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A new work by 2024 Artist-in-Residence Hans, Night Creatures is a love letter to all the men I have coiled my body around, to a love-hate relationship with New York, and to a constant wrestling match with a flamenco practice. A vespertine rumination of sexuality – from moonrise to sunrise – and the hunger, yearning, and fear that comes with being in love and lust of other male bodies. The work is also a technical exploration, having spent the residency year learning how to compose music using electronic, MIDI, and digital audio workspaces – composed while commuting through the vascular undergrounds of the NYC subway. The work is cradled by flamenco, using musical modes, movements, rhythms, melodies, and ideas, but deconstructs them to reflect a lived experience as a queer, fat-femme boy from the lush tropical fever-dream of Miami, living in NYC’s sticky, grimy, urban, angsty landscape. What does it feel like to dance House por Bulerias, move to the Fandangos of the L Train, and sing Tangos de Bushwick?

The performance will be followed by a conversation with Hans facilitated by leaders in the flamenco community on the nature of experimentation, orthodoxy, and framework of flamenco, and how it changes when it reflects non-Spanish folklore and experiences.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Hans is a dancer and tattoo artist from Miami, FL with a practice focused on dance as visual art. They have shared work with audiences in Florida and held artistic residencies in NYC. Hans has also participated in projects by Katy Pyle’s Ballez, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Peter Born. Hans describes himself and his work as the “gay lovechild of Frida Kahlo and Sailor Neptune’s lesbian love affair.”

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Qubit’s 2024 Innovator Lab artist-in-residence is the Zurich-based American composer Rama Gottfried. We’re teaming up with the PinkNoise ensemble, spending a week at CPR to workshop a variety of new pieces that involve video, puppetry, and costumes – promising to encompass the true spirit of a Halloween event. Qubit artistic director Alec Hall will join Rama to perform in several pieces, with costume design by Sally Rumble.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rama Gottfried's recent works aim to increase our sensitivity to the web of relations that connect humans and the other animate and inanimate entities that surround us. His pieces are conceived as scenographic worlds — bodies with voices that move and interact in physical and immaterial environments, constructed from the medias of acoustic and electronic instrumental performance, puppet-, object-, material-theater, live-cinema, and the site-specific performance context. Brought to life through the collaborative actions of human and nonhuman performers, the works attempt to absorb the audience and physical space, subtly expanding our awareness of detail. Born in New York in 1977, Rama grew up in Burlington, VT, where he began instrumental and electronic music training at an early age, and pursued visual art studies before shifting focus to music performance and composition. After moving to NYC in 2001, he joined Ensemble Pamplemousse, collaborating with the group from 2003-2013 on developing approaches to the merging of sound, installation, and performance arts. Rama's works have been featured at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, MaerzMusik, SPOR, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, MATA, Klangwerkstatt, rainy days, and Ultima festivals, among others, and he has created sound installations for the Berliner Congress Center, Complice, Mino Washi Paper Museum, Stadtbad-Wedding, and the Pacific Basin Building.

PinkNoise is a New York-based chamber ensemble dedicated to musical improvisation and compositions in acoustic and electronic mediums. Their upcoming season includes appearances at the Kontrapunkt series in St. Gallen, Switzerland and as the Ensemble-in-Residence at the 2025 Music Biennale Zagreb in Croatia. 

Qubit is a contemporary music and performance art initiative founded in 2010. Based in NYC, its principal mission is to foster the development of emergent voices by working with composers whose work has yet to reach wider audiences. We place a particular emphasis on the exploration of new technologies in performance practice, sonic aesthetics, and public engagement.

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Jeonmonori is an extension of a musical practice that 2024 Artist-in-Residence Leo Chang has been immersed in for the past six years, drawing on Korean folk musical practices and instruments as the basis for building new electronic instruments. The jeonmonori is an electronic adaptation of the sangmo, a hat with a long, spinning whip made of ribbon attached to its crown, which is worn and played during the sangmonori, a Korean folk tradition where the instrumentalist/performer plays and dances simultaneously with their percussion instrument. During his CPR residency, Chang created the jeonmonori by modifying a sangmo hat, replacing the spinning ribbon with a lightweight, mini microphone. While wearing the hat, he moves in the middle of four hanging gongs that are amplified with transducers. The act of the mic moving within the amplified gongs creates feedback between the transducers and the mic-ed hat-whip, resonating the gongs, while Chang’s position and the speed at which the whip is spinning, among other factors, determines musical variables of feedback such as pitch, rhythm, and dynamics.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Leo Chang is a Korean improviser, composer, and performer of experimental music. Born in Seoul, Leo lived as an expat in Singapore, Taipei, and Shanghai, until moving to the United States in 2011. His art is an act of homemaking inspired by various musical and ideological movements that have sought to question power dynamics and imagine egalitarian possibilities. His primary methods are free improvisation, written text, graphical notation, and electronic processing. Leo's projects have been presented and supported by the Vision Festival, Roulette Intermedium, Korea Foundation, Ostrava Days New Music Festival, New York City Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, Brooklyn Arts Council, and EMPAC at Rensselaer, among others. He holds a PhD in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. www.listentoleo.com

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With limited individual time slots available, we ask that you fully commit to the time that you register for. If you are not able to make it, please let us know as soon as possible so we can release the time to another participant. If all time slots are taken, please email info@cprnyc.org with the subject “Waiting List: Aural Archiving” and we will reach out if a time becomes available.


As part of Yanira Castro / a canary torsi’s multisite, multi-format public art project Exorcism = Liberation and in conjunction with the installation on view in the windows of CPR from September 25 through November 6, this aural archiving project will gather participants’ foundational memories of earth in an intimate, analog recording session. Responding to the prompt “What is your first memory of dirt?”, one of the project’s slogans and sound works that will be carried across the U.S. this fall on stickers, pins, lawn signs, and handmade banners during a critical American election season, participants will be guided through a private experience of listening, contemplation, and memory, recounting their first memories of dirt on a cassette tape recorder.

Participants will sign up for an individual 20-minute time slot and engage in an autonomous recording experience. Tea and cookies will be served.

OPEN LAB invites artists and scholars to facilitate theoretical discussions and embodied workshops, providing a platform for practice-based inquiry and creative exchange.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Yanira Castro's work is rooted in communal construction as a rehearsal for radical democracy. She is an interdisciplinary artist born in Borikén (Puerto Rico), living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn), and working at the intersection of communal practices, performance, installation, and interactive technology. Castro forms iterative, multimodal projects that center land, and the complexity of citizenship and governance in works activated and performed by the public. Since 2009, she’s created and performed with a team of collaborators as a canary torsi. Her recent work includes a performance manual for reckoning, Last Audience, a performance manual; a participatory podcast to rehearse for a collective future, Last Audience: a performance podcast; and a tea ritual created with four teens from NYC Girl Scouts Troop 6000 to enact the ingestion of home/land, TIERRA. Currently, Castro is developing her ongoing interdisciplinary work, I came here to weep, a collective exorcism for territorial possession. Castro has been commissioned and presented by The Chocolate Factory Theater, New York Live Arts, MCA Chicago, The Invisible Dog Art Center, SPACE Gallery, PICA, LMCC, The Bates Dance Festival and ICA/Boston. Her work has recently been supported by Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for Dance, 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Art, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, LMCC, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Marble House Project. She has received two New York Dance and Performance (aka Bessie) Awards for Outstanding Production.

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This group conversation facilitated by Lena Engelstein will center Juliana F. May’s choreographic process over the last 20 years as she embarks on her current work Optimistic Voices premiering in the fall of 2025. Inspired by May’s ongoing Art Group workshops which generate community around making, all are welcome and are invited to participate by listening, asking questions, and bringing their own issues surrounding creative process, autobiography, and performance and setting material.

OPEN LAB invites artists and scholars to facilitate theoretical discussions and embodied workshops, providing a platform for practice-based inquiry and creative exchange.

Optimistic Voices is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

A Guggenheim and New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, Juliana F. May has created ten evening length works since 2002 with commissions and encore performances from Dance Theater Workshop, New York Live Arts, The Chocolate Factory Theater, American Realness, and Abrons Arts Center. May has been awarded grants and residencies through The MAP Fund, NYSCA, Jerome Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Gibney Dance In Process, and Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. In 2002, May received her BA in Dance and Art History from Oberlin College, and, in 2012, she received an MFA in Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. May served as the Artistic Advisor for New York Live Arts' Fresh Tracks Residency Program from 2017-2019 and 2024-present and has been on faculty at Sarah Lawrence College since 2017.

Lena Engelstein is a dancer, performer, and choreographer. She is part of the interdisciplinary performance collective CHILD, headed by Lisa Fagan. Her work has been dubbed “The High Weird” by critics and lauded as “subtly campy and hilariously queer” by The Brooklyn Rail. Recent Choreography/Direction includes Deepe Darknesse at New York Live Arts’ Live Artery 2024 with collaborator Lisa Fagan and CHILD's 1-800-3592-113592 at Theater Mitu in March 2024. Recent performance credits include Alexa West, Barnett Cohen, Brendan Drake, Falcon Dance (company member, 2018-present), Isa Spector, Jo Warren, Owen Prum + Lili Dekker, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, and Third Rail Company’s Then She Fell (company member, 2019-2020). Engelstein currently choreographs for and performs with the band Lou Tides. She holds a BA in Mathematics from Colorado College and has taught at SUNY Brockport, Colorado Mesa University, Bard College, and The Field Center. 

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Tues, October 22 at 7 P.M.
Weds, October 23 at 7 P.M.


Endless Holes is a shared evening of new work in development by 2024 Artists-in-Residence Rebecca Patek, Alex Rodabaugh, and Anh Vo. Each work is a continuation of the artist’s research in multi-part or iterative performance projects: Rebecca Patek revisits Tough Titties, exploring depolarization, binary fatigue, and mystic shorelines; Alex Rodabaugh seeks to close their Break-Up Tunnel Vision Infinity project with a deep dive into nostalgia, cyberspace avatar puppetry, paranoia, and denial; and Anh Vo builds on their ongoing research into northern Vietnamese possession ritual, exploring the pussy as an energetic channel that can tune into the existential pain of others.


