performance & discussion series
Directly engage the artists as they reveal their creative process.
Preview works-in-progress and give your impressions in a moderated post-performance discussion. The curators, either current or former Artists In Residence bring the kind of diversity of thought, research, interest, and aesthetics we look forward to and celebrate.
2011/12 PERFORMANCE & DISCUSSION SERIES
ACTIVE VIEWING HOUR
curated by Levi Gonzalez | December 16 & 17, 2011 | more info
DO IT LIKE CHUCK CLOSE
curated by Victoria Libertore | January 13 & 14, 2012 | more info
MUNDANE FANTASY
curated by Faye Driscoll | February 10 & 11, 2012 | more info
LANTERN TEST
curated by Catharine Dill | March 2 & 3, 2012 | more info
Click HERE for more information on past Performance & Discussion performances.
ACTIVE VIEWING HOUR
curated by Levi Gonzalez
Friday & Saturday, December 16-17, 2011 @ 8:00 pm
featuring works by Rebecca Patek and Liz Santoro
Levi Gonzalez’s curatorial statement:
This evening presents the work of two artists who, in very different ways, address the moment of live performance as one of confrontation, dialogue and exchange with an audience. The work asks the audience to be active viewers rather than passive spectators, not necessarily in any traditional “audience participation” kind of way, but in the way that the work asks essential questions about what the role of performance is or can be. What is the power of sitting in a room together, especially now at this moment in time? Equally important, both artists also demonstrate a complete investment in the act of performance itself. Through very different means, they address being watched through vulnerability, precision and absolute commitment. Their singular approaches to making work will create an evening that demonstrates two very distinct approaches to live performance which fully engage the viewer.
DO IT LIKE CHUCK CLOSE
curated by Victoria Libertore
Friday & Saturday, January 13 & 14, 2012 @ 8:00 pm
featuring works by Meadow Blum, William Ryan Kipp and Lea Robinson
Victoria Libertore’s curatorial statement:
DO IT LIKE CHUCK CLOSE
The artists that have been brought together for this performance are very diverse in their backgrounds, levels of experience in creating their own work and artistic vision. I’ve curated them in the same weekend for this very reason. It is their diversity that I believe will make each one of them pop and come together to form a beautiful painting of humanity. This makes me think of what Chuck Close’s recent work does with brilliant, individual spots of color making for a riveting portrait when you stand back.
What these artists, Meadow Blum, Ryan Kipp and Lea Robinson, have in common is they are all very engaging and approachable. These are qualities I seek in solo performers. Those that work from the heart rather than the ego, but have the chutzpa to stand out on stage alone, vulnerable, and willing to be seen on a very deep level. I’ve given them total free range to use the time how they like with what interests them at this point in their career, and I always encourage artists to take this opportunity when performing at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange to experiment since it’s such a wonderful, supportive environment for this kind of approach.
Meadow Blum is using humor and physical comedy to explore boundaries and the people pleasing that occurs for many young women. Ryan Kipp takes his amazing faculties with technology to have a dialogue with himself sharing snippets from a racier time in his life. Lea Robinson calls on her charm and intelligence to chronicle her adventures as a genderqueer actor in New York City. All come together to paint a portrait, a snapshot, a stroke of insight into a generation that some call X, some call Y, and some call forgotten. But these artists represent a generation of 30-somethings that are thoughtful, searching, witty, compassionate and worth remembering. www.howlingvic.com
MUNDANE FANTASY
curated by Faye Driscoll
Friday & Saturday, February 10 & 11, 2012 @ 8:00 pm
featuring works by Dages Juvelier Keates, Parted in the Middle, & Sacha Yanow
Tickets: $15 General | $8 Low-Income [Buy Tickets]
Faye Driscoll’s curatorial statement:
I was drawn to these artists because of their unique creative perspectives and how they are each in very different ways and through their various mediums illuminating the relationship between the mundane/personal and the mythical/fantastical with a smart, sincere, and queer sensibility.
LANTERN TEST
curated by Catharine Dill
Friday & Saturday, March 2 & 3, 2012 @ 8:00 pm
featuring works by Amanda Villalobos & Radiohole
Tickets: $15 General | $8 Low-Income [Buy Tickets]
Catharine Dill’s curatorial statement:
Theater company Radiohole has created an incredible body of work from a series of unpredictable vacillations between chaos and order and an uncanny mix of physical danger and technological virtuosity. Puppeteer Amanda Villalobos is known for her disarming shifts in tone, rhythm and scale and her expansive mastery of disparate materials. These artists share complex relationships with objects on stage (whether they are decorative, utilitarian, found or fabricated), a flair for dark humor and, most importantly, a distinctively transgressive aesthetic. Radiohole will be presenting excerpts from their work Frankenstein – a work they describe as “.. about flows. Flows of air and fluid. And surfaces; the thin membranes of polypropelyne (plastic bags) forming the surfaces of bodies, the wet surfaces of organs…pretty sure they will work but maybe not…” Amanda will show us parts of her toy-theater project about lesbian nuns in the 70s. Both offer the possibility of change, accident, and upturned expectations.
2010/11 | BAX 20th Birthday Season
For BAX’s 20th Birthday Season, alumni, faculty, current and former resident artists provided a striking curatorial dynamism. They pulled from their experiences and interests at and beyond BAX. As a group they represented BAX’s past, present and future.
For more information on each performance, click on the CURATOR’s NAME below.
luciana achugar & Jennie MaryTai Liu | March 25-26, 2011
Victoria Libertore | February 25-26, 2011
Judith Sloan | February 11-12, 2011
Dean Moss | February 4-5, 2011
Fernando Maneca | December 17-18, 2010
Believing Performance / Performing Belief
curated by luciana achugar & Jennie MaryTai Liu
Friday, March 25, 2011 @ 8:00 pm | Saturday, March 26, 2011 @ 7:30 pm
Conversation to follow Saturday’s Performance.
featuring works by Felix & Dexter Ciprián | Ximena Garnica & Shige Moriya / LEIMAY | Lyndsey Karr | Jessica Morgan
luciana achugar and Jennie MaryTai Liu’s curatorial statement:
As we considered how to curate a group of performing artists, we looked at what the two of us had in common in terms of our interests and what drives us to make work, and we decided not to invite artists who we simply “liked”. Our curatorial approach is to look at the philosophy or ideology that drives artists to make work, and we invited artists that seem invested deeply in their work as a stance in the world, artists who seem directly concerned with choreographing their personal politics. This eclectic group of artists work with dance, theater, text, design, music and sound in varying degrees of focus. We hope that laying these distinct artist’s works alongside each other will inspire a conversation about how politics and aesthetics are entwined, how differing mediums convey subject matter, and how an artist’s worldview is reflected and even created through their process and work.
“Believing Performance/Performing Belief” — Conversation
Saturday, March 26th, 8:45pm (after the performance)
How do we (consciously or subconsciously) perform our ideologies? Where does aesthetic vision intersect with belief? The curators invite the audience into a conversation with the artists on how their belief systems inspire their processes, subjects, and aspirations for working in performance.
Wild Beasts Speak and Move
curated by Victoria Libertore
Friday & Saturday, February 25-26, 2011 @ 8:00 pm
featuring works by Gretchen Winterkorn, Raïna von Waldenburg, Becca Blackwell, Virginia Venk
Victoria Libertore curates a weekend of some of her favorite performers who are dynamic, daring and generous. These wo/men are wild beasts of the arts and their jungle is the stage. Come see the brand-spankin’ new performance work of Becca Blackwell, Virginia Venk, Raïna von Waldenburg and Gretchen Winterkorn.
