Letters to Distant Cities; Multi-Media Performance

Letters to Distant Cities

with

Shara Worden and My Brightest Diamond
Clare and the Reasons
Rob Moose (Sufjan Stevens, Antony & the Johnsons)
Poetry by Mustafa Ziyalan
Curated & produced by photo/videographer Murat Eyuboglu

MULTIMEDIA BOX SET WITH AUDIO, HIGH-QUALITY POSTCARDS

Monday, March 21, 7–9 PM

$10 at the door

The powerHouse Arena · 37 Main Street (corner of Water & Main St) · DUMBO, Brooklyn
For more information, please call 718.666.3049
rsvp: rsvp@powerHouseArena.com

Music, poetry, and photography converge in Letters to Distant Cities. The album will be re-created in a multi-media release event featuring live performances by Worden, Moose, and Manchon, as well as readings of the poetry in the original Turkish by Ziyalan with English readings of the translations by Worden, and a video for two of the album's songs (The Sea and Invisible), produced by Eyuboglu and edited by David Sarno (videos available online only). To round out the evening, Worden and Manchon will perform a few extra tunes of their own, not included on the album.

About Letters to Distant Cities:

New Amsterdam Records welcomes singer-songwriters Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond) and Clare Muldaur Manchon (of Clare and the Reasons), along with indie-classical multi-instrumentalist/composer Rob Moose, as collaborators in the enchanted and melancholy Letters to Distant Cities, a multi-media project curated and produced by photographer and videographer Murat Eyuboglu, exploring urban solitude through the poetry of Turkish-American poet, Mustafa Ziyalan.

In addition to the CD, the album package includes a set of 24 pristine keepsake cards, comprising a photographic illustration for each of Zilayan's poems collected on the recording. The images were captured by project visionary Murat Eyuboglu with model Jamie Ansley. Designer Adam Frint brings musical, poetic, and photographic elements together, creating a physical connection to the album's sense of memorabilia.

www.newamsterdamrecords.com

About the Artists:

Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Shara Worden spearheads the indie-folk band My Brightest Diamond. With a background in classical music, Worden studied opera at the University of North Texas and Manhattan School of Music, and studied composition with composer/performer Padma Newsome (Clogs, The National). My Brightest Diamond involves elements of rock and classical music, with the combined sound of instrumentalists Rob Moose, Earl Harvin, Chris Bruce, and Zac Rae. Their first record, Bring Me the Workhorse, was released on Asthmatic Kitty Records in 2006. Their sophomore album, A Thousand Shark's Teeth, was released in 2008.

Clare and the Reasons, fronted by collaborators Clare Muldaur Manchon and Olivier Manchon, is a Brooklyn-based indie-pop outfit started in 2005. Live, they have a steady list of contributors, with a host of acoustic instruments—cellos, violas, things to hit, kazoos, baby kotos, saws, recorders, and a bass drum that says "Kaboom" on it. Clare and the Reasons deliver an assortment of meticulously constructed and arranged songs. Walking the line between musical maturity and sophistication and primal, childlike musical instincts, Clare and the Reasons floats comfortably between both worlds.

A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in violin performance, Rob Moose has established an exciting and eclectic presence as a performer, arranger and conductor in the rapidly changing atmosphere of contemporary music. Since joining Antony and the Johnsons in 2005, Moose has also toured with Sufjan Stevens, Beth Orton and Duncan Sheik, and recorded with Vampire Weekend, Grizzly Bear, Arcade Fire, The National, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Rufus Wainwright, and Marianne Faithfull.

Mustafa Ziyalan's poetry, short fiction, essays and poetry translations have appeared in many literary periodicals, anthologies (most recently in New European Poets), and also in book form. Istanbul Noir, an anthology of short fiction he co-edited with Amy Spangler, was published by Akashic Books in 2008. His most recent volume of poetry, Land of Smiles/Gülümsemeler Ülkesi, a bilingual collection of poetry with original woodcuts by Vladimir Ginzburg, was published in 2009. Su Kedileri (Water Cats), a collection of short fiction, came out in 2005; Yakilacak Kentlerden (From Cities Slated to Burn), a collection of travel writing with original photography by Murat Eyüboğlu, in 2007; and, Manhattan'da Şiir Konuşmalari (Poetry Talks in Manhattan), a collection of writings on poets and poetry, in 2009.

Murat Eyuboglu started photography as an apprentice to Josephine Powell in Istanbul. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts, School of Photography (Istanbul), he transferred to Bennington College, Vermont, where he studied music, literature, and philosophy. He lived in Paris and returned to New York to pursue studies in music history. His dissertation was on the utopian aspects of Gustav Mahler's works. Since 2000, he has focused mainly on portraiture and has been working on various collaborative projects. In 2007, he also started working in video. He participated in the documentary Claude Lèvi-Strauss: Auprès de l'Amazonie as assistant director. His photographs have been published by the French edition of National Geographic, and his music videos have been released by Asthmatic Kitty Records and New Amsterdam Records. He lives in New York City.

Adam Frint is a Chicago-based graphic designer with a love for music and typography, an appreciation for illustration, and a passion for black and white fine art photography. A senior designer at AGI, a global leader in design, packaging, print and production for the entertainment industry, Adam has had the opportunity to work with many great clients ranging from the Sony Group and Walt Disney Studios to EMI Music, HBO, and Warner Home Video. He is a graduate of Northern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication and a Minor in Photography, and a founding member of the online design community, c2ak.com. He has been affiliated with, and draws inspiration from, local designers and artists from Lumpen Magazine, Chicago Country Club, CPG (Chicago Screen Printer's Guild), ADLOVE, OhNo!Doom and Prairie Mod.

David Sarno is a freelance editor and has worked in television production for over ten years. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Cinema and Photography from Southern Illinois University, he moved to Chicago and began his editing career. The scope of his work covers a broad range, including broadcast television, music videos, and internet programs. Highlights include working at Kurtis Productions where he cut 4 episodes of American Greed, a documentary series airing on CNBC. Also while at Kurtis he cut two episodes of The Entrepreneurs for CNBC, a series profiling small businesses on the fast track to building national brands, and a one hour episode of American Originals, about the history of the Westminster Kennel Club. David has also worked at Thea Flaum Productions where he edited twenty-six episodes of From Junky to Funky, a home remodeling show on the DIY network, and Anderson Productions where he cut six episodes for the Emmy-nominated series, CPS Right Now!

