24-Hour Performance BANG, BANG, GUN AMOK to Address Gun Culture at Abrons Arts Center

Abrons Arts Center will present the world premiere of Bang, Bang, Gun Amok, a 24-hour "performance filibuster" dedicated to U.S. gun culture.

Beginning on December 8 at 6pm and running continuously until December 9 at 6pm, Bang, Bang, Gun Amok will create a space for a community of creators to educate and express how the issue of gun violence in the United States is rooted in a history of institutionalized violence.

Initiated by performance artist and activist George Emilio Sanchez, this landmark event will feature over 50 artists, survivors of gun violence, activists, and scholars coming together through music, dance, theater, comedy, discussion, bodywork, healing practices, and more.

Bang, Bang, Gun Amok will be live-streamed and will include an alphabetical roll call of all 535 Members of Congress, along with their position on gun control.

"Even though we're flooded with tragic stories of gun violence, I think people, in general, tend to overlook it," says performance artist and activist George Emilio Sanchez. "Some of us choose to ignore it, while others are numb, but in reality, I think fear is preventing us from truly feeling the pain. As we near the fifth anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, I hope that Bang, Bang, Gun Amok will create a space where the community can come together to acknowledge the trauma around gun violence in the United States."

Participants in Bang, Bang, Gun Amok include musician Vernon Reid (Living Colour); poet and performance artist Pamela Sneed; representatives of Save Out Streets (S.O.S.), Gays Against Guns, and Gangstas Making Astronomical Community Changes; scholar and writer Alex Vitale (The End of Policing); journalist Jimmie Briggs; singer Nicky Paraiso; writer Eva Yaa Asantewaa; and performance artist Jennifer Miller; along with dance artists luciana achugar, Maura Donohue, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Paz Tanjuaquio, David Thomson, Charmaine Warren and Edisa Weeks, and more.

Bang, Bang, Gun Amok will take place December 8, 6pm-December 9, 6pm at Abrons Arts Center, located at 466 Grant Street in Manhattan. Tickets, priced at $20, can be purchased by visiting abronsartscenter.org or by calling 212-352-3101. Audiences are permitted to exit and to return during this 24-hour event.

George Emilio Sanchez is a performance artist, writer, and educator. He presented his solo work Buried Up To My Neck While Thinking Outside The Box as a street durational performance under the umbrella of El Museo del Barrio in August 2015. This work premiered at Dixon Place in 2009 and also ran at La MaMa in 2011. For over 15 years, Sanchez collaborated with Brazilian choreographer Patricia Hoffbauer on numerous pieces. Among those are A Night in La Mezcla and The Architecture of Seeing which premiered at Dance Theater Workshop and has since toured to 10 states and Puerto Rico. Their first collaboration Carmenland, The Saga Continues... was presented at The Whitney Museum at Philip Morris in 1996. His first solo performance, Chief Half-Breed in the Land of In-Between, premiered at Dance Theater Workshop and was part of Mo' Madness, a festival of solo performances curated by George C. Wolfe and produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival. His second solo performance piece, LATINDIO also premiered in New York City and both pieces have since been performed in over 20 states as well as in Puerto Rico and Peru.

As an artistic associate under JoAnne Akalaitis, Sanchez created the Latino Lab at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater. He has also been a contributing commentator for Latino USA, a subsidiary of National Public Radio. In 2010, he worked with Marina Abramovi? as a part of her retrospective at MoMA, The Artist Is Present. In 2009, he performed with Meg Stuart as part of Performa '09 in Auf den Tisch!.

Sanchez has garnered two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships for Performance Art/Emergent Forms and was a Fulbright Scholar to Peru, where he worked with schools and community organizations creating original performance pieces that were presented in a wide array of settings. In 1998, Hoffbauer and Sanchez were awarded a Rockefeller MAP grant for their inter-disciplinary creation The Architecture of Seeing Project which was presented at Dance Umbrella in Austin, Texas. In 2002-03 he was awarded the Viola Farber Artist-In-Residence fellowship at Sarah Lawrence College. He has an MFA from Bard College and he currently teaches theater and performance at the City University of New York's College of Staten Island where he is also the Chairperson of the Performing and Creative Arts Department. For the past seven years, he has served as the Performance Director for the Hemispheric Institute's EmergeNYC Performance Project that works out of New York University. EmergeNYC aims to explore the intersection between arts and activism.

As an arts educator, Sanchez has worked in a wide array of locations ranging from public to private schools, not-for-profits, for-profit corporations, higher education institutions, and community centers and incarcerated populations throughout the United States. In 1993 and 1994, he directed two original theater works with Grupo Animo, the youth theater ensemble of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, TX. He has created and facilitated diversity workshops utilizing the arts and has worked in the not-for-profit and corporate worlds with this training. He has also worked in Puerto Rico, Peru, Brazil and most recently in Istanbul, Turkey. In New York City he was the director of Global Kids, a community-based organization that worked in eight public high schools under a dropout prevention contract. Global Kids was featured at a conference at the United Nations that revolved around the U.N.'s Rights of the Child document in 1992. In 2005-2006, Sanchez served as the resident teaching artist for the Bronx Museum of the Arts as the facilitator and trainer for their Action Lab theater component and continues to work with the museum as a consultant to their education program. He is the recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Exchange 2006 Arts Educator of the Year Award. He also works as a Retreat Facilitator for the Posse Foundation.

The Abrons Arts Center is the OBIE Award-winning performing and visual arts program O. Henry Street Settlement. Abrons supports the creation and presentation of innovative, multi-disciplinary work; cultivates artists in all stages of their practice with educational programs, mentorships, residencies and commissions; and serves as an intersection of engagement for local, national and international audiences and arts-workers.

Each year the Abrons offers over 250 performances, 12 gallery exhibitions and 30 residencies for performing and studio artists, and 100 different classes in dance, music, theater, and visual art. The Abrons also provides New York City public schools with teaching artists, introducing more than 3,000 students to the arts. For more information, go to www.abronsartscenter.org.