This year PRELUDE is organized around the idea of “Why Does Live Matter”? And that has been organized into subcategories of investigation. Check it out below and check out the full line-up and information at preludenyc.org.

COMMUNICATION

Where exchange becomes communitas that intense community spirit binding an otherwise unstructured collective of individuals together in equality, solidarity and togetherness. The question we pose to this group of artists are: How are your live performances more than simply the exchange of ideas, expressions of your thoughts, or broadcast reflections of our world and our places in it?

• Live Writers
• Joyce Cho
• Robert Quillen Camp
• Hoi Polloi
• Trajal Harrell
• The TEAM

PROVOCATION

The artists represented in this group use provocation techniques from subtle aesthetic interrogation to overt shock tactics, all the while attempting to activate overstimulated city dwellers and provoke a change in mental direction. The questions we have for them are: Are they successful? What makes live performance their ideal vehicle for cultural or personal revolution?

• HERE
• Aaron Landsman
• The Field
• Julie Atlas Muz
• Jim Findlay
• Penny Arcade
• Ishmael Houston-Jones

SIMULATION

One is living the simulacra when the simulation becomes so believable a person, a group, or even an entire nation loses hold of the difference between the simulation and “reality”. The question we pose to these artists is: How can the digital tools of simulation be used to both trick us live audience members into losing our hold on “reality” in the spaces of performance, and at the same time reveal to us the losses that we experience in the spaces of our everyday?

• Joe Silovsky
• Kimon Keramidas
• Reid Farrington
• Andrew Schneider
• Reggie Watts
• DJ Spooky

SPOTLIGHT: CATALONIA

SPOTLIGHT: CATALONIA will showcase the work of contemporary Catalan theater artists, in collaboration with New York directors and translators. Prelude welcomes Barcelona-based writers and will present excerpts of Solavaya by Àngels Aymar (dir. HIllary Spector/trans. Caridad Svich), Offside by Sergi Belbel (dir. Mallory Catlett/trans. Marion Peter Holt), Girls Shouldn’t Play Soccer by Marta Buchaca (dir. May Adrales/trans. Rowan Ricardo Phillips) and Against Progress by Esteve Soler (dir. Dan Safer/trans. Hillary Gardner) Plus, a full reading series to be hosted by The Lark, New Georges, Repertorio Español & La MaMa.Presented in partnership with The Institut Ramon Llull, with additional support from Sala Beckett

• Àngels Aymar
• Sergi Belbel
• Marta Buchaca
• Esteve Soler