and the SARAHS probe Constructivist preachings and design. Direction by Tyler Ashley. Choreography by Tyler Ashley and the SARAHS (Tyler Ashley, Ethan Baldwin, Hooba Booba, Sarah Donnelly, Zoe Farmingdale, Sarah Holcman, Benjamin Kimitch, Cacá Macedo, Rakia Seaborn, Kris Seto, Ashley Walters, Theodor Wilson). Music and Sound by Theodor Wilson. Costumes designed by Alyssa Tang and Sole Salvo, inspired by Stepanova. Production Manager, Sarah Donnelly. Press Manager, Victoria Michelotti. The performance will begin on the High Line in the Chelsea Market Passage, near West 16th Street, and move south to The Standard, New York near Little West 12th Street.
Musée de la Danse: Expo Zéro is a living exhibition created by renowned French choreographer Boris Charmatz for his groundbreaking Musée de la Danse (Dancing Museum) in Rennes, France, and now being re-conceived for New York City as part of Performa 11. Musée de la Danse: Expo Zéro is an exhibition without any artwork, but with artists. It includes no objects, photographs, sculptures, or installations. Rather, it is comprised of completely empty rooms filled by the gestures, projects, bodies, stories, and dances which visitors will both see and imagine. In this way, it is truly a “museum of dance,” a radical new way of looking at the history and future of that most ephemeral of art forms, through a unique live experience that each visitor will have with an extraordinary cast of people and performers inhabiting a seemingly blank gallery space. For Musée de la Danse: Expo Zéro, Charmatz has selected ten international figures from contemporary dance, visual art, architecture, philosophy, and performance theory and criticism to be “in residence” at the project site for a three-day “think tank.” Participants include: Alex Baczynski-Jenkins (dancer/choreographer), Eleanor Bauer (dancer/choreographer), Heman Chong (visual artist/curator), Jim Fletcher (actor), Lenio Kaklea (dancer/choreographer), Jan Liesegang (architect), Valda Setterfield (dancer/actress), Marcus Steinweg (philosopher), and Fadi Toufiq (writer/artist). Following the think tank, Musée de la Danse: Expo Zéro will open to the public for three days during museum hours, at which time visitors can be led on specially guided tours by one or more of the participants. Equal parts artistic project, institutional platform, and political proposition, Musée de la Danse: Expo Zéro will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on not only the New York City dance scene, but on the larger culture as well. Co-curated by Boris Charmatz and Martina Hochmuth. Lead Curator for Performa: Lana Wilson.
Performa Institute, April 25th, 2012
One Thing Leads to Another is a working installation and multi-media performance, revolving around a overturned hot air balloon, reanimated through narrative, dance and shifting physicality. This project from artist Tamar Ettun will abstract vignettes from The Odyssey, taking the text's themes of labor, gifting and movement of the itinerant body, while incorporating dance traditions from Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and Ohad Naharin's GAGA. The performance, which will occur inside the inflated balloon, will last two hundred and forty minutes, referencing The Odyssey's 24 chapters. The audience can come and go as they like, and is encouraged to move inside and outside the balloon to witness the narrative evolve into an animate sculpture, featuring video projection, live music, and choreography from seven performers, including the artist. Performers will move from one end of the balloon to another, each making an effort to complete specific tasks while negotiating the physical impediment of others blocking their path. Once all tasks have been completed, all performers will rotate 90 degrees and repeat. Performers: Danielle Agami, Netta Yerushalmy, Luke Murphy, Yoni Kretzmer, Jaeeun Lee, Tamar Ettun. One Thing Leads to Another is organized and presented by Recess.
In his ambitious new project, which promises to be an unforgettable theatrical experience, Ming Wong has created a site-specific work for the Museum of the Moving Image in response to the building’s dynamic, fluid, and starkly white new architecture. Inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 masterpiece Persona, in which an actress and her nurse exchange identities on the remote Fårö Island, Wong’s piece is a powerful meditation on cinema and theater. It will begin with twenty-four amateur New York actors, each representing one frame of film, winding their way through the museum space. The museum itself will become a camera, pointing at, for example, a “Bergman landscape” through the glass walls of the cafe. After a series of “live action performances” in the public spaces of the museum, the show will move into the main theater, where Wong and his cast will perform a series of live sound and video experiments on a movie studio set. Developed during a residency by Wong at MoMI, Persona Performa will be a revelatory evening, a reflection on nothing less than the history of the moving image and the nature of performance itself, both on screen and in real life. Lead Curator: Defne Ayas.
