“31 Down is an amazing and groundbreaking company and their work deserves a broad audience.” -Martin Denton
The Assember Dilator is a sonic meltdown of science fiction and perversion focused on the development of x-ray vision and its consequences, obvious and unknown. Through hypnotic aural and visual design 31 Down is confronting issues of medical research, sources of funding and the responsibility of science in the near future. Dealing with themes of transcendence, control and greed, specific notions of human interaction with science and nature are unraveled. This is an intense work featuring a doctor and a nurse’s journey, as they become lab rats in their own hallucinogenic medical trial.
This work was developed with the support of: free103point9, Ontological-Hysteric Incubator, The Bushwick Starr and OfficeOps.
WORLD PREMIERE
Thu, Oct 8 – Sun, Oct 18
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“Dandy theatrical experimenteur…mind bending sex comedy.” – Time Out, New York
“…one of the highlights of the fall season at Performance Space 122.” – NY Times
Downtown’s enfant terrible delivers a frisky and hyper-stylized sex comedy that shoots straight into the heart of marriage in America. Behind this Technicolor Romantic Pastoral lies a glittering and scathing indictment of rules and regulations, rituals and rites of spring. A foursome and a sexton breach the boundaries of matrimonial shackles and dive headlong into a hedonistic lifestyle with complex consequences.
The Archery Contest sends up the tragic-comic foibles of human desire straight-jacketed by antiquated dogmas and outdated notions of marriage, ultimately asking: in a country steeped in tradition yet hungry for change, how can we escape our puritanical past and move into an unfettered future?
Hotel Savant, a theatre company based in New York City, explores the seminal ideologies of history and mythology and their impact on contemporary narrative. Utilizing a variety of performance techniques that include pageantry, dance and tableau, they create original works and revive obscure texts that correlate to present day topics.
Featuring: Richard Toth, Hillary Spector, Carey Urban, Alexander Borinsky, Jeff Worden
Playwright/Director: John Jahnke; sound designer Kristin Worrall; set designer Peter Ksander; lighting designer Miranda Hardy; video designer Andrew Schneider; and costume designer Carlos Soto.
Presented by Performance Space 122. Developed at 3LD Art & Technology Center; with additional support from Art International Radio (AIR), NYSCA, NY Department of Cultural Affairs and The MacDowell Colony and a Commission Grant from the Jerome Foundation. Photo (c) 2009 Josef Astor.
“…my favorite, favorite thing that I have encountered in the last few years…
I froze into that enchanted immobility that only the most spectacular shows provoke…
I would actually buy your ticket to this show. I want you to see it that much.
See you at PS!” – Helen Shaw via Claudia La Rocco’s Performance Club Blog Post “The A-List” on WNYC.org (9/19/09)
“Nervy, bewitching performance” – John Del Signore, Gothamist
Two iconoclastic downtown performers entertain, tantalize, beguile, and finally threaten to break the elbows of our Aristotelian/Stanislavskian conceptions of contemporary American theatre and identity as we safely understand them in a new play by Sibyl Kempson. In other words:
Mike Iveson, with his demonic arrangements of the indigenous music of their native New Jersey, joins Kempson in a rapturous and obsessive melodrama of consciousness. Together they distill this 11-person play into a desperate and harried duet.
Part cabaret fiasco, part aesthetic holocaust, their dual dueling performance pits them in a life-or-death struggle for the right to devour the soul of the play.
BONUS EDITIONS:
PLUS Exclusive Late Night Edition: “Emergency or Crime”
Please note that at the Late Shows, the part played by Ms. Kempson will be played by Mr. Iveson; and the part and piano played by Mr. Iveson will be played or appear to be played by Ms. Kempson.
In this compulsory late night companion piece to “Crime or Emergency”, a fifth dimension of dementia ensues. Recommended for those who have already seen Crime and Emergency or who do not get out of bed until 930 PM (wake up Spaniards!) Warning: Ears and eyes may bleed.
Single Tickets: $20 or get The Package: see both for $30.
PLUS Exclusive Holiday Bonus Edition: “Lost Acts of Crime or Emergency”
Ms. Kempson & Mr. Iveson take past performers involved in the evolution and development of “Crime or Emergency” and hold them hostage, forcing them to relive their parts in a weird and festive Stockholm Syndrome-inspired atmosphere surrounded by the infamous debauchery of the PS122 Annual Red & White Party, downtown’s definitive holiday bash. Drinking helmets recommended. Star Hostages: Kate Benson, Kourtney Rutherford, Jason Schuler, Andrew Dinwiddie, Eben Moore, Eleanor Hutchins, Susie Sokol, Jim Fletcher, Johanna S. Meyer, and more to come.