William Pope L. Limited Edition at Art in General

William Pope.L
a philosophical solution, 2011
Mixed media sculpture
13.5 x 4 x 4 inches
Courtesy the artist. Published by Art in General.
Edition Size: 20
$1,500

Join Art in General and William Pope.L on March 23rd for a special reception where the artist will launch his new edition, a philosophical solution. Pope.L joins a long list of artists who have generously supported Art in General's exhibitions and programs by producing a limited edition, including Allora & Calzadilla, Jim Lambie, Glenn Ligon, Paul Pfeiffer, Spencer Tunick, and Pae White, among many others. Space for this event is extremely limited.

Please RSVP to Anna Starling at 212.219.0473 ext. 25 or anna@artingeneral.org if you are interested in attending.

a philosophical solution is a conceptual readymade, a wine bottle filled with a dark mysterious liquid in a branded wooden crate. Like a riddle, this piece contains hidden messages–a tiny tongue, a closed box, a sealed bottle, an opaque elixir. Together these elements expose our complicated relationship to language and those libations that let our own tongues run. In the artist's words, this edition is: "A beverage of dark mental liquid in the vein of such ideas as: 'the text wrote itself' or 'language has a mind of its own'; a thirst- quencher that silences the sipper while versing the sipped."

William Pope.L (born 1955 in Newark, New Jersey) is a prominent multidisciplinary artist known for his conceptual, often performance-based art practice, which actively confronts issues of race, sex, power, consumerism, and social class. As the self-proclaimed “friendliest black artist in America,” Pope.L invites dialogue through provocative performances, installations, and art objects. His work has been exhibited and performed at The Whitney Museum in New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, and the Renaissance Society in Chicago.

For inquiries or to purchase this work, please contact Anna Starling at 212.219.0473, ext. 25 or anna@artingeneral.org.

About Art in General

Founded in 1981 in Lower Manhattan, Art in General is a nonprofit organization that assists artists with the production and presentation of new work. It changes in response to the needs of artists and engages the public with their work. Since it was established, the organization has emerged as one of New York City’s leading nonprofits devoted to supporting and stimulating the creation of contemporary art, providing an environment in which artists may exhibit unconventional work and exchange ideas with their peers.

Location: 79 Walker Street, NYC, at the southeast corner of Cortland Alley. One block south of Canal Street, between Lafayette and Broadway.

Subway directions: take the 6, A-C-E, N-Q-R, or J to Canal Street.

Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday 12-6 pm.

Admission: Always free.

Art in General's 6th Floor Gallery and restrooms are wheelchair accessible, and we can provide assistance to visitors with disabilities as requested.

Radiohole presents: Whatever, Heaven Allows (WHA?!)

Radiohole returns to Brooklyn to present:

Whatever, Heaven Allows (WHA?!)

at The Collapsable Hole
146 Metropolitan Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718-388-2251

January 8-10 (Sat-Mon) @ 8pm
January 12-15 (Wed-Sat) @ 8pm
January 17 (Mon) Benefit Show @ 7:30pm

Tickets: $20, $15 students/seniors
Reservations: radiohole@gmail.com or 718-388-2251

Whatever, Heaven Allows is by Radiohole with Eric Dyer, Erin Douglass, Maggie Hoffman, Joseph Silovsky and Mark Jaynes
film & video by: Aaron Harrow & Radiohole

"Whatever, Heaven Allows is Radiohole's monster mash-up of Douglas Sirk's 1955 box office smash "All that Heaven Allows" (staring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman), and John Milton's hit 1667 poem "Paradise Lost" featuring history's most famous fallen hero, Satan.

GET AN AD IN THE SHOW
Purchase an AD or SHOUT-OUT that runs during Whatever, Heaven Allows

COME TO THE BENEFIT SHOW and/or PARTY MONDAY, JANUARY 17th
Hosted by: The Amazing RUSSELLO and special guests Richard Maxwell and the NYC Players Band with Scott Shepherd on Ukulele!

------------------------------------------------

Whatever, Heaven Allows (WHA!?) was commissioned by and performed at The Walker Art Center, The Andy Warhol Museum and PS122. It was also made possible with a matching grant from the National Performance Network's Creation Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affiars

Whatever, Heaven Allows is presented in association with Performance Space 122 as part of COIL - an annual winter festival of contemporary performance featuring hits from the past, present and future seasons of Performance Space 122. www.ps122.org.

Tarek Halaby performance, "An attempt to understand my socio-political disposition..."

2010 New York Dance and Performance
“Bessie” Award Winning Artist Tarek Halaby

WHAT: An attempt to understand my socio-political disposition through artistic research on personal identity in relationship to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Part One.

WHERE: at Henry St. Settlement (lower east side)
466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street) New York, NY 10002

WHEN: this Friday night Jan 7 at 7:30 and Saturday 1/8 at 1:30 pm. $15 Buy tickets here.

"'An Attempt...' is the result of a research process in which [Palestinian/American artist] Halaby looks into the varying and matching points between collective and personal stories, inside the choreographic creative processes. By presenting this piece as a "product" in process, to finish or resolve, Tarek relates the work to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. 
In this solo, Halaby questions and explores the ironies and paradoxes of art works with a deliberate political content.

This solo is presented as part of American Realness, a festival of new dance and contemporary performance made for the annual Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) Conference; a platform for the experimental and subversive American artists who are pursuing new research and artistic production. The agenda of American Realness is to reshape the identity of contemporary American dance and performance, and an eye towards global diffusion."

