Travis Chamberlain, a director & new friend, does alot of curatorial work downtown. Today he sent me some recommendations. Whether you can go or not, check out the sites and get a take a little taste of a slice of avant-garde pie in NYC ... Here's his missive:
(from Travis Chamberlain)
VANGELINE THEATER AND RAY SWEETEN GET MESMERIZED AT THE NEW MUSEUM THIS FRIDAY
I have curated another event at the New Museum, which will take place tomorrow night (Fri) at 7:30pm, and I think you should see it. The artists in tonight's event create dances and musical compositions that move at extremely slow speeds, aspiring towards profundity with near-microscopic subtlety. The culminating effect is mesmerizing and stunningly dramatic.Vangeline Theater fuses the traditions of Butoh dance (characterized by exaggerated, even grotesque, isometric movement) with an aesthetic inspired by glammed-out science-fiction movies like Blade Runner and Liquid Sky. Ray Sweeten processes music through an oscilloscope—an instrument that allows voltage signals to be viewed graphically—translating shifting claustrophobic sonic environments into a mysterious new kind of sign language.
New Museum
Vangeline
Ray Sweeten
ANDREW WK MADE US SWEAT
Not to be outdone by Neal Medlyn's restaging of Beyonce's Live DVD, Andrew WK's pseudo-formal grand piano concert-in-the-round at the New Museum last month turned into a sweaty, blissed-out dance party with delightfully uninebriated geeky teens and not-quite-hipsters running around in circles and jumping up and down for almost a full hour right smack-dab in the middle of a very austere, deeply earnest museum environment. It was like watching a rock opera version of Lord of the Flies, starring the lovechild of Jerry Lee Lewis and David Lee Roth--and the piano was the bonfire. Read about here:
Village Voice Article
Or see what you missed here (skip to the 2nd half of clips to witness the crowd getting totally primitive):
Video clip
I'm very much looking forward to working with Mr. WK again in the not too distant future. Any man who can make a museum crowd sweat and shake like this is all right by me!--
GO SEE VICIOUS DOGS ON PREMISES AT THE ONTOLOGICAL
Witness Relocation is a new company to me, but they've been around for 8 years (guess I've been looking in all the wrong places). Check out their latest show at Ontological, directed and choreographed by Dan Safer. You wanna talk about sweat? These kids could fill buckets. An exhilarating show about obedience training, having too many choices, making choices, getting slapped really hard, and playing games that you can't win. Or, at least that's what I thought it was about. "This is avant-vaudeville, conducted with brio and a cheery disregard for the fourth wall... Everyone has a grand time (including the absurdly charming performers). Safer's group feels so comfortable with radical techniques - borrowed from such icons as the Wooster Group and John Cage - that they can redirect them into pure frolic. It's liberating and silly, and their artistic forebears might even find it an awfully fun reunion." -Time Out NY
Witness Relocation
JOLLYSHIP REALLY ROCKS
I haven't seen this production yet (currently at Ars Nova), but I've heard it's the ultimate apotheosis of my favorite pirate puppet rock band from some very reliable sources, and I just can't wait to check it out. I once curated and produced a battle of the pirate bands between Jollyship the Whizbang and The Scurvy Pirates at PS122/Schoolhouse Roxx. It was bloody, cut-throat (literally and figuratively), and no man was left alive. Still one of my favorite curatorial projects to date.
Jollyship The Whizbang
ArsNova
(from Travis Chamberlain)
VANGELINE THEATER AND RAY SWEETEN GET MESMERIZED AT THE NEW MUSEUM THIS FRIDAY
I have curated another event at the New Museum, which will take place tomorrow night (Fri) at 7:30pm, and I think you should see it. The artists in tonight's event create dances and musical compositions that move at extremely slow speeds, aspiring towards profundity with near-microscopic subtlety. The culminating effect is mesmerizing and stunningly dramatic.Vangeline Theater fuses the traditions of Butoh dance (characterized by exaggerated, even grotesque, isometric movement) with an aesthetic inspired by glammed-out science-fiction movies like Blade Runner and Liquid Sky. Ray Sweeten processes music through an oscilloscope—an instrument that allows voltage signals to be viewed graphically—translating shifting claustrophobic sonic environments into a mysterious new kind of sign language.
New Museum
Vangeline
Ray Sweeten
ANDREW WK MADE US SWEAT
Not to be outdone by Neal Medlyn's restaging of Beyonce's Live DVD, Andrew WK's pseudo-formal grand piano concert-in-the-round at the New Museum last month turned into a sweaty, blissed-out dance party with delightfully uninebriated geeky teens and not-quite-hipsters running around in circles and jumping up and down for almost a full hour right smack-dab in the middle of a very austere, deeply earnest museum environment. It was like watching a rock opera version of Lord of the Flies, starring the lovechild of Jerry Lee Lewis and David Lee Roth--and the piano was the bonfire. Read about here:
Village Voice Article
Or see what you missed here (skip to the 2nd half of clips to witness the crowd getting totally primitive):
Video clip
I'm very much looking forward to working with Mr. WK again in the not too distant future. Any man who can make a museum crowd sweat and shake like this is all right by me!--
GO SEE VICIOUS DOGS ON PREMISES AT THE ONTOLOGICAL
Witness Relocation is a new company to me, but they've been around for 8 years (guess I've been looking in all the wrong places). Check out their latest show at Ontological, directed and choreographed by Dan Safer. You wanna talk about sweat? These kids could fill buckets. An exhilarating show about obedience training, having too many choices, making choices, getting slapped really hard, and playing games that you can't win. Or, at least that's what I thought it was about. "This is avant-vaudeville, conducted with brio and a cheery disregard for the fourth wall... Everyone has a grand time (including the absurdly charming performers). Safer's group feels so comfortable with radical techniques - borrowed from such icons as the Wooster Group and John Cage - that they can redirect them into pure frolic. It's liberating and silly, and their artistic forebears might even find it an awfully fun reunion." -Time Out NY
Witness Relocation
JOLLYSHIP REALLY ROCKS
I haven't seen this production yet (currently at Ars Nova), but I've heard it's the ultimate apotheosis of my favorite pirate puppet rock band from some very reliable sources, and I just can't wait to check it out. I once curated and produced a battle of the pirate bands between Jollyship the Whizbang and The Scurvy Pirates at PS122/Schoolhouse Roxx. It was bloody, cut-throat (literally and figuratively), and no man was left alive. Still one of my favorite curatorial projects to date.
Jollyship The Whizbang
ArsNova
Posts
May I say that Vangeline's "Voom" at HERE awhile back was astonishing. I'm sure the show at the New Museum will be equally good.
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