PROGRAM

Rebecca Patek: Tough Titties 2: View from the Other End
An offering towards the effort around depolarization. We are for and against each other, for or against objects, ideas, realities. The binary fatigue of thinking and feeling can lead us to venture further than we might otherwise travel. We seek a mystic shoreline that is spoken of, that is rumored, but can we find it? What do we have to lose? What do we have to do to get there? Can I get there? Can you? Can we? I have many questions clearly but basically I am trying and that's the best I can do.

Alex Rodabaugh: n-1
Looking for a path forward to close the Break-Up Tunnel Vision Infinity project and embrace the community that embraces me. The nth edition delves into the nostalgia that is colonizing our future, cyberspace avatar puppetry colliding with physical presence, and the paranoia or denial that arises from the perpetual threat of and participation in violence.

Anh Vo: pussy talks
pussy talks builds on Anh Vo's ongoing research into northern Vietnamese possession ritual, exploring the pussy as an energetic channel that can tune into the existential pain of others. 


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rebecca Patek has created over twenty original performances. Her work is an amalgamation of comedy, theater, and dance. She is a 2024 CPR Artist-in-Residence, and was an Artist-in-Residence at Movement Research, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Fresh Tracks at New York Live Arts. Her work has been presented at MoMa PS1, The Kitchen, Impulstanz Vienna (Prix Jardin D’Europe Fan Award 2014), Museum of Arts and Design, The Chocolate Factory Theater, Abrons Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research at Judson Church, BAX, Triple Canopy, Prelude Festival, Performance Mix Festival, and Dixon Place, among many others. As a performer, she was most recently thrilled to appear in work by Ryan Mcnamara, and can currently be caught honing her skills at open mics around NYC.

Alex Rodabaugh is a choreographer, dancer, and performer from Lima, OH (Shawnee territory), based in NYC (Lenapehoking). Alex's work has been shown at Movement Research at Judson Church, Draftworks at Danspace, Double Plus at Gibney, PRELUDE, American Realness, and Dance and Process at The Kitchen. Alex most recently performed in Rebecca Patek’s Tough Titties. Alex has performed in works by artists such as Moriah Evans, Simone Forti, Tess Dworman, Miguel Gutierrez, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Doug LeCours, Derek Smith, and Bailey Williams, among others, including two Bessie Award-winning performances. Alex is also a Treasurer/Co-Founder of Dance Artists’ National Collective and a current Artist-in-Residence at CPR – Center for Performance Research. www.alexrodabaugh.work.

Anh Vo is a Vietnamese choreographer and writer working primarily in NYC, with a second base in Hanoi. Their practice fleshes out the body as a vessel for apparitional forces. Their work is situated in the unlikely lineage convergences between Downtown New York experimental dance, queer and feminist performance art, and Vietnamese folk ritual practices. Their formal training is in Performance Studies, studying with theorists and practitioners at Brown University (BA) and New York University (MA).

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Tues, October 22 at 7 P.M.
Weds, October 23 at 7 P.M.


Endless Holes is a shared evening of new work in development by 2024 Artists-in-Residence Rebecca Patek, Alex Rodabaugh, and Anh Vo. Each work is a continuation of the artist’s research in multi-part or iterative performance projects: Rebecca Patek revisits Tough Titties, exploring depolarization, binary fatigue, and mystic shorelines; Alex Rodabaugh seeks to close their Break-Up Tunnel Vision Infinity project with a deep dive into nostalgia, cyberspace avatar puppetry, paranoia, and denial; and Anh Vo builds on their ongoing research into northern Vietnamese possession ritual, exploring the pussy as an energetic channel that can tune into the existential pain of others.


PROGRAM

Rebecca Patek: Tough Titties 2: View from the Other End
An offering towards the effort around depolarization. We are for and against each other, for or against objects, ideas, realities. The binary fatigue of thinking and feeling can lead us to venture further than we might otherwise travel. We seek a mystic shoreline that is spoken of, that is rumored, but can we find it? What do we have to lose? What do we have to do to get there? Can I get there? Can you? Can we? I have many questions clearly but basically I am trying and that's the best I can do.

Alex Rodabaugh: 🕳n-1🕳
Looking for a path forward to close the Break-Up Tunnel Vision Infinity project and embrace the community that embraces me. The nth edition delves into the nostalgia that is colonizing our future, cyberspace avatar puppetry colliding with physical presence, and the paranoia or denial that arises from the perpetual threat of and participation in violence.

Anh Vo: pussy talks
pussy talks builds on Anh Vo's ongoing research into northern Vietnamese possession ritual, exploring the pussy as an energetic channel that can tune into the existential pain of others. 


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rebecca Patek has created over twenty original performances. Her work is an amalgamation of comedy, theater, and dance. She is a 2024 CPR Artist-in-Residence, and was an Artist-in-Residence at Movement Research, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Fresh Tracks at New York Live Arts. Her work has been presented at MoMa PS1, The Kitchen, Impulstanz Vienna (Prix Jardin D’Europe Fan Award 2014), Museum of Arts and Design, The Chocolate Factory Theater, Abrons Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research at Judson Church, BAX, Triple Canopy, Prelude Festival, Performance Mix Festival, and Dixon Place, among many others. As a performer, she was most recently thrilled to appear in work by Ryan Mcnamara, and can currently be caught honing her skills at open mics around NYC.

Alex Rodabaugh is a choreographer, dancer, and performer from Lima, OH (Shawnee territory), based in NYC (Lenapehoking). Alex's work has been shown at Movement Research at Judson Church, Draftworks at Danspace, Double Plus at Gibney, PRELUDE, American Realness, and Dance and Process at The Kitchen. Alex most recently performed in Rebecca Patek’s Tough Titties. Alex has performed in works by artists such as Moriah Evans, Simone Forti, Tess Dworman, Miguel Gutierrez, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Doug LeCours, Derek Smith, and Bailey Williams, among others, including two Bessie Award-winning performances. Alex is also a Treasurer/Co-Founder of Dance Artists’ National Collective and a current Artist-in-Residence at CPR – Center for Performance Research. www.alexrodabaugh.work.

Anh Vo is a Vietnamese choreographer and writer working primarily in NYC, with a second base in Hanoi. Their practice fleshes out the body as a vessel for apparitional forces. Their work is situated in the unlikely lineage convergences between Downtown New York experimental dance, queer and feminist performance art, and Vietnamese folk ritual practices. Their formal training is in Performance Studies, studying with theorists and practitioners at Brown University (BA) and New York University (MA).

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cocoon is a new work in development by 2024 Artist-in-Residence Ariana Speight which journeys through metamorphosis defined as a transformative transition, and is a continual introduction to the inner workings of self through the shifting of form. With a multidimensional and interactive framework incorporating storytelling, [love] notes, questions/queries, movement, and stagnation, cocoon uncovers what hinders and what supports during the process of emergence.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ariana Speight is a contemporary dance artist invested in researching the curiosities of life through various mediums. Originally from Los Angeles and currently based in Brooklyn, she has worked with a number of artists including Kayla Farrish, Joanna Kotze, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Kyle Marshall, Anna Sperber, and Jessie Young. Her freelance journey has led her to perform at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), Chelsea Factory, Coffey Street, Dancewave, Lincoln Center Hearst Plaza, New York Live Arts, PAGEANT, Roulette Intermedium, The Shed, The Space at Irondale, The Tank, Webster Hall, among other venues in New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania. She is a BFA graduate from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and is a certified Yoga and Pilates instructor where she continues to nurture her teaching practice.


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CARRIERS explores themes of guilt, failure, and shame as embodied experiences passed down through generations, shaped by systemic shifts, crisis, or personal tragedies. Through a blend of choreography, language, and sound, it examines the tension between giving in and giving up in post-capitalistic instability of not quite falling through the cracks.

*** Quels sont ces corps, fatigués mais pas prêts de s'abandonner?


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Sophia Seiss is a choreographer, dancer, and performer based both in Marseille and Berlin. Her work investigates in a constant research on how improvisation with sound, text and movement inform one another and prepare a body of honesty and fragility, tenderness and roughness. She has collaborated with with divers Artists in and outside of Europe such as Marina Abramovic, Katie Duck, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Pol Pi, and the choir Glossa. CARRIERS is an adaptation of her latest piece REST HERE. HOPE DO. that premiered in Montpellier, France in 2024. 

Wibke Storkan is a freelance contemporary dancer, choreographer, dance facilitator, and dance/movement therapist based in Berlin. In her work, the human body, its relationships and communication play a central role. Different approaches and methods of bodywork interweave in her artistic research and therapeutic practice. She has collaborated in numerous projects, a.o. with Sasha Waltz & Guests, Stefan Kaegi / Rimini Protokoll, Theater Strahl, Saskia Oidtmann, Florian Bilbao, Yotam Peled, and Judith Sánchez Ruíz/JSR Company.

Axine M is the moniker of Maxine de las Pozas, a music artist residing in Brooklyn, NY, and a vessel for musical inquiries and creative impulses across multiple genres and sentiments, carving out a space for itself against the grain of the dystopian imaginary. Her recently released tape USUSUSESESERERER is a songwriterly exploration of interpersonal relationships under late-capitalism. Maxine currently is Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room, and a collective member and sound engineer for Chaos Computer.


ABOUT CONTAINER

Container NYC is a temporary, non-profit space in Chinatown, Manhattan, run by artists Anna Budniewski & Michael Dikta. container-nyc.com

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*Advance tickets for this program are sold out. An in-person wait list will open at 7:00 P.M.

Organized by independent curator Alessandra Gómez, this program showcases three innovative performances that blend humor and critical social commentary, with each artist approaching their work through clowning, drag performance, or a combination of both—each form having its own distinct and rich history. Amando Houser’s DeliaDelia! is comedic performance inspired by the "witch hunt" against trans rights in America. Reed Rushes’ Twilight Zone is a drag king performance exploring birthing, domesticity, and consumption from a queer masculine perspective and MTHR TRSA’s I DON’T THINK THAT WAS MOLLY takes us on a conversational journey between inner demons, the MTA, and RuPaul. Together, these three artists illustrate how humor can serve as a powerful tool for social commentary in contemporary performance.


OPEN STUDIOS is a series of work-in-progress showings held regularly throughout the year, organized by guest curators, and serves as an incubator for new work, inviting the public into the artistic process.

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PROGRAM

Amando Houser: DeliaDelia! The Flat Chested Witch!
DeliaDelia! The Flat Chested Witch! is a solo comedic clown hour inspired by the “witch hunt” on trans rights in America. DeliaDelia is a witch from the swamps who happens to be as nasty on the eyes as she is on the basketball court. On a quest to become a “real girl” and fit into the human world to play for a team. Will she finally get to display her talents and become the greatest of all time? Or be cursed forever and turned into a serpent?

