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Kiki Ball

 
In 1993, the AIDS Service Center NYC (now Alliance for Positive Change) opened its Lower East Side Drop-In Center in the same building as Performance Space 122. Among the locals impacted by HIV/AIDS—the population the organization supports—are many young LGBTQ people of color who are members of the Kiki scene.
 
Emerging out of the historical House/Ballroom community, the Kiki scene is a highly organized and creative youth-led organization. It centers around so-called houses, with complex kinship structures, that function as vital support systems—support systems that the government and biological families often fail to provide. The underground scene is best known for its lavish balls, where performers present their unique looks and movement styles, competing in different categories for their respective houses. Kiki Ball celebrates 25 years of neighborship between Alliance for Positive Change and Performance Space New York, and the shared believe that community and performative expression can save lives.
 

This event was made possible with support from the Howard Gilman Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Them

 
The AIDS epidemic had a devastating, lasting impact on the downtown artist community. Some of Performance Space New York’s most influential artists (John Bernd, Ethyl Eichelberger, Ron Vawter, David Wojnarowicz among many others) died prematurely, leaving a gaping hole in this community and a subsequent generation without important mentorship. When Ishmael Houston-Jones first started working on THEM at Performance Space 122 in 1985, with a text by Dennis Cooper and a cacophonous live electric guitar score by Chris Cochrane, it was intended to be a poetic and frank coming-of-age story of gay men. By the time it was first premiered here in 1986, AIDS was ravaging queer communities, and the artists felt it would be disingenuous not to address it in the work. They consequently included coded allusions to the epidemic and turned THEM into one of the most haunting pieces of art that came out of the early AIDS years.
 
*Post-Show Talk with Visual AIDS on June 27.
 

Conceived, directed, and performed by Chris Cochrane, Dennis Cooper, Ishmael Houston-Jones

Featuring Alvaro Gonzalez Dupuy, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Michael Parmelee, Jeremy Pheiffer, Kensaku Shinohara, Michael Watkiss, and Hentyle Yapp

Them was made possible with support from the Jerome Robbins Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Training Facility

Organized by Arianna Gil
 
By the 1990s, the area around the Astor Place Cube was an epicenter of skateboarding culture. Arianna Gil of the feminist art collective BRUJAS, whose founding members were born and raised on the Lower East Side, remembers her first skateboarding adventures in the neighborhood’s many empty lots, most of which have now been developed. To compensate for Manhattan’s limited skateboarding opportunities in 2018, BRUJAS (Robin Giordani, Antonia Perez, Tabby Wakes, Sarah Snider, Ripley Soprano, Myles Sales, Taj Williams, Orlando Gil, Miles Giordani) invites industrial designer Jonathan Olivares to build a skate park in Performance Space New York’s new theater. People with a passion for skateboarding and radical politics are invited to join open skate sessions and sign up for collaborative peer-based workshops.
 
Schedule

8pm – 1am

BRUJAS hosts their third annual Anti-Prom, as part of Red Bull Music Festival New York. 18+, no social media, and the dance floor is phone free zone. Featuring: Young M.A, La Gooney Chonga, Killavesi, Tabby Wakes, Slim Poppins, Sly C, Gods Wisdom, No Intimate, gnarianna, Flex Lang, Cofaxx

Open Skate | 12pm – 4pm
Workshop | 4pm – 6pm
Direct Action gets the goods

Organized by LJ Amsterdam
Direct Action is the practice of organizing each other to live as though we were already free. Together we’ll build a brave space to practice tactics for civil disobedience, strategies for community defense, and ways to use our bodies to build power.

Open Skate | 12pm – 6pm

Open Skate | 12pm – 6pm

Open Skate | 12pm – 6pm

Performance | 4pm – 6pm
Zhe Zhe Live
Zhe Zhe, the fictional band from the cult web series Zhe Zhe, plays live. Zhe Zhe is Ruby McCollister as Mona Deliza, Leah Hennessey as Jean D’Arc and Emily Allan as Chewie Swindleburne.

Open Skate | 12pm – 6pm

Open Skate | 12pm – 4pm
Workshop | 4pm – 6pm
Advanced DJ Seminar W/ A-Trak
Organized by A-Trak
If you have some experience DJing, come hang for an advanced learning session with A-Trak, one of the world’s premier battle DJs and founder of Fool’s Gold Records.

Open Skate | 12pm – 6pm

Open Skate | 12pm – 6pm

Open Skate | 12pm – 4pm
Workshop | 4pm – 6pm
Herban Cura: Dyeing with Flowers, Bugs and Bark
Organized by Ana Ratner
Advance registration required
Learn the basics of nature-based dyeing. We will play with different fabrics, mordants, and dyes including indigo, cochineal, osage orange, and more. We will provide strips of fabric, but participants should come with clothing or fabric they are interested in dyeing (only cotton, bamboo, linen, flax, hemp, wool, or silk blends)

Open Skate | 12pm – 4pm
Workshop | 4pm – 6pm
BRUJAS SS18 Collection: Seize Bellevue
Hosted by Emily Allan, Ripley Soprano, Isaac Madison, Arianna Gil
Brujas will host a conversation around their latest SS18 Collection, Seize Bellevue, which calls for a compassionate and radical re-conception of one of our more insidious carceral institutions – the pharmaceutical industry and mental health crisis system.