"This failure full of personal vulnerability has seldom been this clever and funny" — De Morgen

DESARROLLAR: A Gallery Exhibition and Solo Performance

[This fascinating exhibition/performance comes via my friend Makram--the fellow in the bit above-- who curated the HOME-LAND show I just did at his space 49B]

DESARROLLAR

by Laura Schwamb and Makram Hamdan

A gallery exhibition and solo performance at Center for Performance Research

A collaboration of visual art and dance, the evening begins with a gallery exhibition of works by Laura Schwamb. Her videos, animated neon, and black and white images set the atmosphere for the performance. Her concept of having a human bridle fabricated was beautifully realized and made possible by Johnny Farah. The exhibition is followed by a solo performance in the main theater by Makram Hamdan. Using the show's theme, conceived by Laura Schwamb, Makram Hamdan engages to push the limits of poetic control, visceral constraint, and physical endurance in a challenging semi-autobiographical performance based on memory.

CPR - Center for Performance Research December 9, 10, and 11. 2010.

Gallery exhibition opens at 7:00pm - Performance begins at 8pm - SHARP

Tickets: $15 - advance purchase recommended - http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/139506

Directions: 361 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn (b/w Jackson St. & Withers St.). L Train to Graham Avenue (3rd Stop in Brooklyn) / Exit right out of turnstile / Left on Graham / Left on Jackson / Right on Manhattan. www.cprnyc.org

General Inquiries (non-press): info@cprnyc.org 718-349-1210


Makram Hamdan (Choreographer and performer) Originally from Lebanon, Makram Hamdan’s emigration to Portland, OR as a teen, initiated his dance training. Subsequently, he graduated from the California Institute of the Arts. Another emigration to France launched his professional dance career, notably with Jean-Claude Gallotta, CCN de Grenoble. While in France, he also began working with Robert Wilson as a performer, then, as choreographer and assistant director both in Europe and at Wilson's Watermill Center in Long Island, NY. With a strong desire to design gardens, he established Makram Hamdan Designs, and began creating grand-scale gardens for private clients. Currently living in Brooklyn's vibrant arts neighborhood of Bushwick, Hamdan founded 49B Studios, an artists' residence loft and exhibition space and recently curated his first exhibition titled HOME-LAND for BETA Spaces 2010 and co-presented with ArteEast. www.makramhamdan.com 49B Studios

Laura Schwamb (Visual Artist) Lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York, where she works in different media centered around the day-to-day psychological moments of the experience of being alive, balancing between the physical and the spiritual and the transitions of being and becoming. www.lauraschwamb.blogspot.com

Johnny Farah (Leather Goods Designer) Johnny Farah's early influences came from Copenhagen. Living there in the 70’s, he developed a particular interest in the simplicity and practicality of the Scandinavian architecture and furniture design, more specifically in the way different materials like concrete, iron, wood or leather were put to their full formal and functional potential. Following Johnny’s life-changing encounter with architects Arne Jacobson and Hans Wegner, he decided to concentrate on his leather designs, which, up until then, were only a means to support his studies. Johnny Farah has since become a global brand. www.johnnyfarah.com

On the Importance of Being an Arab

On the Importance of Being an Arab

Friday, November 26th
Saturday, November 27th at Theatre Monty in Antwerp.

Friday, December 3rd at Les Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels.

This performance is based on events in the life of director/performer Ahmed El Attar. In sequences based on his personal archives – love letters, school and university grades, programs of the performances he has attended, work documents and letters etc. – a character is drawn who shares his views on his own perceptions of himself and on how the outside world perceives him.

On the Importance of Being an Arab further develops the performance style that characterizes Attar's recent Temple Independent Company productions – a combination of theatre, music and visual arts. A single intense rhythmic soundtrack accompanies the performance from beginning to end. The music composed for this production by Hassan Khan, with its emphasis on the use of electronics, driving and insistent loops and riffs, and emotional synth workouts is based on contemporary Cairene Shaabi forms. Video clips, also by Khan, are projected behind the performer, making this a multimedia performance in what the company describes as “new and relevant Egyptian theatre that is sensitive to the contemporary context in both form and content”.

On the Importance of Being an Arab was created in 2009 and was presented in Sharjah (UAE), Düsseldorf (Germany), Ivry (France), Groneijen, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and Amsterdam (Holland) in the fall 2009, in Cairo in July 2010 and at the Piccolo theatre in Milano in September 2010.

Ahmed El Attar is an independent theatre director, translator and playwright who lives in Cairo and works in the Middle East and Europe. He is the founder and artistic director of the Temple Independent Theatre Company in Egypt and the founder and managing director of the Studio Emad Eddin Foundation. The studio is a unique space in Egypt and the Arab world, providing rehearsal space and training to performing artists in Cairo, and residencies to visiting trainers and artists. El Attar has a BA in Theatre from the American University in Cairo and an MA in Arts and Cultural Management from Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle. He is currently a Chevening scholar on the Clore Leadership Programme (UK). El Attar has been chosen by the Arabic edition of Newsweek as one of 42 personalities who influence change in the Arab world. Recent productions include F**K Darwin, How I’ve Learned to Love Socialism (2007), Othello Who’s Afraid of William Shakespeare (2006) and Mother I want to be a Millionaire (2004). His pieces, which address socially relevant themes, have been performed to public and critical acclaim throughout the Arab world and the West.

The performance is 40 minutes long and is subtitled in English.

49B Studios Presents HOME-LAND: An Exhibition of Middle Eastern Artists

Dear Friends,

Please join me at 49B Studios for the exhibition HOME-LAND, during Arts In Bushwick's one-day event: BETA Spaces, co-presented with ArteEast.

HOME-LAND opens November 14th 2010 from 12pm to 7pm with Installations, Photography, paintings, performances and screenings. My installation, Torture Commissioned By The Emperor For The Good Of The People (2010) (*see below) is part of this exhibition of Middle Eastern artists, curated by Makram Hamdan. All the works in this show were created in response to representations of the idea "homeland."

Participating Artists:
Barrak Alzaid
Omar Amiralay
Faysal Bibi
Rafael Fuchs
Amnon Gutman
Makram Hamdan
Zied Hamdan
Maria Kassab
Leeor Kaufman
Rami Kodeih,
Maryam Najd
Rima Najd
Azadeh Saljooghi
Joseph Shahadi

Directions:
Take the L train to Morgan Ave.
Exit at rear of train at Harrison Pl/ Bogart St.
Turn right out of station, walk one block to # 49 just past Brooklyn Naturals Deli.

