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Christina Olson: American Model

Christina Olson is best known as the woman in the pink dress depicted in Andrew Wyeth’s iconic painting, Christina’s World. What is less known is that she suffered from a never-diagnosed muscular deterioration that left her arms weak and her lower body paralyzed. Fueled by both pride and denial, Christina rejected wheelchairs and found ways to move through the world relying only on her own strength. In this full length solo danced by Claire Danes (who first performed at P.S. 122 at the age of six), choreographer Tamar Rogoff uses her unique body-centric methodology to explore the ideas, spirit and physicality of a woman both rejected and revered. Christina Olson: American Model features music by Rachel’s, video by Harvey Wang and Andrew Baker, costume by Liz Prince and lighting by David Ferri.

September 21-October 2, 2005
Benefit for Tamar Rogoff
Performance Projects:
September 21 8:00 p.m.
Sunday Afternoon Discovery:
September 25 4:00 p.m.
$20($10 Members)

Pastoralia

Yehuda Duenyas has performed and toured with Richard Maxwell and Richard Foreman and is a founder of the National Theater of the United States of America. Here he has adapted and directed award-winning writer George Saunders’s “Pastoralia” – a darkly comic story of Ed and Janet, live-in employees at a historically-themed amusement park where they simulate the day-to-day life of early humans in a display cave dwelling: they roast goats, draw pictographs, and grunt at one other. The park has fallen on hard times; as a result, layoffs threaten Ed and Janet’s jobs. In this hilarious, heartbreaking tale, Ed and Janet are put to the test and ultimately must choose between their families’ livelihoods and their own dignity.

“This wonderful show amusing and bizarre…it strikes a chord within you that makes you leave feeling a tad unsettled.” -The Gothamist

“A potent, funny adaptation…heartbreaking and acutely familiar…” –The New Yorker

“Saunders has an ear for everything fraudulent and insidiously illogical about corporate America, and Duenyas has a reputation for bringing the illogical to life. Be forewarned: The absurdist take on corporate life although set in a papier mache cave here may seem to you too true.” –New York Press

“My advice to theatergoers is simple: Go… The two leads are superb… This play, with its story that is so human, so funny, and so sad, is a perfect example of how a false world can contain reality and of how good storytelling works.”
-Nytheatre.com

“The director and adaptor Yehuda Duenyas…creates a faithful and absurd comic style.” -The New York Times

Join George Saunders for Pastoralia Benefit Oct 8
4:30 Performance of Pastoralia
6:30 Post-show talk back with George Saunders & Yehuda Duenyas

September 21-October 9, 2005
Wednesday-Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday at 4:30 p.m.
Benefit with George Saunders Sat Oct 8

$20($10 Members)

From Dakota

Dakota Dakota

“…what’s on display here is tantalizing… and powerful in itself. And it augurs well for the mixed-genre performance forms in which Mr. Gantner seems to take a special interest.”
– John Rockwell, The New York Times

In an excerpt from the Shane Belles film Dakota, performer Colin Gee – a former principle clown for Cirque du Soleil – combines experiments in identity with deft physical characterization to recreate the film’s climactic scene as a riveting solo performance. The scene portrayed is the cathartic arrival of a father to negotiate the exchange of his abducted daughter from former associates, having failed all demands. Introduced by a video installation that provides narrative context and a synopsis of the film, from Dakota also features live vocal and electronic accompaniment from acclaimed composer Erin Gee.

PS122’s Sunday Afternoon Discovery takes back the talk-back and reinvigorates it with in-depth and engaging exchanges with the artists, from interactive lectures to full-on workshops.

On September 11, check your personality at the door and join Colin for “Transparent Portraits: Identity as a Function of Time Place and Learning,” free after the performance.

Click to read John Rockwell’s full review,
“A Movie’s Climactic Scene Reimagined for the Stage”(.pdf) in The New York Times.

September 7-11, 2005
Wednesday-Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday at 5:30 p.m.
Sunday Afternoon Discovery:
September 11 5:30 p.m.
$20($10 Members)

Praxis

Forget Me Not

“…oddly affecting …”Forget Me Not” is finely tuned…to suggest a few obvious but easily overlooked things: the power of physical comfort, the importance of ritual and the need to both acknowledge death and celebrate life.”
-Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times

Praxis (Brainard Carey and Delia Bajo) is an internationally acclaimed art and performance collaborative best known for their appearance in the Whitney Biennial 2002, in which they performed by offering services that include hugs, foot washings and other acts of intimacy. Forget Me Not is a Mass which celebrates living and tells the story of the artist’s mother’s unusual death and burial. Praxis engages the audience in ritualistic exchanges and offerings, providing solace and “tools for living” while raising questions of how we care for the dead and dying.

In addition to the nightly Mass, there will be other invitation-only events throughout the day and evening including adult-only pajama parties, erotic video salons, podcasts and shopping tours. Invitations to daily events can be arranged by emailing the artists.

Experience Praxis for yourself
For a virtual amuse-bouche, turn up your volume and visit twobodies.com for a trailer of what’s to come.

Click to read The New York Times review of Forget Me Not,
“Disconcerting Intimacy, With Hugs and Band-Aids”(.pdf) or click to read the rave review on nytheater.com

September 7-13, 2005 at 7:00 p.m.
$20 ($10 Members)

Inside Outside

Inside/Outside

YOSHIKO CHUMA & THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS (SOHK) returns to Performance Space 122 with a special program for the HOWL! Festival of East Village Arts.

In Inside/Outside Yoshiko Chuma uses her three-dimensional cubes as canvases and compacted and discrete stages. The works unfold inside and outside of these confined spaces.Inside/Outside has a prologue, epilogue and four episodes. Each episode focuses the audience’s attention specifically on one framed 7ft. x 7ft. x 7ft. cube. The cubes are both moving sculptures and “magic boxes”, which can be transparent or opaque. Black and white silent film images are projected onto the cubes and into the space, creating a black and white 1950’s atmosphere. Four trombone players, four dancers and a singer slide and collide, and move through the light and shadow inside and outside the cubes. The stage is flooded with video projections inspired by the abstract expressionist style of Teiji Kinugasa’s 1927 classic silent film, “A Page of Madness”. The performers &projected images inhabit the moving picture frames, living out personal and historical memories. The overall effect is hypnotic, powerful and richly sensual.

Inside/Outside was conceived and Directed by Yoshiko Chuma and choreographed in collaboration with the performers: Donald Fleming, Irving Gregory, Motoko Ikeda, Anthony Phillips and Ksenia Vidyaykina (singer). It is performed to music composed and performed by Christopher McIntyre for the Trombone Band.

In repetory with: 8 BRAND NEW SHORT DANCES

Each evening will feature two short works by emerging choreographers followed by a full performance of Inside/Outside.

8 BRAND NEW SHORT DANCES performs on the following schedule:

August 25: Chris Yon, Ursula Eagly
August 26: Jonah Bokaer, Rebecca Davis
August 27: Malinda Allen, Bethany Wright
August 28: Christopher Williams, Yoshiko Chuma

August 25-28, 2005
Thu-Sat 8pm
Sun 5pm
$15