Created and performed by Amando Houser
Directed by Kedian Keohan

Research and development support from Fisher Center LAB, the Fisher Center at Bard‘s residency and commissioning program.

Reed Rushes: Twilight Zone
As night falls the living room is cast in an unfamiliar hum blue. Darkness grows the TV light, which flickers brighter casting shadows that lick the living room floor, sofa, walls. Edges begin to take new forms, shifting. Half asleep, sound distorts. From the TV, from this room, (“things get strange at night”) from this half light, Stan’s world unfolds…

Twilight Zone takes inspiration from films that explore female hysteria and body horror. Channeling the voices of both hysterical women and rebel boy icons from classic Hollywood body horror thriller movies, Rushes presents a drag king performance that examines birthing, domesticity, and consumption from a queer masculine perspective. Using drag, abstract movement, and theatrical costumes made by Kate Williams Twilight Zone is a humorous, surprising and emotionally moving experience.

MTHR TRSA: I DON’T THINK THAT WAS MOLLY
I DON’T THINK THAT WAS MOLLY reflects the collective experience of those who feel like they can never slow down, no matter how desperately they need to. It’s a disorienting energy of modern life, where nothing feels tangible or secure, and every attempt to grasp onto something is met with uncertainty. The chaotic rhythm of NYC heightens this dissonance, making us question if we are in control, or simply SPIRALING. The struggle to hold onto anything — a routine, money, stability, trans healthcare — feels increasingly futile as everything slips through our fingers, evoking a sense of panic and helplessness.

As the line between pleasure and paranoia blurs, we ask ourselves, “Was that actually Molly we just took?” There is no relief, there is no finish line, and the J train is not coming. The overwhelming sense of burnout becomes palpable. The opinionated demons and insecurities begin to march into the room alongside the haunting voice of RuPaul and the allure of queer success. Just another impossible standard! A reminder of how even within queer spaces, the forces of capitalism and conformity press down upon us.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Alessandra Gómez is an independent curator based in New York. She recently served as a curator for Luna Luna, the world’s first art amusement park, originally created in 1987. Gómez was part of the core curatorial team for Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy and worked on the early development of new artist-designed rides, attractions, and games. From 2018–2023, she was part of The Shed’s founding curatorial team, where she developed over seventy-five visual arts and performance commissions during her tenure including shows by Shayne Oliver & Anonymous Club and Maxwell Alexandre. She currently serves as the guest curator for public art at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and is working on a number of forthcoming curatorial projects, including one with NIKE.

Amando Houser is a trans-masculine clown and actor born and based in NYC. Following a sold-out run at The Brick, their solo show DeliaDelia! The Flat Chested Witch! debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and will have its US premiere at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Off Broadway: Midnight Coleslaw! Tales From Beyond The Closet! (The Tank); Snatch Adams and Tainty McCracken (Soho Rep). They have performed in and devised work at venues and variety nights around town as well as at The Signature, The Elysian, New York Theatre Workshop, Vox Populi Gallery, The Wild Project, JACK, and The Richard B. Fisher Center at Bard College. Amando is a recent graduate of École Philippe Gaulier in France and has trained with Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia, and Julia Masli (ha ha ha ha ha ha).

Reed Rushes is a British-American performance artist living and working in Queens, NY. Rushes has a multimedia performance practice that centers queer fantasy. Combining drag, movement, video, found and self made objects Rushes’ performances unpick the hierarchical distinctions between human bodies, emotional affect and objecthood. Rushes graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts from Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts Bard College New York (2022) and holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature and Performance with honors from Queen Mary University London (2015). They began their performance art practice in London's queer club and drag scene. Their work has now shown at Park Avenue Armory, Performance Space New York, CPR – Center for Performance Research, The Yard Theatre London, Rich Mix London, BOFFO, and Art Omi and has been supported through public funding by Arts Council England. They cofounded and curated Low Stakes Festival London and collectively run the performance residency at Otion Front Studio New York.

MTHR TRSA IS A PERFORMANCE ARTIST, PHOTOGRAPHER, CHOREOGRAPHER, STYLIST, DIRECTOR, MODEL, DJ, LAWYER, DOCTOR, SECURITY GUARD, THERAPIST, FREE LANCER, ACCOUNTANT, CHIEF & PROFESSIONAL COMPLAINER.

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Filmmaker Elise Kermani presents the New York premiere of her latest short performance film, Without Fame (Antiklea), as well as three of her earlier works including SAND - a migrating performance, Agamemnon’s Daughter, and JUSTICE.

The evening will conclude with a Q&A with the filmmaker and audience.


PROGRAM

Without Fame (Antiklea) (2024), 8 min
Without Fame (Antiklea) centers on a tragic figure who is often forgotten amidst talk of Homer’s Odyssey, Antiklea, the mother of Odysseus. Although she is technically a minor character when compared to her famous wandering son (Antiklea literally means ‘without fame’ in ancient Greek), she is living proof of how a mother’s life can diminish once her child goes away. The film was shot in Malibu, CA and produced by Illium Pictures in Los Angeles, with cinematography by Kaliya Warren and featuring actor Chivonne Michelle. In May 2024, Without Fame  showed at the AGON International Archaeological Film Festival in Athens, Greece, and was one of 63 films from 24 countries selected from 1,250 submissions from 100 countries, and one of only two films selected from the US.

While Kermani’s film takes its inspiration from Book XI of Homer’s Odyssey (including voiceover in the original ancient Greek), the film honors the moments before and after Odysseus meets his mother in Hades — and when she is left alone. “What destiny brought you to the home of Death?” he asks her in the text. In a translation by Alexander Pope, Antiklea’s response is, “For thee, I lived — for absent, I expired!” “Without Fame” also features “Tzivaeri,” a traditional Greek song whose title translates to ‘my treasure,’ and whose inclusion is meant to be a call of adoration from a mother to her child. Kermani first heard the song on a trip to Greece 10 years ago, and knew she had to use it in a film.  

Without Fame also combines aspects of modern life with these mythological proceedings. In making it, Kermani was thinking a lot about the increasing number of migrants who’ve perished on the shores of Greece after attempting perilous boat trips across the ocean. They're fleeing to Europe in hopes of finding a better life. But many of these people end up with no identities — they are buried as unknowns, and most families will never learn what happened to their loved ones. That is why Kermani chose to begin the film with Antiklea washed up on a desolate beach; she is so often forgotten, too.

SAND - a migrating performance (2019), 12 min
Choreography and performances by Kristina Isabelle. Shot along the southern shores of Lake Michigan, with four dancers and a puppet. Cinematography by Diana Quiñones Rivera.

Agamemnon’s Daughter (2016), 4 min
Choreography and solo performance by Laurel Jenkins, 4 mins. Shot in Malibu, CA. Cinematography by Alexander Chinnici.

JUSTICE (2028), 12 min
A site specific performance with musicians and dancers filmed in NYC's Riverside Park on the Summer Solstice, 2017. With choreography and performance by Christine Elmo. Cinematography by Kaliya Warren.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Elise Kermani, currently based out of Northwest Indiana, is Managing Director of the Dunes Arts Foundation, located in Michigan City, IN. She is also Adjunct Lecturer of Media Art at Empire State University in New York. Heavily influenced by European theatrical video art, Kermani is primarily interested in adapting classic material and crafting her own unique, modernized interpretations; her projects consistently feature strong elements of music and dance. Particularly prevalent in the work is the idea of collage; not necessarily two-dimensional collage, but the layering of time itself, expanding a story back into the past and also forward into the present. Using varying levels of sound and fragmented visuals to comprise diverse, experimental performance pieces, Kermani aims to evoke a trance-like state – hypnotizing and even submerging a viewer within a strange new world. The music (much of which is sound designed by Kermani herself) is post-modern, emerging as a kaleidoscope of noise, a comingling of every kind of sound imaginable.

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Thursday, October 10 at 7:30PM
Saturday, October 12 at 7:30PM


[REDACTED] at birth

[Gagged by sticky labels and exhaustive heteronormativity] “Get out of your seat, label me baby, come on I’m waiting. Come closer honey and smell my green tuft of hair. Can’t you tell what I am?” [the green figure’s skin erodes] “Don’t take too long to decide, the show must go on.”

TW: gender violence, cissexism

Accessibility Note: performance includes invitation to come onto the stage space (optional).

Movement Director, Performer, Costume Designer: Mars Garcia
Sound Designer, Performer: Alexander Millar:
Production Assistant/Guest Performer: Mary Ann Odete

Crossfade

A collective sustains smokey repetition in this exploration of techno and contemporary movement. 

TW: strobe lighting, loud music. 

Choreography: Alisya Razman, Mars Garcia
Performance and Improvisation by: Nikkie Samreth, Celine Abdallah, Alisya Razman, Mars Garcia, and Lilah van Rens
Sound design: Ali Aoun-IRL
Costume design: Mars Garcia


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mars Garcia (they/them) is a genderqueer Mexican American mover, maker, and collaborator from unseated Acjachemen and Tongva lands (California). Their art is characterized by their family’s lineage of strong matriarchs and gatherings of gossip, cooking, and mending as sites of reuse, renewal, music, and social dance. Their collaborative creations have been presented at The Brick , Queensboro Dance Festival, The Tank/NYC, Pink Frog Cafe, Soapbox Gallery, parks across NYC, and at their self produced Harvesting artist festival (Fall 2020, Spring 2022). Gathering movement, improvisation, sewing, writing, scenic designs, and sarcasm, Mars explores how queerness, identity, and belonging informs our habits, interactions, and families. They have been a guest artist with companies such as Edisa Weeks/DELIRIOUS DANCES, Kai Hazelwood/Good Trouble Makers, and Marie de la Palme/Motion Tribe, and performed abroad at the Bagnolet Conservatoire Municipal de Danse (France), Institute of the Arts, Barcelona (Spain), and the ACUD Theater (Berlin, Germany). With a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Mars currently works as a freelance dancer (The Joyce Theater, ISSUE Project Room, Baryshnikov Arts Center as a part of the Merce Cunningham Centennial), a GYROTONIC® instructor (Fluid Fitness), Stage Manager (Priestess of Twerk 2024), and Producer (Practice Progress; 7NMS | Marjani Forté & Everett Saunders; Good Trouble Makers; Neuronite 2024). For bookings: DM @marsgarcia_works

