Opportunities, Asks and Other Odds and Ends
Okay so here are some neat things to know about:
LIVING THEATER NEEDS HELP:
We need to save The Living Theatre, period. This month our beloved Lower East Side arts landmark learned that they were facing eviction. Unless we come up with $24,000+ dollars in the next two weeks, the organization will have to close its doors and say good-bye to the Lower East Side forever. With this money The Living Theatre will be able to pay its rent, bring in a consultant to develop a 5-year strategic plan, and turn itself into a financially sustainable arts organization. Bravo.
click here to donate.
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PECULIAR WORKS CALL FOR ARTISTS
The Peculiar Works Project has issued a call for installation artists to design contemporary recreations of classic erotic pillow books. Yowza! Here’s the message they sent me:
Site-specific performance producers, Peculiar Works Project, are seeking a variety of daring, boundary-crossing artists to create immersive installations for a live performance featuring contemporary recreations of classic erotic pillow books. Each artist will be given a room, material resources and stipend as well as a team of collaborators to realize an 8-minute, repeating, performed installation. All together, Spring Pictures of the Floating World will perform June 28 – July 1 in a large site in NYC’s East Village where audiences will move from space to space, charting their own performance experiences throughout the exhibition hours.
Asian pillow books thrived in a time and place beyond western religion and original sin (Google “shunga” for details). This project is open to all types of artists interested in creating one part of a fantastical pleasure palace, utilizing design, paint, sculpture, costumes, puppets, prosthetics, and more. It’s a fun and informative way to explore cultural difference, the western gaze and sexual boundaries. More information can be found at www.peculiarworks.org/pillow.
html . If you’re interested and available in June, contact pillow@peculiarworks.org by May 18th with a resume or bio, and let us know your interest and questions.
Sounds fun!
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HELP ERIK EHN COME TO LAMAMA
Erik Ehn’s practical and ideological commitment to weaving theater, teaching and social justice has inspired many people in the theater community. Currently head of Playwriting at Brown, his upcoming project, Soulographie: Our Genocides is a performance cycle of 17 plays currently being produced around the country and in Uganda that will converge at La MaMa in NYC this fall. It is a vital project and they are asking the community at large to help support it with a donation of $10.
From the email I received:
Since 2010, independent companies and artists throughout the nation and in Uganda have been producing readings and workshops of these plays, featuring 16 directors across 10 cities. In November 2012, the 17 productions converge at La MaMa in New York for two weeks of marathon performances, workshops, teach-ins, panel discussions, and education-installations.
Soulographie is Theatre of Genocide – an engaged art, intended to bring audiences closer to historical periods of violence through the dynamics of performance, creating a frame for loss and remembrance. It is a communal activity in socio-political and self-recognition. In order to free people, to free memories, to free ideas, we must give them voice. It asks the question: whose voice are you willing to carry?
Click here to contribute.
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Down In the Ground (D.I.G.) – Performance and Sandhogs Together Again!
Down In the Ground (D.I.G.) is a performance installation in which participants uncover the invisible infrastructure of New York City by means of interactive video, sound, and movement. Devised by interdisciplinary artists Liza Wade Green, Will Orzo, Emily Rea, and Lígia Teixeira, the performance begins with a dance around theAcconci Studio-designed fountain in the Visitor Center at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and transitions into an interactive exploration of underground New York City. The piece is created and performed in collaboration with Local 147 Sandhogs, MTA engineers, Newtown Creek’s wastewater treatment workers and FDNY explosives experts.
The artists developed D.I.G. through a dialogue with the hidden workers of subterranean New York City– those who spend their lives surveying, engineering, building, blasting and rebuilding our city. Through extensive interviews, underground meetings, and an exchange of artistic ideas, these collaborators have helped the artists explore the incredible infrastructure of daily life and bring this performance installation to life.
About the Artists:
The Local 147 Sandhogs are New York City’s Tunnel Diggers. The Sandhogs have worked major construction projects including the Brooklyn Bridge, Lincoln, Holland, Queens-Midtown and Brooklyn Battery Tunnels, as well as most of New York City’s subways, waterways, and sewers. Current major projects include Water Tunnel Number Three, MTA’s Second Avenue Subway Line and East Side Access Project, and the Croton Water Filtration Plant.
Liza Wade Green, Will Orzo, Emily Rea, and Lígia Teixeira are a collaborative team with backgrounds in writing, music, computing, physical theater and dance. Bringing together public research processes, design, interactive programming, composition, and movement techniques, they create contextual performance and installation works.
