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In Performance: Jeremy Wade & Pete Drunge – The Whirling Visitation

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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In Performance: Jeremy Wade & Pete Drunge – The Whirling Visitation

“The Whirling Visitation”
Abrons Art Center, NYC
April 9th and 10th at 8 PM
Tickets 10 in advance 15 at the door.
For reservations theatermania.com or 212 – 352 – 3101

JWwhirl

“The Whirling Visitation”
A spectral blur of sound and color that beckons you to enter the excess of uncertainty, Bessie Award-winner Jeremy Wade pairs up with Bessie Award-winner Pete Drunge to present an evening dedicated to the phenomenon of the sublime. “The Whirling Visitation” is hallucinogenic amalgam of music, text and movement reverencing dissonant mystic whispers, new age alien transgression, epileptic trance at twilight, psychedelic oblivion, believe it or not, guided visualizations into the unknown, and the fairy tale occult. www.jeremywade.de

Emerging: Yozmit (NYC)

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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Yozmit is a singer, interdisciplinary performance artist, and costume designer incorporating sound, movement, and the sculptural body.

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He started his professional career as a fashion designer but rediscovered himself as a performing artist through the practice of traditional Korean music (Pansori, Gayageum Byungchang) and modern dance.

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She studied and performed with Thomas Leabhart’s group ‘MICE’, Rachel Rosenthal Company, Laurie Cameron Company, Seo Hoonjung Pansori group, Takuya Muramatsu from Dairakudakan, Hou Ying from Shen Wei Dance Arts. He is also a scholarship recipient of American Dance Festival(ADF).

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Currently, She is based in Brooklyn, NY, working on her solo album and Abstract Cabaret Perfomance Series (performance art meets electro drag cabaret with shamanism). His work is shown at The Box and other venues in NYC. In addition to her work as an artist, she is also involved with HIV/AIDS prevention work and transgender civil rights work.

He is currently performing in Marina Abramovic’s ‘artist is present’ at MoMA until May 31st, 2010.

Featured: Rabih Mroué (Beirut, Lebanon)

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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Featured: Rabih Mroué (Beirut, Lebanon)

Rabih Mroué (lives and works in Beirut) is an actor, director, and playwright and is the winner of the 2010 Spalding Gray Award.

In 1990 he began putting on his own plays, performances, and videos. Continuously searching for new and contemporary relations among all the different elements and languages of the theatre art forms, Mroué questions the definitions of theatre and the relationship between space and form of the performance and, consequently, questions how the performer relates with the audience. His works deal with the issues that have been swept under the table in the current political climate of Lebanon. He draws much-needed attention to the broader political and economic contexts by means of a semi-documentary theatre.

From theatre practice to politics, and from the problem of representations to his private life, his search for ‘truth’ begins via documents, photos, and found objects, fabricating other documents, other ‘truths’: it is as if the work becomes a dissection table for the dubious processes of Lebanon’s war society. With the accumulation of materials, a surrealistic saga unfolds, teasing out the proposition that ‘between the truth and a lie, there is but a hair’. His piece ‘Looking for a Missing Employee’ is an investigative performance in which the artist becomes a ‘detective’ interested in using actual documents to understand how rumours, public accusations, national political conflicts, and scandals act on the public sphere as shaped by print media. Mroué incorporates radical criticism, particularly in his video imagery.

Without losing his peculiar sense of humour, Mroué’s ‘Biokhraphia’ (in collaboration with Lina Saneh) shrewdly provides a space to consider the invention of biography, with all its dreams, failings, and idiosyncrasies, within the frame of the beginning of a history. In 2004 Mroué wrote ‘Who’s Afraid of Representation’, a merging of parallel histories of Western performance art and contemporary socio-political events in Beirut.

Emerging: Faye Driscoll – There is so much mad in me (NYC)

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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Faye Driscoll
There is so much mad in me (NYC)
Mar 31 – Apr 3 at 7:30pm
 Dance Theater Workshop
Pre-Show Coffee and Conversation: Mar 31 at 6:30pm
Post-Show Talk Apr 2

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There is so much mad in me investigates the physical and theatrical narratives that drive our misplaced need to be seen. Driscoll, with her company of dancers, ask who we are and how we connect in this time of over stimulation and look at me distraction. Working from images seen in the media of people in extreme states, from torture to religious rapture, There is so much mad in me examines the similarities between polar extremes. What are the fine lines between the abject and the sublime, voyeurism and empathy, entertainment and reality? From creating facades to seeking the divine to committing violent acts and falling in love, There is so much mad in me explores shifting states of consciousness as choreography while investigating how we process information.

