PS122 Presents now and nowhere else 11/10-14

Iver Findlay and Marit Sandsmark's now and nowhere else is a visceral hybrid performance colliding dance, live music, experimental theatre, and video; a brash stylistic mash-up appropriating classic experimental texts, mapping new performance terrain, and exploring rhythm and its opposite(s). With great liberties, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Sartre's No Exit, Godard's Contempt, and Bukowski's Barfly are mined for context and impulse, while Cage and Cunningham are channelled to ping pong between polemics, natural and synthetic, acoustic and electronic, real and beyond real. This live art experiment is wrought by powerhouse international collaborators: Findlay and Sandsmark, with Diane Madden, Joe Truman, Peter Warren,and Jim Dawson hailing from Norway, New York, and Kansas City.

now and nowhere else appears to take place at the imaginary edges of the earth, conjuring a virtual no man's land - with random encounters explored in a time and a place that no longer exists. The artists have the non-dancers dance, the non-actors act, the non-singers sing, and so on, until what each is left with is a deep desire to do only what they are good at; and at the same time, each is forced to watch, helplessly, as someone else destroys the beauty that they are each capable of creating. And so the audience experiences movement alongside the spastic approximation of movement, performance art alongside the delicate shyness of what would be considered acting, and witnesses a performance that flails wildly and consciously between what it wants to be and what it is.
now and nowhere else is a question. But the question itself is naturally a statement. As in: What the fuck are we doing here now? Where else could we go if we had an answer to that question? And of course: Why do we ask the question when we know the answer is redundant anyway? All we can do is try. As Vladimir says in Waiting for Godot, "Be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything."
now and nowhere else is a co-production of Tou Scene and the Regional Arena for Samtidsdans (RAS) in Stavanger, Norway and was developed through a residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center. Funded by Norsk Kulturråd (Norwegian Cultural Council), Fond for Lyd og Bilde, FFUK, and Stavanger Kulturbyfond (Stavanger Cultural Fund). Supported in part by TestPerformanceTest. Additional residency support provided at the Collapsable Hole by the Collapsable Giraffe.

Selected Bios:

Iver Findlay is an artist and designer working across, and in between, the fields of experimental theater, video art, and sound art. Now based in Stavanger, Norway, he has recently collaborated as a video and sound artist for several international and Norwegian projects, along with producing his own work. Prior to his arrival in Norway he has been making work, installations and performances in New York City for over 13 years, individually and in collaboration with a number of well-known experimental theater companies. He has been involved as a core creator for the Collapsable Giraffe's multimedia performance work since co-founding the Williamsburg, Brooklyn based company in 1995. Recent performances include "Pee Pee Maw Maw", "Letters from the Earth", "Meat is Floating By", among others. Other recent work includes collaborating with Radiohole on 'Anger/Nation' (2008), as a co-creator, video designer and performer. He has also contributed video design to their 'Fluke' and co-created/performed in 'Bend Your Mind Off', a joint project with the Collapsable Giraffe, which inaugurated the renowned NYC performance space, the Collapsable Hole, a recipient of a 2003 OBIE award. He has recently collaborated/ co-created pieces with choreographer Diane Madden, writer/director Young Jean Lee, and director Goro Tronsmo. He has worked as a video designer/programmer and sound artist for the Wooster Group, Ridge Theater, and the Riot Group, among several others. He is an artistic associate of the Wooster Group, where he worked for over six years as a video and sound artist, being involved in all their performances from 2001-2006 and touring a number of shows in over 20 international cities.
Marit Sandmark is a Stavanger, Norway-based dance artist and choreographer. She has worked professionally with her own works, such as 'the I as a result of you' as well as with Molitrix Scenekunst and Rogaland National Theatre. In 2006 she was appointed Artist of the Year in Stavanger and has since mostly concentrated on her own projects. She also sits on the board of DansiS, which is a new organization for dancers in the Stavanger region of Norway.

