Performance | Performance Space New York

AGA Spring 09

AGA

“Theatre Askew is queer in the best sense of the word: self-consciously outside of the mainstream, looking in with intelligence and wit.”
– Julia Wallace, The Village Voice

Queer duckling Theatre Askew joins forces with Performance Space 122 to present Avant-Garde-Arama Goes Askew. Drawing from across the rainbow spectrum of LGBT culture, the evening features dance inspired by Margaret Cho and the notorious Alphabet City after-hours club Save the Robots, trannie dominatrices, and severed heads. Hosted by Downtown legends Bianca Leigh and the Ridiculous Theatrical Company’s Everett Quinton, it’s guaranteed to get your sap flowing this May.
Hosted by Bianca Leigh and Everett Quinton. With performances by Bianca Leigh, Karen Grenke, Theatre Askew company members, Irene Ruiz-Riveros and BLISS dance-theatre, GERALDCASELDANCE, Isengart, and The Din (Matthew Pritchard and Isam Rum). Featuring new writing by Polly Frost, Stan Richardson, and OBIE-winner William M. Hoffman. Installation by Peter Cramer & Co of Le Petit Versailles community garden. Queer experimental film & video presented by Stephen Kent Jusick, executive director of the MIX Festival

Theatre Askew’s inaugural production, Bald Diva! earned a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Outstanding Off-Off Broadway Play. Their follow-up show was the hit serial I, Claudius Live. Last year they received their second GLAAD nomination for the world premiere of Jason Schafer’s i google myself. They were named 2007 People of the Year by nytheatre.com. Their most recent production was the world premiere of William M. Hoffman and Anthony Holland’s Cornbury: The Queen’s Governor.

Fri, May 15 – Sat, May 16, 2009
7:30pm
Tickets from $20
$15 (students/seniors)
$10 (P.S. 122 members)

Guest Curated by:

Cracked Ice

“Miller wows ’em” – The Village Voice

“Circus AMOK reinventing the circus form, borrowing drag fabulousness from Charles Ludlam’s Theater of the Ridiculous, large scale transformation using whole-body masks from Bread and Puppet Theater, and the outdoor bally and verbal rhythm and repertoire from the sideshow, as well as movement vocabulary from post-modern dance. The troupe balances danger with laughter, slipping its critique between the pies in the face and the surreal, scary, and sometimes gender-bent characters of the charivari.” – Mark Sussman, Disturbing the Peace: 20th Century Radical Street Performance, 2001

In this glittering theatrical extravaganza, the infamous juggling duo, The Liberty Sisters, have been fleeced by an evil ponzi schemer. Sybil and Statua Liberty embark on a mad-cap tour of revenge…but they aren’t the only ones after the greedy crook. Mistaken identities, missed opportunities, star crossed lovers and variety hall numbers all combine to bring East Village high camp back home. It’s tragedy, it’s farce, it’s mystery, it’s mayhem…it’s “Jewels of the Forbidden Skates.”

Starring: Jennifer Miller, Carlton Ward, Ashley Brockington, Rae C. Wright, Sally May, Adrienne Truscott, and Tanya Gagne. Music by Kenny Mellman and Design by Jonathon Berger. With additional text for Bernie Madoff by Deb Margolin. Choreography by Faye Driscoll. Special surprise guest artists each night will include Scott Heron, Jenny Monson, and Jenny Romaine.

Jennifer Miller is the director of the acclaimed NYC political performance troupe Circus Amok, which she founded in 1989. She is widely recognized for her work and is the recipient of awards including the Obie, Bessie, BAX 10, and most recently the Ethyl Eichelberger Award.

*2009 Ethyl Eichelberger Award Ceremony*
Join us Wed, Apr 29 for the announcement of the 2009 Winner and a special post-show celebration

The Ethyl Eichelberger Award was created by Performance Space 122 and made possible with generous support from The Gesso Foundation in honor of seminal performer, landmark and legend Ethyl Eichelberger. The award is given to an artist or group that exemplifies Ethyl’s larger-than-life style and generosity of spirit; who embodies Ethyl’s multi-talented artistic virtuosity, bridging worlds and vitalizing those around them.

