The Wild Project Announces POETIC LICENSE 2014: SHADES OF LOVE and 2014 Avant Music Festival

The Wild Project has announced some new and exciting events as part of their calender, including Poetic License 2014: Shades of Love and the 2014 Avant Music Festival.

Now - Sunday, February 16, audiences can enjoy POETIC LICENSE 2014: SHADES OF LOVE, produced by Poetic Theater Productions. Featuring work from both emerging and established poets, POETIC LICENSE 2014: SHADES OF LOVE features work from Mahogany L. Browne, Yadira De La Riva, Judith Sloan, Craig muMs Grant (HBO's "Oz"), and Staceyann Chin (Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway). The festival also includes a performance from the renowned music group The Mighty Third Rail.

POETIC LICENSE 2014: SHADES OF LOVE Schedule is as follows:

6@6 Reading Series (FREE ADMISSION):

Wednesday, February 12 at 6:30PM
Murder the Machine by Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai
Three friends work to solve the mystery of a missing girl in a political world that reaches from the recent past into the distant future.

Performance Series (Ticket prices range from $15 - $25):

Friday, February 14 at 8PM and 10PM, $15
Love, Redefined
Celebrate non-commercial, non-traditional love this Valentine's Day, as imagined by eight fierce women writers! Poetic Theater Productions' fourth annual celebration of non-commercial, non-traditional love featuring dozens of artists responding to Shakespearean love scenes and traditional love poems with poetic and theatrical remixes, re-imaginings and riffs. Featuring brand new work written by Aziza D. Barnes, Maria Alexandria Beech, Samantha Cooper, Gina Femia, Kelley Nicole Girod, Chisa Hutchinson, Caroline Rothstein, Sita Sarkar and the NYC premiere of "The Relationship Resume," a persona poem short film by Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai.

Saturday, February 15 at 8PM, $15
Goliath by Takeo Rivera
Directed by Alex Mallory (Co-Artistic Director of Poetic Theater Productions), lighting design by Brad Peterson
Featuring Samantha Cooper, Dontonio Demarco, Natalia Duong, Edgar Eguia, Kenneth Heaton, Monique Paige and Nabil Viñas.

Returning home from a war without purpose, David searches for his remaining humanity while his family and friends try to reconcile this war-torn veteran with their beloved son, brother, husband and friend. Poetic Theater Productions' award-winning production, Goliath returns to NYC for one night only on the heels of its California tour to Stanford University, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.

Sunday, February 16 at 6PM, $15
YO MISS! Teaching Inside the Cultural Divide written and performed by Judith Sloan
Directed by Bob Berky
Performed with a live band including Miwi LaLupa, Deep Singh, Adam Hill, Lynn Ligammari. Fusing the art of theatre and music YO MISS! Teaching Inside the Cultural Divide is an eye- and ear-witness account of one artist navigating and remixing a maze of miscommunications and memories, while breaking down assumptions that divide residents of a city who live in close proximity but come from conflicting worlds. YO MISS! is a project of EarSay, developed with Viper Records and Morgan Jenness.

Cabaret Series (Ticket price: $15):
Thursday, February 13 at 10PM
Breaking Our Silence
Spend a night with all-star queer poets and musicians, sharing their experiences of coming out, finding love, breaking the silence and speaking out! Featuring Joanna Hoffman, Elliott D Smith, queer folk-pop duo Anna/Kate, Charan P. Morris, Shira Erlichman, Casey Rocheteau, Tim DuWhite, Sam LaRoche, Kit Yan, Sarah Duncan and Nicole Goodwin. Specific evening line-ups to be announced.

Saturday February 15 at 10PM
Love and War by Keomi Tarver
Love and War welcomes the vulnerability of love and the war love brings to the surface. Infused with dance and poetry, Love and War pushes boundaries and asks all the hard questions we keep tucked away, leaving us exposed and eventually free. Featuring Keomi Tarver, Jayson Smith, Efeya Sampson, Kristen Smith, Autumn Oftedal, Sharifa Linton, Samantha Garvin, Candace Tabbs, Natasha Corbie, Petra Claiborne, Nicole Davis, Anthony McPherson, Jeanann Verlee, Tiffany Neal, and Kat Magill.

Friday, February 21 - Saturday, March 1, The Wild Project will feature the 2014 Avant Music Festival, curated by Randy Gibson and Megan Schubert. The Festival will feature two weeks of music from the evolving Avant-Garde.
Tickets are $12 ($8 members/students) in advance and $15 at the door ($10 members/students); Festival passes are $40 ($30 members and students). Please note, advance online sales close 24 hours prior to the performance. Tickets are available at avantmedia.org/tickets.

Now in its fifth year of fostering a space for the evolving avant-garde, the Avant Music Festival (AMF) provides composers an unprecedented opportunity to realize their vision over a full concert evening. This year featuring world premieres from Alpert Award-winning composer/performer Alex Mincek and New York School luminary Alvin Lucier. The annual all-day John Cage celebration explores the far reaches of indeterminacy with Variations IV, and stages Cage's final opera, Europera 5. There is a live-streamed composers roundtable discussion, moderated by Olivia Giovetti. Closing the festival, AMF artistic director and composer Randy Gibson leads a performance of the next evolution of his Apparitions of the Four Pillars.

Performers for the 2014 festival include many musicians central to the city's New Music community, including Joan La Barbara, William Lang, Megan Schubert, Adam Herskowitz, Yegor Shevtsov, Jen Baker, Erik Carlson, Meaghan Burke, Ian Antonio, and more, as well as video sculpture and lighting from Oscar Henriquez and Bessy award-winning lighting designer Kryssy Wright.

The 2014 Avant Music Festival Line Up is as follows:

Friday, February 21 at 8 PM
Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier has created a new solo vocal work to be performed by Joan La Barbara in the mold of his landmark I Am Sitting In A Room with text by Lydia Davis.

Saturday, February 22 from Noon - 8 PM (Free Admission)
John Cage's Variations IV
An all-day free performance of Cage's Variations IV with sounds happening all around Wild Project throughout the day.

Saturday, February 22 at 5PM (Free Admission)
Composer Roundtable Discussion
Composers Alvin Lucier, Alex Mincek, and Randy Gibson sit down with host Olivia Giovetti for a live-streamed discussion about the nature of contemporary music.

Saturday, February 22 at 8 PM
John Cage's Europera 5
Cage's monumental and rarely-heard last opera, Europera 5, gets an intimate staging with lighting design by Kryssy Wright, arias from Megan Schubert and Adam Herskowitz, and piano from Yegor Shevtsov.

Friday, February 28 at 8 PM
Alex Mincek
Alex Mincek presents an evening of new and recent works featuring percussion and saxophone.

Saturday, March 1 at 8 PM
Randy Gibson's Apparitions Of The Four Pillars In The Midwinter Starfield Under The Astral 789 Duet
The closing performance of the festival features Gibson's ongoing meditative Apparitions Of The Four Pillars in a newly revised three hour performance featuring Randy Gibson, Voice and Sine Waves; Jen Baker and William Lang, Trombones; Drew Blumberg and Erik Carlson, Violins; Meaghan Burke, Cello with video sculpture by Oscar Henriquez, and lighting design by Kryssy Wright.

All performances are at The Wild Project (195 E. 3rd Street, between Avenues A & B). Tickets can be purchased from OvationTix on 212.352.3101 or online at www.thewildproject.com. The Box Office opens one hour prior to curtain.

The Wild Project is a production company and venue for contemporary theater, film, and visual art. The Wild Project creates community by inspiring and entertaining art from emerging artists, exploring green technologies, and finding innovative ways to help our world and each other.