Category: Upcoming Performances

Kaneza Schaal
Theater
Residency dates: March 31 – April 12
Public Showings: April 11 & 12, 8pm
at The Chain Theatre 21-28 45th Rd, Long Island City in Queens

Kaneza Schaal is a New York City based Theater Artist. Best known for her work as an actor with The Wooster Group, Elevator Repair Service, and Richard Maxwell, Kaneza will use RAMP to begin work on her first evening length piece using the Egyptian Book of the Dead as inspiration – seeking to cultivate performance that uses text as a jumping off point and equally values visual, physical, sonic and abstract expression.

The project is made in collaboration with performers Cornell Alston, April Matthis, Greig Sargeant, Courtney Williams, sound artist Justin Hicks, visual artist Christopher Myers, dramaturge Joshua Lubin-Levy and lighting designer Ashley Vellano.

Other contributing artists include: William Nadylam, Ama Codjoe.

Kaneza is also supported by the Princess Grace Foundation Works-in-Residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Kaneza Schaal is a New York City based theater artist. The daughter of a Midwesterner and an immigrant from Rwanda, she was raised in Northern California and migrated east to attend Wesleyan University in Connecticut. After working for The Wooster Group as Kate Valk’s assistant on The Summer Institute, a free program for NYC public school students, she was offered the position of Company Manager. Through the support of a Princess Grace Award to apprentice with the company she transitioned from Company Manager to performing with the group in Vieux Carre and Early Plays. She is also a member of Elevator Repair Service and performs in The Sound and the Fury, The Select, Shuffle, and Fondly, Collette Richland. Her work with these companies has brought her to over 32 cities in 18 countries. Schaal has worked with Richard Maxwell, Claude Wampler, Jay Scheib, and Lars Jan, and at venues including BAM, Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Symphony Space and The Whitney Museum. As teaching artist, Schaal has led programs with The Kitchen/Victoria Vazquez at Liberty High School, with New York Theater Workshop at Lower Manhattan Arts Academy and other locations, with Symphony Space at Harlem School for the Arts, and with Elevator Repair Service at Emerson College, Princeton University and New York Theatre Workshop. She is a resident artist with Elders Share The Arts, and is an annual collaborator on The Wooster Group’s Summer Institute.

“Drawing inspiration from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a text originally intended to provide the living with a blueprint to the afterlife, we will explore light and shadow as a physical and metaphorical architecture. Using analogue projection, sound, text, and dance to animate a series of burial vignettes we will excavate this ancient text to create a new translation. Our inquiry will focus on the scroll’s central metaphor: the weighing of the heart against a feather of the goddess Maat on her divine scale of truth to test its moral worth. The performance proposes burial not as erasure but as offering restitution, performing rites, and creating space for the presence of the absent, the imagined and the longed-for.” – Kaneza Schaal

RAMP is PS122’s new residency program designed to support early-career New York City-based artists by offering a place and space to create ambitious new work. RAMP is a unique residency program which not only provides space but also invaluable technical assistance, commissioning fees and marketing support.

RAMP artists are commissioned by Performance Space 122 with support from a 50th Anniversary Grant from the Jerome Foundation. Additional presentation support provided by Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance and Jerome Robbins Foundation.

LYFE™
Glass Ghost (USA)
Music, Multimedia

LYFE™ is an interactive music performance that explores the intersection of technology and the self with music created by Brooklyn band Glass Ghost. Opening with a snapshot of a young man obsessed with the fictional LYFE™ social app, every move is live-streamed to an ever-growing group of followers. While shared emotions, mundane observations and life decisions become fodder for personalized advertisements, roles of the participant and the followers blur into an ecstatic new media celebration of individuality.

“Eliot Krimsky is one of my favorite writers. His left hand is hip hop, his right hand is jazz, and his lyrics are beat.” – Sharon Van Etten

Concept, Keyboards, Voice: Eliot Krimsky
Concept, Design: Alex Reeves
Drums: Michael Johnson
Keyboards: Tyler Wood
Video Design & Programming: Grayson Earle
Programming, Visual Effects: Sam Lavigne
Choreography, Performance: Ayano Elson
Performance: Gryphon Rue

 
Thursday May 14th, 7:30pm
FREE!
Doors open at 7:00pm;
first come, first served

at David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, Frieda and Roy Furman Stage
Broadway bet 62nd & 63rd Sts, Manhattan

Co-presented with David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center
 
 
 
Watch the Livestream
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Glass Ghost has been called “elegant compositions of indie pop” by the New Yorker and “weird and mournful, yet highly rhythmic” by Time Out New York. As the product of Eliot Krimsky, Michael Johnson, and Tyler Wood’s mutual trust, vision, and relentless attention to every detail, their latest album LYFE masterfully blends airy, melancholy, and chilly atmospherics with Glass Ghost’s irresistible bottom-heavy grooves and hooky pop sensibilities. westernvinyl.com/artists/glass-ghost
 