Alisya Razman (she/her) is a Brooklyn based artist from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. While pursuing her BFA in Dance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, she studied contemporary dance and improvisation under Rashaun Mitchell, Pamela Pietro, and Jeremy Nelson. She performed works/processes by Merce Cunningham, Sidra Bell, Kate Wallich, Bill T. Jones, David Dorfman, and studied abroad in Berlin. Since graduating, she has danced professionally with UNA Productions, Helen Simoneau Danse, Dishman & Co Choreography, Cayleen Del Rosario, and Yang Sun while being a teaching artist at The Ailey School. She was commissioned to present work at the Ailey Citigroup Theater for the Professional Division program last spring. @alisyarazman

Alexander Millar (they/them) is a white queer nonbinary neurodivergent award-winning songwriter, composer, performer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist. They combine a BFA in Musical Arts and an MFA in Performance & Composition from California Institute of the Arts with over 28 years of professional experience in the music industry and over 13 years of teaching experience. As a creative researcher Alex investigates how the systems of white supremacy shape the popular music industry, both historically and presently. They are especially interested in how toxic individuality, a byproduct of capitalism and a core tenant of white supremacy, drives the narrative of how we speak, write, and think about the concept of “success” in popular music, specifically as it pertains to the myth of the “self made” artist/group. Alex has a deep commitment to democratizing access to knowledge and research, as well as re-contextualizing creative research outside of Academia. Therefore, their research is publicly available in the form of TikTok videos; to date they have over 200k followers who engage with their research and likely never would have encountered it if it were not available on a popular social media app.

Nikkie Samreth (they/them) is a first generation Cambodian-Chinese multidisciplinary artist originally from Dallas, TX. They have a BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and studied at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance. They also graduated Summa Cum Laude at SUNY FIT with a Bachelor of Science in International Trade & Marketing and a triple minor in Economics, Creative Technology, and Ethics & Sustainability. Post-college, Nikkie worked as a professional dancer/performer/model in various music videos, campaigns, films, and performance projects with companies such as The Feath3r Theory, Company XIV, HBO Max, Vogue, Vogue Runway, Universal Music Group, and other artists. Throughout Nikkie’s career they have had the opportunity to perform works by Merce Cunningham, Anton Lachky, Raja Feather Kelly, Aszure Barton, and many others. Along with their professional career, Nikkie has supplemented their artistry with new skills such as cello, boxing, skateboarding, archery, acting, and other interests to reshape their perspective of dance and choreography. @highblush

Celine Abdallah (she/her) is a Lebanese-American dance artist based in NYC, whose sensory-based movement combines the history of her Arab roots with a playfulness that roots into the present. She received her BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Celine has performed in original works by choreographers such as Yin Yue, Christina Robson, Molissa Fenley, Davide Di Pretoro, Ambika Raina, Isa Spector, and Iliana Penichet-Ramirez. Beyond the stage, she is featured in music videos and live sets by artists such as Yaeji, Frawley, and Dania. As a Choreographer and Movement Director, Celine has collaborated with filmmakers Emily May Jampel, Saleem Gondal, and Mike Klubeck. With her experience in stage and film, coupled with her interdisciplinary dance background, she hopes to continue exploring the boundlessness of storytelling.

Lilah van Rens, born and raised in New York City, pursued her undergraduate studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, receiving a BFA in Dance. Continuing her education, Lilah earned her graduate degree in Dance/Movement Psychotherapy from Sarah Lawrence College, where she explored the intersection of movement, mind-body integration and mental health.

Ali (IRL) is a Bushwick-based DJ who draws sonic inspiration from their time spent between Detroit and Brooklyn, as well as his Lebanese heritage. No genre is off limits, prioritizing range over cohesion. His recurring event series’ Transmission and Lunar Tides express this mentality by connecting local talent and out-of-town guests through intimate settings.

Tickets $10
Purchase Tickets

Thursday, October 10 at 7:30PM
Saturday, October 12 at 7:30PM


[REDACTED] at birth

[Gagged by sticky labels and exhaustive heteronormativity] “Get out of your seat, label me baby, come on I’m waiting. Come closer honey and smell my green tuft of hair. Can’t you tell what I am?” [the green figure’s skin erodes] “Don’t take too long to decide, the show must go on.”

TW: gender violence, cissexism

Accessibility Note: performance includes invitation to come onto the stage space (optional).

Movement Director, Performer, Costume Designer: Mars Garcia
Sound Designer, Performer: Alexander Millar:
Production Assistant/Guest Performer: Mary Ann Odete

Crossfade

A collective sustains smokey repetition in this exploration of techno and contemporary movement. 

TW: strobe lighting, loud music. 

Choreography: Alisya Razman, Mars Garcia
Performance and Improvisation by: Nikkie Samreth, Celine Abdallah, Alisya Razman, Mars Garcia, and Lilah van Rens
Sound design: Ali Aoun-IRL
Costume design: Mars Garcia


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mars Garcia (they/them) is a genderqueer Mexican American mover, maker, and collaborator from unseated Acjachemen and Tongva lands (California). Their art is characterized by their family’s lineage of strong matriarchs and gatherings of gossip, cooking, and mending as sites of reuse, renewal, music, and social dance. Their collaborative creations have been presented at The Brick , Queensboro Dance Festival, The Tank/NYC, Pink Frog Cafe, Soapbox Gallery, parks across NYC, and at their self produced Harvesting artist festival (Fall 2020, Spring 2022). Gathering movement, improvisation, sewing, writing, scenic designs, and sarcasm, Mars explores how queerness, identity, and belonging informs our habits, interactions, and families. They have been a guest artist with companies such as Edisa Weeks/DELIRIOUS DANCES, Kai Hazelwood/Good Trouble Makers, and Marie de la Palme/Motion Tribe, and performed abroad at the Bagnolet Conservatoire Municipal de Danse (France), Institute of the Arts, Barcelona (Spain), and the ACUD Theater (Berlin, Germany). With a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Mars currently works as a freelance dancer (The Joyce Theater, ISSUE Project Room, Baryshnikov Arts Center as a part of the Merce Cunningham Centennial), a GYROTONIC® instructor (Fluid Fitness), Stage Manager (Priestess of Twerk 2024), and Producer (Practice Progress; 7NMS | Marjani Forté & Everett Saunders; Good Trouble Makers; Neuronite 2024). For bookings: DM @marsgarcia_works

Alisya Razman (she/her) is a Brooklyn based artist from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. While pursuing her BFA in Dance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, she studied contemporary dance and improvisation under Rashaun Mitchell, Pamela Pietro, and Jeremy Nelson. She performed works/processes by Merce Cunningham, Sidra Bell, Kate Wallich, Bill T. Jones, David Dorfman, and studied abroad in Berlin. Since graduating, she has danced professionally with UNA Productions, Helen Simoneau Danse, Dishman & Co Choreography, Cayleen Del Rosario, and Yang Sun while being a teaching artist at The Ailey School. She was commissioned to present work at the Ailey Citigroup Theater for the Professional Division program last spring. @alisyarazman

Alexander Millar (they/them) is a white queer nonbinary neurodivergent award-winning songwriter, composer, performer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist. They combine a BFA in Musical Arts and an MFA in Performance & Composition from California Institute of the Arts with over 28 years of professional experience in the music industry and over 13 years of teaching experience. As a creative researcher Alex investigates how the systems of white supremacy shape the popular music industry, both historically and presently. They are especially interested in how toxic individuality, a byproduct of capitalism and a core tenant of white supremacy, drives the narrative of how we speak, write, and think about the concept of “success” in popular music, specifically as it pertains to the myth of the “self made” artist/group. Alex has a deep commitment to democratizing access to knowledge and research, as well as re-contextualizing creative research outside of Academia. Therefore, their research is publicly available in the form of TikTok videos; to date they have over 200k followers who engage with their research and likely never would have encountered it if it were not available on a popular social media app.

Nikkie Samreth (they/them) is a first generation Cambodian-Chinese multidisciplinary artist originally from Dallas, TX. They have a BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and studied at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance. They also graduated Summa Cum Laude at SUNY FIT with a Bachelor of Science in International Trade & Marketing and a triple minor in Economics, Creative Technology, and Ethics & Sustainability. Post-college, Nikkie worked as a professional dancer/performer/model in various music videos, campaigns, films, and performance projects with companies such as The Feath3r Theory, Company XIV, HBO Max, Vogue, Vogue Runway, Universal Music Group, and other artists. Throughout Nikkie’s career they have had the opportunity to perform works by Merce Cunningham, Anton Lachky, Raja Feather Kelly, Aszure Barton, and many others. Along with their professional career, Nikkie has supplemented their artistry with new skills such as cello, boxing, skateboarding, archery, acting, and other interests to reshape their perspective of dance and choreography. @highblush

Celine Abdallah (she/her) is a Lebanese-American dance artist based in NYC, whose sensory-based movement combines the history of her Arab roots with a playfulness that roots into the present. She received her BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Celine has performed in original works by choreographers such as Yin Yue, Christina Robson, Molissa Fenley, Davide Di Pretoro, Ambika Raina, Isa Spector, and Iliana Penichet-Ramirez. Beyond the stage, she is featured in music videos and live sets by artists such as Yaeji, Frawley, and Dania. As a Choreographer and Movement Director, Celine has collaborated with filmmakers Emily May Jampel, Saleem Gondal, and Mike Klubeck. With her experience in stage and film, coupled with her interdisciplinary dance background, she hopes to continue exploring the boundlessness of storytelling.

Lilah van Rens, born and raised in New York City, pursued her undergraduate studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, receiving a BFA in Dance. Continuing her education, Lilah earned her graduate degree in Dance/Movement Psychotherapy from Sarah Lawrence College, where she explored the intersection of movement, mind-body integration and mental health.

Ali (IRL) is a Bushwick-based DJ who draws sonic inspiration from their time spent between Detroit and Brooklyn, as well as his Lebanese heritage. No genre is off limits, prioritizing range over cohesion. His recurring event series’ Transmission and Lunar Tides express this mentality by connecting local talent and out-of-town guests through intimate settings.

