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bust: indestructible columns

 
rafa esparza breaks open the stage and creates momentum in two Acts. Act I, a public intervention in the streets of D.C., cuts down and reframes the symbolism of architectures of power. As an artist who considers himself brown and queer, raised by working-class, immigrant parents, esparza seeks to build connections with nontraditional art audiences in communities with similar histories and origins. With his action, esparza addresses the physical foundation that houses a system governed by the 45th president, whose rhetoric has aided in the inhumane violence of separating families, caging children, and detaining adults in intolerable conditions.
 
In Act II, the remains of the performance will be transported back into Performance Space’s theaters. Here, invited collaborators Timo Fahler, Raquel Gutiérrez, Sebastian Hernandez, Risa Puleo, and Yosimar Reyes will share the space with their communities for an eventful public dinner conceived by celebrated chef Gerardo Gonzalez to collectively witness readings that take a cue from the invited artists’ and writers’ respective knowledge, ideas, and experience of change.
 
*ASL will be available, if you have any questions please email boxoffice@PerformanceSpaceNewYork.org.
 

Co-commissioned by Performance Space New York and Ballroom Marfa. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photo by Nacho Nava.

farsa

 
With her work farsa (engl. farce), the Brazilian artist Renata Lucas creates “a theatre that performs itself” generating a montage of space and perception that disarms dynamics of totality. A large hanging curtain that spans across Performance Space’s main theatre—within which two smaller curtains are embedded—rotates and opens up passageways when activated by the viewer. As bodies move through the work, their limbs appear as disembodied pieces cutting through perceived truths and assumptions, leaving us in a state of farcical reality where nothing is static or stable. With farsa, Lucas alludes to the current political situation in Brazil, where totalitarian currents attempt to reshape rights and liberties and disembody established values and moral systems. 
 

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

© Renata Lucas. Courtesy the artist and Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo; A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro; neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Marathon Reading of Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa

 
Related Event: First Mondays: Readings of New Works in Progress Organized by Sarah Schulman
 
With Shellyne Rodriguez, Charles Rice-González and Norma Cantú
 
With her groundbreaking work, first published in 1987, Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004) established the Mexican-American border as a metaphor for different types of transgressions—racial, sexual, social, and cultural. The work was radical not only because it was one of the first popular writings by a Chicana feminist who also publicly claimed her lesbianism, but it was also new in form and language, switching between essay and poetry, English, Mexican, Spanish, and Indigenous dialects. “Chicano Spanish is not approved by any society. But we no longer feel that we need to beg for entrance. today we ask to be met halfway.” Borderlands/La Frontera has become an iconic foundational text for Ethnic Studies, Women’s Studies, and Queer Latino Studies. On May 15, 2004, Gloria Anzaldúa passed away at the age of only 61 from complications due to diabetes. In 2012, 25 years after its publication, the work was banned from being read, taught, or disseminated in public schools by the Tucson Unified School system, in an effort to stifle Mexican-American studies. The reality is that in 2019, Anzaldúa’s writings are still painfully relevant as the current administration escalates violence against and incarceration of Central Americans at the U.S. border.
 
Performance Space New York’s Marathon Readings, organized by Sarah Schulman, shares important, influential, and experimental work by women who have passed away, to collectively remember their words. Previous readings were: Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker and DICTEE by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.
 

Photo courtesy of Aunt Lute Books. Cover art by Pamela Wilson.

Circle

 
Gutierrez invites you to enter into a secret holding laboratory for what can only be assumed is a dangerous creature. Held captive in a secret cryogenic facility, Eve—named by her creator, Dr. Red—is the first humanoid to be bioengineered with reanimated alien DNA discovered in the Mayan cave Xibalba, or “place of fear,” believed to be the mouth of the underworld. Will Eve be the key to humanity’s evolution, or its undoing?

 

Gutierrez says, “The most real and profound boundaries are those we impose upon ourselves.” Eve, this creature in captivity may be commenting on Gutierrez’s self-perceived otherness, but it also exposes the audience to their own insecurities and prejudices.
 

Protective cover-wear will be provided upon entry.

 

Commissioned by Performance Space New York. This project is supported in part by a grant from the Jerome Foundation.

Untitled, The Black Act

Kia LaBeija’s first large scale performance work engages with Oskar Schlemmer’s early Bauhaus ballet piece Das triadische Ballett, a dance in three acts. LaBeija reinterprets the final, so called Black Act which relates to fantasy, mysticism, and the infinite void of the black stage. LaBeija proposes a contemporary interpretation, inserting herself as an artist working with numerous disciplines—including dance, portraiture, and performance—to investigate space, memory and personal history. Schlemmer’s extravagant costumes deliberately limited the dancers’ freedom of movement. Bodies became walking architectural structures unable to move with autonomous ease. Now, LaBeija responds and repositions Schlemmer’s critique by expanding his stage, searching for being, belonging, freedom, and wholeness.

Contemporary costumes designed in collaboration with Kyle Luu, with live music score by Kenn Michael featuring Warren Benbow.

Disclaimer:
The Estate of Oskar Schlemmer has not approved or licensed Untitled, The Black Act.

(Untitled) The Black Act is co-commissioned with Performa and Performance Space New York and co-produced with The Josie Club – Mickalene Thomas, Racquel Chevremont, Jet Toomer and Nina Chanel Abney. Additional support provided by Abigail Pucker, Victoria Rogers, Jane Wesman and the Performa Commissioning Fund. This project is supported in part by a grant from the Jerome Foundation. Special thanks to Swarovski.

Assistant Movement Director and Creative Producer, Taína Larot. Featuring Daniella Agosto, Selena Ettienne, Khristina Cayetano, Terry Lovette, and Taína Larot.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

All rights reserved by Performance Space New York
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