Diane Madden, based in New York, has enjoyed a long and varied career in dance as a performer, choreographer, rehearsal director and teacher. Originally trained in ballet, jazz and modern techniques, during the 70's, at Hampshire College and in New York, she began studying improvisation and release techniques, which led her to join the Trisha Brown Company in 1980. Thus began 30 years of contributing to the creation and performance of Trisha Brown's work. From 1984 to 2000, as Rehearsal Director, she trained dancers and cultivated the company's repertory since returning to this role in January 2010. In the interim, she continued to work on Trisha Brown Company projects, setting choreography on The Wooster Group, Paris Opera Ballet, Scottish National Ballet, NYU's Tisch school, as well as many other schools and organizations around the world. She continues to perform and teach with the company. Diane was a founding member of Channel Z, collaborating with this notable group in dance/film/video works from1980-1985. She has presented her own mostly solo and collaborative choreography at home and abroad. In 2006, 2007 and 2009 she created and performed three solo improvisations at New York City's Danspace in collaboration with video/sound artist Iver Findlay and sculptor Peter Warren. In recent years she's enjoyed working with choreographers Polly Motley, Vicky Shick, Juliette Mapp and Cathy Weis. Diane consistently teaches her approach to dance, which weaves anatomically grounded technique with improvisation, composition and performance skills, in New York and around the world. She has ongoing teaching positions at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels and Tilt/Spazio Danza in Milan. The Princess Grace Foundation has recognized her with two awards in 1986 and again in 1994 for sustained achievement. She also received a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) in 1989.

Joey Truman is an actor, musician, and Klaus Kinski look-a-like. He has worked as a musician and performer in several Collapsable Giraffe creations, including "Meat is Floating By" and "Pee Pee Maw Maw". He is the crazed mind behind the East Village band Joey Wyoming and the Homeowners and the new seminal/old punk outfit The Dishwashers. He was also almost in Richard Maxwell's King Henry, but chickened out of it. His last performance at PS 122 was a collaboration with Iver Findlay and Young Jean Lee called "The International Show".

Peter Warren is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Since 1997, Warren has worked as a technical/collaborative artist with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, The Wooster Group, Collapsible Giraffe, Accinosco, Gale Gates et al., and Combustive Motor Corporation. In 2002, Warren worked with choreographer Ming Lung Yang to create an interactive set design for an evening-length piece for Dance Forum Taipei. Recent work includes Warren as the fly director for Trisha Brown's opera "Pygmalion" (2010). He has also been involved in an ongoing collaborative performance project with sound and video artist Iver Findlay and dancer Diane Madden. In Kansas City, his installation and set design work, produced in collaboration with his wife, dancer Trina Warren has been shown in an empty retail spaces and at the Folly Theater in 2009. He is currently a resident artist at Review Studios, Kansas City, Missouri. Warren's sculptural work has been shown in New York City, Des Moines, and in Kansas City, where he is represented by Blue Gallery.

Now celebrating its 30th Anniversary Season, Performance Space 122 is one of NYC's ultimate destinations for cutting-edge theatre, dance, music, live art, and multi-media. PS122 is dedicated to supporting and presenting artists who explore innovative form and provocative content and who rigorously challenge the boundaries of contemporary performance. PS122 is committed to a steadfast search for pioneering artists from a diversity of cultures, nations and beliefs. www.ps122.org
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now and nowhere else runs Wednesday, November 10 - Sunday, November 14 on the following schedule:
Wednesday 11/10, Thursday 11/11, Friday 11/12 @ 8PM
Saturday, 11/13 @ 8PM and 10PM
Sunday, 11/14 @ 6PM

Note: PS122 will host a Thursday Night Social on November 11 after the show.

Approximate running time: 1 hour.

Tickets $20, $15 (students/seniors), $11 (with the PS122 Passport - limited availability!)
Available at www.ps122.org, 212-352-3101 and at the Box Office.

 

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