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Performed by Lindsay Clark, Lily Gold, Michael Helland, Tony Orrico, Jennie MaryTai Liu, Jacob Slominski, Adaku Utah, Jesse Zaritt and Nikki Zialcita.

Design by Machine Dazzle, Amanda K. Ringger, Sara C. Walsh and Brandon Wolcott.

Announcements: 101010 UpStage Festival – call for proposals

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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This call for proposals was spotted on culturebot.org. Below is from the 101010 UpStage Festival website.

The fourth UpStage festival of cyberformance (live online performance) will be held on 101010 (10 October 2010). The call is now open for performance proposals.

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The 101010 Upstage Festival aims to create a participatory space for collaboration, creation, and for the presentation of current cyberformance. The festival provides a platform (and shares the technichal expertise) to enable artists to experiment with the new medium, and to have their work seen alongside performances by internationally renowned practitioners – in a celebration of the evolution and diversity of cyberformance practices.

090909 UpStage Festival Showreel from UpStage on Vimeo.

To submit a proposal, email the following information toinfo@upstage.org.nz:

* working title of your cyberformance and 3-4 sentences about it;
* names and locations of people involved;
* brief background/bios (not more than 300 words each);
* preferred time(s), in your local time, for presentation on 101010;
* contact email and postal address.
Performances can be on any theme or topic; the only rules are it must be no longer than 20 minutes, and must be created and performed in UpStage (for information about past festivals and performances, see the links at the left).

The deadline for proposals is 31 March 2010; the preliminary selection will be made by 30 April, with the public announcement of the selected performances on 1 September 2010.

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The festival will take place online in UpStage on 101010, with RL (’real life’) access nodes at locations around the world. If you are interested in hosting a RL access node, please contact us for further information and technical requirements.

Participating artists will be listed and acknowledged on the UpStage web site. We will endeavour to record all the performances and provide participating artists with copies for documentation, however this is dependent on volunteer resources.

UpStage is an open source venue for web-based performance and is licensed under the Creative Commons and GPL. All copyright of artworks remains with the artists; we encourage artists to use Creative Commons.

Any questions, please email info@upstage.org.nz.

Featured: Russell Higgs – 999 Days

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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Featured: Russell Higgs – 999 Days

A CULTURE’S POWER STRUCTURE DEPENDS LARGELY ON HOW WE LOOK AND HOW WE ARE LOOKED AT.

Between 17th July 2006 and 29th May 2009, working with mask and sculpture, Russell Higgs created a photo of himself every day.

In this project he made a commitment to abide by a series of (arbitrary) boundaries and rules, eg: each portrait must be taken between midnight of each day, they can never be shot days in advance nor in retrospect, and the default pose is as for ID cards, forward facing, and minimal expression.

CITIZEN HIGGS CLOCKS IN, DAY AFTER DAY AFTER DAY.

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In Print: HERE ART’s Portrait Project (Web Series)

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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Here Art Center’s Portrait Project is a new web video series from HERE Arts Center with the support of the Rockefeller Cultural Innovation Fund to document the experiences of New Yorkers working in the performing arts.

The centerpiece of the project will be 30 short video portraits of featuring artists living in the 5 boroughs and working in theater, dance, opera, music theater, performance art, and multi-disciplinary arts. The web-based series will be released on an interactive website over 2 years and will be organized around 10 major issues that range from arts real estate to family balance, health insurance and day jobs, creative partnerships and career longevity, and more.

With the current economic climate and commercial homogenization of NYC, the sustainability of artistic careers in New York City is at risk. Independent artists struggle every day to support their commitment to create complex live art in one of the fastest-moving and competitive cities in the world. We believe that in order for these artists to stay in the field, they must have the necessary skills to function as viable creative enterprises.