RSVP at 49bstudios@gmail.com

* The Torture Commissioned By The Emperor
For The Good Of The People (2010)
Installation detail, Mixed media: Lamb hearts, testes,
straight pins, sewing and upholstery needles

Performing Idea, Performance Matters

Adrian Heathfield, Co-Director of Performing Idea

Performing Idea public programme

2nd-9th October 2010
Whitechapel Gallery and Toynbee Studios, London

Performing Idea is a programme of events at Whitechapel Gallery and Toynbee Studios that investigate the shifting relations between performance practice and discourse, event and writing.

The public programme comprises a set of workshops led by three internationally acclaimed artists; a five day symposium with leading writers, thinkers and artists; a sound and video archive of seminal performance lectures; and a series of new performance lectures and redos by UK and international artists.

With contributions from: Janine Antoni, Ron Athey, Anne Bean, Wafaa Bilal, Maaike Bleeker, Silvia Bottiroli, Jonathan Burrows, Gavin Butt, Cabula 6, Augusto Corrieri, Robin Deacon, Rose English, Tim Etchells, Matthew Goulish, Adrian Heathfield, Hannah Hurtzig, Shannon Jackson, Janez Janša, Joe Kelleher, Tellervo Kalleinen, Lois Keidan, Ong Keng Sen, Bojana Kunst, Boyan Manchev, Fred Moten, Rabih Mroué, Giulia Palladini, Owen Parry, Peggy Phelan, Heike Roms, Lara Shalson, and Julie Tolentino.

To make a booking for the Performing Idea public programme click on How to book.

About Performing Idea

At a time when performance and live art have increased visibility in the worlds of art, theatre, dance and the academy, Performing Idea asks how such experimental performance forms signal changes in understandings of both art and the world beyond. The event pursues the multiple ways in which contemporary artists and thinkers have come to refashion not only understandings of art, but also the ways in which we produce and value the world of ‘ideas’.

Performing Idea seeks to explore the consequences for traditional understandings of knowledge when contemporary art actions, immaterial performances and social exchanges are routinely presented as valuable ways of knowing. What challenges do such practices present for the keepers, institutions and edifices of knowledge: the intellectuals and art arbiters, the academic institutions, and archives and libraries? Might the current forms of critical practice – of ‘creative research’ and ‘discursive events’ – represent new models of knowledge exchange and thoughtful relation, and suggest something more provisional and trans-active in the ways in which we might hold something dear?

Performing Idea is the first year of Performance Matters, a three-year creative research project rethinking why performance matters through the matter of performance. At a time when performance and live art have increased visibility in the worlds of art, theatre, dance and the academy, Performing Idea asks how such experimental performance forms signal changes in understandings of both art and the world beyond through a set of critical and creative exchanges and research processes.

For full details of the Performing Idea public programme and
information about the Performance Matters project, please visit:
http://www.thisisperformancematters.co.uk/activities.html

Bookings:
- The Performing Idea Symposium (5th to 9th October, 3pm to 7.30pm)
and evening programme of performance lectures and redos (4th to 9th October,
8.30pm) take place at Toynbee Studios and bookings must be made through Artsadmin
here.


Spaces are limited - early booking is advised.

TONIGHT: The Sternberg Project

The Sternberg Project

August 23, 2010, 8pm

Sternberg Park

The Sternberg Project, a site-specific dance film by Zena Bibler of the Dance Film Lab, is a crowd-sourced, multi-media, videodance time capsule of July in Sternberg Park and its surrounding area composed of short videos made on anything from HD camcorders to cell phone cameras.

The final Moviehouse screening of the summer is a screening of The Sternberg Project as well as original work by Itziar Barrios called (Ballad of) Knowville and a live performance.

Shot in abandoned industrial locations in New York City, (Ballad of) Knowville attempts to explain our present world through the murder ballad aesthetic. This aesthetic is a sub-genre of the traditional ballad form (often an American version of an older European ballad), that relays details and often consequences of crimes of passion but with the elements of supernatural retribution removed. In this video piece, the murder ballad is an entry point into a world that conjures tension, intrigue, and mystery and where death is decorative, lyrical, and aestheticized. (Ballad of) Knowville teeters on the edge of a dream-state, repeatedly falling into dance-induced lyricism only to abruptly regain the stark reality of self-awareness.

Details:
Monday, August 23rd, 8pm
Sternberg Park, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (Lorimer + Boerum Streets)
Event is FREE! (So bring your friends)

Zena Bibler is a Brooklyn-based dancer, choreographer, and experimental filmmaker. Her latest projects include The Union Square Experiments, an expanding set of site-specific, geo-tagged, Google-Mapped, public dance performances with Katie Schetlick and Ashley Hannan and Little Dances Everywhere, a series of short, site-specific dance films that function like postcards from particular moments and situations.

Conceived and directed by Zena Bibler in collaboration with Katie Schetlick, Ashley Hannan, Faye Min Lim, Ashley Murray, Jacob Liberman, Malinda Crump, Rishauna Zumberg, Ariel Lembeck, Elaine Carberry, Zavé Martohardjono, Ullani Atkins, Sofia Feria, Jennifer Ruiz, Nico Demus, Peter Roushakes, Trevion Tillman, DJ Tillman, Zanaya Tillman, Davonaisha Tillman, Mia-Lee Betances, Kassandra Matos, Jacqueline Betances, Rian Rooney, Michelle Castañeda, Chris Tabron, Chris Henderson, Clay Franklin, Alice Cox, Gabriel Roldos, and Hannah Krafcik.

For more information visit http://www.brilliantp.com/moviehouse/

Under the Table presents three workshops in New York City

Under the Table presents a series of three workshops in New York City with Josh Matthews and Sarah Petersiel! We're excited to offer workshops in our areas of expertise and affinity. All proceeds go towards Under the Table's Summer 2010 Canadian Tour. Canada or bust!

UNDER THE TABLE 101: THE ENSEMBLE EXPERIENCE
Saturday April 10, 12-3pm

In this workshop we share our process of devising physical and comedic work. We'll explore: generating material for shows and pieces; shaping that material; being a good comedic partner; and building a productive and joyful ensemble.

