New York Live Arts Sets Lineup for Spring 2015 LIVE IDEAS Festival
By: BWW News Desk Jan. 26, 2015
New York Live Arts today announced the schedule of its third annual Live Ideas festival, S K Y - Force and Wisdom in America Today, taking place April 15 - 19, 2015. Curated by world renowned visual artist, inventor and performer Laurie Anderson in conjunction with New York Live Arts' Artistic Director Bill T. Jones, the 2015 Live Ideas festival combines the arts and social issues in synergistic ways, activating the New York City community to creatively question the direction of modern culture. Presenting no fewer than 25 events via an array of music, dance, newly commissioned poetry, film, discussion and a late-night lounge, S K Y - Force and Wisdom in America Today features such artists as Laurie Anderson, Deborah Hay, Hal Willner, Vito Acconci, Pauline Oliveros and IONE, Reverend Billy, John Zorn, Anne Carson and Master Ren as well as the work of renowned artists including Lou Reed, Julian Schnabel, John Cage and Arvo Pärt.
"In the United States we have traditionally valued freedom, social justice and a special kind of exuberant confidence. So now I find myself paradoxically exhilarated and depressed by living in contemporary America," said Anderson. "As effective social action becomes increasingly more difficult in a society that is deeply divided, unjust and often toxic, it's urgent to question our direction and ethics. I am both excited and honored to be collaborating with Live Arts on the third installment of Live Ideas. Spring is a time for change, for jumping up and heading out. I hope that, through the many wonderful events in this festival, we can start this journey with some fanfare."
"Live Ideas provides an opportunity for our growing community to question the past, present and future of the culture at large," said Jones. "This year's Curator, visionary artist Laurie Anderson, suggested 'The sky' as our theme and we couldn't agree more heartedly. The sky-a multidimensional symbol of aspiration, vastness, change, threat and now information storage-is a fitting image for this year's festival. Through performance, dialogue and practice, we look forward to challenging and inspiring the larger public to think and act. We hope you'll join us."
Among the highlights of the festival are an opening conversation between Anderson and Jones; a noon-time series examining Live Ideas' overarching theme of "force and wisdom in America today" and featuring an array of artists including writer and documentary filmmaker Timothy Ferris and others; a film series featuring works by Julian Schnabel, Chris Marker and more; an early-stage look into Hay and Anderson's new collaboration for the Cullberg Ballet, Figure A Sea; Arvo Pärt: Journeys in Silence, a day-long immersion-through music, lectures and film-into the stillness and depth of Pärt's powerful music and work, curated by Peter Bouteneff of the Arvo Pärt Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary; two original, Live Ideas commissions by poet Anne Carson and choreographer Beth Gill; an evening with Hal Willner and Chloe Webb celebrating the words and music of two generations of New York writers-Kathy Acker and Lou Reed-boasting rarely heard works by Lou Reed and featuring a band of New York's finest musicians; a Tai Chi demonstration by Master Ren to Lou Reed's DRONES; John Cage's fascinating Lecture on the Weather, directed by Thomas Bartlett; and original compositions written, arranged and directed by John Zorn.
"We are delighted to be presenting 2015's Live Ideas festival with the curatorial vision of the brilliant Laurie Anderson," said Jean Davidson, Executive Director and CEO of New York Live Arts. "Live Ideas has become an invigorating opportunity for Live Arts to unite brilliant thinkers and our ever-growing public in a creative examination of big ideas. We are incredibly thankful to the Ford Foundation for their loyal support of the program, without whom Live Ideas would not have evolved into the intellectually and artistically stimulating festival it is today."
Launched in April 2013 by New York Live Arts, the internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry, Live Ideas is an annual arts and ideas festival offering artists of all disciplines an opportunity to engage audiences and come together for lively discussion and exploration under a new theme each year. The first edition of Live Ideas, titled The Worlds of Oliver Sacks, paid tribute to the acclaimed neurologist. The 2014 iteration, James Baldwin, This Time!, launched "The Year of Baldwin," a year-long, City-wide celebration of Baldwin's work in conjunction with various institutions including Harlem Stage, Columbia University and its Office of Community Outreach and Education, The School of the Arts, The Richard Avedon Foundation, The New School and its Vera List Center for Art and Politics and the School of Writing and more.