The peer-to-peer artists’ network created by Portrait is innovative in its approach and scale. As NYC rents continue to skyrocket and performance spaces shut their doors, artists need to rely on one another to develop innovative strategies to combat these problems. This unblinking series will expose and demystify the challenges that independent artists face through a matter-of-fact approach to both the obstacles and solutions while also providing a platform for artists to network, collaborate and problem solve. By bridging the divide between online and live-performance audiences, Portrait’s innovative cross-platform peer-to-peer approach will enable models of success, inspire resource sharing, create a forum of advocacy, and increase the visibility of independent artists. –From The Portrait Project Website

Creative Team:

Produced by Tanya Selvaratnam Scheib
Produced by Karina Mangu-Ward
Directed by Chiara Clemente
Executive Produced by Kristin Marting & Kim Whitener

TANYA SELVARATNAM is a producer, performer, writer and activist based in New York City and Cambridge, MA. She has been producing events, films, and shows for fifteen years. She started out in 1995 as the producer of International Youth Arts & Culture Events at the NGO Forum on Women/Fourth World Conference on Women in China. She then served as Special Projects Coordinator for the Ms. Foundation from 1995-8 and as a Research Associate/Coordinator for the World Health Organization from 1998-2000. Tanya often incorporates her commitment to international, youth, and cultural causes into her work. In 2005, she produced Artists for Tsunami Relief, a concert featuring appearances by Moby, Lou Reed, Sussan Deyhim, Angela McCluskey, DJ Spooky, and Living Color. In 2007, she produced A Theater of Varieties to benefit The Wooster Group, featuring appearances by John Waters, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, the little death, and Fischerspooner. In 1999, Tanya began producing movies with Jed Weintrob’s On_Line, which premiered at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals followed by an international release. Since then she has produced seven films, including Chiara Clemente’s Our City Dreams, Gabri Christa’s Domino and Catherine Gund’s What’s On Your Plate?. In addition, for the past two years, she has served as the Artist and Press Liaison for the Rubell Family Collection during Miami Basel. Also a successful performer, Tanya started her professional acting career as a back-up dancer for John Fleck at an ACT UP Benefit in 1993. Since then, she has toured around the world with The Wooster Group, The Builders Association, and Jay Scheib. In addition, she has worked with many theater directors and playwrights including Lonnie Carter, Brian Mertes, Maria Mileaf, David Schweitzer, Anna Deavere Smith, and Fiona Templeton; and has appeared in a number of film and video projects by artists including Zoe Beloff, Candice Breitz, Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Jennifer Reeves, and Carrie Mae Weems. Tanya has completed residencies at Yaddo, Voice & Vision Theater, and Blue Mountain Center, and been a guest actor at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, New Dramatists, and the Institute on Arts & Civic Dialogue. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Chinese Legal History from Harvard University.

KARINA MANGU-WARD (Producer) attended Columbia University’s MFA program in Theater Management and Producing (Class of 2008). While completing her graduate thesis on the intersection of internet culture and live arts, she worked in commercial theater with producers Carole Shorenstein-Hays and Liz McCann before joining the staff of HERE Arts Center as the General Manager in January 2008. As an independent manager/producer, Karina has collaborated with a variety of artists and companies including 13 Playwrights Inc. (General Manager 2006-2009), Theater of the Two-headed Calf (Executive Producer, Room for Cream: The Live Lesbian Soap Opera, LaMaMa ETC), the TEAM (365 Days/365 Plays & Board Treasurer), and Lear deBessonnet (Producer, St. Joan of the Stockyards, PS122). In addition, Karina has worked as a documentary video editor for Downtown Community Television and produced shorts for a number of other non-profit organizations. She also producers and directs the web series “Gay’s Anatomy,” gays-anatomy.com. Karina is a 2005 Harvard graduate.

CHIARA CLEMENTE (Director): Chiara Clemente’s work revolves around questions of identity and cultural contrast. Her love of film came at an early age with her first video camera at the age of 12. Her affinity for art can be traced back to her childhood, tiptoeing around her father’s paintings. The merging of visual art and film was an entirely intuitive process for her when she directed her first art documentary for the Rai Sat Art Channel in Italy in 2000. With the success of the first film she was invited to direct twelve more. Commissions included documentaries on contemporary artists and architects, including Jim Dine, Frank Gehry, and Brice Marden. The documentaries evolved and soon she was collaborating with artists on short art films, such as These Imaginary Boys and Know Yourself with Adrian Tranquilli. In 2002, Chiara directed and photographed Three Worlds: A Portrait of Francesco Clemente. In 2005, shortly after moving back to New York, Chiara worked with Mario Sorrenti on a short film commissioned by W Magazine for national distribution with its first Art Issue. Also, in 2005, Chiara began work on her first feature documentary, Our City Dreams. Over the course of two years, she followed five women artists: Nancy Spero, Marina Abromovic, Kiki Smith, Ghada Amer, and Swoon, all of whom live and work in NYC. In 2008, Chiara directed a short film Curiosity commissioned by Saatchi and Saatchi and another short Remembering Stephen Sprouse for T Magazine of the New Times. She is currently developing ideas for her first narrative feature.