Performance, Installation and Opening Reception
Saturday May 19, 7pm at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant Visitor Center
329 Greenpoint Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222
Ongoing Installation May 19th through May 31st – check Visitor Center website for open hours and directions:http://www.nyc.gov/
To schedule an appointment contact: wellwaternyc@gmail.
D.I.G. is sponsored by BIG!NYC www.bignyc.org
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Center for Performance Research is excited to announce the return of its bi-annual multimedia movement festival featuring dance and experimental performance. On the evenings of June 1st and 2nd, Spring Movement will present works by 10 local and international emerging and established choreographers. This year’s Spring Movement will include works-in-progress, finished pieces, and premieres of creative and unique collaborations with filmmakers, musicians, and artists from the visual arts field.
Spring Movement 2012 features works by: Shani Collins-Achille/ Eternalworks Dance Company, Esme Boyce Dance, Carmen Caceres, Sophia Cleary, Alissa Horowitz/AVtv Creations, Keiko Hashimoto, HeJin Jang, Michele Torino Hower, Dahlia Nayar and Rastro/ Julieta Valero.
CPR is an artist-driven initiative, co-founded by Jonah Bokaer/Chez Bushwick, Inc. and John Jasperse/Thin Man Dance, Inc. CPR’s mission is to support the development of new works in contemporary dance, performance and related forms, and to serve as a platform for the advancement of contemporary performing arts. CPR is particularly interested in supporting artistic processes that integrate visual design, installation, and technology. For more info visit our website: www.cprnyc.org
Directions to CPR: L Train to Graham Avenue (3rd stop in Brooklyn), exit right out of turnstile, left down Graham Avenue, left on Jackson Street, right on Manhattan Avenue. CPR is located at the corner of Jackson Street and Manhattan Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Spring Movement 2012 Schedule
Friday June 1st:
Esme Boyce Dance
Carmen Caceres
Sophia Cleary
Keiko Hashimoto
Michele Torino Hower
Saturday June 2nd:
Dahlia Nayar
HeJin Jang
Alissa Horowitz/ AVtv Creations
Shani Collins-Achille/ Eternalworks Dance Company
Rastro/ Julieta Valero
June 1st and 2nd, 2012 at 7:30pm
Tickets: $12 online at www.brownpapertickets.com or at the door (cash only)
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A LAVA Studio Special Event
When: Sunday, May 20th, 2012 from 2-5pm
Where: The LAVA Studio, located at 524 Bergen Street, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Who: Open to both kids and adults
Handstand experts as well as first-timers, young and old, are invited to come to Prospect Heights, Brooklyn to log seconds and minutes with their hands on the ground and their feet in the air! Haven’t done a handstand before? No problem! Handstanders can use the wall, a spotter, or several spotters. The total time spent upside down will be tallied and added to a collective handstand pool. The goal for the total time of people with their feet raised is 1 second for every dollar raised, with a goal of $20,000.
Handstanders are encouraged to create their personalized fund-raising pages atwww.firstgiving.com/lava. Each person who registers for will receive an “I <3 Handstanding” wristband. As fundraisers meet different incentive tiers they will receive different gifts while helping to keep LAVA accessible to all.
Handstand-a-Thon raises funds to support LAVA’s free activities: Community Class(a weekly class for kids ages 5 to 12), Night of Renegades (a seasonal open mic performance night in the LAVA Studio with music, dance, acrobatics, etc), Magma Mix(a seasonal performance event for kids, hosted by MAGMA, LAVA’s junior company), and the P.S. 9 Pick-Up Program (a weekly partnership with P.S. 9 in which 6 kids from P.S. 9 get picked up at school and brought to the LAVA studio for a class). It also goes to support tuition subsidies and scholarships for our kids and adult classes which comprises nearly 25% of our student body.
We raise money so that some of our work can exist outside of the pressures of the market economy and provide wider access to the LAVA Studio for the people of Brooklyn and NYC.
Where Handstand-a-Thon donations go:
$235 – 1 full scholarship for a session of LAVA Classes for kids
$250 – 1 day of Community Class at the LAVA Studio
$500 – 1 day of Magma Mix performances in the LAVA Studio
$3000 – 12 weeks of Community Class at the LAVA Studio
LAVA is a performance troupe based in Brooklyn dedicated to creating original, empowering, boundary-breaking performances based in dance and acrobatics. At the LAVA Studio, ensemble and community members train and teach LAVA’s rigorous, creative and inclusive movement language to kids and adults, and host several community programs. For more info including photos and video footage of the company as well as last year’s Handstand-a-Thon, go to http://lavabrooklyn.org.