Free with RSVP
RSVP


Facilitated by olfactory artist agustine zegers, Sympoietic Breath invites a deeper awareness of how smells reveal our embeddedness in systems of ecological collapse and emergence. With one inhale, our body awakens to an incorporated cosmos. Ancient molecular exchanges, traces of industry, traces of plant breath, and traces of decaying life all transit through the pleura of our lungs. Odorant molecules also join in, entering the continuous lubricated movement of our breaths. These smelly compounds reveal the ever-enfolding complexities of air, allowing us to decode its composition through our olfactory bulbs and opening us up to intelligences at the scale of the invisible. As such, our sense of smell – animated by the breath – can be activated as a collaborative sensemaking tool for an ever-shifting planet.

Participants will be introduced to ecological and olfactory terminology and will be guided through an olfactive exercise to help us put collaborative breathing and smelling into practice.

OPEN LAB invites artists and scholars to facilitate theoretical discussions and embodied workshops, providing a platform for practice-based inquiry and creative exchange.

This program will take place virtually via Zoom. Auto-generated captions will be available.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

agustine zegers (b. Santiago, Chile) is an olfactory artist and student of atmospheric biopolitics. Their work attends to the nourishing and noxious transcorporealities we share as inhabitants of Earth, offering forms of communion with ecological collapse at the scale of the molecule and breath. Their work has scented and been exhibited across the Global North and South at venues such as Prairie, Chicago (2024); 52 Walker, New York (2024); the Chilean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Venice (2022); Lagos, CDMX (2020); Galería Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo (2018); and Galería Metropolitana, Santiago (2015).

Free with RSVP
RSVP


As an extension of 2024 Artist-in-Residence Ariana Speight’s research for their new work cocoon which will be presented in development as part of OPEN AiR on October 20, DIGITAL ARCHIVE will be a gathering of sharing and processing data, memory, and content that has shaped us. During this generative workshop, participants will build a written archive through dialogue and note-taking, documenting noteworthy movies, television, and music. Together we embrace the rough edges, the crispy bits that make us unique. What brought you here? How did you get here? Where is home for you? Are you home? 

Storytelling. Processing through dialogue. Loss of history. Nostalgia. Connection. Coming together to share stories. Kiki if you will. Memory. Sentimentality. Focusing on content. Keeping track. Making memories. Reminiscing. Restoration. [tldr]

Participants are encouraged to bring any comforts you may need. Take breaks. Zoom in, zone out. Camera on, camera off. Come as you are. Tangents are welcome with resources and support available.

References include: Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Claudia Pinkola Estés, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, Spongebob Squarepants, and many more.


OPEN LAB invites artists and scholars to facilitate theoretical discussions and embodied workshops, providing a platform for practice-based inquiry and creative exchange.

This program will take place virtually via Zoom. Auto-generated captions will be available.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ariana Speight is a contemporary dance artist invested in researching the curiosities of life through various mediums. Originally from Los Angeles and currently based in Brooklyn, she has worked with a number of artists including Kayla Farrish, Joanna Kotze, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Kyle Marshall, Anna Sperber, and Jessie Young. Her freelance journey has led her to perform at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), Chelsea Factory, Coffey Street, Dancewave, Lincoln Center Hearst Plaza, New York Live Arts, PAGEANT, Roulette Intermedium, The Shed, The Space at Irondale, The Tank, Webster Hall, among other venues in New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania. She is a BFA graduate from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and is a certified Yoga and Pilates instructor where she continues to nurture her teaching practice.

Advance General Admission: $35
Advance Artists/Students: $25 (limited availability)
At-the-Door: $40
Donor Ticket: $50
Purchase Tickets

In the event that the program is sold out, an in-person wait list for the 6PM performance will open at 5PM.


PROGRAM

5:00 PM | Doors Open + Social Hour
6:00 PM | Music, Performances, Dance Party

Rovaco Dance Company presents their sixth annual Rovaco Dance Party. This evening of live music, dance, theater, and cultural exchange begins with an informal social hour inspired by Indian hospitality traditions. Guests are served delectable Indian snacks prepared by Chef Ashmita Biswas alongside complimentary Lunar Hard Seltzers, an award-winning Asian American brand. After the social, transition into the theater for live music and dance performances, curated and MC’ed by Rovaco Artistic Director Rohan Bhargava. The evening ends with a DJ dance party for all!


CREDITS

Rovaco Dance Artists
Choreography: Rohan Bhargava in collaboration with dancers
Performers: Nico Gonzales, Devika Chandnani, Siddharth Dutta, Karma Chuki, Isabele Rosso, and Jihyun Kim
Resident Dramaturg & Script Consultant: Mahima Saigal
Resident Composer: Saúl Guanipa

Guest Artists
Viola: Dudley Raine IV
Ghazals & Guitar: Ria Modak
DJ: Cameron McKinney/DJ KAZVMA
Chef: Ashmita Biswas


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rovaco Dance Company was founded in New York City in 2015 by Artistic Director Rohan Bhargava. Over the years, the company has produced a unique form of narrative dance-theater, which blends floorwork, release, ballet, bollywood, street jazz, bhangra, and contemporary partnering into one fluid whole, in multimedia collaboration with designers and composers. Repertory has been presented by Provincetown Dance Festival, Dance NYC, Battery Dance Festival, Rhythmically Speaking, Little Island NYC, and Create:Art. The company has been a Resident Artist at Dancewave, the James Jay Dudley Luce Foundation, and the CUNY Dance Initiative at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center. Commissions have come from Mannes School of Music, Mare Nostrum Elements, Making Moves Dance Festival, and The Dance Gallery Festival.


SUPPORT

Rovaco Dance Party is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council. In-kind donations have been provided by Lunar Seltzer, an award-winning craft hard seltzer made with real fruit from Asia. Baraat by Rovaco Dance Company is supported by the NYU Artist Development Program for Dance and The Choreography Pilot Program 2024 of Danse Mirage Foundation, Inc.

General donations to Rovaco Dance Company can be made through Fractured Atlas and are fully tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. If you are unable to attend the event but would like to support, you can make an online donation HERE.

Tickets: $20
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Traveling through portals, the puppet and puppeteer enter and experience various dreams, observing fragments of daily life, altered realities, nightmares, and imagination. An immersive puppet performance with live-puppetry, live-feed camera, projections, and a musical score by EEVRI.


PORTALS: a journey through dreams is a proud recipient of a 2024 Workshop Grant from The Jim Henson Foundation, and is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.

Tickets: $10
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fracture is a multimedia installation that explores the experience of trauma, inspired by the artist’s own recovery from a life-threatening brain hemorrhage 10 years ago. Through visual, sonic and sculptural components, the concept of “fracture” serves as a metaphor for the physical, psychological and emotional effects of a life-altering injury. The work explores an alienation from one’s own body, the journey of coming back into one’s self, and the sense of discovery that can come through the process of healing.

The installation will be on view between 5pm and 8pm.

Tickets: $12, $18, $25 (sliding scale)
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RE-PAIR dances our aging and our resilience, what dissolves and what persists. With a synergy rooted in 30+ years of collaboration, this evening of works by Pamela Vail and Jennifer Kayle RE-PAIRS their signature humor and strength of craft.

In the opening work, they improvise with longtime New York collaborators Anna Adams Stark, Lena Lauer, Stephanie Miracle, Edward Rice, Maurice Watson, Donnell Williams, and musician Jason Palamara. The closing work, a ritual of re-making, features new-to-New York dancers Alyssa Alber, Ellie Daley, Maggie Steimel, and Zoe Miller.

Tickets: $0-$25, pay what you can
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Palestinian-American artist Muyassar Kurdi invites artists Zekkereya El-magharbel, Muyassar Kurdi with gabby fluke-mogul, and Alex Zhang Hungtai to share new work, experiments, and collaborations through embodied sound and improvisation. The program’s title If I Must Die is inspired by Refaat Alareer’s poem of the same title, and is in honor of the martyrs in Falastin, uplifting their voices and stories. Through indigenous ways we heal our communities and remain steadfast. If I Must Die is an attempt to reclaim our bodies and narrative. Imagination as the ultimate freedom: a future without a colonizer. 

In lieu of a traditional Q&A, after their individual presentations, the artists will engage in a series of improvised collaborations.

OPEN STUDIOS is a series of work-in-progress showings held regularly throughout the year, organized by guest curators, and serves as an incubator for new work, inviting the public into the artistic process.

View the Program


If I Must Die
by Refaat Alareer

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale

إذا كان ال بّد أن
أموت إذا

إذا كان ال بّد أن أموت
إذا كان ال بّد أن أموت
فعلي َك أن تحيا
لِتق ّص ق ّصتي
لِتبي َع أشيائي
لِتشتري قطعة قماش
و بضعَة خيوط
)بيضاء بذي ٍل طويل(
ن ما في غزة

حتى طف ٍل، في مكا
يحّد ُق بالسماء
ينت ُظر أباه، الذي غا َدر على عجل-
بال أن ي ّودع أحد
حتى جسده
حتى نفسه -
يرى الطائرة الورقية، طائرتي التي صنعَتها،
تحل عالًيا ّ ُق

و ي ُّظن لوهلة أن مال ًكا عالًيا
يعيد الح ّب

إذا كان ال بد أن أموت
لتجعلها تجل ُب األمل
لتجعلها قصة

Translated to Arabic by @TameeOliveFern


PROGRAM

Zekkereya El-magharbel: Notes on Matisse
The influence/appropriation of North African textiles and architecture by turn of the century Modernists is widely documented, yet barely discussed; on one hand, the decontextualization and subsequent disparagement of the African Orient by Western Imperialists, evidence of our incivility, on the other, beautiful planes of color sweeping across the canvas dancing celestial. This work explores the links between musical practices of Modern Europe and North Africa using reappropriating works from Henri Matisse as graphic scores for performance. 

Muyassar Kurdi with gabby fluke-mogul: A Lullaby for the Children of the Sun
This is a sound dedicated to the children of Gaza. Glory to the martyrs. A Lullaby for the Children of the Sun is embodied/performed from a graphic score (ink on paper) for violin and voice, and was originally commissioned for a string quartet.