HERE ARTS CENTER (Executive Producer): Since 1993, HERE Arts Center has been one of New York’s premier arts organizations and a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance work which we view as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines—theatre, dance, music, puppetry, visual, multi-media art. Past productions includes Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, Basil Twist’s Symphonie Fantastique, Hazelle Goodman’s On Edge, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle’s all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee’s Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, Corey Dargel’s Removable Parts, and Theatre of a Two-headed Calf’s Drum of the Waves of Horikawa. HERE’s work is challenging and alternative and offers our audiences the opportunity to feel that they are part of something new and fresh. Our core program is the HERE Resident Artist Program (HARP), which invites artists to develop complex hybrid work at HERE over 3 years. Each season, HERE produces 4 to 6 Resident Artist productions. By providing varied levels of artist participation—Resident Artists, Visiting Artists, and Supported Artists – HERE keeps the artist’s vision paramount.

In Performance: Le Son du Nous by Philippe Starck & Soundwalk (Paris)

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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« Le Son du Nous » by Philippe Starck & Soundwalk
March Friday 19th and Saturday 20th, 8:30PM, Festival Exit, Main Stage, MAC Créteil, France

© 2010 Dalbin, Picture Florence Maeght
© 2010 Dalbin, Picture Florence Maeght

The Dalbin label, Philippe Starck and Soundwalk will present the performance « Le Son du Nous » at MAC Creteil during the International Exit festival.

Philippe Starck is known everywhere as a creator, a designer, and an architect; as a unique and polymorphous man. During this extraordinary experience, involving audience participation, we will get a rare and unique view of the artist. The New York-based sound art collective Soundwalk offers guided walks that mark the halfway point between Baudelarian wanderings and cinematographic experiences, and allow the listener to discover a city in a uniquely poetic way.

Philippe Starck and Soundwalk present a collective adventure in the form of a search for the sound that we lack. Is it a voice, a note, a noise? This resonant exploration is based on a playful dialogue between Philippe Starck, Soundwalk, and the public. Through altered reality, the manipulation of sound, and musical interpretations, this show will guide us together to the discovery of a unique sound: the Sound of Us. (Le Son du Nous)

In the performance, Philippe Starck will share with us his passion for sound, while members of Soundwalk, accompanied by instrumentalists and foley artists, will respond to him using sounds captured around the world over the course of the last decade.

Reservations
www.maccreteil.com et +33 1 45 13 19 19
Prices: From 8 to 20 euros

Books: Damaged Goods / Meg Stuart – Are we here yet?

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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Since choreographer Meg Stuart presented her debut Disfigure Study at the Klapstuk festival (Leuven) in 1991 and founded her company Damaged Goods in Brussels in 1994, she has been a regular guest in theatres all over Europe and became a key figure in contemporary dance. According to Stuart, writing in December 2007, “all movement expresses desire, not simply the physical or erotic or material desire of wanting, owning, or inhabiting something, but the desire to make contact, to expose oneself to the viewer and the other on stage. Ultimately, movement also expresses and incorporates the missing, the failed communication, the censored, and all conditions real or projected that block any action from taking place. Perhaps al the reasons one is not able to cope within a given situation.”

Are we here yet?

Though Damaged Goods’ work has yielded a lot of critical response, many questions remain unanswered when it comes to Stuart’s views, issues, methods and collaborations that underpin her performance work. How does choreographer Meg Stuart create work? In the book Are we here yet?, Stuart reflects on her own practice in dialogue with Jeroen Peeters and several (former) Damaged Goods collaborators. Mapping out genealogies and collaborations, Are we here yet? revisits meaningful moments in Stuart’s artistic trajectory, drawing different lines through the work from Disfigure Study (1991) to Maybe Forever (2007). It contains observations on making and performing, discussions about improvisation and dramaturgy, essays and visual contributions, a manual with Stuart’s exercises, and a selection of documents and performance texts. Are we here yet? is a container brimming with memories, projections, reflections and images close to Stuart’s choreographic practice, a heterogeneity of materials that have a certain gravity of their own and won’t cease to resonate and stir up new questions.