Great for actors, writers, directors, and collaborative artists of all kinds.

TEACHING CIRCUS
Saturday May 8, 12-3pm

Join us for a look at teaching circus skills to young people and adult beginners. Includes introducing students to juggling equipment, tumbling and spotting, and circus-centered ensemble games. We'll also touch on building up to a culminating circus performance.

Great for teachers/teaching artists, people who'd like to acquire some circus basics, and anyone with a fancy name.

INTRO TO CLOWN
Date TBA (sometime in June)

Enter the realm of theatrical clown in this exploratory workshop! Be patently uncool! Follow your impulses to make mischief! Pursue delight by whatever means necessary! Admit to what's really going on! Be profoundly present!

Great for dentists. And actors/clowns/people interested in unleashing the power of their ridiculousness.

Here is some registration info:

-All workshops to be held at Soundance: 281 North 7th St. in Williamsburg/Brooklyn

-To reserve a spot or for more info, please email: sarah@underthetabletheatre.org

-Workshops operate on a sliding scale: $30-$500,000,000

Here is some company info:

Under the Table is dedicated to creating original, hilarious, relevant, and accessible works of physical theatre. Based in Brooklyn, NY, the company is fueled by a commitment to the collaborative process of the ensemble.

Since its founding in 2001 by Matt Chapman and Liz Turkel, the company has mounted nine original productions, performing in New York City, across the country and in Europe. The company teaches workshops for high school students, college students, and actors. In 2004 and 2005, Under the Table produced The Free Theatre Project, bringing free physical theatre and social satire to public spaces in New York City.

Visit us at www.underthetabletheatre.org

Here is some info on workshop facilitators Josh and Sarah:

Josh Matthews and Sarah Petersiel are members of the Brooklyn-based ensemble Under the Table. Josh appears, with Artistic Director Matt Chapman, in SOLO: a two-person show, while all three perform in The Only Friends We Have. Josh and Sarah are both teaching artists with the New Victory Theater and Clown Doctors with the Big Apple Circus. Together they have taught workshops at Alfred University, the Virginia Governor School for the Arts, the Berkshire Fringe Festival and Denmark's Move'n'act. Both are graduates of the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre.

We hope to see you in April, May, June, and beyond!

Tenth National Black Writers Conference NYC March 25-28th

Toni Morrison

The Tenth National Black Writers' Conference, first presented in 1986 as a result of the visionary leadership of the late John O. Killens, will be held March 25-28, 2010. Toni Morrison, will be the Honorary Chair. The theme of the National Black Writers' Conference is And Then We Heard the Thunder: Black Writers Reconstructing Memories and Lighting the Way. Through a series of panel discussions, roundtables, author readings and storytelling, the National Black Writers' Conference will use the metaphor of thunder, memory and light to examine the historical representation of the literature of Black writers and the representation of new and future directions for contemporary and emerging literary voices. With Toni Morrison as the Honorary Chair, the National Black Writers' Conference will also honor Amiri Baraka, Kamau Brathwaite and Dr. Edison O. Jackson. Black writers will come from throughout America, the Caribbean, Europe and Africa.

The National Black Writers' Conference is a conference dedicated to the exploration of “emerging themes, trends and issues in Black American literature.” It is hosted by the Center for Black Literature at Medgar and attracts writers, scholars, editors, agents, faculty, students and the general public. The 2010 Conference will prove to be a “first” in that this premier Black writers’ event will have the distinction of celebrating its tenth anniversary while being chaired by the prize-winning renowned Black author during a time when the first Black American president is in the White House.

The National Black Writers' Conference has addressed the themes of stereotypes in Black literature, the direction of Black literature, the renaissance in Black literature, access and expanding conversations on race, identity, history and genre Each conference has built upon the previous one celebrating outstanding Black writers through the world.

Notable Off-Site Event:

Spoken Word Poetry Cafe
Staceyann Chin and Willie Perdomo, Featured Poets including Jo Nubian of the great blog Just Jo Nubian

...If you are in the city, go listen to her read and offer support.

Poetry Reading with a special appearance by Stacy Ann Chin. Please contact Joi M. Sears, Coordinator for additional information at:

theatreforthefreepeople@gmail.com

Time: 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Location: Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza
Audience: Open - ages High School age & up.
Admission: No Fee Required for viewing.

For more information & Registration
Conference Hotline: 718 270-4811

Email: Center for Black Literature:

Website: Center for Black Literature:

Online Registration Partner:African American Literature Book Club

Three Good Wives

Three Good Wives

16th Mar–28th Mar 2010

Dates & Times
Tues 16 – Sun 28 March (not 22 or 23), 8pm (4pm Sundays, 7pm Fri 26 Mar)

Tickets
£10 / £8 conc (£5 previews Tues 16 & Wed 17)

Little Angel Theatre
14 Dagmar Passage
Off Cross Street
Islington
N1 2DN

An original puppet theater piece that investigates the core themes of waiting, mourning, and healing. These themes are explored through the lens of contemporary US and UK military wives' stories and mytho-historic heroines: Penelope from Homer's Odyssey, Mandodari from the Ramayana, and Scheherazade from The Arabian Nights. The production is inspired by the stories of 21st Century women whose lives have been affected by war. It draws from personal accounts, news and radio stories as well as online social media.

Three Good Wives is a collaborative project developed the performers. Puppet and scenic design by Michael Kelly, sound design by Joemca, and direction by Alissa Mello.

There will be a post-show Q&A with the director on Wed 24 March.
"This production should be seen by all who love theater, science and peace."
- Larry Litt, NY Theatre Wire review of Inkfish's THE BRAIN

This project is made in association with The Little Angel Theatre and is funded in part by a grant from The Jerome Foundation with additional support from The Centre for Excellence in Training for Theatre, The Puppet Center Trust, Battersea Arts Centre, The Pleasance Theatre Islington, and Royal Holloway Department of Drama and Theatre, University of London. Inkfish has been awarded grants from The Jim Henson Foundation, and The Puffin Foundation.