Alex Zhang Hungtai: Divining Youth
Divining Youth derives from the Hokkien word khí-tâng, a Chinese folk tradition akin to a spirit medium or a Shaman. A khí-tâng is believed to be a person to have been chosen by a particular Shen (Chinese Deity) or spirit as the earthly vehicle of divine expression. The universal ritualistic components of drums, reeds, repetition, and trance-inducing rhythms relay back to ancient folk technology, facilitating the exploration of the human unconscious and the gravitational pull towards the dark matter of the cosmos.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Zekkereya El-magharbel is a visual artist, trombonist, and composer from Los Angeles, CA. They have been a member of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra for over a decade and have worked with such luminaries as Angel Bat Dawid, Jaimie Branch, Moor Mother, Kierra Sheard, Cory Smythe, Tyshawn Sorey, Wendell Harrison, Wendy Eisenberg, among others. As a visual artist they have shown animated works internationally and have exhibited paintings accross the country. Their current research centers on interrogating Pan-Arabism within in parallel to African identity.

gabby fluke-mogul is a New York-based violinist, improviser, composer, educator, organizer, and doula. Weaving within the threads of avant and free jazz, with deep roots in improvised and experimental music, their music has been described as “embodied, visceral and virtuosic” and “the most striking sound in improvised music in years.” gabby is humbled to have collaborated with Nava Dunkelman, Joanna Mattrey, Ava Mendoza, Charles Burnham, Fred Frith, Luke Stewart, Zeena Parkins, Tcheser Holmes, Lester St. Louis, William Parker, and Pauline Oliveros among many other musicians, poets, dancers and visual artists. gabby facilitates improvisation and composition workshops, curates programming for Creative Music Studio, and is a current Roulette Jerome Artist in Residence.

Muyassar Kurdi is a Palestinian-American NYC-based interdisciplinary artist. Her work encompasses sound art, extended vocal technique, performance art, movement, painting, analog photography, and film. Her practice honors the futuristic and ancient through meditative movements and sonic sound explorations. Centered on embodiment with a non-linear approach rooted in improvisation, she explores memory, displacement, and the body in relation to nature. Kurdi received the American Composer Forum Create 2024, Brooklyn Arts Fund 2024, and was a finalist in the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship for Combined Disciplines 2023. She was awarded a Roulette Intermedium 2020 commission and 2022 artist residency with support from Jerome Foundation, and is also a recipient of the Queens Fund New Works Grant, NYFA City Artist Corps grant, and Puffin Foundation grant. Recent residencies include Harvestworks and The Watermill Center with OPERA ensemble. Love is Blue, Kurdi’s solo interdisciplinary exhibition, opened in the Fall of 2023 at La MaMa Gallery in NYC. Performance highlights include Poetry Project, Roulette Intermedium, CPR – Center for Performance Research, Lincoln Center, The Rubin Museum of Art, ISSUE Project Room, Cafe OTO, Chicago Cultural Center, Center for Contemporary Art Laznia, Fridman Gallery, Zaratan - Arte Contemporânea, and Judson Memorial Church as well as exhibitions and film screenings (solo and group works) at VIERTE WELT, Trieze Gallery, Knockdown Center, Queens Museum, Spectacle Theatre, and Anthology Film Archives. She taught workshops in movement and voice most notably in Portugal at Zaratan - Arte Contemporânea, Bilgi University and Cultur in Istanbul Turkey as well as at MoMA PS1 in NYC. 

Alex Zhang Hungtai is a multi-disciplinary artist focused on improvisation and its correlation with the unconscious. After retiring his project Dirty Beaches, Zhang has been focusing on explorations of improvised music, free jazz, and his role as a composer. His newer compositions predominantly work with saxophone and drums, delving into electronic music. Besides his solo work, some past collaborators include: Tashi Dorji, Che Chen, Chris Williams, Sam Shalabi, David Maranha, and Gabriel Ferrandini. Zhang currently works as a composer for film soundtracks, along with acting in independent films. He has appeared in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return alongside Dean Hurley and Riley Lynch under the fictitious band Trouble. His latest film score “Godland” by Hlynur Pálmason, was in competition at Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard. He currently lives in NYC.

CPR - Center for Performance Research invites applications for the 2025 Artist-in-Residence Program. Click here to apply.

Application deadline: Wednesday, August 28, 2024 at 5:00 P.M. EST.

Email applications@cprnyc.org with questions.

ABOUT CPR'S ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

CPR – Center for Performance Research’s year-long Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Program seeks to support NYC-based artists working within various perspectives of contemporary dance, performance, and time-based forms. CPR values experimental approaches to content, form, and aesthetic, and encourages risk-taking and the unexpected.

The residency creates an open environment for experimentation, exploration, embodiment, and exchange, providing ten artists each year with research and presentation opportunities, subsidized rehearsal space, curatorial and project support, and peer dialogue. The program is intended to nurture the individualized creative process, and prioritizes artists for whom the opportunity will make an impact on the growth and evolution of their work and career.

Applications are solicited through an OPEN CALL, and resident artists are selected by an independent panel of artists, curators, and arts leaders. With this approach, CPR aspires to create a more accessible and equitable selection process, and to increase visibility, opportunities, and resources for a more diverse range of artists in the field.

CPR is committed to supporting artists from every background and maintains an expansive approach to performance. We strongly encourage BIPOC artists, LGBTQ+ artists, immigrant artists, artists with disabilities, and artists across generations to apply.

RESIDENCY DETAILS

Ten NYC-based artists are selected for a year-long residency from January to December 2025. AiRs will have opportunities for presentation, community engagement, and creative exchange through CPR’s curated Public Programs, and will receive curatorial support and feedback from CPR staff and fellow artists throughout the year. In addition, AiRs receive advance access to CPR’s rehearsal booking calendar, and may book up to 150 subsidized rehearsal hours in either of CPR’s studios during the residency year. Each AiR receives a $1,500 stipend, and participation in CPR Public Programs comes with additional artist fees and resources, including access to technical equipment and production support.

ELIGIBILITY

• Eligible applicants have previously had their work publicly presented, and have not been selected as a CPR Artist-in-Residence within the last 5 years.

• Individual artists, companies, collaborative projects or collectives may apply, but each applicant/application will be considered as a single residency.

• The residency is exclusively for New York City-based artists. CPR cannot provide US visas, travel, accommodations, or other living expenses in connection with the residency.

• Current undergraduate students are not eligible to apply.

THE SPACE

CPR occupies a 4,000 sq. ft. ground floor facility in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and has two flexible studio spaces. The Large Studio is an 1,875 sq. ft., flexible rehearsal and performance space, outfitted with an LED theatrical lighting system, full-range sound, projection capabilities, and a sprung wood dance floor with white marley, and can seat up to 68 people. The Small Studio functions as a rehearsal studio, gallery, and meeting space, and features floor-to-ceiling storefront windows looking out onto the street, track lighting, and a sprung wood dance floor. CPR is a fully ADA-compliant and accessible venue with two all gender restrooms, one being wheelchair-accessible. A floor plan, images, and technical specifications can be found here.

SUPPORT

CPR's AiR Program is directly supported by Dance/NYC’s NYC Dance Rehearsal Space Subsidy Program made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Howard Gilman Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and public funds from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

APPLICATION TIMELINE

Applications will be accepted until Wednesday, August 28, 2024 at 5:00pm EST. Late submissions will not be accepted. Notifications will be made in November 2024.

The panelists look forward to reviewing your application!

Email us at applications@cprnyc.org with any questions.

Tickets: Free
RSVP Here


CONNECTIVITY THROUGH CINEMA PRESENTS:
SPLIT ENDS AND OTHER STORIES
with film maker Lauren Oliver presenting in-person
presented by MONO NO AWARE

PROGRAM

PRIÈRE DE TOUCHER (PLEASE TOUCH)
(3 min, 2018, 16mm)
Prière de toucher (Please Touch) is a 16mm film inspired by 'Le Surréalisme en 1947' an exhibition catalog conceived by André Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Enrico Donati. The original catalog cover features a soft, foam-rubber breast mounted on a black velvet background, encouraging the reader to engage in this intimate and sensual gesture of touching. Instead of the faux flesh, her film focuses on the vibrant textures of various flowers, inviting viewers to imagine the tactile experience and give in to the temptation to touch.

STEPPING INTO THE FRAME
(10 min, 2022, 16MM Triple Projection Performance) 
Stepping into the frame, is an intimate glance into the artist’s paradoxical self-portraiture practice. Best known for her still photographic work, Oliver now turns her gaze to her process. Through the use of a 16mm bolex, the artist has opened her self-portraits beyond the moment of capture, allowing viewers into her unique process. Oliver often meticulously pre-plans each of her shots but, because she must step out of the frame to reset the camera between each image, it is impossible for her to recreate each scene exactly. Viewers are brought to a better understanding of the ephemeral nature of Oliver’s photography and the fluidity and freedom behind her portraits.

SPLIT ENDS
(3 min, 2024, 16MM with live narration by the artist)
Split Ends is an animated addendum to her recently published book of the same title. This film flows from a text that inspired the ideas and questions explored in the book, delving into Oliver's relationship with her hair as a lens to understand her identity, lineage, and cultural heritage.
In the film, the artist uses vegetable roots as symbols for split ends—those old, often hidden or trimmed parts of hair. Instead of concealing them, the film celebrates their age, complexity, and perseverance. The film is accompanied by a live narration from the artist's diary.

The program will include a Q&A with the artist.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Lauren Oliver (b. 1992, Forest Hills, New York) is a multidisciplinary artist working in Brooklyn, NY. Experimenting with photography, performance, and film making, Oliver's creative practice is deeply rooted in both the technical and metaphoric significance of light in analog image making. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography from SUNY Purchase. Her photographs have been featured on i-D, Buzzfeed, F-stop Magazine, and The Luupe. Her first monograph, “Temple of the Self,” published by Monolith Editions in 2020, is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2024, she published her second book, "Puntas Abiertas," with Matarile Ediciones. In addition to her artistic practice, Lauren teaches analog photography and film making at the International Center of Photography, Gowanus Community Darkroom, and Mono no Aware. In September 2024, she will start her graduate studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology.


ABOUT THE MONO NO AWARE SCREENING SERIES

The CONNECTIVITY THROUGH CINEMA series will present the work of artists, film-makers and curators who are traveling or presenting special interactive programs in-person. Our hope is to engage the community by showing work with a focus on post-screening discussion. This series is made possible by support from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA).

Tickets: Free
RSVP


The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture presents Conference Call: Moving Image, which marks the second iteration of Skowhegan's Alumni Alliance exhibition programming.