Contributors: Simone Aughterlony, Francisco Camacho, Varinia Canto Vila, Doris Dziersk, Tim Etchells, Davis Freeman, Philipp Gehmacher, David Hernandez, Katharine Jones, Tina Kloempken, Benoît Lachambre, Jorge León, André Lepecki, David Linton, Anna MacRae, Jan Maertens, Lawrence Malstaf, Vincent Malstaf, Vera Mantero, Bettina Masuch, Andreas Müller, Jeroen Peeters, Stefan Pucher, Vania Rovisco, Hahn Rowe, Yukiko Shinozaki, Meg Stuart, Tine Van Aerschot, Maarten Vanden Abeele, Bart Van den Eynde, Myriam Van Imschoot and Anna Viebrock. The graphic design is Kim Beirnaert’s.

Read the introduction on the book by Jeroen Peeters

The book is for sale at the Damaged Goods presentations, via www.damagedgoods.be and we will post the Amazon link as soon as its available.

Highlights: Exit Festival (Paris) March 25-27, 2010

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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EXIT Festival (Paris)

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As an active participant in the contemporary artistic creation, the Maison des Arts et de la Culture de Creteil is a place where all manners and movements of art are produced, displayed, and performed. With over 300 performances a year, MAC’s policy starts from the principle of contemporary art’s multiplicity : it helps fund and create projects that bring together aspects of theatre, dance, music, and digital art – a veritable melting pot for the most recent forms of artistic expression. Indeed, MAC gives preference to exploratory modes of expression, lending its support at every step in collaborative hybrid projects. During its regular season, the MAC organizes multiple exhibitions and festivals, most notably the international festival, EXIT. This year, the MAC has added a third space for performance and creation : the Satellite. This space is overseen by the Studio, a space dedicated to the artistic creation and the production of digital imagery for use in the performing arts.

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LAWRENCE MALSTAF – SHRINK

The work of Lawrence Malstaf can be situated on the borderline between the visual and the theatrical. After having studied industrial design, Lawrence Malstaf starts of in theatre. He designs scenographies for choreographers and directors as Benoît Lachambre, Meg Stuart and Kirsten Delholm. Soon he develops more into installation and performance-art with a strong focus on movement, coincidence, order and chaos. In 2000 he makes a series of sensorial rooms for individual visitors (Nemo Observatorium, Mirror, Pericope/Horizon Machine). Later he creates larger mobile environments dealing with space and orientation often using the visitor as a co-actor (Orbit, Nevel, Compass, Boreas, Transporter). His projects often involve advanced technology as a point of departure or inspiration but also to activate the installations. Lawrence Malstaf is exhibiting internationally and in 2008 he wins the Witteveen + Bos – prize for Art + Technology (NL), in 2009 he receives the Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica (A) an in 2010 he is the winner of the Excellence Prize at The 13th Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo (JP).

Video:

PETER WILLIAM HOLDEN – [SOLENOID B] AUTOGENE ARABESQUE

With its roots in Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” (1818) and the alchemist’s laboratory, the installation presents itself as a mechanical flower: a simulacrum of nature. Life sized human body parts, impaled upon steel, move and sway and dance. The limbs, translucent and livid, bare their internal robotic mechanisms to the gaze of the viewer. The wiring itself is an aesthetic expression deliberately integrated into the installation to bring chaotic lines of abstract form to contrast with the organized symmetry of the body parts. The lifeblood of this organism is air and when activated this air flows invisibly, bestowing movement to these mechanisms and its presence is only betrayed when exhaled loudly from the valves attached to the serpentine air hose.This combined with the rattle of relays and the tandem clattering of pistons to produce a hyper-modern accompaniment to the music of Strauss. Part cinema, part theatre, “Arabesque” can be viewed form a multitude of angles, revealing a kaleidoscope of beautiful shapes and patterns created from the human form.

Video:

CLOUD EYE CONTROL – UNDER POLARIS

At once playful and deeply expressive, Under Polaris confronts head-on the tension between primal nostalgia and modern technological optimism. In their latest mix of projected animation, live theater and electronic music, Cloud Eye Control charts an epic journey across a vast arctic expanse — a sublime icebound landscape illuminated under the ethereal lights of the Northern sky.

Video:

Full Schedule the EXIT Festival can be found here.

