For Immediate Release
PERFORMA 11
PERFORMA ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL PERFORMA COMMISSIONS
AND FIRST TWO PERFORMA PREMIERES
FOR UPCOMING BIENNIAL
PERFORMA COMMISSION ARTISTS TO INCLUDE
SIMON FUJIWARA, MIKA ROTTENBERG AND JON KESSLER,
FRANCES STARK, AND MING WONG
PERFORMA PREMIERE ARTISTS TO INCLUDE
ROBERT ASHLEY AND BORIS CHARMATZ
November 1–21, 2011, in New York City
New York, NY, June 27, 2011—Performa is pleased to announce the next four Performa Commissions as well as the first two Performa Premieres for its upcoming visual art performance biennial, Performa 11, this November 1–21, 2011, in New York City. Acclaimed artists to receive Performa Commissions are Simon Fujiwara, Mika Rottenberg and Jon Kessler, Frances Stark, and Ming Wong. Performa Premieres will be presented by celebrated artists Robert Ashley and Boris Charmatz. As America’s first biennial to present international artists in all disciplines, Performa 11 presents a wide range of exciting and engaging new work by both established and emerging artists from around the world.
RoseLee Goldberg, Performa Founding Director and Curator, says, “I am thrilled to announce our next group of Performa Commissions and our first two Performa Premieres. These awards allow artists to take off in whatever directions they choose and bring their ideas to life in extraordinary ways.” Goldberg adds, “We‘re especially excited to work with such a cross-generational group of artists, ranging from up-and-coming artists like Simon Fujiwara to legendary figures like Robert Ashley.”
The Performa Commissions, a central part of the Performa biennial, give artists unparalleled support to realize new work in live performance. These five newly-announced artists join an acclaimed group of additional artists who have already received Performa Commissions for Performa 11: iona rozeal brown, Elmgreen & Dragset, Ragnar Kjartansson, Guy Maddin, and Shirin Neshat. The Performa Premieres program, launched in 2009 with artists including Tacita Dean, William Kentridge, and Joan Jonas, presents exceptional live works that have never been seen in New York. Working closely with each artist, Performa finds the perfect venue for every project, tailoring it especially for the unique context of New York City. Performa's Commissions, Premieres, and Projects are curated by RoseLee Goldberg, along with Performa's team of curators and producers including Defne Ayas, Mark Beasley, Esa Nickle, Dougal Phillips, and Lana Wilson.
Performa will announce additional Performa Commissions, Performa Premieres, and Performa Projects in July and August, along with exciting programs from the Performa Consortium of over 40 arts and cultural organizations, and by more than 25 international curators.
For Performa 11 Simon Fujiwara (b. 1982, London, England) will present a multi-part theatrical performance titled The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Weaving together new performance work with excerpts from a number of his previous acclaimed autobiographical performances and installations, Fujiwara will present a single epic narrative in three acts. From the search for a 136-year-old Amazonian explorer, to the secret sexual powers of Abstract Expressionist painting, Fujiwara’s absurd and labyrinthine stories will be brought to the stage with the aid of actors, musicians, and a mobile set.
Artists Mika Rottenberg (b. 1976, Buenos Aires, Argentina) and Jon Kessler (b. 1957, Yonkers, NY) will present 7, an ongoing performance and installation that stretches from the urban landscape of New York to the savannahs of Africa. Mixing Kessler’s kinetic sculptures with Rottenberg’s absurdist videos, 7 will collapse film time and real time to create an intricate laboratory that channels body fluids and colors into a spectacle on the African savannah. Activated by live performers, the resulting video installation playfully addresses themes of spirituality, connection to the land, and the origin of the human species as well as questioning the place of performance, which can serve both as a substitute for spiritual ritual as well as an idiosyncratic spectacle.
Language and its poesy and rhythm are central to Frances Stark’s (b. 1967, Newport Beach, CA) engagement with the world. Borrowing words and phrases from novels, poems, and pop songs, she turns them into visual material that evoke the process of writing. Stark’s Performa Commission takes viewers on a semi-autobiographical stroll through the creative chaos of the artist’s life, working closely with a dancer and DJ from New York’s dance hall daggering scene. Written with close attention to the rhythm and pattern of language, Stark’s confessional performances are intimate and inclusive, presenting the facts of her life in a story that rises, falls, and diminishes like the chapters of a book.
Ming Wong (b. 1971, Singapore) will take the archetype of the American actress as a point of departure for a new work activating the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. Inspired by the multicultural neighborhood of Astoria and its history as a home for major film studios, Wong will create a live multimedia performance of choreographed actions drawing from his research of female stars since cinema’s inception. Twenty-four actors of different ages, genders, ethnicities, and nationalities will participate, with each actor representing a single frame of a living filmstrip that will wind its way through the history of cinema via the architecture of the Museum of the Moving Image.
For his Performa Premiere, Robert Ashley (b. 1930, Ann Arbor, Michigan)—a pioneer of opera-for-television and mixed media musical theater—will present That Morning Thing (1967), an opera in three acts for men’s and women's speaking voices and eight dancers. The opera premiered at the ONCE Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1968 and was later presented at the Cross Talk Intermedia Festival in Tokyo, Japan, and the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, in Oakland, California. Two scenes from the opera—“Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon” and “She Was a Visitor”—became legends when they were recorded in the 1970s.
Choreographer Boris Charmatz (b. 1973,Chambéry, France) will re-conceive his groundbreaking Musée de la Danse (Dancing Museum) to premiere in New York City as part of Performa 11. A radical new way of looking at the history and future of dance through a unique live experience, Musée de la Danse: Expo Zéro is an exhibition comprised of completely empty rooms filled by the gestures, projects, bodies, stories, and dances which visitors will both see and imagine. Equal parts artistic project, institutional platform, and political proposition, Charmatz’s Performa Premiere will undoubtedly have a lasting impact not only on the New York City dance scene, but on the larger culture as well.
FUNDING
Major support for Performa 11 has been provided by Toby Devan Lewis, Lambent Foundation, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The David and Elaine Potter Foundation, The Dedalus Foundation, Étant Donnés, the French-American Fund for Contemporary Art, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Danish Arts Council, the Office for Contemporary Art Norway, FUSED: French U.S. Exchange in Dance (a program of the National Dance Project/New England Foundation for the Arts and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York, with lead funding from Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the French American Cultural Exchange, and the Florence Gould Foundation), The American-Scandinavian Foundation, Helena Rubinstein Foundation, the Performa Board of Directors, the Performa Producers Circle, and the Performa Visionaries.
ABOUT PERFORMA
Performa, a nonprofit multidisciplinary arts organization established by RoseLee Goldberg in 2004, is dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth-century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century. In 2005, Performa launched New York’s first performance biennial, Performa 05, followed by Performa 07 (2007), and Performa 09 (2009). In 2011, Performa will present its fourth biennial, Performa 11 (November 1–21, 2011).
Performa 11 will feature performances by over 100 contemporary artists, including 12 Performa Commissions by acclaimed artists from around the world, as well as Performa Premieres, Performa Projects, and a host of new works by up-and-coming artists. This year’s biennial will be a thrilling showcase of live culture across all artistic disciplines, taking place at over 80 venues throughout New York City and presented in collaboration with a consortium of more than 40 local arts and cultural organizations and 25 international curators.
For more information, visit www.performa-arts.org.
Media Contact
Ashley Tickle
Press and Marketing Manager
+ 1 212 366 5700
ashley@performa-arts.org
|