Note: tickets to the 12/15 one-night-only OFF SITE extravaganza are included with admission to PS122 Red and White Party
Developed at Dixon Place, Soho Rep, Fusebox festival, Austin TX. , Supported by a Commission Grant from the Jerome Foundation.
WORLD PREMIERE
Fri, Dec 4 – Sun, Dec 20 BONUS EDITION “Emergency or Crime”
Sat, Dec 12 and Sat, Dec 19 at 10pm
Single Tickets $20, $15 (students/seniors)
“Gazing at this exquisitely designed living sculpture, you also feel your own body straining with Hassabi, and in the slow friction between these two views, mysterious emotions ignite.” – Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice
“The boundaries between dance, artwork, installation and performance are subtly blurred…every sculptural position suggests unverifiable meaning…The quality of the darkening light is as beautiful as a painting, but the effect – the music, the spatial emptiness – is pure theater.” – Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times (on GLORIA)
A diptych of two autonomous evening-long solos that play between opposing orientations. The performer moves from a solitary contemplation in Solo, to a devotion to ‘show-culture’ in SoloShow. Hassabi continues her rigorous exploration of representations of the female body – embedded within art history, pop culture, and the performance of daily life – dissolving into the physicality of contemporary dance.
Performed alternately by Hassabi and Hristoula Harakas;
Thu, Fri, Sat at 8 – Maria Hassabi
Fri, Sat at 10 / Sun at 6 – Hristoula Harakas
Lighting by Joe Levasseur, clothing by ThreeAsFour, dramaturgy by Marcos Rosales, sound score by James Lo, and set design by Scott Lyall and Hassabi.
Crossing the Line (September 12 – October 3, 2009) is FIAF’s fall festival, conceived as a platform to present vibrant new works by a diverse range of transdisciplinary artists working in France and New York City. Initiated, conceived, and produced by FIAF in partnership with leading New York cultural institutions, the 3rd annual edition of this inter-disciplinary contemporary arts festival further develops its focus on artists who are transforming cultural practices on both sides of the Atlantic. www.fiaf.org
Performa 09 (November 1 – 22, 2009) is the third edition of the internationally acclaimed biennial of new visual art performance presented by Performa, a non-profit multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century. www.performa-arts.org
With funding from the National Performance Network, MCAF supported by the N.Y.C. Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by LMCC and The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston and a Commission Grant from the Jerome Foundation.. Co-produced and presented by Performance Space 122, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF) as part of the Crossing the Line Festival, and the 2009 Visual Art Performance Biennial, Performa 09. Photo by Marcelo Krasilcic
“…this pair of Chicago-based 30-year-olds can lay claim to a special talent for alternative performance-making of disarmingly odd, cosmic charm.” – Donald Hutera, The Times of London
“What Samuel Beckett doing standup would be.” – trailerpilot.com
A vast internal adventure of miniscule proportions that explores The Sea, both as mythology and as awesome presence. Using Cupola Bobber’s home-spun minimal aesthetic and poker-faced absurdist charm, Stephen Fiehn and Tyler B. Myers – like Laurel & Hardy channeling Gilbert & George – visit The Sea and watch a town slide in.
Founded in 1999, Cupola Bobber is a collaboration between Stephen Fiehn and Tyler B. Myers. They have created four evening length performances by working slowly out of their studio on the west side of Chicago. They have performed in multiple venues in Chicago, Austin, Portland, and New York, and toured internationally. They were International Artists in Residence at the Nuffield Theatre Lancaster in 2008. Alongside evening-length performances, they have made video, durational performance, and published writing.
Way Out West, the Sea Whispered Me is a National Performance Network Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by Links Hall and PS122 in partnership with the National Performance Network. Photo by Jennifer Korff
N.Y. PREMIERE
Thu, Sept 24 – Sun, Sept 27, 2009
Thu – Sat 8pm, Sun 6pm
Late show: Sat, Sept 26 10:30pm
$20, $15 (students/seniors)
Help PS122 Go Green by viewing your program online!