Eliot Krimsky (concept, keyboards, voice) is a co-founder and lead singer of the band Glass Ghost, a film-composer and media artist. In addition to his work with Glass Ghost, Krimsky’s film compositions have been featured at festivals such as Sundance, South By Southwest and the Atlanta Film Festival. Krimsky has also collaborated with artist/dancer/musician Steven Reker for the American Songbook Series at Lincoln Center, co-wrote the score for choreographer Beth Gill’s Portrait Study for premier at the LIVE IDEAS festival on a shared bill with Laurie Anderson, and played with Here We Go Magic and Luke Temple. After receiving a B.A. from Tufts University in American Studies and a B.A from New England Conservatory of Music in jazz performance, Krimsky moved to New York and co-founded the art-pop band Flying which was active from 2004-2008.
 
Alex Reeves (concept, design) is currently the Creative Technology Developer for contemporary theater hub Performance Space 122. His production design is on display in his short film, music video and commercial collaborations with the directing team Peking. Recently he has been focused on creating immersive live visuals and web experiences for a number of artists including Glass Ghost, Here We Go Magic, Kate Nash, and Caveman. His portfolio is on display at at Moonpool.info.
 
Michael Johnson (drums) is a drummer, co-founder of Glass Ghost, composer, and current member of band Dirty Projectors. His unique style of drumming can be heard distinctly on many recordings including Glass Ghost’s Idol Omen and Lyfe, Luke Temple’s Good Mood Fool and Aerial East’s Rooms. Johnson also played in the band Flying with Glass Ghost member and long-time collaborator Eliot Krimsky.
 
Tyler Wood (keyboards) was born and raised in the northeast corner of the U.S. Although Presque Isle, Maine is known more for its potatoes and skidoos, he had a rich musical upbringing and nurturing teachers. His first instruments were piano, trumpet, and cardboard-box drums. When Tyler went off to college, his plan to study astrophysics was virtually eclipsed by the purchase of a real drum-set and a new-found love for hip-hop and recording. The campus had a dingy basement studio, where he encountered his first reel-to-reel tape machine and his first sampler. Upon arriving in Brooklyn in 2006, he soon began to tour and record with acts such as Luke Temple, Glass Ghost, Chester French, and Joan As Police Woman. During this time, he also built a studio and a parallel career producing, recording, and mixing records. In 2009, Tyler reconnected with an old acquaintance, “T.W.” Therese Workman, to form Oh My Goodness. Their debut album is nearly complete.
 
Grayson Earle (programming, visual effects) Having grown up in the sticks of Northern California without an urban center to interface with, Grayson was left to his own devices and started to teach himself programming early on. Thanks to an extensive cassette collection, punk rock culture laid anchor while studying Film and Media in Orange County before making his way abroad to Argentina and Southeast Asia. With a vague inclination to make politically charged documentary films, Grayson moved to Brooklyn to study in the Integrated Media Arts program at Hunter College. He’s reconciled with computers and feels awash with the opportunities presented by the fruits of the open source and open hardware movements; physical computing, processing, and projection mapping in particular with guerrilla projections, NSA haiku generators, and other nerdy creative endeavors.
 
Sam Lavigne (programming, visual effects) is an artist and programmer based in Brooklyn. His work deals with surveillance, cops, data, and automation. He is the founder of the Stupid Shit No One Needs and Terrible Ideas Hackathon.
 
Ayano Elson (choreography, performance) is a choreographer and designer. She has performed in works by Kim Brandt and Steven Reker at the Kitchen, Invisible Dog, BRIC, Roulette, AUNTS, CATCH, and Lincoln Center, and has presented her own choreography at the New Museum, Gibney Dance, Movement Research, and AUNTS. Ayano graduated from Connecticut College with a dual major in dance and art history, where she studied with David Dorfman, Heidi Henderson, Adele Myers, and Lisa Race. She currently works as a freelance graphic and web designer and is the online manager for the New Museum.
 
Gryphon Rue (performance) is a brooklyn-based songwriter and independent curator. He is currently preparing for the release of Guilt Vacation, his debut album under the pseudonym El Tryptophan, in addition to curating Strange Attractors, a group show at Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, TX, opening Spring 2016.
 An interview with Composer Eliot Krimsky preceding his 2014 RAMP residency:

 
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA’s series include American Songbook, Avery Fisher Career Grants, Free Thursdays at the David Rubenstein Atrium, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Martin E. Segal Awards, Midsummer Night Swing, Mostly Mozart Festival, White Light Festival, and the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and the 11 resident organizations: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the School of American Ballet and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In addition, LCPA led a series of major capital projects, now complete, on behalf of the resident organizations across the campus. For more information, visit lincolncenter.org or aboutlincolncenter.org
 
The David Rubenstein Atrium, a vibrant public visitors’ and discount ticketing facility on Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets is open daily with an array of services for local residents, the general public, and the thousands of people who visit Lincoln Center and the surrounding community every day. Amenities include a ‘wichcraft cafe, a staffed information desk, free WiFi, a 42-foot film screen and media wall, and free performances from national and international artists as well as local performers from the metropolitan area and Lincoln Center’s own resident organizations. Series include Meet the Artist Saturdays, Free Thursdays at the David Rubenstein Atrium, Poet-Linc, and many others.