Alumni Alliance members Christian Amaya Garcia (A ’23), Jesus Benavente (A ’12), Danny Greenberg (A’ 18), Eleanor Kipping (A ‘18), and Chelsea Flowers (A ’22) have each curated screenings around a theme of their choosing featuring moving image artworks selected through an open call process. This project aims to create meaningful and impactful experiences for both artists and curators, as well as showcase the richness of the Skowhegan community to a broader audience. 

Curated by Eleanor Kipping (A’18) for the screening at CPR – Center for Performance Research, When the Eye Speaks features the work of Ronald Hall (A '16), Jack Hogan (A '19), Yasi Ghanbari (A '18), Zhiyuan Yang (A '17), Jordan Wong (A '22), Kearra Amaya Gopee (A '18), and Steven Cottingham (A '15). The evening explores the use of moving images and the desktop essay to explore ideas of identity, place, gender, and the geopolitical implications of surveillance through the use of monologue, performance, object making, the Internet and screen recording. Following the screening will be a pre-recorded experimental discussion with the group that also serves as a desktop essay.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2024, Conference Call: Moving Image screenings will take place at a range of venues across New York City including CPR – Center for Performance Research (July 25), Hi-ARTS (August 1), Olympia Gallery (August 15), and more TBA.

Tickets: $25, $35 (includes a BODYSONNET pin!)
Purchase Tickets

Performances at 5:30 PM and 8:00 PM


INSTAL is a multi-room installation performance produced by BODYSONNET and features the work of Mio Ishikawa, Olga Rabetskaya, Gabe Katz, Kevin Pajarillaga, Amari Frazier, Colin Frederick, and Moscelyne ParkeHarrison.

Half of the performance will be set in CPR’s Small Studio, while the other will take place in CPR’s Large Studio. With works in each room happening simultaneously, the audience will experience both installation performances over the course of an hour, with each half of the audience switching spaces half-way through. INSTAL is a meditation on time and our relationship to space.


Learn more about BODYSONNET: www.bodysonnet.org

Support Season 5: https://secure.givelively.org/donate/satellite-collective-inc/bodysonnet-season-23

Tickets: $25, $35 (includes a BODYSONNET pin!)
Purchase Tickets

Performances at 5:30 PM and 8:00 PM


INSTAL is a multi-room installation performance produced by BODYSONNET and features the work of Mio Ishikawa, Olga Rabetskaya, Gabe Katz, Kevin Pajarillaga, Amari Frazier, Colin Frederick, and Moscelyne ParkeHarrison.

Half of the performance will be set in CPR’s Small Studio, while the other will take place in CPR’s Large Studio. With works in each room happening simultaneously, the audience will experience both installation performances over the course of an hour, with each half of the audience switching spaces half-way through. INSTAL is a meditation on time and our relationship to space.


Learn more about BODYSONNET: www.bodysonnet.org

Support Season 5: https://secure.givelively.org/donate/satellite-collective-inc/bodysonnet-season-23

Free w/ RSVP
RSVP

Opening hours: 5:00 – 9:00 P.M.


Have you ever shapeshifted? 

Encountered: Studies on Finding calls you to imagine the currents of unknown worlds. Our collection of paintings, film, and sound illuminates the work of emerging artists reckoning with perceptions of transformation. We invite you to enter the mutable space of unsettling, with offerings that reveal new realms and shared realities that exist just beyond the shift...

Encountered features paintings and visual works by emerging artists: Jadyn Fauconier-Herry, Emelia Gertner, Mary Rose McClain, and Anna Romanofsky set against sonic landscapes by Kambaba Jasper and A Lonely Wandering Meteor. The works in this show highlight a range of media and painting techniques centering the concept of shapeshifting as a recurring theme.

This showcase was born out of our fascination with transformation in the artistic process: the moment a film/painting/sound alters before you; the place(s) you go as part of the journey; how the art moves with and beyond you. Where do you shapeshift in your artistic practice? What sparks the shift and when does it end? Does it end?

Performances: $15
Purchase Tickets

Roundtables: free w/ RSVP
RSVP


Fri, June 28
7:30 P.M. Performance

Sat, June 29
2:00 P.M. Roundtable
7:30 P.M. Performance

Sun, June 30
2:00 P.M. Roundtable
6:00 P.M. Performance


Perfect City is a working group that addresses the design, policy-making, and zoning of cities. This June, Perfect City’s lead artists Tiffany Zorrilla (aka Lola Libre), Jahmorei Snipes, and Aaron Landsman present Perfect City for Sale: a weekend of performances, installations, roundtable discussions, and a zine launch.

Presented by Abrons Arts Center.


PERFORMANCES

At the conclusion of their 2-year residency through the Creatives Rebuild New York's Artist Employment Program, Perfect City members Aaron Landsman, Jahmorei Snipes and Tiffany Zorilla share their individual artistic practices with presentations of performances-in-progress.

Your ticket includes a free copy of our new issue of the Perfect City zine! The zine includes working group writing, collaged images from the community, and critical contributions from collaborators in our partner city of Amsterdam around visibility, safety, design and youth leadership.

Jahmorei Snipes: PILLAR
A series of poetic monologues exploring the world through the lens of Black womanhood. Through spoken word performance, Snipes considers place, safety, and identity from her own perspective, building on themes of storytelling and visibility from Perfect City’s 2023 art and research project Invisible Guides. The development of PILLAR began in 2018 from Snipes’ frustration as a woman forced to maintain patriarchal structures. In her own words, “The function of pillars is to hold up a structure in order to keep it from collapsing. Black women have become the pillars that maintain the structure of our community”.

Lola Libre: BUYME
A metamodern interactive art project that investigates the existence of digital colonialism and its role in perpetuating the exploitation of femme bodies both on and offline. The installation incorporates web-based art, installation, and performance activation to challenge our understanding of power dynamics in digital landscapes and encourage reflection on who and what receives protection online.

Aaron Landsman: All The Time in the World
A new performance work about collective self-regard and the ways capital-driven social media algorithms define how we apprehend the world now. The text is designed and rendered as an original card game - a combination of Uno, Exploding Kittens and Five-Card Draw - played by four actors at a folding table in front of an audience. All the Time in the World takes the ‘media’ out of social media and leaves the gathering and the words. The piece invites us to consider moments in our lives that escape our lenses and render more strongly as memory than our image diaries allow.


ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS

Perfect City will offer two roundtables that invite participants to think together about how our neighborhoods and cities can thrive in an increasingly difficult climate. Each discussion begins with Avoidance Mapping, a social exercise and workshop that makes our invisible knowledge about the city visible. How do you belong when you move through a place? What protects us in the city, and how does our need for protection change depending on our age, race, ability, gender or size?

Saturday, June 29 roundtable focuses on how the nature and discussion of gentrification has shifted since Perfect City’s 2016 founding. Sunday, June 30 roundtable tackles the digital commons, citizenship, activism and the city.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jahmorei Snipes is an actress, advocate and artistic activist. Originally from El Barrio, she currently resides in Harlem, New York. With a profound care for her city and the world around her, Jahmorei joined The Youth Channel at Manhattan Neighborhood Network Youth Media Center. In 2017, she joined Perfect City and co-founded The Catcalling Project. She received a BFA in Acting with a minor in political science from Marymount Manhattan College, Jahmorei has continued to pursue her passions as an actor, theater-maker, and activist. She has presented workshops regularly through Perfect City at CUNY, Princeton and ASU, and with the Confident Futures project alongside other artists and advocates in Amsterdam.

Tiffany Zorrilla is a Dominican woman who was born and raised in the Lower East Side and currently resides in El Barrio in Harlem. Tiffany is a prolific artist with fluency in many media, including but not limited to poetry, ceramic sculpture, painting, video-making, and non-fiction writing. Her research and work exist conceptually within studies of anti-misogynist, anti-colonial resistance, and literary criticism. A published writer and strong advocate for her community, she co-founded The Catcalling Project, sings jazz and plays the piano.

Multidisciplinary artist Aaron Landsman formed Perfect City in 2016, from the understanding that many sustainability initiatives in urban planning do not address systemic inequities, and often lead to cities becoming more exclusive. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, support from major foundations and residencies at ASU and Princeton, where he continues to teach.


ABOUT PERFECT CITY

Formed by Aaron Landsman in 2016, Perfect City is a multiracial, multigenerational working group that addresses the design, policy-making and zoning of cities. Much of our current work focuses on how the city often renders low-income women, families of color and trans people escaping domestic violence unsafe, even within the shelter system. Led by working group members Tiffany Zorrilla and Jahmorei Snipes, Perfect City’s offshoot The Catcalling Project looks at how the rhetoric of real estate development and that of street harassment both propagate displacement and a lack of safety for women of color. In 2019, Zorrilla and Snipes began to offer Avoidance Mapping workshops for residents at Henry Street Settlement’s Urban Family Center (UFC), a residential shelter with counseling and other services.


ABOUT ABRONS ARTS CENTER

Abrons Arts Center is a home for contemporary interdisciplinary arts in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood. A core program of the Henry Street Settlement, Abrons believes that access to the arts is essential to a free and healthy society. Through performance presentations, exhibitions, education programs, and residencies, Abrons mobilizes communities with the transformative power of art.


ABOUT CREATIVES REBUILD NEW YORK’S ARTIST EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM

Perfect City For Sale is made possible with support from the Creatives Rebuild New York’s Artist Employment Program, a two year initiative that funds employment for up to 300 artists, culture bearers, and culture makers (artists) in collaboration with dozens of community-based organizations across New York State.

Performances: $15
Purchase Tickets

Roundtables: free w/ RSVP
RSVP


Fri, June 28
7:30 P.M. Performance

Sat, June 29
2:00 P.M. Roundtable
7:30 P.M. Performance

Sun, June 30
2:00 P.M. Roundtable
6:00 P.M. Performance


Perfect City is a working group that addresses the design, policy-making, and zoning of cities. This June, Perfect City’s lead artists Tiffany Zorrilla (aka Lola Libre), Jahmorei Snipes, and Aaron Landsman present Perfect City for Sale: a weekend of performances, installations, roundtable discussions, and a zine launch.

Presented by Abrons Arts Center.


PERFORMANCES

At the conclusion of their 2-year residency through the Creatives Rebuild New York's Artist Employment Program, Perfect City members Aaron Landsman, Jahmorei Snipes and Tiffany Zorilla share their individual artistic practices with presentations of performances-in-progress.

