On Thursday through Saturday, June 18—20, The Kitchen presents not knowing, the newest theatrical work by Mike Taylor. not knowing features performances from Ralph Martin, Gregor Paslawsky, Jason Schuler, David Thomson and Anna Wilson, and video by Alex Bleeker, all of whom are also Taylor’s collaborators on the piece. In this multimedia show, Taylor portrays the act of being onstage as an unknown quantity; comparable to our daily unscripted and unintentionally dramatic lives. Curated by Sarah Michelson, not knowing will be performed at 8:00 P.M. at The Kitchen (512 West 19th St.). Tickets are $12.

Using her typical deadpan humor, Taylor combines loops of dialogue, movement, projected images and texts, redacted Ibsen, problematic pop-culture and an endless therapy session. A bewildered guest artist is inserted into every performance. Revolving around stories, jokes and personal narrative, not knowing concedes the flexible nature of reality, history as commodity, truth as an iridescent bubble of soap, and reflects on the irrelevance of what really happened even if it happened to you. By framing her drama within ambiguity, Taylor maps the terrain between moments of awareness, where any emotion can be summoned and all things are possible. 

Mike Taylor writes, directs and produces theater, art installations and video. Her live work has been presented at La Mama, The Kitchen, The Ontological, PS 122, Dixon Place, TONIC and various raw spaces in NYC. Her videos have been shown throughout the United States and Europe. Past shows include The Sadness of Others,Not Dead Yet, If I Were You and Jumpstrasse Sehnsucht. As a video editor, she is working on a documentary for the Winter/Summer Institute about HIV outreach in Lesotho, Southern Africa. Also, she recently completed a documentary with Merry Conway about the Movement Training teacher Trish Arnold. She has co-curated Little Theatre with Jeff Jones for several years, which is now the first Monday of the month. Her company/collective, mixed message, can be found—albeit mysteriously—online at www.mixedmsg.com<http://www.mixedmsg.com> . 

About the Collaborators
Alex Bleeker graduated from Bennington College in Spring 2008. Since then he has been working in the theater as a video/sound designer and performer. He also plays bass in Real Estate, a beach pop band from New Jersey.

Ralph Martin first met Mike Taylor while installing Conway & Pratt’s A Woman’s Work is Never Done.  They also worked together on mixed message’s Bad Science, and in the pirate musical Pegleg at the old Tonic. He appeared in Sibyl Kempson’s The Wytche of Problymme Plantation for Dixon Place and in the role of Giovanni Baglione (as Elmer Fudd) in Caravaggio Chiaroscuro at LaMama.  He has studied and worked with Nola Chilton, Jurgen Flimm, Cecilia Petit, Iraj Anvar and Philippe Gaulier, and has published poetry.

Gregor Paslawsky has worked as an actor, teacher, designer and fabricator. Acting credits include Craig Wright’s The Unseen, Tom Stoppard’s Travesties and Matthew Spangler’s adaptation of The Kite Runner. He has also appeared in The Sadness of Others, Not Dead Yet and Pegleg! – all Mike Taylor productions. As a designer and fabricator, he has worked with Conway & Pratt Projects on several shows including A Woman’s Work is Never Done, Too Close To Home and As A Dream That Vanishes.

Jason Schuler has presented work at New York City venues including: HERE Arts Center, Cherry Pit at Cherry Lane Theater, The Lamb’s Theater, The Brick, Dixon Place, PS 122 and The Culture Project. Regionally, he has presented work at Mass MoCA, and El Cid and The MET in Los Angeles. He is directing the Operating Theater’sThe Garden of Forked Tongues opening September 24 at Teatro IATI in New York. (www.GardenOfForkedTongues.com <http://www.GardenOfForkedTongues.com/> ).

David Thomson is presently working with Ralph Lemon on a new and meaningful project. He has worked with artists Mel Wong, Jane Comfort, Bebe Miller, Marta Renzi, Michael Dinwiddie, Wendy Perron, Remy Charlip, Susan Rethorst, David Roussève, Robert Wilson, Laurie Anderson, Michel Laub/Remote Control, Dean Moss/Laylah Ali, Bo Madvig and the Lavender Light Gospel Choir.  He was a member of Trisha Brown Company and a founding member of Hot Mouth. In 2001, he was honored with a Bessie Award for Sustained Achievement in Performance and again in 2006 as part of the creative team for Landing/Place. He collaborated with Sekou Sundiata on his last piece the 51st (dream) state. He serves on the board of Dance Theater Workshop.

Anna Wilson was last seen in the inaugural production at the new Dixon Place of Potatoes of August.  She was a collaborator in six-year Off-Broadway run of The Donkey Show directed by Diane Paulus, originating “Tytania/Sander” in New York, London and Madrid.  In New York, Wilson has appeared in Swimming With Watermelons by Randy Weiner at Vineyard Theatre, Anon by Kate Robin at Atlantic Theater, Much Ado About Nothing at McCarter Theater, Thousand Years Waiting by Chiori Miyagawa and directed by Sonoko Kawahara at PS 122, The Karaoke Show at China Club, Love, The Greatest Enchantment, directed by Andrei Serban and The Trojan Women: A Love Story, directed by Tina Landau. She has an MFA from Columbia and is a founder of CreateUrLife.Org where she facilitates acting education with Tom Brangle. She is in the upcoming film A Bird in the Hand.