2-DAY INTENSIVE WORKSHOP WITH ANDREA PAGNES AND VERENA STENKE

Speak that I can see you (2009) Andrea Pagnes and Verena Stenke

2-DAY INTENSIVE WORKSHOP WITH ANDREA PAGNES AND VERENA STENKE
[ITALY / GERMANY]

www.vest-and-page.de

"FRAGILE LIMITS - INTENSIVE PERFORMANCE ART WORKSHOP"

SATURDAY, MARCH 20 - SUNDAY, MARCH 21
12:00 PM - 8:00 PM
~ FREE! ~ 1st 10 people accepted

This workshop will be free of charge

2-day intensive workshop in Performance Art practice
with Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes

to register email: gracexhibitionspace@yahoo

“Never as Always. Now as Always. Here and now. Where I am, I do not know it, I will never know it. In the silence, you don’t know it, you must go on and, even if I can’t, I’ll go”
Samuel Beckett

FRAGILE LIMITS WORKSHOP

Tired of looking at things from an usual and obsolete perspective, with few friends, full of memories and remembrances, with a no-limits imagination, pathological, perverted, deprived, deviant, surreal, overwhelmed and overruled by daily prosaic worries and ordinary thoughts, being still beautiful, in a constant journey towards new productions, slowly moving to an end, living into an irreversible crisis, always clutched by doubts, sometimes radiant, other times miserable, feeling to be stuck for an answer, when where is a nowhere or somewhere else, with at least a hope in our hearts, looking at a feeble response, our fragile constituent limits- we invite people to gather together those left things they really care, to share them with us and the others.


THE AIMS OF THE FRAGILE LIMITS WORKSHOP ARE:

To investigate- to look for and find out new, unexpected possibilities to strengthen the process of making. To see - to indicate how to look at things from a different – still responsible – perspective.

To stimulate- to help to touch and overcome personal fragile limits.

To experience and express- to transform one self’s ideas and emotions into a performatic, not theatrical, work throughout different exercises.

To give- to offer keys to understand how a performance artist can approach the social environment and the spiritual development, by touching the fragile limits of one’s own Self- those limits that are not limiting at all, but rather purely constituent of one’s own human nature.

During the various exercises, in different conditions, the participants will be provided with tools to gradually conceive, create and realize a performance, using mainly their own bodies and memories as tools themselves.

The exercises are aimed to touch and develop the most inner human sensors in order to activate memories, to open our perception and to transform pure ideas into a concrete, primarily real action. Further, a specific goal is also to get distance from the mere being “virtuous” by establishing, valuating, and energizing the personal action.


IT IS REQUIRED TO BRING:

- Comfortable clothes
- One object the participant feels related to (second day)
- One blanket and one cushion (second day)

Actions and exercises are innovative but inspired by Social Theatre, Grotowski, Barba, Leclerc, Dynamic Breathing and Re-Birthing Technique, Martial Arts, Sufi, Panic Theatre / Psycomagic (Jodorowski), Strasberg, Oida and others.

Body & Space / Time & Duration / Tension & Release / Voice & Sound / Emotional Atmosphere / Interactivity / Breath / Archetypes / Rituality / Memory activation / Observation of the silence.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Since 2006 Andrea Pagnes and Verena Stenke work together as VestAndPage.

Combining and crossing their former ways of expressions, - including techniques of make-up artistry, video, installation, poetry and sound - they found within Performance Art the perfect common ground to talk about topics they concern. They wish to arrive with the spectators to an intimate and sensorial shifting of reality and time, touching most inner human sensors.

Their performances and video works are presented at international festivals, exhibitions and encounters in Europe, Asia, South America and the U.S., among which the XIV Biennial BJCEM Skopje 2009, Visions In New York City, Zonadearte Buenos Aires, OPEN ’09 Festival Beijing, PIPAF Manila, Galata Perform Istanbul, Neu Kunsthalle Berlin, Kunsthaus Tacheles Berlin, Art Accion Mexico, Epipiderme Lisbon, LOGE Gallery Berlin, ArtKontakt Albania, Muliqui Prize Kosovo, 53° Venice Biennale, Arte Communications Venice, MyMementoVid Tel Aviv, and others as Human Emotion Project and Transit Station.

They perform, lecture and give workshops in international venues as the Bitef Teatar (Belgrade), Fabrica Braco de Prata (Lisbon), University La Salette (Santiago-Philippines), Momap (Florence), Deutsches Institute (Florence).

Andrea Pagnes and Verena Stenke www.vest-and-page.de

GRACE EXHIBITION SPACE
840 BROADWAY, 2nd Floor - Brooklyn
(646) 578-3402
gracexhibitionspace@yahoo.com
www.grace-exhibition-space.com

DIRECTIONS:
J-M-Z train to Flushing or Myrtle
& walk 3 blocks east from Flushing,
or 3 blocks west from Myrtle
to
#840 Broadway, 2nd Floor (btwn. Ellery St. & Park Ave.)
entrance left of liquor store - ring top buzzer
call for more directions: (646) 578-3402


"Our mission is the glorification of performance art."

Summer 2010: Art and Resistance

Jesusa Rodriguez. photo by Julio Pantoja

The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics

Presents:

Summer 2010: Art and Resistance

San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico

July 19–August 6, 2010

Taught by Diana Taylor, Jesusa Rodríguez (Resistencia Creativa, Mexico), and Lorie Novak

This course explores the many ways in which artists and activists use art (performance, mural paintings, graffiti, writing, music) to make a social intervention in the Americas. We begin the course by examining several theories about art and activism (from Plato and Aristotle to Brecht, Boal, Buenaventura, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Foucault, among others) and then focus on issues of agency, space, event, and audience in relation to major political movements (revolution, dictatorship, democracy, globalization, and human rights) as seen in the work of major practitioners. Jesusa Rodriguez will lead an intensive one-week performance workshop as part of the course. Lorie Novak will discuss the use of the Internet as a site for activism, doumentation, and research, and will assist students in conceptualizing and realizing web-based projects. Performances, video screenings, guest lectures, and visits to FOMMA, Chiapas Media Project, a Zapatista community and other activist projects will provide an additional dimension to the questions raised by the theoretical readings and discussions. Students are encouraged to explore possibilities for practice-based research, develop their own sites of investigation, and share their work in a final presentation.

