Annie Sprinkle & Elizabeth Stephens Make Love Off-Broadway in
EXPOSED: EXPERIMENTS IN LOVE, SEX, DEATH & ART
Limited Engagement runs April 26 – May 12

After a nine year absence, porn star-turned-performance artist and sex scholar Annie Sprinkle makes her long-awaited return to Off-Broadway. Sprinkle, in collaboration with Elizabeth Stephens will present the East Coast Premiere of EXPOSED: EXPERIMENTS IN LOVE, SEX, DEATH & ART. Presented by Collective: Unconscious this new multimedia performance event is directed by Neon Weiss with media design/soundscape by Sheila Malone. It begins a limited engagement Off-Broadway run beginning April 26 at Collective: Unconscious in Tribeca. Opening night is set for Saturday, April 28 at 8pm.

Move over Yoko and John, Sonny and Cher, Siegfried and Roy, and Gertrude and Alice. Annie and Beth are here! EXPOSED: EXPERIMENTS IN LOVE, SEX, DEATH & ART is a unique love story created in response to the violence of war and the anti-gay marriage movement. It examines issues of artificial insemination, famous breasts having breast cancer, queer relationships and much more. Mixing elements of pleasure, pain and passion, EXPOSED will stimulate the senses and crack hearts open.

(more after the jump)

EXPOSED: EXPERIMENTS IN LOVE, SEX, DEATH & ART is part of a seven year project by Sprinkle and Stephens to create art projects that celebrate love. Called the “Love Art Laboratory,” the project is aimed at promoting peace and equal rights. Inspired by artist Linda Montano’s Fourteen Years of Living Art, each year is assigned a theme and a color and it begins with a performance art wedding. The project began December 18, 2004 with a by-invitation-only wedding at Collective: Unconscious. It was here that they took formal vows to become “love art collaborators,” as well as committed domestic partners. The project evolves as their lives together unfold.

Author, scholar, performer, artist and outspoken activist Annie Sprinkle began her career as a porn star and pin-up model, working as proud prostitute in Manhattan for 20 years. In the early 1980s she became a performance artist and later toured internationally with acclaimed one woman-shows. Her seminal solo show, Post Porn Modernist, featured the infamous “Public Cervix Announcement,” in which the audience was invited to individually view her cervix using a speculum and flashlight; the piece is now required study at many universities. In 2002, Sprinkle received her Ph.D., making her a certified sexologist and the first porn star to earn that honor. Her book, Dr. Sprinkle’s Spectacular Sex-Make Over Your Love Life was published by Penguin and her DVD/film diary Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn is now available. For more info visit www.anniesprinkle.org.

Elizabeth M. Stephens is an artist and an Associate Professor of Art and Digital Art/New Media at the University of California Santa Cruz. Stephens is an inter-media artist who works in sculpture, video installation, photography, web-based media, and performance art. Her most recent works include the bronze sculptural installation, The Academic/Porn Star Bronzed Panty Collection; the road trip performance piece, Wish You Were Here; and the video installation, Kiss. She has exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the US, and internationally. See more of her work at www.elizabethstephens.org.

For over a decade, the mission of Collective: Unconscious (C:U) has been to foster an inclusive, creative community in Lower Manhattan in which both emerging and established experimental artists are encouraged to take risks and bring their visions to life. C:U was founded in 1995 by a group of multi-disciplined artists as a place to perform experimental performances in all genres, as well as to serve as a community resource and laboratory for the performing arts. C:U has grown from an organization serving to support a core group of resident artists into a studio and performance space dedicated to providing affordable rehearsal and performance space in Lower Manhattan. The group’s original home was on Avenue B, then on Ludlow Street before moving to its current location on Church Street in July 2004, the former site of the theater where Annie Sprinkle premiered her first solo show in 1989.

These performances are made possible, in part, by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, with support from The September 11th Fund and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

EXPOSED: EXPERIMENTS IN LOVE, SEX, DEATH & ART runs April 26 – May 12, Thursday-Saturday at 7:30pm with additional shows Friday at 10pm and Saturday at 3pm. Collective: Unconscious is located at 279 Church Street (at White Street — accessible from the A,C,E,N,R,Q,W,6,J,M,Z to Canal or 1,9 to Franklin Street). Tickets are $30 for evenings and $20 for matinees. For tickets call 212-352-3101 or visit www.theatermania.com.