Istanbul-based artist Asli Çavuşoğlu will create a walking tour on 11.11.11 that will use fortune-telling to scrutinize the ornamental façades of New York City buildings. Selected interpreters are given free reign to create the rules of fortune-telling through the use of potentially disputable sources and through the framework of their personal perspectives. Curated by Defne Ayas.
Artists Mika Rottenberg and Jon Kessler will collaborate to present SEVEN, a performance and installation that stretches from the urban landscape of New York to the savannahs of Africa. Mixing Kessler’s kinetic sculptures with Rottenberg’s absurdist videos, SEVEN will collapse film time and real time to create an intricate laboratory that channels body fluids and colors into a spectacle on the African savannah. In New York, a “Chakra Juicer” will capture sweat from seven performers engaging in ritualistic athletic activity. Cinematography: Mahyad Tousi; Technical Consultant: Steve Hamilton; Special Effects: Alex Lemke; 2D Animation: Erik Mitgartz; 3D Animation: Mickey Roth; Sound Designer: Nati Taub; Re-recording Mixer: Ronen Nagel; Camera Assistant: Richard Uren, AfriScreen Films. Performers: Empress Asia, Marshall Factora, Esteban Jefferson, Jason Liles, Chris McGinn, Cecil Parker, Sunita Sharma, Juan Valanzuela, Alex Wynne.
That Morning Thing (1967) A remounting of Robert Ashley's legendary opera That Morning Thing was performed only three times (Ann Arbor, MI, Oakland, CA and Tokyo, Japan) in the late 1960s, but the opera acquired its reputation through rumor and the famous recordings of two sections, Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon and She Was A Visitor (on Lovely Music). In three distinct acts plus epilogue, the opera presents the socio-political climate of the times. This new staging by the writer/composer himself promises to be the definitive version of the opera. Directed by Fast Forward. Lighting by David Moodey. Sound by Tom Hamilton. With a cast of 17 performers, including John Hagan, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Imani Uzuri, Fast Forward, Dave Ruder, Aliza Simons, Gelsey Bell, Paul Pinto, Megan Schubert, Amirtha Kidambi, Brian McCorkle, Aaron Siegel, Kimberly Young, Samantha McHale, Kimberly Bartosik, Madeline Wilcox, and Samita Sinha.
Organized by Lebanese artist Tarek Atoui, "Visiting Tarab" will incorporate elements of the world’s largest collection of Classical Arab music as interpreted by 16 musicians and sound artists ranging in expertise from hip hop to electronic and contemporary music. Atoui invited sixteen musicians and sound artists from different origins and practices to Beirut to explore the world’s largest and most extensive collection of Classical Arab music. The result of this research will be the performance in New York City and will feature the artist as well as Anti-Pop Consortium, Uriel Barthelemi, Jonathan Butcher, Mira Calix, DJ Spooky, Lukas Ligeti, Robert Lowe, Raz Mesinai, Zeena Parkins, Ikue Mori, Sara Parkins, Elliott Sharp, Zafer Tawil and Georges Ziadeh.
For Performa 11, Liz Magic Laser will present a new mixed-media performance, I Feel Your Pain, that will restage America’s recent political contests as a romantic drama. Drawing on a variety of agitprop theater tactics, particularly the Russian Constructivist idea of a “living newspaper,” the performance will examine how emotion is used to establish authenticity on America’s political stage. Staged in a movie theater, I Feel Your Pain will take place simultaneously in the midst of the audience and on the cinema’s screen. Eight actors will perform a sequence of scenes that will trace the progression of a romantic relationship in adapted dialogues taken from political interviews and press conferences with Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, amongst others. Borrowing elements from historic “living newspaper” productions, the performance will feature live voice-overs, pantomime fight scenes, and mute commentaries by a clown. As the actors perform, live film from two cinematographers in the audience will be projected onto the screen as a continuous feed, with Laser acting as a real-time editor, choosing camera angles for the audience to see. I Feel Your Pain features actors Lynn Berg, Audrey Crabtree, Ray Field, Annie Fox, Kathryn Grody, Rafael Jordan, Liz Micek, and Ryan Shams. The video will be made with producer David Guinan and cinematographers Matthew Nauser and Collin Kornfeind of Polemic Media; costume stylist Felicia Garcia-Rivera; production assistants Lucia Hinojosa, Jamie Kelly, Boman Modine and Rose Swan. The script includes editorial contributions from Scott Indrisek, Wendy Osserman, Jess Wilcox and Tom Williams.