Students from all member institutions of the Hemispheric Institute are encouraged to apply. NYU students can take the course for 4 pts of graduate credit through the Department of Performance Studies, and students from other institutions can take the course for credit as independent study in their home universities. Students from non-member institutions will be considered for admission, though priority will be given to graduate students from member institutions.

Although bilinguality (English-Spanish) is a plus, it is not required. Students are encouraged to bring laptops and digital cameras to use for their projects.

Lab fee $1000

A lab fee will apply to all—$1000 for students in the U.S. Canada, and Europe, and $250 for those in Latin America. While housing and travel costs are separate, the Hemispheric Institute is negotiating very reasonable costs for room and board. All local expenses (performances, lectures, travel to local sites, etc., will be covered by the lab fee).

Download Application

English
Español
The deadline for applications is May 1, 2010.

Download the announcement (PDF)

English
Español

Shameless Self Promotion: "Gutted" at LACE

Hello Internet friends and followers. My work is appearing at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) in a show called "Gutted" on Saturday, February 2o/2010. It's a benefit for LACE, which is an important space for weird art in LA. In his curatorial statement "Gutted" curator (and artist) Dino Dinco writes lovingly,

"As a teenager in mid-‘80s Los Angeles, Ron Athey, Luis Alfaro, and Vaginal Davis were but some of the artists who schooled me in what it meant to use the body – their bodies – to investigate a matrix of race, sex, power, community, activism, sexuality and desire through performance art. Many of the spaces where I first saw these artists are long gone: The Onyx Café, Club Fuck!, Glaxa Theater, Troy Café and countless alternative, temporary spaces in and around Downtown Los Angeles when Downtown was a vastly different landscape.

LACE isn’t only one of the few venues from that era that has survived but a vital creative force in Los Angeles, offering a space in which to present work deemed difficult or transgressive by many other established arts institutions. LACE has always occupied an awkward space – not really a gallery, not really a museum -- and perhaps it’s this awkwardness that has kept it alive, flexible to change and adapt more quickly than a larger institution. Some of my first memories of seeing live arts in Los Angeles happened at LACE on Industrial Street. I’ll never forget Nina Hagen prancing around the outside patio of LACE performing intergalactic opera or feeling the spray of warm sparks blanket my face during a Babyland set when Michael Smith applied rotary saw to oil barrel..."

If you are in or around Los Angeles please attend the show. (And if you have a mind to, report back and let me know what you thought.) In this era of general disregard for art-- let alone extreme or experimental art-- I hope you'll support a space like LACE and spread the word. Please feel free to repost:

2300 12.0

LACE’S ANNUAL WINTER BENEFIT Saturday 20 February 2010 I 8pm – Midnight I Doors open 7pm I $10

To purchase tickets, visit welcometolace.org
Free to all LACE members

LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) is pleased to present GUTTED: LACE’S ANNUAL WINTER BENEFIT. This year, LACE has teamed up with Los Angeles-based curator Dino Dinco, who brings his own passions and experience to this annual fundraising event. Inspired by Los Angeles’ history of performance art and LACE’s role as an open platform for artistic expression, Dinco has reached out to a range of artists, both established and emerging, to present an unrestrained evening of contemporary performance. GUTTED showcases a daring ensemble of live performance, texts and objects speaking of, from and to the body. With a roster of creative talent spanning thirty years of live performance, GUTTED illustrates an array of ways artists have addressed the human form, spanning issues of domesticity and labor, AIDS, race, social activism, queerness, straightness, bodybuilding, body destruction, fantasy & grotesquerie.

Participating artists include: Benjamin Weissman, Raquel Gutierrez, Xuanito Carlos Espinoza Cuellar, Sheree Rose, Luis Alfaro, Alice Cunt, Lucas Michael, Elle Mehrmand & Micha Cardenas, Marcus Civin, Ryan Heffington, Rafael Esparza and Gronk, Brian Getnick/THE BALLET, Hi Fashion $9.99, Julie Tolentino & Pigpen, Taisha Ciara Paggett, Heather Cassils, Mariel Carranza, Dorian Wood, Samuel Vasquez, Bela Messex, Juan Martin del Campo Jr., Joseph Shahadi, and more. For a complete list, visit www.welcometolace.org.

"The impetus for GUTTED stems from my love for performance as well as my ongoing interest in the work of French philosopher and social critic Jean-Luc Nancy, particularly his work Corpus. In this work, Nancy articulates that there is no ontology of the body, but rather, the body is ontology itself. The body is a familiar subject of discourse in the arts, as we have and will always already work from the body. A body of work. A body of knowledge. Through Nancy, I view LACE – the space – as a body that will fill with bodies, where the ongoing conversation about our / their / your bodies will continue". –Dino Dinco

All proceeds benefit LACE programs.

Performance: Swimming to Spalding

Photo of Lián Amaris: Jesus Sanchez

Directed by Richard Schechner (of East Coast Artists and formerly, The Performance Group), performance artist Lián Amaris goes in search of Spalding Gray's "perfect moment" by following the map of experience described in Gray's masterpiece Swimming to Cambodia, nearly a generation later.

While returning to Gray's traditional story-telling, Amaris also ventures away from the "table and notebook" to embody a year of experiences all over the world- from Bangkok brothels to Baghdad bombings, from Mardi Gras to mental institutions.

HERE Arts Center
145 6th Ave (Enter on Dominick, 1 Block South of Spring)
New York, NY 10013-1548

For Tickets: http://www.here.org/see/now/ or call (212) 647-0202

$25 or 2-for-1 at the door with Student ID

Thursday 12/3 Preview 8:30pm
Friday 12/4 Previews 8:30 and 10:30
Saturday 12/5 Preview 4pm and OPENING 8:30pm
Sunday 12/6 Performance 4pm

Wednesday 12/9 Performance 8:30pm
Thursday 12/10 Performance 8:30pm
Friday 12/11 Performances 8:30pm and 10:30pm
Saturday 12/12 Performances 4pm and 8:30pm
Sunday 12/13 Performance 4pm with post-show TALKBACK

Wednesday 12/16 Performance 8:30pm
Thursday 12/17 Performance 8:30pm
Friday 12/18 Performances 8:30pm and 10:30pm
Saturday 12/19 Performances 4pm and 8:30pm
Sunday 12/20 Performance 4pm

YES ARABS CAN! A Night of Comedy

Comedians Maysoon Zayid and Dean Obeidallah

YES ARABS CAN!
A Night of Comedy with Dean Obeidallah and Maysoon Zayid
Thursday, November 19, 7:00 pm, Wang Center Theater

"Two of the founders of the New York Arab American Comedy Festival come to the Wang Center to make you laugh with their insight and wit.