Live Ideas is sponsored by The Ford Foundation, with additional support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, The Samuel M. Levy Family Foundation and by other generous donors.
Please see the descriptions and schedule below for complete program details. *Schedule information and subject to change.*
Live Ideas: S K Y - Force and Wisdom in America Today will run April 15 - 19, 2015. Single tickets will go on sale to New York Live Arts members on January 26, 2015 and to the general public on February 16, 2015. Call 212-924-0077 or visit www.newyorklivearts.org for more information. Box Office hours: Monday - Friday 1 - 9pm | Saturday-Sunday 10am - 9pm.
OVERVIEW OF EVENTS:
MUSICARVO PÄRT: JOURNEYS IN SILENCE - A SELECTION OF CHAMBER WORKS
Of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, The New York Times recently said that "No other living composer has so fervent a following or such a diverse group of fans." Live Ideas' second day-titled Arvo Pärt: Journeys in Silence-will explore Pärt's body of work, including austere compositions known to stir immense passions. The day will conclude with a rare performance of his chamber works, expressive of a wide range of his periods and tonalities, yet all unmistakably Pärt.
Date: Thursday, April 16
Time: 7:30pm
Tickets: $15/$50/$65
Location: Live Arts Theater
PAULINE OLIVEROS AND IONE'S WATER ABOVE/SKY BELOW NOW! + JOHN CAGE'S
LECTURE ON THE WEATHER
Pauline Oliveros and IONE have worked collaboratively since 1985. They have created four large operas and frequently perform improvisation that features spoken word and sonic vocals (by IONE) with harmonica, accordion and electronic music (by Oliveros). For Live Ideas, they will perform two works-one premiere and one older work-using Oliveros' new V Accordion and Expanded Instrument System to produce truly unique, of-the-moment sound art.
The second half of the evening's performance features Cage's 1976 Lecture on the Weather.Combining music, text, projected images, lighting and a weather soundscape, the work is a softly political piece containing Cage's concerns (social, political and environmental in nature) regarding the direction the country was then taking. Equally as relevant today as the year it was written, the installation features excerpts from Henry David Thoreau's writings-Walden: Life in the Woods and On Civil Disobedience-selected by means of I Ching chance operations. Commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in observance of the bicentennial of the United States of America in 1976, it was to be performed, according to Cage, by 12 men, "preferably American men who have become Canadian citizens."
Date: Saturday, April 18
Time: 7:30pm
Tickets: $15/$50/$65
Location: Live Arts Theater
JOHN ZORN: MUSIC FOR PIANO, STRINGS AND PERCUSSION
New York City native and "tirelessly prolific composer, organizer and genre-scrambler" (The New York Times) John Zorn presents an ensemble music performance for piano, strings and percussion. This Live Ideas evening of music features two compositions written, arranged and directed by Zorn.
Date: Sunday, April 19
Time: 7:30pm
Tickets: $15/$50/$65
Location: Live Arts Theater
THE BLUE ROOM
Curated by the editor of the acclaimed Talkhouse Music website, The Blue Room provides a space for artists and the larger community to mingle and listen with special guest DJs and other surprises. These events will take place at G Lounge (official partner for The Blue Room) and other locations around New York Live Arts.
Date: April 15 - 19, daily during the festival
Time: 11:00pm
Tickets: Free
Location: G Lounge/Live Arts Lobby
NOON-TIME TALK SERIES
Continuing in the Live Ideas tradition, each day of 2015's festival will begin with a noon-time discussion/presentation. Events include a presentation of Pulitzer Prize nominated writer/documentary filmmaker Timothy Ferris's Beyond Belief, which questions our ability to reconcile societies division between various belief-based systems; an Arvo Pärt panel exploring issues in both the performance and reception of Pärt's work as well as the potential of music in conveying the transcendent (moderated by Peter Bouteneff of the Arvo Pärt Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary); Lou Reed's DRONES, a visceral, emotional and spiritual installation featuring his guitars and amps in feedback mode, where twenty-four strings create an amalgamation of three hundred and sixty partial harmonics colliding, cascading and uniting in sound; Marjorie Morrison in conversation with Joe Mauricio and Mateo Romero for a talk titled Proactive Military Mental Health; and a mix of poems, projections and sound with artist and designer Vito Acconci in WORD/ACT/SIGN/DE-SIGN.