Also, check out Cirus AMOK! on NY Times Urban Eye

Sat, Apr 25 – Sun, May 10, 2009
Wednesday – Sunday 8pm
Additional Late Show: Sat, May 9 11pm
Tickets from $20
$15 (students/seniors)
$10 (P.S. 122 members)

Problem Radicals

“Problem Radical(s) is an experimental theatricalist opera just the way such things should be and rarely are. Creators Kara Feely and Travis Just have created a sophisticated collision between elegant formal considerations and the disruptive garbage of a world going down the drain that is exciting and exhilarating. The spectator is swept away in its delirious mix and emerges clear and emotionally refreshed.”
– Richard Foreman

“Rich imagery” and “Dreamlike intimacy”
– NYTheater.com

“Contemplative…highly conceptual”
– Vital Weekly

An experimental opera, Problem Radical(s) mixes everyday radical acts, a sprawling sculpture, massive inflating tarps, industrious performers, and hardcore noise. Performers navigate an ever-expanding, unstable installation. Musicians and singers reassemble the modular electronic and instrumental score, evoking American radical thinkers, civic activists, and maneuverable personal blimps.

Personnel:
writer and director: Kara Feely
composer: Travis Just
installation: Hannah Dougherty
video: Daniel Kötter
costume designer: Peter Ksander
lighting designer: Miranda Hardy
stage manager: Sarah Nerboso
associate producer: Morgan von Prelle Pecelli

performed by Karl Allen, Sarah Dahlen, Francesco Gagliardi, Caitlin McDonough Thayer
musicians: Kevin Farrell, James Moore

production assistants: Peiyi Wong, Stacey Berman, Sara Patterson

Excerpts from Problem Radical(s) have been presented at KuLe (Berlin, August 2007), Experimental Intermedia (New York, December 2007), and Loopline (Tokyo, May 2008). In June-July 2008, Object Collection developed the piece further during month-long artist residency at Abrons Arts Center/Henry Street Settlement.

You can preview the sounds of Problem Radical(s) on WFMU’s
Acousmatic Theater Hour.

Read the Feature about Problem Radicals in Magazine.

Fri, April 24 – Sun, May 10, 2009
Wed – Sat 7:30p
Sun 5:30p

Beowulf

Flawed heroes, sympathetic monsters and haughty professors collide as this hefty
poem is rescued from the grasp of 1,000 years of highbrow analysis and
transformed into a defiantly raucous musical. Presented by San Francisco’s
infamous Shotgun Players and New York’s infectious Banana Bag & Bodice, this new
SongPlay is an irreverent dissertation on art versus criticism in blood soaked
Scandinavia! Written by Jason Craig, music by Dave Malloy, directed by Rod
Hipskind

Presented in association with The Abrons Arts Center and Performance Space 122

For more information visit beowulfnyc.com.

March 31 – April 18, 2009
ALL PERFORMANCES TAKE PLACE AT
THE ABRONS ARTS CENTER
466 Grand St. at Pitt

Semiospectacle

“A performance artist of underground legend.”
– Guy Trebay, New York Times

Lord Whimsy authors “a rallying cry for the return of the dandy.” – Liesl Schillinger, New York Times

“Fishnet stockings and feather boas aren’t usually the subject of a lecture but today students are taken back to the turn of the twentieth century and topless showgirls .” – Judith Kampfner, NPR

This verbal varieté strategizes the explicitly semiotic spectacle in a multimedia showcase of live art representing an encounter between the academic lecture hall, the poet’s theater, and the vaudeville house. Its players cut across the disciplinary boundaries of scholarship, pedagogy, cabaret, poetics, and performance in an investigation of linguistic mechanisms of spectacular identity formation. Linguistic illusionists expose the parlor trick of transparent speech, conjuring floating signifiers that levitate forty-four feet above the floor. Costumes sewn from three million majuscules burst at the semes. The auditorium oscillates between reading room and performatorium. The linguistic turn transmogrifies into a shimmy.

Semiospectacle is curated by Mashinka Firunts and will feature performances by Vaginal Davis, Lord Whimsy, Dr. Lucky, Jeremy J F Thompson, Paolo Javier, Daniel Scott Snelson, and Shonni Enelow. Musical accompaniment by Grandpa Musselman & His Syncopators, intertitular tap by The Minsky Sisters, and one-minute curatorial micro-lectures by Mashinka Firunts. The evening commences with Steno Pool, an interactive performance, and Codexkammer: a functional lending library installed in Performance Space 122.

Reception to follow.
www.semiospectacle.com

Monday March 22, 2009
8PM
ADDED 10PM SHOW
FREE – Reservations Required

Co-Sponsors: