Friday, November 3rd, 2006
7 PM-Midnight
The Stephan Weiss Studio
711 Greenwich Street, New York
HONORARY CO-CHAIRS:
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Yoko Ono
Cindy Sherman
ART EDITIONS BY
Christian Marclay
Melik Ohanian
PERFORMANCES BY
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
DJ Spooky with Bora Yoon
My Barbarian
BARR
Cynthia Hopkins
Clifford Owens
Michael Portnoy
Emergency Sewing Project
Taking inspiration from the Bauhaus parties of 1920s Weimar, when Oskar Schlemmer and his Stage Workshop students designed the sets, themes, and costumes of each fabulous event, PERFORMA’s White On White Party will unfold in a marvelous ‘white on white’ environment designed by Avi Adler, where the attendees become live ’screens’ for film and video projections. This unprecedented evening of actions, music, performance, and video, will benefit PERFORMA, the organization that brought New York the first biennial of new visual art performance.
Underground motivational speaker BARR, media philosopher DJ Spooky with sound architect Bora Joon, and Los Angeles collective My Barbarian will perform. Expect the unexpected with Fluxus performances by Clifford Owens and Zach Rockhill, as well as self-proclaimed director of behavior Michael Portnoy; enjoy the startling stage presence of composer and performer Cynthia Hopkins, and the abstract vocal poetry of Elvis Perkins In Dearland. In addition, the Emergency Sewing Project will create instant garments on site for partygoers.
Limited and numbered editions by Christian Marclay and Melik Ohanian will also be available. All funds raised will benefit PERFORMA 07 (November 1-21, 2007) artist commissions, history-making performances, educational events, and a world-class biennial that will inspire and surprise artists, audiences, and institutions alike.
PERFORMER BIOGRAPHIES
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
Elvis Perkins’ songs are transportive. Combining poetry and melody, his prolific lyrics unfold simply and gracefully and are at once personal and universal. Delivered through rustic vocals that evoke Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen, or an early 70s Dylan, Perkins issues out songs in a sound unmistakably his own. The eagerly anticipated full-length debut, ASH WEDNESDAY, will be released early 2007. www.elvisperkins.net
DJ Spooky
While prolific and highly regarded as a writer and conceptual artist, Paul D. Miller is probably most well known under the moniker of his “constructed persona” as “DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid”. Miller has remixed and recorded with a panoply of artists ranging from Metallica to Steve Reich to Killah Priest, and has performed in a uniquely wide variety of situations throughout the world. His two latest CDs are a compilation of classic reggage tracks called In Fine Style, DJ Spooky Presents 50,000 Volts of Trojan Records!!!!_and the mixed version of the same on Trojan UK called Riddim Come Forward. Other recent releases are Drums of Death, with Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Chuck D. of Public Enemy; the groundbreaking Optometry (Thirsty Ear Records); remixes of people as diverse as Steve Reich, Yoko Ono and Bob Marley, and Miller’s award-winning book_Rhythm Science (MIT Press). He is currently touring the world with his multimedia/film/performance piece DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of A Nation. www.djspooky.com
Bora Yoon
Bora Yoon is a musical architect and multi-instrumentalist with a twisted penchant for the iconoclastic. Currently on tour with Sekou Sundiata, Ms. Yoon has unfurled sound with choreographer Noemie Lafrance, premiered Subliminal Strings at the Festival Son D’hiver, Paris with media philosopher DJ Spooky, and collaborated with members of Meredith Monk’s Vocal Ensemble. She has performed original work in diverse locations nationally and internationally including the Guggenheim, New York, Brooklyn Academy of Music, abandoned public spaces, and the airwaves of MTV Networks. www.borayoon.com/
My Barbarian
Los Angeles-based performance troupe My Barbarian creates site-responsive spectacles from the detritus of popular fantasy and political discourse. Recent performances include “Medieval Morality” at Peres Projects Berlin, “Double Future” at REDCAT, Los Angeles, “California Sweet” at Torpedo, Oslo, Norway and the Orange County Museum of Art. Included in the 2006 California Biennial, My Barbarian’s musical epic video installation, “Pagan Rights,” is currently on view at the Orange County Museum of Art. www.mybarbarian.com/
BARR
Los Angeles-based artist Brendan Fowler performs under the name BARR. Described by Vice Magazine as a ‘motivational speaker for lapsed indie and punk kids,’ BARR’s lyrical stylings address ‘obsessive compulsive disorders, the experiences of subculture, and getting through negative weirdness.’ He has performed at The Kitchen (New York), CalArts’ Interdisciplinary Festival (Los Angeles), and Frieze Art Fair (London). BARR’s upcoming album on 5RC will hit streets in early 2007. www.barrbarr.com
Cynthia Hopkins
Cynthia Hopkins is a creator and performer of unique music/theater projects featuring her band, Gloria Deluxe. These include the Bessie Award-winning Accidental Nostalgia(an operetta about the pros and cons of amnesia), Tsimtsum, a piece commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop for the May 2006 Sourcing Stravinsky Festival and the prequel/sequel Must Don’t Whip ‘Um, a prequel/sequel to Accidental Nostalgia which will premiere January 2007 at the Walker Art Center. Ms. Hopkins has worked as a composer, musician, and performer for many projects, including Big Dance Theater’s Another Telepathic Thing (2000 OBIE winner for performance; 2001 Bessie award for composition); and Song Before Love Songs, a composition commissioned by Bang on a Can which debuted in February 2005. www.gloriadeluxe.com
Clifford Owens
Clifford Owens is an artist working in photography, video, live action, and text. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions: ‘PERFORMA05′ New York, NY; ‘Greater New York 2005′ P.S.1/MoMA, Queens, NY; ‘Influence, Anxiety, Gratitude’ List Visual Art Center, Cambridge, MA; and ‘Sticky Fingers’ Para-site Art Space, Hong Kong, China; and ‘Freestyle’ The Studio Museum in Harlem. Clifford studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Rutgers University, and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. He has been an artist in residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Clifford was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland and he lives and works in New York City.
Michael Portnoy
Michael Portnoy is a New York based artist, musician, dancer, and Director of Behavior. Last spring he debuted the Bessie award winning The K Sound, an epic, operatic stand-up routine at The Kitchen. He has presented work both nationally and abroad in theaters, galleries, music halls and museums, and just returned from Iceland where he and six other Invasionistas took control of Reykjavik with transgenic ice, dark matter, and gigantic, pornographic cockroaches. His film I KNOW WHO I AM! is currently making the rounds at festivals. He recently opened Session, a salon/project-space in the Lower East Side devoted to the exploration of social exchange as an art form.
Zach Rockhill
Zach Rockhill has participated in, directed and curated numerous performance related events, including the ACTIONS, series of performance events, hosted annually by the Fivemyles gallery in Brooklyn. In 2002 he participated in the 40th anniversary of FLUXUS events in Wiesbaden, Germany, working with Geoff Hendricks to restage George Maciunas’ FLUXMASS. He participated in subsequent re-stagings of the FLUXMASS_in Amherst, MA, and co-directed the final presentation in the Voorhees chapel in New Brunswick, NJ. Recent projects include video and performance works for the Bronx River Museum’s Drift show, and a video piece for the Tremor Nomad event at La Casa Encendida in Madrid, Spain.
Posted by Lana | Friday, November 3rd, 2006 | 0 comments