For Performa 11, artist Ragnar Kjartansson presents a a twelve-hour long performance, entitled Bliss, that will repeat the delirious final aria of Mozart’s 1786 opera The Marriage of Figaro. In the final act of this opera, the Count asks the Countess' forgiveness for his arrogant blunders, which she grants, inspiring the entire court to celebrate. Kjartansson’s performance will replicate the lavishness of traditional opera with a full orchestra, elaborate scenery, and period costumes, and will feature renowned Icelandic tenor Kristján Jóhannsson and a group of Icelandic opera singers, as well as the artist himself, continuously replaying the two-minute musical, visual, and narrative pinnacle of the opera, approaching a euphoric state for performers and listeners alike. During the 12 hours the audience is welcome to wander in and out of the performance.
A unique live cinematic and musical event, Tales from the Gimli Hospital: Reframed pairs acclaimed filmmaker Guy Maddin’s classic first feature film with a live performance—directed by Maddin himself—of a new score created by composer Matthew Patton, a superstar group of Icelandic musicians, acclaimed Seattle-based musical collective Aono Jikken Ensemble, and live electronics engineer Paul Corley. A cult sensation when it was released theatrically in 1988, the original Tales from the Gimli Hospital tells the dreamlike, elliptical story of the jealousy and madness instilled in two men sharing a hospital room in a remote Canadian village. The film first propelled Maddin to international prominence, becoming a success on the midnight movie circuit, and is now being completely transformed by this brand new performance. With dramatic new narration written by Maddin and performed in a mixture of singing and speaking by the bewitching Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir (formerly of múm, and also known as Kria Brekkan), a hauntingly gorgeous string and vocals score performed by acclaimed Icelandic musicians Gyda Valtýsdóttir (cello), Borgar Magnason (double bass), and Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (violin), and ingenious live “Foley” sound effects plus additional musical atmosphere created by the Aono Jikken Ensemble (Willliam Satake Blauvelt, Dean Moore, and Naho Shioya), the new score takes the original Gimli in an entirely new direction, with layers upon layers of music drawn from different sources reflecting the story-within-a-story structure of the film, and an ethereal tone that draws out the darkest and most haunting elements of the film, bringing Maddin’s original artwork to life in a sublime and unexpected new way. Lead curator: Lana Wilson.
Colorado-based artist Eric Steen brings together home brewers from around the city to brew beer, share tips, sample each others creations, and learn more about the science and creativity found in home brewing. Curated by Esa Nickle.
A banquet of provocative food, wood, and porcelain sculptures inspired by unregulated financial markets, high finance and politics.
Live Performances & DJ Sets @ Red Egg, New York. Nov11th 2011. Part of Performa 11
Nov 12th, 2011 @ Recess, New York City
Combatant Status Review Tribunal- MoMA
Athi-Patra Ruga discusses his Performa 11 Project with RoseLee Goldberg
Mika Rottenberg & Jon Kessler - Seven
Tyler Ashley - Half Mythical, Half Legendary Americanism. Performance at Duffy Square, Times Square NYC, Nov5th, 2011
Utopia or Oblivion: Part I
Musée de la Danse: Expo Zéro is a living exhibition created by renowned French choreographer Boris Charmatz for his groundbreaking Musée de la Danse (Dancing Museum) in Rennes, France, and now being re-conceived for New York City as part of Performa 11. Musée de la Danse: Expo Zéro is an exhibition without any artwork, but with artists. It includes no objects, photographs, sculptures, or installations. Rather, it is comprised of completely empty rooms filled by the gestures, projects, bodies, stories, and dances which visitors will both see and imagine. In this way, it is truly a “museum of dance,” a radical new way of looking at the history and future of that most ephemeral of art forms, through a unique live experience that each visitor will have with an extraordinary cast of people and performers inhabiting a seemingly blank gallery space.
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