Tiny Theater!

From the Ontological Hysteric Theater website:
“TINY THEATER! festival, a four-night multi-arts event designed to promote interest in new forms of spatially challenged performance. The festival will feature short works by established and emerging artists. ”

“TINY THEATER = theater/dance/dance-theater/puppet-theater/object-theater/installation that takes place in 6′ x 6′ x 6′ or smaller and in under 10 mins. ”

Tiny Theater! festival is curated by Michael Gardner (of The Brick), Shannon Sindelar and Brendan Regimbal (of the Ontological). The festival will take place both at the Ontological and The Brick, Thursday-Saturday, May 22-24 at 8pm. (On Saturday 24 there will be an additional performance at 11pm). Definitely a good chance to survey the work of new performance artists!

Posted by Guest Blogger | Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 | 0 comments

Toy Theater Festival

GUEST BLOGGER: Beatrice Barbareschi, PERFORMA

In 1991, members of the Great Small Works theater company began putting on tiny puppetry shows in response to the Gulf War. Since then, every couple of years the troupe mounts the Toy Theater Festival, a week long celebration of toy theater that takes place at St. Ann’s Warehouse. With 6 different programs and a final Toy Theater Cabaret, this year’s festival looks very promising! Look out for work by Peter Schumann (Bread and Puppet Theater), by Frank Maugeri & Seth Bockley, and, of course, by Great Small Works.

Posted by Guest Blogger | Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 | 0 comments

NOBILE A week-long performance by Ivan Civic

Ivan Civic’s piece, NOBILE, was first staged at the 2007 Dance and Performance Biennale in Venice, as part of Body and Eros, a project by IPG (Independent Performance Group), curated by Marina Abramovic. Civic’s performance at Artists Space further explores the obsessive narcissism and dependency on perfected images in Western culture. The work is also inspired by highly ritualized exercises in auto-eroticism developed by nobility in the late 17th century.

GUEST BLOGGER: Marianne, PERFORMA
NOBILE is the second installment of When Time Becomes Form, an ongoing performance series of long-durational work, curated by Marina Abramovic for Artists Space. The series explores and questions issues of concentration, will power, and determination, and involves the artists’ use of the entire gallery space for 6 hours during each day of their performance. Twelve distinct, but interrelated, durational performances, each created and presented by a different performance artist (a member of the Independent Performance Group (IPG)), will occupy the Main Space galleries between exhibitions. The entire series will unfold over the course of the next two years.

Posted by Guest Blogger | Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 | 0 comments

CASS BUGGE’s Unrelated People

GUEST BLOGGER: Lana Fee, PERFORMA

ONE TO WATCH! The hilarious and daring Cass Bugge premiered her first one woman show Unrelated People at the fresh, eco-friendly designed performance and gallery space The Wild Project.

Suzanne, phonetically familiar to Kathleen Turner, the forthright, erotically mature, alternate personality of the conventional girl is conveyed to conventional boyfriend… all via bluetooth earpiece. Tyra enthusiast provides live America’s Next Top Model audition - catwalk simulation, model-face simulation, etc.- a performance of a performance of a performance. All a wide range of ways woman project themselves to others. Apparent to the audience, Unrelated People only scrapes the surface of Ms. Bugge’s material, and I will be even interested to see her portrayal of male roles. What I will be even more excited to see are characters with a more pathetic, dark awkwardness that still capture the breadth of her comic genius.

No mixed media bells or whistles here- set with Cass alone without costume change, 5 or 6 props and clever track pairing. A succinct 45 minute performance and room full of laughter- such a pleasure. I recommend you keep a keen eye for this young talent!

Posted by Lana | Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 | 0 comments

Public Opinion Laboratory at The Stone

Catch Performa alums Jay Sanders, Jim O’Rourke, and Zeena Parkins, among many other fantastic artists, in a 2-week long run at The Stone of presentations by Public Opinion Laboratory, curated by Anthology Film Archive’s Andrew Lampert.
FULL CALENDAR

(Zeena Parkins photo at left copyright Paula Court)

Posted by Lana | Monday, May 12th, 2008 | 0 comments

True Stories Screening at BAM May 11

GUEST BLOGGER: Lana Fee, PERFORMA

True Stories, 1986, Directed by David Byrne. Cinematography by Ed Lachman. With David Byrne, John Goodman, Spalding Gray.

This one makes for a ridiculous Sunday evening. *Recommended for first date.

Sun May 11, 3 & 815*

*Q&A with Byrne and Lachman

BAMCinematek

30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, 11217

http://bam.org/film/series.aspx?id=186#True%20Stories

Posted by Lana | Friday, May 9th, 2008 | 1 comments

Get this book if you like to go to alternative art spaces!

PHONEBOOK
Edited by Caroline Picard

Includes over 150 alternative art spaces across the country plus ten supplementary essays.
Published w/ ThreeWalls
Ten dollars

“Because a space heater and good friends can be a million times warmer than central heating and track lighting, Phonebook is an invaluable, yet by no means exhaustive (yet) guide to America’s finest alternative artspaces. These are the galleries you are unlikely to find in your average tourist guide, the ones located in basements, in lofts, off of alleys, in suburban back yards. These are the movies Moviefone won’t tell you about and the lecture series you won’t find among your course guides. These are the places that will remind you why you liked this stuff in the first place.”

Visit Green Lantern Press

Posted by Esa | Friday, May 9th, 2008 | 0 comments