Dates: April 15 - 19, daily during the festival
Times: 12:00pm
Tickets: Free (reservations recommended)
Location: Live Arts Theater
WHERE ARE WE GOING? LAURIE ANDERSON AND BILL T. JONES IN CONVERSATION
Curator Laurie Anderson and Live Arts' Artistic Director Bill T. Jones discuss Live Ideas 2015's overarching theme: force and change in America today. Using the sky, "a multidimensional symbol of aspiration, vastness, change, threat and now information storage" (Jones) as a jumping-off point, this opening conversation will question the direction and ethics of a country that has "traditionally valued freedom, social justice and a special kind of exuberant confidence" but that is currently faced with "a society that is deeply divided, unjust and often toxic" (Anderson).
Date: Wednesday, April 15
Time: 6:00pm
Tickets: $40
Location: Live Arts Theater
MASTER REN: TAIJIQUAN DEMONSTRATION AND PANEL FEATURING LOU REED'S DRONES
Taijiquan is a Chinese internal martial art system. Dating back approximately 400 years, it was founded by a former Ming general, Chen Wang-Ting. As exercise, Taijiquan promotes health and relaxation through a series of continuous, flowing movements while providing powerful tools for self-defense. Chen Xiao-Wang, Ren Guang-Yi (Master Ren)'s teacher, is a direct descendant of Chen Wang-Ting and the 19th generation leader of the family style.
Chen Style Taijiquan is noted for its fluid, coiling movements, punctuated with quick bursts of energy. It is the original style of Taijiquan, from which all the other styles (like Yang and Wu) ultimately derive. Master Ren will host a demonstration of this technique accompanied by Lou Reed's DRONES. A panel discussion featuring Master Ren and a number of his notable students will follow.
Date: Friday, April 17
Time: 6:00pm
Tickets: $15/$40
Location: Live Arts Theater
REVEREND BILLY & THE STOP SHOPPING CHOIR + HAL WILLNER AND CHLOE WEBB'S
DOING THE THINGS WE WANT TO
In this time of the Earth's crisis we pursue the mysterious catalyst that ignites collective knowledge into collective will. How will we move across the brave line into activism? Post religious proselytizing? Punk madrigals? Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir will show us how to put our ears to the dirt and listen.
The second part of the performance-Doing The Things We Want To-features a ritual bash celebrating Lou Reed and Kathy Acker, two New York grown, transgressive and still-revolutionary artists of music, spoken word, novels and film. Willner, Webb and a band of New York's finest (with Lee Renaldo, Doug Wieselman and special guests) slap back and forth with selected works on Reed and Ackers' favorite subjects including sex, love, rage, death and phosphorescent humanity.
Date: Friday, April 17
Time: 7:30pm
Tickets: $15/$50/$65
Location: Live Arts Theater
ANNE CARSONS'S SKYWRITERS I HAVE KNOWN
Poet, essayist and MacArthur "genius" Ann Carson is creating new work commissioned exclusively for Live Ideas. Inspired by the questions inherent to this year's theme: S K Y - Force and Wisdom in America Today, this event features an intimate presentation of Carson's newest work.
Date: Sunday, April 19
Time: 6:00pm
Tickets: $15/$40
Location: Live Arts Theater
LAURIE ANDERSON: A SELECTION OF WORKS
One of America's most renowned performance artists, Laurie Anderson's genre-crossing work encompasses performance, film, music, installation, writing, photography and sculpture. She is widely known for her multimedia presentations and will show a selection of her film works for Live Ideas.
Date: Wednesday, April 15
Time: 4:00pm
Tickets: $10
Location: Live Arts Theater
ARVO PÄRT: JOURNEYS IN SILENCE - 24 PRELUDES FOR A FUGUE
This documentary film presents a series of intimate and compelling vignettes yielding insight into composer Arvo Pärt's background and process.
