The Tank Presents Bushed: A Gay Wars Premiere & Cabaret

"Bushed: A Gay Wars Premiere & Cabaret" Saturday, May 08, 2010; 7:30pm - $12, Sunday, May 09, 2010; 9:30pm - $12, Location: The Tank at 354 W. 45th Street, New York, NY 10036
A, C, E, to 42nd Street; 1, 2, 3, S, 7 to Time Square

Ticket price includes 1 free drink.

Panel Discussion will precede Sunday's show @ 7:30.
$15 for both Panel and Performance, $5 for Panel only.

Boys with booty, bumpin' bass, and lots of lip-stick mark this luscious, politically bent event! Artistic Director MATHEW HEGGEM curates an evening of serious sex & debauchery by experimental cabaret artists.

Performance highlights include: ASHLEY BROCKINGTON & MONSTAH BLACK with stars of the infamous CABARET CATAPLEXY, the notoriously naughty EMMA BATMAN, the band SEA GLASS, boasting its' futuristic shamanism under the visions of WENDELL COOPER, and a world premiere of Heggem's GAY WARS - a portraiture of dueling American queer archetypes.

GAY WARS, a new cabaret dance work, deconstructs Gay American culture in conflict with the self and society. Each character - from the P***y F****t to the Closeted ‘Publican - represents a dialogue between identity and the culture that perpetuates it. Are these characters claiming victory for self-expression - or playing pawns in a game of oppression? What deeply embedded structures in American culture are shaping the expression of our freedoms?

GAY WARS is accompanied by a series of images, designed by Heggem, that explore the visual deconstruction of pornographic fantasies en vogue.

www.matheggem.com.

Queer Art Impact, Sunday's panel discussion, will explore the conversation between politics and art. Moderated by award-winning arts writer, editor & educator Brian McCormick, a cross-section of artists, activists, and politicos will unravel the significance of LGBTQ performance in affecting social change.

Contact gaywars@gmail.com for more information.

Presale tickets are available here:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/97630

MATHEW HEGGEM, Artistic Director/Curator of Bushed, Brooklyn-based artist:

"Every time I hear someone talk about Mathew Heggem or I talk about him myself--words like 'one to watch' come out." - Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody.

Gay, naughty - sometimes nice - and always a little nasty, Heggem delves into the cross currents of gender politics, pop culture, and truth-seeking to uncover the unusual circumstances of this American life.

Heggem has presented work at Joyce SoHo's Performance Mix Festival, Dance Conversations @ The Flea, Dixon Place, Movement Research's Open Performance Series, The Gowanus Arts Center, and Sublet Series in New York; and, the National's Theater in D.C., the Baltimore Theater Projects, Baltimore's Transmodern Festival, the Gloucester New Arts Festival (MA), and the CEC/New Dance Alliance Exchange in Philadelphia, PA. He has been an artist-in-residence at Trinity College's Urban Arts Semester in NYC, the acclaimed Djerrassi Residence Artist program in California, and throughout the Baltimore/D.C. region.

As a performer, Heggem has danced on NYC's stages from P.S. 122 to The Joyce and throughout the U.S. He has performed with Nicholas Leichter Dance, Jennifer Monson, ClancyWorks Dance Company, Clyde Forth Visual Theatre; and, was a soloist for the historic reconstructions of Doris Humphrey and Ted Shawn works through the "Art of the Solo." Heggem is the co-founder of a research-based company, Kinaesthesia, with fellow artist Wendell Cooper; and, has been entertaining audiences at Cabaret Cataplexy, under the stage name Artifice Hunting, since April 2009. He graduated from Goucher College (MD), with a degree in Dance and Religion.

ASHLEY BROCKINGTON, sensual, evocative and twisted, is a producer of small theater and a hostess extraordinaire. She co-curates the Cabaret Cataplexy, a sexy glittery and glamorous cabaret emphasizing politically and socially charged experimental performance and burlesque; is the creator of an annual performance project called Black Girl Ugly, a meditation on Black Girl-ness & self-esteem; and, is a member of the Rivers of Honey performance team and the WOW café Theater collective.

MONSTAH BLACK is "a whirling cyclone of genius," says Ishmael Houston Jones.

Monstah brings his gender fuckery, falsetto vocals, digitized beats and elevated shoe clad persona to the stage. Black co-presents and co-hosts with his glam partner Ashley Brockington at Cabaret Cataplexy. He has received generous support from Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research, Topaz Arts Center, Thelma Hill Performing Arts, Mason/Rhynes Productions, DC Commission On the Arts and Humanities, and The Field.

EMMA BATMAN is a dance artist and performer. Today, she is based out of New York City and has worked with Roger C. Jeffrey, Illana Webber Dance, Banana Peel Dance, and Mathew Heggem (a.k.a. Artifice Hunting). Internationally, she has presented work at the Accademia Dell'Arte in Arezzo, & the House of Dino in Cortona, Italy.

WENDELL COOPER is modern shaman and creative artist based in Brooklyn. A graduate of the George Washington University (Dance/Religion), he is also a certified practitioner of energy bodywork and Thai Yoga Massage. He has taught, performed, and choreographed in China, Kenya, Russia, and the Netherlands. His interdisciplinary multimedia works include both choreographed and improvised dance, original music, and video installation. He has worked with Nicholas Leichter Dance, the Maida Withers Dance Construction Company, Grisha Coleman, and the Magpie Music Dance Company. Wendell also collaborates with Mathew Heggem (Kinaeathesia), Monstah Black, and Yozmit. SEA GLASS is his latest collaborative project. www.complexstability.com

Brian McCormick is an award-winning arts writer, editor, & educator, and the de facto Executive Director of Nicholas Leichter Dance, a professional touring company currently funded by NYSCA, the NEA, and the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts. He has written for The New York Times, The Advocate, Dance Magazine, Dance Studio Life, Classical TV.com, Movement Research Journal, and Encore Publications, and is the long-time contributing dance editor for Gay City News, where as Arts Editor from 2005-2007, he earned the newspaper a New York Press Association award for arts coverage. He also received a Mayoral Citation and was nominated for a Presidential Volunteer Action award for his work with The Streetwork Project of Victims Services Agency. McCormick has been Part-time Faculty for The New School Media Studies MA program since 1997, teaching digital performance theory as well as courses in media concepts and digital photography & design. Since 2003, he has developed and taught Dance TRaC-the Teen Reviewers and Critics program of High 5 Tickets to the Arts. In 2009, he joined the New York City Arts-in-Education community as a career mentor for dance seniors at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. Brian has been a panelist, moderator, guest curator, and/or adjudicator for New York Foundation for the Arts, Joyce Theater Foundation, Dance Theater Workshop, Brooklyn Arts Council, Hunter College Dance Department, Kinetic Cinema, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Young Dance Makers, Movement Research, and others; he has done marketing, & audience engagement work for the American Dance Festival, Joyce SoHo, DTW, Danspace Project, Long Island Arts Council, and Scholastic Arts; reporting work for DTW and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and media coordination for Dancing in the Streets' Hip-Hop Generation Next Festival with City Parks Foundation and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. He is a member of the New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies) committee.

bmacmedia.net

About The Tank
Founded in 2003, The Tank is a non-profit arts presenter whose mission is to provide a welcoming, creative, collaborative, and affordable environment for artists and activists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas. Through a wide range of low-cost, high-concept arts and public affairs programming, The Tank seeks to cultivate a new generation of audience for live performance, civic discourse, and the work of emerging artists.

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