 LYFE™ is co-presented by the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center and Performance Space 122 (PS122). LYFE™ is commissioned by PS122 with support from the Jerome Foundation and residency support provided by PS122’s inaugural RAMP residency program.

Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith
Dance
Residency dates: March 3-15
Public Showing: March 15, 8pm
at The Chain Theatre 21-28 45th Rd, Long Island City in Queens

Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith make collaborative duet work using a movement process deeply rooted in improvisation. The imaginative texture of the work comes from the duet making truly collaborative decisions; emitting tension and pliability from the interplay of two different minds. A tone of loneliness pervades their work through employing a sparse, intimate, and feminine environment of two bodies in space.

Choreographers: Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith
Sound Design: James Lo

“Alone, Molly Lieber or Eleanor Smith is powerful; together they’re shattering.” – Martha Sherman, Dance View Times

Video Interview coming soon!

Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith have been collaborating since 2006. They produced their first show in 2008 at Triskelion Arts. In 2009, their first evening length work, Blanket, was presented at The Tank. In March of 2012 they premiered Beautiful Bone at The Chocolate Factory Theater, to critical acclaim. An excerpt of Tulip, the pair’s newest work, was commissioned in 2012 through the Judson Now Platform at Danspace Project, and will premiere at Roulette this June. Molly and Eleanor have also been presented by CATCH, Dixon Place, Fridays at Noon at 92Y, LaMaMa, Movement Research at Judson Church, Performance Mix, and Rooftop Dance. The pair’s latest work, Tulip, was nominated for a New York Dance and Performance (BESSIE) Award.
 
Molly Lieber grew up in Pittsburgh and graduated from Connecticut College. She is working on upcoming projects with Juliette Mapp, Anna Sperber, Melinda Ring, and Levi Gonzalez. She recently performed in works by Keely Garfield, Katie Workum, Jen Rosenblit, and Vanessa Anspaugh. Molly was a guest artist at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania this fall and at the East Village Dance Project last year. She previously tutored and taught dance to high school students at the the Harlem Children’s Zone, and was a ninth grade special education teacher at P371K in Brooklyn.
 
Eleanor Smith grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina and graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University. She performed with Juliana F. May/MAYDANCE for five years and currently dances for Vanessa Anspaugh, Ivy Baldwin Dance, Levi Gonzalez, Molly Poerstel, and Katie Workum. Eleanor was a 2010 Fresh Tracks recipient at Dance Theater Workshop and had the pleasure of serving on the panel the following year. In 2012 she was a New York Live Arts Studio Series Artist.
 
James Lo is a composer, sound designer, drummer, and engineer who lives in New York City. His work has been heard in performances throughout the United States, Europe and Japan, in contexts ranging from music concerts, dance concerts, art galleries, clubs, and film. As a composer, he has created scores for choreographers Molly Lieber/Eleanor Smith, Sarah Michelson, Heather Olson, Maria Hassabi, Jennifer Monson, Levi Gonzalez, Ralph Lemon, RoseAnne Spradlin, and Lucy Guerin. He received New York Dance and Performance (BESSIE) Awards for John Jasperse’s furnished/unfurnished and for Donna Uchizono’s State of Heads, and was named one of Treblezine.com’s 50 favorite drummers for his work with the bands Chavez and Live Skull. His electronic and software designs have been used in works by Robert Ashley, Ben Neill, Elizabeth Streb, and David Behrman. As a drummer, he can be heard on recordings by Rhys Chatham, V.A.S.T., Baby Dee, Dax Riggs, Fast Forward, and The Swans.

“Each piece that we make is a choreographic collaboration between the two of us and we are always the only performers. The texture of the work comes from making decisions together; it emits a tension and pliability that results from being extracted and configured between two different minds. Expressing the imaginative realm through movement is our performative challenge, and is supported by the camaraderie and charge of the duet practice we have established. Meanwhile, a tone of loneliness pervades our work. We perform in a sparse, intimate, and feminine environment of just our two bodies.
 
Our process of making dances begins with, and is sustained by, improvisation. We have been improvising together for the last six years. We find moments we value when improvising, cultivate these moments into performative expressions, and then (try to) perform them. Our performances therefore express ideas that were originally understood through movement. They are at once highly imaginative, and simply about being with one another while considering an audience.” – Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith

RAMP is PS122’s new residency program designed to support early-career New York City-based artists by offering a place and space to create ambitious new work. RAMP is a unique residency program which not only provides space but also invaluable technical assistance, commissioning fees and marketing support.

RAMP artists are commissioned by Performance Space 122 with support from a 50th Anniversary Grant from the Jerome Foundation. Additional presentation support provided by Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance and Jerome Robbins Foundation.