Your ticket includes a free copy of our new issue of the Perfect City zine! The zine includes working group writing, collaged images from the community, and critical contributions from collaborators in our partner city of Amsterdam around visibility, safety, design and youth leadership.

Jahmorei Snipes: PILLAR
A series of poetic monologues exploring the world through the lens of Black womanhood. Through spoken word performance, Snipes considers place, safety, and identity from her own perspective, building on themes of storytelling and visibility from Perfect City’s 2023 art and research project Invisible Guides. The development of PILLAR began in 2018 from Snipes’ frustration as a woman forced to maintain patriarchal structures. In her own words, “The function of pillars is to hold up a structure in order to keep it from collapsing. Black women have become the pillars that maintain the structure of our community”.

Lola Libre: BUYME
A metamodern interactive art project that investigates the existence of digital colonialism and its role in perpetuating the exploitation of femme bodies both on and offline. The installation incorporates web-based art, installation, and performance activation to challenge our understanding of power dynamics in digital landscapes and encourage reflection on who and what receives protection online.

Aaron Landsman: All The Time in the World
A new performance work about collective self-regard and the ways capital-driven social media algorithms define how we apprehend the world now. The text is designed and rendered as an original card game - a combination of Uno, Exploding Kittens and Five-Card Draw - played by four actors at a folding table in front of an audience. All the Time in the World takes the ‘media’ out of social media and leaves the gathering and the words. The piece invites us to consider moments in our lives that escape our lenses and render more strongly as memory than our image diaries allow.


ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS

Perfect City will offer two roundtables that invite participants to think together about how our neighborhoods and cities can thrive in an increasingly difficult climate. Each discussion begins with Avoidance Mapping, a social exercise and workshop that makes our invisible knowledge about the city visible. How do you belong when you move through a place? What protects us in the city, and how does our need for protection change depending on our age, race, ability, gender or size?

Saturday, June 29 roundtable focuses on how the nature and discussion of gentrification has shifted since Perfect City’s 2016 founding. Sunday, June 30 roundtable tackles the digital commons, citizenship, activism and the city.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jahmorei Snipes is an actress, advocate and artistic activist. Originally from El Barrio, she currently resides in Harlem, New York. With a profound care for her city and the world around her, Jahmorei joined The Youth Channel at Manhattan Neighborhood Network Youth Media Center. In 2017, she joined Perfect City and co-founded The Catcalling Project. She received a BFA in Acting with a minor in political science from Marymount Manhattan College, Jahmorei has continued to pursue her passions as an actor, theater-maker, and activist. She has presented workshops regularly through Perfect City at CUNY, Princeton and ASU, and with the Confident Futures project alongside other artists and advocates in Amsterdam.

Tiffany Zorrilla is a Dominican woman who was born and raised in the Lower East Side and currently resides in El Barrio in Harlem. Tiffany is a prolific artist with fluency in many media, including but not limited to poetry, ceramic sculpture, painting, video-making, and non-fiction writing. Her research and work exist conceptually within studies of anti-misogynist, anti-colonial resistance, and literary criticism. A published writer and strong advocate for her community, she co-founded The Catcalling Project, sings jazz and plays the piano.

Multidisciplinary artist Aaron Landsman formed Perfect City in 2016, from the understanding that many sustainability initiatives in urban planning do not address systemic inequities, and often lead to cities becoming more exclusive. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, support from major foundations and residencies at ASU and Princeton, where he continues to teach.


ABOUT PERFECT CITY

Formed by Aaron Landsman in 2016, Perfect City is a multiracial, multigenerational working group that addresses the design, policy-making and zoning of cities. Much of our current work focuses on how the city often renders low-income women, families of color and trans people escaping domestic violence unsafe, even within the shelter system. Led by working group members Tiffany Zorrilla and Jahmorei Snipes, Perfect City’s offshoot The Catcalling Project looks at how the rhetoric of real estate development and that of street harassment both propagate displacement and a lack of safety for women of color. In 2019, Zorrilla and Snipes began to offer Avoidance Mapping workshops for residents at Henry Street Settlement’s Urban Family Center (UFC), a residential shelter with counseling and other services.


ABOUT ABRONS ARTS CENTER

Abrons Arts Center is a home for contemporary interdisciplinary arts in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood. A core program of the Henry Street Settlement, Abrons believes that access to the arts is essential to a free and healthy society. Through performance presentations, exhibitions, education programs, and residencies, Abrons mobilizes communities with the transformative power of art.


ABOUT CREATIVES REBUILD NEW YORK’S ARTIST EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM

Perfect City For Sale is made possible with support from the Creatives Rebuild New York’s Artist Employment Program, a two year initiative that funds employment for up to 300 artists, culture bearers, and culture makers (artists) in collaboration with dozens of community-based organizations across New York State.

Performances: $15
Purchase Tickets

Roundtables: free w/ RSVP
RSVP


Fri, June 28
7:30 P.M. Performance

Sat, June 29
2:00 P.M. Roundtable
7:30 P.M. Performance

Sun, June 30
2:00 P.M. Roundtable
6:00 P.M. Performance


Perfect City is a working group that addresses the design, policy-making, and zoning of cities. This June, Perfect City’s lead artists Tiffany Zorrilla (aka Lola Libre), Jahmorei Snipes, and Aaron Landsman present Perfect City for Sale: a weekend of performances, installations, roundtable discussions, and a zine launch.

Presented by Abrons Arts Center.


PERFORMANCES

At the conclusion of their 2-year residency through the Creatives Rebuild New York's Artist Employment Program, Perfect City members Aaron Landsman, Jahmorei Snipes and Tiffany Zorilla share their individual artistic practices with presentations of performances-in-progress.

Your ticket includes a free copy of our new issue of the Perfect City zine! The zine includes working group writing, collaged images from the community, and critical contributions from collaborators in our partner city of Amsterdam around visibility, safety, design and youth leadership.

Jahmorei Snipes: PILLAR
A series of poetic monologues exploring the world through the lens of Black womanhood. Through spoken word performance, Snipes considers place, safety, and identity from her own perspective, building on themes of storytelling and visibility from Perfect City’s 2023 art and research project Invisible Guides. The development of PILLAR began in 2018 from Snipes’ frustration as a woman forced to maintain patriarchal structures. In her own words, “The function of pillars is to hold up a structure in order to keep it from collapsing. Black women have become the pillars that maintain the structure of our community”.

Lola Libre: BUYME
A metamodern interactive art project that investigates the existence of digital colonialism and its role in perpetuating the exploitation of femme bodies both on and offline. The installation incorporates web-based art, installation, and performance activation to challenge our understanding of power dynamics in digital landscapes and encourage reflection on who and what receives protection online.

Aaron Landsman: All The Time in the World
A new performance work about collective self-regard and the ways capital-driven social media algorithms define how we apprehend the world now. The text is designed and rendered as an original card game - a combination of Uno, Exploding Kittens and Five-Card Draw - played by four actors at a folding table in front of an audience. All the Time in the World takes the ‘media’ out of social media and leaves the gathering and the words. The piece invites us to consider moments in our lives that escape our lenses and render more strongly as memory than our image diaries allow.


ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS

Perfect City will offer two roundtables that invite participants to think together about how our neighborhoods and cities can thrive in an increasingly difficult climate. Each discussion begins with Avoidance Mapping, a social exercise and workshop that makes our invisible knowledge about the city visible. How do you belong when you move through a place? What protects us in the city, and how does our need for protection change depending on our age, race, ability, gender or size?

Saturday, June 29 roundtable focuses on how the nature and discussion of gentrification has shifted since Perfect City’s 2016 founding. Sunday, June 30 roundtable tackles the digital commons, citizenship, activism and the city.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jahmorei Snipes is an actress, advocate and artistic activist. Originally from El Barrio, she currently resides in Harlem, New York. With a profound care for her city and the world around her, Jahmorei joined The Youth Channel at Manhattan Neighborhood Network Youth Media Center. In 2017, she joined Perfect City and co-founded The Catcalling Project. She received a BFA in Acting with a minor in political science from Marymount Manhattan College, Jahmorei has continued to pursue her passions as an actor, theater-maker, and activist. She has presented workshops regularly through Perfect City at CUNY, Princeton and ASU, and with the Confident Futures project alongside other artists and advocates in Amsterdam.

Tiffany Zorrilla is a Dominican woman who was born and raised in the Lower East Side and currently resides in El Barrio in Harlem. Tiffany is a prolific artist with fluency in many media, including but not limited to poetry, ceramic sculpture, painting, video-making, and non-fiction writing. Her research and work exist conceptually within studies of anti-misogynist, anti-colonial resistance, and literary criticism. A published writer and strong advocate for her community, she co-founded The Catcalling Project, sings jazz and plays the piano.

Multidisciplinary artist Aaron Landsman formed Perfect City in 2016, from the understanding that many sustainability initiatives in urban planning do not address systemic inequities, and often lead to cities becoming more exclusive. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, support from major foundations and residencies at ASU and Princeton, where he continues to teach.


ABOUT PERFECT CITY

Formed by Aaron Landsman in 2016, Perfect City is a multiracial, multigenerational working group that addresses the design, policy-making and zoning of cities. Much of our current work focuses on how the city often renders low-income women, families of color and trans people escaping domestic violence unsafe, even within the shelter system. Led by working group members Tiffany Zorrilla and Jahmorei Snipes, Perfect City’s offshoot The Catcalling Project looks at how the rhetoric of real estate development and that of street harassment both propagate displacement and a lack of safety for women of color. In 2019, Zorrilla and Snipes began to offer Avoidance Mapping workshops for residents at Henry Street Settlement’s Urban Family Center (UFC), a residential shelter with counseling and other services.


ABOUT ABRONS ARTS CENTER

Abrons Arts Center is a home for contemporary interdisciplinary arts in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood. A core program of the Henry Street Settlement, Abrons believes that access to the arts is essential to a free and healthy society. Through performance presentations, exhibitions, education programs, and residencies, Abrons mobilizes communities with the transformative power of art.


ABOUT CREATIVES REBUILD NEW YORK’S ARTIST EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM

Perfect City For Sale is made possible with support from the Creatives Rebuild New York’s Artist Employment Program, a two year initiative that funds employment for up to 300 artists, culture bearers, and culture makers (artists) in collaboration with dozens of community-based organizations across New York State.