Born in New Jersey, DEAN OBEIDALLAH's comedy comes in large part from his unique background of being the son of a Palestinian father and a Sicilian mother. Dean, an award-winning comedian has appeared on ABC’s “The View,” Comedy Central’s “Axis of Evil” Comedy special and is the co-creator and co-producer of Comedy Central.com’s critically acclaimed Internet series “The Watch List,” featuring a cast of all Middle Eastern-American comedians
performing stand up and sketch comedy.

MAYSOON ZAYID is an actress and professional stand-up comedian, who received her BFA in acting from Arizona State University. Maysoon has performed comedy in top New York clubs, including The Improv, Caroline's, Gotham, and Stand-Up NY, and has toured her stand-up act extensively in both the USA and abroad. Maysoon was the first comedian to perform standup
live in Palestine, performing in Nazareth, Haifa, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Jerusalem.

Opening Act by SAAD SARWANA
Saad grew up in Pakistan and moved to Canada for college and eventually the US where he completed a graduate degree in physics at Stony Brook. He 's a professional physicist and a published scientist, and still works in Superconductivity. But he continues to make people laugh as "Pakistan's #1 Comic" and the “Wacky Packy.” Saad will have you rolling in laughter as he
breaks stereotypes while talking about physics, racial profiling, and being a Pakistani-Muslim living in the US."

Tickets: $25 for VIP; $15 for General; $10 for Student/Senior
Please reserve your tickets by e-mailing wangcenter@stonybrook.edu or call (631) 632-4400.

Buy tickets online from the website:
http://www.stonybrook.edu/sb/wang/events.shtml

Performance Artist and "Terrorist Drag Queen" Vaginal Creme Davis Appearing at NYU

The Department of Performance Studies presents:

Vaginal Creme Davis in an original performative lecture/oratorio.

Monday, November 9, 2009
7:00- 8:30pm
Tisch School of the Arts
721 Broadway, 6th floor
NYU Department of Performance Studies

RSVP on Facebook: http://tiny.cc/dMaYt

By Dominic Johnson via Frieze Magazine

"Vaginal Creme Davis is an originator of the homo-core punk movement and a gender-queer art-music icon. Her concept bands -- including Pedro Muriel and Esther, Cholita! The Female Menudo, black fag, and the Afro Sisters -- have left an indelible mark on the development of underground music. Like Ron Athey, Ms Davis made her name in LA's club performance scene, and has earned herself a similar notoriety as a cultural antagonist and erotic provocateur.

Set apart from gallery-centered art, and Hollywood movies, and from those systems' necessities of high-polish, low-substance production, Vaginal Davis's low-budget -- often no-budget -- performance, experimental film and video practice has critiqued exclusionary conceits from the outside. Davis has been a prolific producer of club performance, video and Xerox-produced Zines, and other forms of antagonistic low-cost, high-impact work. Such as in her drag reconstruction of Vanessa Beecroft's Navy SEALs performance, Ms Davis derails collector-friendly raciness in spectacles of femininity, queerness and blackness. She critiques both the gallery system and the larger cultural trend that it mirrors, with tongue-in-cheek self-exploitation and rude provocations of racial and gender confusion.

Vaginal Davis is the key proponent of the disruptive performance aesthetic known as terrorist drag. Disrupting the cultural assimilation of gay-oriented and corporate-friendly drag, she positions herself at an uncomfortable tangent to the conservative politics of gay culture, mining its contradictory impulses to interrupt the entrenchment of its assimilatory strategies.

A self-labeled "sexual repulsive," Ms Davis consistently refuses to ease conservative tactics within gay and black politics, employing punk music, invented biography, insults, self-mockery, and repeated incitements to group sexual revolt -- all to hilarious and devastating effect. Her body a car-crash of excessive significations, Vaginal Davis stages a clash of identifications within and against both heterosexual and queer cultures, and Black and Hispanic identities. From bubblegum songstress Graziela Grejalva to aging deviant John Dean Egg III, Davis's personas reject the internal counter-cultural mandate to refuse self-criticism, instead problematising the functions and assumptions of normative trends within the margins.

By renewing uncertainties within alternative cultures and identities, Vaginal Davis opens up spaces for their continual struggle towards renewed and greater challenges, over and against these practices' timid appeasement and appropriation by the mainstream."

Shameless Self Promotion

Self-Portrait* (2007)

So I have a website now. It features my artwork and information about my scholarship and teaching. If you aren't too busy maybe you could take a look. I'm just saying.

www.josephshahadi.com


*Yeah, that's me.

DOWNTOWN NOW: JIBZ CAMERON AND K8 HARDY

NYU's Department of Performance Studies presents

The Performance Studies Lecture Forum

DOWNTOWN NOW: JIBZ CAMERON AND K8 HARDY.

Jibz Cameron is a musician and performance artist, known for her one-woman performance persona Dynasty Handbag. She is currently a visiting lecturer in Performance Studies. K8 Hardy is a video and performance artist and is one of the founding editors of LTTR, a radical gender-queer, lesbian-feminist art collective and journal. She also works as a fashion stylist for clients including Fischerspooner and has made music videos for bands such as Lesbians on Ecstasy and Le Tigre. Please join us on MONDAY, OCTOBER 26th, 7-8:30PM to see these two cutting edge downtown New York artists in conversation about gender, politics, performance persona, and whatever else you want to ask them about.

Located in the Performance Studies Studio at Tisch School of the Arts (721 Broadway, 6th Floor)

FREE. Reception (with free food and drinks!) following talk.

No reservations required for NYU students and faculty.

Non NYU-affiliated folks please RSVP to: PSLectures@gmail.com