In Performance: Andrew Schneider – Wow and Flutter

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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In Performance: Andrew Schneider – Wow and Flutter

press01Andrew Schneider uses the body as a physical playback device of recorded media. Using custom built wearable electronics, subsonic sound scores, interactive projections, and a site-specific rope and pulley system, Wow and Flutter literalizes the mashup. Recorded media exists embedded within the physical mediums of plastic magnetic tape, grooved vinyl records, and celluloid film. The tiny bits of silver hallide crystals, iron coating, and recycled vinyl makeup the whole that is the recorded memory of events past. Recording, and playback of recorded media, is imperfect. Tape stretch, chemical decomposition, and structural deterioration of the media itself distorts what was originally captured. Further, cassette players, turntables, and darkroom enlargers distort the final perception. Human’s memory mechanisms are similarly flawed. The body too scans with tired eyes, hears through walls, and touches through calloused fingers. We write what we do not mean, and we remember what never happened. We convey thoughts and memories through the medium of speech. Language separates us from the experience of the real. All of our existence is mediated in some way. We remember the photograph of an event more than we remember the event itself. We try to log and capture our existence to share with others and more so to share with ourselves. We shield ourselves from experience with the lenses, screens, and microphones used in an attempt to preserve the experience itself. Wow and Flutter seeks the physical playback of collective memory both real and fictional, both personal and found, both physical artifacts and sweeping cultural memes. Digital storage systems have made the collection and distribution of information and knowledge ubiquitous. But they have also collapsed the physical space of organization. When everything, all information is all accessible, and all at the same time and all simultaneously; order, ordinance does not matter. Linear time as we know it is indifferent. Things poke holes in the present moment from other places. The whole of everything is now in one frame. Everything at once. All the time. Flattened out. With a meat tenderizer.

Wow and Flutter
February 25-27, 2010
8:00PM
Chocolate Factory
5-49 49th Ave
L.I.C. – New York
(718) 482-7069

Video:

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Announcements: NoPassport Conference – DREAMING THE AMERICAS: UTOPIA IN PERFORMANCE (NYC)

Caden Manson (Editor In Chief)
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NoPe – NoPassport Conference

DREAMING THE AMERICAS: UTOPIA IN PERFORMANCE

NoPassport and Nuyorican Poets Cafe present a two-day conference with the support of The Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance, Idiom, The Internationalists, 50/50 in 2020, Conni’s Avant-Garde Restaurant, New Perspectives Theatre Company, and the Lark Play Development Center, and the cooperation of New Dramatists.

Initiated and Curated by Caridad Svich
Co-curated by Daniel Banks & Daniel Gallant

Join Migdalia Cruz, Teresa Eyring (TCG), Conni’s Avant-Garde Restaurant, Jeff Janisheski (O’Neill Theater Institute), Catherine Filloux, Karen Hartman, Randy Gener, Melanie Joseph, Brian Knep, Oliver Mayer, Chiori Miyagawa, Jeff McMahon, J.T. Rogers, Ian Rowlands, Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez, Octavio Solis, Saviana Stanescu, and more distinguished artists for the 4th annual NoPassport “Dreaming the Americas” Conference held this year at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City with pre-conference event at New Dramatists on February 25th from 6-8 PM.

This coming year the two-day conference will focus on a wide range of contemporary works for theatre & performance, viewing utopian spaces from a variety of formal perspectives. Keynote speeches will be delivered by Erik Ehn and Henry Godinez. There will also be a book launch for the release of five new volumes from NoPassport Press from Migdalia Cruz, Karen Hartman, Chiori Miyagawa, Octavio Solis amd Saviana Stanescu.

Conference @ Nuyorican Poets Café/NY
Fri. February 26, 2010 11:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
& Sat. February 27, 2010 11:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.
TWO-DAY PASS Registration/cover required: $25
Pre-registration available online now here

Venue has limited seating. Early registration online Recommended.
For further information & full schedule contact NoPassportPress@aol.com

Facebook event page

NoPassport was founded by playwright Caridad Svich in 2003. It is an unincorporated theatre alliance & press devoted to cross-cultural, Pan-American performance, theory, action, advocacy, and publication. Caridad Svich and NoPassport is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of [Caridad Svich & NoPassport] may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

http://www.caridadsvich.com/NoPassport/upcoming.html

Current Schedule–Program is subject to change

FEBRUARY 26, 2010 Panels:

11:00 AM WELCOME/OPENING REMARKS
with DANIEL BANKS (DNAWORKS), DANIEL GALLANT (Executive Director, Nuyorican Poets Cafe), CARIDAD SVICH (Playwright; founder, NoPassport)

11:30 AM-12:50 PM APPLIED THEATRE: GENOCIDE DRAMA IN COMMUNITY
Moderators: BIANCA BAGATOURIAN (Playwright & President of Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance) and MEGAN MONAGHAN (Dramaturg, via Skype)

