Immediate Medium Presents THE ASSASSINS CHASE PINOCCHIO

Immediate Medium returns to Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center during the 2012 APAP Conference with The Assassins Chase Pinocchio, an experimental multimedia adaptation of Carlo Collodi's original 1883 coming-of-age tale, The Adventures of Pinocchio. Featuring a 20-foot shark's mouth created using only a video camera and a zipper, an anarchic children's dance party on the Island of Crazy Sweet Candy Chaos, and a psychedelic soundtrack by indie rockers Alex Bleeker of Real Estate (Best Albums of October 2011, BBC Music) and G. Lucas Crane of Woods (Best New Music, Pitchfork), the show uses a playful mix of physical comedy and experimental theater techniques to introduce Immediate Medium's interdisciplinary aesthetic to a new, yet very avant-garde audience: children. Performances will take place at Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center, 107 Suffolk Street, New York, N.Y., on Friday, January 6 at 7:00pm, and Saturday, January 7 and Sunday, January 8 at 2pm and 5pm. Tickets are $20 for adults and $5 for children and can be purchased online at immediatemedium.org or by phone at (866) 811-4111. Appropriate for children ages 4, 24, 34 and 104. (And those in between.)

Grounded in the the belief that children can process complex works of art in unique ways, The Assassins Chase Pinocchio reacquaints audiences of all ages with Collodi's original novel, where the famed marionette begins as a mischievous wild child; the Blue-Haired Fairy first appears as a corpse; the Terrible Shark has asthma; and the Talking Cricket is swiftly dispatched by Pinocchio with a hammer.

The piece was conceived by company member Max Dana (currently mask maker for the Off-Broadway hit Sleep No More) and adapted for the stage by the company of actors, which includes Max Dana as Collodi's puppet, Liz Vacco as the Blue Fairy and Siobhan Towey and Lisa Clair as the wacky storytellers Dittalini and Polpettina. The production features video and sound by media artist Rob Ramirez and production design by Maki Takenouchi and was produced by Immediate Medium Artistic Director JJ Lind, whose new work Winnetou (VIN-EEE-TO) I.T. will be presented by Immediate Medium in 2012.

Founded in 2002, Immediate Medium is a non-profit performance collective dedicated to creating new works of experiential art that challenge formal distinctions between theater, performance, film, dance and sculpture. The Assassins Chase Pinocchio is the third in a recent series of literary adaptations that includes Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. (2009), an examination of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and Doesn't Everybody Do It In Paris? (2010), a dance theater work exploring Flaubert's Madame Bovary. 

For more information, visit www.immediatemedium.org.

The Assassins Chase Pinocchio was made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support was provided by the Nancy Quinn Fund, a project of A.R.T./New York.

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