BRUJAS’ Training Facility was made possible with lead support from our corporate sponsor Red Bull as well as New York City & Company Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. This project was funded in part by a Humanities New York Action Grant.

Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!

Penny Arcade is the undisputed queen of downtown performance, and Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! is her biggest hit. A freedom of speech rallying cry, the raucous sex and censorship show premiered at Performance Space 122 in 1990 during the height of the culture wars, when ultra-conservative politicians pressured the National Endowment for the Arts into defunding artists who made work that was considered “offensive to the average person.” Deeply invested in the political role of art, Arcade sees a need to reassess the subject matter of censorship now—especially the “self-censorship coming from the left in the form of political correctness in today’s culture.”
 

Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! was made possible with support from the Axe-Houghton Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Shubert Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

CLUB

The Lower East Side in the early 1980s teemed with live performance, happening within a vibrant network of clubs. For CLUB, Philadelphia-based artist and curator Tiona Nekkia McClodden creates a performative installation that references distinct elements of present and past LES clubs, activated by a dense schedule of sound installations, performances, talks, and dance parties. McClodden, who will be present during opening hours, is interested in the liminal potential of night clubs, i.e. their ability to temporarily dissolve rules that govern our everyday lives and allow people from different backgrounds to interact more freely. In that respect, CLUB is less nostalgia for an irrecoverable era than it is a blueprint for Performance Space New York’s future.
 
Organized by Tiona Nekkia McClodden
Featuring Hassan Rahim & Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste
 
Schedule

6 – 8pm

12 – 6pm
Open to everyone

Memberships are priced at $15 and come with a limited edition card along with access to special events, drinks, and more. Members will be able to buy and pick-up their membership card for the duration of the day. Limited to 300.

3 – 6pm
Free for Members | $5

Tiona Nekkia McClodden engages in a discussion with DJ Justin Strauss on the conceptual framework around the creation of his DJ sets. Followed by a 60-90 min. set by the DJ.

6 – 8pm
Free for Members | $3

Tiona Nekkia McClodden in conversation with drag historian, Joe E. Jeffreys, about his significant collection of Club ephemera focusing on Drag Clubs from the 1950s onward. A special presentation of these archival selections and flyers are highlighted within CLUB.

6 – 8pm
Free for Members | $3

Tiona Nekkia McClodden will be in discussion with Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson (co-founder of Discwoman) on her efforts alongside the Dance Liberation Network which she co-founded to lead the fight in the repeal of The Cabaret Law last fall of 2017. The Cabaret Law was originally used to target black jazz clubs and musicians in New York City and also led to the closure of many frequented LES nightclubs in the early 80s. Featuring a multimedia presentation of ephemera documenting Hutchinson’s efforts that will take takes over the CLUB projectors.

3 – 6pm
Free for Members | $5

Tiona Nekkia McClodden will have a discussion with DJ SHYBOI on how she thinks about the construction of a DJ Set. This discussion will be followed by a 60-90 min. set by DJ SHYBOI.

6 – 8pm
Free for Members | $5

Tiona Nekkia McClodden in conversation with the team behind Papi Juice, an art collective composed of DJ/producers Oscar Nñ and Adam Rhodes, and illustrator Mohammed Fayaz that aims to celebrate the lives of queer and trans people of color. A special presentation of ephemera from past parties takesover the CLUB projectors.

12 – 8pm
Members rate| $5 | $7 – $10 for general public

Haute Sauce is a Brooklyn-based female collective celebrating black and brown culture by creating spaces that support cultural and creative inclusivity. Tiona Nekkia McClodden engages in a 45min discussion with the ladies behind Haute Sauce about their beginnings as a party, their current mission and where they hope they can take their party in the future.

12 – 6pm
Members rate | $5 | $7 – $10 for general public
21+

Tiona Nekkia McClodden invites BDSM educator/practitioner/ritualist and sex work activist Yin Q to screen their web series Mercy Mistress and to take over the space with their BDSM party KINK OUT. Strict social media ban during this takeover.

8pm

CLUB welcomes BRUJAS to take over the space as they host their third annual Anti-Prom, as part of Red Bull Music Festival New York. No social media and 18+. Line-up announced soon

12 – 3pm | 4 – 6pm | Open to everyone

Tiona Nekkia McClodden invite a select group of DJs who play exclusively on vinyl to provide the music for the day.

3pm | Open to everyone

Artist Talk with Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Hassan Rahim, and Jeremy Toussaint Baptiste.

CLUB was made possible with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Howard Gilman Foundation, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

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