Panel: MARCY ARLIN (Immigrants Theater Project), STACIE CHAIKEN (Writer-Performer), ERIK EHN (Playwright), CHRISTINE EVANS (Playwright), CATHERINE FILLOUX (Playwright), J.T. ROGERS (Playwright), DAWN AKEMI SAITO (Writer-Performer), KELLY STUART (Playwright), *This is an Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance session.
1:00-1:45 KEYNOTE: ERIK EHN: UTOPIA IS THE SHADOW OF DISASTER
ERIK EHN is Head of Playwriting at Brown University, and former Dean of California School of the Arts.
We are in the middle of an extraordinary time, if utopia is understood to include moral diversity (heaven and hell). The ways in which we are being disregarded, forced into strange shapes, misunderstood, privileged, urged – are now (briefly) the fracture that permits growth. Making art in holy shadow in obedience to disaster.

2:00-2:45 PM CONNI’S AVANT-GARDE RESTAURANT
This special performance/lunch costs $10 (separate from registration and at event only).
Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant (a Village Voice Choice and Time Out New York favorite), is not a locale but a group of bold (if fictional) theatrical performers, devoted to the ongoing celebration of the work of Conni Convergence, the beloved icon of stage and screen. Hailed as “devilish dinner theatre” by The New York Daily News, these unique theatrical-culinary events mix the ingredients of fine food and drink, brash Vegas-style song and dance spectacle, and a loving sendup of avant-garde pomposity. www.avantgarderestaurant.com

3:00-5:00 PM IMMERSIVE THEATRE: SITES OF MEMORY/PRACTICE
Moderators: TAMILLA WOODARD and JAKE WITLEN
Panel: MELANIE JOSEPH (Artistic Director, The Foundry), MALLORY CATLETT (director), ANNA KIRALY (Designer), STEPHEN SQUIBB (C-Artistic Director, Woodshed Collective), , IVAN TALIJANCIC (Artistic Director, Wax Factory), IAN ROWLANDS (Playwright, Advisor, Welsh Arts Council), MELISSA F. MOSCHITTO (Founder, The Anthropologists), CATHERINE PORTER (Peculiar Works Project) *This is an Internationalists session.

5-6 PM DINNER BREAK

6 PM 2nd KEYNOTE: HENRY GODINEZ : NEW HORIZONS FOR NEW VOICES
HENRY GODINEZ is the resident artistic associate at the Goodman Theatre and curator of the Goodman’s Latino Theatre Festival. Born in Havana Cuba, Mr. Godinez is an Associate Professor at Northwestern University, and was recognized as the 2008 Latino Professional of the Year by the Chicago Latino Network.

6:30-7:50 PM NOPASSPORT PRESS BOOK LAUNCH
Moderators: RANDY GENER (Senior Editor, American Theatre) & OTIS RAMSEY-ZOE (Dramaturge)
Panel: MIGDALIA CRUZ, OCTAVIO SOLIS, KAREN HARTMAN, CHIORI MIYAGAWA, SAVIANA STANESCU and ALBERTO SANDOVAL-SANCHEZ (Mount Holyoke College), PRISCILLA PAGE (Univ. of Massachusetts), JOHN EISNER (Artistic Director, Lark Play Development Center), SHARON FRIEDMAN (NYU, Gallatin School)

NoPassport Press presents excerpts from new work (read by authors) and a conversation about the global voice in the age of globalization with five writers who have newly available plays, along with scholars and theatre-makers who’ve written about their work.

8:30 PM CHAMACO – BOY AT THE VANISHING POINT (2004)
a reading of a play by Cuban playwright Abel González Melo. English Translation by Yael Prizant. Directed by Joe Salvatore

@ Off-site venue: New Perspectives Theatre, 456 West 37th Street, NY, NY 10018
Omar Valiño writes, “Chamaco… is one of the most important works of contemporary Cuban theater and, with time, will become even more important. The play brought a new thematic outlook to the theater of the island through its inclusion of, and dialogue with, innovative textual and performative discourses….”

Chamaco is an elegant and brutal portrait of the street, full of desires. Veiled in a common crime narrative, the play reveals transgressions far more disturbing and painful than any illegal acts. González Melo’s vivid characters have an intimate relationship with Havana and its rhythms. They encounter the world as Cubans, grasping at their island’s skewed interaction with tourism, its housing shortages, its limited job prospects, its lively and interactive culture. Yet their palpable loneliness, their distance from each other, and their fervent desire to connect is collective, basic, and utterly recognizable to audiences, in any language.

