In Performance: Prelude13 (NYC)

Prelude13
October 2-4, 2013
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
The CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the Graduate Center, CUNY celebrates the tenth anniversary of PRELUDE, a festival dedicated to artists at the forefront of contemporary New York City theater and performance. As it has for the past decade, PRELUDE.13 features an array of artists working in theatrical, interdisciplinary and mediatized performance, giving audiences and artists a survey of the current New York moment via in-process presentations, open rehearsals, and discussions — all completely for free.

PRELUDE.13: FORWARD features an amalgam of artists who have shaped the past decade and who occupy a promising place in the decade to come. How are these artists thinking about and responding to the present moment with an eye towards the next ten years? How is the current state of the union affecting their aesthetic pursuits and innovations? By collectively examining their current practices, can we uncover new paradigms?

To help address these questions strategically, we have organized the artists and events into three categorical platforms:

The Evolutionary Fixtures
Who: Artists whose practices have contributed to and shaped the discourse and history of the past decade.

What: Moving forward into a second, and in some cases third, decade of artistic practice, how are these artists advancing their aesthetic pursuits and proclivities while also considering sustainability and legacy?

How:

• By grappling with the opportunities afforded (or lost) through experimenting with alternative ways of creating, capturing and disseminating live work (Andrew Schneider, Big Art Group, Jay Scheib & Co., Daniel Fish, Jim Findlay).
• By using ones aesthetic proclivities to address tough questions about creative sustainability and the economics of the artists’ life (Cynthia Hopkins, Nature Theater of Oklahoma).
• By seeking inspiration beyond ones comfort zone in an attempt to close the gap between “us” and “them” (PearlDamour).
• By revisiting the past through a contemporary lens in pursuit of a greater understanding of who we are now and how far we have (or have not) come (Taylor Mac, Big Dance Theater, Mallory Catlett / Restless NYC).

The Deviant Charges
Who: Artists who are forging the narrative of the next generation of practice.

What: Still within or just emerging from a first decade of artistic practice, how are these artists concurrently in conversation with their lineages while simultaneously provoking new ideas and awareness?

How:

• By confronting the possibilities and challenges of scale and scope in contemporary practice (600 HIGHWAYMEN, ANIMALS, Andrew Ondrejcak, The Assembly, Woodshed Collective).
• By reclaiming and revamping age-old traditions of song and story (Kristine Haruna Lee, Katherine Brook / Tele-Violet, Jerome Ellis and James Harrison Monaco).
• By dismantling our understanding of provocation, identity, camp, and commentary (Chris Tyler, Rebecca Patek).

The Willing Participants
Who: You, the compounded spectator/participant, and the artists who engage you in amalgamations of liveness, participation, place, and the civic nature of performance.

What: When such practices have been around for decades, what remains to be realized by transgressing these boundaries? How can we contemporaneously re-imagine the notions and politics of spectator and participant, event and community?

How:

• By addressing economics, civic responsibility, and urban planning as a “collective creative design problem” (The Brooklyn Commune, USDAC, Aaron Landsman).
• By advancing inquires and playing into the debates of authenticity within a performative experience (Elastic City, Institute for Psychogeographic Adventure).
• By creating a live action role-playing rock musical (need we say more?) (César Alvarez and Sarah Benson).

Artists
The Evolutionary Fixtures

(Source – Prelude13 Website)