Crossing the Cultural Divide
curated and hosted by Judith Sloan, co-artistic director of EarSay, Inc
Friday & Saturday, February 11-12, 2011 @ 8:00 pm
featuring works by Parul Shah, NYCSubwayGirl, and Abran “Aronic” Maldonado
Judith Sloan’s curatorial statement:
Crossing the Cultural Divide brings together artists from disparate ethnic and cultural backgrounds and performance genres. The artists chosen all have a core value of opening up dialogue through their art whether it is songwriting, dance, rap, or theatre. Included in this evening are Parul Shah, an internationally acclaimed Kathak dancer and choreographer whose work is expanding the classical medium beyond cultural boundaries. I saw Parul’s work in Queens where she performed an excerpt of a dance that included traditional Indian dance movement with modern choreography and I was simply astounded at her ability to blend the traditional with modern. Abran Maldonado is a hip hop educator, performer, and poet who was born and raised in the Lower East Side, NYC and northern New Jersey. He has witnessed the evolution of urban music and the effect it has on socio-political issues in the urban community. I met Abran through my director Michael Dinwiddie and was immediately engaged in a ‘listening’ experience as he expounded on hip hop, rap, urban youth and his role as an educator, thinker, and scholar in addition to his art work. Cathy Grier is a singer/songwriter who has participated in New York City’s MTA program, Music Under New York where she is also known as NYCSubwayGirl. I literally saw Cathy come up from underground at the WNYC Greene Space where she was a finalist in the Manhattan Battle of the Bands. She immediately wowed the audience but was also incredibly heartfelt in her appreciation of being appreciated. I later saw her at Joe’s Pub and was struck by many things, in particular a medley that she performed while we were viewing video of her life ‘underground’ and her interactions with New Yorkers. Putting these three very different performers on stage is exactly what Crossing the Cultural Divide is about. As the co-artistic director of a non-profit EarSay, Inc. I have been engaged in producing, performing and educating in collaboration with a wide variety of artists and have worked in and entered many different worlds. I am bringing a taste of those disparate worlds, of artists who would not normally end up on the same stage together but have a commitment to their art, to being the best they can be, and also engaging in a supportive community of artists. The dialogue and discussion following this performance will focus on these artists and how their work shifts and changes by being engaged with other people rather than being ‘afraid of the other’, we let curiosity lead the way. In curating this event, I knew I wanted to have a dancer who could use the beautiful floor at BAX, a melodic singer, and a rapper; all three representing different communities. This program is a partnership with EarSay, with additional support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
regarding essential bodies
curated by Dean Moss
Friday & Saturday, February 4-5, 2011 @ 8:00 pm
featuring works by Eric Conroe, Aaron Hodges, Pedro Jiménez, and Sari Nordman
Dean Moss’ curatorial statement:
In the cast of Nameless forest I found myself working with some extraordinarily interesting and multi-talented artists. A few of which I had known for some time and a few who were completely new to me. During the process of our rehearsals they showed an uncommon level of insight, vulnerability and cohesion. It seemed only natural to want to respond to their intense personal dedication. Since I don’t have an ongoing repertory company, when the opportunity arose to curate them at BAX I took it. I wanted to encourage their personal artistic aspirations and professional development as independent artists with aesthetic concerns and practices completely unrelated to my own, but through which we share a rich dialogue. Individually Sari, Pedro, Eric and Aaron each will bring something sincerely unique to the BAX audience. But I know you will also see the articulated vulnerability, emotional cohesion and aesthetic energy that together they share, and I find so fascinating.
PROMETHEUS EXPOSED
curated by Fernando Maneca
Friday & Saturday, December 17-18, 2010 @ 8:00 pm
featuring works by Karen Bernard/Solo, Julie Fotheringham & Jarryd Lowder, and Joshua Fried’s Radio Wonderland.
Curated by former Artist In Residence (2004-06), Fernando Maneca, PROMETHEUS EXPOSED is the kick-off event for BAX’s 2010/11 PERFORMANCE & DISCUSSION SERIES. A long-time fan of technology in the arts, Mr. Maneca brought together three very different artists who manipulate technology on stage, reinterpreting the present while quoting pop and underground sub-cultures. The work will serve as a point of departure for the post performance discussion. By curating work that features technology rather than hiding it, Mr. Maneca hopes that the discussion will revolve around how the various forms of visible and invisible technology have influenced the performing arts throughout history and its rocky relationship with patrons, critics and other artists.