FEBRUARY 27, 2010 PANELS:

11:00 AM: TERESA EYRING (TCG): CONVOCATION
TERESA EYRING is Executive Director of Theatre Communications Group. Previous positions include Managing Director of the Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) in Minneapolis, Managing Director of the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia and Assistant Executive Director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. She holds a BA in International Relations from Stanford University and an MFA in Theatre Administration from Yale School of Drama.

11:30-12:50 AM THEATRE-MAKING AS AN ACT OF UTOPIA-MAKING: 50/50 in 2020
MELODY BROOKS (Artistic Director, New Perspectives), JENNY GREEMAN (Artistic Associate, NPTC), SUSAN JONAS (Dramaturge), LUDOVICA VILLAR-HAUSER (Director-Dramaturge, VIP of Programming for the League of Professional Theatre Women)

New Perspectives Theatre Company, The League of Professional Theatre Women and 50/50 in 2020 explore what it means to make art in a culture that only values capital. Is the act of creation a radical act? Can theatrical space be viewed as utopian space? The panel will investigate these theoretical questions and move toward practical solutions for reassessing the value of theatre and its makers. In particular, representatives of the newly formed 50/50 in 2020 will share their plan for achieving parity for women artists by 2020.

1:00-2:10 PM IDIOM: Between Art and Theater: Genealogies of Performance
Moderator: STEPHEN SQUIBB (Editor, Idiom) Panel: SHAWN MARIE GARRETT (Columbia University), JOEL BASSIN (Hunter College), JESSE ARON GREEN Artist, Whitney Biennial), ANDREA MERKX (Artist, dance curator) & TBA

The arrival of widespread interest in performance amongst contemporary artists has not immediately translated into an expanded interdisciplinary interest in that other, classically time-based medium, the theater. Nor has the theater, broadly speaking, seen fit to expand its categories to correspond with the sudden promiscuity of its traditional methodology. What is the nature of this reciprocal ignorance? Is it simply a question of incompatible constituencies? No doubt there is a deep divide in each community’s respective method of production – but are we so determined? This panel aims to examine the recent history of performance as it relates to current patterns of production and dissemination, with special consideration given to the divide between contemporary art and theater.

2:15 PM JEFF McMAHON: COUNTER INDICATIONS
Counter Indications, a collaboration between writer JEFF MCMAHON and media designer JACOB PINHOLSTER, is a live performance/installation examining forced confessions, the parameters of what is considered “cruel and unusual” treatment, and the role of influence in determining truth. JEFF McMAHON, Assistant Professor in the School of Theatre and Film at Arizona State University, is the recipient of 8 NEA Fellowships in Choreography. His live works combining live speech and movement with media have been presented since 1980 at P.S. 122, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, PS 1, LACE, Cleveland Performance Art Fest., Jacob’s Pillow, Highways, and numerous other venues in the U.S. and Europe. He recently completed a writing residency at the Edward F. Albee Foundation. www.jeffmcmahonprojects.net

3-4 LUNCH BREAK

4-6 PM NEW DRAMATURGIES: ARTS AND/IN THE ACADEMY
Moderators: JEFF JANISHESKI (O’NEILL THEATRE INSTITUTE) and ELEANOR SKIMIN (Dramaturge, PHD candidate, Brown University)

Panel: ELAINE AVILA (Playwright, University of New Mexico), RANDY GENER (Playwright), CHARLOTTE MEEHAN (Playwright, Wheaton College), LISA SCHLESINGER Playwright, Columbia College Chicago), MATTHEW MAGUIRE (Playwright, Fordham University), LINSEY BOSTWICK (Big Art Group)

6-6:30 PM CLOSING EVENT: BRIAN KNEP: SPIRITUAL COMPUTING
BRIAN KNEP is a new media artist who uses science and technology to explore change, healing, struggle, and acceptance. Often his works are immersive and interactive, sensing and reacting to the people around them. Knep has exhibited internationally, including solo shows at the New Britain Museum of American Art and the McColl Center for Visual Art and group shows at the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art. His works have won awards from Ars Electronica, Americans for the Arts, AICA/New England and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2005 Knep became the first artist-in-residence at Harvard Medical School in a program co-sponsored by Harvard’s Office for the Arts. Knep lives and works in Boston and is represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NY and Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston.

7:00 PM ARTIST RECEPTION hosted by the Lark Play Development Center, 939 8th Avenue @ 55th Street.

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