Date: Thursday, April 16
Time: 4:00pm
Tickets: $10
Location: Live Arts Theater
JULIAN SCHNABEL FILM SCREENING
Award-winning American artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel specially selects one of his films to screen for this year's Live Ideas festival.
Date: Friday, April 17
Time: 4:00pm
Tickets: $10
Location: Live Arts Theater
CHRIS MARKER'S LA JETÉE
Filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor and now videographer and digital multimedia artist, Chris Marker has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. Marker's La Jetée is one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made, a tale of time travel told in still images.
Date: Saturday, April 18
Time: 4:00pm
Tickets: $10
Location: Live Arts Theater
VITTORIO DE SICA'S MIRACLE IN MILAN
Based on a novel by Cesare Zavattini, Miracle in Milan is De Sica's 1951 follow-up to his earlier film The Bicycle Thief. A René Clair-inspired social fantasy, the film depicts a fight between a troop of shantytown poor and the industrialist, eager to explore for oil beneath their village. The revolutionaries are led by a young visionary named Toto, armed with enthusiasm and a magic dove. De Sica's film-both humanist and wistful-unfolds with an underlying discourse surrounding social ills and how they should be rectified.
Date: Sunday, April 19
Time: 4:00pm
Tickets: $10
Location: Live Arts Theater
BETH GILL'S PORTRAIT STUDY + LAURIE ANDERSON AND DEBORAH HAY
Live Ideas 2015 has commissioned New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award winning choreographer Beth Gill to create a new work. Known for her "entirely engrossing.choreography" (The New York Times), the first half of this program will feature Gill's Portrait Study, featuring lighting by Thomas Dunn and live music by selected New York composers.
Anderson and Hay are collaborating to create a new evening-length work- Figure A Sea-for the Cullberg Ballet. Premiering in Stockholm from September 25-27, 2015, the second half of this evening's performance gives Live Arts' audience an opportunity to witness two artists in the early stages of their collaboration.
Date: Wednesday, April 15
Time: 7:30pm
Tickets: $50/$65
Location: Live Arts Theater
About Laurie Anderson: Laurie Anderson is one of America's most renowned-and daring-creative pioneers. She is best known for her multimedia presentations and innovative use of technology. As writer, director, visual artist and vocalist she has created groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater and experimental music.
Her recording career, launched by "O Superman" in 1981, includes the soundtrack to her feature film "Home of the Brave" and "Life on a String" (2001). Anderson's live shows range from simple spoken word to elaborate multi-media stage performances such as "Songs and Stories for Moby Dick" (1999). Anderson has published seven books and her visual work has been presented in major museums around the world.
In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA, culminating in her 2004 touring solo performance "The End of the Moon." Recent projects include a series of audio-visual installations and a high definition film, "Hidden Inside Mountains," created for World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. In 2008, she completed a two-year worldwide tour of her performance piece, "Homeland," which was released as an album on Nonesuch Records in June 2010. Anderson's solo performance "Delusion" debuted at the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad in February, 2010 and toured internationally throughout 2011. In 2010, a retrospective of her visual and installation work opened in Sao Paulo, Brazil and later traveled to Rio de Janeiro.
In 2011, her exhibition of all new work titled "Forty-Nine Days In the Bardo" opened at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. In February of 2013, she debuted her piece "Landfall," a performance with the Kronos Quartet. She recently completed her terms as artist in residence at CAP in UCLA in Los Angeles and EMPAC in Troy New York. She is currently preparing a series of performances and installations entitled "The Language of the Future" which will be presented at the SFJAZZ Center in late May 2015 and at the Park Avenue Armory October 2-4, 2015. Anderson lives in New York City.
ABOUT NEW YORK LIVE ARTS - New York Live Arts is an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry, offering audiences access to art and artists notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation and active engagement with the social, political and cultural currents of our times. At the center of this identity is Bill T. Jones, Artistic Director, a world-renowned choreographer, dancer, theater director and writer.
We commission, produce and present performances in our 20,000 square foot home, which includes a 184-seat theater and two 1,200 square foot studios that can be combined into one large studio. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, provides an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people and supports the continuing professional development of artists.
Videos